"What do you think about country music?"

I knew he was up to something. Men like Bill Powell always have those imaginary wheels turning. It's to be expected. It's what he does and has done for over 40 years with Feld Entertainment, the leader in live family entertainment and parent company to nearly 40 live entertainment spectaculars, including Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, The Greatest Show On Earth. Every successful company has "that guy." The one whose loyalty is undisputed, and more importantly, whose contributions are the thing of legend -- a Joseph to the Pharaoh, if you will.

I could see it in his widened gaze, pursed lips and raised eyebrows as he leaned across the table toward me. This was a loaded question. Not in the sense that he sought to entrap me over something. Rather, whatever was churning in his mind, it was clear that he was prepared to sell me on it, by any means necessary.

That much was clear because he brought the ideal accomplice, Melinda Hartline, a.k.a. Mama Mel. For over 15 years she's advised me, chided me, praised me, walked me back from the brink of more than a few potential public relations mishaps and, occasionally, with the gentlest of care, removed my foot from my mouth. She's that soft, affirming voice and presence in my professional life that I've never been able to say "No" to; hence the moniker Mama Mel.

So there I was, in a kind of checkmate, with Bill fixed on me from across the table and Mama Mel strategically seated to the right of me, making sure her darling boy was being well fed.

"Country music? I'm open to it," I said hesitantly. Admittedly, save for enjoying my fill of Johnny Cash and the Ray Charles classic Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, I am severely illiterate regarding the genre.

"We've got this idea," Powell said. "Circus meets country. It would be you collaborating with songwriters in Nashville and performing the song."

I was suddenly at ease and excited. This appealed to me. For a good song is a good story, and even with my minimum knowledge of the music I knew no genre tells better stories than country, and the circus has plenty of stories.

--

Nashville, TN is aptly named Music City, USA. It's home to the iconic Ryman Auditorium and one of America's most sacred musical cathedrals, the Grand Ole Opry as well as rows of recording studios, music publishing giants, an exhaustive number of bars and restaurants featuring live bands, and what seems like a seasoned musician around every corner. I was privileged to become acquainted with two of the city's brilliant and versatile talents, the songwriting duo the 88's, Alissa Moreno and Josh Charles.

A disciple of the legendary Dr. John, Charles is a gifted pianist who has collaborated with several notable songwriters, including John Oates of the Hall of Fame duo, Hall & Oates. Moreno is one of the busiest songwriters today. Her claim to fame was the Rascal Flatts' hit "Everyday." The pair's synergy grants them prolific creativity, penning two to three compositions a day. Charles is the technical wonder to Moreno's aesthetic brilliance.

The synergy was there as we came together in Moreno's home to churn out this musical story about circus life. The duo had completed their first song of the day mere hours ago; thus, their creative energies were high. After some brief introductions, Charles parked himself at the piano and began thumping through chord variations, while Moreno, with laptop in hand, began to brainstorm lyrical phrasing.

It was an exhilarating process. I can only best describe it as a constant mental motion. No matter what, don't stop - just let your imagination lead you.

"There!" exclaimed Charles. He'd found a groove amidst those various chord changes, and as an added bonus, he had conjured the first line of the song, while racing to pick up his guitar, which he'd use for the duration of the process.

"Oh, I like that," Moreno declared. "Travel...life on the road in the circus..." she continued. We had a theme.

While Charles continued the groove, I proceeded to tell the story of moving from town to town, loading in, loading out, boarding that Great American Circus Train, and Moreno effortlessly distilled it all into lyrics. The duo took up the task of debating and finally settling on a melodic structure, me tossing my humble two cents in to adjust a line or two, and viola! In just under three hours we'd composed, The Big Top Life.




Twenty-four hours later, we were at the Listening Room Café, a hub for songwriters to present their compositions to a live audience. Charles and Moreno were the headliners for the evening, along with the award-winning Jeff Cohen, whose songs have been recorded by the likes of Josh Groban and the Spin Doctors.

A very literal game of musical chairs ensued, as the duo would switch from guitar, to keyboard, to a lone-standing mic throughout the presentation. It was a beautiful evening of music, with the composers giving the backstory about their work and members of the audience erupting in excited disbelief that the authors of some of their favorite songs were mere feet away.

Midway through the program I was invited to join the 88's on stage to perform our piece. It's always a thrill to perform before a live audience, but when performing something of your own making, the experience is amplified.

To me, the stage is very intimate, especially when compared to the 10,000 seat arenas where I perform as Ringmaster. The energy a performer receives from an arena full of people is indescribable. However, the stage doesn't lie. It's easy to miss the truth of you as a performer in the midst of extravagance of the circus and the large space that is an arena, but not on the stage.

Gratefully, our song about circus life was enthusiastically received. At the conclusion of the program, much to my delight, and I must admit amusement, a gorgeously talented songstress by the name of Ashla Taylor sprightly remarked, "You've got a voice like fine liqueur."

I certainly did endeavor to give the good patrons of the Listening Room a taste of circus life. I didn't simply sing my song - I told my story. And for those few minutes up on that stage, this Ringmaster was country.

It has been eight months since we set foot in the labor and delivery unit of this hospital . We lost our baby girl in room 13 last May, following a nightmarish few months consumed by trips to the emergency room, bleeding with unknown causes and bouts of contractions.

A fluke. Random occurrence. Not likely to repeat itself. Those are the words our doctor used in describing the loss of Angel Belle at 23 weeks gestation (read more about our loss on The Huffington Post). Comforting? Not really. Yet, as we approached our next pregnancy, I tried using that theory as a mantra. For the first 25 weeks of Hugo Christopher's time in my wife's stomach, that belief held true.

Textbook. That's how my wife has described our second pregnancy. Textbook. Gone were the late-night sprints to the emergency room. The uncontrollable bleeding was a distant memory. I started to believe our doctor's "fluke" diagnosis. Then came week 26. Bleeding. Again. Cue the crippling sense of dread.

I found myself cautious to exude optimism on Facebook as Hugo's growth progressed  --  I don't do in person emotion. It certainly wasn't superstition. Not my cup of tea. Bottom line: I didn't want to explain another nightmare, should the worst take place. I could handle the loss. What I couldn't handle was another wave of comfort.

When we lost Angel Belle, the flood of comfort from friends, family and strangers was truly appreciated. I cried. I screamed. I attended a support group. It became an emotional cleanse. A leech had been placed on my heart, and now that bloodletting was complete. Any further comfort would suck me dry. Just the facts, ma'am. My heart had adopted a Joe Friday disposition.

Just the facts . Fact: I'm writing this while we sit in labor and delivery. Fact: At week 25, my wife started bleeding. Fact: It wasn't a fluke. Fact: Hugo Christopher has made it past the stage of viability. Fact: We're remaining positive!

Actress Emily Blunt was recently quoted as saying the process of raising children "is such a fear-based industry." If raising children is full of fear, then what would one call pregnancy? Fact: Following the loss of Angel Belle and throughout the trials of Hugo Christopher's pregnancy, my belief in normalcy is shattered.

We're now approaching the fourth week of hospital bed rest. Unsettling? Certainly. And yet, I also find it somewhat comforting. Three weeks in the hospital means three weeks of growth for Hugo. That's three less weeks of time he'll need to stay in the NICU.

Fact: As I walk by room 13 each time I leave for work, I'm reminded of our loss, but also of our future. Hugo made it over the threshold of 24 weeks gestation  --  until 24 weeks, a baby is not viable outside of the womb. Despite what are now weekly bouts of bleeding, all scans point to a healthy baby. Earlier this week, Hugo reached 28 weeks gestation. Fact: At least 90% of babies who are born at 28 weeks survive, according to the National Institutes of Health. That's a comforting fact.

Sydney-based artist and photographer Alexia Sinclair recently agreed to help The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation send a powerful message. Over the course of several months, she planned, prepared, and captured an image that tells the story of Dr. Edward Jenner's Smallpox Vaccine Discovery.




The image is part of The Gates Foundation's "Art of Saving a Life" campaign, which seeks to tell the powerful stories of vaccination and how it has saved countless lives over the course of human history.

This cause is one that Alexia believes in 100%, so it was easy to say "yes" when The Gates Foundation approached her to see if she would create a work of art for the project. Her "assignment," however, was daunting: she would be depicting the story of Dr. Edward Jenner and the eradication of Smallpox with the world's first successful vaccine.

Here's a behind the scenes look at how the project came together, and what it means to Alexia personally:



Smallpox killed over 500 million people through-out history, a number hardly fathomable and one that Alexia balked at trying to properly represent in a single image. In the end, she decided the best way to share this story wasn't to depict suffering and death directly.

She explains in her artist statement:

In a world where our imagery is so saturated with emotional pleas to human, animal and environmental suffering I've found that quite often the audience shuts off to the cause, they are desensitised to images of suffering, it's easier to live in a state of denial than to take on-board the endless issues the world has today.

Because of this, I wanted to try a different angle of attack, one where it inspires the audience to ask 'what does this mean?', to delve into the symbolism of the work and know the issues and the facts behind the statement. It's here where we learn about the issues and hopefully start a conversation about why it's relevant.

Where she could have created a harrowing image of the kind of suffering Smallpox inflicted on its victims, she chose instead to dive into the symbolism behind the disease.









Flowers that Alexia grew herself appear throughout the image and intertwine through the skull on the medicine bottles in the background, because Smallpox was referred to as heavenly flowers by the Chinese.

The skull and flowers represent "the ephemeral nature of life and death," as well as the "rebirth" offered by vaccination.

Each small bottle represents the lives lost before Jenner made his discovery and released it into the world -- 500 bottles, each one representing one million lives.

Finally, Smallpox itself is personified in the central figure of "Variola Vera," depicted as an aristocratic woman wreathed in flowers to show how the disease did not discriminate -- it attacked the rich and poor alike.




The final piece combines these symbolic elements with the literal: Dr. Edward Jenner inoculating the young James Philipps with what would become the first ever vaccine. A vaccine that, in 1980, eradicated the disease in its entirety.



To find out more about the Art of Saving a Life project, head over to the Gates Foundation website by clicking here.

And if you'd like to follow the incredibly talented Alexia as she continues to create beautiful works of art, visit her website or give her a follow on Facebook, Twitter, or 500px.

Hope: Entertainer of the Century
By Richard Zoglin
A Book Review by Dr. Lloyd Sederer




My father looked like Bob Hope, especially his nose, which was long in its arc and pointed a bit upward at the end, not unlike the end of a ski slope. It was distinctly different from the Eastern European Jewish noses of my family. My father also had the same receding hairline, very fair skin, and lean body (when younger). The similarities stop there, perhaps except for both their intelligence and disposition to control everything in their orbit.

When we got a TV, among the millions of Americans in the early 1950s, it was Bob Hope, Milton Berle (Mr. Television), and Ed Sullivan whom my family, and most of America, religiously watched every week.

So began my fascination with Bob Hope.

............

Bob Hope was arguably the most successful American entertainer of the 20th century. He made 66 films; dominated radio for 10 years (his shows often reached 40 to 50 percent of US. households) then discovered how to dominate television; told his story in 14 books, some with huge sales; unceasingly, and indefatigably, played vaudeville, Broadway, and countless live audience shows, especially to millions of military personnel throughout the world; was a popular recording artist; hosted 14 Academy Award shows (including its very first) and many National Correspondents' dinners; and was a regular guest of Presidents and royalty. It is unlikely that anyone else has topped the number of celebrity golf and fund raising events he championed. Bob Hope occupies the Guinness Book of Records for more honors and awards than any other entertainer in the world.

Am I dating myself? While even millennials know his name, maybe from the now campy, buddy movies he did with Bing Crosby (Road to Rio, Singapore, Morocco, Zanzibar, etc.) that play late at night on TV, YouTube, or Netflix, few appreciate the extent of his media reign. I make it thus my mission, herein, to further their education.



...............

Leslie Towns Hope was born in 1903 in in a small town outside of London, the fifth of seven sons. When four, the family boarded a boat, in steerage, and immigrated to the United States, settling in Cleveland where Hope's father's family had already begun their acclimation. He took the stage name of Bob Hope early in his career as an emcee in a Cleveland movie house; he later said that "Bob" had more of a "Hiya, fellas" feel to it than Les.

Zoglin's book then parades us through Hope's extraordinary career. The book is as much about 20th-century America as it is about Bob Hope. Hope and his show business career serve as an unintended, I imagine, but wonderful literary device for a grand tour of the history and popular culture of the past century. As we follow Hope's story through the decades he is a radiant mirror of the times. And the times they did change.

Vaudeville gave way to radio and that to television. Humor changed from Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, and Jackie Gleason (and of course, Bob Hope), with their quips that teased but did not slice the skin, to the irony, sarcasm, and confrontation of Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, and Richard Pryor. Improvisation replaced many a cue card and monologue. Hollywood gained ascension in films and celebrity. And films went from the dominant, staged, romantic comedies of the 1930s to big screen productions and the realism and noir that the 60s and 70s ushered in.

Bob Hope's status as America's beloved Ambassador was realized during World War II. He began a life of public service during the war when he began entertaining our troops. He was the bridge from home to battlefield for GIs and delivered the levity that was the best medicine for men in combat. With a beautiful babe at his side and a golf club in his hand he delivered morale booster shots to soldiers and sailors for the decades that followed, during the very different wars that embroiled and roiled our country, its politics, and its sensibilities.

After WW II, we lived through a paranoid, Red-Scare America that then saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. America went from Roosevelt and Truman to Ike, then to JFK and LBJ, and on to Nixon, Ford and Reagan. The country left Camelot, entered Vietnam and bombed Cambodia and Laos.

That was when the ever affable Bob Hope crossed to the dark side, especially among liberals, for his hawkish, pro-war stance on Vietnam and public friendships with Nixon, Ford and Reagan. Hope had always been a vocal patriot, from the beginning of his WW II troop tours and during the Korean War and the Russian barricade of Berlin, and with his annual Christmas concert tours to enlisted men and women everywhere. But the 60s brought out a Bob Hope who no longer walked a political tightrope of humor careful to not fall off into one camp or another; for some he became more of a hero for his support of Republican Presidents and unpopular, highly divisive wars, but for others he fell from grace. He liked to say "I would rather be a hawk than a pigeon."

Bob Hope had an appetite for women. While married to a devout Roman Catholic, Delores Hope, and the adoptive father of four, he ceaselessly used his time on the road, for decades and into his senescence, to have one affair after another. Mostly kept from public attention, his infidelities also came to darken his reputation in later life, as did many of his public comments that struck out at feminism when our country first saw its emergence.

Hope was also a man known as a cipher, all surface, and offering no access to his interior, which some wondered if he had at all. As Zoglin tells his story, even his family barely knew him -- except as the tough, businessman who gave none of them a break and who was known for his cameo appearances at home. Yet Bob Hope was charitable to others, and stories abound about all those he helped, and the generosity of his contributions to the State of California and countless humanitarian organizations and causes.

But the entertainer of the century could not give up the stage. He trooped on well beyond his prime and into his failing years. In his refusal to quit, he used his acquired celebrity royalty to gain appearances on TV and in concerts where he appeared doddering and almost dead on arrival. That left too many of even his most ardent fans not recalling the amazing singer, dancer, comedian, story teller, and actor that captured the hearts of the American public for more decades and in more ways than any other performer in history.

Hope spent the last few years of his life largely homebound and bedridden, occasionally wheeled out for a tribute or award. He died 100 years and two months after he was born, succumbing to pneumonia in his home with his devoted wife at his side. He made it into this century in which it seems unimaginable that any other entertainer will gain and sustain his presence and celebrity.

.............

The author of Hope: Entertainer of the Century, Richard Zoglin, is a theater critic and editor at Time Magazine. Known as an historian of stand-up comedy, Zoglin's biography of Bob Hope is vivid and entertaining. He has given us a portrait full of detail, rendered with warmth and honesty, not to deify the man but to give him the extraordinary due he worked so hard to earn.

I wish my father were alive so I could give him a copy of the book.

Dr. Sederer's book for families who have a member with a mental illness is The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by Glenn Close).



Dr. Sederer is a psychiatrist and public health physician. The views expressed here are entirely his own. He takes no support from any pharmaceutical or device company.

www.askdrlloyd.com

There are 6,000 languages in the world, and half are endangered. Those 3,000 will be gone by the end of this century if we don't do something. What are we going to do? That is the situation outlined in a new PBS documentary, Language Matters with Bob Holman, by David Grubin and Bob Holman.

Why is saving endangered languages important?

These 3,000 endangered languages are part of the history, and the prehistory, of humanity. They are part of prehistory because many are only spoken languages, not written, passed orally from generation to generation, down the millennia.


Rupert Manmurulu and Bob Holman
credit: PBS, Language Matters with Bob Holman

As the linguist David Crystal writes, "Each language is a vision of the world. Each language says something different about what it means to be human compared with any other language."

Language comes out of the physical environment, the land, the winds. For aboriginal peoples, words are essential for survival. For example, the beautiful red Australian grasshopper called "Ngalyuur" in the local aboriginal language exists only in a tiny area, but it is crucial to the survival of the ecosystem and the aboriginal people who depend on it. At 28 minutes into the film, you will see why.


Caption: Charlie Mangulda
credit: PBS, Language Matters with Bob Holman

The beginning of Language Matters constitutes one of the great sequences in all of documentary film: Three aboriginal men are sitting in a cave in Australia. They are playing instruments. On the walls are ancient drawings.

One of the three, Charlie Mangulda, is singing. The face of Charlie as he sings is unforgettable.
The language he is singing in is Amurdak, and Charlie is the last speaker on the planet of this ancient language.

Charlie is 75. When he is gone, no one will speak Amurdak. The language will disappear save for the notes of linguists.

In Language Matters the filmmakers visit Australia, Wales, and Hawaii to portray the problem and offer solutions.


caption: Kealii Reichel Performing
credit: PBS, Language Matters with Bob Holman

In Wales, Bob comically grapples with Welsh, a notoriously difficult language, as he prepares to present a poem he wrote in Welsh at a poetry festival. In a funny scene, Dewi Prysor, a novelist, poet, and songwriter, tutors Holman in Welsh, though the two will be competing for first prize in the competition. Why would Dewi teach Bob so much that the novice beats the master?

Holman's advocacy of endangered languages grows out of his decades-long history as an advocate of spoken word poetry (as opposed to poetry that exists for the most part on the page and can be experienced in silence), hip hop, poetry slams.


Caption: Wales, Druid Procession to Poetry Festival
credit: PBS, Language Matters with Bob Holman

Bob and I have been friends since 1983, when we gave a reading with the Scots ballad poet Helen Adam at No Se No Cafe on the Lower East Side.

A wildly adventurous poet, Bob has championed the art for decades, as program coordinator at the Poetry Project at Saint Marks in the Bowery, a co-founder of the NuYorican Poets Cafe, and at his Bowery Poetry Club, all in Manhattan's East Village. His most recent book of poems, Sing This One Back to Me, includes his transcriptions of the great West African Griot Papa Susso.

You can see more about his work (which is often a lot of serious fun) on the web in "On the Road, with Bob Holman," where he visits West Africa, Timbuktu, and Israel and the West Bank.

"Unlike all the other global crises -- climate threats, species extinction -- the Language crisis is one that can be solved simply," Bob writes. "Speak your Mother tongue at home, respect your neighbor's culture, support governmental efforts to keep the planet alive and various in all its marvelous cultural diversity. ... Let the World speak!"

Language Matters with Bob Holman premieres on PBS: this Sunday January 25, in New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Washington, DC; then on January 27 in Columbus, Ohio; January 29 in Chicago and LA; February 5, Boston; February 23, Syracuse.

You can see Language Matters with Bob Holman right now online.

First, here's a big shout-out to Whitney Staeb and Brooke Smith of Roots & Honey Herbs for recently turning me onto a wonderful, homemade herbal tincture called Brain Bloom.

But let's backtrack. I was recently thinking of the upcoming Oscars on February 22 -- I had to look up online what edition it is, oh right, it's the 87th program -- and I found it disappointing that composer Antonio Sanchez was not nominated for his hypnotic and starkly naked, percussive based score for Birdman. Unfortunately, the 4-time Grammy winner's score was disqualified for some regulation -- luckily, Birdman's wonderful Michael Keaton did get a Best Actor nom.



That got me into a stream of consciousness about Oscar nominated songs from Bond movies. Okay, while I had to look up the dates of the released films, I recalled: "Live and Let Die" (1973), sung by Paul and Linda McCartney; "Nobody Does It Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and sung by Carly Simon; and most recently "Skyfall" (2012) sung by Adele.

But, I couldn't remember who'd sung "For Your Eyes Only" (1981). I could see her face. She played Crockett's gal in Miami Vice. She sang with Prince. My mind, however, reached in but I just couldn't grab her name. But I also didn't want to give in and check online encyclopedia Wikipedia or IMDB's online database.

But that got me comparing notes with friends -- that with online access at our fingertips, we're increasingly relying on checking for instant information, and not having to exercise our brains and remember stuff as much. Like when do we ever have to remember phone numbers now -- go ahead, try naming 10 phone numbers you phone regularly!

I thought of the word "memories" -- the first word of the Oscar winning song "The Way We Were" and sung by Barbra Streisand -- and how our increasing reliance on technology is making us so overly dependent.

My talented painter pal Adam Licsko addresses this issue in his gorgeous and ongoing series of paintings called "Remember Yourself" -- that asks questions like, Are we losing awareness? Is technology actually disconnecting us from our own humanity? These are also questions in my upcoming, young adult and dystopian novel, Fire Horse.


Head in the Cloud from "Remember Yourself" series - by Adam Licsko

Which brings me back to Whitney and Brooke, and their company, Roots & Honey Herbs, which makes a very cool and organic line of handcrafted plant medicines and bodycare products. Brooke's wise mother taught her the use of natural remedies and she studied holistic living, gaining expertise in Ayruvedic, Chinese and traditional medicines. Whitney studied herbalism and has worked hands-on in an apothecary.

When I told Whitney about my grasping "memory" issue, she immediately suggested I try Brain Bloom which is made from essential ingredients such as ginkgo, gotu kola, eleuthero and rosemary.

Ubiquitous rosemary, really? But philosopher and Renaissance humanist, Sir Thomas More, who wrote Utopia, once described rosemary as an "herb sacred to remembrance." Yes, I looked it up, online. But I also recalled a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet -- "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance..."

Sure enough Whitney told me about the recommended benefits of these ingredients:

High in antioxidants, Brain Bloom extract has plant ingredients that've been used for generations for brain and memory support. Ginkgo and Gotu Kola are two of the most well known herbs for healthy brain function. Yes, Rosemary is a known cooking herb but it's also used, in small doses, for cognitive support, memory retention, and improved focus. We have another product, Spirit Ease, that contains adaptogenic and nutritive herbs that help support healthy stress response -- Passionflower, St. John's Wort, and Valerian are used to ease feelings of anxiety while also soothing and nourishing the nerves.

Okay, we've all heard a few of these claims but all I can go on is my own experience. Like how Oscar winners I've interviewed, like Jennifer Lawrence and Matthew McConaughey, treat me in our conversations. And on how something like Brain Bloom is working on me.

It's early days yet, but I've got to admit, my grasping for factual straws seems to be improving. It was Scottish lass Sheena Easton who sang "For Your Eyes Only." I forced myself to learn by heart 10 important phone numbers. And, I memorized the dates of some upcoming special birthdays. So, a big thanks to Roots & Honey, maybe I'll be fine if and when the "machine" ever breaks down, and we lose the capability to text and message each-other.


Check out Roots & Honey Herbs at Etsy.

Follow Fire Horse on Facebook.

Nevermore from Jasmina Tesanovic on Vimeo.

The province of Yunnan, stretching over 394,000 square kilometers in the far southwest of the Republic of China, is rich in color, tradition and history. More than 30% of its population of 45 million is made up of over 25 ethnic minorities like the Yi, Bai, Hani, Zhuang, Miao, Mozuo and Dai people. Most of the ethnic minorities live in compact communities with rich customs and traditions that live on despite the recent economic change that takes over the Chinese mainland.

Each time I visited the region for a new photographic adventure I was drawn to capturing the very dominant smoking traditions amongst the different minorities. From he pipes that are passed on through generations, hand crafted with care and art to the large bamboo pipes, to modern day cigarettes, for good or bad, smoking lives on in Yunnan as a tribal tradition.

Jon Swihart, Capt. Louis Zamperini, 2013, oil on wood panel, 12" h. x 9" w.
Collection of Angelina Jolie

When you forgive it's like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.

- Louis Zamperini

"This whole year has been very bittersweet," says Cynthia Zamperini Garris, whose much-loved father Louis (Louie) Zamperini passed away last July at the age of 97. "Losing my dad was heartbreaking -- it's still hard to say goodbye -- but there has also been all the celebration of his life, especially with the film and the Rose Parade."

The movie that Garris is referring to is Unbroken, a feature film directed by Angelina Jolie. Released in December of 2014, Unbroken is a true-to-life drama that recounts Zamperini's rapscallion youth, his ascent as a track star and Olympic athlete, the 47 harrowing days he spent floating in a raft in the Pacific Ocean following a WWII plane crash, and the torments he faced in a Japanese prison camp. Unbroken -- as its title suggests -- is ultimately a story of resilience, transcendence and forgiveness. Regarding the Rose Parade, Louis Zamperini was its 2015 Grand Marshall in Absentia, honored as a profoundly heroic and inspiring figure.

Zamperini's long, varied and eventful life has also been the subject of two books. In 2003 he published his own book -- Devil at My Heels: A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II -- which was followed in 2010 by Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, the basis of the recent film. "From the day I first spoke to him," says author Laura Hilenbrand of Zamperini, "his almost incomprehensibly dramatic life was my obsession." Hillenbrand's detailed and vivid book, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over four years, and the paperback edition retains a five star Amazon rating after over 18,000 customer reviews.

In the Fall of 2013 Jon Swihart, a scrupulous and preternaturally patient artist who lives and works in Santa Monica, was commissioned to create an oil portrait of Zamperini. Part of what made the commission especially meaningful for Swihart was that he had been offered the chance to paint Zamperini six months earlier, but that first opportunity had fizzled. "It was hugely disappointing to me when the first commission fell through," Swihart recalls, "as I had read Unbroken and already envisioned how I wanted to paint Louie dressed in his old WWII bomber jacket and officer's cap. Then out of the blue, fate gave me a second chance to paint him."




Jon Swihart

Swihart's second commission came from Angelina Jolie's husband, actor Brad Pitt, who planned to present the finished painting to his wife as a present. It was meant as a gift of love and also a talismanic image of the hero at the center of Jolie's film. Pitt had seen and admired Swihart's portrait of artist Don Bachardy, and that had given him some idea of what Swihart was capable of.

As a result, Swihart was offered the opportunity to paint Zamperini as he saw fit: "Brad gave me complete artistic freedom," the artist notes. What Swihart hoped to do was create a single small painting that would transmit some of the qualities that Angelina Jolie's movie had dramatized in 137 minutes and that Hillebrand's book had taken over 500 pages to illuminate and distill. It was a challenge that Swihart took to heart: "I put everything I had into this," he states.

In late 2013 Swihart arranged to meet Zamperini, then 96, for a photo session. Zamperini's wartime bomber jacket -- which had been borrowed by Unbroken's costume designers -- was brought back to his home and Louis wore it for the sitting. "He was frail," Swihart comments, "and when he put on the jacket you could see that it had once fit the larger physique of a young man who had been an athlete just before he joined the service. It was the size he once was. With the help of Zamperini's daughter, Swihart took a group of reference photos, hoping to capture just the right mood and moment:

Cynthia mentioned when I first spoke to her that there was a certain look he occasionally got in his eyes, a masculine, transcendent but determined look that really personified Louie and no photographer had ever captured. Cynthia agreed to work closely with me to try to elicit that expression when I first met and photographed Louie. Conveying that look in Louie's eyes became essential.

After carefully scrutinizing the photos that he took that day Swihart selected a single photo that he captured just the right "look" in Zamperini's eyes. Working on her own, Cynthia Garris chose the same photo. "There was this openness in his face," says Garris, "and determination in his eyes." Jon Swihart says of Zamperini: "He reminded me of the evangelist Billy Graham, who I had painted years earlier. They both exuded a quiet, peaceful strength and charisma. I found out later they were friends."

As he prepared to paint Swihart decided that the portrait would resemble -- in both mood and technique -- a Flemish devotional icon of the early Renaissance. It would measure just twelve inches high by nine inches wide. "I like small, quiet work," Swihart philosophizes. "It draws you in and creates a world that holds you. You also have to be very quiet to connect with small work."

When the painting process began, Swihart experienced the panel as being perhaps even too small. "How am I going to enter this world?" he remembers asking himself. With time the image began to take shape, the panel magically began to appear a bit larger as Swihart spent countless hours becoming sensitized to its dimensions. As it developed the portrait that was appearing didn't seem quite right. After about two weeks of work Swihart woke up one morning and realized that he needed to start over.

The second attempt went better, and Swihart was able to methodically conceive and modulate the important aspects of the portrait. Zamperini's face was resolved quickly --"I got it right off the bat," Swihart recalls -- and the piercing blue of his subject's eyes remained the brightest note of color in a composition that would remain muted and sober, emphasizing umber, tan and grey tones.



Captain Louis Zamperini (detail)

Although Swihart works from photographic references, he takes considerable liberties with his images as they develop. In the case of the Zamperini portrait, there were things that the artist wanted to allude to in subtle ways. For example, the flight jacket was re-shaped to suggest a kind of Baroque dynamism: "His jacket folds became metaphors for the twists in his life," Swihart explains. "In the lower area the folds are active and writhing, but around Louie's face they open to release and frame his features."



Captain Louis Zamperini (detail)

The teeth of the jacket's zipper, which glisten and move upwards in a sinuous curve, represented a special test of Swihart's patience, but he found that by building up his powers of concentration through weeks of painting he was able to manage them. "By that point I was so locked into the painting," he says, "I was thinking about it during every waking moment." The most difficult detail of the painting, surprisingly, turned out to be the bomber wings, which measure just over an inch across. "I ended up repainting them several times to suggest an upward movement and flittering effect," Swihart reports.



Captain Louis Zamperini (detail)


Completely absorbed in his project it took Jon Swihart six weeks to complete the painting. "This is one of the most gratifying commissions I have ever had," says Jon Swihart. "The story of Louie's life is such a huge story, and I felt that I had to get it right. I was motivated by my desire to honor Louie."

For Swihart to declare the painting "finished" he had to feel that it transcended the materials and process involved in its making:

I believe a good portrait is absolute magic and conveying someone's essence in paint is an intuitive blend of fidelity to reality and poetic license. I've been painting close to forty-five years and it still puzzles me that, what is essentially colored earth smeared on wood, can be permanently imbued with the ephemeral quality of someone's presence! A great portrait, even of someone unknown to the viewer, needs no explanation to be understood and appreciated, because it is a communication that transcends words.

Captain Louis Zamperini (detail)

Swihart was able to show Louie Zamperini the completed painting before it was presented to Angelina Jolie. As Swihart explains, he was genuinely very pleased with his portrait and said,"It's very good, thank you!" Angelina Jolie, who received the portrait as a gift in December of 2013, was equally happy and deeply moved. She took the painting with her when she traveled to Australia to complete the filming of Unbroken, and now keeps the painting in her private office. "Angie treasures the painting," says Cynthia Garris. "It was a wonderful and very romantic gift."

Zamperini was given a framed photo of the portrait for his 97th birthday, and around that time he and Jon were able to visit. "He was a great storyteller," says Swihart. "It was an honor to visit and spend time with this man who had an amazing memory and ask him specific details about his extraordinary life. He was kind, giving, sharp and had a great sense of humor." During their final visit, Jon had an iPhone photo taken with Louie Zamperini, that later disappeared when his home computer crashed. "I wish I still had that photo," Swihart sighs, "but I will always have great memories of Louie Zamperini. He had a strong, quiet presence."

With his considerable patience -- and egoless skill -- Jon Swihart managed to immortalize that presence perfectly.

Links:

www.jonswihart.com

Jon Swihart: Jean-Leon Gerome is his Master

Unbroken: The Film

The art world is heating up. Not only are auctions enjoying record-breaking sales at the high end, but a new crop of art hobbyists are creating a mass market for original art.

Much of the growth is facilitated by ecommerce, with buyers choosing the open access of the Web to purchase art. As a side benefit to migrating online, we now have more data about art than ever before. We know what sells. We know what people search for. We can start to unlock an industry that historically was largely mysterious.

At my online art company, UGallery, we collected data to understand how consumers shop for art. Here are top trends of 2015 based on search statistics.

1. Everyone Wants a Nudie Pic

Nude art ranks the top searched subject matter, with western art and sports art trailing in last place.



2. Artful Dudes are Hotter

Bachelor pad is the most popular decor type searched, followed by mid-century modern and vintage.



3. Turquoise is Trendy

Clients search for turquoise art more than any other color.



4. Out With the Old, In With Abstract

Abstract art outnumbers classical art six to one.



5. Oil Still Reigns King

Oil paintings, acrylic paintings, and watercolor paintings are the three most popular mediums.



6. Work Hard, Play Harder?

Art for the living room outnumbers art for the office almost seven to one.



7. A Day at the Beach. On a horse.

Beach and horse are the top searched terms, with dog, nude, and abstract close behind.



What's the bottom line? Art is no longer a black box industry. We know more than we ever have, and very distinct shopping patterns are emerging. While art will always be personal and intuitive, one could make a strong case that a turquoise nude for a bachelor's living room would sell quite well.

This interview with Tom Stoppard took place in the coffee lounge of the National Theatre London in a break in rehearsal of his new play "The Hard Problem."

Your new play "The Hard Problem" opens at the National Theatre on Jan. 31, 2015. The director is Nicholas Hytner, and this is your first play since "Rock 'N' Roll" in 2006. Why is "The Hard Problem" your first play for the National Theatre since "The Coast of Utopia" in 2002?

I am surprised that it's that long, it doesn't feel like so many years to me. When I wrote "Rock 'N' Roll" I said to Nick Hytner that I would send "Rock 'N' Roll" to the Royal Court Theatre because I have never been performed at the Royal Court Theatre, and I really wanted to be there with something before I am dead. I said I will come back to the National Theatre with the next play, but I didn't think it would take so long.

How do you feel?

I love being in rehearsal, and I like being in rehearsal with a new play, so generally speaking I feel very good. I feel this is the main part of my writing life and other things are interruptions. Being in rehearsal with a new play at the National Theatre is where I touch base with my life as a writer.

Are you worried about it?

No, I am too old to worry about these things. The play will be OK or it won't be entirely OK, until there's an audience you don't really know what you've got. It doesn't keep me awake. I hope the play works pretty well, but we'll just have to see. I don't worry nowadays; I used to worry when I was younger.

What is the subject matter of "The Hard Problem"?

The "hard problem" as you probably know is actually a phrase referring to the problem of accounting for consciousness. Most things are not conscious. This table we are sitting at isn't conscious. Vegetables aren't conscious. We are conscious, and nobody understands how we do that; physically, scientifically or metaphysically. Nobody really knows; and that's the "hard problem."

Where is the play set?

Much of the play takes place in a science institute which is investigating the brain. There are thousands of laboratories in the world which are investigating the brain, and I have invented another one with fictitious characters.

Who are the main characters?

My main character is a young woman psychologist, but most of what goes on at the institute is not psychology, it's neuroscience, which involves for example investigating the physical brain in monkeys. That's what mostly happens at this place, but the characters I am dealing with are in the psychology department. However, the play is also concerned with the fact that for many scientists the brain works computationally, like a form of very complex, very complicated computer. One or two of the people in the play actually work in finance, not in biology, and that aspect of the play is to do with the possibility that there's a formal relationship between the human brain and the computer.

I personally don't think there is, but there are many people who do. Many people think that the brain works the way computers work. I have no scientific training, but I just instinctively don't feel that consciousness is the product of a biological computer.

How long does it take you to write a play?

Normally I can write a first draft in three or four months, but that's rather misleading because it can take a long, long time to get to the top of the first page. "The Coast of Utopia" is a trilogy, and I think I probably wrote the whole thing well inside 12 months, but that was after three or four years of reading and preparing to write it. Of course, it depends if you are writing about historical people and whether your subject matter requires you to research. For a play like "The Real Thing," which is entirely invented, you don't have to spend all this research time -- you just write it.

And with "The Invention of Love?"

That was about a real person, a Latin scholar and a poet, so I was reading up on his Latin scholarship and his life in general for certainly two or three years before I began writing the play.

How do you write?

With a fountain pen on A4 white sheets. I have several, but there's usually one which has the nicest nib. Different pens over the years, but I usually have a favorite pen. I fax the paper to my secretary and she types out what I am writing, and after that I correct on printout.



Were you never afraid of losing talent and inspiration?

Not really. I mean, I never thought about it. I enjoy writing. I feel I am very lucky to be able to live as a writer. Writers in our society are perhaps overvalued, which is lucky for us, and I just assume there will always be something next that I want to write. But I don't always have an idea for a play waiting for me and so, in between "Rock 'N' Roll" and this play, naturally I wrote other things. For example, I adapted a very big novel for five hours of television on the BBC, called "Parade's End" by Ford Madox Ford. I also wrote a movie from "Anna Karenina."

You won an Oscar for the screenplay of "Shakespeare in Love" and you worked on other films like "Brazil" and "Empire of the Sun," and recently "Anna Karenina." Is film work part of your metier?

It's not the same, because it is not my original work. I didn't write Anna Karenina. I am only adapting it for a screenplay, so it doesn't mean as much to me as my original work, naturally.

But do you do enjoy it or just do it for money?

I enjoy it, not particularly for money, although of course it is nice to get paid. It's a very nice change to adapt something, as somebody else before you has already done the hard part; they've invented the story and the characters.

So adapting Chekhov, for example, is very different from doing your own work?

Yes, I don't read Russian, which is of course the tradition here for Chekhov translators, they rarely read Russian. Mostly the many English versions of Chekhov rely on other translators and on the word-for-word translation specially prepared for the translator. It's a very challenging, stimulating kind of work, to turn a play from German or Russian or French into English, but it's not the same kind of work as being your own master.

Why were you so attracted by Ernest Hemingway, ever since you were young, so much so that you have even bought first editions of his work?

Yes, it's true, I did buy first editions of his, but I also bought first editions of other writers like Evelyn Waugh; and Charles Dickens, which in those days were not expensive. But you are right, I really fell in love with Ernest Hemingway when I was a young man.

Why?

I don't examine myself very much, but I think it was because of his writing. Thousands and thousands of young writers were fascinated by him. They were enthralled by him, bowled over by Hemingway's writing when it was new. The writing is stripped away and simplified. Hemingway had a pretty small vocabulary in his work compared to more prolix, florid writers. Also, probably Hemingway's personality and publicity had some bearing on one's interest in him, naturally.

I always had a feeling for Hemingway which exceeded the feeling I had for Scott Fitzgerald, but when I was older I think I began to like Fitzgerald more. I liked American writers of the period, when I was young I was reading Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Nathaniel West. I was always a Hemingway man more than a Fitzgerald man when I was in my twenties. In my seventies I am not so sure.

You liked American literature because as a child when you lived in India you went to an American school?

No, that wasn't the reason I don't think, although I did go to an American school. I left India when I was 8 years old, so not really no. No, I didn't read Hemingway until I was probably 18 or 19.

But he had influence on you, on your work and writing?

I am sure he had a bad influence on me at the beginning. He had a bad influence on pretty much everybody! If you try to start writing like Hemingway, if you succeed you're writing like someone else, and if you don't succeed you don't succeed. He didn't influence my play writing, not consciously.

Who did influence you?

I think it's very difficult. Liking things is one thing, the influence isn't direct of course, it's probably subconscious. Nobody influenced me in the sense of my saying I want to write like this person or that person. One's own nature leads one to certain kinds of enthusiasms, and those enthusiasms feed back into your own work. I don't think of that as being conscious influence, but I am sure I have cause to be grateful for it, whether it is conscious or subconscious.

What about you being a Sir, an Englishman, your Jewish Czech origin, being born as Tomáš Straussler in 1937 and then in 1946 becoming Tom Stoppard?

What about it? It's just personal history. I don't know what the question is. These things happened to me, yes. I don't ask myself psychological or analytical questions, I react quite simply. I accept what happens and try to make the best of it. I think I have been very fortunate to have ended up in England, learning and using the English language. I would rather that than ending up in communist Czechoslovakia when I was 10 years old.

They say that after your mother died your brother and you went back to your hometown of Zlin to find your roots and your relatives. Do you feel Jewish?

Yes. When my mother was alive I didn't press her about the past, but of course after the fall of communism our family history became clearer, because we met one or two relatives who were Czech and then we found out things that our mother had not ever told us about. Like, for example, the fact that her sisters and parents died in the concentration camps at Terezin and Auschwitz. We only knew about one sister who went to South America before the war, and that's the only sister that my brother and I were aware of.

But you knew you were Jewish?

We knew that we had Jewish in us because otherwise we would have had no need to leave Czechoslovakia when the Germans were approaching, to escape Hitler as it were, but it wasn't until many years later that we understood. My mother would say in those days that if you had one Jewish grandparent you were in danger, but in fact she was not really telling us what she knew. My mother was grateful to find herself safe in England after the war, and she wanted us to be bought up as little English boys, so she never went back into her own past.

You are not a political writer, but somehow your writing has to do with politics, espionage, emigration, identity. What do you feel about the murder of the Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris?

Same as you I expect! It's not just Charlie Hebdo, one is appalled, absolutely horrified by the world at the moment. Look at what happened in Nigeria in the same week. 2,000 killed, murdered. I don't know what to say about it.

You had to leave Czechoslovakia because of Hitler. Hitler has changed the destiny of your life. Now in France and Holland there is public anti-Semitism. Is that worrying you? What do you feel about the violence of the jihadists?

It's worrying, but I am beyond offering a solution. I do not know how one solves irrationalism. These acts of murder are impelled... they are propelled, by a murderous irrational... psychology, I suppose you'd have to call it. I am very wary of writers pontificating as moral experts because they have written a book or two or a play or two, or posing as moral guides.

Do you consider yourself an English writer, or are you a Middle-European who writes in English like your predecessors Conrad and Nabokov?

I consider myself an English writer. I am not even that familiar with Eastern European literature. Obviously one knows the big names. I don't read any other languages except French, badly. I am very much somebody who is aware of the traditions of English literature.

Ever since I first began composing music, I've always felt that building new audiences requires updating the very idea of "the composer" -- from some stuffy old dude with a wig and a quill pen, to a collaborator and cultural ambassador who is deeply integrated with the communities he or she serves.

One of the most exciting things about my position as Director of Artistic Programming with Chicago-based music organization Fifth House Ensemble is that I'm able to pursue larger and more complex musical projects than I ever could all on my own. While I've partnered before with music ensembles including the Kronos Quartet and Minnesota Orchestra in presenting ambitious programming and community outreach initiatives, being a core member of my own ensemble "family" has afforded me the opportunity to join together with like-minded individuals who are passionate about taking the concert experience to the next level, and to re-imagine what classical programming might be able to provide for 21st-century audiences.



Reaching new audiences requires reaching outside of oneself, and beyond the conventional way of doing things. So at Fifth House Ensemble, we're always looking to collaborate with people who bring their own, unique talents to the table. Sometimes that can be a visual artist or animator who can help make the music come alive for our audiences, and sometimes it means working with other musicians who share very different skills and performance experience.

It's exactly this kind of conversation -- where musicians from different sides of the tracks both explore their commonalities and celebrate their differences -- that I feel is most valuable to the ensemble as well as our audiences. "What happens if ___?" is my favorite reason for a musical performance, reimagined as playful experimentation rather than the sterile museum-like curation to which classical concerts are so often prone. One of the many reasons audiences flock to bands and rather than classical offerings must surely be the lack of risk in most classical concerts, and lack of any stake in the outcome; and that's why my major criticism of most classical programs is that no room has been left for something truly unexpected to happen. I want to instead reach out to the audience with this invitation: "We're going to try something today that's never been done before, but that might be really cool -- would you help us by joining as part of that conversation?"



Just last week I traveled to Berlin with five of our musicians to initiate just this kind of conversation: a collaboration between Fifth House Ensemble and Mediterranean folk band Baladino in which we're working to create and present a genre-defying suite of newly composed concert works rooted in Middle Eastern, European, and American vernacular music. With its members hailing from Berlin and Tel Aviv, Baladino brings together instruments and traditions from the wide span of cultures including Sephardic and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) musical traditions, updating these influences with their own contemporary backgrounds in jazz improvisation and electronica.

Through engagement with diverse cultural organizations representing the US, Israel, Spain, Iran, India, and Germany, and by tapping the shared experience of musical memories, this genre-bending program serves as a catalyst for an exploration of music as an indelible part of cultural identity -- with the earliest musical memories that our cultural partners and future audience members share with us providing a thematic undercurrent to the show.

We want the audience's experience of seeing our two ensembles share in each other's respective musical traditions enrich the process of reconnecting with their own musical memories. By sharing cherished melodies that become part of new resulting musical work, our participants witness defining parts of their identity reflected in a new work that is actually much larger than a single concert; it's a process of repeated engagement that build awareness for the project while also sparking conversation between individuals and groups who might not otherwise engage so readily. We're not quite sure where this conversation is headed, but after an initial rehearsal period and salon concert presentation in Berlin it was clear that letting the audience in the on the creative process was a big part of how music organizations can revitalize relationships with their communities.



While a defining aspect of my work with Fifth House Ensemble includes cross-genre collaborations and civic practice initiatives, I also think that one of the best ways to let curiosity back into the concert hall is to reimagine past masterpieces in a way that is both faithful to their origins and yet reimagines their meaning in a way that impacts a new generation. This younger generation is increasingly likely to discover music for classical instruments as the soundtrack to films and video games, and our upcoming presentation of Arnold Schoenberg's epicly-angsty composition Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) at Chicago's Mayne Stage taps the talents of film and video Chicago film and video artist Adebukola Bodunrin immerses audiences in a captivating interpretation of poet Richard Dehmel's original text which inspired the composition.

There's a way to stay true to the integrity of past masterworks and explore their contexts in a serious way, while also bringing in new audiences who might not otherwise have an experience with classical chamber music and presenting that experience to them on the highest artistic level--making art accessible in the age of videogames and YouTube requires using every tool at our disposal to redesign the concert experience.



When I look at the programming of most major music organizations including major orchestras, I'm struck by how many of their programs leave little reason for even a committed music fan to attend save for the still-significant thrill of seeing a live musician take the risk of playing even a familiar work without a safety net, as it were; what if we realized that it's this risk that makes live performance so exciting and special, and that what classical music most needs are more ways to make the concert experience special again--and to give us an experience we can't easily recreate with listening devices and earbuds.

The best part of art is that we don't have to know what will happen beforehand--and that very not knowing is the point. I've got into music because it became a way of expressing my curiosity: about sound and how it can affect listeners, about myself and my own limits, and about the many concepts and experiences I encounter in the wide world beyond music. Art has a way of taking us outside of ourselves to new and wonderful places, and I'm grateful that my work with Fifth House Ensemble allows me to advocate for a vision of classical music where experimentation and accessibility each support the other. By letting curiosity back into the concert hall--and with it the associated vulnerability, freedom, and sense of shared community--we're making a commitment to a new paradigm in which classical musicians listen just as much as they sound.

"The bass is the base..." He chuckles. He is Michael Brown, bassist for arguably the hardest working band in show business, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Band, specifically, the band for Ringling Bros. ® Presents LEGENDSSM. It is the Blue Unit of the storied franchise that inhabits three touring shows, each with its own live band.

"What I play and how I play it determines how you will hear the music and how you will feel the music," says Brown. It is a sentiment I can attest to as the voice of The Greatest Show On Earth®. Countless times while belting out those original circus hits, accompanied by the Ringling Bros. Band, my body will take to an unconscious sway, with hands clapping and toes tapping, and my voice will instinctively riff as if possessed.

For nearly a decade, Michael Brown's bass has been "the base" for the melodic sounds of The Greatest Show On Earth, establishing his ever-evolving brand of musicality. To know him is to immediately recognize that he is both a fan and student of the instrument. Names like Victor Wooden, Louis Johnson, Jaco Pastorious, Stanley Clarke, Larry Graham, James Jamerson and Bernard Edwards are among Brown's musical heroes. Therefore, they are the standard for which he aspires.

"I have started to incorporate active rest during intermissions. I work on something like dexterity or playing a bass line that I am learning. I frequently go back and relearn bass lines that I have not played in a while for their groove factor," says Brown. "Right now my approach can be called work-study. I practice at home, which is the famed Ringling Bros. Circus train, and in between shows like I'm studying before my next class. I am never bored musically because there is always something to do or learn."

To some, this kind of devotion to craft may seem remarkable when one considers the demands of his job as well as the stability it affords he and his bandmates. That stability is something many musicians can only hope for. This is a fact that is never lost on Brown or his fellow musicians. With such stability and the demands of the job at hand, the temptation to merely coast by might very well arise. However, Michael Brown is as committed to his music as he is humbled by the opportunity he has been given to share it. The journey he took to arrive at this coveted place in his career is never far from his mind.

Music entered the Chicago native's life in the same way it does with many people. It arrived through radio, television, family gatherings, etc. However, for some, music beckons as more than a passing interest.

"I was at a relative's house who had a bass player staying there as a guest. I picked up the bass put it on my knee and against my chest and plucked the E string. The vibration went though my whole body and I was hooked! I was now going to be a bass player!" says Brown.

During his high school years, music was very kind and acted as a savior for Brown. It granted him a vehicle to focus his adolescent energies and redirect his angst brought on by issues at home. However, like so many once aspiring musicians (or artists for that matter) he would eventually betray that first love, music -- sort of.

"I went to Vandercook College of Music to become a music teacher but that was not where my heart was; I wanted to play music," says Brown. For the next several years of his life, Brown would reap the wages of his lackluster commitment to music in the form of odd jobs ranging from a bouncer to a certified personal trainer to a DJ at a roller skating rink to a newspaper deliveryman to a bank messenger. He actually worked his way up to a comfortable management position in banking before eventually being laid off.

Brown's life, at this juncture, was the prophetic embodiment of what the great P.T. Barnum once mused, "Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed." For Brown it became abundantly clear that there are no successful part-time musicians, just as there are no successful part-time physicians or athletes, etc. That which is "intended for [us] by nature" will not reward our partial efforts. Fortunately, for Brown -- and probably a great many others -- one's calling can be quite forgiving. He would eventually find his way back to "the vocation intended for him by nature," this time with a full-time effort, upon the high seas, no less, aboard a number of cruise ships. There, he would recommit himself, expand his knowledge and advance the skills needed for his craft. It was during a stop in Alaska that he received a call from renowned bassist and instructor Anthony Wellington about an opening for a circus gig that would pave the way to a career with The Greatest Show On Earth.




Intermission is coming to a close in just a few minutes when I hear the alarm to Brown's watch begin to sound. Suddenly, our conversation is cut short. "Sorry, but I've got to go," he says as he hurries back to his post at the bandstand to prepare for the second half of the show.

I've known of few artists, if any, who are as cognizant of their role within a collective as is Michael Brown. "For years now I have been trusted to play the music the way I think it should be played. That has meant me playing fretless bass, using effects, switching basses during a show -- whatever I think will make the music better for the show. I believe that is where the trust lies. I have demonstrated that I have the show and the audience in mind when I play, not just showboating," he says.

From the trapeze artist throwing the triple somersault to the Cossack riders sprinting to leap upon the back of their steed to a two-stepping performing pachyderm to the scintillating sway of a dancer's hips, it is all about that bass and the music it anchors that heightens each thrill and accentuates the experience that is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

For Brown, his glory is in the shadows. Ever present yet hardly noticed at all, and he would have it no other way. For Brown it means he is fulfilling his role within the collective. "If I'm doing my job correctly you are very seldom aware of me," he says.

That's unless one might catch him dancing while strumming his bass, during one of the show's more festive numbers. "When you see someone dancing it is hard not to have a good time," he says. Indeed, it's that "good time" he has committed himself to sharing with Children Of All Ages, from city to city, coast to coast. It's the kind of "good time" for which only the joy of living the life of your dreams can produce.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN **
DA no rating


LET THE RIGHT ONE IN **
ST. ANN'S WAREHOUSE

The film Let the Right One In is a remarkable work. I'm not one for gore, so horror films are not my forte. But the best of them, from Frankenstein in the 1930s to The Fly to this, explore ideas of humanity far more than ideas of terror. I ignored the US remake -- why bother when the Swedish original was so ideal?

But a stage adaptation intrigues. Shamefully I purchased but have yet to read the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (who also wrote the film's screenplay). His tale is faithfully adapted by Jack Thorne and given a handsome, thoughtful, intelligent production led by director John Tiffany (Once, Black Watch) and associate director Stephen Hoggett. I wish I knew why it never gelled for me.

On one simplistic but highly of-the-moment level, this story, set in the 1980s, is about bullying. Oskar (the show's standout, Cristian Ortega) is a lonely boy relentlessly taunted and teased and humiliated by his classmates. His mother is a divorced alcoholic, both too needy and too indifferent to Oskar's needs as a child to be any help. His father is in a gay relationship and keeps Oskar at arm's length. Other adults are benign at best and usually indifferent or even cruel.

Is it any wonder Oskar sucks up the attention of the weird little girl who moves into his apartment complex? Sure, she seems younger than him and smells a bit and is genuinely odd, whereas Oskar is just sad. But she talks to him and, in her own weird (very weird) way, pays attention. The fact that this girl named Eli (Rebecca Benson) may not exactly be a girl? Well, Oskar can deal with that. The fact that she may not be younger than him or a girl or a boy or really anything he can quite bring himself to name? Well, give him time.



On another level, Let the Right One In is not about friendship or bullying or young romance (truly, it couldn't be farther from that if it tried). Watching the film, you come to the unsettling realization that Eli, this creature that feeds on blood simply realizes her aging human protector (procurer is more like it) simply isn't up to the task anymore. She needs a new helper and grooms Oskar for the role. Again and again, we see Eli lure adults to their doom by crying out in a helpless, little-girl voice, "Help me; please, help me!" only to pounce when they come within biting distance. Let the Right One In is one long plea from Eli to Oskar, we sense. Help me, she is saying but it's not his blood she wants; it's his heart and soul. How much crueler is that?

With Tiffany on board as director, you knew the show would be visually striking and it is, with a snowy wood dominating the stage throughout. (I thought the toasty venue of St. Ann's should have allowed the A/C to run full blast; if ever a show would benefit from some shivery atmosphere, this is it.) The work of set and costume designer Christine Jones (hand in hand with the lighting by Chahine Yavroyan and sound by Gareth Fry and effective special effects by Jeremy Chernick) was impeccable.

The first stumble for me was the music by Olafur Arnalds, which skipped genres and styles in distracting fashion, sounding techno-ish one minute and film score-ish the next. Typically, the action was broken at times by stylized movement, the sort of signature flourish Tiffany and Hoggett are known for. It certainly wasn't a negative in this show, but here those moments felt merely decorative, not integral to the work or revealing of any emotional undercurrent.

More tellingly, my suspension of disbelief didn't ever take place for Eli, played so memorably in the original film by Lina Leandersson (who was twelve years old when the movie was shot). Benson is not bad in the role (no one in the show is weak, as such). But her affectless delivery and much older appearance threw off the show for me. She looks older than the original Eli (much older) and older than Oskar. And that led to cascading problems. With this central relationship not as convincing (and more straightforwardly one of monster and child), the spotlight shone brighter on the rest of the drama. But the bullying aspect is the least interesting aspect; Oskar's parents seem so indifferent and incompetent here you thought more of an after-school special than the complex world this boy lives in. Ditto, the head bully who is of course bullied even more by his older brother. That feels too obvious now whereas the same detail in the movie informed a minor character (others have their own monsters to deal with) rather than banally explanatory. Finally, the staging of the swimming pool finale fell flat, with the stylized choices here by Tiffany not working either as terror or terribly beauty.

Ortega is committed to his role, and despite the production's flaws, seeing him wrap his arm around the box containing his "girlfriend" or scratching out a Morse code communication with Eli are creepy, heart-breaking moments. But for all the care that went into it, one doesn't feel this production can stand on its own. The film Once was flawed but charming and a genuinely nutty idea to turn into a stage musical. They did it brilliantly. Here, the film was so successful and so rich that surely they imagined the results could only be better. The temptation of turning a brilliant film into a play is surely an enticing one. Yet you'd better have a very good reason for allowing such a magnetic, overpowering presence into your creative life. The belief that you can transform it or at least partner with it might just turn into the reality that it has overwhelmed you.

DA no rating
IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE AT DR2 THEATRE

Oh dear. Some nights at the theater do little but provide war stories for the actors involved. That surely must be the case for night I caught the revival of the Tony-winning Da, produced by the Irish Repertory Theatre (which is hosting its season off Union Square at DR2 while their space is being renovated). The piece, by Hugh Leonard, is a memory play, with a man who's come to put his late father's affairs in order soon overwhelmed by the pushy, talkative ghost of his dad and a host of memories: his mother, his childhood, his first job, his first romance and so on.

I've never seen Da before but can imagine a sharper revival might coax out the lightning-fast switches in emotion, from humor to pity to anger to sadness to gentle acceptance more fluidly. But the performance I caught was a series of disasters for all involved, from the unruly audience (one elderly woman kept chatting to her friend, to cite one example of many) to that disease all actors dread: forgetting your lines. It spread faster than Ebola ever did here in the U.S., with almost the entire cast soon stumbling here and there. When one actor is off, that can tense up the rest, put them off their rhythm, and soon everybody and their mother is stumbling.

This was capped by a Noises Off-like disaster: the door to the home that served as the show's one and only set jammed completely right at the start of Act Two. Ciaran O'Reilly as the adult son Charlie strode up to the door and then pushed and pushed and pushed. His younger self tagging behind (it's a memory play, after all) urged him on. "Give it more of a shove," he suggested as they stood stranded on the edge of the stage. O'Reilly kicked and shoved and shook the door until the entire set began to wobble whem the other actor (the able Adam Petherbridge) spoke up again: "Maybe we should go in the back way." God forgive me, it was the highlight of the show.

The poor actors had to enter and exit the house in the most circuitous fashion, with one and all reminded constantly about the damnable door. They recovered as best as they could, but one could imagine them all bursting out in rueful laughter and downing more than the usual drinks later, praying such a night wouldn't come again anytime soon.



It's a reminder that every review is just really a review of that one particular night's performance. I doubt sincerely that this fuzzy revival directed by Charlotte Moore would have garnered much more than two stars out of four on its best night. The play didn't come into focus, and the varied feelings of each scene seemed more haphazard than purposeful. (I've never seen it before, nor the movie version.) If it wasn't for that stuck door, I would have said James Morgan's set was serviceable along with the other tech elements.

Beyond the nightmarish forgetting of lines, I would have also noted that the accents on display were far more varied than usual, with Fiana Toibin as our hero's mom mumbling her lines so much that I imagine the audience member who kept talking was asking what the woman had said. Nicola Murphy's accent as a girl our young hero fancies was wandering and quite variable, while I haven't the foggiest idea which of many accents used in one scene to critique Kristin Griffith on.

The men, it must be said, fared better in that regard, though the technical issue of accents isn't nearly as important as the characters being brought to life. Petherbridge did well by young Charlie, and John Keating (notably spot-on in both accent and his lines, which is the least one should have to say about an actor) was typically strong in the role of one-time pal Oliver. Sean Gormley as Charlie's first employer actually created a living, breathing character with Drumm, the lad's first boss and a man who is so snobbish and particular he manages to close himself off from life. One could be forgiven for thinking his story was the heart of the show.

But the heart of the play should be the bantering and battling between Charlie and his Da (Paul O"Brien). This night, this performance, it felt rote and unremarkable, one long comedy routine rather than the coming to terms of a son or the last cry of life from the ghost of a dad. Every show has nights where everything goes wrong. Every cast would prefer to forget them as quickly as possible. Such train wrecks can provide great anecdotes years later but are no fun when they happen and not fun for quite a while after. So let's just pass over this night of Da in silence. It's a memory of one memory play I'm sure they'd prefer we soon forget.


THEATER OF 2015

Honeymoon In Vegas **
The Woodsman ***
Constellations ** 1/2
Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2
Let The Right One In **
Da no rating


_____________
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming website BookFilter, a book lover's best friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in every category. He's also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

Note: Michael Giltz is provided with free tickets to shows with the understanding that he will be writing a review. All productions are in New York City unless otherwise indicated.

January is art month in LA, and we have four excellent ways to see more new art this week: Sunday is FREE Museum Day around town, the Art LA Contemporary Fair is in town, as well as the intriguing LA Art Book Fair, and the Autry holds its Masters of the American West annual survey of contemporary western artists.

For a list of what we think you should look at during Free Museum Day, click here!

Artist Melanie Rothschild is on a mission to dispel the myths that art is just for the privileged and that you need to be trained before you can create something wonderful.

"If you only have art that comes from the highly educated and trained it'll just be slightly updated versions of what's come before," she said.

Rothschild believes that creativity is not just about art. Sometimes it has nothing at all to do with art. Creativity is about how we think, the possibilities we allow into our thinking and our ability to follow through with action. In just about anything we do, we can think creatively, she says.

"Creative thinkers, whether they be artists or not, are willing to fight conformity and are willing to take on the continuing need to re-evaluate what defines conformity. They don't need a degree in anything from anywhere to do that, they just have to believe in their gut that it's what they must do," said Rothschild.

Her elaborately painted picture frames, boxes and tables were sold in stores and galleries throughout the United States for twenty years. Her fine art was also regularly shown and sold. Then a massive mistake, where she accidentally knocked over cans of paint in her studio, became a new source of creativity and artistic expression.

Rothschild decided the best way to clean up the mess was to wait until the paint dried and peel it off the floor. She lifted the peelings, saw the beauty and turned them into art. Now Rothschild spills paint on purpose.



These artistic "mistakes," inspired Rothschild to write a book, The Art of Mistakes, to encourage others to awaken the artist within them who may have had previous attempts at creativity criticized or think they aren't good enough to even try.

It frustrates Rothschild that there's a need to categorize artists and that they often need to have credentials before they are taken seriously.

She recalls being moved to tears by an exhibition of The Quilts of Gee's Bend because the work was so exquisite. "One art critic expressed surprise that the quilt makers who had no education, no access to knowing about the luminaries of twentieth-century modern art, could produce such amazing work. This infuriated me," she said.

The quilt makers were mostly slaves or worked in cotton mills but had access to cast off fabrics or "mistakes." Sometimes they used fabric from their own tattered clothes and made quilts that are like big modern paintings. They are fabulous and they are great art, says Rothschild, who wrote her book for people who feel they don't belong in the art world but have this burning passion within them to be creative.

"Art is there to remind us that we can think for ourselves," said Rothschild.

A visitor to New York City has access to a rich array of cultural resources. They come at a hefty price, though. That high cost can be intimidating for residents of the outer boroughs and for all those of limited means as well as for tourists. No -- I am not referring to theater or concert tickets which now are affordable only for the affluent elite. It is museums and civic monuments that I have in mind. The skyrocketing of entry fees is yet another sign of how American life in all its aspects is being monetarized.

When I was growing up in New York, museums were free. They along with libraries were considered public assets that existed to serve the population. Those institutions were of particular value to generations of immigrants who used them as stepping stones to assimilation and the fulfillment of aspirations. That no longer is the case. $25 is now the standard fee to get into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $22-$27 at the Museum of Natural History. That doesn't cover special exhibitions. So a family of four who may wish to explore either has to come up with $100 -- not including local transportation of about $20 -- from Jamaica, from Crown Heights, from Hunt's Point, from Tottenville. For an adult wage-earner who is receiving the minimum wage of $8.35, that means that (s)he has to work a day and a half just to get into one of the city's cultural landmarks. Take into account withholdings from the paycheck and that means two full days of work. Outrageous, ridiculous, unfair, scandalous -- choose your adjective. Any of them is an apt depiction of contemporary America's distorted values and cavalier disregard for the well-being of its poorer citizens.

What of the 9/11 Museum on the site of the World Trade Center? $24! True, the memorial itself can be visited without charge -- but not the museum. If you can't afford the full act of devotion at this votive site, you can always turn on your TV to a football game and stand at attention when they troop the colors and play the Star Spangled Banner.

These exorbitant fees are justified by reference to the exigencies of the new "age of austerity." But the United States is today richer than it ever has been, according to official statistics. The endowments of cultural institutions climb to new heights -- even if public moneys do not. The simple if unpalatable truth is that their directors, their boards of trustees, city officials and the political class as a whole have a different set of priorities than they did half a century ago. It no longer is about serving the public. Nowadays, it's aggrandizing the organization, enhancing its prestige and visibility, creating greater career opportunities for those who run it, and, therefore, emphasizing the bottom line. Blockbuster international exhibitions memorialized in ostentatious catalogues and inaugurated at gala donor balls are dearest to the museum director's heart. These institutions' leaders act as if they possessed them rather than serving as custodians of a public trust. (Joe Daniels, President and CEO of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, earns $371,307).

The same phenomenon is visible across American society. Universities, foundations, charities -- not to speak of government agencies -- are used to advance personal power and prestige at least as much as to perform public functions. Traditionally in this democratic and avowedly egalitarian society, institutions were never viewed as belonging to those who lead them -- to be disposed of according to the will and inclination of managers or governors. Leaders were supposed to act in the collective interest of all those who have a stake in the institution's performance.

Consequently, it follows that office-holders, directors and managers are authorized to exercise their proper powers within a set of constraints. Empowerment comes with accompanying limitations that are designed to ensure that the functions of leadership are performed in a responsible manner. It is a fiduciary responsibility in a broad sense.

The virus of arbitrary leadership has spread as far as America's great universities. To anyone with direct experience of how matters of consequence are handled in today's citadels of academe, the shift away from some approximation of a consultative approach on major policy issues is striking. The phenomenon may not be universal, but it is widespread and growing. So, too, is the haughty attitude of senior administrators that the institution's well-being is their affair as proprietors who have the right to choose whether to deign to seek the advice or counsel (almost never approval) of those in whose name they administer. Faculty increasingly are viewed as staff, staff as hirelings and students as customers/product.

What aspects of university life are the targets of arbitrary action? Just about everything: tuition, faculty/student ratios, a shift to temporary/part-time faculty, responsiveness to allegations of rape and other offenses that could endanger the school's reputation and thereby revenues, the "privatization" of staff functions to cut expenditures to the bone, what levels of political activity on campus will be tolerated, etc. (Some adjunct professors have had their contracted teaching hours cut so as to disqualify them for institutional health insurance mandated by Obamacare). It is a rare institution where a serious effort is made to involve faculty in the process of deliberation and decision. Staff almost never.

There are very serious practical consequences to this mindset and pattern of behavior. University leaders preoccupied with their personal authority and emoluments are not inclined to become vocal plaintiffs before legislatures, governors, boards of trustees or the public -- leaders who strenuously protest the progressive abandonment of higher education. Today, in the University of California system students must cover a larger fraction of their educational costs than does the state, roughly $16,000. In the 1960s BR (before Reagan), that same education was free. This is a revolutionary change, matched across the country, that extracts a heavy toll on students -- especially those from families of modest means. They have limited choices: stick with cheaper state colleges or community colleges, incur heavy debt on onerous terms (and therefore think above all of future earnings when choosing a career), or work part-time. Many combine these options with an attendant decline in graduation rates. Yet, it is standard these days for university administrators and boards to exhort students to complete their degree sooner and to "cut down on the partying." Of course there is partying -- much of it associated with university promoted sports events. The "partying" for millions of other students amounts to working 20 or 30 hours a week.

I know of not a single university president who has spoken out loudly and clearly about this sorry state of affairs and its implications.

President Obama personally has taken the tighten-your-belt line. He has threatened universities with cuts in federal spending if they don't hold the line on tuition -- without mentioning that tuition is rising due to the drastic reduction in the level of public funding (while faculty and staff salaries stagnate). In addition, he has set as a criterion for evaluating universities the earnings of graduates. The implicit message: it's the money that counts -- not whether a career or job is fulfilling and contributes to the welfare of society. Go into finance or "consulting" and forget about government service or NGOs. Indeed, that makes a certain utilitarian sense if you want your kids to afford a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or to pay homage at the 9/11 Museum.

Jorma Kaukonen was halfway through a 45-minute phone interview last week when the subject of a Jefferson Airplane reunion finally came up.

The former lead guitarist of the band that not only helped define the psychedelic '60s but also its brand of freewheeling rock is, at the age of 74, still a busy man. He was looking ahead to two weeks of teaching guitar at his Fur Peace Ranch On the Road at Dana Point, Calif., before starting a tour to promote his precious new solo record, Ain't In No Hurry (Red House Records), a smooth blend of blues, folk, traditional and original tunes that releases February 17.

Call it coincidence, serendipity or the primal forces of nature at work, but the gentle soul with the magic fingerpicking hands that work as well as his mind was discussing plans to commemorate Jefferson Airplane's 50th anniversary when he was interrupted by the trill ringtone on his nearby cellphone.

"Oh, it's Jack Casady," Kaukonen merrily announced. "I'll call him later."

He and his bass-playing partner -- before, during and long after the '60s -- certainly have a lot to talk about, now more than ever. And expect the other surviving core members of the Airplane -- Paul Kantner, Marty Balin and Grace Slick -- to join that conversation as long as the days during this milestone year remain.

While the chance of all of them performing collectively again has been pooh-poohed recently, Kaukonen, who obligingly covered the subject in detail, leaves the door open for some type of formal get-together.

Before his cellphone rang, Kaukonen (left) said, "You know, Grace not singing anymore has taken a lot of pressure off the rest of us that really don't have the time it would take to put together a show like that. Listen, I have nothing but respect for the Airplane but I'm just not there today. But just the last time I was in California, I had dinner with Paul; we just did a gig (in December) at the Beacon (Theatre in New York for Casady's 70th birthday), where Marty sat in for four or five songs (including 'Volunteers'). And I talk to Grace all the time."

After the brief delay, Kaukonen sounded like he was giving the Jefferson Airplane idea a ringing endorsement.

"Anyway, so we talk about this stuff and my idea, because I think that something needs to be done, we're sort of working to see if everyone else is on board, 'cause it would take so much work literally to put a band together, much less the band (former drummers Spencer Dryden and Joey Covington are deceased). But we're all here, you know. It would be a shame not to do something.

"I could see yakking on talk shows. To be honest with you, I could see doing lectures at colleges. Not just talking about, telling war stories about the time. Maybe talking about the creative process. I could see all of us who are into it; Grace won't do it but Paul and Marty and Jack and I would, I think. I haven't heard from Paul or Marty on this yet."

Kaukonen did backtrack to add that Slick might chime in, as long as she doesn't have to sing. But you never know -- Stevie Nicks said in 2012 that the chances of Christine McVie returning to Fleetwood Mac were about as likely as "an asteroid hitting the earth," and look what happened -- the most lucrative tour of 2014 continues.

"If it's just talking, she might (participate)," Kaukonen said of Slick. "She loves to talk. And she's a great ... I mean nobody can yak like Grace can. But I can see the rest of us sitting with our instruments and going, 'Yeah, I remember doing this or doing that.' Just basically like having a seminar that involves the audience. That would be my idea."

Getting 'very personal'
The articulate Kaukonen is filled with ideas, and many of them work their way into songs, including four on the upcoming Ain't In No Hurry, his first solo album since 2009's River of Time.

While he won't pick a favorite -- "I don't write that many songs; I gotta like 'em all," he said modestly -- Kaukonen clearly admires "In My Dreams," which he wrote about his wife Vanessa, and "Seasons in the Field," a touching encapsulation of this time in his life that he calls "a poem set to words."

Larry Campbell, a jack-of-all-instruments who's kept legendary company while touring with the likes of Bob Dylan and Levon Helm, assisted on the album-closing tune's music, but its Kaukonen's raspy voice, poignant words and breathtaking acoustic guitar that just might move you to tears.

Each previous moment /
Was a blessing in disguise /
I never saw so clearly /
It was right before my eyes

Though he said the song needed some editing -- "It's not like, 'OK, I'm done here; I'm brilliant and it's perfect,' " Kaukonen added -- writing "Seasons in the Field" was a relaxing process.

"I'm not a wordsmith," Kaukonen said, though he contributed to plenty of Airplane albums during its existence. "I'm not a professional songwriter, guys like Jim Lauderdale or Guy Clark or Verlon Thompson, guys that write brilliant songs, brilliant song after song. And I'm not really sure what process motivates them to be able to be so prolific. I know some of their songs are very personal, but not all of them. But mine are always very personal.

"So something's has to be going on. So in 'Seasons of the Field,' I just started kind of reflecting. I've got a little office over a garage that I have at home because, you know, you can't practice or write around family. They don't mean to but they cannot not let you alone. And I just started thinking about what was going on and, you know, I spent some time working on the lyrics but really the whole thing just flowed very easily for me."

Hopefully, it'll be a set list fixture as he performs as a trio (with Campbell and Teresa Williams) from Feb. 14-22, solo from Feb. 25-28, then with mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff from March 5-15.

"Self-employed people don't have days off," Kaukonen said from his home in southeast Ohio less than a week before departing for the West Coast.

Still pleased to be playing acoustic Jefferson Airplane songs that he wrote ("Trial by Fire," "Third Week at the Chelsea") or performed (the traditional "Good Shepherd"), Kaukonen even went on iTunes to download two of the band's biggest hits -- "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" -- to relearn before Williams sang them at Casady's birthday bash.

If the Airplane's highly publicized volatility left any bitter feelings, Kaukonen believes it's a thing of the past.

"Well, I just reconnected with Paul," he said. "We had some issues. I mean it's just guys running their mouth," said Kaukonen, who looks back on an "amenable" relationship with all his ex-band members. "No big deal but I got to thinking. We're not kids anymore. You know, if you can't be friends with your old friends, who can you be friends with? You know, it's not like we fucked each other or anything like that. We didn't. We never did. It's not like, 'Well, I hate him because ...' It's not like Levon and Robbie Robertson (in The Band). Or actually, when you think about that, that's pretty absurd, too. But that's not for me to say. ....

"You know, a lot of years went by when I don't think we talked at all. But I've never found myself to be adversarial with them. Which is good. It saves lawyer money."

In the beginning
Kaukonen actually brought up the Airplane first during this interview, mentioning several times how luck has played a part in his personal and professional longevity. But his health apparently is a priority.

"I have a lot of physicals these days," he said. "The insurance companies insist on it. My doctor goes, 'You know, you really owe your parents a debt of gratitude. Good genes. ... My family's been, generally speaking, long-lived and pretty healthy for the most part."

Kaukonen, who laughs easily and often, must have inherited his sense of humor from his parents, too. He said his mother (Beatrice) lived to be almost 88 and his dad (Jorma Sr.) just fell short of 87 and both were "very, very funny people."

"My dad dropped dead at my mom's feet," he recalled. "It sucked for her; it was probably great for him. At his memorial, we're sitting, everybody's lionizing the old man, my mother turned to me and she said, 'Your father always was an inconsiderate bastard.' "

Musically, while attending Antioch College in Ohio, Kaukonen learned fingerpicking directly from Ian Buchanan and indirectly from seeing Rev. Gary Davis play. In 1962, he went to the University of Santa Clara, south of San Francisco, a school "where I couldn't afford to send my kid (17-year-old Zach) today."

That first weekend, he said, "I remember I was walking around the campus, and I saw a mimeographed sheet tacked up to a phone pole. And it said hootenanny at the Folk Theater on First Avenue in San Jose. ... I got there and Janis (Joplin) was there, I met a guy named Steve Talbott, he's passed away since. (Pre-Grateful Dead) Jerry Garcia, "Pigpen" (McKernan), actually they've all passed away, too. People that became mainstays. Actually, everybody we've mentioned so far except me has passed away. ...

"It was so funny, it was so exciting to ... in this sort of conservative, staid, what I perceived as sort of a staid college campus, to meet people from that area that loved the kind of stuff that I did."

It was there, Kaukonen said, where he first performed the Jimmy Cox cover "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" with Joplin. (A 1964 version by the two can be found on bootleg recordings.)

Appearing on a Jorma album for the first time, his roots-rock version that opens Ain't In No Hurry is a treat -- even minus that unmistakable Joplin voice.

"The PA in a little coffee house like the Folk Theater was less than minimal," Kaukonen said. "One microphone. And, of course, Janis was, as we all know, very powerful. So when the time came for me to be heard, I remember having, it was like one of those bluegrass things, you step up and shove your guitar into the microphone. I had to push her back. ... It was something. She was really something."

Preparing for takeoff
Performing together since 1958 as high schoolers in Washington D.C., Kaukonen and Casady became road roomies in the early Airplane days when, Kaukonen said, "I know this is hard for kids today to understand, but hotels didn't even have TVs."

When the group formed in 1965, Kaukonen claimed he made more money teaching guitar lessons in a San Jose basement than he did as the Airplane's lead guitarist.

Though he's a college graduate ("and I use the term loosely," Kaukonen said) with a degree in sociology, his only interest was playing music. Oh, there was a time in elementary school when he wanted to follow in his grandfather's footsteps to become a research bacteriologist, but "then I realized you had to study science and math. It wasn't just owning a bunch of test tubes and cool-looking stuff."

Becoming a heavily involved participant in the drug culture was practically a rite of passage those days in the Bay Area, but 50 years later, Kaukonen offers this frank opinion on a period that continues to be romanticized in books, films and music:

"For me and a lot of my friends ... the whole drugs and alcohol thing wasn't as much fun as we thought it was. It didn't play out that way. And I know a lot of people that say, 'Wow, I wish I was there; we could've done this, we could've done that,' and I'm going, 'Yeah, you could've.' But maybe it wasn't all it was cracked up to be."

Feeling good about being "sober for a number of years" now, Kaukonen confessed that "I don't think I was unscathed for a long time. ... But I managed to survive and I found my way and I'm doing OK. Many of my buddies that we could be talking about didn't and aren't."

In Living in the Material World, the Martin Scorsese documentary on George Harrison, the late Beatles guitarist recalls the disappointment of his first visit to San Francisco, saying, "I went to Haight-Ashbury expecting it to be this brilliant place. I thought it was gonna be all these groovy kind of gypsy kind of people with little shops making works of art and paintings and carvings. But instead it turned out to be just a lot of bums."

Before the Summer of Love in 1967, though, Kaukonen witnessed a different setting "that you tend not to hear so much."

"The hippie scene -- well what started out, it wasn't hippie, it was more of a beatnik scene -- was hard-working people; people had ideas, artists, writers, poets, musicians," he said. ... "This was way before the spare change thing, you know. Everybody really worked hard. Yes, it was different, yes, people dressed differently, yes, people smoked a lot of pot. But they got a lot of stuff done."

Summer of '69 and beyond
Playing Woodstock in August 1969 was a historical high for Kaukonen, who contends, "I'll probably never work another Woodstock. I did work Bonnaroo some years ago. Without getting specific, it's not Woodstock."

While he still enjoys playing festivals -- and plans to return to the Lockn' Music Festival in Arrington, Va., this September -- he doesn't see how that "Woodstock moment" can be duplicated.

"I never played before a crowd like that and probably never will again," Kaukonen said. "The fact that we, you know, we of a certain age, all of a sudden had an identity, you know the camaraderie that we were actually part of the culture. Even my father got it, you know. And he hated all that stuff back then." (laughs)

On the flip side, though, only a few months later there was Altamont, which Kaukonen said was as horrifying as it has been described and shown in the Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter.

"I don't know whether they were trying to re-create a Woodstock at Altamont or if they were just trying to do a free show as the Airplane and the Dead and so many other people had done in New York, in San Francisco, and it just went terribly wrong," he said. "It's hard to say. I'm not in their heads, so I don't know what their goals were. (laughs) I know this is an understatement, but it didn't work."

At least he came away from it with a few important life lessons and a personal moment worth sharing, regarding the Airplane's experience:

"Our little thing, as a parenthetical conclusion, next time you see the movie, notice Jack and I and Spencer never stopped playing until we couldn't play anymore. You know, that's our mantra. That's what I tell students I'm teaching: No matter what happens onstage, don't stop playing.

"But anyway, you know Marty got punched, all that. Well, as soon as that was done, I wasn't there for the poor guy getting killed. As soon as we got offstage, I realized, 'This is really a drag.' And I remember my ex-wife and Spencer the Airplane drummer and I, they flew us in on a helicopter. But nobody was taking us out. And we had no car. I remember we went to the parking lot, I found some guy that was passed out on the hood of his Mustang, we woke him up and said, 'If you let me drive you and us in this car to San Francisco, we'll buy you a Mexican dinner.' He said, 'OK,' and so he did and we did."

Without the helicopter to produce an exit strategy, his suspicions were confirmed, especially under such disturbing conditions. "We always joke about this: You're a star before the show but as soon as you've played, you're a piece of shit."

Guitar heroes
If guitarists were gunslingers, Kaukonen could have had quite a shootout back in the day. But he says he never saw it that way, though he made sure to check out what top guns such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were doing.

The first time he saw Cream perform at the Fillmore, Kaukonen was so impressed with Clapton's ability (and apparently his guitar) that he took it out on his own Rickenbacker 12-string that was used on some Airplane songs.

"I went back to my apartment and threw it through the wall like a spear," Kaukonen said. "Fortunately, I didn't break it, so I could sell it or trade it for another guitar.

"I found Clapton not only so inventive but what he did with the traditional music that I loved in a format that I'd never heard before was cool," he added. "Now Hendrix, yes, iconic, brilliant, I know all that stuff. I related as a player more to what Clapton did than what Hendrix did. I think it was because it was easier for me to understand. Just like I liked Rev. Gary Davis better than Robert Johnson from a learning and playing point of view."

Kaukonen, who was schooled in electric guitar by Mike Bloomfield, still likes to plug in, especially when assisting students, but rarely touches the instrument at home while playing his acoustic all the time.

On certain occasions, he'll get fired up, though. Last year, he met Chicago bluesman Dave Specter, who introduced Kaukonen to the sound of a Mexican Jazzmaster that was playing on one of his vinyl records.

"So I bought one immediately, put Lindy Fralin pickups in it and I've been playing it, because we did a Hot Tuna Electric tour," Kaukonen said. "I remember there was an interview with (ZZ Top's) Billy Gibbons some years ago where they asked how he kept it fresh electrically, and I believe his answer was, 'Buy new gear.' So there is some truth to that. I've got like 800 bucks in this guitar and it's as good as my Les Pauls. It's different, but it's really cool."

Keeping company with guys like Hendrix, Clapton and Bloomfield on Rolling Stone writer David Fricke's "Top 100 Guitarists of All Time" in 2003 was "flattering," Kaukonen said, but "I'm not sure what it means. ... To be recognized by your peers and people listening to music is always a good thing. "

Admitting "electric guitar is very, very seductive," Kaukonen still can be lured by its magical qualities. Having played his share of jams before there were jam bands and being the same age as Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, Kaukonen seemed like a possible go-to guitarist when that legendary group started searching for a candidate to celebrate their 50th year with three shows at Chicago's Soldier Field in July, two decades after Garcia's death.

So the proud Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who performed his dreamy "Embryonic Journey" from Surrealistic Pillow at the Airplane's induction ceremony in 1996 expressed mock indignation when asked if the Dead ever contacted him to replace the late Garcia (No. 13 on that "Top 100" list) instead of choosing Trey Anastasio, who was 2 years old during the Summer of Love.

"They did not," he said. "And my feelings are hurt. No, I was one of Phil's friends for a while. I've worked with them a little bit."

Getting serious, Kaukonen added, "I'm not the right guy for that gig. I think I'm more of a blues player. I don't really consider myself a pure blues player but I think that my muse is stronger as a blues player than Jerry's was. I think Trey's a great fit because he's a great guitar player, he's not a blues guitar player and he doesn't sound like Jerry. We'll see."

On that 2003 list, Kaukonen was ranked No. 54 between '50s session player Mickey Baker and Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore, but at no time did he want to be drawn into a popularity contest or pretend any rivalries existed.

"I don't think I considered that I played well enough to really ... I mean if I was gonna consider myself in the head-cutting business, I'd wanna play as well as any of the Chicago guys. You know, Elvin (Bishop), Bloomfield, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert King. Any of those guys that I consider to be master players. And I couldn't do that, so I don't think I gave myself enough credit to consider myself in the competition game. Which is probably good because, hey, what's to be competitive about music?"

Back to his roots
For a fan of blues and bluegrass, concocting Hot Tuna with Casady initially as a Jefferson Airplane side project happened organically for Kaukonen.

With an acoustic guitar on the road, he would play his songs with Casady in their hotel room during "the very beginning" days of the Airplane. Before the two called themselves Hot Tuna, Kaukonen thinks it was Kantner who suggested they play a song or two during an Airplane show at the Fillmore East "probably in '68 or '69."

"I was on a microphone with my old (Gibson) J-50, Jack was playing electric bass and I think we probably played 'Hesitation Blues' and something else. I don't remember what. And the crowd liked it. Because I never really thought about that being an outlet, you know. But then we started doing it more and more. And all of a sudden, we did a gig by ourselves."

Around that time Cream broke up, and Clapton took a more roots-oriented path on his first solo album with members of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, a supporting act during his brief fling with Blind Faith.

A few years after that, Jefferson Airplane split up.

While admiring Clapton -- "He broke my heart when he left Cream; like he gives a shit what Jorma thinks" -- making a leap of that magnitude was never considered because "that kind of stuff was so far over my head," Kaukonen said. "I cut school when they were teaching harmony, so I couldn't do any of that stuff."

Instead, his musical partnership with Casady -- "We just really focused on what we could do," he said -- seemed like the next logical step. As simple as that, at least for Kaukonen (right, with Casady).

"Jack and I never really approached our career intellectually," he said. "Now if Jack was part of this interview, he'd be having fun with us because Jack in his talk -- most people don't know this -- but Jack is a very intellectual guy. And he second-guesses himself and parses every sentence to about three or four subterranean levels. I mean this would be a complicated conversation.

"It just made sense for us. And I think musically speaking, we felt at home in that milieu. I mean, thank God we have the Americana concept, the Americana milieu. A lot of people are doing that stuff these days. It's not the stuff of Miley Cyrus. Hey, speaking of that, I was so excited to learn the word 'twerking.' I had no idea. ... We had other words for that stuff, but twerking wasn't one of them."

Kaukonen just hopes, even while the bar is always getting raised with the new kids on the block (he's a fan of Sturgill Simpson), that a few slots remain open at cozy clubs and genre-bending festivals for a couple of talented old-timers.

Finally getting an invitation to appear at South By Southwest, as a member of a panel to discuss the works of late photographer Jim Marshall, Kaukonen (who wrote the intro to the book The Haight) was thrilled to report that he also "was able to weasel my way into a showcase" this year.

Now, if only Austin City Limits or AmericanaFest would come calling.

There undoubtedly are more incredible tales to tell from the man whose "Third Week in the Chelsea" is among four selections he wrote for one of Jefferson Airplane's final studio albums.

Listening again to 1971's Bark, an original copy (wrapped in a grocery bag with Grace Slick illustrations of each band member) that remains in my vinyl collection, the last lines of "Third Week in the Chelsea" seem to summarize the end to a bittersweet chapter:

Time is getting late now and the sun is getting low /
My body's feeling tired from carrying another load /
And sunshine's waiting for me a little further down the road

While that bright prediction came true, Kaukonen still credits his former group for jump-starting his shining career. And what better way to close a late -- but not final -- chapter in this adventure than with those early comments regarding his professional longevity that included this thoughtful soliloquy:

"As far as the musical career thing, wow, that's a miracle. You can't script that, you know. I mean obviously, my sort of ... whatever you want to call what it is I do today, folkie, Americana, whatever it is that ball got rolling is thanks to the Jefferson Airplane. And I'd like to think I'd still be doing what I was doing without that. But I think I have more visibility as a result of that. But the fact that people still like what I do after all these years is, I mean, it's beyond a blessing. It really is. And there's no way you can script that kind of stuff.

"Jack and I talk about this a little bit. And I guess the only thing that I can really think of, besides the fact that I think the music is good most of the time, is that we're really honest. What you see with us is what you get."

It just goes to show, some folks don't need an Airplane to fly.

Publicity photos courtesy of Red House Records. Hot Tuna concert photo by Barry Berenson.

It takes courage to see beauty
in a world spread deep and silent
with interminable whiteness;
and to keep on being awed
by such uncommon splendor
while trying to suppress
a fundamental fear
of being buried by it.


But know it as it is:
Beauty is everlasting.
And winter's burial is not.
Underneath cold winter bone,
the flesh of summer sleeps.

_____________

This poem will appear in the upcoming book Poems from the Pond: The writings and wisdom of Peggy Freydberg.

I read a stunning submission this week from one of my students that had all the elements of good storytelling minus one thing: body sensations. I found myself desperately wanting her to describe the sensations that must have been coming up for her as she wrote about what for her was a true-life, horrid event of discovering that her child had been murdered. And although she's writing memoir, it's not just memoir that requires us to get into the physical sensations our characters feel. Whether your character is you or a made-up protagonist, body sensations (literally what you or your characters physically feel in reaction to circumstances) help your reader know that what they're feeling is aligned with what you wanted them to feel when you envisioned or wrote the passage.

Last summer I visited a friend who's a writer and writing teacher. She explained to me how writing (and by extension any creativity) moves through us like a spiritual force, and how we can tap into that essential creative source through yoga and energy work. I remembered this recently because I've returned to acupuncture after a four-year hiatus. I went back due to stress; I figured maybe it could release some of my pent-up anxiety. The first day on the table I felt the chi vibrating me, a sensation of such lightness that when I closed my eyes it felt like my arms were floating. My body hummed. And within three sessions I was feeling more grounded, infinitely more centered and capable, despite my circumstances being exactly the same as they were when I started.

I believe that creative energy pumps through us like a life force, a life source, for that matter. And I also know that writers get stuck. Being a writer requires us to access everything we have. It demands that you stop and listen; that you sometimes relive the very things you would do anything to forget. And whether you're writing fiction, memoir, poetry, or self-help, it asks you to bring yourself to the page -- real, authentic, naked, true. So why should it be a surprise that we stifle our creativity, that we sometimes ignore it, abandon it, submerge it, and even sabotage it?

But here's something to consider. If you knew your creativity was something inside of you that you could treat, would you do it? If, like chi, it just needed to get unblocked, would you pursue opportunities to make that happen? We live in a culture whose solution to being stuck is medicine, or caffeine, or alcohol. We also live in a culture that throws up every roadblock imaginable to leading a creative life. Although we revere the creative life, it's not actually valued.

Take a second to feel your body right now. Where do you feel creatively alive? Do you know? Where do you feel creatively stuck? Can you be with your body enough to follow your energy to its source of inspiration or stuckness? Do you feel it in your head? In your heart? In your gut? In your loins?

Body sensations are an emotional legend for our readers, and understanding how we feel as we walk through joy or tragedy is key to relating to those we are trying to reach. Writing body sensations takes real-life practice, though, because if we're blocked off from our emotions --because we don't know what they are; or because we're ignoring them; or because we feel afraid to face them -- then we are not feeling. And if we're not feeling, how can we write with full expression?

I am witnessing more and more that writing with true depth has a push and a pull. It invigorates and enlivens, but it also sucks people dry. I've seen people get sick; I've seen depression; I've seen true fallout -- all because of risking to revisit, to tell the truth, to forge forward. Which is why we need to take care of ourselves through the writing process.

If you have enough awareness to know that there's a certain energy center you might want to start working on this week, here are a few thoughts to kickstart you, or to spur your own better ideas:

For your head: Sometimes if you're too much in your head, the best thing to do is to get out. Listen to music and dance. Look at old photographs and allow yourself to be transported to another time and place. Make a collage and allow yourself to lose track of the time.

For your heart: The heart can be easily abandoned or forgotten in the push-push-push environment that is creation for the sake of being prolific. For those of you struggling, create a vision board to remind you why you write. Make a writing bucket list and do something from the list that engages your heart. (Check out this post for some ideas.)

For your gut: Acupuncture, folks, does wonders for the gut. Also, try listing other times in your life when you've said yes. Because the gut houses our fears, this is an exercise in reminding you of how and where you risked and what the outcome was. Your gut is also the source of your power, health, and deep knowing, so try a two-day cleanse (yes, I mean diet) that's connected to an intention around your writing: a fresh start; a new beginning; a reset.

For your loins: Sex, yes, an obvious one, or better yet, self-pleasuring. Athletes often talk about the power of sexual release before a big game, but for some reason writers don't seem to extol the virtues of the Big O quite as often. Also, before a writing session, try sitting in butterfly or sleeping hero or happy baby yoga positions (all pelvis openers), just to get the blood (and creativity) flowing.

In what ways have you been stuck with your writing, and how have you been able to tap into your creativity again?

Heart image courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com.