My friend TED

TED talks are great, hey?

More than a force for good, they're a force for thought which is more long-lasting and, therefor, maybe, important. It's like the old BodyShop slogan about teaching people to fish. Only, here, it's:

Be nice to someone and they'll improve for a day.

Teach someone to think about what being nice really means and the whole world gets better forever.

Or something like that.

They're not all ground-breaking or intriguing, but many, maybe even most, are. Here's one of my favorites in terms of thought-provokation (not a real word, yet):

Some more Finnish Things

So, I'm back in Finland, on a mini-tour, and have, for you:

Two more great Finnish things:

1) Running along an isolated road deep in the dense pine-and-birch forest, I am passed by a red car. Not long later, the car has turned around, driven back to me, and stopped. Inside: an older man (70s? 80s?) and a dog (beagle). The man rolls down the window and says something to me in Finnish. I say one of the very very few things I can say in Finnish: "I don't speak Finnish. Do you speak English?" he laughs and says he doesn't speak English and proceeds to get out of the car...

So. In a lot of places this would be the scary bit. For me, it was the hilarious bit. Even though he knows I don't speak Finnish, the man goes on to talk to me about...stuff in Finnish. Shakes my hand, gets excited and says "Arteles!" in a happy way. We establish, through gesticulation, that I am here as a musician and, through gesticulation and the fact that his suspenders have hunting scenes on them that he is here hunting. He laughs a lot, shakes my hand again, and drives away with his dog.

Finland is awesome. Imagine driving back to introduce yourself to every stranger you saw in LA.

2) The "recycling shop" which is a lot like our charity or second-hand shops except...everything is free! What? Yeah! House-hold items, clothes, toys, furniture, whatever. The government provides funding for the rent, heating, etc, and, in turn, people throw away a lot less stuff and waste a lot less money! I got two toques, ten buttons, and some really nice mittens. All for free!

All this is reminiscent to me of a book Charlie was reading once, called "The European Dream" . I think these countries may be on to something ( ahem ). And I think I like it.

Numbers

And then last week I turned 30, and it was no big deal at all. I went swimming in the river, ate candy from Charlie got flowers from Bryce. I like 30. I feel thirty. I am very very happy. I love my job(s), my people, my life.

That's all.

Stage non-presence.

Knowing how to hold yourself and what to do with things like your hands while performing on stage is a pretty important skill in my line of work. People call this stage presence.

But there's another, related, but also kind of opposite skill that's equally important, really. That's knowing what to do when you're onstage but not performing. Stage non-presence.

For a little while, in The Cedar, whenever Neil would do a solo thing, the rest of us would knit, onstage. That kind of worked, but probably wouldn't go over too well with some of my bigger freelance stuff.

A drummer friend told me once about a guy in his band who would crouch down into a ball with his hands over his ears when he wasn't playing. Then he got kicked out of the band.

It's a tough question, what to do when everyone is kind of but not really looking at you. Look at the performer, look straight ahead, look all over the place? Dance a bit? Stay very, very still?

Here's a video (probably off someone's phone. The audience singing is a nice perk) I found on youtube of my gig from this weekend of me mostly not-playing. These are the sorts of things I use as study guides. I think I wave my bow around way too much. But the subtle head-dancing is nice...

Kyrös...FM!

Dear everyone,

As you probably know, I was just in Finland, at the magnificent Arteles.

As you maybe also know, Charlie and I had a daily radio show there. (There is a studio attached to the kitchen. Like any quality residency should have.)

But perhaps you did not know that we set ourselves a challenge for this radio show. Every day (every day!*) we hit "random page" on wikipedia, and then wrote, recorded and produced a song based on whatever random page came up. We had 90 minutes to complete each one, and then we played them on that day's radio show.

Of course, musical genius/hilarity ensued.

And now, you can listen to all those songs! Even if you're not in Finland. We've put them all up on bandcamp for you.

So. Listen. And tell us your favorite! But don't tell us your least favorite, that would be too sad.



*Except a few days. Like when we were in Estonia. Or the day we went to go look at art around a lake.