Peter Greenaway & John Cage, 27 Sounds Manufactured in a Kitchen (1989)

“There’s a point where you can give up on winter–when temptation can enter your soul, prying its way in like cold air through the cracks in your cabin–around January sixteenth or so, and this can make you realize that February’s coming, and beyond February, March.
See, I don’t yet realize that March will be the hardest month. Early February’s the coldest, and often the snowiest, but March, strange, silent March, will be the hardest.
The danger in yielding to thoughts of spring–green grass, hikes, bare feet, lakes, fly-fishing, rivers, and sun, hot sun–is that once these thoughts enter your mind, you cant get them out.
Love the winter. Don’t betray it. Be loyal.
When the spring gets here, love it too–and then the summer.
But be loyal to the winter, all the way through–all the way, and with sincerity–or you’ll find yourself high and dry, longing for a spring that’s a long way off, and winter will have abandoned you, and in her place you’ll have cabin fever, the worst.
The colder it gets, the more you’ve got to love it.”
~Rick Bass fr. Winter -Notes from Montana

If you haven’t heard about it already the new and final song (for Obama) from my husband’s album Of Great and Mortal Men was released as a free download yesterday on NPR, All Things Considered. and it’s been going crazy ever since. I am not surprised. the song written by Christian Kiefer is really really great. It makes me feel good to listen to it, so I do, over and over. My son loves it too and bops his little head back and forth the whole time. His daddy plays guitar on the song. Be warned, it’s the kind of song that you will sing in your head all day, but you won’t mind.
Tomorrow night there is a huge benefit concert in Washington (with artists from the album), with the proceeds going to a great organization called Bands for Lands. Read about it here.
Also on the NPR site you can see the beautiful new artwork for the song by one of my favorite illustrators Rama Hughes.
I am home taking care of little T. My first extended solo venture (5 days)! whew. I will need a long rest by the end.
a mention in the new york times
a nice write up here
oh yes, it’s very very cold.

“Simply by trying things out you will become involved in an absorbing game (the ancient Japanese word for art was asobi, which also means game). You will find that this game gives the chance of self expression, that certain colours and forms which come into being by chance provoke certain sensations, and that certain strange colours remind you of something. You will find out that these images evoke feelings and memories from the distant past…” ~Bruno Munari fr. Design as Art pg 184