Viewing: The Desert - View all posts
DESERT LIVING
“I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' -
and one brave deed is worth a thousand.”
—Edward Abbey
"Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert."
—William Gibson
"Welcome to the desert of the real."
—Morpheus
THERE'S NO PLACE
"I don't have any great love for Chicago.
What the hell, a childhood around Douglas Park isn't very memorable.
I left Chicago a long time ago."
—Benny Goodman
"The desert is so pretty, especially at sunset.
And the Mexican food over there is outstanding, you know.
But we wanted to play jazz, so...."
—Art Farmer
"Man, they gave me a key to the city!
Can you imagine, going back to Indiana and getting the key to the city?
That made me feel pretty good."
—Freddie Hubbard
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND
RODDY, I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL
THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE
On this day in 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in the New York Harbor, a gift from the people of France, designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.
The statue became a symbol of hope, welcoming immigrants to the USA.
On her pedestal is inscribed "The New Colossus" by American poet Emma Lazarus:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
It's interesting to contemplate this sonnet today.
Here in Anglozona, where I make my home, immigration remains a divisive and hotly debated issue as we approach the centennial of our statehood.
The word "immigrant" carries a strong negative connotation around these parts. Apparently, we palefaces forget that we are the aliens. Our claim to this territory is quite recent, and dubious at best.
I don't know the Tohono O'odham or Apache name for the white man's arrival, but I don't believe we were "greeted as liberators."
I do know that the shameless land-grabs of northern Mexico, which our history books disguise with convenient euphemisms (treaty, purchase, Manifest Destiny), are referred to in Mexican texts as The North American Invasion.
Nevertheless, it's 2011, and here we are.
And there stands Lady Liberty, lifting her lamp, welcoming immigrants.
I'm celebrating her anniversary by seeing the movie Green Lantern, which opens today.
It seems fitting.
My favorite comic book from childhood, Green Lantern is an inspirational superhero space opera.
It tells the story of myriad aliens, coming together in teamwork and harmony, heroically using their creative imaginations, strength of will and light to overcome the evil, destructive power of fear.
Don't Miss! SALON CONCERT WITH FRANCINE REED 5/5
You're cordially invited to
A SALON CONCERT WITH FRANCINE REED
To benefit the Lewis Nash-Jazz in AZ Community Center
THURSDAY, MAY 5th at 5:45 p.m.
Download Complete Details
HAPPY EARTH DAY
In celebration of EARTH DAY I've posted 3 beautiful videos by the talented Norwegian landscape photographer Terje Sørgjerd.
THE MOUNTAIN features Sørgjerd's stunningly beautiful time lapse photos of the Milky Way, captured earlier this month atop El Teide, the highest mountainpeak in Spain.
Set to music by Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi ("Nuvole Bianche" from his album Una Mattina), the video offers a view of our earth and heavens like none I've ever seen.
THE AURORA pairs Sørgjerd's images of a brilliant Aurora Borealis display over a national park in Norway with ethereal film music by Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer ("Now We Are Free" from their collaboration on Gladiator).
Gerrard's otherworldly voice, as she sings to God in her invented language, seems to me the perfect sonic complement to the mysterious aurora.
THE MARKET juxtaposes video of the Maeklong and Damnoen Saduak markets in Thailand with Katie Noonan's cover of the Gnarls Barkley hit "Crazy."
I remember the floating markets from my travels in Thailand and Cambodia. It's intriguing to see one of them again through the eyes of a visual artist, especially when accompanied by music with such a fascinating provenance:
- The piece began as "Nel Cimitero di Tucson," an Italian movie theme created by the Reverberi brothers for a 1968 Spaghetti Western.
- Half a century later, Gnarls Barkley (the American duo of Danger Mouse and Cee Lo Green) reinvents the piece, adding lyrics and a new hook.
- Their single "Crazy" becomes a spectacular international hit, spawning over 30,000 downloads in the United Kingdom, placement in popular films, and dozens of other versions by artists all over the world.
- Australian singer Katie Noonan puts her own spin on the song, and this recording is the version selected by the intrepid photographer from Norway to underscore his colorful footage from Thailand.
Follow Terje Sørgjerd on Twitter.
THE MOUNTAIN by Terje Sørgjerd, Music: "Nuvole Bianche" by Ludovico Einaudi
AT THAT HOUR ~ James Joyce
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico by Ansel Adams
At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing into Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?
When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?
Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above
And in the earth below.
PREMIERE
This Thursday, March 17th, the Dmitri Matheny Group will premiere my latest work, The Caliche Code, at Sacred Grounds Jazz Coffeehouse in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The Caliche Code is an extended form composition that tells the story, through music, of a mythical pilgrim's search for identity and community in a desert land.
The piece spotlights pianist Nick Manson as featured soloist, with Paul Anderson on tenor saxophone, Ted Sistrunk on bass, John Lewis on drums and yours truly on flugelhorn.
We hope you can join us for this exciting journey into new jazz territory.
~DM
ODE TO MARISKA
Did I make the right decision in coming home to this suburban desert after 20 years in San Francisco? My days are so strange. There's something absurd about the sound of a lone horn, accompanied by a hundred humming air conditioners on an otherwise silent street. When I can't take it anymore, I get on the treadmill and watch another episode of Law & Order.
HOWLS FROM THE HOLE
Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.
~Samuel Johnson
We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.
~Michel de Montaigne
Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.
~Joan Didion
DESERT SURVIVAL
THE VALLEY by Los Lobos
In ancient times
To a place so far away
Across the land
Where the earth was
As tough as clay
Looked at their hands
Looked all around
And they seemed pleased
At what they had found
Here in the valley
Bread on the table
Work through the day
For as long as we are able
Green is the valley
Blue is the night
Out of the shadows
Into the light
They could have gone
But instead they chose to stay
To watch the clouds way up high
As they turned to gray
And through the dark
Broke a crimson sun
And at that moment
Knew their lives had just begun
Here in the valley
Bread on the table
Work through the day
For as long as we are able
Green is the valley
Blue is the night
Out of the darkness
Into the light
Here in the valley
Bread on the table
Work through the day
For as long as we are able
Green is the valley
Blue is the night
Out of the darkness
Into the light
SOMETHING'S COMING, SOMETHING GOOD
MONSOON SEASON C'EST ARRIVE !
"According to 'Good Morning, Arizona,' the monsoon season officially begins tomorrow. What is monsoon season? It's when the tropical rains arrive, bringing welcome relief from the desert heat.
Here in the Sonoran Desert, we call these thunderstorms “monsoons”...a misnomer, since the term refers "to a seasonal shift in wind direction." But that simple definition doesn't do justice to the spectacle of Arizona’s summer monsoon season.
Every year, sometime between mid-June and mid-July, the prevailing winds, which come from the west most of the year, change direction and flow from the south and southeast. This seasonal shift of winds brings tropical moisture from the Sea of Cortez and the Gulf of Mexico into Arizona.
When this moist tropical air collides with the desert heat, monsoon thunderstorms--one of the most spectacular and thrilling of nature’s displays--are born.
We desert dwellers yearn for the crack of thunder, the brilliant flashes of lightning and the deafening downpour of rain that cools the sweltering desert heat and makes the creosote bushes release their aromatic, herbal fragrance...if only for a few hours.
And when a monsoon moves in, temperatures may drop from 105°F to 60°F in a matter of minutes.
I can't wait."
~D.M.
Here in the Sonoran Desert, we call these thunderstorms “monsoons”...a misnomer, since the term refers "to a seasonal shift in wind direction." But that simple definition doesn't do justice to the spectacle of Arizona’s summer monsoon season.
Every year, sometime between mid-June and mid-July, the prevailing winds, which come from the west most of the year, change direction and flow from the south and southeast. This seasonal shift of winds brings tropical moisture from the Sea of Cortez and the Gulf of Mexico into Arizona.
When this moist tropical air collides with the desert heat, monsoon thunderstorms--one of the most spectacular and thrilling of nature’s displays--are born.
We desert dwellers yearn for the crack of thunder, the brilliant flashes of lightning and the deafening downpour of rain that cools the sweltering desert heat and makes the creosote bushes release their aromatic, herbal fragrance...if only for a few hours.
And when a monsoon moves in, temperatures may drop from 105°F to 60°F in a matter of minutes.
I can't wait."
~D.M.
IN MY SOLITUDE
"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth,
but delicious in the years of maturity."
~Albert Einstein
"I never found a companion that was
so companionable as solitude."
~Henry David Thoreau
"It is not necessary that you leave the house.
Remain at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, only wait.
Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone.
The world will present itself to you for its unmasking . . .
in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."
~Franz Kafka
"Solitude gives birth to the original in us."
~Thomas Mann
"Solitude is the salt of personhood.
It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience."
~May Sarton
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude:
character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world."
~Goethe
WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL
STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE UNCERTAIN
"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick."
~Robert A. Heinlein
"If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain."
~Paul Cezanne
"A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong."
~Orson Welles
THE PHOENIX HOPE
"The phoenix hope
can wing her way through the desert skies
and still defying fortune's spite
revive from ashes and rise."
~Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
IN THE DESERT by Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
INTERCONNECTED ~ DM on Compassion
We are, all of us, interconnected. Life is a work of art,
each one of us an artist. Compassion is our medium of expression.
Daily we have the opportunity to create and shape our lives.
WARM VALLEY ~ DM on Farmer's Masterpiece
Art Farmer made over 200 recordings, many of them brilliant, but to my ears his masterpiece is Warm Valley on the Concord label. Art was at the top of his game, and the tunes he picked for the date are perfect showcases for the effortless logic of his improvisations. His band on the recording was one of his best, and they all give great performances. Akira Tana's playing on "Three Little Words," for example, is absolutely killing.