New Years and Sand Castles
Saturday, January 1, 2022
photo by ac productions / getty images
A New Year has begun, and I wish you and your own a happy, healthy, and creative one. It’s also a time when I do some looking back, and my thoughts have turned to sand castles.
Over my lifetime I’ve made sand castles on many beaches of the world - in Venezuela, on Padre Island in Texas, in Scheveningen in the Netherlands, on Grand Cayman, on Sanibel Island in Florida, and on Fire Island and Jones Beach in New York. Big sand castles, small ones, elaborately sculpted ones, and formless blobs. None stood more than a few hours before an incoming wave washed it away.
While sifting through papers one day, I ran across an interview I gave from 12 years ago. In it I said something like, “As long as I can go out and do concerts, I’ll be able to keep making a living at music.” When I said that, I couldn’t imagine a future in which I’d be ready and willing to play concerts, but face nagging doubts about the safety of doing them. Live music is life-affirming for everyone who gathers to play it and listen to it. Like many folks, I’m still grappling with how to do it while minimizing risk to folks who enjoy my music.
So I’m making plans, but they could turn out to be sand castles facing incoming waves. The tide of Covid looks pretty strong right now. Yet rest assured, friends, it WILL ebb, and likely soon. I’ll keep building more, because it’s what I do.
In the short-term, I am looking to sidestep the concerns over in-person gatherings by keeping up a schedule of streaming concerts. In January, I’ve got a streaming concert on every Wednesday!
This week, January 5, is a Wictor Wednesday, my monthly streaming show on Zoom. Sign-up info is below. And the Queens Public Library has scheduled me for a series of streaming concerts on facebook, each with a different theme, for the four Wednesdays afterwards. Again, details below.
I’m also now doing private lessons and consultations over Zoom on a limited basis - guitar, slide guitar, songwriting, performance, musicianship, improvisation, body percussion, or any other area of musical creativity we might explore. Please contact me at patwictor at gmail.com for rates and scheduling.
What sand castles have you built, literally and metaphorically?
————————————
Eyes and Ears: What I’m Listening to and Reading
Eyes:
Martin Luther King, Jr - A Gift of Love https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807000663
Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire https://tinyurl.com/2p939xcm
Tomas Tranströmer - The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems
https://bookshop.org/books/the-great-enigma-new-collected-poems/9780811216722
Ears:
Golden Gate Quartet, Vol. 3 - https://tinyurl.com/2p9btxhu
Wendy Eisenberg - Bent Ring https://wendyeisenberg.bandcamp.com
Ben Allison - The Stars Look Very Different Today https://benallison.com/#listen-section
Over my lifetime I’ve made sand castles on many beaches of the world - in Venezuela, on Padre Island in Texas, in Scheveningen in the Netherlands, on Grand Cayman, on Sanibel Island in Florida, and on Fire Island and Jones Beach in New York. Big sand castles, small ones, elaborately sculpted ones, and formless blobs. None stood more than a few hours before an incoming wave washed it away.
While sifting through papers one day, I ran across an interview I gave from 12 years ago. In it I said something like, “As long as I can go out and do concerts, I’ll be able to keep making a living at music.” When I said that, I couldn’t imagine a future in which I’d be ready and willing to play concerts, but face nagging doubts about the safety of doing them. Live music is life-affirming for everyone who gathers to play it and listen to it. Like many folks, I’m still grappling with how to do it while minimizing risk to folks who enjoy my music.
So I’m making plans, but they could turn out to be sand castles facing incoming waves. The tide of Covid looks pretty strong right now. Yet rest assured, friends, it WILL ebb, and likely soon. I’ll keep building more, because it’s what I do.
In the short-term, I am looking to sidestep the concerns over in-person gatherings by keeping up a schedule of streaming concerts. In January, I’ve got a streaming concert on every Wednesday!
This week, January 5, is a Wictor Wednesday, my monthly streaming show on Zoom. Sign-up info is below. And the Queens Public Library has scheduled me for a series of streaming concerts on facebook, each with a different theme, for the four Wednesdays afterwards. Again, details below.
I’m also now doing private lessons and consultations over Zoom on a limited basis - guitar, slide guitar, songwriting, performance, musicianship, improvisation, body percussion, or any other area of musical creativity we might explore. Please contact me at patwictor at gmail.com for rates and scheduling.
What sand castles have you built, literally and metaphorically?
————————————
Eyes and Ears: What I’m Listening to and Reading
Eyes:
Martin Luther King, Jr - A Gift of Love https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807000663
Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire https://tinyurl.com/2p939xcm
Tomas Tranströmer - The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems
https://bookshop.org/books/the-great-enigma-new-collected-poems/9780811216722
Ears:
Golden Gate Quartet, Vol. 3 - https://tinyurl.com/2p9btxhu
Wendy Eisenberg - Bent Ring https://wendyeisenberg.bandcamp.com
Ben Allison - The Stars Look Very Different Today https://benallison.com/#listen-section