I thought I would like using Blogger on my iPad 2. There’s something appealing about the idea of reclining in my half-painted living room/kitchen next to the gas insert fireplace, bespectacled and tapping away thoughtfully on my fruity white tablet.
Except, instead of tapping away thoughtfully I’m swearing away thoughtfully while I try to create coherent sentences. Even if I’m able to type every word correctly on the iPad’s soft keyboard, iOS 5 will “help” me when it doesn’t recognize the word I typed by making a suggestion of a word it thinks I want to type. If I don’t opt out of the suggestion, the word I meant to type gets replaced by the word Apple wants me to type.
I’m often looking at my hands rather than the screen when I type on the iPad, since I’m trying to make sure I push the right letters and there’s no tactile reassurance to guide my fingers. But because my eyes aren’t on the road, I sometimes don’t notice auto-correct in the crosswalk until it’s too late. For example, the other night I was trying to tap out the following tweet:
“Kids and I are reading Ozma of Oz. Love those stories, and they’re great for little ears.”
Thanks to iOS’s helpful auto-correct feature, what I actually posted to Twitter said:
“Kids and I are reading Oxnard of Oz. Love those stories, and they’re great for little ears.”
“Oxnard of Oz”? Really? What is that? Never mind the fact that the iOS version of the tweet is funnier than my version. I’m tired of my meaning being auto-corrected. It feels like I’m living in a George Orwell novel. Pass me my Nexus S 4G, man, and liberate me. Oh wait, Android does the same auto-correct thing. Crud.
So, to reduce my stress level, instead of tapping out the rest of this post on the iPad 2 in the Blogger mobile site or Quickoffice, I’ll be keying it out in Google Docs on a ThinkPad. I’m not sure the sentences will be any more coherent, to be honest, but at least I’ll have a fighting chance.
I never thought I would quit music. I took piano lessons from age 7-12, played the cornet in the 6th grade band (wanted to play saxophone, but we already owned a cornet), and sung in choir in junior high and high school. All of that might point to a lifelong proclivity for music, even though I’m really not a talented musician (not as good as my brother anyway). My obsession with music has been more that, an obsession, than a talent.
My real obsession with music took root when one day, at age 16, I heard a friend’s brother absentmindedly strumming the guitar. He wasn’t playing anything complicated, probably a three chord progression. The guitar wasn’t low end, but probably didn’t cost more than $300. Nevertheless, his performance was a moment of epiphany for me, one of those rare instances in which I was able to understand something differently than I ever had before.
The only thing with which I could compare the experience, for the reader’s sake, is to the moment when you fall in love with a good friend, when you gaze at someone you’ve seen a million times before and suddenly, unexplainably, feel an attraction that’s never been there. It’s an experience that’s impossible to anticipate or replicate, and extremely difficult to explain if you’ve never felt it before. I’ll leave the comparison there.
As I absorbed the harmonic blend emanating from those steel strings, I suddenly appreciated the beauty of the instrument he was playing, and the rich, subtle timbre of the sounds it was capable of creating. But more importantly I greatly admired the skill of the player, even though I, in my as-yet uneducated state, recognized that it was elementary. Nevertheless, my eyes were fixed on his hands. A thought materialized in my brain: “I ought to learn to do that.” And with that thought came a plan and a vision of what my life was going to be from that day forward.
My mom had a caramel-colored guitar which she had taught herself to play, and which she occasionally slipped out of its cardboard case and strummed awhile. As soon as I got home that night I located the instrument and dug around for the dog-eared guitar songbook my mom kept in the front closet with the piles of old vinyl records.
Ahh, those records. I grew up with those records, which mainly consisted of the Osmonds, John Denver, Neil Sedaka, Manheim Steamroller, and the Carpenters. None of which are in my own personal collection, even though I appreciate them as early influences. But I digress.
I found the guitar book (it had a painting of Yanni on it which I think was actually supposed to be George Harrison), ripped it open, and found “Here Comes the Sun.” I think I played about three hours that night, until my untrained fingers were in such pain that I could not coerce them to perform any more. I didn’t sleep much that night. I remember waking up over and over, my fingers in the kind of intense, achy pain that only a guitar player knows. That pain would not subside for the next three weeks.
So powerful was the experience of watching that guitar performance, that guitar playing quickly became the main part of my self image. As I’m sure is the case with most guitar players, I tried to start a band as soon as I had memorized three chords. I got better at playing the guitar, eventually moving to electric guitar on a cheap Mexican Fender Strat. I grew out my hair, shaved a lot less, started thinking in phrases like “my parents don’t understand me,” stayed out late at night with smelly touring musicians, and dreamed that my high school rock band (“Rash”) would make it big. We actually did make it big, sort of. We took second place in the high school battle of the bands. That’s big, right?
Even though my dedication to music as a lifestyle has waxed and waned since that time, the rock musician part of my self image has never left me. I’ve upgraded my guitars and owned various amplifiers. I’ve mastered home recordings, posted podcasts, and performed rock operas. I’ve owned, pawned, and re-owned thousands of dollars worth of music gear. No matter what I’ve done, where I’ve been, I’ve always had the thought in the back of my mind that if I could just get some time, if I could just get a few days off, I would put together that superlative album, that meisterwerk that would turn heads and generate downloads. I can’t express adequately express in words the intensity with which that longing has burned in me.
I’ve actually been working on for the past six years that was supposed to turn into that meisterwerk. It’s a concept album called “Sky Burial” which follows two characters, David and Katherine, through a spiritual relationship that borrows religious aspects from various faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity.
The story begins with David’s funeral. David and Katherine are soul mates, and David dies while Katherine is away. Before his death, David chooses to be buried in the sky (a Tibetan ritual, the gruesome details of which I won’t go into here), and a grieving Katherine follows the Drigung monks to the charnel grounds and witnesses the sky burial.
David, his spirit and body separated, is also witness to the burial, and his spirit follows the Eurasian griffons into the sky after the burial is complete. He then visits the bejeweled house of the elephant man (combining Christian and Hindu aspects) and requests that the elephant man return him to the earth so that he can be with Katherine again.
The elephant man agrees to return David’s spirit to the earth, but warns David that this may be an unhappy experience. Blissfully unconcerned with the elephant man’s warning, and yet feeling somehow melancholy, David follows a road between the clouds back to Katherine’s house on earth.
When David reaches Katherine he realizes that she cannot see or hear him, and that he can only communicate with her through her dreams. The two are delighted with this arrangement at first, and find new depth to their relationship. But it soon becomes apparent to David that despite their mutual love, their aphysical relationship is hurting Katherine because she is neglecting her waking life in favor of her intangible life with David.
Deeply hurt by the realization that he needs to move on and let Katherine live her life, David runs away and hides himself in the body of an airplane that crashed near the city where Katherine lives. Depressed and secluded in the wreckage, he sees a ray of starlight that penetrates the twisted metal and hears the voice of the elephant man descending from the sky. The elephant man explains that David knew, deep within himself, that he could never really be with Katherine again, and that his attempt to return to her, while understandable, was misguided.
The elephant man promises David that if he will return to the sky, he and Katherine will both be able to find peace. David accepts this invitation, and starts up the road into the sky. As he ascends, he looks back toward Katherine’s house and sees the light still on. Unable to speak to her one last time in a dream, David finally feels that he is doing the right thing, and silently says goodbye to her.
I originally intended to arrange this album so that it could be performed by a single vocalist/guitarist, but as I began rehearsing the songs things started to go in a different direction. I performed almost all of the songs from the album with my last band, The Ring of Scribes, over various shows that we played last year. I had hoped to save my money and record the album at a studio sometime in the near future.
It’s not going to happen. I’ve lately realized some things. I’m 33 years old. I am a husband and a father of a little girl and a little boy who need me. I have a half-finished home that needs my attention, a career in the law that excites me, and a life that is incompatible with the time and dedication that such a project would require.
So a few weeks ago I quit. Not just the album, but music altogether. I forced the dream of making this album, and the other albums I surely would have written, out of my mind. I grew up. I retired. It’s for the best~
Except, instead of tapping away thoughtfully I’m swearing away thoughtfully while I try to create coherent sentences. Even if I’m able to type every word correctly on the iPad’s soft keyboard, iOS 5 will “help” me when it doesn’t recognize the word I typed by making a suggestion of a word it thinks I want to type. If I don’t opt out of the suggestion, the word I meant to type gets replaced by the word Apple wants me to type.
I’m often looking at my hands rather than the screen when I type on the iPad, since I’m trying to make sure I push the right letters and there’s no tactile reassurance to guide my fingers. But because my eyes aren’t on the road, I sometimes don’t notice auto-correct in the crosswalk until it’s too late. For example, the other night I was trying to tap out the following tweet:
“Kids and I are reading Ozma of Oz. Love those stories, and they’re great for little ears.”
Thanks to iOS’s helpful auto-correct feature, what I actually posted to Twitter said:
“Kids and I are reading Oxnard of Oz. Love those stories, and they’re great for little ears.”
“Oxnard of Oz”? Really? What is that? Never mind the fact that the iOS version of the tweet is funnier than my version. I’m tired of my meaning being auto-corrected. It feels like I’m living in a George Orwell novel. Pass me my Nexus S 4G, man, and liberate me. Oh wait, Android does the same auto-correct thing. Crud.
So, to reduce my stress level, instead of tapping out the rest of this post on the iPad 2 in the Blogger mobile site or Quickoffice, I’ll be keying it out in Google Docs on a ThinkPad. I’m not sure the sentences will be any more coherent, to be honest, but at least I’ll have a fighting chance.
I never thought I would quit music. I took piano lessons from age 7-12, played the cornet in the 6th grade band (wanted to play saxophone, but we already owned a cornet), and sung in choir in junior high and high school. All of that might point to a lifelong proclivity for music, even though I’m really not a talented musician (not as good as my brother anyway). My obsession with music has been more that, an obsession, than a talent.
My real obsession with music took root when one day, at age 16, I heard a friend’s brother absentmindedly strumming the guitar. He wasn’t playing anything complicated, probably a three chord progression. The guitar wasn’t low end, but probably didn’t cost more than $300. Nevertheless, his performance was a moment of epiphany for me, one of those rare instances in which I was able to understand something differently than I ever had before.
The only thing with which I could compare the experience, for the reader’s sake, is to the moment when you fall in love with a good friend, when you gaze at someone you’ve seen a million times before and suddenly, unexplainably, feel an attraction that’s never been there. It’s an experience that’s impossible to anticipate or replicate, and extremely difficult to explain if you’ve never felt it before. I’ll leave the comparison there.
As I absorbed the harmonic blend emanating from those steel strings, I suddenly appreciated the beauty of the instrument he was playing, and the rich, subtle timbre of the sounds it was capable of creating. But more importantly I greatly admired the skill of the player, even though I, in my as-yet uneducated state, recognized that it was elementary. Nevertheless, my eyes were fixed on his hands. A thought materialized in my brain: “I ought to learn to do that.” And with that thought came a plan and a vision of what my life was going to be from that day forward.
My mom had a caramel-colored guitar which she had taught herself to play, and which she occasionally slipped out of its cardboard case and strummed awhile. As soon as I got home that night I located the instrument and dug around for the dog-eared guitar songbook my mom kept in the front closet with the piles of old vinyl records.
Ahh, those records. I grew up with those records, which mainly consisted of the Osmonds, John Denver, Neil Sedaka, Manheim Steamroller, and the Carpenters. None of which are in my own personal collection, even though I appreciate them as early influences. But I digress.
I found the guitar book (it had a painting of Yanni on it which I think was actually supposed to be George Harrison), ripped it open, and found “Here Comes the Sun.” I think I played about three hours that night, until my untrained fingers were in such pain that I could not coerce them to perform any more. I didn’t sleep much that night. I remember waking up over and over, my fingers in the kind of intense, achy pain that only a guitar player knows. That pain would not subside for the next three weeks.
So powerful was the experience of watching that guitar performance, that guitar playing quickly became the main part of my self image. As I’m sure is the case with most guitar players, I tried to start a band as soon as I had memorized three chords. I got better at playing the guitar, eventually moving to electric guitar on a cheap Mexican Fender Strat. I grew out my hair, shaved a lot less, started thinking in phrases like “my parents don’t understand me,” stayed out late at night with smelly touring musicians, and dreamed that my high school rock band (“Rash”) would make it big. We actually did make it big, sort of. We took second place in the high school battle of the bands. That’s big, right?
Even though my dedication to music as a lifestyle has waxed and waned since that time, the rock musician part of my self image has never left me. I’ve upgraded my guitars and owned various amplifiers. I’ve mastered home recordings, posted podcasts, and performed rock operas. I’ve owned, pawned, and re-owned thousands of dollars worth of music gear. No matter what I’ve done, where I’ve been, I’ve always had the thought in the back of my mind that if I could just get some time, if I could just get a few days off, I would put together that superlative album, that meisterwerk that would turn heads and generate downloads. I can’t express adequately express in words the intensity with which that longing has burned in me.
I’ve actually been working on for the past six years that was supposed to turn into that meisterwerk. It’s a concept album called “Sky Burial” which follows two characters, David and Katherine, through a spiritual relationship that borrows religious aspects from various faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity.
The story begins with David’s funeral. David and Katherine are soul mates, and David dies while Katherine is away. Before his death, David chooses to be buried in the sky (a Tibetan ritual, the gruesome details of which I won’t go into here), and a grieving Katherine follows the Drigung monks to the charnel grounds and witnesses the sky burial.
David, his spirit and body separated, is also witness to the burial, and his spirit follows the Eurasian griffons into the sky after the burial is complete. He then visits the bejeweled house of the elephant man (combining Christian and Hindu aspects) and requests that the elephant man return him to the earth so that he can be with Katherine again.
The elephant man agrees to return David’s spirit to the earth, but warns David that this may be an unhappy experience. Blissfully unconcerned with the elephant man’s warning, and yet feeling somehow melancholy, David follows a road between the clouds back to Katherine’s house on earth.
When David reaches Katherine he realizes that she cannot see or hear him, and that he can only communicate with her through her dreams. The two are delighted with this arrangement at first, and find new depth to their relationship. But it soon becomes apparent to David that despite their mutual love, their aphysical relationship is hurting Katherine because she is neglecting her waking life in favor of her intangible life with David.
Deeply hurt by the realization that he needs to move on and let Katherine live her life, David runs away and hides himself in the body of an airplane that crashed near the city where Katherine lives. Depressed and secluded in the wreckage, he sees a ray of starlight that penetrates the twisted metal and hears the voice of the elephant man descending from the sky. The elephant man explains that David knew, deep within himself, that he could never really be with Katherine again, and that his attempt to return to her, while understandable, was misguided.
The elephant man promises David that if he will return to the sky, he and Katherine will both be able to find peace. David accepts this invitation, and starts up the road into the sky. As he ascends, he looks back toward Katherine’s house and sees the light still on. Unable to speak to her one last time in a dream, David finally feels that he is doing the right thing, and silently says goodbye to her.
I originally intended to arrange this album so that it could be performed by a single vocalist/guitarist, but as I began rehearsing the songs things started to go in a different direction. I performed almost all of the songs from the album with my last band, The Ring of Scribes, over various shows that we played last year. I had hoped to save my money and record the album at a studio sometime in the near future.
It’s not going to happen. I’ve lately realized some things. I’m 33 years old. I am a husband and a father of a little girl and a little boy who need me. I have a half-finished home that needs my attention, a career in the law that excites me, and a life that is incompatible with the time and dedication that such a project would require.
So a few weeks ago I quit. Not just the album, but music altogether. I forced the dream of making this album, and the other albums I surely would have written, out of my mind. I grew up. I retired. It’s for the best~
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