Firecrackers !!!

What a lovely beautiful time of the year summer is!

I go through the NY summers with a lot of mixed emotions, since I want to soak in every hot day with all of me and try to make it last the length of at least 3 days. It seems like summers are so short up here - and I guess coming from Savannah, they are! I have had some lovely summertime experiences already, including when my friend Alison (awesome violinist) performed on the riverfront with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. The second half of the show was timed to synchronize with firecrackers that were shot off over the river, just behind the stage where the orchestra played. It was AMAZING! And it lasted for about 35 minutes!

Something happens to me when I watch fireworks - like I become 7 again and I feel all that child excitement that I knew so well then. Think back. Remember when you were really young and you had that kind of excitement that was like armies of lightening bolts under your skin, that would distract you from eating, that would cause you to jump up and down, or run around like crazy, or yell incessantly, or laugh hysterically. Remember how you thought you might die if you had to sit in your desk a whole 15 more minutes before the bell would ring and you could escape the cofines of that sit-quietly, do what you're told, no fun school school regime? Or on the day of your birthday how you couldn't sleep or eat or relax because it was your birthday and it only came once a year and you had to enjoy it to the very most! Well, this is where I go when I see fireworks! It's like everything is able to be forgotten for that moment of loud bursts of light and fire. And it's so pretty! The colors and the shapes! And this particular experience they were timed to music?! That equaled utter happiness for me!

One of my best friends in the world was visiting me that weekend, Kyshona Armstrong, who is an AMAZING singer/songwriter living in Athens, GA. (Check her out at myspace.com/kyshona) And randomly another friend of ours from college, Tamika, was in town so the three of us went to the fireworks show! Here are a few pictures of our lovely moment!

Our 3-D glasses to enhance the experience


Before the show


In ACTION


Kyshona captured me in my moment of glee!


A packed subway ride home with violinist Alison


In addition to that things have been going crazy. On the music therapy front, last week we conducted a 7-hour workshop to instruct participants from regional nursing homes and hospitals on how to do therapeutic rhythmic activities with dementia patients. That took a lot out of me since I was in charge of most of it - but I had a great team to work with that made things so smooth!

In music, I have been recording for a project of ambient music with an amazing producer, Tim Somer, which has enlightened me so much on the regulatory effects of music, not to mention the recording process, wow! More about that later.

On the Moby front, we had another Little Death show on Thursday night which turned out to be totally fun! More pics from that soon...

And onward with Erin's and my band...... I'll tell you some good stuff about that next!
Love and happy hot summer!
Luci

The Marines

My close friend, Kirby Harwell, is a pilot in the Marines. Yeah, I know, doesn't that sound so tough! They were in town for Fleet Week, where the Navy and Marines come to show off their hot gear. Well, that's how I interpreted the event, I don't know if that's quite accurate as to the purpose. But wow, what another life, the military! WHAT another LIFE! I am so proud of Kirby for working so hard and being so good at what he does (now flying helicopters). I just hope the war will end before he has to go to Iraq in the fall. AHH! Please please please!!!

See the pictures below. AOW baby!

The machine (looks pretty SMALL to me honestly!)


I had to try it out!


Doing an interview, yeah he's big time


One of his missiles

Coo Ee

Hello! Such exciting news!!!

I have a new pet. A new friend! A beautiful dove has taken up residence on my fire escape, and she's not just any kind of dove, she's a mourning dove! She is light brown, and in the sunlight (which shines directly on the far corner of the fire escape for about 30 minutes max per day - thus why I have no pics of her in the direct sunlight) she has beautiful blue shimmery feathers on the top of her neck and pink shimmers on the side. And my favorite part - she has the most elegant light blue eyeliner surrounding each of her eyes. Gorgeous. You can just barely see it in the pictures below. Her nest is about 2 feet from where my head rests on the pillow when I sleep at night, so every morning I peek out from behind my shade to check on her.

Well, the most exciting thing has happened. She laid two eggs!!!!! OHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I have all my LIFE wanted to watch baby birds being born in the wild. The closest I have ever come was in 3rd Grade science with Mr. Eswine, who hatched duckling eggs under incubators for us to watch and then lead around the garden once they were toddling (((so cute!!))). But this is even more exciting because she's a wild [urban] mourning dove. How beautiful. She and I spend a lot of time communicating through our eyeballs, since all she does is blink (with her blue eyeliner dazzling). I have very accurately figured out how to mimic her call, but since she's been sitting on her eggs she hasn't been calling much at all.

Mourning doves are monogamous birds (although I haven't seen the male around in a while-maybe he's busy at the firm), and once they lay their eggs it takes only two weeks for them to hatch. When the birds are born, they are altricial, which means they don't have any feathers and they can't see. OHHHHH! How cuuuuuuuuuuute!!! I'm going to flip when they're born! I tell you, the one really hard thing for me, as I live in this big city, is that I miss nature. I miss animals, and grass, and frogs, and fish, and red dirt, and turtles, and dolphins, and cormorants, and otters...

But look what's happened! Surely this is a sign that it's not quite time for me to leave this town. I also cannot ignore the fact that it is a mourning dove who has chosen to live on my fire escape and love me! A pigeon would make sense, since there must be a few million in this city, but as far as I know, I haven't ever really noticed that New York has mourning doves! I guess my beautiful Amy, master of birds as well as many other animals, is showing me she's still involved in my life. Oh I love you Edna!

Here are the pictures, GET excited!!!!

Mommy


Babies


Mommy sitting on babies


She's such a diligent mother. She doesn't leave that nest EVER! I have seen her leave the nest twice for about 10 minutes each time sitting across the fire escape, but I haven't seen that fire escape empty since those eggs were laid. What a good mommy! Oh, I named her Coo Ee, by the way. Such a beautiful girl. I love her!
Off to make some music now.
Love,
Luci

Blue Moon

Hi! Sorry it's been so long. So much has been going on, wow. May - a beautiful month, full of emotion. And check it out, last night was a BLUE MOON! In case you're not brushed up on what a blue moon is, there are several definitions, but the simplest one is when there are two full moons in a month! So exciting, because it doesn't happen very often. Last night I had a very bluemoon evening - I had the pleasure of seeing the great Matisyahu perform. If you haven't already heard of him, he's a brilliant musician who combines Jewish themes with reggae beats and sounds. Although he performs in traditional Hasidic clothing, he sounds like he just stepped off the boat from Jamaica. Amazing!

Now, this was an interesting experience for me, because, little did I know, this was a very underground event. (I was invited by his percussionist, Marlon Sobol, who is a friend and colleague of mine in the NY music therapy world.) This was Matisyahu's first ever fan-club show (i.e. closest fans, friends, and family). It was at what seemed like a secret gallery in Brooklyn, just off the water, and when I walked in it appeared as any other underground club I'd been in. Until I looked around me at the people. It was amazing! Young people, most my age and probably younger, dressed like they had stepped out of the middle of the 20th century, if not earlier! The guys, it seemed, were all dressed formally, many in full suits with hats, others in white shirts and dark pants, their long beards and covering most of their faces. And the girls - there wasn't a knee in that place showing! (I was so glad I had decided to wear pants.) Long skirts and dresses, muted colors, straight-hair wigs surrounded me, among other modest styles of dress. And the room was magical! The energy coming from the stage and flowing back from the audience was beautiful. So peaceful! Everyone, from grandparents to pre-teens were grooving to the sweet flow of the vocals, guitar, and percussion....WOW!

I am always delighted when I stumble upon a totally different social scenario. It's fantastic to dive into another culture for a moment, to ponder the beautiful diversity in the world, and how our distinctive cultural backgrounds lead us to each put our unique touch on the world as it is now. It troubles me to think that so often these differences are fought over rather than cherished. I guess it comes down to people being closed to all ways but their own way - yet why would you want to close yourself off from the many different and beautiful ways of thinking/living/acting/being? There is so much richness in cultural differences! So much to be learned! So many other perspectives to entertain and explore... And the very blue moon shone down me like a mirror in the sky as I walked home pondering all these things.

Phone camera: Matisyahu (on right) Marlon (center)


Stay tuned for another exciting post. I had the pleasure of hanging out with some of our nation's armed forces. Another new experience. Can't wait to tell you all about my thoughts on that...or maybe I'll just show some pictures.

Love always!
Luci