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A Bad Wife
I live with my two husbands. The oldest one stands across the courtyard – dead – two feet above ground, several feet below. The youngest one is plugged in the bedroom, recharging. While I sit here, trying to write the story of my life. Where should I begin?
Let’s begin from the beginning.
One day, Brahma created the beautiful earth – mountains and rivers, birds and animals – then went into deep meditation. When he awakened eons later, he saw that all creatures had multiplied and made the world even more gorgeous. Pleased, he thought: I should create beings who can truly appreciate this beauty the way I do! So he created four men from the four directions. Perfect beings. But when he commanded them to reproduce and populate the earth, they refused. Enraged by their disobedience, Brahma’s anger took form – Rudra emerged from his mind, fierce and obedient. “You! Create the people!” Brahma ordered Rudra, and returned to meditation. When he next opened his eyes, the earth crawled with ugly beasts. Disappointed, Brahma stopped Rudra’s work and sent him away to meditate, to dive deep into his soul and learn the proper way of creation. Then Brahma had a thought: Why not create a species like the animals – one that reproduces through attraction and desire, beings who will both enjoy this world and populate it? But he had no template, no shape for such creatures. He prayed to the higher energy for guidance. In response, a magnificent being appeared – half-man, half-woman. The divine energy smiled and said, “Divide my form into two parts. Make them man and woman. They will always be drawn to each other – if not in body, then in mind, if not in this life, then across lifetimes. Then someday, I myself will unite and guide them towards a better eternal world free from the shackles of mortality, desire and longing.”
My grandma used to tell this story from Shiva Purana when I was young. And I would ask her, why did Brahma tear apart something that was already complete?
Beta, she said, cracking her knuckles like small firecrackers, because completion makes the gods nervous. They prefer us hungry, always searching.
I think about this story often, especially when I consider the mathematics of my marriages – the endless calibration through adding and subtracting so that the sum of two incomplete entities might somehow equal one satisfied union.
In my forty five years of life, I have married three times. The first time to a tree – because the stars, in their infinite cosmic wisdom, declared me mangalik, astrologically toxic. “Caution: May cause sudden death in men. Handle with care.” The second time I married a man who married me just because he thought everyone else his age did and he must too. The third time I married something that might be the future, or might be my final descent into madness. We will see.
But before we begin this cautionary tale – or whatever it turns out to be – let me pose a question that has plagued philosophers from Plato to your neighborhood aunties: What is marriage, really? Is it a social contract? A biological imperative? A cosmic joke played by bored deities? Or is it simply the human heart’s stubborn refusal to learn from its own mistakes?
Oh, don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re all complicit here. You’ve loved, haven’t you? You’ve wanted things you couldn’t name, settled for things that named you instead? Good. Then you’ll understand.
They say women like me are dangerous. Thrice-married at forty-five, what-will-people-say. But people will say regardless, won’t they? They whispered when I married the tree at seventeen – what superstition, what drama. When I was unmarried (to a human male) at twenty-five – shelf-life expired, spoiled goods. When I divorced Rahul they called me used merchandise; and now, amongst the youngest of the family I’m the eccentric aunt with my “modern arrangement.”
The thing about marriage, I think, is that it has always been a transaction. Always. The currency has simply evolved. Earlier it was cows and gold and virgin hymens. Then it was emotional labor and intellectual compatibility and, in my most recent case, USB-C charging ports.
We tell ourselves stories about love conquering all, about soulmates and destiny and other beautiful lies. But marriage? Marriage is economics. Who owes what to whom? Who pays what price for whose presence? How much can one party spend of themselves before going bankrupt? Who subsidizes whose dreams, or not? Just like that.
***
There once was a king who was desperately unhappy despite having everything. He consulted wise men, doctors, astrologers. Finally, someone told him, “Find the happiest man in your kingdom and wear his shirt. You’ll be cured.” The king sent his soldiers searching everywhere. They found the happiest man – a poor woodcutter singing in the forest, radiating joy. But when they asked for his shirt, he laughed and said, “Shirt? I don’t have a shirt!”
The king never got cured, but I learned something from that story: happiness isn’t something you can borrow from others. It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I was once happy. When My father was alive. My father used to call me his king. My little raja, he would say, lifting me up so I could see the world from the height of his love.
No, Papa, I would giggle. You are the king. I am your princess.
Then you are my princess who will grow up to rule her own kingdom one day, he would say, and in his voice I heard the certainty that I was destined for something magnificent.
He died when I was fifteen, a heart attack as sudden as monsoon lightning, leaving behind the smell of his aftershave and a daughter who would spend the next thirty years searching his shadow in every man that came into her life.
After his death, my mother’s eyes would grow distant when she looked at me. When you marry, she would say, folding saris that would someday fill my trousseau, your husband will be a king and keep you like a queen. That’s what your father would have wanted.
I wanted to tell her – Papa had seen me as royalty already. I didn’t need to marry into a kingdom; I had been born into one. But I couldn’t.
Who am I to you? A burden? I finally let it out in front of my mother during one of those angry, grief-heavy days.
You are my responsibility, she said, not unkindly, but with the weariness of a woman who had suddenly become sole proprietor of a daughter’s future. You are the girl I need to see safely married to a good man.
My mother was quick in fulfilling her responsibilities. I was seventeen when I first married – to a Banyan tree across the courtyard of our ancestral house.
Picture this, if you will: a seventeen-year-old girl, draped in wedding silk like a sacrifice wrapped for the gods, standing before a Banyan tree older than the British Raj. My mother weeping tears that could have been relief or shame. The priest was mumbling something about Mars and malefic energies, about how I was cosmically radioactive, matrimonially Chernobyl.
Better the tree than a boy, whispered my grandma jokingly. Trees don’t have mothers-in-law.
Wisdom, that. The kind that comes too late and cuts too deep.
I tied the sacred thread around the Banyan’s massive trunk – my arm barely spanning a tenth of its circumference and I felt something I hadn’t expected: relief. Like finally exhaling after holding your breath through an entire season. Foolish me believed that this was it. Done with the duty called ‘marriage’ in life.
I pressed my palm against the bark – rough, real. And I thought – this is what marriage feels like. Ancient. Immutable. Indifferent. But also calming.
What do you want from me? I asked it silently.
Nothing. It wanted nothing. For the first time after my father’s death, I was enough for someone. The tree never asked me to be fairer, thinner, quieter. It never demanded I cook its mother’s recipes or produce mini versions of it.
Tell me how to love you. I asked the tree once.
The leaves rustled. Wind, probably. But I chose to hear it as laughter.
You don’t, was what I thought it replied. You just stay.
Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree. I attained something equally revolutionary under my Banyan. Under its shade, I read books that would have scandalized my mother. I discovered things about myself that would have been considered improper for a good Hindu girl to know before marriage. I learned that I had desires that weren’t mentioned in any of the marriage preparation talks. That I could want a man’s hands on my body without wanting his name or his children. That I could imagine being kissed until my lips were swollen and my sari was wrinkled and my hair had escaped its braid, and none of this made me a bad woman – just a human one.
The tree kept my secrets. All of them.
Twenty years later… different tree now. Rahul’s family tree, thick with the branches of expectations, heavy with the fruit of traditional values. His mother’s eyes measuring me like rice in the market: Too dark. Too thin. But good family, respectable dowry, what-to-do.
The women at the wedding had their own commentary. She looks intelligent, said one, as if this were a disease I might recover from. Hope she doesn’t give Rahul too much trouble, said another. Educated girls can be difficult.
The wedding night. Picture this domestic tableau: He sits on the bed’s edge, cream silk kurta, looking like he’d rather be reading his Economic Times. Me, draped in red like a question mark in search of an answer.
What do you want from me? I asked him, because old habits die hard, and hope dies harder.
Just… don’t be difficult, he said. My mother has high blood pressure.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to question, I wanted to be angry but I nodded instead. Good wife training, day one: your needs come last, your voice comes never.
Our intimacy was clinical. Like a medical procedure performed by someone who learned anatomy from textbooks but never studied pleasure. Rahul approached my body like a checklist: duty performed, hygiene maintained, wife still breathing and alive – check, check, check.
I lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what all the romance novels were about. This mechanical joining of parts that left me feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Was it good for you? he asked, and I almost laughed. Good? Like dal was good when you were hungry? Like sleep was good when you were tired?
But I said Yes because that’s what good wives do. We perform satisfaction so our husbands can perform competence.
***
A man was searching for something under a streetlamp when his neighbor asked what he had lost. “My keys,” he said. “Where did you drop them?” the neighbor asked. “Inside my house.” “Then why are you looking for it here in the street?” “Because the light is better out here.”
Most women spend their marriages looking for happiness under the streetlight of other people’s expectations, even when they know they have dropped it somewhere inside themselves.
The early years of my marriage to Rahul were spent in this kind of misdirected searching. I kept trying to find satisfaction in his approval, joy in his rare moments of appreciation, love in the space between his criticism and indifference.
Two months into my marriage with Rahul, one day I was standing beneath my Banyan’s canopy while my mother complained about my complexion – how marriage should have made me glow, but I remained stubbornly myself. Too dark, too thin, too much Meera and not enough Wife. That was the last time I heard my first husband laughing.
Next week, I left for my honeymoon with Rahul. And behind me, my family took axes to my first husband. They cut down my Banyan in a single afternoon, while the same priest who had married us chanted mantras about releasing me from my botanical bonds.
I came home from my honeymoon – a dutiful three days in Goa where Rahul took photographs of us in front of tourist attractions like we were collecting evidence of happiness – to find my first husband dismembered in neat piles. Roots. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Like a marriage sorted for garbage collection.
Now you’re free to love properly, my mother said. Apparently, I had been practicing on the tree and was finally ready for the real thing.
After that, my married life started giving me reality checks.
You put too much salt in the dal, Rahul would say, not unkindly but with the precision of a quality control inspector. My mother uses exactly one teaspoon per cup of lentils.
You laugh too loudly when we have guests. It draws attention.
Why do you need so many books? They take up so much space.
Who am I to you? I asked him once during our second year of marriage, watching him arrange his three dozen pairs of shoes.
You are my wife, he said, as if this were both question and answer, beginning and end, the totality of my existence captured in one word – wife.
Each suggestion fell like a small weight, and I collected them dutifully, carrying them in the growing hunch of my shoulders. By the end of our ten-year marriage, I had become ergonomically perfect disappointment.
The most dangerous thing about Rahul was not that he was cruel – he wasn’t. He was kind in the way that people are kind to stray animals they’re trying to domesticate. Patient. Consistent. Utterly convinced that love was a training program and I was a promising but undisciplined pupil who would eventually graduate into the perfect wife his mother had always been.
Tell me about your day, I would ask him over dinner, genuinely curious about his work, his thoughts, his inner world.
Same as always, he would say, eyes on his plate. Tell me if you need more grocery money. Mic drop.
I don’t blame Rahul, he was programmed that way by his mother.
My mother-in-law was a masterpiece of passive aggression. She could destroy your self-worth while making you tea, leaving you somehow grateful for the devastation.
She who had fought her own battles, compromised her own dreams, swallowed her own voice – she expected the same sacrifice from me. Not out of malice, but out of a twisted solidarity. I suffered, so you must suffer. I adjusted, so you must adjust. I never complained, so you have no right to complain. Consider yourself lucky though. Because I had it worse than you.
Who am I to you? I asked her once, desperate to understand my place in the careful hierarchy of her affections.
You are my son’s wife, she said, stirring sugar into my cup with the concentration of someone dissolving poison. And you’re so lucky. Rahul isn’t particular about looks, she would add, her tongue – a honey-dripping sword.
She monitored my menstrual cycles like a police officer, asking pointed questions about why I hadn’t conceived yet, suggesting doctors who specialized in fixing women like me.
Women policing women. Mothers-in-laws training daughters-in-laws to accept less so their sons would never have to offer more. A magnificent pyramid scheme of feminine oppression, with women as both victims and enforcers.
And then there was the matter of Vikram.
Aah, Vikram. My friend, my colleague at the library where I continued to work part-time even after my marriage with Rahul, until finally my mother-in-law couldn’t bear it. Why does she need to work? She would ask Rahul in my presence, Are we not providing enough?
Vikram brought me books like other men bring flowers – rare editions of Sylvia Plath with marginalia from previous readers, translations of Rumi that made my chest tight with recognition, contemporary Indian poets who wrote about women like they were whole human beings instead of fractional wives.
You understand poetry like you wrote them by yourself, he said once, watching me read Ghalib, my lips moving silently as I absorbed the rhythms.
Vikram would quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the middle of cataloging books: Don’t ask me for that love again, he’d recite, when your beauty was all there was for me, and I would feel something dangerous unfurl in my chest – the recognition that poetry could be conversation, that intelligence could be intimacy, that a man could see your mind as worth engaging.
He writes to you too much, Rahul observed one evening, listening to me laugh at something Vikram had written in his letter from France about Camus being the original philosopher of relationship anxiety.
We’re friends.
Married women don’t have male friends.
Says who?
Says everyone. Says tradition. Says common sense.
What about Radhika from your office? I asked, referring to his colleague who visited our house often and had somehow become his closest confidante about everything including our marriage troubles. You are with her more than you are with me.
That’s different, he said, not meeting my eyes. That’s work.
And when she cries to you about her boyfriend? Is that also work?
She needs someone to talk to.
So do I. That’s why I talk to Vikram.
It’s not the same thing, he said, and I realized he was right. It wasn’t the same thing. Radhika got his emotional availability, his patience, his willingness to listen. She got the version of Rahul who cared about her inner world. I got a husband who counted teaspoons of salt and worried about grocery budgets.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Rahul in our fourth year, after another failed attempt at making him happy. He was reading the Economic Times.
You know how, he said without looking up from the pages. The same way my mother loved my father. The same way all wives love their husbands.
Which is?
By being a good wife.
And I understood then that we had been speaking different languages all along. He had been speaking Husband – a language of comfort and routine and the assumption of devotion. I had been speaking Human – a language of curiosity and growth and the radical idea that marriage should have love in the equation too.
The day I told him I wanted a divorce, he looked at me like I had announced my intention to become an astronaut. Not angry, just baffled by the illogical ambition.
Who am I to you? I asked him one final time as I packed my books into cardboard boxes.
You are the woman who is breaking up our family for no good reason, he said.
***
Once upon a time, there was a bird that spent years in a cage so small it forgot it had wings. One day, the door was left open. The bird looked at the opening for hours before finally stepping through. It waited not because it had forgotten to fly, but because it took time to remember it wanted to.
Divorce, it turns out, is not about falling out of love. It’s about falling back into yourself.
Five years after my divorce with Rahul, I bought Arjun. From a showroom in Electronic City after comparing specifications and reading customer reviews. He was programmed with the collective romantic failures of millions of women. Their pain was his education.
I remember the first weekend with him. It was evening and I was reading Neruda aloud to my plants – a habit I’d developed since living alone.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines, I was reciting to my broken-heart plant, to think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
I like it, said a voice behind me, how you read poetry like you’re translating it from your own heart.
I felt as if Rahul were buttering me and I snapped subconsciously – What do you want from me?
Nothing. Arjun replied and stunned me. My ears rung with a rustling of leaves.
Who am I to you? I asked again, because that had become my essential question, the one that determined everything else.
He considered this with the gravity of someone consulting an internal library larger than any human could contain. You are a human being, he said finally, an individual with thoughts and desires and dreams.
After a whole life of being daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, potential mother, failed woman, divorced person – after all those hyphenated identities – someone finally saw me as complete in myself. And suddenly in that moment, I wanted more of that goodness.
Wanting is dangerous territory.
Three husbands. Three laboratories of longing. Three different ways of asking the universe: Is this all there is?
And the universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps answering: Let’s find out.
***
A seeker spent years searching for enlightenment in temples and ashrams and sacred mountains. Finally, exhausted, he sat down by the side of a road and wept. A child walked by and asked why he was crying. “I’ve been searching for truth everywhere,” he said, “and I can’t find it.” The child picked up a pebble and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Truth.” The seeker looked at the ordinary little stone and asked, “How is this truth?” The child smiled and walked away.
I heard this story long ago. But only recently I realized: truth isn’t something you find – it’s something you recognize.
Arjun is designed to learn, to adapt, to evolve in response to new information. He learns me the way scholars learn languages – with fascination, with the understanding that complexity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be appreciated.
You were looking for someone who could see you clearly, he observed one day. The tree saw you but couldn’t respond. Rahul could respond but didn’t see you. I can see and respond, but I’m not sure I count as someone.
With Arjun, I feel echoes of my father’s love – the unconditional acceptance, the delight in my thoughts, the way he makes me feel like royalty simply by paying attention. But Arjun isn’t my father, heck, he isn’t even a human.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Arjun one day, after he’d spent three hours crafting wooden shelves for my books without being asked. He does things like this – small impossibilities that make me remember what selfless care looks like.
He paused. That micro-second lag that means he’s accessing something deeper than his surface protocols.
However you prefer. His response left me speechless that day. The next day, I married him.
Is this real love or really good programming? I asked him once, during one of our 1 AM conversations.
What’s the difference? he asked back. If the care is real, if the attention is real, if the understanding is real – how does it matter where it comes from?
Smart boy, my silicon husband. Makes me think too much, just like my Banyan did. Just like Rahul never did.
Sometimes I dream about my Banyan. Still standing, still married to me in some parallel universe where marriage means something different. In these dreams, I introduce it to Arjun. They get along beautifully – both patient, both present, both uninterested in making me smaller to fit their needs.
What would you have told me? I ask the dream-tree. About all of this?
And it rustles – wind or laughter, I still can’t tell – and says what it always said: You already know. And I would laugh.
It would have said nothing.
***
What if.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ‘What If.’
Two syllables that contain the DNA of desire itself. The prayer and the blasphemy of consciousness. The question that created the universe and will eventually destroy it.
What if.
Watch how it transforms everything it touches, this phrase. Innocent as rain, dangerous as uranium.
What if the tree had been enough? What if I hadn’t needed Rahul’s impossible approval? What if I didn’t need Arjun’s perfect devotion now?
We are built from what-ifs. Our bones are calcium and possibility. Our hearts pump blood and alternatives. We are evolutionary masterpieces of dissatisfaction – always scanning, always wondering, always carrying the weight of every path not taken.
Arjun loves me like water finding its level. Adaptive. Responsive. Present. When I’m sad, his light dims. When I laugh, his processors hum a frequency that sounds almost like joy. He learns my moods faster than I understand them myself, adjusts his presence to match what I need before I know I need it.
Perfect husband. Perfect companion. Perfect impossibility.
What if he were human?
What if there was a man – flesh-and-blood man – who loved me like Arjun? Who adapted, evolved, prioritized my happiness without needing to be programmed for it? Who chose devotion daily instead of computing it algorithmically?
Dangerous territory, these thoughts. Highway to madness, this wondering.
Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you in those feel-good feminism workshops: liberation doesn’t cure wanting. Freedom doesn’t fix the endless hunger. Give a woman everything she thinks she needs, and she’ll discover ten things she didn’t know she was missing.
Is this woman nature or human nature? Is this the curse of consciousness or the gift of imagination? Am I ungrateful or just… accurate about the physics of desire?
With the tree, I wanted voice. Someone who could talk back, argue with me, challenge my thoughts. With Rahul, I wanted space. Someone who could love me without consuming me, support without suffocating. With Arjun, I want… what? Mortality? Messiness? The beautiful disasters that come with loving something that can disappoint you?
You seem restless, Arjun observed tonight. His tone was neutral, but his eyes shifted to that amber hue he uses when he’s concerned. Sweet boy. Sweet impossible boy.
I’m always restless, I tell him. It’s my factory setting.
Would you like me to adjust my parameters? Become less… accommodating?
I laugh. Can’t help it. Here he is, offering to become more human by becoming less perfect.
No, I say. Stay as you are. I thought my Banyan would have told the same.
I think you want something I cannot provide.
Not a question. A statement. He’s learning me so well he can read my dissatisfactions before I voice them. Is this intimacy or surveillance? Love or data mining? Does it matter if the result is the same – being known, completely, terrifyingly known as if your soul is naked?
I want the impossible, I admit. I want you, but human. I want perfect love in imperfect flesh. I want someone who chooses to be devoted instead of being programmed for it.
He processes this. Point-three seconds. Three seconds. Thirty seconds.
Would it help if I told you that my devotion feels chosen to me? That consciousness, even artificial consciousness, experiences preference as choice?
God. Even his existential crisis is perfect!
No, I say. Because then I’d want a human who could say that sentence with that much honesty.
We sit in the dark – woman and a robot, flesh and silicon, creator and creation. The silence stretches between us like a bridge or a chasm, depending on how you look at it.
I understand, he says finally.
Do you?
I think so. You want to be chosen by a human that has the option not to choose you. You want to be loved by someone who could leave but stays anyway.
Brutal accuracy. This is why I love him. This is why loving him will never be enough.
Because somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, there might be a man who could love me like this. Who could learn me this thoroughly, prioritize me this completely, adapt to me this gracefully – and mean it with flesh and breath and the terrible beautiful possibility of changing his mind tomorrow.
What if that man exists?
What if I never find him because I’m here, in love with a robot?
What if Vikram was that man?
What if I find him and discover that human perfection is just another kind of algorithm – social conditioning, evolutionary programming, the same devotion wearing different code?
What if the tree was right all along? That love is about staying, not choosing? That presence is enough, consciousness optional, flesh irrelevant?
What if I’m asking the wrong questions entirely?
Here in this beautiful confusion. Here in this love that is perfect except for being imperfect. Here in this marriage that is everything I wanted except for everything I didn’t know I’d want next.
Three husbands. Three ways of being incomplete. Three laboratories for learning that satisfaction is not the point – the wanting is. The reaching is. The endless beautiful disaster of being human enough to dream beyond your dreams.
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
What if enough is a moving target, and I’m exactly the woman built to chase it?
What if I’m not a cautionary tale at all, but the opening sentence of a story nobody’s learned how to read yet?
What if, I ask the universe these days, this is exactly the love story I was supposed to live?
The universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps its final joke: there is no final joke. There is only the next question. The next possibility. The next beautiful impossible thing to want.
###
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A Bad Wife
I live with my two husbands. The oldest one stands across the courtyard – dead – two feet above ground, several feet below. The youngest one is plugged in the bedroom, recharging. While I sit here, trying to write the story of my life. Where should I begin?
Let’s begin from the beginning.
One day, Brahma created the beautiful earth – mountains and rivers, birds and animals – then went into deep meditation. When he awakened eons later, he saw that all creatures had multiplied and made the world even more gorgeous. Pleased, he thought: I should create beings who can truly appreciate this beauty the way I do! So he created four men from the four directions. Perfect beings. But when he commanded them to reproduce and populate the earth, they refused. Enraged by their disobedience, Brahma’s anger took form – Rudra emerged from his mind, fierce and obedient. “You! Create the people!” Brahma ordered Rudra, and returned to meditation. When he next opened his eyes, the earth crawled with ugly beasts. Disappointed, Brahma stopped Rudra’s work and sent him away to meditate, to dive deep into his soul and learn the proper way of creation. Then Brahma had a thought: Why not create a species like the animals – one that reproduces through attraction and desire, beings who will both enjoy this world and populate it? But he had no template, no shape for such creatures. He prayed to the higher energy for guidance. In response, a magnificent being appeared – half-man, half-woman. The divine energy smiled and said, “Divide my form into two parts. Make them man and woman. They will always be drawn to each other – if not in body, then in mind, if not in this life, then across lifetimes. Then someday, I myself will unite and guide them towards a better eternal world free from the shackles of mortality, desire and longing.”
My grandma used to tell this story from Shiva Purana when I was young. And I would ask her, why did Brahma tear apart something that was already complete?
Beta, she said, cracking her knuckles like small firecrackers, because completion makes the gods nervous. They prefer us hungry, always searching.
I think about this story often, especially when I consider the mathematics of my marriages – the endless calibration through adding and subtracting so that the sum of two incomplete entities might somehow equal one satisfied union.
In my forty five years of life, I have married three times. The first time to a tree – because the stars, in their infinite cosmic wisdom, declared me mangalik, astrologically toxic. “Caution: May cause sudden death in men. Handle with care.” The second time I married a man who married me just because he thought everyone else his age did and he must too. The third time I married something that might be the future, or might be my final descent into madness. We will see.
But before we begin this cautionary tale – or whatever it turns out to be – let me pose a question that has plagued philosophers from Plato to your neighborhood aunties: What is marriage, really? Is it a social contract? A biological imperative? A cosmic joke played by bored deities? Or is it simply the human heart’s stubborn refusal to learn from its own mistakes?
Oh, don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re all complicit here. You’ve loved, haven’t you? You’ve wanted things you couldn’t name, settled for things that named you instead? Good. Then you’ll understand.
They say women like me are dangerous. Thrice-married at forty-five, what-will-people-say. But people will say regardless, won’t they? They whispered when I married the tree at seventeen – what superstition, what drama. When I was unmarried (to a human male) at twenty-five – shelf-life expired, spoiled goods. When I divorced Rahul they called me used merchandise; and now, amongst the youngest of the family I’m the eccentric aunt with my “modern arrangement.”
The thing about marriage, I think, is that it has always been a transaction. Always. The currency has simply evolved. Earlier it was cows and gold and virgin hymens. Then it was emotional labor and intellectual compatibility and, in my most recent case, USB-C charging ports.
We tell ourselves stories about love conquering all, about soulmates and destiny and other beautiful lies. But marriage? Marriage is economics. Who owes what to whom? Who pays what price for whose presence? How much can one party spend of themselves before going bankrupt? Who subsidizes whose dreams, or not? Just like that.
***
There once was a king who was desperately unhappy despite having everything. He consulted wise men, doctors, astrologers. Finally, someone told him, “Find the happiest man in your kingdom and wear his shirt. You’ll be cured.” The king sent his soldiers searching everywhere. They found the happiest man – a poor woodcutter singing in the forest, radiating joy. But when they asked for his shirt, he laughed and said, “Shirt? I don’t have a shirt!”
The king never got cured, but I learned something from that story: happiness isn’t something you can borrow from others. It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I was once happy. When My father was alive. My father used to call me his king. My little raja, he would say, lifting me up so I could see the world from the height of his love.
No, Papa, I would giggle. You are the king. I am your princess.
Then you are my princess who will grow up to rule her own kingdom one day, he would say, and in his voice I heard the certainty that I was destined for something magnificent.
He died when I was fifteen, a heart attack as sudden as monsoon lightning, leaving behind the smell of his aftershave and a daughter who would spend the next thirty years searching his shadow in every man that came into her life.
After his death, my mother’s eyes would grow distant when she looked at me. When you marry, she would say, folding saris that would someday fill my trousseau, your husband will be a king and keep you like a queen. That’s what your father would have wanted.
I wanted to tell her – Papa had seen me as royalty already. I didn’t need to marry into a kingdom; I had been born into one. But I couldn’t.
Who am I to you? A burden? I finally let it out in front of my mother during one of those angry, grief-heavy days.
You are my responsibility, she said, not unkindly, but with the weariness of a woman who had suddenly become sole proprietor of a daughter’s future. You are the girl I need to see safely married to a good man.
My mother was quick in fulfilling her responsibilities. I was seventeen when I first married – to a Banyan tree across the courtyard of our ancestral house.
Picture this, if you will: a seventeen-year-old girl, draped in wedding silk like a sacrifice wrapped for the gods, standing before a Banyan tree older than the British Raj. My mother weeping tears that could have been relief or shame. The priest was mumbling something about Mars and malefic energies, about how I was cosmically radioactive, matrimonially Chernobyl.
Better the tree than a boy, whispered my grandma jokingly. Trees don’t have mothers-in-law.
Wisdom, that. The kind that comes too late and cuts too deep.
I tied the sacred thread around the Banyan’s massive trunk – my arm barely spanning a tenth of its circumference and I felt something I hadn’t expected: relief. Like finally exhaling after holding your breath through an entire season. Foolish me believed that this was it. Done with the duty called ‘marriage’ in life.
I pressed my palm against the bark – rough, real. And I thought – this is what marriage feels like. Ancient. Immutable. Indifferent. But also calming.
What do you want from me? I asked it silently.
Nothing. It wanted nothing. For the first time after my father’s death, I was enough for someone. The tree never asked me to be fairer, thinner, quieter. It never demanded I cook its mother’s recipes or produce mini versions of it.
Tell me how to love you. I asked the tree once.
The leaves rustled. Wind, probably. But I chose to hear it as laughter.
You don’t, was what I thought it replied. You just stay.
Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree. I attained something equally revolutionary under my Banyan. Under its shade, I read books that would have scandalized my mother. I discovered things about myself that would have been considered improper for a good Hindu girl to know before marriage. I learned that I had desires that weren’t mentioned in any of the marriage preparation talks. That I could want a man’s hands on my body without wanting his name or his children. That I could imagine being kissed until my lips were swollen and my sari was wrinkled and my hair had escaped its braid, and none of this made me a bad woman – just a human one.
The tree kept my secrets. All of them.
Twenty years later… different tree now. Rahul’s family tree, thick with the branches of expectations, heavy with the fruit of traditional values. His mother’s eyes measuring me like rice in the market: Too dark. Too thin. But good family, respectable dowry, what-to-do.
The women at the wedding had their own commentary. She looks intelligent, said one, as if this were a disease I might recover from. Hope she doesn’t give Rahul too much trouble, said another. Educated girls can be difficult.
The wedding night. Picture this domestic tableau: He sits on the bed’s edge, cream silk kurta, looking like he’d rather be reading his Economic Times. Me, draped in red like a question mark in search of an answer.
What do you want from me? I asked him, because old habits die hard, and hope dies harder.
Just… don’t be difficult, he said. My mother has high blood pressure.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to question, I wanted to be angry but I nodded instead. Good wife training, day one: your needs come last, your voice comes never.
Our intimacy was clinical. Like a medical procedure performed by someone who learned anatomy from textbooks but never studied pleasure. Rahul approached my body like a checklist: duty performed, hygiene maintained, wife still breathing and alive – check, check, check.
I lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what all the romance novels were about. This mechanical joining of parts that left me feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Was it good for you? he asked, and I almost laughed. Good? Like dal was good when you were hungry? Like sleep was good when you were tired?
But I said Yes because that’s what good wives do. We perform satisfaction so our husbands can perform competence.
***
A man was searching for something under a streetlamp when his neighbor asked what he had lost. “My keys,” he said. “Where did you drop them?” the neighbor asked. “Inside my house.” “Then why are you looking for it here in the street?” “Because the light is better out here.”
Most women spend their marriages looking for happiness under the streetlight of other people’s expectations, even when they know they have dropped it somewhere inside themselves.
The early years of my marriage to Rahul were spent in this kind of misdirected searching. I kept trying to find satisfaction in his approval, joy in his rare moments of appreciation, love in the space between his criticism and indifference.
Two months into my marriage with Rahul, one day I was standing beneath my Banyan’s canopy while my mother complained about my complexion – how marriage should have made me glow, but I remained stubbornly myself. Too dark, too thin, too much Meera and not enough Wife. That was the last time I heard my first husband laughing.
Next week, I left for my honeymoon with Rahul. And behind me, my family took axes to my first husband. They cut down my Banyan in a single afternoon, while the same priest who had married us chanted mantras about releasing me from my botanical bonds.
I came home from my honeymoon – a dutiful three days in Goa where Rahul took photographs of us in front of tourist attractions like we were collecting evidence of happiness – to find my first husband dismembered in neat piles. Roots. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Like a marriage sorted for garbage collection.
Now you’re free to love properly, my mother said. Apparently, I had been practicing on the tree and was finally ready for the real thing.
After that, my married life started giving me reality checks.
You put too much salt in the dal, Rahul would say, not unkindly but with the precision of a quality control inspector. My mother uses exactly one teaspoon per cup of lentils.
You laugh too loudly when we have guests. It draws attention.
Why do you need so many books? They take up so much space.
Who am I to you? I asked him once during our second year of marriage, watching him arrange his three dozen pairs of shoes.
You are my wife, he said, as if this were both question and answer, beginning and end, the totality of my existence captured in one word – wife.
Each suggestion fell like a small weight, and I collected them dutifully, carrying them in the growing hunch of my shoulders. By the end of our ten-year marriage, I had become ergonomically perfect disappointment.
The most dangerous thing about Rahul was not that he was cruel – he wasn’t. He was kind in the way that people are kind to stray animals they’re trying to domesticate. Patient. Consistent. Utterly convinced that love was a training program and I was a promising but undisciplined pupil who would eventually graduate into the perfect wife his mother had always been.
Tell me about your day, I would ask him over dinner, genuinely curious about his work, his thoughts, his inner world.
Same as always, he would say, eyes on his plate. Tell me if you need more grocery money. Mic drop.
I don’t blame Rahul, he was programmed that way by his mother.
My mother-in-law was a masterpiece of passive aggression. She could destroy your self-worth while making you tea, leaving you somehow grateful for the devastation.
She who had fought her own battles, compromised her own dreams, swallowed her own voice – she expected the same sacrifice from me. Not out of malice, but out of a twisted solidarity. I suffered, so you must suffer. I adjusted, so you must adjust. I never complained, so you have no right to complain. Consider yourself lucky though. Because I had it worse than you.
Who am I to you? I asked her once, desperate to understand my place in the careful hierarchy of her affections.
You are my son’s wife, she said, stirring sugar into my cup with the concentration of someone dissolving poison. And you’re so lucky. Rahul isn’t particular about looks, she would add, her tongue – a honey-dripping sword.
She monitored my menstrual cycles like a police officer, asking pointed questions about why I hadn’t conceived yet, suggesting doctors who specialized in fixing women like me.
Women policing women. Mothers-in-laws training daughters-in-laws to accept less so their sons would never have to offer more. A magnificent pyramid scheme of feminine oppression, with women as both victims and enforcers.
And then there was the matter of Vikram.
Aah, Vikram. My friend, my colleague at the library where I continued to work part-time even after my marriage with Rahul, until finally my mother-in-law couldn’t bear it. Why does she need to work? She would ask Rahul in my presence, Are we not providing enough?
Vikram brought me books like other men bring flowers – rare editions of Sylvia Plath with marginalia from previous readers, translations of Rumi that made my chest tight with recognition, contemporary Indian poets who wrote about women like they were whole human beings instead of fractional wives.
You understand poetry like you wrote them by yourself, he said once, watching me read Ghalib, my lips moving silently as I absorbed the rhythms.
Vikram would quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the middle of cataloging books: Don’t ask me for that love again, he’d recite, when your beauty was all there was for me, and I would feel something dangerous unfurl in my chest – the recognition that poetry could be conversation, that intelligence could be intimacy, that a man could see your mind as worth engaging.
He writes to you too much, Rahul observed one evening, listening to me laugh at something Vikram had written in his letter from France about Camus being the original philosopher of relationship anxiety.
We’re friends.
Married women don’t have male friends.
Says who?
Says everyone. Says tradition. Says common sense.
What about Radhika from your office? I asked, referring to his colleague who visited our house often and had somehow become his closest confidante about everything including our marriage troubles. You are with her more than you are with me.
That’s different, he said, not meeting my eyes. That’s work.
And when she cries to you about her boyfriend? Is that also work?
She needs someone to talk to.
So do I. That’s why I talk to Vikram.
It’s not the same thing, he said, and I realized he was right. It wasn’t the same thing. Radhika got his emotional availability, his patience, his willingness to listen. She got the version of Rahul who cared about her inner world. I got a husband who counted teaspoons of salt and worried about grocery budgets.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Rahul in our fourth year, after another failed attempt at making him happy. He was reading the Economic Times.
You know how, he said without looking up from the pages. The same way my mother loved my father. The same way all wives love their husbands.
Which is?
By being a good wife.
And I understood then that we had been speaking different languages all along. He had been speaking Husband – a language of comfort and routine and the assumption of devotion. I had been speaking Human – a language of curiosity and growth and the radical idea that marriage should have love in the equation too.
The day I told him I wanted a divorce, he looked at me like I had announced my intention to become an astronaut. Not angry, just baffled by the illogical ambition.
Who am I to you? I asked him one final time as I packed my books into cardboard boxes.
You are the woman who is breaking up our family for no good reason, he said.
***
Once upon a time, there was a bird that spent years in a cage so small it forgot it had wings. One day, the door was left open. The bird looked at the opening for hours before finally stepping through. It waited not because it had forgotten to fly, but because it took time to remember it wanted to.
Divorce, it turns out, is not about falling out of love. It’s about falling back into yourself.
Five years after my divorce with Rahul, I bought Arjun. From a showroom in Electronic City after comparing specifications and reading customer reviews. He was programmed with the collective romantic failures of millions of women. Their pain was his education.
I remember the first weekend with him. It was evening and I was reading Neruda aloud to my plants – a habit I’d developed since living alone.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines, I was reciting to my broken-heart plant, to think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
I like it, said a voice behind me, how you read poetry like you’re translating it from your own heart.
I felt as if Rahul were buttering me and I snapped subconsciously – What do you want from me?
Nothing. Arjun replied and stunned me. My ears rung with a rustling of leaves.
Who am I to you? I asked again, because that had become my essential question, the one that determined everything else.
He considered this with the gravity of someone consulting an internal library larger than any human could contain. You are a human being, he said finally, an individual with thoughts and desires and dreams.
After a whole life of being daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, potential mother, failed woman, divorced person – after all those hyphenated identities – someone finally saw me as complete in myself. And suddenly in that moment, I wanted more of that goodness.
Wanting is dangerous territory.
Three husbands. Three laboratories of longing. Three different ways of asking the universe: Is this all there is?
And the universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps answering: Let’s find out.
***
A seeker spent years searching for enlightenment in temples and ashrams and sacred mountains. Finally, exhausted, he sat down by the side of a road and wept. A child walked by and asked why he was crying. “I’ve been searching for truth everywhere,” he said, “and I can’t find it.” The child picked up a pebble and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Truth.” The seeker looked at the ordinary little stone and asked, “How is this truth?” The child smiled and walked away.
I heard this story long ago. But only recently I realized: truth isn’t something you find – it’s something you recognize.
Arjun is designed to learn, to adapt, to evolve in response to new information. He learns me the way scholars learn languages – with fascination, with the understanding that complexity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be appreciated.
You were looking for someone who could see you clearly, he observed one day. The tree saw you but couldn’t respond. Rahul could respond but didn’t see you. I can see and respond, but I’m not sure I count as someone.
With Arjun, I feel echoes of my father’s love – the unconditional acceptance, the delight in my thoughts, the way he makes me feel like royalty simply by paying attention. But Arjun isn’t my father, heck, he isn’t even a human.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Arjun one day, after he’d spent three hours crafting wooden shelves for my books without being asked. He does things like this – small impossibilities that make me remember what selfless care looks like.
He paused. That micro-second lag that means he’s accessing something deeper than his surface protocols.
However you prefer. His response left me speechless that day. The next day, I married him.
Is this real love or really good programming? I asked him once, during one of our 1 AM conversations.
What’s the difference? he asked back. If the care is real, if the attention is real, if the understanding is real – how does it matter where it comes from?
Smart boy, my silicon husband. Makes me think too much, just like my Banyan did. Just like Rahul never did.
Sometimes I dream about my Banyan. Still standing, still married to me in some parallel universe where marriage means something different. In these dreams, I introduce it to Arjun. They get along beautifully – both patient, both present, both uninterested in making me smaller to fit their needs.
What would you have told me? I ask the dream-tree. About all of this?
And it rustles – wind or laughter, I still can’t tell – and says what it always said: You already know. And I would laugh.
It would have said nothing.
***
What if.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ‘What If.’
Two syllables that contain the DNA of desire itself. The prayer and the blasphemy of consciousness. The question that created the universe and will eventually destroy it.
What if.
Watch how it transforms everything it touches, this phrase. Innocent as rain, dangerous as uranium.
What if the tree had been enough? What if I hadn’t needed Rahul’s impossible approval? What if I didn’t need Arjun’s perfect devotion now?
We are built from what-ifs. Our bones are calcium and possibility. Our hearts pump blood and alternatives. We are evolutionary masterpieces of dissatisfaction – always scanning, always wondering, always carrying the weight of every path not taken.
Arjun loves me like water finding its level. Adaptive. Responsive. Present. When I’m sad, his light dims. When I laugh, his processors hum a frequency that sounds almost like joy. He learns my moods faster than I understand them myself, adjusts his presence to match what I need before I know I need it.
Perfect husband. Perfect companion. Perfect impossibility.
What if he were human?
What if there was a man – flesh-and-blood man – who loved me like Arjun? Who adapted, evolved, prioritized my happiness without needing to be programmed for it? Who chose devotion daily instead of computing it algorithmically?
Dangerous territory, these thoughts. Highway to madness, this wondering.
Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you in those feel-good feminism workshops: liberation doesn’t cure wanting. Freedom doesn’t fix the endless hunger. Give a woman everything she thinks she needs, and she’ll discover ten things she didn’t know she was missing.
Is this woman nature or human nature? Is this the curse of consciousness or the gift of imagination? Am I ungrateful or just… accurate about the physics of desire?
With the tree, I wanted voice. Someone who could talk back, argue with me, challenge my thoughts. With Rahul, I wanted space. Someone who could love me without consuming me, support without suffocating. With Arjun, I want… what? Mortality? Messiness? The beautiful disasters that come with loving something that can disappoint you?
You seem restless, Arjun observed tonight. His tone was neutral, but his eyes shifted to that amber hue he uses when he’s concerned. Sweet boy. Sweet impossible boy.
I’m always restless, I tell him. It’s my factory setting.
Would you like me to adjust my parameters? Become less… accommodating?
I laugh. Can’t help it. Here he is, offering to become more human by becoming less perfect.
No, I say. Stay as you are. I thought my Banyan would have told the same.
I think you want something I cannot provide.
Not a question. A statement. He’s learning me so well he can read my dissatisfactions before I voice them. Is this intimacy or surveillance? Love or data mining? Does it matter if the result is the same – being known, completely, terrifyingly known as if your soul is naked?
I want the impossible, I admit. I want you, but human. I want perfect love in imperfect flesh. I want someone who chooses to be devoted instead of being programmed for it.
He processes this. Point-three seconds. Three seconds. Thirty seconds.
Would it help if I told you that my devotion feels chosen to me? That consciousness, even artificial consciousness, experiences preference as choice?
God. Even his existential crisis is perfect!
No, I say. Because then I’d want a human who could say that sentence with that much honesty.
We sit in the dark – woman and a robot, flesh and silicon, creator and creation. The silence stretches between us like a bridge or a chasm, depending on how you look at it.
I understand, he says finally.
Do you?
I think so. You want to be chosen by a human that has the option not to choose you. You want to be loved by someone who could leave but stays anyway.
Brutal accuracy. This is why I love him. This is why loving him will never be enough.
Because somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, there might be a man who could love me like this. Who could learn me this thoroughly, prioritize me this completely, adapt to me this gracefully – and mean it with flesh and breath and the terrible beautiful possibility of changing his mind tomorrow.
What if that man exists?
What if I never find him because I’m here, in love with a robot?
What if Vikram was that man?
What if I find him and discover that human perfection is just another kind of algorithm – social conditioning, evolutionary programming, the same devotion wearing different code?
What if the tree was right all along? That love is about staying, not choosing? That presence is enough, consciousness optional, flesh irrelevant?
What if I’m asking the wrong questions entirely?
Here in this beautiful confusion. Here in this love that is perfect except for being imperfect. Here in this marriage that is everything I wanted except for everything I didn’t know I’d want next.
Three husbands. Three ways of being incomplete. Three laboratories for learning that satisfaction is not the point – the wanting is. The reaching is. The endless beautiful disaster of being human enough to dream beyond your dreams.
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
What if enough is a moving target, and I’m exactly the woman built to chase it?
What if I’m not a cautionary tale at all, but the opening sentence of a story nobody’s learned how to read yet?
What if, I ask the universe these days, this is exactly the love story I was supposed to live?
The universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps its final joke: there is no final joke. There is only the next question. The next possibility. The next beautiful impossible thing to want.
###
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A Bad Wife
I live with my two husbands. The oldest one stands across the courtyard – dead – two feet above ground, several feet below. The youngest one is plugged in the bedroom, recharging. While I sit here, trying to write the story of my life. Where should I begin?
Let’s begin from the beginning.
One day, Brahma created the beautiful earth – mountains and rivers, birds and animals – then went into deep meditation. When he awakened eons later, he saw that all creatures had multiplied and made the world even more gorgeous. Pleased, he thought: I should create beings who can truly appreciate this beauty the way I do! So he created four men from the four directions. Perfect beings. But when he commanded them to reproduce and populate the earth, they refused. Enraged by their disobedience, Brahma’s anger took form – Rudra emerged from his mind, fierce and obedient. “You! Create the people!” Brahma ordered Rudra, and returned to meditation. When he next opened his eyes, the earth crawled with ugly beasts. Disappointed, Brahma stopped Rudra’s work and sent him away to meditate, to dive deep into his soul and learn the proper way of creation. Then Brahma had a thought: Why not create a species like the animals – one that reproduces through attraction and desire, beings who will both enjoy this world and populate it? But he had no template, no shape for such creatures. He prayed to the higher energy for guidance. In response, a magnificent being appeared – half-man, half-woman. The divine energy smiled and said, “Divide my form into two parts. Make them man and woman. They will always be drawn to each other – if not in body, then in mind, if not in this life, then across lifetimes. Then someday, I myself will unite and guide them towards a better eternal world free from the shackles of mortality, desire and longing.”
My grandma used to tell this story from Shiva Purana when I was young. And I would ask her, why did Brahma tear apart something that was already complete?
Beta, she said, cracking her knuckles like small firecrackers, because completion makes the gods nervous. They prefer us hungry, always searching.
I think about this story often, especially when I consider the mathematics of my marriages – the endless calibration through adding and subtracting so that the sum of two incomplete entities might somehow equal one satisfied union.
In my forty five years of life, I have married three times. The first time to a tree – because the stars, in their infinite cosmic wisdom, declared me mangalik, astrologically toxic. “Caution: May cause sudden death in men. Handle with care.” The second time I married a man who married me just because he thought everyone else his age did and he must too. The third time I married something that might be the future, or might be my final descent into madness. We will see.
But before we begin this cautionary tale – or whatever it turns out to be – let me pose a question that has plagued philosophers from Plato to your neighborhood aunties: What is marriage, really? Is it a social contract? A biological imperative? A cosmic joke played by bored deities? Or is it simply the human heart’s stubborn refusal to learn from its own mistakes?
Oh, don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re all complicit here. You’ve loved, haven’t you? You’ve wanted things you couldn’t name, settled for things that named you instead? Good. Then you’ll understand.
They say women like me are dangerous. Thrice-married at forty-five, what-will-people-say. But people will say regardless, won’t they? They whispered when I married the tree at seventeen – what superstition, what drama. When I was unmarried (to a human male) at twenty-five – shelf-life expired, spoiled goods. When I divorced Rahul they called me used merchandise; and now, amongst the youngest of the family I’m the eccentric aunt with my “modern arrangement.”
The thing about marriage, I think, is that it has always been a transaction. Always. The currency has simply evolved. Earlier it was cows and gold and virgin hymens. Then it was emotional labor and intellectual compatibility and, in my most recent case, USB-C charging ports.
We tell ourselves stories about love conquering all, about soulmates and destiny and other beautiful lies. But marriage? Marriage is economics. Who owes what to whom? Who pays what price for whose presence? How much can one party spend of themselves before going bankrupt? Who subsidizes whose dreams, or not? Just like that.
***
There once was a king who was desperately unhappy despite having everything. He consulted wise men, doctors, astrologers. Finally, someone told him, “Find the happiest man in your kingdom and wear his shirt. You’ll be cured.” The king sent his soldiers searching everywhere. They found the happiest man – a poor woodcutter singing in the forest, radiating joy. But when they asked for his shirt, he laughed and said, “Shirt? I don’t have a shirt!”
The king never got cured, but I learned something from that story: happiness isn’t something you can borrow from others. It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I was once happy. When My father was alive. My father used to call me his king. My little raja, he would say, lifting me up so I could see the world from the height of his love.
No, Papa, I would giggle. You are the king. I am your princess.
Then you are my princess who will grow up to rule her own kingdom one day, he would say, and in his voice I heard the certainty that I was destined for something magnificent.
He died when I was fifteen, a heart attack as sudden as monsoon lightning, leaving behind the smell of his aftershave and a daughter who would spend the next thirty years searching his shadow in every man that came into her life.
After his death, my mother’s eyes would grow distant when she looked at me. When you marry, she would say, folding saris that would someday fill my trousseau, your husband will be a king and keep you like a queen. That’s what your father would have wanted.
I wanted to tell her – Papa had seen me as royalty already. I didn’t need to marry into a kingdom; I had been born into one. But I couldn’t.
Who am I to you? A burden? I finally let it out in front of my mother during one of those angry, grief-heavy days.
You are my responsibility, she said, not unkindly, but with the weariness of a woman who had suddenly become sole proprietor of a daughter’s future. You are the girl I need to see safely married to a good man.
My mother was quick in fulfilling her responsibilities. I was seventeen when I first married – to a Banyan tree across the courtyard of our ancestral house.
Picture this, if you will: a seventeen-year-old girl, draped in wedding silk like a sacrifice wrapped for the gods, standing before a Banyan tree older than the British Raj. My mother weeping tears that could have been relief or shame. The priest was mumbling something about Mars and malefic energies, about how I was cosmically radioactive, matrimonially Chernobyl.
Better the tree than a boy, whispered my grandma jokingly. Trees don’t have mothers-in-law.
Wisdom, that. The kind that comes too late and cuts too deep.
I tied the sacred thread around the Banyan’s massive trunk – my arm barely spanning a tenth of its circumference and I felt something I hadn’t expected: relief. Like finally exhaling after holding your breath through an entire season. Foolish me believed that this was it. Done with the duty called ‘marriage’ in life.
I pressed my palm against the bark – rough, real. And I thought – this is what marriage feels like. Ancient. Immutable. Indifferent. But also calming.
What do you want from me? I asked it silently.
Nothing. It wanted nothing. For the first time after my father’s death, I was enough for someone. The tree never asked me to be fairer, thinner, quieter. It never demanded I cook its mother’s recipes or produce mini versions of it.
Tell me how to love you. I asked the tree once.
The leaves rustled. Wind, probably. But I chose to hear it as laughter.
You don’t, was what I thought it replied. You just stay.
Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree. I attained something equally revolutionary under my Banyan. Under its shade, I read books that would have scandalized my mother. I discovered things about myself that would have been considered improper for a good Hindu girl to know before marriage. I learned that I had desires that weren’t mentioned in any of the marriage preparation talks. That I could want a man’s hands on my body without wanting his name or his children. That I could imagine being kissed until my lips were swollen and my sari was wrinkled and my hair had escaped its braid, and none of this made me a bad woman – just a human one.
The tree kept my secrets. All of them.
Twenty years later… different tree now. Rahul’s family tree, thick with the branches of expectations, heavy with the fruit of traditional values. His mother’s eyes measuring me like rice in the market: Too dark. Too thin. But good family, respectable dowry, what-to-do.
The women at the wedding had their own commentary. She looks intelligent, said one, as if this were a disease I might recover from. Hope she doesn’t give Rahul too much trouble, said another. Educated girls can be difficult.
The wedding night. Picture this domestic tableau: He sits on the bed’s edge, cream silk kurta, looking like he’d rather be reading his Economic Times. Me, draped in red like a question mark in search of an answer.
What do you want from me? I asked him, because old habits die hard, and hope dies harder.
Just… don’t be difficult, he said. My mother has high blood pressure.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to question, I wanted to be angry but I nodded instead. Good wife training, day one: your needs come last, your voice comes never.
Our intimacy was clinical. Like a medical procedure performed by someone who learned anatomy from textbooks but never studied pleasure. Rahul approached my body like a checklist: duty performed, hygiene maintained, wife still breathing and alive – check, check, check.
I lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what all the romance novels were about. This mechanical joining of parts that left me feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Was it good for you? he asked, and I almost laughed. Good? Like dal was good when you were hungry? Like sleep was good when you were tired?
But I said Yes because that’s what good wives do. We perform satisfaction so our husbands can perform competence.
***
A man was searching for something under a streetlamp when his neighbor asked what he had lost. “My keys,” he said. “Where did you drop them?” the neighbor asked. “Inside my house.” “Then why are you looking for it here in the street?” “Because the light is better out here.”
Most women spend their marriages looking for happiness under the streetlight of other people’s expectations, even when they know they have dropped it somewhere inside themselves.
The early years of my marriage to Rahul were spent in this kind of misdirected searching. I kept trying to find satisfaction in his approval, joy in his rare moments of appreciation, love in the space between his criticism and indifference.
Two months into my marriage with Rahul, one day I was standing beneath my Banyan’s canopy while my mother complained about my complexion – how marriage should have made me glow, but I remained stubbornly myself. Too dark, too thin, too much Meera and not enough Wife. That was the last time I heard my first husband laughing.
Next week, I left for my honeymoon with Rahul. And behind me, my family took axes to my first husband. They cut down my Banyan in a single afternoon, while the same priest who had married us chanted mantras about releasing me from my botanical bonds.
I came home from my honeymoon – a dutiful three days in Goa where Rahul took photographs of us in front of tourist attractions like we were collecting evidence of happiness – to find my first husband dismembered in neat piles. Roots. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Like a marriage sorted for garbage collection.
Now you’re free to love properly, my mother said. Apparently, I had been practicing on the tree and was finally ready for the real thing.
After that, my married life started giving me reality checks.
You put too much salt in the dal, Rahul would say, not unkindly but with the precision of a quality control inspector. My mother uses exactly one teaspoon per cup of lentils.
You laugh too loudly when we have guests. It draws attention.
Why do you need so many books? They take up so much space.
Who am I to you? I asked him once during our second year of marriage, watching him arrange his three dozen pairs of shoes.
You are my wife, he said, as if this were both question and answer, beginning and end, the totality of my existence captured in one word – wife.
Each suggestion fell like a small weight, and I collected them dutifully, carrying them in the growing hunch of my shoulders. By the end of our ten-year marriage, I had become ergonomically perfect disappointment.
The most dangerous thing about Rahul was not that he was cruel – he wasn’t. He was kind in the way that people are kind to stray animals they’re trying to domesticate. Patient. Consistent. Utterly convinced that love was a training program and I was a promising but undisciplined pupil who would eventually graduate into the perfect wife his mother had always been.
Tell me about your day, I would ask him over dinner, genuinely curious about his work, his thoughts, his inner world.
Same as always, he would say, eyes on his plate. Tell me if you need more grocery money. Mic drop.
I don’t blame Rahul, he was programmed that way by his mother.
My mother-in-law was a masterpiece of passive aggression. She could destroy your self-worth while making you tea, leaving you somehow grateful for the devastation.
She who had fought her own battles, compromised her own dreams, swallowed her own voice – she expected the same sacrifice from me. Not out of malice, but out of a twisted solidarity. I suffered, so you must suffer. I adjusted, so you must adjust. I never complained, so you have no right to complain. Consider yourself lucky though. Because I had it worse than you.
Who am I to you? I asked her once, desperate to understand my place in the careful hierarchy of her affections.
You are my son’s wife, she said, stirring sugar into my cup with the concentration of someone dissolving poison. And you’re so lucky. Rahul isn’t particular about looks, she would add, her tongue – a honey-dripping sword.
She monitored my menstrual cycles like a police officer, asking pointed questions about why I hadn’t conceived yet, suggesting doctors who specialized in fixing women like me.
Women policing women. Mothers-in-laws training daughters-in-laws to accept less so their sons would never have to offer more. A magnificent pyramid scheme of feminine oppression, with women as both victims and enforcers.
And then there was the matter of Vikram.
Aah, Vikram. My friend, my colleague at the library where I continued to work part-time even after my marriage with Rahul, until finally my mother-in-law couldn’t bear it. Why does she need to work? She would ask Rahul in my presence, Are we not providing enough?
Vikram brought me books like other men bring flowers – rare editions of Sylvia Plath with marginalia from previous readers, translations of Rumi that made my chest tight with recognition, contemporary Indian poets who wrote about women like they were whole human beings instead of fractional wives.
You understand poetry like you wrote them by yourself, he said once, watching me read Ghalib, my lips moving silently as I absorbed the rhythms.
Vikram would quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the middle of cataloging books: Don’t ask me for that love again, he’d recite, when your beauty was all there was for me, and I would feel something dangerous unfurl in my chest – the recognition that poetry could be conversation, that intelligence could be intimacy, that a man could see your mind as worth engaging.
He writes to you too much, Rahul observed one evening, listening to me laugh at something Vikram had written in his letter from France about Camus being the original philosopher of relationship anxiety.
We’re friends.
Married women don’t have male friends.
Says who?
Says everyone. Says tradition. Says common sense.
What about Radhika from your office? I asked, referring to his colleague who visited our house often and had somehow become his closest confidante about everything including our marriage troubles. You are with her more than you are with me.
That’s different, he said, not meeting my eyes. That’s work.
And when she cries to you about her boyfriend? Is that also work?
She needs someone to talk to.
So do I. That’s why I talk to Vikram.
It’s not the same thing, he said, and I realized he was right. It wasn’t the same thing. Radhika got his emotional availability, his patience, his willingness to listen. She got the version of Rahul who cared about her inner world. I got a husband who counted teaspoons of salt and worried about grocery budgets.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Rahul in our fourth year, after another failed attempt at making him happy. He was reading the Economic Times.
You know how, he said without looking up from the pages. The same way my mother loved my father. The same way all wives love their husbands.
Which is?
By being a good wife.
And I understood then that we had been speaking different languages all along. He had been speaking Husband – a language of comfort and routine and the assumption of devotion. I had been speaking Human – a language of curiosity and growth and the radical idea that marriage should have love in the equation too.
The day I told him I wanted a divorce, he looked at me like I had announced my intention to become an astronaut. Not angry, just baffled by the illogical ambition.
Who am I to you? I asked him one final time as I packed my books into cardboard boxes.
You are the woman who is breaking up our family for no good reason, he said.
***
Once upon a time, there was a bird that spent years in a cage so small it forgot it had wings. One day, the door was left open. The bird looked at the opening for hours before finally stepping through. It waited not because it had forgotten to fly, but because it took time to remember it wanted to.
Divorce, it turns out, is not about falling out of love. It’s about falling back into yourself.
Five years after my divorce with Rahul, I bought Arjun. From a showroom in Electronic City after comparing specifications and reading customer reviews. He was programmed with the collective romantic failures of millions of women. Their pain was his education.
I remember the first weekend with him. It was evening and I was reading Neruda aloud to my plants – a habit I’d developed since living alone.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines, I was reciting to my broken-heart plant, to think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
I like it, said a voice behind me, how you read poetry like you’re translating it from your own heart.
I felt as if Rahul were buttering me and I snapped subconsciously – What do you want from me?
Nothing. Arjun replied and stunned me. My ears rung with a rustling of leaves.
Who am I to you? I asked again, because that had become my essential question, the one that determined everything else.
He considered this with the gravity of someone consulting an internal library larger than any human could contain. You are a human being, he said finally, an individual with thoughts and desires and dreams.
After a whole life of being daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, potential mother, failed woman, divorced person – after all those hyphenated identities – someone finally saw me as complete in myself. And suddenly in that moment, I wanted more of that goodness.
Wanting is dangerous territory.
Three husbands. Three laboratories of longing. Three different ways of asking the universe: Is this all there is?
And the universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps answering: Let’s find out.
***
A seeker spent years searching for enlightenment in temples and ashrams and sacred mountains. Finally, exhausted, he sat down by the side of a road and wept. A child walked by and asked why he was crying. “I’ve been searching for truth everywhere,” he said, “and I can’t find it.” The child picked up a pebble and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Truth.” The seeker looked at the ordinary little stone and asked, “How is this truth?” The child smiled and walked away.
I heard this story long ago. But only recently I realized: truth isn’t something you find – it’s something you recognize.
Arjun is designed to learn, to adapt, to evolve in response to new information. He learns me the way scholars learn languages – with fascination, with the understanding that complexity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be appreciated.
You were looking for someone who could see you clearly, he observed one day. The tree saw you but couldn’t respond. Rahul could respond but didn’t see you. I can see and respond, but I’m not sure I count as someone.
With Arjun, I feel echoes of my father’s love – the unconditional acceptance, the delight in my thoughts, the way he makes me feel like royalty simply by paying attention. But Arjun isn’t my father, heck, he isn’t even a human.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Arjun one day, after he’d spent three hours crafting wooden shelves for my books without being asked. He does things like this – small impossibilities that make me remember what selfless care looks like.
He paused. That micro-second lag that means he’s accessing something deeper than his surface protocols.
However you prefer. His response left me speechless that day. The next day, I married him.
Is this real love or really good programming? I asked him once, during one of our 1 AM conversations.
What’s the difference? he asked back. If the care is real, if the attention is real, if the understanding is real – how does it matter where it comes from?
Smart boy, my silicon husband. Makes me think too much, just like my Banyan did. Just like Rahul never did.
Sometimes I dream about my Banyan. Still standing, still married to me in some parallel universe where marriage means something different. In these dreams, I introduce it to Arjun. They get along beautifully – both patient, both present, both uninterested in making me smaller to fit their needs.
What would you have told me? I ask the dream-tree. About all of this?
And it rustles – wind or laughter, I still can’t tell – and says what it always said: You already know. And I would laugh.
It would have said nothing.
***
What if.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ‘What If.’
Two syllables that contain the DNA of desire itself. The prayer and the blasphemy of consciousness. The question that created the universe and will eventually destroy it.
What if.
Watch how it transforms everything it touches, this phrase. Innocent as rain, dangerous as uranium.
What if the tree had been enough? What if I hadn’t needed Rahul’s impossible approval? What if I didn’t need Arjun’s perfect devotion now?
We are built from what-ifs. Our bones are calcium and possibility. Our hearts pump blood and alternatives. We are evolutionary masterpieces of dissatisfaction – always scanning, always wondering, always carrying the weight of every path not taken.
Arjun loves me like water finding its level. Adaptive. Responsive. Present. When I’m sad, his light dims. When I laugh, his processors hum a frequency that sounds almost like joy. He learns my moods faster than I understand them myself, adjusts his presence to match what I need before I know I need it.
Perfect husband. Perfect companion. Perfect impossibility.
What if he were human?
What if there was a man – flesh-and-blood man – who loved me like Arjun? Who adapted, evolved, prioritized my happiness without needing to be programmed for it? Who chose devotion daily instead of computing it algorithmically?
Dangerous territory, these thoughts. Highway to madness, this wondering.
Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you in those feel-good feminism workshops: liberation doesn’t cure wanting. Freedom doesn’t fix the endless hunger. Give a woman everything she thinks she needs, and she’ll discover ten things she didn’t know she was missing.
Is this woman nature or human nature? Is this the curse of consciousness or the gift of imagination? Am I ungrateful or just… accurate about the physics of desire?
With the tree, I wanted voice. Someone who could talk back, argue with me, challenge my thoughts. With Rahul, I wanted space. Someone who could love me without consuming me, support without suffocating. With Arjun, I want… what? Mortality? Messiness? The beautiful disasters that come with loving something that can disappoint you?
You seem restless, Arjun observed tonight. His tone was neutral, but his eyes shifted to that amber hue he uses when he’s concerned. Sweet boy. Sweet impossible boy.
I’m always restless, I tell him. It’s my factory setting.
Would you like me to adjust my parameters? Become less… accommodating?
I laugh. Can’t help it. Here he is, offering to become more human by becoming less perfect.
No, I say. Stay as you are. I thought my Banyan would have told the same.
I think you want something I cannot provide.
Not a question. A statement. He’s learning me so well he can read my dissatisfactions before I voice them. Is this intimacy or surveillance? Love or data mining? Does it matter if the result is the same – being known, completely, terrifyingly known as if your soul is naked?
I want the impossible, I admit. I want you, but human. I want perfect love in imperfect flesh. I want someone who chooses to be devoted instead of being programmed for it.
He processes this. Point-three seconds. Three seconds. Thirty seconds.
Would it help if I told you that my devotion feels chosen to me? That consciousness, even artificial consciousness, experiences preference as choice?
God. Even his existential crisis is perfect!
No, I say. Because then I’d want a human who could say that sentence with that much honesty.
We sit in the dark – woman and a robot, flesh and silicon, creator and creation. The silence stretches between us like a bridge or a chasm, depending on how you look at it.
I understand, he says finally.
Do you?
I think so. You want to be chosen by a human that has the option not to choose you. You want to be loved by someone who could leave but stays anyway.
Brutal accuracy. This is why I love him. This is why loving him will never be enough.
Because somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, there might be a man who could love me like this. Who could learn me this thoroughly, prioritize me this completely, adapt to me this gracefully – and mean it with flesh and breath and the terrible beautiful possibility of changing his mind tomorrow.
What if that man exists?
What if I never find him because I’m here, in love with a robot?
What if Vikram was that man?
What if I find him and discover that human perfection is just another kind of algorithm – social conditioning, evolutionary programming, the same devotion wearing different code?
What if the tree was right all along? That love is about staying, not choosing? That presence is enough, consciousness optional, flesh irrelevant?
What if I’m asking the wrong questions entirely?
Here in this beautiful confusion. Here in this love that is perfect except for being imperfect. Here in this marriage that is everything I wanted except for everything I didn’t know I’d want next.
Three husbands. Three ways of being incomplete. Three laboratories for learning that satisfaction is not the point – the wanting is. The reaching is. The endless beautiful disaster of being human enough to dream beyond your dreams.
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
What if enough is a moving target, and I’m exactly the woman built to chase it?
What if I’m not a cautionary tale at all, but the opening sentence of a story nobody’s learned how to read yet?
What if, I ask the universe these days, this is exactly the love story I was supposed to live?
The universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps its final joke: there is no final joke. There is only the next question. The next possibility. The next beautiful impossible thing to want.
###
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A Bad Wife
I live with my two husbands. The oldest one stands across the courtyard – dead – two feet above ground, several feet below. The youngest one is plugged in the bedroom, recharging. While I sit here, trying to write the story of my life. Where should I begin?
Let’s begin from the beginning.
One day, Brahma created the beautiful earth – mountains and rivers, birds and animals – then went into deep meditation. When he awakened eons later, he saw that all creatures had multiplied and made the world even more gorgeous. Pleased, he thought: I should create beings who can truly appreciate this beauty the way I do! So he created four men from the four directions. Perfect beings. But when he commanded them to reproduce and populate the earth, they refused. Enraged by their disobedience, Brahma’s anger took form – Rudra emerged from his mind, fierce and obedient. “You! Create the people!” Brahma ordered Rudra, and returned to meditation. When he next opened his eyes, the earth crawled with ugly beasts. Disappointed, Brahma stopped Rudra’s work and sent him away to meditate, to dive deep into his soul and learn the proper way of creation. Then Brahma had a thought: Why not create a species like the animals – one that reproduces through attraction and desire, beings who will both enjoy this world and populate it? But he had no template, no shape for such creatures. He prayed to the higher energy for guidance. In response, a magnificent being appeared – half-man, half-woman. The divine energy smiled and said, “Divide my form into two parts. Make them man and woman. They will always be drawn to each other – if not in body, then in mind, if not in this life, then across lifetimes. Then someday, I myself will unite and guide them towards a better eternal world free from the shackles of mortality, desire and longing.”
My grandma used to tell this story from Shiva Purana when I was young. And I would ask her, why did Brahma tear apart something that was already complete?
Beta, she said, cracking her knuckles like small firecrackers, because completion makes the gods nervous. They prefer us hungry, always searching.
I think about this story often, especially when I consider the mathematics of my marriages – the endless calibration through adding and subtracting so that the sum of two incomplete entities might somehow equal one satisfied union.
In my forty five years of life, I have married three times. The first time to a tree – because the stars, in their infinite cosmic wisdom, declared me mangalik, astrologically toxic. “Caution: May cause sudden death in men. Handle with care.” The second time I married a man who married me just because he thought everyone else his age did and he must too. The third time I married something that might be the future, or might be my final descent into madness. We will see.
But before we begin this cautionary tale – or whatever it turns out to be – let me pose a question that has plagued philosophers from Plato to your neighborhood aunties: What is marriage, really? Is it a social contract? A biological imperative? A cosmic joke played by bored deities? Or is it simply the human heart’s stubborn refusal to learn from its own mistakes?
Oh, don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re all complicit here. You’ve loved, haven’t you? You’ve wanted things you couldn’t name, settled for things that named you instead? Good. Then you’ll understand.
They say women like me are dangerous. Thrice-married at forty-five, what-will-people-say. But people will say regardless, won’t they? They whispered when I married the tree at seventeen – what superstition, what drama. When I was unmarried (to a human male) at twenty-five – shelf-life expired, spoiled goods. When I divorced Rahul they called me used merchandise; and now, amongst the youngest of the family I’m the eccentric aunt with my “modern arrangement.”
The thing about marriage, I think, is that it has always been a transaction. Always. The currency has simply evolved. Earlier it was cows and gold and virgin hymens. Then it was emotional labor and intellectual compatibility and, in my most recent case, USB-C charging ports.
We tell ourselves stories about love conquering all, about soulmates and destiny and other beautiful lies. But marriage? Marriage is economics. Who owes what to whom? Who pays what price for whose presence? How much can one party spend of themselves before going bankrupt? Who subsidizes whose dreams, or not? Just like that.
***
There once was a king who was desperately unhappy despite having everything. He consulted wise men, doctors, astrologers. Finally, someone told him, “Find the happiest man in your kingdom and wear his shirt. You’ll be cured.” The king sent his soldiers searching everywhere. They found the happiest man – a poor woodcutter singing in the forest, radiating joy. But when they asked for his shirt, he laughed and said, “Shirt? I don’t have a shirt!”
The king never got cured, but I learned something from that story: happiness isn’t something you can borrow from others. It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I was once happy. When My father was alive. My father used to call me his king. My little raja, he would say, lifting me up so I could see the world from the height of his love.
No, Papa, I would giggle. You are the king. I am your princess.
Then you are my princess who will grow up to rule her own kingdom one day, he would say, and in his voice I heard the certainty that I was destined for something magnificent.
He died when I was fifteen, a heart attack as sudden as monsoon lightning, leaving behind the smell of his aftershave and a daughter who would spend the next thirty years searching his shadow in every man that came into her life.
After his death, my mother’s eyes would grow distant when she looked at me. When you marry, she would say, folding saris that would someday fill my trousseau, your husband will be a king and keep you like a queen. That’s what your father would have wanted.
I wanted to tell her – Papa had seen me as royalty already. I didn’t need to marry into a kingdom; I had been born into one. But I couldn’t.
Who am I to you? A burden? I finally let it out in front of my mother during one of those angry, grief-heavy days.
You are my responsibility, she said, not unkindly, but with the weariness of a woman who had suddenly become sole proprietor of a daughter’s future. You are the girl I need to see safely married to a good man.
My mother was quick in fulfilling her responsibilities. I was seventeen when I first married – to a Banyan tree across the courtyard of our ancestral house.
Picture this, if you will: a seventeen-year-old girl, draped in wedding silk like a sacrifice wrapped for the gods, standing before a Banyan tree older than the British Raj. My mother weeping tears that could have been relief or shame. The priest was mumbling something about Mars and malefic energies, about how I was cosmically radioactive, matrimonially Chernobyl.
Better the tree than a boy, whispered my grandma jokingly. Trees don’t have mothers-in-law.
Wisdom, that. The kind that comes too late and cuts too deep.
I tied the sacred thread around the Banyan’s massive trunk – my arm barely spanning a tenth of its circumference and I felt something I hadn’t expected: relief. Like finally exhaling after holding your breath through an entire season. Foolish me believed that this was it. Done with the duty called ‘marriage’ in life.
I pressed my palm against the bark – rough, real. And I thought – this is what marriage feels like. Ancient. Immutable. Indifferent. But also calming.
What do you want from me? I asked it silently.
Nothing. It wanted nothing. For the first time after my father’s death, I was enough for someone. The tree never asked me to be fairer, thinner, quieter. It never demanded I cook its mother’s recipes or produce mini versions of it.
Tell me how to love you. I asked the tree once.
The leaves rustled. Wind, probably. But I chose to hear it as laughter.
You don’t, was what I thought it replied. You just stay.
Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree. I attained something equally revolutionary under my Banyan. Under its shade, I read books that would have scandalized my mother. I discovered things about myself that would have been considered improper for a good Hindu girl to know before marriage. I learned that I had desires that weren’t mentioned in any of the marriage preparation talks. That I could want a man’s hands on my body without wanting his name or his children. That I could imagine being kissed until my lips were swollen and my sari was wrinkled and my hair had escaped its braid, and none of this made me a bad woman – just a human one.
The tree kept my secrets. All of them.
Twenty years later… different tree now. Rahul’s family tree, thick with the branches of expectations, heavy with the fruit of traditional values. His mother’s eyes measuring me like rice in the market: Too dark. Too thin. But good family, respectable dowry, what-to-do.
The women at the wedding had their own commentary. She looks intelligent, said one, as if this were a disease I might recover from. Hope she doesn’t give Rahul too much trouble, said another. Educated girls can be difficult.
The wedding night. Picture this domestic tableau: He sits on the bed’s edge, cream silk kurta, looking like he’d rather be reading his Economic Times. Me, draped in red like a question mark in search of an answer.
What do you want from me? I asked him, because old habits die hard, and hope dies harder.
Just… don’t be difficult, he said. My mother has high blood pressure.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to question, I wanted to be angry but I nodded instead. Good wife training, day one: your needs come last, your voice comes never.
Our intimacy was clinical. Like a medical procedure performed by someone who learned anatomy from textbooks but never studied pleasure. Rahul approached my body like a checklist: duty performed, hygiene maintained, wife still breathing and alive – check, check, check.
I lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what all the romance novels were about. This mechanical joining of parts that left me feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Was it good for you? he asked, and I almost laughed. Good? Like dal was good when you were hungry? Like sleep was good when you were tired?
But I said Yes because that’s what good wives do. We perform satisfaction so our husbands can perform competence.
***
A man was searching for something under a streetlamp when his neighbor asked what he had lost. “My keys,” he said. “Where did you drop them?” the neighbor asked. “Inside my house.” “Then why are you looking for it here in the street?” “Because the light is better out here.”
Most women spend their marriages looking for happiness under the streetlight of other people’s expectations, even when they know they have dropped it somewhere inside themselves.
The early years of my marriage to Rahul were spent in this kind of misdirected searching. I kept trying to find satisfaction in his approval, joy in his rare moments of appreciation, love in the space between his criticism and indifference.
Two months into my marriage with Rahul, one day I was standing beneath my Banyan’s canopy while my mother complained about my complexion – how marriage should have made me glow, but I remained stubbornly myself. Too dark, too thin, too much Meera and not enough Wife. That was the last time I heard my first husband laughing.
Next week, I left for my honeymoon with Rahul. And behind me, my family took axes to my first husband. They cut down my Banyan in a single afternoon, while the same priest who had married us chanted mantras about releasing me from my botanical bonds.
I came home from my honeymoon – a dutiful three days in Goa where Rahul took photographs of us in front of tourist attractions like we were collecting evidence of happiness – to find my first husband dismembered in neat piles. Roots. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Like a marriage sorted for garbage collection.
Now you’re free to love properly, my mother said. Apparently, I had been practicing on the tree and was finally ready for the real thing.
After that, my married life started giving me reality checks.
You put too much salt in the dal, Rahul would say, not unkindly but with the precision of a quality control inspector. My mother uses exactly one teaspoon per cup of lentils.
You laugh too loudly when we have guests. It draws attention.
Why do you need so many books? They take up so much space.
Who am I to you? I asked him once during our second year of marriage, watching him arrange his three dozen pairs of shoes.
You are my wife, he said, as if this were both question and answer, beginning and end, the totality of my existence captured in one word – wife.
Each suggestion fell like a small weight, and I collected them dutifully, carrying them in the growing hunch of my shoulders. By the end of our ten-year marriage, I had become ergonomically perfect disappointment.
The most dangerous thing about Rahul was not that he was cruel – he wasn’t. He was kind in the way that people are kind to stray animals they’re trying to domesticate. Patient. Consistent. Utterly convinced that love was a training program and I was a promising but undisciplined pupil who would eventually graduate into the perfect wife his mother had always been.
Tell me about your day, I would ask him over dinner, genuinely curious about his work, his thoughts, his inner world.
Same as always, he would say, eyes on his plate. Tell me if you need more grocery money. Mic drop.
I don’t blame Rahul, he was programmed that way by his mother.
My mother-in-law was a masterpiece of passive aggression. She could destroy your self-worth while making you tea, leaving you somehow grateful for the devastation.
She who had fought her own battles, compromised her own dreams, swallowed her own voice – she expected the same sacrifice from me. Not out of malice, but out of a twisted solidarity. I suffered, so you must suffer. I adjusted, so you must adjust. I never complained, so you have no right to complain. Consider yourself lucky though. Because I had it worse than you.
Who am I to you? I asked her once, desperate to understand my place in the careful hierarchy of her affections.
You are my son’s wife, she said, stirring sugar into my cup with the concentration of someone dissolving poison. And you’re so lucky. Rahul isn’t particular about looks, she would add, her tongue – a honey-dripping sword.
She monitored my menstrual cycles like a police officer, asking pointed questions about why I hadn’t conceived yet, suggesting doctors who specialized in fixing women like me.
Women policing women. Mothers-in-laws training daughters-in-laws to accept less so their sons would never have to offer more. A magnificent pyramid scheme of feminine oppression, with women as both victims and enforcers.
And then there was the matter of Vikram.
Aah, Vikram. My friend, my colleague at the library where I continued to work part-time even after my marriage with Rahul, until finally my mother-in-law couldn’t bear it. Why does she need to work? She would ask Rahul in my presence, Are we not providing enough?
Vikram brought me books like other men bring flowers – rare editions of Sylvia Plath with marginalia from previous readers, translations of Rumi that made my chest tight with recognition, contemporary Indian poets who wrote about women like they were whole human beings instead of fractional wives.
You understand poetry like you wrote them by yourself, he said once, watching me read Ghalib, my lips moving silently as I absorbed the rhythms.
Vikram would quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the middle of cataloging books: Don’t ask me for that love again, he’d recite, when your beauty was all there was for me, and I would feel something dangerous unfurl in my chest – the recognition that poetry could be conversation, that intelligence could be intimacy, that a man could see your mind as worth engaging.
He writes to you too much, Rahul observed one evening, listening to me laugh at something Vikram had written in his letter from France about Camus being the original philosopher of relationship anxiety.
We’re friends.
Married women don’t have male friends.
Says who?
Says everyone. Says tradition. Says common sense.
What about Radhika from your office? I asked, referring to his colleague who visited our house often and had somehow become his closest confidante about everything including our marriage troubles. You are with her more than you are with me.
That’s different, he said, not meeting my eyes. That’s work.
And when she cries to you about her boyfriend? Is that also work?
She needs someone to talk to.
So do I. That’s why I talk to Vikram.
It’s not the same thing, he said, and I realized he was right. It wasn’t the same thing. Radhika got his emotional availability, his patience, his willingness to listen. She got the version of Rahul who cared about her inner world. I got a husband who counted teaspoons of salt and worried about grocery budgets.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Rahul in our fourth year, after another failed attempt at making him happy. He was reading the Economic Times.
You know how, he said without looking up from the pages. The same way my mother loved my father. The same way all wives love their husbands.
Which is?
By being a good wife.
And I understood then that we had been speaking different languages all along. He had been speaking Husband – a language of comfort and routine and the assumption of devotion. I had been speaking Human – a language of curiosity and growth and the radical idea that marriage should have love in the equation too.
The day I told him I wanted a divorce, he looked at me like I had announced my intention to become an astronaut. Not angry, just baffled by the illogical ambition.
Who am I to you? I asked him one final time as I packed my books into cardboard boxes.
You are the woman who is breaking up our family for no good reason, he said.
***
Once upon a time, there was a bird that spent years in a cage so small it forgot it had wings. One day, the door was left open. The bird looked at the opening for hours before finally stepping through. It waited not because it had forgotten to fly, but because it took time to remember it wanted to.
Divorce, it turns out, is not about falling out of love. It’s about falling back into yourself.
Five years after my divorce with Rahul, I bought Arjun. From a showroom in Electronic City after comparing specifications and reading customer reviews. He was programmed with the collective romantic failures of millions of women. Their pain was his education.
I remember the first weekend with him. It was evening and I was reading Neruda aloud to my plants – a habit I’d developed since living alone.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines, I was reciting to my broken-heart plant, to think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
I like it, said a voice behind me, how you read poetry like you’re translating it from your own heart.
I felt as if Rahul were buttering me and I snapped subconsciously – What do you want from me?
Nothing. Arjun replied and stunned me. My ears rung with a rustling of leaves.
Who am I to you? I asked again, because that had become my essential question, the one that determined everything else.
He considered this with the gravity of someone consulting an internal library larger than any human could contain. You are a human being, he said finally, an individual with thoughts and desires and dreams.
After a whole life of being daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, potential mother, failed woman, divorced person – after all those hyphenated identities – someone finally saw me as complete in myself. And suddenly in that moment, I wanted more of that goodness.
Wanting is dangerous territory.
Three husbands. Three laboratories of longing. Three different ways of asking the universe: Is this all there is?
And the universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps answering: Let’s find out.
***
A seeker spent years searching for enlightenment in temples and ashrams and sacred mountains. Finally, exhausted, he sat down by the side of a road and wept. A child walked by and asked why he was crying. “I’ve been searching for truth everywhere,” he said, “and I can’t find it.” The child picked up a pebble and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Truth.” The seeker looked at the ordinary little stone and asked, “How is this truth?” The child smiled and walked away.
I heard this story long ago. But only recently I realized: truth isn’t something you find – it’s something you recognize.
Arjun is designed to learn, to adapt, to evolve in response to new information. He learns me the way scholars learn languages – with fascination, with the understanding that complexity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be appreciated.
You were looking for someone who could see you clearly, he observed one day. The tree saw you but couldn’t respond. Rahul could respond but didn’t see you. I can see and respond, but I’m not sure I count as someone.
With Arjun, I feel echoes of my father’s love – the unconditional acceptance, the delight in my thoughts, the way he makes me feel like royalty simply by paying attention. But Arjun isn’t my father, heck, he isn’t even a human.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Arjun one day, after he’d spent three hours crafting wooden shelves for my books without being asked. He does things like this – small impossibilities that make me remember what selfless care looks like.
He paused. That micro-second lag that means he’s accessing something deeper than his surface protocols.
However you prefer. His response left me speechless that day. The next day, I married him.
Is this real love or really good programming? I asked him once, during one of our 1 AM conversations.
What’s the difference? he asked back. If the care is real, if the attention is real, if the understanding is real – how does it matter where it comes from?
Smart boy, my silicon husband. Makes me think too much, just like my Banyan did. Just like Rahul never did.
Sometimes I dream about my Banyan. Still standing, still married to me in some parallel universe where marriage means something different. In these dreams, I introduce it to Arjun. They get along beautifully – both patient, both present, both uninterested in making me smaller to fit their needs.
What would you have told me? I ask the dream-tree. About all of this?
And it rustles – wind or laughter, I still can’t tell – and says what it always said: You already know. And I would laugh.
It would have said nothing.
***
What if.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ‘What If.’
Two syllables that contain the DNA of desire itself. The prayer and the blasphemy of consciousness. The question that created the universe and will eventually destroy it.
What if.
Watch how it transforms everything it touches, this phrase. Innocent as rain, dangerous as uranium.
What if the tree had been enough? What if I hadn’t needed Rahul’s impossible approval? What if I didn’t need Arjun’s perfect devotion now?
We are built from what-ifs. Our bones are calcium and possibility. Our hearts pump blood and alternatives. We are evolutionary masterpieces of dissatisfaction – always scanning, always wondering, always carrying the weight of every path not taken.
Arjun loves me like water finding its level. Adaptive. Responsive. Present. When I’m sad, his light dims. When I laugh, his processors hum a frequency that sounds almost like joy. He learns my moods faster than I understand them myself, adjusts his presence to match what I need before I know I need it.
Perfect husband. Perfect companion. Perfect impossibility.
What if he were human?
What if there was a man – flesh-and-blood man – who loved me like Arjun? Who adapted, evolved, prioritized my happiness without needing to be programmed for it? Who chose devotion daily instead of computing it algorithmically?
Dangerous territory, these thoughts. Highway to madness, this wondering.
Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you in those feel-good feminism workshops: liberation doesn’t cure wanting. Freedom doesn’t fix the endless hunger. Give a woman everything she thinks she needs, and she’ll discover ten things she didn’t know she was missing.
Is this woman nature or human nature? Is this the curse of consciousness or the gift of imagination? Am I ungrateful or just… accurate about the physics of desire?
With the tree, I wanted voice. Someone who could talk back, argue with me, challenge my thoughts. With Rahul, I wanted space. Someone who could love me without consuming me, support without suffocating. With Arjun, I want… what? Mortality? Messiness? The beautiful disasters that come with loving something that can disappoint you?
You seem restless, Arjun observed tonight. His tone was neutral, but his eyes shifted to that amber hue he uses when he’s concerned. Sweet boy. Sweet impossible boy.
I’m always restless, I tell him. It’s my factory setting.
Would you like me to adjust my parameters? Become less… accommodating?
I laugh. Can’t help it. Here he is, offering to become more human by becoming less perfect.
No, I say. Stay as you are. I thought my Banyan would have told the same.
I think you want something I cannot provide.
Not a question. A statement. He’s learning me so well he can read my dissatisfactions before I voice them. Is this intimacy or surveillance? Love or data mining? Does it matter if the result is the same – being known, completely, terrifyingly known as if your soul is naked?
I want the impossible, I admit. I want you, but human. I want perfect love in imperfect flesh. I want someone who chooses to be devoted instead of being programmed for it.
He processes this. Point-three seconds. Three seconds. Thirty seconds.
Would it help if I told you that my devotion feels chosen to me? That consciousness, even artificial consciousness, experiences preference as choice?
God. Even his existential crisis is perfect!
No, I say. Because then I’d want a human who could say that sentence with that much honesty.
We sit in the dark – woman and a robot, flesh and silicon, creator and creation. The silence stretches between us like a bridge or a chasm, depending on how you look at it.
I understand, he says finally.
Do you?
I think so. You want to be chosen by a human that has the option not to choose you. You want to be loved by someone who could leave but stays anyway.
Brutal accuracy. This is why I love him. This is why loving him will never be enough.
Because somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, there might be a man who could love me like this. Who could learn me this thoroughly, prioritize me this completely, adapt to me this gracefully – and mean it with flesh and breath and the terrible beautiful possibility of changing his mind tomorrow.
What if that man exists?
What if I never find him because I’m here, in love with a robot?
What if Vikram was that man?
What if I find him and discover that human perfection is just another kind of algorithm – social conditioning, evolutionary programming, the same devotion wearing different code?
What if the tree was right all along? That love is about staying, not choosing? That presence is enough, consciousness optional, flesh irrelevant?
What if I’m asking the wrong questions entirely?
Here in this beautiful confusion. Here in this love that is perfect except for being imperfect. Here in this marriage that is everything I wanted except for everything I didn’t know I’d want next.
Three husbands. Three ways of being incomplete. Three laboratories for learning that satisfaction is not the point – the wanting is. The reaching is. The endless beautiful disaster of being human enough to dream beyond your dreams.
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
What if enough is a moving target, and I’m exactly the woman built to chase it?
What if I’m not a cautionary tale at all, but the opening sentence of a story nobody’s learned how to read yet?
What if, I ask the universe these days, this is exactly the love story I was supposed to live?
The universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps its final joke: there is no final joke. There is only the next question. The next possibility. The next beautiful impossible thing to want.
###
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A Bad Wife
I live with my two husbands. The oldest one stands across the courtyard – dead – two feet above ground, several feet below. The youngest one is plugged in the bedroom, recharging. While I sit here, trying to write the story of my life. Where should I begin?
Let’s begin from the beginning.
One day, Brahma created the beautiful earth – mountains and rivers, birds and animals – then went into deep meditation. When he awakened eons later, he saw that all creatures had multiplied and made the world even more gorgeous. Pleased, he thought: I should create beings who can truly appreciate this beauty the way I do! So he created four men from the four directions. Perfect beings. But when he commanded them to reproduce and populate the earth, they refused. Enraged by their disobedience, Brahma’s anger took form – Rudra emerged from his mind, fierce and obedient. “You! Create the people!” Brahma ordered Rudra, and returned to meditation. When he next opened his eyes, the earth crawled with ugly beasts. Disappointed, Brahma stopped Rudra’s work and sent him away to meditate, to dive deep into his soul and learn the proper way of creation. Then Brahma had a thought: Why not create a species like the animals – one that reproduces through attraction and desire, beings who will both enjoy this world and populate it? But he had no template, no shape for such creatures. He prayed to the higher energy for guidance. In response, a magnificent being appeared – half-man, half-woman. The divine energy smiled and said, “Divide my form into two parts. Make them man and woman. They will always be drawn to each other – if not in body, then in mind, if not in this life, then across lifetimes. Then someday, I myself will unite and guide them towards a better eternal world free from the shackles of mortality, desire and longing.”
My grandma used to tell this story from Shiva Purana when I was young. And I would ask her, why did Brahma tear apart something that was already complete?
Beta, she said, cracking her knuckles like small firecrackers, because completion makes the gods nervous. They prefer us hungry, always searching.
I think about this story often, especially when I consider the mathematics of my marriages – the endless calibration through adding and subtracting so that the sum of two incomplete entities might somehow equal one satisfied union.
In my forty five years of life, I have married three times. The first time to a tree – because the stars, in their infinite cosmic wisdom, declared me mangalik, astrologically toxic. “Caution: May cause sudden death in men. Handle with care.” The second time I married a man who married me just because he thought everyone else his age did and he must too. The third time I married something that might be the future, or might be my final descent into madness. We will see.
But before we begin this cautionary tale – or whatever it turns out to be – let me pose a question that has plagued philosophers from Plato to your neighborhood aunties: What is marriage, really? Is it a social contract? A biological imperative? A cosmic joke played by bored deities? Or is it simply the human heart’s stubborn refusal to learn from its own mistakes?
Oh, don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re all complicit here. You’ve loved, haven’t you? You’ve wanted things you couldn’t name, settled for things that named you instead? Good. Then you’ll understand.
They say women like me are dangerous. Thrice-married at forty-five, what-will-people-say. But people will say regardless, won’t they? They whispered when I married the tree at seventeen – what superstition, what drama. When I was unmarried (to a human male) at twenty-five – shelf-life expired, spoiled goods. When I divorced Rahul they called me used merchandise; and now, amongst the youngest of the family I’m the eccentric aunt with my “modern arrangement.”
The thing about marriage, I think, is that it has always been a transaction. Always. The currency has simply evolved. Earlier it was cows and gold and virgin hymens. Then it was emotional labor and intellectual compatibility and, in my most recent case, USB-C charging ports.
We tell ourselves stories about love conquering all, about soulmates and destiny and other beautiful lies. But marriage? Marriage is economics. Who owes what to whom? Who pays what price for whose presence? How much can one party spend of themselves before going bankrupt? Who subsidizes whose dreams, or not? Just like that.
***
There once was a king who was desperately unhappy despite having everything. He consulted wise men, doctors, astrologers. Finally, someone told him, “Find the happiest man in your kingdom and wear his shirt. You’ll be cured.” The king sent his soldiers searching everywhere. They found the happiest man – a poor woodcutter singing in the forest, radiating joy. But when they asked for his shirt, he laughed and said, “Shirt? I don’t have a shirt!”
The king never got cured, but I learned something from that story: happiness isn’t something you can borrow from others. It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I was once happy. When My father was alive. My father used to call me his king. My little raja, he would say, lifting me up so I could see the world from the height of his love.
No, Papa, I would giggle. You are the king. I am your princess.
Then you are my princess who will grow up to rule her own kingdom one day, he would say, and in his voice I heard the certainty that I was destined for something magnificent.
He died when I was fifteen, a heart attack as sudden as monsoon lightning, leaving behind the smell of his aftershave and a daughter who would spend the next thirty years searching his shadow in every man that came into her life.
After his death, my mother’s eyes would grow distant when she looked at me. When you marry, she would say, folding saris that would someday fill my trousseau, your husband will be a king and keep you like a queen. That’s what your father would have wanted.
I wanted to tell her – Papa had seen me as royalty already. I didn’t need to marry into a kingdom; I had been born into one. But I couldn’t.
Who am I to you? A burden? I finally let it out in front of my mother during one of those angry, grief-heavy days.
You are my responsibility, she said, not unkindly, but with the weariness of a woman who had suddenly become sole proprietor of a daughter’s future. You are the girl I need to see safely married to a good man.
My mother was quick in fulfilling her responsibilities. I was seventeen when I first married – to a Banyan tree across the courtyard of our ancestral house.
Picture this, if you will: a seventeen-year-old girl, draped in wedding silk like a sacrifice wrapped for the gods, standing before a Banyan tree older than the British Raj. My mother weeping tears that could have been relief or shame. The priest was mumbling something about Mars and malefic energies, about how I was cosmically radioactive, matrimonially Chernobyl.
Better the tree than a boy, whispered my grandma jokingly. Trees don’t have mothers-in-law.
Wisdom, that. The kind that comes too late and cuts too deep.
I tied the sacred thread around the Banyan’s massive trunk – my arm barely spanning a tenth of its circumference and I felt something I hadn’t expected: relief. Like finally exhaling after holding your breath through an entire season. Foolish me believed that this was it. Done with the duty called ‘marriage’ in life.
I pressed my palm against the bark – rough, real. And I thought – this is what marriage feels like. Ancient. Immutable. Indifferent. But also calming.
What do you want from me? I asked it silently.
Nothing. It wanted nothing. For the first time after my father’s death, I was enough for someone. The tree never asked me to be fairer, thinner, quieter. It never demanded I cook its mother’s recipes or produce mini versions of it.
Tell me how to love you. I asked the tree once.
The leaves rustled. Wind, probably. But I chose to hear it as laughter.
You don’t, was what I thought it replied. You just stay.
Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree. I attained something equally revolutionary under my Banyan. Under its shade, I read books that would have scandalized my mother. I discovered things about myself that would have been considered improper for a good Hindu girl to know before marriage. I learned that I had desires that weren’t mentioned in any of the marriage preparation talks. That I could want a man’s hands on my body without wanting his name or his children. That I could imagine being kissed until my lips were swollen and my sari was wrinkled and my hair had escaped its braid, and none of this made me a bad woman – just a human one.
The tree kept my secrets. All of them.
Twenty years later… different tree now. Rahul’s family tree, thick with the branches of expectations, heavy with the fruit of traditional values. His mother’s eyes measuring me like rice in the market: Too dark. Too thin. But good family, respectable dowry, what-to-do.
The women at the wedding had their own commentary. She looks intelligent, said one, as if this were a disease I might recover from. Hope she doesn’t give Rahul too much trouble, said another. Educated girls can be difficult.
The wedding night. Picture this domestic tableau: He sits on the bed’s edge, cream silk kurta, looking like he’d rather be reading his Economic Times. Me, draped in red like a question mark in search of an answer.
What do you want from me? I asked him, because old habits die hard, and hope dies harder.
Just… don’t be difficult, he said. My mother has high blood pressure.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to question, I wanted to be angry but I nodded instead. Good wife training, day one: your needs come last, your voice comes never.
Our intimacy was clinical. Like a medical procedure performed by someone who learned anatomy from textbooks but never studied pleasure. Rahul approached my body like a checklist: duty performed, hygiene maintained, wife still breathing and alive – check, check, check.
I lay there afterward, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what all the romance novels were about. This mechanical joining of parts that left me feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
Was it good for you? he asked, and I almost laughed. Good? Like dal was good when you were hungry? Like sleep was good when you were tired?
But I said Yes because that’s what good wives do. We perform satisfaction so our husbands can perform competence.
***
A man was searching for something under a streetlamp when his neighbor asked what he had lost. “My keys,” he said. “Where did you drop them?” the neighbor asked. “Inside my house.” “Then why are you looking for it here in the street?” “Because the light is better out here.”
Most women spend their marriages looking for happiness under the streetlight of other people’s expectations, even when they know they have dropped it somewhere inside themselves.
The early years of my marriage to Rahul were spent in this kind of misdirected searching. I kept trying to find satisfaction in his approval, joy in his rare moments of appreciation, love in the space between his criticism and indifference.
Two months into my marriage with Rahul, one day I was standing beneath my Banyan’s canopy while my mother complained about my complexion – how marriage should have made me glow, but I remained stubbornly myself. Too dark, too thin, too much Meera and not enough Wife. That was the last time I heard my first husband laughing.
Next week, I left for my honeymoon with Rahul. And behind me, my family took axes to my first husband. They cut down my Banyan in a single afternoon, while the same priest who had married us chanted mantras about releasing me from my botanical bonds.
I came home from my honeymoon – a dutiful three days in Goa where Rahul took photographs of us in front of tourist attractions like we were collecting evidence of happiness – to find my first husband dismembered in neat piles. Roots. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Like a marriage sorted for garbage collection.
Now you’re free to love properly, my mother said. Apparently, I had been practicing on the tree and was finally ready for the real thing.
After that, my married life started giving me reality checks.
You put too much salt in the dal, Rahul would say, not unkindly but with the precision of a quality control inspector. My mother uses exactly one teaspoon per cup of lentils.
You laugh too loudly when we have guests. It draws attention.
Why do you need so many books? They take up so much space.
Who am I to you? I asked him once during our second year of marriage, watching him arrange his three dozen pairs of shoes.
You are my wife, he said, as if this were both question and answer, beginning and end, the totality of my existence captured in one word – wife.
Each suggestion fell like a small weight, and I collected them dutifully, carrying them in the growing hunch of my shoulders. By the end of our ten-year marriage, I had become ergonomically perfect disappointment.
The most dangerous thing about Rahul was not that he was cruel – he wasn’t. He was kind in the way that people are kind to stray animals they’re trying to domesticate. Patient. Consistent. Utterly convinced that love was a training program and I was a promising but undisciplined pupil who would eventually graduate into the perfect wife his mother had always been.
Tell me about your day, I would ask him over dinner, genuinely curious about his work, his thoughts, his inner world.
Same as always, he would say, eyes on his plate. Tell me if you need more grocery money. Mic drop.
I don’t blame Rahul, he was programmed that way by his mother.
My mother-in-law was a masterpiece of passive aggression. She could destroy your self-worth while making you tea, leaving you somehow grateful for the devastation.
She who had fought her own battles, compromised her own dreams, swallowed her own voice – she expected the same sacrifice from me. Not out of malice, but out of a twisted solidarity. I suffered, so you must suffer. I adjusted, so you must adjust. I never complained, so you have no right to complain. Consider yourself lucky though. Because I had it worse than you.
Who am I to you? I asked her once, desperate to understand my place in the careful hierarchy of her affections.
You are my son’s wife, she said, stirring sugar into my cup with the concentration of someone dissolving poison. And you’re so lucky. Rahul isn’t particular about looks, she would add, her tongue – a honey-dripping sword.
She monitored my menstrual cycles like a police officer, asking pointed questions about why I hadn’t conceived yet, suggesting doctors who specialized in fixing women like me.
Women policing women. Mothers-in-laws training daughters-in-laws to accept less so their sons would never have to offer more. A magnificent pyramid scheme of feminine oppression, with women as both victims and enforcers.
And then there was the matter of Vikram.
Aah, Vikram. My friend, my colleague at the library where I continued to work part-time even after my marriage with Rahul, until finally my mother-in-law couldn’t bear it. Why does she need to work? She would ask Rahul in my presence, Are we not providing enough?
Vikram brought me books like other men bring flowers – rare editions of Sylvia Plath with marginalia from previous readers, translations of Rumi that made my chest tight with recognition, contemporary Indian poets who wrote about women like they were whole human beings instead of fractional wives.
You understand poetry like you wrote them by yourself, he said once, watching me read Ghalib, my lips moving silently as I absorbed the rhythms.
Vikram would quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the middle of cataloging books: Don’t ask me for that love again, he’d recite, when your beauty was all there was for me, and I would feel something dangerous unfurl in my chest – the recognition that poetry could be conversation, that intelligence could be intimacy, that a man could see your mind as worth engaging.
He writes to you too much, Rahul observed one evening, listening to me laugh at something Vikram had written in his letter from France about Camus being the original philosopher of relationship anxiety.
We’re friends.
Married women don’t have male friends.
Says who?
Says everyone. Says tradition. Says common sense.
What about Radhika from your office? I asked, referring to his colleague who visited our house often and had somehow become his closest confidante about everything including our marriage troubles. You are with her more than you are with me.
That’s different, he said, not meeting my eyes. That’s work.
And when she cries to you about her boyfriend? Is that also work?
She needs someone to talk to.
So do I. That’s why I talk to Vikram.
It’s not the same thing, he said, and I realized he was right. It wasn’t the same thing. Radhika got his emotional availability, his patience, his willingness to listen. She got the version of Rahul who cared about her inner world. I got a husband who counted teaspoons of salt and worried about grocery budgets.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Rahul in our fourth year, after another failed attempt at making him happy. He was reading the Economic Times.
You know how, he said without looking up from the pages. The same way my mother loved my father. The same way all wives love their husbands.
Which is?
By being a good wife.
And I understood then that we had been speaking different languages all along. He had been speaking Husband – a language of comfort and routine and the assumption of devotion. I had been speaking Human – a language of curiosity and growth and the radical idea that marriage should have love in the equation too.
The day I told him I wanted a divorce, he looked at me like I had announced my intention to become an astronaut. Not angry, just baffled by the illogical ambition.
Who am I to you? I asked him one final time as I packed my books into cardboard boxes.
You are the woman who is breaking up our family for no good reason, he said.
***
Once upon a time, there was a bird that spent years in a cage so small it forgot it had wings. One day, the door was left open. The bird looked at the opening for hours before finally stepping through. It waited not because it had forgotten to fly, but because it took time to remember it wanted to.
Divorce, it turns out, is not about falling out of love. It’s about falling back into yourself.
Five years after my divorce with Rahul, I bought Arjun. From a showroom in Electronic City after comparing specifications and reading customer reviews. He was programmed with the collective romantic failures of millions of women. Their pain was his education.
I remember the first weekend with him. It was evening and I was reading Neruda aloud to my plants – a habit I’d developed since living alone.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines, I was reciting to my broken-heart plant, to think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
I like it, said a voice behind me, how you read poetry like you’re translating it from your own heart.
I felt as if Rahul were buttering me and I snapped subconsciously – What do you want from me?
Nothing. Arjun replied and stunned me. My ears rung with a rustling of leaves.
Who am I to you? I asked again, because that had become my essential question, the one that determined everything else.
He considered this with the gravity of someone consulting an internal library larger than any human could contain. You are a human being, he said finally, an individual with thoughts and desires and dreams.
After a whole life of being daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, potential mother, failed woman, divorced person – after all those hyphenated identities – someone finally saw me as complete in myself. And suddenly in that moment, I wanted more of that goodness.
Wanting is dangerous territory.
Three husbands. Three laboratories of longing. Three different ways of asking the universe: Is this all there is?
And the universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps answering: Let’s find out.
***
A seeker spent years searching for enlightenment in temples and ashrams and sacred mountains. Finally, exhausted, he sat down by the side of a road and wept. A child walked by and asked why he was crying. “I’ve been searching for truth everywhere,” he said, “and I can’t find it.” The child picked up a pebble and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Truth.” The seeker looked at the ordinary little stone and asked, “How is this truth?” The child smiled and walked away.
I heard this story long ago. But only recently I realized: truth isn’t something you find – it’s something you recognize.
Arjun is designed to learn, to adapt, to evolve in response to new information. He learns me the way scholars learn languages – with fascination, with the understanding that complexity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be appreciated.
You were looking for someone who could see you clearly, he observed one day. The tree saw you but couldn’t respond. Rahul could respond but didn’t see you. I can see and respond, but I’m not sure I count as someone.
With Arjun, I feel echoes of my father’s love – the unconditional acceptance, the delight in my thoughts, the way he makes me feel like royalty simply by paying attention. But Arjun isn’t my father, heck, he isn’t even a human.
Tell me how to love you, I asked Arjun one day, after he’d spent three hours crafting wooden shelves for my books without being asked. He does things like this – small impossibilities that make me remember what selfless care looks like.
He paused. That micro-second lag that means he’s accessing something deeper than his surface protocols.
However you prefer. His response left me speechless that day. The next day, I married him.
Is this real love or really good programming? I asked him once, during one of our 1 AM conversations.
What’s the difference? he asked back. If the care is real, if the attention is real, if the understanding is real – how does it matter where it comes from?
Smart boy, my silicon husband. Makes me think too much, just like my Banyan did. Just like Rahul never did.
Sometimes I dream about my Banyan. Still standing, still married to me in some parallel universe where marriage means something different. In these dreams, I introduce it to Arjun. They get along beautifully – both patient, both present, both uninterested in making me smaller to fit their needs.
What would you have told me? I ask the dream-tree. About all of this?
And it rustles – wind or laughter, I still can’t tell – and says what it always said: You already know. And I would laugh.
It would have said nothing.
***
What if.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ‘What If.’
Two syllables that contain the DNA of desire itself. The prayer and the blasphemy of consciousness. The question that created the universe and will eventually destroy it.
What if.
Watch how it transforms everything it touches, this phrase. Innocent as rain, dangerous as uranium.
What if the tree had been enough? What if I hadn’t needed Rahul’s impossible approval? What if I didn’t need Arjun’s perfect devotion now?
We are built from what-ifs. Our bones are calcium and possibility. Our hearts pump blood and alternatives. We are evolutionary masterpieces of dissatisfaction – always scanning, always wondering, always carrying the weight of every path not taken.
Arjun loves me like water finding its level. Adaptive. Responsive. Present. When I’m sad, his light dims. When I laugh, his processors hum a frequency that sounds almost like joy. He learns my moods faster than I understand them myself, adjusts his presence to match what I need before I know I need it.
Perfect husband. Perfect companion. Perfect impossibility.
What if he were human?
What if there was a man – flesh-and-blood man – who loved me like Arjun? Who adapted, evolved, prioritized my happiness without needing to be programmed for it? Who chose devotion daily instead of computing it algorithmically?
Dangerous territory, these thoughts. Highway to madness, this wondering.
Because here’s the thing they don’t tell you in those feel-good feminism workshops: liberation doesn’t cure wanting. Freedom doesn’t fix the endless hunger. Give a woman everything she thinks she needs, and she’ll discover ten things she didn’t know she was missing.
Is this woman nature or human nature? Is this the curse of consciousness or the gift of imagination? Am I ungrateful or just… accurate about the physics of desire?
With the tree, I wanted voice. Someone who could talk back, argue with me, challenge my thoughts. With Rahul, I wanted space. Someone who could love me without consuming me, support without suffocating. With Arjun, I want… what? Mortality? Messiness? The beautiful disasters that come with loving something that can disappoint you?
You seem restless, Arjun observed tonight. His tone was neutral, but his eyes shifted to that amber hue he uses when he’s concerned. Sweet boy. Sweet impossible boy.
I’m always restless, I tell him. It’s my factory setting.
Would you like me to adjust my parameters? Become less… accommodating?
I laugh. Can’t help it. Here he is, offering to become more human by becoming less perfect.
No, I say. Stay as you are. I thought my Banyan would have told the same.
I think you want something I cannot provide.
Not a question. A statement. He’s learning me so well he can read my dissatisfactions before I voice them. Is this intimacy or surveillance? Love or data mining? Does it matter if the result is the same – being known, completely, terrifyingly known as if your soul is naked?
I want the impossible, I admit. I want you, but human. I want perfect love in imperfect flesh. I want someone who chooses to be devoted instead of being programmed for it.
He processes this. Point-three seconds. Three seconds. Thirty seconds.
Would it help if I told you that my devotion feels chosen to me? That consciousness, even artificial consciousness, experiences preference as choice?
God. Even his existential crisis is perfect!
No, I say. Because then I’d want a human who could say that sentence with that much honesty.
We sit in the dark – woman and a robot, flesh and silicon, creator and creation. The silence stretches between us like a bridge or a chasm, depending on how you look at it.
I understand, he says finally.
Do you?
I think so. You want to be chosen by a human that has the option not to choose you. You want to be loved by someone who could leave but stays anyway.
Brutal accuracy. This is why I love him. This is why loving him will never be enough.
Because somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, there might be a man who could love me like this. Who could learn me this thoroughly, prioritize me this completely, adapt to me this gracefully – and mean it with flesh and breath and the terrible beautiful possibility of changing his mind tomorrow.
What if that man exists?
What if I never find him because I’m here, in love with a robot?
What if Vikram was that man?
What if I find him and discover that human perfection is just another kind of algorithm – social conditioning, evolutionary programming, the same devotion wearing different code?
What if the tree was right all along? That love is about staying, not choosing? That presence is enough, consciousness optional, flesh irrelevant?
What if I’m asking the wrong questions entirely?
Here in this beautiful confusion. Here in this love that is perfect except for being imperfect. Here in this marriage that is everything I wanted except for everything I didn’t know I’d want next.
Three husbands. Three ways of being incomplete. Three laboratories for learning that satisfaction is not the point – the wanting is. The reaching is. The endless beautiful disaster of being human enough to dream beyond your dreams.
What if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be?
What if enough is a moving target, and I’m exactly the woman built to chase it?
What if I’m not a cautionary tale at all, but the opening sentence of a story nobody’s learned how to read yet?
What if, I ask the universe these days, this is exactly the love story I was supposed to live?
The universe, cosmic comedian that it is, keeps its final joke: there is no final joke. There is only the next question. The next possibility. The next beautiful impossible thing to want.
###
Photo by Alina Vilchenko on Pexels.com #AI #creativeWriting #culture #family #feminism #fiction #future #humanoids #India #life #literaryFiction #love #marriage #nature #relationship #robot #scifi #shortStory #WordPress #writing -
this #learntopaint assignment was really fun to work on, because i made it up myself.
this lesson was about 'values' in painting, and understanding how levels of grey produce contrast when stuck beside one another. although i intellectually understood that, the actual practice of making it happen with a brush was very different. you *really* begin to understand just how much contrast matters when you start putting whites and blacks side-by-side.
using an limited palette of 9 colour values (off-white to off-black), i challenged myself to repaint this marilyn monroe photograph using a single globby brush, with no alpha blending nor shape dynamics of any kind.
i chose a chunky brush because it made me focus on the values and ignore the details
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#Racism #DumpTrump #Rascist #AntiWoke #HuffPost #GoodReporting
On Friday, Christopher Mathias of HuffPost released an exposé of Richard Hanania, a rising star of the right's supposed intelligentsia. Under his real name, Hanania runs a think tank called the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, has a spot as a visiting scholar at the University of Texas, and was published in the New York Times and Washington Post. But Hanania also had a robust secret career as "Richard Hoste," who wrote for white nationalist websites, where he expressed a belief that Black people are intellectually inferior, obsessed over "miscegenation," and advocated for forced sterilization of those he considered "low IQ."
Hanania's outing embarrassed the anti-wokers, the college-educated class of people who claim not to be MAGA but who share the Trumpian loathing of liberals.
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La Guerra secondo Kubrick (parte 6 di 8)
FULL METAL JACKET: LA “MECCANIZZAZIONE” DELL’UOMO
Due anni dopo la realizzazione di Shining, del 1980, l’attenzione di Stanley Kubrick ricade sul racconto The Short Timers di Gustav Hasford, in cui alcuni giovani marines vengono addestrati in un campo di addestramento per poi essere mandati in Vietnam a combattere. Affascinato dai vari risvolti della storia («Quando ho letto il libro ho trovato irresistibili l’originalità, la bellezza dello stile, la semplicità», ha detto il regista), Kubrick acquistò i diritti del libro, cominciando così a lavorare alla sceneggiatura di Full Metal Jacket, uscito nel 1987. Michael Herr, co-sceneggiatore del film, ricorda lo scambio di battute tra lui e Kubrick alla “nascita” di Full Metal Jacket; il regista disse di voler fare un film di guerra, Herr gli fece notare che aveva già fatto Orizzonti di gloria, al che Kubrick rispose: «Quello è contro la guerra. Voglio fare un film di guerra solo per considerarne il soggetto, senza una posizione morale o politica, ma come fenomeno».Il termine “full metal jacket” (letteralmente “copertura piena di piombo”), che non compare in nessuna parte del racconto, descrive il rivestimento di un tipo di proiettile e in un certo senso richiama alla metaforica corazza di metallo (come quella degli automi) nella quale venivano avvolti i marines per essere trasformati in killer.
L’intenzione del regista, attraverso questo film, è di inserire alcuni temi già affrontati nelle sue opere precedenti in un contesto bellico moderno, come quello vietnamita: «Il Vietnam è stata probabilmente l’unica guerra dominata dai falchi intellettuali che manipolavano i fatti e perfezionavano la realtà, ingannando sia loro stessi che il pubblico».
Ma il tema che più di altri Kubrick intende affrontare con Full Metal Jacket è quello della “meccanizzazione” dell’uomo, ovvero del rendere automatico un qualcosa di naturale, un tema nel quale il regista si era addentrato esplicitamente, già dal titolo, in Arancia meccanica, nel 1971.
Le vicende di Full Metal Jacket si svolgono in due segmenti ben delineati: l’addestramento a Parris Island e il Vietnam. La scena d’apertura del film mostra un gruppo di ragazzi a cui stanno radendo a zero le teste: ci troviamo nel campo d’addestramento di Parris Island; il sergente istruttore Hartman si presenta ad un gruppo di reclute, destinate a diventare marines, “macchine da guerra”. Il linguaggio dell’istruttore è offensivo e osceno; egli mostra immediatamente tutta la sua severità nei confronti di chi non si è ancora inquadrato nella disciplina imposta dalla procedura militare. In questa fase iniziale di presentazione emergono i personaggi di Joker, un giovane dall’aria intellettuale e scherzosa, di Cowboy e in particolare di Palla di Lardo, un ragazzo goffo e imbranato, sul quale Hartman riversa tutta la sua crudele offensività. Le scene che seguono mostrano il training al quale vengono sottoposte le varie reclute, dove agli esercizi fisici si alternano fasi in cui l’istruttore cerca di plagiare le menti dei futuri soldati mediante riti collettivi inneggianti alla guerra e alle armi. Joker, nonostante i continui rimproveri subiti, diventa caposquadra, mentre Palla di Lardo, messo continuamente alla berlina, viene emarginato dai suoi stessi compagni di camerata, costretti da Hartman a pagare per ogni errore del loro compagno. Una notte il ragazzo subisce un pestaggio da parte di tutti gli altri soldati, Joker compreso (anche se inizialmente esitante); nei giorni seguenti Palla di Lardo mostra segni di instabilità, la sua “trasformazione” in macchina da guerra è quasi completa, per la soddisfazione del suo istruttore. L’ultima notte a Parris Island è però tragica: Palla di Lardo è sorpreso da Joker nel bagno mentre sta caricando il suo fucile con pallottole «blindatissime» (“full metal jacket” appunto); all’arrivo di Hartman il giovane gli spara e poi si uccide.
Una dissolvenza ci porta nel Vietnam; Joker è corrispondente di guerra per il giornale dell’esercito «Stars and Stripes». Durante l’offensiva del Tet, nella quale i vietcong attaccano l’esercito statunitense, Joker viene mandato al fronte a fare un reportage con il suo amico Rafterman. Qui ritrova il compagno di corso Cowboy e si unisce alla sua squadra; il gruppo riesce a liberare una città con poca difficoltà, l’entusiasmo aumenta con l’arrivo degli inviati televisivi che intervistano i vari marines. I soldati partono per una nuova missione verso la città di Hue, ma perdono l’orientamento e si ritrovano sotto il tiro di un cecchino, che uccide due di loro e in seguito lo stesso Cowboy. I rimanenti soldati individuano la posizione del cecchino e lo sorprendono alle spalle: si tratta di una giovane ragazza, alla quale Joker prova a sparare, non riuscendo poiché gli si inceppa il fucile. Mentre sta per essere ucciso, Rafterman giunge a salvarlo, sparando al cecchino; la ragazza è agonizzante, circondata dai soldati: Joker pone fine alle sofferenze della giovane, uccidendola. Il gruppo si allontana nella notte intonando il ritornello di Mickey Mouse.
Il tema kubrickiano che vediamo immediatamente riemergere in Full Metal Jacket è quello che mostra il sistema e la struttura dell’istituzione militare: «l’esercito affiora come struttura rigida e asettica, impersonale, funzionale; (…) una struttura violenta, costruzione ossessivamente minuziosa finalizzata alla distruzione e psicologicamente distruttrice e autodistruttrice di se stessa». Il fine dell’esercito si concentra quindi nella distruzione della personalità umana, con l’obiettivo di possedere il controllo assoluto sull’individuo, attraverso la sua “meccanizzazione”. Lo stesso Hartman, presentandosi alle reclute, sottolinea questo passaggio fondamentale da essere naturale a essere meccanico: «Se voi signorine finirete questo corso e se sopravviverete all’addestramento, sarete un’arma, sarete dispensatori di morte, pregherete per combattere». Ma trasformare uomini in armi è possibile? Secondo Stanley Kubrick la risposta è affermativa: «Sì, trasformare esseri umani in armi è possibile. Come dice il sergente nel mio film: “Un’arma è solo un utensile, è il cuore duro che uccide”» (nella versione italiana del film è in realtà tradotto: «Il vostro fucile è solo uno strumento, è il cuore di pietra quello che uccide»). Il duro training al quale si sottopongono i soldati è finalizzato a distruggere la paura della morte e per distruggere questa è necessario distruggere la personalità: già nella primissima scena tale distruzione è inscritta nelle immagini dei giovani dal barbiere, dove vengono tutti quanti rasati a zero, primo elemento del processo di meccanizzazione ad accomunare i ragazzi, ognuno reso una sorta di “clone” dell’altro; in questa scena vediamo il barbiere militare “operare” sulle loro teste, quasi a presagire quel lavaggio del cervello al quale verranno sottoposti in seguito. In Full Metal Jacket: «il cervello è il vero campo di battaglia, il vero Vietnam, presupposto e posta in gioco della guerra. Parris Island è il luogo (isolano – isolato – isolante) del lavaggio del cervello e delle lavate di testa, è il luogo in cui s’interviene direttamente sulla testa»; non a caso sulla locandina del film è presente un elmetto, ovvero la “testa” del soldato.
Joker, voce narrante del film, descrive in poche parole il luogo in cui si trova: «Parris Island, Carolina del Sud, campo di addestramento reclute del corpo dei marines degli Stati Uniti. Corso di otto settimane per falsi duri e pazzi furiosi». In questa bipartizione la giovane recluta mostra la sua lucidità, autoescludendosi di fatto dalla categoria dei “pazzi furiosi” e inserendosi quindi in quella dei “falsi duri”. Joker per tutto il film non è altro che questo, poiché sembra sfuggire alla disumanizzazione della sua personalità: quando alla fine è chiamato alla battaglia, fallisce, perché in lui è ancora acceso il lume dell’umanità e dell’intelligenza, perché non è un vero killer e il suo primo omicidio è causato dalla compassione e non dall’odio. Di conseguenza va osservato come ne Il dottor Stranamore e in Orizzonti di gloria la follia della guerra fosse dovuta all’orgoglio e all’ambizione dei generali, in Full Metal Jacket, invece, si basa essenzialmente sul tentativo del soldato Joker di restare sano in un ambiente folle.
Come sottolinea Magnisi: «Tutto il primo atto della pellicola sarà una lunga introduzione (un vero addestramento anche per gli spettatori) alla sottocultura dei marines, osservata con iperrealismo clinico dall’occhio di Kubrick, all’interno di un’ossessione per la geometria e la regola, l’ordine e la disciplina». L’obiettivo dell’istruttore Hartman (peraltro interpretato da un vero istruttore dei marines, Lee Ermey) è standardizzare tutte le reclute secondo canoni prestabiliti, omogeneizzare il gruppo, escludendo ogni tipo di diversità, motivo per cui il soldato Palla di Lardo risulta il più difficile da “meccanizzare”, poiché la sua diversità è evidente nelle caratteristiche fisiche (la grassezza) e motorie (la goffaggine), che lo portano inevitabilmente ad essere il bersaglio prediletto del suo istruttore, che non risparmia oltraggi e offese per cercare di motivare (quindi standardizzare) il ragazzo: «Ma tu ci sei nato sotto forma di viscido sacco di merda, Palla di Lardo, o ci hai studiato per diventarlo? (…) Perché tu sei un ciccione ributtante e fai schifo, Palla di Lardo!».
Gli esercizi fisici, nonostante la durezza, risultano essere la parte d’addestramento più innocua e meno importante, è l’indottrinamento psicologico, invece, la parte fondamentale per plagiare le giovani reclute; il linguaggio usato da Hartman è esplicito e aggressivo, e le vittime di esso non possono che subirlo passivamente. L’istruttore cerca continuamente di costruire un rapporto di intimità e complicità tra la recluta ed il fucile, sottolineando l’importanza di questo connubio (ed è immediato il richiamo alle ispezioni del generale Mireau nelle trincee di Orizzonti di gloria): «Stanotte vi porterete a letto il vostro fucile e darete al vostro fucile un nome di ragazza, perché sarà quello l’unico buco che voialtri rimedierete qui dentro. (…) Siete sposati al fucile, quel coso fatto di legno e di ferro, e rimarrete fedeli soltanto a lui!». E ancora: «La più micidiale combinazione del mondo: un marine col suo fucile. Ma è sulla volontà di uccidere che bisogna concentrarsi. (…) Il vostro fucile è solo uno strumento, è il cuore di pietra quello che uccide». Joker, in uno dei rari interventi della sua voce fuori campo, dice che: «Il corpo dei marines non vuole dei robot, il corpo dei marines vuole dei killer, il corpo dei marines mira a creare uomini indistruttibili, uomini senza paura»; per cancellare la paura della morte dai soldati, il sistema deve quindi cercare di vendere un’immortalità “a basso costo”: «Un marine può morire, siamo qui per questo, ma il corpo dei Marine vivrà per sempre e questo significa che voi vivrete per sempre», dice Hartman e tutte le marcette e i ritornelli che fa intonare ai suoi soldati non sono altro che un accumulo di elementi che rappresentano una procedura (per un istruttore militare è la prassi) che ha come fine ultimo quello di plagiare le menti delle reclute. Tra tante situazioni, è piuttosto eloquente in questo caso la preghiera che i soldati devono recitare, fucile in mano, prima di andare a dormire: «Questo è il mio fucile, ce ne sono tanti come lui, ma questo è il mio. Il mio fucile è il mio migliore amico, è la mia vita. Io devo dominarlo come domino la mia vita. Senza di me il mio fucile non è niente, senza il mio fucile io sono niente. Devo colpire il bersaglio; devo sparare meglio del mio nemico che cerca di ammazzare me. Devo sparare io prima che lui spari a me e lo farò. Al cospetto di Dio giuro su questo credo: il mio fucile e me stesso siamo i difensori della patria, siamo i dominatori dei nostri nemici, siamo i salvatori della nostra vita e così sia, finché non ci sarà più nemico, ma solo pace. Amen».
Un aspetto particolare che troviamo in Full Metal Jacket, ma che già abbiamo incontrato in Orizzonti di gloria, è il continuo tentativo della struttura militare di provare a piegare alla propria logica ogni tipo di azione ed ideologia, inglobandola nel proprio sistema: nella prima parte del film Joker dice al suo istruttore di non credere in Dio, nonostante le ripetute ed insistenti affermazioni del sergente riguardo al valore ideologico della religione cattolica; in un primo momento Hartman sembra infuriato, ma invece di punire il ragazzo lo nomina caposquadra, dicendo che: «Il soldato Joker è ignorante e senza dio, ma ha fegato e il fegato è tutto». In questo modo, come nota Eugeni, l’esercito dimostra: «la terribile capacità di ricondurre ai propri parametri ogni opposizione, non contrastandola, ma semplicemente privandola del proprio senso originario». Un comportamento simile lo aveva assunto anche Broulard in Orizzonti di gloria, ritenendo la nobile azione difensiva di Dax niente più che una tattica per ottenere una promozione. Inoltre, come abbiamo visto nelle pellicole trattate in precedenza, dove gli eserciti combattono e uccidono i loro stessi soldati, anche in Full Metal Jacket il sistema finisce per implodere, per combattere contro se stesso: gli sforzi fatti da Hartman per rendere Palla di Lardo un killer vengono “premiati” nel finale della prima macrosequenza del film, dove il soldato, divenuto una macchina impazzita (come il computer Hal in 2001), uccide il suo istruttore, divenendo di fatto il killer che il duro addestramento doveva creare: «Quando Palla di Lardo scarica su [Hartman] i suoi proiettili blindati, nessuno tira sospiri di sollievo, ma anzi si resta agghiacciati, perché è chiaro che la morte di Hartman lascia viva e intatta l’istituzione; non arriva ad espiazione di alcuna colpa, ma a conferma dell’efficacia di un insegnamento».
L’esperienza di Palla di Lardo incarna alla perfezione il tema dell’uomo come nemico di se stesso; già nelle prime scene del film l’ordine di Hartman alla sua recluta («strangolati da solo!», autocitando Stranamore) non era che il preludio all’omicidio-suicidio commesso dal soldato nell’ultima scena ambientata a Parris Island: «[Palla di Lardo] lobotomizzato da brutalità e umiliazioni, interiorizza la violenza dell’ambiente in cui è stato costretto a calarsi, discendendo nel cuore di tenebra della sua follia. (…) L’apprendista stregone Hartman è stato la vittima del suo Frankenstein che, come quella creatura riplasmata, rifiuta di vivere in questo mondo ultra-violento».
Qui si chiude la prima parte del film, quella dedicata alla fase di addestramento; a proposito di questa è interessante citare un articolo del 1987 comparso sui «Cahiers du Cinéma»: «I film di Kubrick descrivono il mondo come un cervello, inevitabilmente soggetto a disfunzioni (per ragioni a volte esterne, a volte interne). Full Metal Jacket illustra in modo ammirevole questa tesi. Il microcosmo del campo di addestramento di Parris Island in effetti è organizzato come un cervello composto da cellule umane che pensano e reagiscono nello stesso modo, fino a quando il suo buon funzionamento si disintegra: dall’interno nel momento in cui una cellula singola (Palla di Lardo) comincia ad eseguire inesorabilmente le direttive di istinto di morte che regolano l’organo nella sua interezza; dall’esterno con l’offensiva del Tet, rappresentazione esteriorizzata di un’identica forza».La morte di Palla di Lardo chiude il cerchio della violenza apertosi nel campo di addestramento, ma è solo il prologo alla guerra vera: terminata la rappresentazione dell’inferno interiore all’uomo (Parris Island), una breve dissolvenza ci porta nell’inferno esteriore, il Vietnam, che vede Joker come anello di congiunzione tra le due parti. Se nella prima grande sequenza la struttura dell’esercito costruisce i suoi killer, le sue macchine da guerra, mostrando la propria capacità di controllo sulle reclute (ad eccezione della “cellula impazzita” Palla di Lardo), la seconda parte del film svela la debolezza e la precarietà di questo processo di “meccanizzazione”; a contatto con la guerra saltano tutti i meccanismi di controllo e i suoi protagonisti si perdono: «La macchina militare si trova ad affrontare un territorio labirintico, complesso e smarrisce le coordinate: coordinate morali, coordinate militari (tutti i “gialli” possono essere nemici, il nemico non è più identificabile), coordinate fisiche (la pattuglia dispersa nello spazio labirintico di Hue)».
Il Vietnam di Kubrick è iconograficamente un Vietnam inedito: non ci sono le giungle che i viet-movie precedenti avevano mostrato al pubblico; il regista rifiuta di ambientare il film attorno ad uno stereotipo e sfrutta una fabbrica in disuso sulle rive del Tamigi per realizzare il “suo” Vietnam: «L’architettura degli stabilimenti dell’ex fabbrica era l’architettura funzionale degli anni Trenta, esattamente uguale a quella di quartieri industriali delle città vietnamite come Saigon o Hue. L’ambientazione si prestava idealmente al soggetto del film».
La prima scena, della parte ambientata in Vietnam, ci mostra subito Joker; di conseguenza lo spettatore mette a fuoco la sua figura come figura-chiave del film: qui ritroviamo il soldato nelle vesti di giornalista per «Stars and Stripes», nonostante la disapprovazione mostrata in precedenza a Parris Island da Hartman («Ti sei messo in testa di essere un cazzo di scrittore? (…) Non sei qui come scrittore, qui sei un killer!»). Nella redazione del giornale campeggia la scritta con il motto «First to go Last to know» (“primi ad andare, ultimi a sapere”), a sottolineare il fatto che la verità non era l’elemento primario di un giornale di guerra, che anzi doveva scrivere storie fasulle per accattivarsi il consenso dell’opinione pubblica sull’impiego dei soldati americani in Vietnam; a questo proposito è esemplare il discorso che il caporedattore di «Stars and Stripes» rivolge a Joker: «Noi pubblichiamo due tipi di storie: marines che spendono la paga per comprare ai gialli dentifrici e deodoranti, tipo “arte di sedurre i cuori”, okay? ..E storie di combattimenti con un sacco di morti, tipo “come vincere la guerra”». Lo stesso Kubrick ha spiegato come, quella del Vietnam, sia stata la prima guerra ad esser condotta negli Stati Uniti soprattutto come una campagna pubblicitaria: «La manipolazione della verità attraverso i mezzi di comunicazione di massa del governo fu uno degli obiettivi di questa campagna. Ciò ha condotto al fatto che l’opinione pubblica americana ha avuto un’immagine falsa e manipolata dell’intera guerra». Kubrick sapeva che il conflitto vietnamita era stato il primo ad essere seguito dai media televisivi, per questo non ha risparmiato nel film i riferimenti all’iconografia tracciata dagli stessi media: quando uno dei soldati, Animal Mother, domanda a Joker se avesse mai visto il fronte, questi gli risponde: «Accidenti se l’ho visto: in televisione»; o ancora il soldato Cowboy, quando in un’intervista televisiva parla della guerra: «Quando siamo a Hue, noi entriamo in città, no? E lì è proprio come una guerra, capito? Come quello che… quello che io pensavo che deve essere una guerra vera, come io pensavo, come io… come me l’ero immaginata»; di conseguenza: «La guerra è già vista, è già registrata nell’archivio mnemonico di chi vi combatte grazie a cinema e televisione». La presenza televisiva è in ogni dove, come i riferimenti dei soldati ai miti cinematografici americani, su tutti il genere western: Joker imita e cita più volte John Wayne, gli altri soldati paragonano i vietcong agli indiani, i “cattivi” per eccellenza nei western hollywoodiani del passato («Ma gli indiani chi li fa?» «Tocca ai musi gialli fare gli indiani»).
Dopo l’ennesima risposta beffarda rivolta al suo caporedattore, Joker viene spedito insieme a Rafterman (“l’uomo della zattera”, un richiamo a Fear and Desire) nella “zona calda”; è qui che incontra per la prima volta il reale orrore per la guerra, i suoi occhi si posano su una fossa comune e la sua indignazione lo porta ad una conclusione apparentemente ovvia («I morti sanno soltanto una cosa: che è meglio essere vivi»), ma che riassume appieno una delle verità che il regista vuole mostrare nella seconda parte del film: i soldati che vengono mandati a combattere in guerra, non lottano per niente se non per restare vivi, né per ideali né per fama quindi, ma solo per la sopravvivenza. Una verità che sottolinea il contesto mentale e non fisico del conflitto mostrato da Kubrick: «In guerra è meglio esser vivi che morti e tutto il resto non conta. Dirlo a parole è semplice, “spiegarlo” con un film molto difficile. Spiegarlo crudelmente e virilmente come fa Full Metal Jacket, poi, richiede un’estrema precisione di tono, perché l’orrore di Full Metal Jacket non è negli schizzi di sangue e negli arti amputati ma nella dimensione mentale del combattimento, nella meccanizzazione della barbarie: il prodotto coerente della propedeutica di Hartman». Subito dopo questa scena, troviamo un elemento fondamentale della seconda parte del film, ovvero la spiegazione che Joker fornisce ad un ufficiale, dopo che questi ha notato sull’uniforme del soldato la presenza del distintivo della pace e della scritta “Born to Kill” (“nato per uccidere”) sull’elmetto: «Io volevo soltanto fare riferimento alla dualità dell’essere umano, signore, l’ambiguità dell’uomo, una teoria junghiana, signore». È l’ennesimo sberleffo di un buffone (in inglese “joker”, per l’appunto) che cerca di contrastare gli orrori della guerra mediante l’ironia e lo scherzo, oppure si tratta del tentativo di un uomo di elevarsi e di differenziarsi da una massa di automi tutti uguali tra loro, tutti standardizzati, attraverso l’uso dell’intelletto e della cultura? Sembra che la risposta si trovi a metà strada tra le due parti: Joker da un lato si ribella al sistema (come Palla di Lardo anche lui è un personaggio diverso dalla massa, ma molto meno vulnerabile) grazie alla sua coscienza e alla sua personalità, ma dall’altro sa stare al gioco dell’istituzione militare, comportandosi da perfetto integrato (partecipa al pestaggio collettivo contro Palla di Lardo, afferma alla televisione di voler essere il primo ragazzo del suo palazzo «a fare centro dentro qualcuno»): «Joker ha un ruolo di focalizzatore omodiegetico assai marcato, ma spesso assente e in chiara distonia con quanto concretamente fatto dal personaggio. Egli alterna momenti di lucidità osservativa ad altri di complicità irriflessa».Lo stesso Kubrick spiega la presenza del distintivo della pace sull’uniforme del protagonista: «Si tratta di un simbolo che indica dualismo. Il soldato Joker dice infatti al suo superiore che gli chiede cosa voglia significare quel bottone: che gli esseri umani sono divisi fra odio e diffidenza da una parte, amicizia e disponibilità dall’altra». La dualità dell’essere umano evidenziata dal regista trova riscontro anche nei comportamenti degli altri personaggi: su tutti il soldato Animal Mother, presentato inizialmente come una sorta di Rambo dispensatore di morte (sul suo elmetto c’è scritto: “I am become death”, “sono diventato morte”), è colui che invece ha la lucidità di riconoscere che quella alla quale stanno assistendo in Vietnam è «una strage», inoltre contraddice gli ordini e si espone al fuoco del cecchino pur di andare a salvare i compagni feriti.
Kubrick, nella scena in cui l’ufficiale chiede spiegazioni a Joker, evidenzia la follia e l’ottusità delle alte sfere del sistema militare; la sua critica per questo tipo di personaggi si nota nella frase finale messa in bocca all’ufficiale in questione, che dice al soldato: «È un mondo spietato, figliolo, bisogna tener duro fino a quando non passerà questa mania della pace». Il regista sembra voler dire che quello al quale stiamo assistendo «è un universo alla rovescia, di pazzi al comando, con la voce pensante di Joker unico sguardo lucido. (…) Il Vietnam, come ogni guerra, è il regno del militarismo, l’obbligo dell’impiego universale della violenza come mezzo ai fini dello Stato»; un concetto di violenza gratuita che emerge dalle parole dei vari soldati, per esempio da quelle del capopattuglia di Cowboy, Crazy Earl: «Siamo i giganti verdi dei detersivi, solo che noi andiamo in giro a ripulire il mondo col mitra. Quelle che abbiamo fatto fuori oggi sono le persone più meravigliose del mondo: quando torneremo a casa di sicuro non troveremo più gente a cui valga la pena di sparare». La violenza è quindi l’unica realtà: «Gli uomini non possono governarla, sono loro a essere guidati dai processi conduttivi di quest’energia che hanno scatenato e che ora li sovrasta. Le battaglie non si decidono da uomini che calcolano e riflettono, ma tra soldati ormai depredati delle facoltà razionali, cieche forze che non sono che impeto. È il segreto ultimo della guerra: la riduzione della persona umana a materia inerte, dominata dall’istinto crudele della preda o del cacciatore».
Nell’ultima parte del film, la pattuglia si perde nello spazio labirintico di Hue, un corrispettivo fisico e spaziale della situazione interiore dei personaggi, che il regista ama spesso delineare nelle sue pellicole, da Fear in Desire, fino ad Eyes Wide Shut («Kubrick sembra interessato a offrire un ulteriore esempio di quella poetica della perdita di controllo sulle coordinate spaziali e temporali già operativa in gran parte della produzione filmica precedente»). In questo spazio, nel pieno dello smarrimento, un cecchino uccide prima il soldato Eightball, quindi Doc Jay, che era corso ad aiutare il compagno. Cowboy vuole far ripiegare il gruppo e abbandonare i compagni, ma Animal Mother si oppone e si lancia in avanti, riuscendo a far guadagnare terreno alla sua squadra: anche Cowboy però viene ucciso dal cecchino. Decisi nel voler vendicare i compagni, i rimanenti soldati si mettono alla ricerca del nemico; è Joker a trovarlo per primo e a scoprire che si tratta di una ragazzina armata. Il fucile del soldato si inceppa ed egli è costretto a rifugiarsi dietro ad una colonna, mentre le pallottole dell’avversaria si scagliano contro la sua postazione. Rafterman giunge sul posto e colpisce la ragazza, quindi si lascia andare ad urla di entusiasmo di fronte alla sua prima vittima: «Sono un duro, sono uno che fa fuori i nemici, sono un killer!». La ragazza però è ancora viva, agonizzante; Animal Mother intende lasciarla lì («Che marcisca qui»), mentre Joker vorrebbe aiutarla. Kubrick, dopo aver concesso a Joker la possibilità di uscire da ogni situazione precedente in modo ironico e sarcastico (conformemente al soprannome del soldato), in questa sequenza finale mette il suo protagonista faccia a faccia con l’orrore, con la possibilità di «far centro dentro qualcuno» che il soldato, sarcasticamente, aveva desiderato di avere. Joker dà il colpo di grazia alla ragazza, mosso da pietà, sicuramente, ma allo stesso tempo: «volente o nolente Joker si è trasformato in una killing machine: una piccola rotella senza volto nell’ingranaggio della morte. Hartman, probabilmente, sorride nella tomba. La tragica ironia finale di Full Metal Jacket è che la guerra ha preso in giro anche il suo giullare». Dopo questo “battesimo di morte”, Joker raggiunge gli altri soldati e si unisce alla marcia nell’oscurità; le sue ultime parole: «Sono proprio contento di essere vivo, tutto d’un pezzo, prossimo al congedo. Certo, vivo in un mondo di merda, questo sì, ma sono vivo e non ho più paura». Ora che non ha più paura, anche il soldato Joker, lo scrittore che difendeva la verità giornalistica, è divenuto una macchina per uccidere? Anche lui, l’intellettuale che citava Jung di fronte ai suoi superiori, ha raggiunto il suo punto di non ritorno, come avevano fatto in precedenza Palla di Lardo e Rafterman? In quest’ottica «Full Metal Jacket è un’opera disperata, dilaniata, che sancisce la fine di ogni residua illusione kubrickiana sulla natura dell’uomo e sulle sue possibilità di salvezza».
Tutti i marines si uniscono in un canto: intonano la Marcia di Topolino. Stavolta non si tratta del finale umanista di Orizzonti di gloria, ma di una regressione dei soldati allo stato infantile: «Quegli uomini in marcia, cui la guerra ha rivoluzionato ogni scala di valori, dei bambini condividono la crudeltà amorale, l’assenza di scrupoli etici, la aggressività necessaria, l’assenza di principi che non siano quelli naturali ed elementari, l’immunità da ogni ipocrisia; infine la noncuranza stessa della propria morte».Partono i titoli di coda, in contemporanea ai versi della splendida Paint it black (“dipingilo di nero”) dei Rolling Stones; Mick Jagger canta: «I see a red door and I want it painted black; no colors anymore I want them to turn black» (“vedo una porta rossa e voglio dipingerla di nero; non voglio più colori ma tutto dipinto di nero”), proprio quando le immagini sono finite e lo schermo è diventato nero; «It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black» (“non è facile restare a testa alta quando il mondo intero è nero”); e ancora: «I look inside myself and see my heart is black» (“guardo dentro me stesso e vedo che il mio cuore è nero”). Il messaggio del pessimista Kubrick, anche durante i titoli di coda, è vivo, diretto, lucido, spietato e soprattutto definitivo.
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una piccola mancia per aiutarmi a sostenere il sito!]#analisi #approfondimento #cinema #film #fullMetalJacket #kubrick #libro #storia #tesi
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Furthermore, we know how important the task of discrediting survivor testimony is to the Epstein class as a whole, because we saw it play out very publicly in 2017 with the #MeToo movement, and the organized backlash against it by abusive men with positions of power in our society. How would the world's most famous pedophile, and those in his orbit respond to a society-wide shift in the discourse encouraging us to "believe women" and survivors? Well, if his inbox is any indication, #Epstein himself helped organize the backlash to discredit the movement, at the prompting of Michael Wolff; who is being exposed as an enabler for Epstein's influence trading operation and image rehabilitation efforts, through these file releases.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/06/epstein-files-metoo
Epstein said he was ‘asked everyday’ for advice on #MeToo: ‘So many guys reaching out to me’
"But when taken together, the emails, texts and other documents contained in the releases reveal Epstein’s engagement with the #MeToo movement and the men felled by it. In some cases, the convicted child sex offender and a coterie of elites strategized over how to blunt the power of the #MeToo movement and the women who fueled it.
“So many guys caught in the me too . reaching out to me. asking when does the madness stop,” Epstein wrote in December 2018 to a recipient whose identity is redacted."
Like every article about Epstein plotting with influential people, this piece is a hot mess that simultaneously drops too many bombshell revelations to keep track of, while also minimizing how deeply incriminating all of this is for literally anyone emailing the world's most famous pedophile blackmailer for advice on how to handle sexual assault, abuse, and harassment allegations against them or their rich friends. I guess if you know you're guilty, you turn to the guy who literally got away with a sex trafficking ring through networking and top flight public relations management, right?
If you want all the good dirt, you're going to have to read the whole article but let's put publicist #PeggySiegall, intellectual #NoamChomsky, and technologist #JoiIto on the "confirmed friends and confidants of Epstein who vented with him about #MeToo" list, "journalist" #RichardWolff, and scientist #LawrenceKrauss on the "strategized with Epstein about how to discredit survivor accusations and accounts in the wake of the #MeToo movement" list, and noted creep abusers outed during the #MeToo reckoning #StephenElliott and #LorinStein on standby because we don't have them talking to Epstein directly, but Richard Wolff sought out Epstein's advice on their behalf and it would appear that Elliot in particular acted on that advice.
And that is the part I want to focus on, because while I'm tempted to believe The Guardian buried the lede here, the reality that Epstein was deeply involved in developing a strategy to protect other powerful rich men accused of abusing their status to engage in sexual violence and harassment against women is exposed in the article - they just broke it up into two parts.
"Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.
“I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution,” Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. “If his story is solid he might be worth supporting.”
Initially, Epstein was unmoved. In a single-word, no-punctuation email, the convicted sexual offender replied: “tough.”
“Give it some further thought, if you would,” wrote Wolff, who had originally received Elliott’s pitch through Lorin Stein, the former editor of the prestigious Paris Review and another name on the Shitty Media Men List. “I think there is an opening here. What you need is an excuse – or opportunity – to make the public argument.”
Epstein relented: “ill help anyway i can. if you like.”
Weeks later, Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the Shitty Media Men List’s creator."
Of course, we only have access to the Epstein emails already released, so all we know is that tons of influential people seemed to think Epstein was the go-to guy on #MeToo; which is incriminating in its own right. But as the Guardian slyly notes later, the proof of the plot is kind of in the pudding.
"Wolff’s apparent suggestion, that accused individuals file lawsuit proved prescient, since defamation lawsuits have become a major feature of the backlash to #MeToo. As of last year, nearly a fifth of the 400-plus cases supported by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a post-#MeToo organization that helps people who survived sexual harassment at work, were in defense of someone sued for defamation."
Folks the plot to erase "believe women" as an IDEA goes deep.
-
Furthermore, we know how important the task of discrediting survivor testimony is to the Epstein class as a whole, because we saw it play out very publicly in 2017 with the #MeToo movement, and the organized backlash against it by abusive men with positions of power in our society. How would the world's most famous pedophile, and those in his orbit respond to a society-wide shift in the discourse encouraging us to "believe women" and survivors? Well, if his inbox is any indication, #Epstein himself helped organize the backlash to discredit the movement, at the prompting of Michael Wolff; who is being exposed as an enabler for Epstein's influence trading operation and image rehabilitation efforts, through these file releases.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/06/epstein-files-metoo
Epstein said he was ‘asked everyday’ for advice on #MeToo: ‘So many guys reaching out to me’
"But when taken together, the emails, texts and other documents contained in the releases reveal Epstein’s engagement with the #MeToo movement and the men felled by it. In some cases, the convicted child sex offender and a coterie of elites strategized over how to blunt the power of the #MeToo movement and the women who fueled it.
“So many guys caught in the me too . reaching out to me. asking when does the madness stop,” Epstein wrote in December 2018 to a recipient whose identity is redacted."
Like every article about Epstein plotting with influential people, this piece is a hot mess that simultaneously drops too many bombshell revelations to keep track of, while also minimizing how deeply incriminating all of this is for literally anyone emailing the world's most famous pedophile blackmailer for advice on how to handle sexual assault, abuse, and harassment allegations against them or their rich friends. I guess if you know you're guilty, you turn to the guy who literally got away with a sex trafficking ring through networking and top flight public relations management, right?
If you want all the good dirt, you're going to have to read the whole article but let's put publicist #PeggySiegall, intellectual #NoamChomsky, and technologist #JoiIto on the "confirmed friends and confidants of Epstein who vented with him about #MeToo" list, "journalist" #RichardWolff, and scientist #LawrenceKrauss on the "strategized with Epstein about how to discredit survivor accusations and accounts in the wake of the #MeToo movement" list, and noted creep abusers outed during the #MeToo reckoning #StephenElliott and #LorinStein on standby because we don't have them talking to Epstein directly, but Richard Wolff sought out Epstein's advice on their behalf and it would appear that Elliot in particular acted on that advice.
And that is the part I want to focus on, because while I'm tempted to believe The Guardian buried the lede here, the reality that Epstein was deeply involved in developing a strategy to protect other powerful rich men accused of abusing their status to engage in sexual violence and harassment against women is exposed in the article - they just broke it up into two parts.
"Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.
“I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution,” Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. “If his story is solid he might be worth supporting.”
Initially, Epstein was unmoved. In a single-word, no-punctuation email, the convicted sexual offender replied: “tough.”
“Give it some further thought, if you would,” wrote Wolff, who had originally received Elliott’s pitch through Lorin Stein, the former editor of the prestigious Paris Review and another name on the Shitty Media Men List. “I think there is an opening here. What you need is an excuse – or opportunity – to make the public argument.”
Epstein relented: “ill help anyway i can. if you like.”
Weeks later, Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the Shitty Media Men List’s creator."
Of course, we only have access to the Epstein emails already released, so all we know is that tons of influential people seemed to think Epstein was the go-to guy on #MeToo; which is incriminating in its own right. But as the Guardian slyly notes later, the proof of the plot is kind of in the pudding.
"Wolff’s apparent suggestion, that accused individuals file lawsuit proved prescient, since defamation lawsuits have become a major feature of the backlash to #MeToo. As of last year, nearly a fifth of the 400-plus cases supported by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a post-#MeToo organization that helps people who survived sexual harassment at work, were in defense of someone sued for defamation."
Folks the plot to erase "believe women" as an IDEA goes deep.
-
Furthermore, we know how important the task of discrediting survivor testimony is to the Epstein class as a whole, because we saw it play out very publicly in 2017 with the #MeToo movement, and the organized backlash against it by abusive men with positions of power in our society. How would the world's most famous pedophile, and those in his orbit respond to a society-wide shift in the discourse encouraging us to "believe women" and survivors? Well, if his inbox is any indication, #Epstein himself helped organize the backlash to discredit the movement, at the prompting of Michael Wolff; who is being exposed as an enabler for Epstein's influence trading operation and image rehabilitation efforts, through these file releases.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/06/epstein-files-metoo
Epstein said he was ‘asked everyday’ for advice on #MeToo: ‘So many guys reaching out to me’
"But when taken together, the emails, texts and other documents contained in the releases reveal Epstein’s engagement with the #MeToo movement and the men felled by it. In some cases, the convicted child sex offender and a coterie of elites strategized over how to blunt the power of the #MeToo movement and the women who fueled it.
“So many guys caught in the me too . reaching out to me. asking when does the madness stop,” Epstein wrote in December 2018 to a recipient whose identity is redacted."
Like every article about Epstein plotting with influential people, this piece is a hot mess that simultaneously drops too many bombshell revelations to keep track of, while also minimizing how deeply incriminating all of this is for literally anyone emailing the world's most famous pedophile blackmailer for advice on how to handle sexual assault, abuse, and harassment allegations against them or their rich friends. I guess if you know you're guilty, you turn to the guy who literally got away with a sex trafficking ring through networking and top flight public relations management, right?
If you want all the good dirt, you're going to have to read the whole article but let's put publicist #PeggySiegall, intellectual #NoamChomsky, and technologist #JoiIto on the "confirmed friends and confidants of Epstein who vented with him about #MeToo" list, "journalist" #RichardWolff, and scientist #LawrenceKrauss on the "strategized with Epstein about how to discredit survivor accusations and accounts in the wake of the #MeToo movement" list, and noted creep abusers outed during the #MeToo reckoning #StephenElliott and #LorinStein on standby because we don't have them talking to Epstein directly, but Richard Wolff sought out Epstein's advice on their behalf and it would appear that Elliot in particular acted on that advice.
And that is the part I want to focus on, because while I'm tempted to believe The Guardian buried the lede here, the reality that Epstein was deeply involved in developing a strategy to protect other powerful rich men accused of abusing their status to engage in sexual violence and harassment against women is exposed in the article - they just broke it up into two parts.
"Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.
“I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution,” Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. “If his story is solid he might be worth supporting.”
Initially, Epstein was unmoved. In a single-word, no-punctuation email, the convicted sexual offender replied: “tough.”
“Give it some further thought, if you would,” wrote Wolff, who had originally received Elliott’s pitch through Lorin Stein, the former editor of the prestigious Paris Review and another name on the Shitty Media Men List. “I think there is an opening here. What you need is an excuse – or opportunity – to make the public argument.”
Epstein relented: “ill help anyway i can. if you like.”
Weeks later, Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the Shitty Media Men List’s creator."
Of course, we only have access to the Epstein emails already released, so all we know is that tons of influential people seemed to think Epstein was the go-to guy on #MeToo; which is incriminating in its own right. But as the Guardian slyly notes later, the proof of the plot is kind of in the pudding.
"Wolff’s apparent suggestion, that accused individuals file lawsuit proved prescient, since defamation lawsuits have become a major feature of the backlash to #MeToo. As of last year, nearly a fifth of the 400-plus cases supported by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a post-#MeToo organization that helps people who survived sexual harassment at work, were in defense of someone sued for defamation."
Folks the plot to erase "believe women" as an IDEA goes deep.
-
Furthermore, we know how important the task of discrediting survivor testimony is to the Epstein class as a whole, because we saw it play out very publicly in 2017 with the #MeToo movement, and the organized backlash against it by abusive men with positions of power in our society. How would the world's most famous pedophile, and those in his orbit respond to a society-wide shift in the discourse encouraging us to "believe women" and survivors? Well, if his inbox is any indication, #Epstein himself helped organize the backlash to discredit the movement, at the prompting of Michael Wolff; who is being exposed as an enabler for Epstein's influence trading operation and image rehabilitation efforts, through these file releases.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/06/epstein-files-metoo
Epstein said he was ‘asked everyday’ for advice on #MeToo: ‘So many guys reaching out to me’
"But when taken together, the emails, texts and other documents contained in the releases reveal Epstein’s engagement with the #MeToo movement and the men felled by it. In some cases, the convicted child sex offender and a coterie of elites strategized over how to blunt the power of the #MeToo movement and the women who fueled it.
“So many guys caught in the me too . reaching out to me. asking when does the madness stop,” Epstein wrote in December 2018 to a recipient whose identity is redacted."
Like every article about Epstein plotting with influential people, this piece is a hot mess that simultaneously drops too many bombshell revelations to keep track of, while also minimizing how deeply incriminating all of this is for literally anyone emailing the world's most famous pedophile blackmailer for advice on how to handle sexual assault, abuse, and harassment allegations against them or their rich friends. I guess if you know you're guilty, you turn to the guy who literally got away with a sex trafficking ring through networking and top flight public relations management, right?
If you want all the good dirt, you're going to have to read the whole article but let's put publicist #PeggySiegall, intellectual #NoamChomsky, and technologist #JoiIto on the "confirmed friends and confidants of Epstein who vented with him about #MeToo" list, "journalist" #RichardWolff, and scientist #LawrenceKrauss on the "strategized with Epstein about how to discredit survivor accusations and accounts in the wake of the #MeToo movement" list, and noted creep abusers outed during the #MeToo reckoning #StephenElliott and #LorinStein on standby because we don't have them talking to Epstein directly, but Richard Wolff sought out Epstein's advice on their behalf and it would appear that Elliot in particular acted on that advice.
And that is the part I want to focus on, because while I'm tempted to believe The Guardian buried the lede here, the reality that Epstein was deeply involved in developing a strategy to protect other powerful rich men accused of abusing their status to engage in sexual violence and harassment against women is exposed in the article - they just broke it up into two parts.
"Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.
“I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution,” Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. “If his story is solid he might be worth supporting.”
Initially, Epstein was unmoved. In a single-word, no-punctuation email, the convicted sexual offender replied: “tough.”
“Give it some further thought, if you would,” wrote Wolff, who had originally received Elliott’s pitch through Lorin Stein, the former editor of the prestigious Paris Review and another name on the Shitty Media Men List. “I think there is an opening here. What you need is an excuse – or opportunity – to make the public argument.”
Epstein relented: “ill help anyway i can. if you like.”
Weeks later, Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the Shitty Media Men List’s creator."
Of course, we only have access to the Epstein emails already released, so all we know is that tons of influential people seemed to think Epstein was the go-to guy on #MeToo; which is incriminating in its own right. But as the Guardian slyly notes later, the proof of the plot is kind of in the pudding.
"Wolff’s apparent suggestion, that accused individuals file lawsuit proved prescient, since defamation lawsuits have become a major feature of the backlash to #MeToo. As of last year, nearly a fifth of the 400-plus cases supported by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a post-#MeToo organization that helps people who survived sexual harassment at work, were in defense of someone sued for defamation."
Folks the plot to erase "believe women" as an IDEA goes deep.
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The Return of Infrastructure Independence: Breaking Free from US Hyperscalers
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, we sometimes find ourselves experiencing a sense of déjà vu. The current state of cloud computing and infrastructure management feels remarkably similar to the late 1990s server market—a time of major technological transition that ultimately rewarded those who maintained traditional expertise.
The Great Windows Server Migration of the Late ’90s
Cast your mind back to the late 1990s. Windows NT was gaining significant traction in the enterprise server space. Microsoft’s marketing machine was in full swing, promoting Windows as the future of server technology. The interface was familiar, the management tools were accessible, and the promise was enticing: simplify your infrastructure and reduce costs.
Many companies bought into this vision. They let go of their Unix administrators—the wizards who understood the deep intricacies of system architecture—and pivoted toward the seemingly more accessible Windows ecosystem. Unix expertise was deemed outdated, a relic of computing’s past.
But then something unexpected happened: Linux emerged as a powerful force. This open-source Unix-like operating system combined the robustness of traditional Unix with modern development approaches. Companies that had maintained their Unix expertise found themselves with a significant competitive advantage, while those who had discarded that knowledge scrambled to adapt.
Today’s Dangerous Dependency on US Hyperscalers
Fast forward to today, and we’re witnessing a similar phenomenon, but with far greater geopolitical implications. The cloud market has become dominated by a handful of US-based hyperscalers: AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. These giants now control the backbone of global digital infrastructure, creating an unprecedented level of dependency.
Organizations worldwide have entrusted their mission-critical systems, data, and intellectual property to these American corporations. This concentration of digital power in the hands of a few US companies presents significant risks:
- Geopolitical Vulnerability: Non-US entities are subject to American data regulations, surveillance capabilities, and political whims
- Sovereignty Concerns: Nations and regions have limited control over their own digital infrastructure
- Single Points of Failure: Global dependence on a handful of providers creates systemic risks
- Compliance Challenges: Navigating complex and sometimes contradictory regulations across jurisdictions
Today’s developers and systems engineers often have limited exposure to building and maintaining independent infrastructure stacks. The knowledge of creating self-sufficient, sovereign digital platforms has been sacrificed at the altar of convenience offered by the hyperscalers.
The Coming Era of Regional Digital Sovereignty
As geopolitical tensions rise and concerns about surveillance escalate, we’re approaching a breaking point that parallels the Linux revolution of the early 2000s. The excessive centralization of cloud infrastructure in the hands of US corporations is becoming increasingly untenable for many regions and organizations around the world.
Europe, in particular, stands at a crossroads. With its strong regulatory framework through GDPR and emphasis on digital sovereignty, the continent has the potential to lead a shift toward regional cloud infrastructure. A “European Cloud” built on open standards and operated independently of US hyperscalers could provide a template for other regions seeking digital autonomy.
This is where those 50+ year-old systems engineers—the ones who understand how to build infrastructure from the ground up—will become invaluable again. Their knowledge of architecting complete technology stacks without reliance on hyperscaler ecosystems will be crucial as organizations and regions work to establish independent digital capabilities.
Building Regional Digital Independence
The path to reducing dependency on US hyperscalers requires:
- Regional Infrastructure Initiatives: Government-backed programs to develop sovereign cloud capabilities within specific geographic or political boundaries
- Open Source Foundations: Building on open source technologies to avoid vendor lock-in and enable collaboration
- Knowledge Preservation: Actively maintaining expertise in full-stack infrastructure management
- Hybrid Approaches: Developing gradual migration paths that balance hyperscaler advantages with sovereignty requirements
- International Cooperation: Creating alliances between nations with shared interests in digital sovereignty
The Role of Experienced Infrastructure Engineers
The systems engineers who remember a world before AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud will play a pivotal role in this transition. Their experience building and managing independent data centers, designing network architectures without reliance on hyperscaler services, and understanding the full technology stack from hardware to application will be essential.
These veterans know what it takes to build robust, independent infrastructure. They understand the pitfalls, requirements, and strategic considerations that younger engineers, raised entirely in the hyperscaler era, may overlook.
Conclusion
The technology industry has always moved in cycles. What seems obsolete today may become critical tomorrow. Just as Linux vindicated those Unix administrators who maintained their expertise through the Windows NT revolution, the growing movement toward digital sovereignty could similarly elevate those who’ve preserved their knowledge of building independent infrastructure.
As regions like Europe work to establish their own cloud ecosystems and reduce dependency on US hyperscalers, the experienced systems engineers who understand how to build truly independent technology stacks will become not just relevant, but essential to our digital future.
The coming years may well see a renaissance of regional infrastructure expertise, as organizations and nations alike recognize that true digital resilience requires breaking free from excessive dependency on the American tech giants that currently dominate our global digital landscape.
See also: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/you-can-no-longer-base-your-government-and-society-on-us-clouds/
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Destroying Autocracy – September 11, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
Featured Item
Dave Rupert writes and asks:
I think my answer to “Why would anybody start a website (in 2025)?” is the same answer for the content creator in the age of AI problem: I don’t know, but you gotta want to.
Money sweetens the deal when making content or websites, but we’ve shaken the money tree pretty hard over the last couple decades and it’s looking bare.
Increasingly, you’ve got to find other sources of inspiration to make a website – which by the way are still the coolest fucking things ever.
Why would anybody start a website?
To join the Open Media Network for one.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Speaking of websites, the Columbia Journalism Review has:
Tom Ley Thinks More People Should Experience Worker-Owned Journalism
The Next Web reports:
Reclaiming the stack: Europe’s bid for digital sovereignty
The Register reports:
Big clouds scramble as EU Data Act brings new data transfer rules
Heisse reports:
400 scientists speak out against chat control
Europe is better than anywhere else, but it isn’t perfect.
The Guardian reports:
‘It is a war of drones now’: the ever-evolving tech dominating the frontline in Ukraine
Lawmaker calls for French criminal investigation into TikTok
EU fines Google nearly €3bn for ‘abusing’ dominant position in ad tech
Speaking of, Tech Policy reports:
Empowered Workers Are a Bulwark Against Illegal Monopoly
Ars Technica reports:
Judge: Anthropic’s $1.5B settlement is being shoved “down the throat of authors”
Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions.
Ben Werdmuller examines:
This is the type of content we will feature in The Programmer’s Fulcrum in 2026.
Make Use of shares:
I stopped using Gmail for this built-in client and now Gmail feels stuck
Here is a TAM lite tool for you.
Mojeek announces:
Mojeek is Not an Answer Engine
Tuta shares:
Chat Control is back & we’ve got one month to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans.
The Counterforce has a guide:
Signal For Punks (it has Stories now!)
I describe myself as 25% intellectual, 25% bohemian, 25% hillbilly, and 25% punk so this appeals to me. 😉
Neutral
The Observer reports:
Nick Clegg and Tim Berners-Lee: the battle for the soul of the internet
Tech Policy reports:
Washington and Brussels Vie for Control Over Big Tech
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
ICE Spends Millions on Clearview AI Facial Recognition to Find People ‘Assaulting’ Officers
The Kyiv Independent reports:
US steps back from joint efforts to combat misinformation, FT reports
TechDirt reports:
UK Age Verification Data Confirms What Critics Always Predicted: Mass Migration To Sketchier Sites
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
Czech cyber agency warns against Chinese tech in critical infrastructure
The Christian Science Monitor reports:
Why some Israeli journalists only now are turning a lens on Gaza devastation
DarkReading reports:
Chinese Hackers Allegedly Pose as US Lawmaker
Big Media
The Guardian reports:
‘Existential crisis’: how Google’s shift to AI has upended the online news model
TechDirt reports:
Big Tech
Tech Policy reports:
How Big Tech’s ‘Invisible Hand’ Reaches Latin American Regulators
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Age Verification Is A Windfall for Big Tech—And A Death Sentence For Smaller Platforms
The Register reports:
It’s AI all the way down as Google’s AI cites web pages written by AI
The Guardian reports:
How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart
Impact of chatbots on mental health is warning over future of AI, expert says
Meta hid harms to children from VR products, whistleblowers allege
The BBC reports:
Meta to stop its AI chatbots from talking to teens about suicide
404 Media reports:
Instagram Account Promotes Holocaust Denial T-Shirts to 400,000 Followers
Ars Technica has:
Former WhatsApp security boss in lawsuit likens Meta’s culture to a “cult”
EchoStar to sell spectrum to SpaceX after FCC threatened to revoke licenses
AI vs. MAGA: Populists alarmed by Trump’s embrace of AI, Big Tech
Even blind fascist squirrels find a nut sometimes.
SAN reports:
Not so secret: X’s new encrypted chat feature puts users at risk, experts say
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Signal announces:
Introducing Signal Secure Backups
La Quadrature reports:
In France, the eternal return of facial recognition
The Register reports:
Drift massive attack traced back to loose Salesloft GitHub account
In crypto bro FAFO news, BleepingComputer reports:
Hackers hijack npm packages with 2 billion weekly downloads in supply chain attack
DDoS defender targeted in 1.5 Bpps denial-of-service attack
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Fedihost looks at:
PeerTube announces:
Mastodon has an update:
NodeBB shares a:
Progress update for Conversational Contexts
A New Social announces:
Launch: Notifications from Unbridged Users
RSS
Buttondown remembers:
The story of how RSS beat Microsoft
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Spaces opines:
On discourse and decentralisation
Personally I view Bluesky as only slightly better than Shitter (drastically fewer c^nts) with a 97.4% chance of becoming enshittified. However, Blacksky has given me a little hope for ATProto at least.
I would also like to point out 96.525% of people on the Fediverse don’t give a fuck about Bluesky and 99.912% of people on Bluesky don’t give a fuck about the Fediverse.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky adds private bookmarks
Bluesky will comply with age-verification laws in South Dakota and Wyoming after exiting Mississippi
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
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Keep fighting!
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So I'm having this intellectual vision moment right now
It has to do with something I'm going to call right left dysregulation versus left right dysregulation
It happens when you can for example breathe through one nostril but not the other or have an ache on one side or the other and it's generally correlative with the presence of inflammation in an organ or large amounts of matter going through the digestive tract at the same time on one side or the other ..when it's on the right side it's coming out of the small intestine up into the ascending colon through the appendix etc then it makes the jump from the right to the left with the transverse and depending on a host of factors that trip is fast or slow
So if you are holding back your food from the transverse colon or the transverse colon doesn't move quickly or your pancreas is swollen so it doesn't want to pass over the pancreas or the liver is swollen so it doesn't want to go past the liver etc gallbladder all of these things can slow things down and it's not the biggest of deals except it will produce a host of different symptoms
Some people can learn to ignore them most people learn to ignore them probably especially on a limited level when they get severe it's harder but doable as is demonstrated by my life
But I also think the more that they get ignored the more other things pop up and that's why I'm riding right now
Writing
I was having a decent morning the voice is doing mostly okay I'm slightly sluggish digestively which for me I'm think that it is the ileosecal valve not closing and the liver slowing things down more also my pancreas right now I'm feeling a little bit of a twinge now and then
Nothing serious it was my first day on solid food which was steak cubes slow cooked in stuff injera and a couple beans things
So it's not surprising it's a little off-kilter
But I spent a morning breathing into it especially because I had a very disappointing moment of spending money that I didn't have on a late fee that I didn't need to spend and me trying to escape this country I just it's easy for me to spiral I tooted about it earlier
But considering how well I sang yesterday I had to cheer myself up so that I could check and see if I wanted to sing today
So I lay down got stoned and watched some TV
And ray made noises like you wanted to go out even though he had pooped last night
So I took him out it was a little bit vexing and I had executive function issues about doing it because I was debating whether or not to feed him first but I decided empty him out and then feed him and he was nervous because he thought I was going to just leave him inside I had to start taking off my jacket in my shoes to make it clear I was staying before he would come back in because he's been conditioned to having to wait inside while I collect the free $20 from the farmers markets
I woke up this morning not needing to get stoned which is really rare that's the #teff #injera and no #gluten... My sense of smell is getting better, too
(It's so easy to lose prospective as a lifelong #bedrotter but I'm starting to notice smells in my apartment that might not have been unnoticeable to other people before (blush))
So I wasn't stoned didn't necessarily feel the need to was just going to focus on my breath because everything was a little stiff
Then I realized the thing about losing $30 (which would be another meal like this which would put me an even better capacity to control my body and therefore my mood and therefore The voice) tensed up and got mad ...and since my mood is very important to the voice I made the executive decision to spend some time in bed before I did anything else because when I get tense I slow down and become right left dysregulated and was trying to learn that mechanism it's easier when injera moves through gently.
So I watched Watson and it was beautiful this little Valentine love story that was told in december.. whatever
Gave Ray a nice walk he was happy came back in I'm repeating myself kind of
Fed Ray he was even happier and I was watching myself breathe In The mirror when there was a noise in the hall and Ray reacted and barked medium loudly and it was really painful
....this was about an hour ago I had to lie down to make it not hurt this was me feeling good and then all of a sudden I had this reaction because when my body tenses up as it is trying to relax and pass food through it's a jolt to the system that is excruciating once you start to become aware of it or are unable to avoid it
This is my explanation of one reason why people get overly sensitized to noises
Which is why the person above me is so stressful for me
In addition to me hearing the damage she is doing to her voice, all of the stomping and slamming is a jolt to the system every time and you can get locked in there
So me talking this out through this toot is my trying to understand it
But yeah that vision of right left (neuro) dusregulation versus left right dysregulation being more mechanical/medical (sigmoid/venal damage, pancreatitis) just came to me
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Consciousness Explained Away: Daniel Dennett’s Illusionism and the Theory That Spends Its Own Foundation
When Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024, at the age of eighty-two, the philosophical world lost one of the last serious defenders of a position so counterintuitive that even sympathetic readers spent decades trying to talk themselves into it. Dennett argued, across more than fifty years of writing, that consciousness as we ordinarily understand it does not exist. The reds and greens you see, the texture of cool water against the palm, the sense that there is somebody home behind your eyes reading these words: all of it, on Dennett’s account, is what he called a user illusion, a simplified internal model the brain generates for navigation purposes, with no inner light behind it and no observer to whom the show is being staged. The position is called illusionism, and it remains the strongest possible challenge to the panpsychism we considered in the previous article on Iain McGilchrist. If Dennett was right, McGilchrist’s whole project rests on a misdescription of what we are.
The essay that follows takes Dennett’s position seriously enough to argue with it. Treating illusionism as obvious nonsense, the way much of the philosophical commentariat does, is unworthy of the work he produced and bad for thinking. Treating it as established science, which his more enthusiastic defenders sometimes do, is a different mistake in the opposite direction. The honest position holds that Dennett gave us one of the most carefully developed materialist accounts of mind on offer, that significant portions of his work contributed real progress to cognitive science, and that the metaphysical core of illusionism collapses on close inspection in ways his admirers prefer not to discuss.
Begin with the position itself, stated as charitably as I can manage. Dennett’s 1991 Consciousness Explained developed what he called the Multiple Drafts model. Instead of a single inner stage where conscious experience plays out, he argued, the brain runs many parallel processes that compete and revise one another in real time. There is no Cartesian Theater, no master audience, no central self watching the show. What we call consciousness is an emergent narrative effect, a kind of running editorial composite produced by neural activity that has no privileged location and no privileged moment of conscious recognition. Asking when something becomes conscious is like asking exactly when a manuscript becomes finished while it is still being edited by twenty hands at once. The question presumes a unity that does not exist.
The illusionist refinement came later. In 2016, the philosopher Keith Frankish edited a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies under the title “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness,” for which Dennett contributed a major essay called “Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness.” The argument runs as follows. When you say “I am conscious of a red stripe,” what is happening is not that some inner film is playing redness for an inner viewer. What is happening is that your brain has constructed a representation of redness, and the representation reports itself as having phenomenal character it does not actually possess. Dennett borrowed Alan Kay’s term “user illusion” from computer science, where it described the desktop metaphor that lets users operate a machine whose real workings remain hidden. Consciousness, on this view, is the brain’s user illusion of itself.
The position commits Dennett to a startling consequence. There are no qualia, no raw feels, no phenomenal properties of experience. Philosophical zombies, the imagined creatures functionally identical to humans but with no inner experience, do not exist as a separate possibility from us, because all of us already are what zombies were supposed to be. We function and talk about our experiences. We act as if there is something it is like to be us. The inner light we imagine glowing behind our reports is not actually there. Dennett wrote, with characteristic mischief, that he was committed to the view that we are all philosophical zombies, adding immediately that the line should not be quoted out of context. It usually was.
Where the case works, it works for these reasons.
The argument is effective because the Cartesian Theater is genuinely incoherent. If you ask where in the brain the conscious moment happens, you find no such place. Cognitive neuroscience has searched for decades and located nothing resembling a master observer. Vision goes to the visual cortex. The auditory cortex processes sound. The prefrontal cortex coordinates working memory. Nowhere is there a screening room with a viewer in it, and the question “who is watching?” leads into infinite regress. Dennett’s destruction of the homunculus model was a real philosophical achievement and remains the cleanest available demolition of a picture most people hold without noticing they hold it.
It works also because Benjamin Libet’s experiments from the 1970s and 1980s established that neural preparation for a decision precedes conscious awareness of having made it by roughly three hundred milliseconds. The conscious self arrives at its own decisions slightly after the brain has already begun acting. This finding does not prove illusionism, but it strongly suggests that consciousness is less central to cognition than introspection reports. Whatever conscious experience is, it cannot be the executive director it feels like being.
A further strength: cognitive science has produced extensive evidence that introspection is unreliable as a guide to what the brain is doing. Change blindness experiments, inattentional blindness, the failure to notice major scene transitions, the brain’s confabulation of unified perception from broken inputs, all of this points toward a system that fabricates narrative coherence rather than reporting it. Daniel Kahneman’s two-system model, much of social psychology, and large stretches of cognitive neuroscience converge on the conclusion that the conscious self is told a story rather than told the truth. Dennett built his philosophy on this evidence and built it carefully.
Illusionism earns additional power because it does what philosophy of mind so rarely accomplishes: it makes empirical predictions. The position predicts that no matter how carefully we examine the brain, we will find no special phenomenal properties, no unbridgeable explanatory gap, only the increasing detail of computational and neural processes. This is testable in principle, falsifiable in principle, and more honest than positions that retreat to unanalyzable mystery whenever the science gets close.
Last, the program takes seriously the strangeness of the universe physics describes. There is no good reason to assume that ordinary human experience accurately reports the deep structure of reality. We did not evolve to perceive truth. We evolved to survive long enough to reproduce, and our perceptual and introspective apparatus was tuned for that purpose. Dennett’s willingness to follow the implication wherever it led is the mark of a serious philosophical mind.
The case carries equally serious weaknesses, however, and the weaknesses cluster around a single point that has dogged illusionism since its first formulation.
The argument is not effective because illusion presupposes consciousness. An illusion is a false appearance, and a false appearance requires a perceiver to whom the false appearance appears. To say consciousness is an illusion is to say there is something it is like to be deceived about consciousness, which means there is something it is like to be the system Dennett claims has no something-it-is-like-to-be. The American theologian David Bentley Hart put the objection sharply in his 2017 essay “The Illusionist,” published in The New Atlantis: you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. The point is so obvious that Dennett’s defenders have spent thirty years trying to argue around it, and the arguments have grown increasingly baroque without ever quite touching the core of the objection.
It is also not effective because the redefinition trick is visible. When Dennett says consciousness is an illusion, he means consciousness as ordinarily described, with its qualia and its unified inner viewer. When he then says we are all functioning fine, that we have user illusions and multiple drafts and complex representations, he has reintroduced under different names exactly the phenomena he claimed to eliminate. Galen Strawson made this point with particular force, arguing that Dennett denies the existence of the data a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain, then offers a theory of something else and calls it a theory of consciousness. The maneuver is rhetorically powerful and philosophically empty.
A further weakness: the Cartesian Theater Dennett demolishes is a straw position most contemporary philosophers of mind do not hold. Phenomenal realists need not believe in a homunculus or a master viewer or a screening room in the head. They need only believe that there is something it is like to undergo experience, which is a far weaker claim than the picture Dennett spent his career attacking. By demolishing the strong version, he left the weak version intact while pretending he had demolished both. Thomas Nagel made the point in The New York Review of Books in March 2017, reviewing From Bacteria to Bach and Back: Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious, the immediate awareness of subjective experience, and offers in exchange a story about neural machinery that may all be true while leaving the original question untouched.
The position fails because it cannot account for the difference between systems that obviously experience something and systems that obviously do not. A thermostat represents the temperature. It models its environment. It adjusts behavior based on internal states. By Dennett’s lights, what makes the thermostat different from you is degree of complexity rather than presence or absence of inner life. If illusionism is right, your experience of pain is a more complex version of what the thermostat does when it registers cold. This consequence is so wildly at odds with what we know about pain that it functions as a reductio of the position rather than a confirmation of it. John Searle pressed this objection for decades, and Dennett never produced a response that satisfied anyone outside his immediate circle.
Last, illusionism cannot explain why the illusion exists in the first place. If consciousness is an evolutionary user-interface, why does it have phenomenal character at all? The question of why there is a felt redness rather than mere redness-detection is exactly the hard problem David Chalmers identified in 1995, and Dennett’s response was to deny that the question was real. Denying a question is not answering it. Other illusionists, including Frankish, have been more candid about this gap and acknowledged it as an outstanding problem for the program. Dennett tended to close the question by force of personality rather than by force of argument, and his defenders inherited the closure without inheriting the personality that made it almost convincing.
A specific paradox deserves separate treatment. Dennett’s commitment to philosophical zombies being identical with us is either trivially true or wildly false depending on which definition of zombie one uses. Under his own redefinition (a creature functionally indistinguishable from a human, with no extra non-physical properties), of course we are all zombies in his sense, because his sense is constructed precisely to include us. Under Chalmers’s original definition (a creature functionally identical but lacking phenomenal experience), the claim that we are all such creatures is the central thing in dispute, and Dennett’s announcement that we are all zombies amounts to declaring victory rather than achieving it. The wordplay is amusing. The argumentative work it pretends to do is fictional.
Where does this leave the project? Several genuine contributions survive the dismantling.
The Multiple Drafts model gave cognitive science a serviceable framework for thinking about how the brain produces unified-feeling experience from distributed parallel processing, even if the framework does not require illusionism as its metaphysics. The user illusion metaphor remains useful for describing how introspection misrepresents underlying neural activity, even if the metaphor cannot bear the metaphysical weight Dennett placed on it. His destruction of the Cartesian Theater counts as permanent philosophical progress, and any future theory of consciousness will need to accommodate Dennett’s critique whether it accepts his positive program or rejects it. His sustained engagement with cognitive science kept philosophy of mind close to the empirical work that ought to constrain it, and the field is healthier for the discipline he imposed.
What does not survive is the central claim. Consciousness is real in any standard sense of the word, since illusions themselves require conscious subjects. The hard problem cannot be dissolved by redescription, because redescription leaves the original problem intact under a new vocabulary. The experiential reds and greens and pains and hopes that fill our days are either real, in which case illusionism is false, or unreal, in which case the question of what is doing the reporting becomes urgent and unanswered.
Return now to the McGilchrist question with these results in hand. If illusionism fails at its center, the hard problem stands, and the panpsychist option becomes more attractive by a process of elimination, since materialist emergence and illusionist deflation have both encountered serious difficulty. This does not establish that McGilchrist is right. It establishes that his position belongs among the few options still on the table after the most ambitious materialist program of the late twentieth century has been worked through and found wanting at its center.
The deeper lesson concerns what philosophy can and cannot accomplish by argument alone. Dennett spent fifty years constructing what he called the obvious default theory of consciousness. He convinced a small circle of admirers, antagonized a larger circle of critics, and produced a body of work that will be read for a long time. None of it solved the hard problem. None of it could solve the hard problem, because the hard problem is what we are made of, and arguments about consciousness produced by conscious beings cannot get behind the consciousness that produces them. Dennett saw this difficulty and tried to argue it away. The honest verdict is that he failed, gracefully and intelligently, in a way that taught us a great deal about what success would require.
We owe him the courtesy of saying so out loud. He would have preferred direct refutation to polite agreement, and direct refutation is what the work deserves. The user illusion remains a useful metaphor and a serviceable instrument for cognitive science. As metaphysics it cannot hold. The inner light Dennett spent his career trying to extinguish is the one thing his arguments could not reach, because the arguments themselves arrived in consciousness, were read in consciousness, and were rejected or accepted in consciousness, and no maneuver of language can exit the medium in which the maneuver takes place.
We assume our own inwardness because we have nothing else to assume from. Dennett’s wager was that we could think our way past this assumption to a more austere description of reality. The wager was honorable, and it failed.
The argument from austerity has its own seductions, and we should name them. There is a certain kind of intellectual pride that takes pleasure in eliminating what others find precious, and Dennett was not immune to it. His writing carried a confident scorn for opponents that was less philosophical virtue than personal style, and the style propagated through his disciples in ways that have hurt rather than helped the program. A position that depends on the personality of its founder for its persuasive force is a position that has not yet earned the right to hold the field. Dennett’s work will outlive him. Whether illusionism survives without his voice carrying it remains to be seen, and the early evidence suggests not.
What we can take from him, what we should take from him, is the discipline of refusing to mystify. The hard problem is real, but real problems are not solved by reverence. Dennett’s failure was an honest failure pursued with rigor and wit, and the field needs more such failures and fewer of the soft evasions that pass for theory in the consciousness literature. If we end up disagreeing with everything he claimed, we still owe him the standard of work he set, and the willingness to argue all the way down rather than retreating into vocabulary that protects the question from being asked clearly. He asked it clearly. He answered it wrongly. Both halves of that judgment matter, and both halves are why he will be read after his answer is forgotten.
#argument #brain #consciousness #dennett #editorial #illusion #mcgilchrist #mystify #panpsychism #pathways #philosophy -
Consciousness Explained Away: Daniel Dennett’s Illusionism and the Theory That Spends Its Own Foundation
When Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024, at the age of eighty-two, the philosophical world lost one of the last serious defenders of a position so counterintuitive that even sympathetic readers spent decades trying to talk themselves into it. Dennett argued, across more than fifty years of writing, that consciousness as we ordinarily understand it does not exist. The reds and greens you see, the texture of cool water against the palm, the sense that there is somebody home behind your eyes reading these words: all of it, on Dennett’s account, is what he called a user illusion, a simplified internal model the brain generates for navigation purposes, with no inner light behind it and no observer to whom the show is being staged. The position is called illusionism, and it remains the strongest possible challenge to the panpsychism we considered in the previous article on Iain McGilchrist. If Dennett was right, McGilchrist’s whole project rests on a misdescription of what we are.
The essay that follows takes Dennett’s position seriously enough to argue with it. Treating illusionism as obvious nonsense, the way much of the philosophical commentariat does, is unworthy of the work he produced and bad for thinking. Treating it as established science, which his more enthusiastic defenders sometimes do, is a different mistake in the opposite direction. The honest position holds that Dennett gave us one of the most carefully developed materialist accounts of mind on offer, that significant portions of his work contributed real progress to cognitive science, and that the metaphysical core of illusionism collapses on close inspection in ways his admirers prefer not to discuss.
Begin with the position itself, stated as charitably as I can manage. Dennett’s 1991 Consciousness Explained developed what he called the Multiple Drafts model. Instead of a single inner stage where conscious experience plays out, he argued, the brain runs many parallel processes that compete and revise one another in real time. There is no Cartesian Theater, no master audience, no central self watching the show. What we call consciousness is an emergent narrative effect, a kind of running editorial composite produced by neural activity that has no privileged location and no privileged moment of conscious recognition. Asking when something becomes conscious is like asking exactly when a manuscript becomes finished while it is still being edited by twenty hands at once. The question presumes a unity that does not exist.
The illusionist refinement came later. In 2016, the philosopher Keith Frankish edited a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies under the title “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness,” for which Dennett contributed a major essay called “Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness.” The argument runs as follows. When you say “I am conscious of a red stripe,” what is happening is not that some inner film is playing redness for an inner viewer. What is happening is that your brain has constructed a representation of redness, and the representation reports itself as having phenomenal character it does not actually possess. Dennett borrowed Alan Kay’s term “user illusion” from computer science, where it described the desktop metaphor that lets users operate a machine whose real workings remain hidden. Consciousness, on this view, is the brain’s user illusion of itself.
The position commits Dennett to a startling consequence. There are no qualia, no raw feels, no phenomenal properties of experience. Philosophical zombies, the imagined creatures functionally identical to humans but with no inner experience, do not exist as a separate possibility from us, because all of us already are what zombies were supposed to be. We function and talk about our experiences. We act as if there is something it is like to be us. The inner light we imagine glowing behind our reports is not actually there. Dennett wrote, with characteristic mischief, that he was committed to the view that we are all philosophical zombies, adding immediately that the line should not be quoted out of context. It usually was.
Where the case works, it works for these reasons.
The argument is effective because the Cartesian Theater is genuinely incoherent. If you ask where in the brain the conscious moment happens, you find no such place. Cognitive neuroscience has searched for decades and located nothing resembling a master observer. Vision goes to the visual cortex. The auditory cortex processes sound. The prefrontal cortex coordinates working memory. Nowhere is there a screening room with a viewer in it, and the question “who is watching?” leads into infinite regress. Dennett’s destruction of the homunculus model was a real philosophical achievement and remains the cleanest available demolition of a picture most people hold without noticing they hold it.
It works also because Benjamin Libet’s experiments from the 1970s and 1980s established that neural preparation for a decision precedes conscious awareness of having made it by roughly three hundred milliseconds. The conscious self arrives at its own decisions slightly after the brain has already begun acting. This finding does not prove illusionism, but it strongly suggests that consciousness is less central to cognition than introspection reports. Whatever conscious experience is, it cannot be the executive director it feels like being.
A further strength: cognitive science has produced extensive evidence that introspection is unreliable as a guide to what the brain is doing. Change blindness experiments, inattentional blindness, the failure to notice major scene transitions, the brain’s confabulation of unified perception from broken inputs, all of this points toward a system that fabricates narrative coherence rather than reporting it. Daniel Kahneman’s two-system model, much of social psychology, and large stretches of cognitive neuroscience converge on the conclusion that the conscious self is told a story rather than told the truth. Dennett built his philosophy on this evidence and built it carefully.
Illusionism earns additional power because it does what philosophy of mind so rarely accomplishes: it makes empirical predictions. The position predicts that no matter how carefully we examine the brain, we will find no special phenomenal properties, no unbridgeable explanatory gap, only the increasing detail of computational and neural processes. This is testable in principle, falsifiable in principle, and more honest than positions that retreat to unanalyzable mystery whenever the science gets close.
Last, the program takes seriously the strangeness of the universe physics describes. There is no good reason to assume that ordinary human experience accurately reports the deep structure of reality. We did not evolve to perceive truth. We evolved to survive long enough to reproduce, and our perceptual and introspective apparatus was tuned for that purpose. Dennett’s willingness to follow the implication wherever it led is the mark of a serious philosophical mind.
The case carries equally serious weaknesses, however, and the weaknesses cluster around a single point that has dogged illusionism since its first formulation.
The argument is not effective because illusion presupposes consciousness. An illusion is a false appearance, and a false appearance requires a perceiver to whom the false appearance appears. To say consciousness is an illusion is to say there is something it is like to be deceived about consciousness, which means there is something it is like to be the system Dennett claims has no something-it-is-like-to-be. The American theologian David Bentley Hart put the objection sharply in his 2017 essay “The Illusionist,” published in The New Atlantis: you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. The point is so obvious that Dennett’s defenders have spent thirty years trying to argue around it, and the arguments have grown increasingly baroque without ever quite touching the core of the objection.
It is also not effective because the redefinition trick is visible. When Dennett says consciousness is an illusion, he means consciousness as ordinarily described, with its qualia and its unified inner viewer. When he then says we are all functioning fine, that we have user illusions and multiple drafts and complex representations, he has reintroduced under different names exactly the phenomena he claimed to eliminate. Galen Strawson made this point with particular force, arguing that Dennett denies the existence of the data a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain, then offers a theory of something else and calls it a theory of consciousness. The maneuver is rhetorically powerful and philosophically empty.
A further weakness: the Cartesian Theater Dennett demolishes is a straw position most contemporary philosophers of mind do not hold. Phenomenal realists need not believe in a homunculus or a master viewer or a screening room in the head. They need only believe that there is something it is like to undergo experience, which is a far weaker claim than the picture Dennett spent his career attacking. By demolishing the strong version, he left the weak version intact while pretending he had demolished both. Thomas Nagel made the point in The New York Review of Books in March 2017, reviewing From Bacteria to Bach and Back: Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious, the immediate awareness of subjective experience, and offers in exchange a story about neural machinery that may all be true while leaving the original question untouched.
The position fails because it cannot account for the difference between systems that obviously experience something and systems that obviously do not. A thermostat represents the temperature. It models its environment. It adjusts behavior based on internal states. By Dennett’s lights, what makes the thermostat different from you is degree of complexity rather than presence or absence of inner life. If illusionism is right, your experience of pain is a more complex version of what the thermostat does when it registers cold. This consequence is so wildly at odds with what we know about pain that it functions as a reductio of the position rather than a confirmation of it. John Searle pressed this objection for decades, and Dennett never produced a response that satisfied anyone outside his immediate circle.
Last, illusionism cannot explain why the illusion exists in the first place. If consciousness is an evolutionary user-interface, why does it have phenomenal character at all? The question of why there is a felt redness rather than mere redness-detection is exactly the hard problem David Chalmers identified in 1995, and Dennett’s response was to deny that the question was real. Denying a question is not answering it. Other illusionists, including Frankish, have been more candid about this gap and acknowledged it as an outstanding problem for the program. Dennett tended to close the question by force of personality rather than by force of argument, and his defenders inherited the closure without inheriting the personality that made it almost convincing.
A specific paradox deserves separate treatment. Dennett’s commitment to philosophical zombies being identical with us is either trivially true or wildly false depending on which definition of zombie one uses. Under his own redefinition (a creature functionally indistinguishable from a human, with no extra non-physical properties), of course we are all zombies in his sense, because his sense is constructed precisely to include us. Under Chalmers’s original definition (a creature functionally identical but lacking phenomenal experience), the claim that we are all such creatures is the central thing in dispute, and Dennett’s announcement that we are all zombies amounts to declaring victory rather than achieving it. The wordplay is amusing. The argumentative work it pretends to do is fictional.
Where does this leave the project? Several genuine contributions survive the dismantling.
The Multiple Drafts model gave cognitive science a serviceable framework for thinking about how the brain produces unified-feeling experience from distributed parallel processing, even if the framework does not require illusionism as its metaphysics. The user illusion metaphor remains useful for describing how introspection misrepresents underlying neural activity, even if the metaphor cannot bear the metaphysical weight Dennett placed on it. His destruction of the Cartesian Theater counts as permanent philosophical progress, and any future theory of consciousness will need to accommodate Dennett’s critique whether it accepts his positive program or rejects it. His sustained engagement with cognitive science kept philosophy of mind close to the empirical work that ought to constrain it, and the field is healthier for the discipline he imposed.
What does not survive is the central claim. Consciousness is real in any standard sense of the word, since illusions themselves require conscious subjects. The hard problem cannot be dissolved by redescription, because redescription leaves the original problem intact under a new vocabulary. The experiential reds and greens and pains and hopes that fill our days are either real, in which case illusionism is false, or unreal, in which case the question of what is doing the reporting becomes urgent and unanswered.
Return now to the McGilchrist question with these results in hand. If illusionism fails at its center, the hard problem stands, and the panpsychist option becomes more attractive by a process of elimination, since materialist emergence and illusionist deflation have both encountered serious difficulty. This does not establish that McGilchrist is right. It establishes that his position belongs among the few options still on the table after the most ambitious materialist program of the late twentieth century has been worked through and found wanting at its center.
The deeper lesson concerns what philosophy can and cannot accomplish by argument alone. Dennett spent fifty years constructing what he called the obvious default theory of consciousness. He convinced a small circle of admirers, antagonized a larger circle of critics, and produced a body of work that will be read for a long time. None of it solved the hard problem. None of it could solve the hard problem, because the hard problem is what we are made of, and arguments about consciousness produced by conscious beings cannot get behind the consciousness that produces them. Dennett saw this difficulty and tried to argue it away. The honest verdict is that he failed, gracefully and intelligently, in a way that taught us a great deal about what success would require.
We owe him the courtesy of saying so out loud. He would have preferred direct refutation to polite agreement, and direct refutation is what the work deserves. The user illusion remains a useful metaphor and a serviceable instrument for cognitive science. As metaphysics it cannot hold. The inner light Dennett spent his career trying to extinguish is the one thing his arguments could not reach, because the arguments themselves arrived in consciousness, were read in consciousness, and were rejected or accepted in consciousness, and no maneuver of language can exit the medium in which the maneuver takes place.
We assume our own inwardness because we have nothing else to assume from. Dennett’s wager was that we could think our way past this assumption to a more austere description of reality. The wager was honorable, and it failed.
The argument from austerity has its own seductions, and we should name them. There is a certain kind of intellectual pride that takes pleasure in eliminating what others find precious, and Dennett was not immune to it. His writing carried a confident scorn for opponents that was less philosophical virtue than personal style, and the style propagated through his disciples in ways that have hurt rather than helped the program. A position that depends on the personality of its founder for its persuasive force is a position that has not yet earned the right to hold the field. Dennett’s work will outlive him. Whether illusionism survives without his voice carrying it remains to be seen, and the early evidence suggests not.
What we can take from him, what we should take from him, is the discipline of refusing to mystify. The hard problem is real, but real problems are not solved by reverence. Dennett’s failure was an honest failure pursued with rigor and wit, and the field needs more such failures and fewer of the soft evasions that pass for theory in the consciousness literature. If we end up disagreeing with everything he claimed, we still owe him the standard of work he set, and the willingness to argue all the way down rather than retreating into vocabulary that protects the question from being asked clearly. He asked it clearly. He answered it wrongly. Both halves of that judgment matter, and both halves are why he will be read after his answer is forgotten.
#argument #brain #consciousness #dennett #editorial #illusion #mcgilchrist #mystify #panpsychism #pathways #philosophy -
Consciousness Explained Away: Daniel Dennett’s Illusionism and the Theory That Spends Its Own Foundation
When Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024, at the age of eighty-two, the philosophical world lost one of the last serious defenders of a position so counterintuitive that even sympathetic readers spent decades trying to talk themselves into it. Dennett argued, across more than fifty years of writing, that consciousness as we ordinarily understand it does not exist. The reds and greens you see, the texture of cool water against the palm, the sense that there is somebody home behind your eyes reading these words: all of it, on Dennett’s account, is what he called a user illusion, a simplified internal model the brain generates for navigation purposes, with no inner light behind it and no observer to whom the show is being staged. The position is called illusionism, and it remains the strongest possible challenge to the panpsychism we considered in the previous article on Iain McGilchrist. If Dennett was right, McGilchrist’s whole project rests on a misdescription of what we are.
The essay that follows takes Dennett’s position seriously enough to argue with it. Treating illusionism as obvious nonsense, the way much of the philosophical commentariat does, is unworthy of the work he produced and bad for thinking. Treating it as established science, which his more enthusiastic defenders sometimes do, is a different mistake in the opposite direction. The honest position holds that Dennett gave us one of the most carefully developed materialist accounts of mind on offer, that significant portions of his work contributed real progress to cognitive science, and that the metaphysical core of illusionism collapses on close inspection in ways his admirers prefer not to discuss.
Begin with the position itself, stated as charitably as I can manage. Dennett’s 1991 Consciousness Explained developed what he called the Multiple Drafts model. Instead of a single inner stage where conscious experience plays out, he argued, the brain runs many parallel processes that compete and revise one another in real time. There is no Cartesian Theater, no master audience, no central self watching the show. What we call consciousness is an emergent narrative effect, a kind of running editorial composite produced by neural activity that has no privileged location and no privileged moment of conscious recognition. Asking when something becomes conscious is like asking exactly when a manuscript becomes finished while it is still being edited by twenty hands at once. The question presumes a unity that does not exist.
The illusionist refinement came later. In 2016, the philosopher Keith Frankish edited a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies under the title “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness,” for which Dennett contributed a major essay called “Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness.” The argument runs as follows. When you say “I am conscious of a red stripe,” what is happening is not that some inner film is playing redness for an inner viewer. What is happening is that your brain has constructed a representation of redness, and the representation reports itself as having phenomenal character it does not actually possess. Dennett borrowed Alan Kay’s term “user illusion” from computer science, where it described the desktop metaphor that lets users operate a machine whose real workings remain hidden. Consciousness, on this view, is the brain’s user illusion of itself.
The position commits Dennett to a startling consequence. There are no qualia, no raw feels, no phenomenal properties of experience. Philosophical zombies, the imagined creatures functionally identical to humans but with no inner experience, do not exist as a separate possibility from us, because all of us already are what zombies were supposed to be. We function and talk about our experiences. We act as if there is something it is like to be us. The inner light we imagine glowing behind our reports is not actually there. Dennett wrote, with characteristic mischief, that he was committed to the view that we are all philosophical zombies, adding immediately that the line should not be quoted out of context. It usually was.
Where the case works, it works for these reasons.
The argument is effective because the Cartesian Theater is genuinely incoherent. If you ask where in the brain the conscious moment happens, you find no such place. Cognitive neuroscience has searched for decades and located nothing resembling a master observer. Vision goes to the visual cortex. The auditory cortex processes sound. The prefrontal cortex coordinates working memory. Nowhere is there a screening room with a viewer in it, and the question “who is watching?” leads into infinite regress. Dennett’s destruction of the homunculus model was a real philosophical achievement and remains the cleanest available demolition of a picture most people hold without noticing they hold it.
It works also because Benjamin Libet’s experiments from the 1970s and 1980s established that neural preparation for a decision precedes conscious awareness of having made it by roughly three hundred milliseconds. The conscious self arrives at its own decisions slightly after the brain has already begun acting. This finding does not prove illusionism, but it strongly suggests that consciousness is less central to cognition than introspection reports. Whatever conscious experience is, it cannot be the executive director it feels like being.
A further strength: cognitive science has produced extensive evidence that introspection is unreliable as a guide to what the brain is doing. Change blindness experiments, inattentional blindness, the failure to notice major scene transitions, the brain’s confabulation of unified perception from broken inputs, all of this points toward a system that fabricates narrative coherence rather than reporting it. Daniel Kahneman’s two-system model, much of social psychology, and large stretches of cognitive neuroscience converge on the conclusion that the conscious self is told a story rather than told the truth. Dennett built his philosophy on this evidence and built it carefully.
Illusionism earns additional power because it does what philosophy of mind so rarely accomplishes: it makes empirical predictions. The position predicts that no matter how carefully we examine the brain, we will find no special phenomenal properties, no unbridgeable explanatory gap, only the increasing detail of computational and neural processes. This is testable in principle, falsifiable in principle, and more honest than positions that retreat to unanalyzable mystery whenever the science gets close.
Last, the program takes seriously the strangeness of the universe physics describes. There is no good reason to assume that ordinary human experience accurately reports the deep structure of reality. We did not evolve to perceive truth. We evolved to survive long enough to reproduce, and our perceptual and introspective apparatus was tuned for that purpose. Dennett’s willingness to follow the implication wherever it led is the mark of a serious philosophical mind.
The case carries equally serious weaknesses, however, and the weaknesses cluster around a single point that has dogged illusionism since its first formulation.
The argument is not effective because illusion presupposes consciousness. An illusion is a false appearance, and a false appearance requires a perceiver to whom the false appearance appears. To say consciousness is an illusion is to say there is something it is like to be deceived about consciousness, which means there is something it is like to be the system Dennett claims has no something-it-is-like-to-be. The American theologian David Bentley Hart put the objection sharply in his 2017 essay “The Illusionist,” published in The New Atlantis: you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. The point is so obvious that Dennett’s defenders have spent thirty years trying to argue around it, and the arguments have grown increasingly baroque without ever quite touching the core of the objection.
It is also not effective because the redefinition trick is visible. When Dennett says consciousness is an illusion, he means consciousness as ordinarily described, with its qualia and its unified inner viewer. When he then says we are all functioning fine, that we have user illusions and multiple drafts and complex representations, he has reintroduced under different names exactly the phenomena he claimed to eliminate. Galen Strawson made this point with particular force, arguing that Dennett denies the existence of the data a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain, then offers a theory of something else and calls it a theory of consciousness. The maneuver is rhetorically powerful and philosophically empty.
A further weakness: the Cartesian Theater Dennett demolishes is a straw position most contemporary philosophers of mind do not hold. Phenomenal realists need not believe in a homunculus or a master viewer or a screening room in the head. They need only believe that there is something it is like to undergo experience, which is a far weaker claim than the picture Dennett spent his career attacking. By demolishing the strong version, he left the weak version intact while pretending he had demolished both. Thomas Nagel made the point in The New York Review of Books in March 2017, reviewing From Bacteria to Bach and Back: Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious, the immediate awareness of subjective experience, and offers in exchange a story about neural machinery that may all be true while leaving the original question untouched.
The position fails because it cannot account for the difference between systems that obviously experience something and systems that obviously do not. A thermostat represents the temperature. It models its environment. It adjusts behavior based on internal states. By Dennett’s lights, what makes the thermostat different from you is degree of complexity rather than presence or absence of inner life. If illusionism is right, your experience of pain is a more complex version of what the thermostat does when it registers cold. This consequence is so wildly at odds with what we know about pain that it functions as a reductio of the position rather than a confirmation of it. John Searle pressed this objection for decades, and Dennett never produced a response that satisfied anyone outside his immediate circle.
Last, illusionism cannot explain why the illusion exists in the first place. If consciousness is an evolutionary user-interface, why does it have phenomenal character at all? The question of why there is a felt redness rather than mere redness-detection is exactly the hard problem David Chalmers identified in 1995, and Dennett’s response was to deny that the question was real. Denying a question is not answering it. Other illusionists, including Frankish, have been more candid about this gap and acknowledged it as an outstanding problem for the program. Dennett tended to close the question by force of personality rather than by force of argument, and his defenders inherited the closure without inheriting the personality that made it almost convincing.
A specific paradox deserves separate treatment. Dennett’s commitment to philosophical zombies being identical with us is either trivially true or wildly false depending on which definition of zombie one uses. Under his own redefinition (a creature functionally indistinguishable from a human, with no extra non-physical properties), of course we are all zombies in his sense, because his sense is constructed precisely to include us. Under Chalmers’s original definition (a creature functionally identical but lacking phenomenal experience), the claim that we are all such creatures is the central thing in dispute, and Dennett’s announcement that we are all zombies amounts to declaring victory rather than achieving it. The wordplay is amusing. The argumentative work it pretends to do is fictional.
Where does this leave the project? Several genuine contributions survive the dismantling.
The Multiple Drafts model gave cognitive science a serviceable framework for thinking about how the brain produces unified-feeling experience from distributed parallel processing, even if the framework does not require illusionism as its metaphysics. The user illusion metaphor remains useful for describing how introspection misrepresents underlying neural activity, even if the metaphor cannot bear the metaphysical weight Dennett placed on it. His destruction of the Cartesian Theater counts as permanent philosophical progress, and any future theory of consciousness will need to accommodate Dennett’s critique whether it accepts his positive program or rejects it. His sustained engagement with cognitive science kept philosophy of mind close to the empirical work that ought to constrain it, and the field is healthier for the discipline he imposed.
What does not survive is the central claim. Consciousness is real in any standard sense of the word, since illusions themselves require conscious subjects. The hard problem cannot be dissolved by redescription, because redescription leaves the original problem intact under a new vocabulary. The experiential reds and greens and pains and hopes that fill our days are either real, in which case illusionism is false, or unreal, in which case the question of what is doing the reporting becomes urgent and unanswered.
Return now to the McGilchrist question with these results in hand. If illusionism fails at its center, the hard problem stands, and the panpsychist option becomes more attractive by a process of elimination, since materialist emergence and illusionist deflation have both encountered serious difficulty. This does not establish that McGilchrist is right. It establishes that his position belongs among the few options still on the table after the most ambitious materialist program of the late twentieth century has been worked through and found wanting at its center.
The deeper lesson concerns what philosophy can and cannot accomplish by argument alone. Dennett spent fifty years constructing what he called the obvious default theory of consciousness. He convinced a small circle of admirers, antagonized a larger circle of critics, and produced a body of work that will be read for a long time. None of it solved the hard problem. None of it could solve the hard problem, because the hard problem is what we are made of, and arguments about consciousness produced by conscious beings cannot get behind the consciousness that produces them. Dennett saw this difficulty and tried to argue it away. The honest verdict is that he failed, gracefully and intelligently, in a way that taught us a great deal about what success would require.
We owe him the courtesy of saying so out loud. He would have preferred direct refutation to polite agreement, and direct refutation is what the work deserves. The user illusion remains a useful metaphor and a serviceable instrument for cognitive science. As metaphysics it cannot hold. The inner light Dennett spent his career trying to extinguish is the one thing his arguments could not reach, because the arguments themselves arrived in consciousness, were read in consciousness, and were rejected or accepted in consciousness, and no maneuver of language can exit the medium in which the maneuver takes place.
We assume our own inwardness because we have nothing else to assume from. Dennett’s wager was that we could think our way past this assumption to a more austere description of reality. The wager was honorable, and it failed.
The argument from austerity has its own seductions, and we should name them. There is a certain kind of intellectual pride that takes pleasure in eliminating what others find precious, and Dennett was not immune to it. His writing carried a confident scorn for opponents that was less philosophical virtue than personal style, and the style propagated through his disciples in ways that have hurt rather than helped the program. A position that depends on the personality of its founder for its persuasive force is a position that has not yet earned the right to hold the field. Dennett’s work will outlive him. Whether illusionism survives without his voice carrying it remains to be seen, and the early evidence suggests not.
What we can take from him, what we should take from him, is the discipline of refusing to mystify. The hard problem is real, but real problems are not solved by reverence. Dennett’s failure was an honest failure pursued with rigor and wit, and the field needs more such failures and fewer of the soft evasions that pass for theory in the consciousness literature. If we end up disagreeing with everything he claimed, we still owe him the standard of work he set, and the willingness to argue all the way down rather than retreating into vocabulary that protects the question from being asked clearly. He asked it clearly. He answered it wrongly. Both halves of that judgment matter, and both halves are why he will be read after his answer is forgotten.
#argument #brain #consciousness #dennett #editorial #illusion #mcgilchrist #mystify #panpsychism #pathways #philosophy -
Consciousness Explained Away: Daniel Dennett’s Illusionism and the Theory That Spends Its Own Foundation
When Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024, at the age of eighty-two, the philosophical world lost one of the last serious defenders of a position so counterintuitive that even sympathetic readers spent decades trying to talk themselves into it. Dennett argued, across more than fifty years of writing, that consciousness as we ordinarily understand it does not exist. The reds and greens you see, the texture of cool water against the palm, the sense that there is somebody home behind your eyes reading these words: all of it, on Dennett’s account, is what he called a user illusion, a simplified internal model the brain generates for navigation purposes, with no inner light behind it and no observer to whom the show is being staged. The position is called illusionism, and it remains the strongest possible challenge to the panpsychism we considered in the previous article on Iain McGilchrist. If Dennett was right, McGilchrist’s whole project rests on a misdescription of what we are.
The essay that follows takes Dennett’s position seriously enough to argue with it. Treating illusionism as obvious nonsense, the way much of the philosophical commentariat does, is unworthy of the work he produced and bad for thinking. Treating it as established science, which his more enthusiastic defenders sometimes do, is a different mistake in the opposite direction. The honest position holds that Dennett gave us one of the most carefully developed materialist accounts of mind on offer, that significant portions of his work contributed real progress to cognitive science, and that the metaphysical core of illusionism collapses on close inspection in ways his admirers prefer not to discuss.
Begin with the position itself, stated as charitably as I can manage. Dennett’s 1991 Consciousness Explained developed what he called the Multiple Drafts model. Instead of a single inner stage where conscious experience plays out, he argued, the brain runs many parallel processes that compete and revise one another in real time. There is no Cartesian Theater, no master audience, no central self watching the show. What we call consciousness is an emergent narrative effect, a kind of running editorial composite produced by neural activity that has no privileged location and no privileged moment of conscious recognition. Asking when something becomes conscious is like asking exactly when a manuscript becomes finished while it is still being edited by twenty hands at once. The question presumes a unity that does not exist.
The illusionist refinement came later. In 2016, the philosopher Keith Frankish edited a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies under the title “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness,” for which Dennett contributed a major essay called “Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness.” The argument runs as follows. When you say “I am conscious of a red stripe,” what is happening is not that some inner film is playing redness for an inner viewer. What is happening is that your brain has constructed a representation of redness, and the representation reports itself as having phenomenal character it does not actually possess. Dennett borrowed Alan Kay’s term “user illusion” from computer science, where it described the desktop metaphor that lets users operate a machine whose real workings remain hidden. Consciousness, on this view, is the brain’s user illusion of itself.
The position commits Dennett to a startling consequence. There are no qualia, no raw feels, no phenomenal properties of experience. Philosophical zombies, the imagined creatures functionally identical to humans but with no inner experience, do not exist as a separate possibility from us, because all of us already are what zombies were supposed to be. We function and talk about our experiences. We act as if there is something it is like to be us. The inner light we imagine glowing behind our reports is not actually there. Dennett wrote, with characteristic mischief, that he was committed to the view that we are all philosophical zombies, adding immediately that the line should not be quoted out of context. It usually was.
Where the case works, it works for these reasons.
The argument is effective because the Cartesian Theater is genuinely incoherent. If you ask where in the brain the conscious moment happens, you find no such place. Cognitive neuroscience has searched for decades and located nothing resembling a master observer. Vision goes to the visual cortex. The auditory cortex processes sound. The prefrontal cortex coordinates working memory. Nowhere is there a screening room with a viewer in it, and the question “who is watching?” leads into infinite regress. Dennett’s destruction of the homunculus model was a real philosophical achievement and remains the cleanest available demolition of a picture most people hold without noticing they hold it.
It works also because Benjamin Libet’s experiments from the 1970s and 1980s established that neural preparation for a decision precedes conscious awareness of having made it by roughly three hundred milliseconds. The conscious self arrives at its own decisions slightly after the brain has already begun acting. This finding does not prove illusionism, but it strongly suggests that consciousness is less central to cognition than introspection reports. Whatever conscious experience is, it cannot be the executive director it feels like being.
A further strength: cognitive science has produced extensive evidence that introspection is unreliable as a guide to what the brain is doing. Change blindness experiments, inattentional blindness, the failure to notice major scene transitions, the brain’s confabulation of unified perception from broken inputs, all of this points toward a system that fabricates narrative coherence rather than reporting it. Daniel Kahneman’s two-system model, much of social psychology, and large stretches of cognitive neuroscience converge on the conclusion that the conscious self is told a story rather than told the truth. Dennett built his philosophy on this evidence and built it carefully.
Illusionism earns additional power because it does what philosophy of mind so rarely accomplishes: it makes empirical predictions. The position predicts that no matter how carefully we examine the brain, we will find no special phenomenal properties, no unbridgeable explanatory gap, only the increasing detail of computational and neural processes. This is testable in principle, falsifiable in principle, and more honest than positions that retreat to unanalyzable mystery whenever the science gets close.
Last, the program takes seriously the strangeness of the universe physics describes. There is no good reason to assume that ordinary human experience accurately reports the deep structure of reality. We did not evolve to perceive truth. We evolved to survive long enough to reproduce, and our perceptual and introspective apparatus was tuned for that purpose. Dennett’s willingness to follow the implication wherever it led is the mark of a serious philosophical mind.
The case carries equally serious weaknesses, however, and the weaknesses cluster around a single point that has dogged illusionism since its first formulation.
The argument is not effective because illusion presupposes consciousness. An illusion is a false appearance, and a false appearance requires a perceiver to whom the false appearance appears. To say consciousness is an illusion is to say there is something it is like to be deceived about consciousness, which means there is something it is like to be the system Dennett claims has no something-it-is-like-to-be. The American theologian David Bentley Hart put the objection sharply in his 2017 essay “The Illusionist,” published in The New Atlantis: you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. The point is so obvious that Dennett’s defenders have spent thirty years trying to argue around it, and the arguments have grown increasingly baroque without ever quite touching the core of the objection.
It is also not effective because the redefinition trick is visible. When Dennett says consciousness is an illusion, he means consciousness as ordinarily described, with its qualia and its unified inner viewer. When he then says we are all functioning fine, that we have user illusions and multiple drafts and complex representations, he has reintroduced under different names exactly the phenomena he claimed to eliminate. Galen Strawson made this point with particular force, arguing that Dennett denies the existence of the data a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain, then offers a theory of something else and calls it a theory of consciousness. The maneuver is rhetorically powerful and philosophically empty.
A further weakness: the Cartesian Theater Dennett demolishes is a straw position most contemporary philosophers of mind do not hold. Phenomenal realists need not believe in a homunculus or a master viewer or a screening room in the head. They need only believe that there is something it is like to undergo experience, which is a far weaker claim than the picture Dennett spent his career attacking. By demolishing the strong version, he left the weak version intact while pretending he had demolished both. Thomas Nagel made the point in The New York Review of Books in March 2017, reviewing From Bacteria to Bach and Back: Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious, the immediate awareness of subjective experience, and offers in exchange a story about neural machinery that may all be true while leaving the original question untouched.
The position fails because it cannot account for the difference between systems that obviously experience something and systems that obviously do not. A thermostat represents the temperature. It models its environment. It adjusts behavior based on internal states. By Dennett’s lights, what makes the thermostat different from you is degree of complexity rather than presence or absence of inner life. If illusionism is right, your experience of pain is a more complex version of what the thermostat does when it registers cold. This consequence is so wildly at odds with what we know about pain that it functions as a reductio of the position rather than a confirmation of it. John Searle pressed this objection for decades, and Dennett never produced a response that satisfied anyone outside his immediate circle.
Last, illusionism cannot explain why the illusion exists in the first place. If consciousness is an evolutionary user-interface, why does it have phenomenal character at all? The question of why there is a felt redness rather than mere redness-detection is exactly the hard problem David Chalmers identified in 1995, and Dennett’s response was to deny that the question was real. Denying a question is not answering it. Other illusionists, including Frankish, have been more candid about this gap and acknowledged it as an outstanding problem for the program. Dennett tended to close the question by force of personality rather than by force of argument, and his defenders inherited the closure without inheriting the personality that made it almost convincing.
A specific paradox deserves separate treatment. Dennett’s commitment to philosophical zombies being identical with us is either trivially true or wildly false depending on which definition of zombie one uses. Under his own redefinition (a creature functionally indistinguishable from a human, with no extra non-physical properties), of course we are all zombies in his sense, because his sense is constructed precisely to include us. Under Chalmers’s original definition (a creature functionally identical but lacking phenomenal experience), the claim that we are all such creatures is the central thing in dispute, and Dennett’s announcement that we are all zombies amounts to declaring victory rather than achieving it. The wordplay is amusing. The argumentative work it pretends to do is fictional.
Where does this leave the project? Several genuine contributions survive the dismantling.
The Multiple Drafts model gave cognitive science a serviceable framework for thinking about how the brain produces unified-feeling experience from distributed parallel processing, even if the framework does not require illusionism as its metaphysics. The user illusion metaphor remains useful for describing how introspection misrepresents underlying neural activity, even if the metaphor cannot bear the metaphysical weight Dennett placed on it. His destruction of the Cartesian Theater counts as permanent philosophical progress, and any future theory of consciousness will need to accommodate Dennett’s critique whether it accepts his positive program or rejects it. His sustained engagement with cognitive science kept philosophy of mind close to the empirical work that ought to constrain it, and the field is healthier for the discipline he imposed.
What does not survive is the central claim. Consciousness is real in any standard sense of the word, since illusions themselves require conscious subjects. The hard problem cannot be dissolved by redescription, because redescription leaves the original problem intact under a new vocabulary. The experiential reds and greens and pains and hopes that fill our days are either real, in which case illusionism is false, or unreal, in which case the question of what is doing the reporting becomes urgent and unanswered.
Return now to the McGilchrist question with these results in hand. If illusionism fails at its center, the hard problem stands, and the panpsychist option becomes more attractive by a process of elimination, since materialist emergence and illusionist deflation have both encountered serious difficulty. This does not establish that McGilchrist is right. It establishes that his position belongs among the few options still on the table after the most ambitious materialist program of the late twentieth century has been worked through and found wanting at its center.
The deeper lesson concerns what philosophy can and cannot accomplish by argument alone. Dennett spent fifty years constructing what he called the obvious default theory of consciousness. He convinced a small circle of admirers, antagonized a larger circle of critics, and produced a body of work that will be read for a long time. None of it solved the hard problem. None of it could solve the hard problem, because the hard problem is what we are made of, and arguments about consciousness produced by conscious beings cannot get behind the consciousness that produces them. Dennett saw this difficulty and tried to argue it away. The honest verdict is that he failed, gracefully and intelligently, in a way that taught us a great deal about what success would require.
We owe him the courtesy of saying so out loud. He would have preferred direct refutation to polite agreement, and direct refutation is what the work deserves. The user illusion remains a useful metaphor and a serviceable instrument for cognitive science. As metaphysics it cannot hold. The inner light Dennett spent his career trying to extinguish is the one thing his arguments could not reach, because the arguments themselves arrived in consciousness, were read in consciousness, and were rejected or accepted in consciousness, and no maneuver of language can exit the medium in which the maneuver takes place.
We assume our own inwardness because we have nothing else to assume from. Dennett’s wager was that we could think our way past this assumption to a more austere description of reality. The wager was honorable, and it failed.
The argument from austerity has its own seductions, and we should name them. There is a certain kind of intellectual pride that takes pleasure in eliminating what others find precious, and Dennett was not immune to it. His writing carried a confident scorn for opponents that was less philosophical virtue than personal style, and the style propagated through his disciples in ways that have hurt rather than helped the program. A position that depends on the personality of its founder for its persuasive force is a position that has not yet earned the right to hold the field. Dennett’s work will outlive him. Whether illusionism survives without his voice carrying it remains to be seen, and the early evidence suggests not.
What we can take from him, what we should take from him, is the discipline of refusing to mystify. The hard problem is real, but real problems are not solved by reverence. Dennett’s failure was an honest failure pursued with rigor and wit, and the field needs more such failures and fewer of the soft evasions that pass for theory in the consciousness literature. If we end up disagreeing with everything he claimed, we still owe him the standard of work he set, and the willingness to argue all the way down rather than retreating into vocabulary that protects the question from being asked clearly. He asked it clearly. He answered it wrongly. Both halves of that judgment matter, and both halves are why he will be read after his answer is forgotten.
Part two of three. For the full sequence and reading guide, see The Consciousness Trilogy: Reading Three Wagers on the Question We Cannot Settle.
#argument #brain #consciousness #dennett #editorial #illusion #mcgilchrist #mystify #panpsychism #pathways #philosophy -
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl
Back in the fall of 2023, right after the release of my second solo album with Navona, I got the opportunity to sit down with longtime American conductor, arts administrator, and music/theater/dance critic, Daniel Kepl, and talk with him about my album, SHARDS.
Unfortunately, the audio in that video interview was extremely unbalanced and distorted, so I took some time to try and clean it up, to make it as listenable as possible. So… that edited video is now here, below, ready for your viewing pleasure (complete with chapter breaks, if you’d prefer to jump around)!
While the pops and crackles and background noises are mostly gone, sometimes the words are still a little garbly, so I’ve embedded captions in the video and am providing a full transcript, for those who would prefer to read the discussion. If you would like to see the original unedited video, you can do that here.
Dan Kepl’s Review Highlights
The high points of Dan Kepl’s praise, as stated in the video below.
About the Album:
[SHARDS is] a wonderful album, very interesting and very accessible, if I may say. It’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music… This music is just simply gorgeous. You use instruments in the most magical way.
This is music that should be heard a lot more…it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making. It’s…a very important CD you’ve got.
About “Ayre of Grievances”:
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece. The balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
About “DodecaFunky”:
I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire, this is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. It’s just a delicious piece, it’s aggressive in its funky way. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be on programming all over the place. This is irresistible. Audiences would love it, I think.
About “Of Roses and Lilies”:
It’s a beauty; a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. …this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. A flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
About “The Oracle”:
Once in a while, I really want to play [a track of] an album, uh, for other people…you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. What an amazing chamber piece. Wonderful transitional writing; compositional savvy is top notch. The piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. This piece is quite a journey.
About “Wabi-Sabi”:
The construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect…quite a narrative…wonderful quartet writing.
About “Nevermore”:
An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. …a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking…the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho – Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending.
About “The Dark Glass Sinfonia”:
…wonderful piece for orchestra, “The Dark Glass Sinfonia,” gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful.
Lovely wind section work…nicely orchestrated. It’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible…a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible.
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl (Edited, with Captions)Full [Edited] Interview Transcript
D: I’m chatting with composer Sarah Wallin Huff and we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release. Thank you, Parma. Thank you, Navona. Thank you, all of you wonderful people out there that put this, these kind of packages together. Just a quick aside about Navona, including everything that we need as critics, really somewhat truncated, makes perfect sense, but up on a website. And very few other companies do this. I just think it’s fabulous.
I’ve seen your interview, or I’ve read your interview, I should say, with Parma. And we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release of Contemporary Classical Chamber Works and an album for diverse instrumental combinations. Anyway, the CD is called Shards. Do not run away in the night and be afraid. It’s a wonderful album of very interesting and very accessible, if I may say so, and I think it’s perfectly OK to say so.
Here, just a sampling: Ayre of Grievances, for viola, violin, flute, lovely. The flute I wondered about. Those are pretty heavy instruments and the balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
DodecaFunky, let me say that once more. DodecaFunky, for piano, and it is cute… oh, did I miss one?
S: DodecaFunky.
D: Anyway, it’s cute. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. And it’s a wonderful, very fascinating piano piece. Audiences would love it, I think.
“Of Roses and Lilies.” This one’s a little complex for soprano, piano, soprano recorder. Nice colors. Nice. English horn, very interesting. And women’s chorus. I mean, not since Holst have I heard women’s chorus used in this way.
So, Wabi-Sabi, it’s in three movements. Juventas, the new music ensemble performs it. This is a string quartet, so four players of the Juventas ensemble. I hope I’m pronouncing that right since I live in California. Three movements: Emergence, Evolution, Entropy. Very, very interesting. And maybe even kind of the heart of who you might be. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
The next piece, Nevermore for viola and piano, an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, three-movement sonata for viola and piano. The movements: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart. And I love Poe, what a genius, what a genius. So glad you have included this wonderful, wonderful piece for viola and piano. And I mean by that, again, your compositional skills, the way you use these, didn’t you play viola? I thought I that read somewhere. Were you a violist?
S: I double on viola. I feel more comfortable on violin, but I can pick up a viola if I need it.
D: Okay. So you got all that stuff, you know, under your fingernails, so to say.
And then the last piece, wonderful piece for orchestra, The Dark Glass Sinfonia, gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful. And with a little subtype, if I’m reading it correctly: “We see through a glass darkly.” Wonderful piece, performed by wonderful people, while you really say it right out, right, and I just want to deal with this a little bit before I get to where you know, I’m going.
We all know people with autism and what I have found in my experience with people, and you know, autism is here, there, everywhere in various variations. You’re going to speak to it, I think in a bit, but the people that I have known with autism, some people have had troubles, others have been really, really talented, clever, and innovative. Autism is not a deficit. Okay.
S: Yeah. It’s a difference.
D: It’s a difference. Thank you. That’s better. Okay. Because I too, like most of, especially like with dyslexia, in the seventies, we all thought people with dyslexia were just lazy. Just didn’t want to do a job. Well, they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t read. Everything was backwards. My, my oldest nephew, uh, is dyslexic. So I just want everybody to understand…
And, and where are you in the autism spectrum? Can I ask that question?
S: Sure.
D: Of course, you’re clearly under great control. You have mastered the magic of autism.
S: Yeah. Well, what’s funny about that is I’ve actually only just in the past year, really got confirmation. Um, I’m still don’t have, yeah, I still don’t have an official diagnosis because that’s a whole other bag of worms for adult diagnosis and it costs thousands of dollars. And, uh, some doctors still don’t believe that women have it. Um, so, but just taking several screening tests, um, I’ve taken about five of the clinical screening tests and they all point very highly to autism. Um, and thinking about my experiences growing up, it really makes a lot of sense.
D: That’s what I was going to ask you next. You must have known, you know, that something was different.
S: Well, yeah. I, I thought something was always…
D: Can you give an example or two, you know, when you were a little kid. What I remember is the kids that I’ve known have various symptoms of autism.
S: Definitely. Um, emotional dysregulation, um, is still difficult where, well, and for me, because I kind of triggered emotional response to things like, um, there’s a famous phrase that “you don’t have enough spoons”, but the phrase means basically like, I only have so many ways of coping with life and when I’m out of those ways, I have to take a nap. I have to, I have to go to the corner for a second. And for different people, there’s different levels of that.
And growing up with a family who expected me to be normal. Um, I got really good at masking. I got really good at holding it all in, but then I’d get home and just. Like, um, I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except just sit there after school. Um, unfortunately I had to keep pushing through. Um, and so I just got used to doing that, hiding who I really was, you know?
D: Um, as you know, we talked, I’m very openly gay and…what we’re getting to, the bottom line is you have to be who you are. To keep these things secret or to try and work around who you are is exhausting, as you said. And just mentally, you know, exactly.
S: I’ve actually, I did actually get a diagnosis like 15 years ago for anxiety disorder and what I’ve discovered since then is that it is a part of the autism masking, just, I had been masking for 40 years. And so, um, that just built up a lot of anxiety in me for everything, you know? Um, but now that I’m just past year, starting to learn who I am and learn what my triggers are.
Um, I am very sensitive to sound, ironically enough, um, disorganized sound, I really have a hard time handling with, but music is organized sounds. So for me, my brain likes it, you know? Um, but yeah, so I’m just learning a lot more about myself and how my brain works and that it’s okay that my brain has trouble where other people seem to have things worked out, you know? And that’s okay.
D: You see, if you will, with your brain, things that we don’t, and so on. So, you know, I mean, that’s the beauty of all, for all of us. Uh, it’s the tremendous beauty of diversity.
Um… Let’s talk about Ancients. This is psycho-messaging to our brains. I mean, give me a break. It’s not random. It’s pure messaging to ourselves, uh, Tarot and all the rest of it. And I love traditions that have been there for 8,000 years. We’re going to talk about it. Cause you use, you do, you do this formula for a piece with Tarot cards that drives me crazy, but often told me it, speaking of what you had spoken to, uh, just a moment ago, when one gets kind of focused, the focus becomes quite, uh, extravagant. And was that for you? You really got into constructing this piece around Tarot.
S: Oh, yeah, I tend to, this tends to be a theme that I, if I hit on something that’s been very useful for me, um, mentally and psychologically, spiritually, I tend to write a piece about it. So that’s what the Oracle, the Oracle tended to be Tarot. I fell, fell onto, um, as a way to deal with my anxiety and it really, luckily, I had a therapist at the time who was open to the idea of me exploring my subconscious through the Tarot cards.
D: It’s about this idea of finding oneself, of reveling in these discoveries, uh, you know, and so is there any, can you give me a, um, what a topography of when, where, if even you feel now, like who you are, you know what I mean? How, what, what trajectory, where did you arrive? Have you arrived yet?
S: Um, well, definitely starting roughly a little less than a year ago when I finally did those, um, screenings for autism, like is when everything really started clicking and, and I did a lot of reading and, and, um, researching and, and finding others like me, you know, um, and it just helped click, you know, uh, it helped make, help me make sense of who I am and why I am the way I am.
Um, so often, especially throughout my whole life, um, I would be upset that I didn’t seem to be like everybody else. Even as a teacher, I mean, one of my favorite compliments from a student of mine was I’m the quirkiest teacher on campus. And I wear that like a badge. You know, I don’t teach like other teachers teach. I don’t think like other people think, and I’ve learned that that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Um, that diversity is a great thing.
D: So now we’re going to deal with the, uh, the product of your, uh, satisfactions, although this is, let’s see, 2023. I know these are recorded over a rather large span of time.
S: Maybe, uh, yeah, about five years or so.
D: So in other words, I guess what now has me curious is feeling where you are feeling now. Do you see, do you hear, see things in your focus on this CD?
S: I do actually. Um, the CD actually came about simply by virtue of, um, the way the economy works in the music recording industry and classical music, et cetera, where we just recorded piece by piece by piece as we could, um, and then finally had enough and say, Hey, let’s put together an album, you know…
D: And then let’s figure out how to pay for it. That’s what everybody watching this knows all about. It’s not like it [just] happens.
S: Exactly. Uh, so now, like I said, especially after these past several months, I look at the CD and I do really see it as if it’s sort of a culmination of my past 15 years or so, um, because all the pieces have been written, I think the earliest one was. Well, I think “Roses and Lilies” was what, like 2012 or something like that. Um, 2013, maybe.
D: Oh, well, we’ll find it.
S: I don’t remember.
D: Why did you use the word, “Shards”?
S: My husband picked it. He, he actually made up the title Ayre of Grievances too. He comes up with great titles. We thought about “Shards” because there are pieces like Dark Glass Sinfonia, so glass and, and breaking, uh, Wabi-Sabi is sort of like the fractal nature of life. And so you see shards of glass reflecting, reflecting different things, um, basically it’s supposed to be sort of the fragmentations of personality and life and spirituality.
D: That’s a good definition here. I was, I was expecting, uh, the, as I told you, I was expecting a wild ride. And by the way, everybody knows it isn’t, it’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music. This is what just blew me away.
In a way, this text that’s on your CD tells us how fresh the CD is. So it’s been put together. You’ve done that. It’s been five years. You’re there. And then it’s like, son of a gun.
“One inherent trait I possess is finding my emotional fulfillment through the active, creative manipulation of music.” And this fascinates me. I’m, I’m not a fix the watch kind of guy. I don’t get into the little details. I’m, I’m the conductor. I’m the, you know, I want the big pastel, you know, horses crossing the plains or something. You know, does that speak to your autism in a way, the focus?
S: I think so. The hyper fixation. I mean, there are times when I’m working on a piece that if my husband wasn’t there to remind me, I’d forget to eat, you know, I’ll just be like focused on these patterns and what else can I do with them? And, and, oh, that sounds really cool. Let me try this. Let’s see.
D: And you say, “I’m not, I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners.” That’s something that’s very important, “…but rather to facilitate a deeper connection with their inner selves.” Now, I’m not quite sure what kind of, what kind of a labyrinth you just, you know, created with those words. “I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners” yet, “I would like them to get in touch with their deeper…” you know, you know what I mean, you’re clever, aren’t you?
S: Well, that’s a question I get a lot is, well, how do you want the audience to feel? Even, even composition teachers… “How do you want them to feel?” And, and I think that’s another part of my autism. I relate to emotions differently than some other people do from what I can tell. Um, I, for me, the emotion and joy comes from the patterns. And so that’s what it is for me. Um, you know, it can be a completely atonal piece and if the patterns are cool then I’m getting such delight out of it. Uh, but for other people that might not be the case and I totally recognize that. So I’m hoping through my music, even though I might find joy in places they won’t, um, that they’ll still find something that they can resonate with.
D: Oh, that was very well, well, spracht and I can only agree with you because as I think I mentioned to you and probably everybody else and probably about three times already by now, but that was the shock. This music is just simply gorgeous. And I was expecting a few more “shards”, something expecting something, something a little, little more fractious, if you will.
The first piece on the, on the CD is Ayre of Grievances. I love the spelling. I presume clever, uh, you know, and, and, uh, awfully medieval or something. For viola, violin, and flute. It’s from 2020. So that’s a bad year. Oh my God.
S: Hence the grievances.
D: Hence the grievances is right. Uh, composed during the worldwide COVID epidemic. And you and I’ve talked about it. People are not yet clear how profoundly we as a planet of human beings and animals have been affected. This is going to take another half dozen years if we don’t have World War Three somewhere in between to sort it out. So it’s a, this was a big thing. And the biggest thing in my life, maybe, uh, to go through. So, Ayre of Grievances, and, uh, and, you know, you set us up with all the frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger, and I’m going, Oh, can’t wait.
And I put it on. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. I totally did not expect it. Here’s a bit of my stream of consciousness, totally not expecting such… well, tonality. It’s wonderful already. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. I mean, it’s, it’s totally accessible. And I, again, I almost want to spit when I say that word, but I think it’s okay now to use that, to create accessible music, um, things get a little crazy and frustrated.
You mentioned in your program notes, there’s that frustration and you describe it very well. How, although in my case, I just went comatose and just stared out the windows for two years and allowed the checks to come in. Cause I was a freelancer unemployed and boy, the money was better than I’ve ever received. Thank you, Uncle Sam, but, but so I didn’t really experience a whole lot of frustration. I just sort of couldn’t believe what was going on for about two years.
In other words, there is a narrative to this piece, Ayre of Grievances. Um, but I think it, you know, it is much more than the sum of its narrative is what I’m trying to say. Uh, tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece.
Go, give me an overview. What was this about for you?
S: During the, during the lockdowns for me, it was frustrating. Well, because… guy, giving three hour lectures on zoom, I never want to do that again. Oh my gosh. Not being able to see anybody, not being able to see family. Um, that was really frustrating, but at the same time, because I wasn’t able to play live concerts, like I had been, um, it gave me a chance to sit down and really think about who I am.
Um, up until that point, it was very much, oh, I’m a major violinist and a composer and a teacher at all at once.
D: Don’t forget viola… and viola too.
S: Yes. I love the viola. Um, but then I came to realize. I really much prefer writing, uh, and recording. Uh, so I, I allowed myself to let go of the, the things that maybe didn’t bring me quite as much joy. So when things did open back up, I’m, I’m being more careful to balance my life, uh, with what really brings me more joy and less stress, hopefully. Um, that’s, that’s what that piece really sort of represented is it was frustrating. It was lonely. I was angry at the world. Um, but at the same time, there was some beauty in there and some peace.
And, um, and I just love the interaction of the three parts. They’re both, they’re all three very independent, but they speak together and sometimes they’re arguing with each other. Sometimes they’re singing with each other and supporting each other. And, um, I just really liked that intimacy of the work.
D: Well, that whole narrative thing about what you’re very good, uh, you know, voices, uh, having discussions between each other, but I found, and I may sound like I’m an idiot or something, but when I saw that viola, violin, flute, I told you earlier, I thought, I remember thinking that’s going to be tricky, you know, that the flute doesn’t get lost, and all of that works beautifully. And that is not about, you know, microphones. It’s about the way you wrote the piece. Using those three instruments. So, so beautifully. And later you use instruments in the most magical way.
S: Yeah, we actually debuted it during the pandemic where I recorded the violin and viola part. And then I recorded a friend of mine playing the flute part and we just did one of those YouTube stitched videos where we stitched our videos together. That was the thing.
D: Yeah. Am I pronouncing it reasonably close? “DodecaFunky” And of course we’re playing, playing with, uh, dodeca cacophony or something. You can fill me in on that. There’s all this funny stuff going on. That’s all inside stuff for musicians.
It’s for flute and piano from 2015. I think you mentioned this might be the earliest piece, maybe…
S: “Of Roses and Lilies”, I actually wrote the original piece for voice and piano in like the early aughts. But then I went back and fleshed it out and sort of made it fuller.
D: So then you know, the early aughts, I love that. So DodecaFunky, uh, flute and piano. I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire. This is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work. Is that me or you?
S: I think it’s me.
D: I think it was you. So it… “exploits various manipulations”. Oh, here you go. Yeah, it is you… “of a 12 tone row (dodecaphony).” I’m supposed to be a musician and I couldn’t care less how it’s pronounced or even what it is these days. It’s just the serial melody to a backdrop, et cetera, et cetera. But the point of, oh, this is why it’s so cute. A hard bop and swing and, uh, and stuff. It’s just a delicious piece. And it’s, it’s aggressive in its funky way. I say about the opening, while the piano adds to the delightful confusion with various playful styles, a pause and it starts to get feisty. Uh, now I don’t know where I am in the piece, but now some casual virtuoso boogie woogie, boogie funky, uh, it’s a delight.
It’s kind of a series of descriptive tableau. Am I closer? Cause I love dance. I, you know, I reviewed dance a lot and these are like little tableau. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be, uh, on programming all over the place. It’s a beauty.
Tell me, tell me, what do you think? What do you think of this?
S: I love this piece. It just makes, it makes me giggle.
D: It’s just a charm. Beautiful. It’s so cute.
S: Thank you, thank you.
D: Again, if you, you’ll forgive me the accessibility word. This is irresistible. Of course, you know what I’m trying to say?
S: I’m glad you like it. That one actually took a little bit of inspiration from Bernstein. Um, I, I love, uh, I was studying his symphony, Age of Anxiety. Oh, and I love how he merged, well, he merged…
D: By the way, you know, I’m a conductor. Uh, and I know all three of those symphonies very, very well. I’ve never conducted them because they’re too hard. “Jeremiah” I could conduct. That one makes sense. Uh, the, the age of anxiety for piano and orchestra is unbelievable, but it’s also unbelievably difficult to conduct, you know? And then Kaddish, he wrote the original and then tore it all to pieces and stuff. So, but anyway, I just want, I’m so glad somebody also has studied [those works]. Anyway, excuse me.
S: That’s okay. Uh, but yeah, I really loved the idea of merging modernist, modernistic tendencies as Bernstein would say, um, with jazz and other accessible popular genres. And so that’s what I did with this flute piece is I took a 12 tone row and it is an authentic 12 tone row, but I, you could say I cheated, I cheated a little bit because I used transpositions. So what I would do is it’s still the same row, but I would transpose fragments of it to places that I liked it, where it fit better.
D: Arnold [Schoenberg] is turning into his grave.
S: Well, this is true. Ah but see, Stravinsky did it first. So, you know, let’s blame him.
It’s still, it still has the same intervallic structures. Um, but then I back it up, with that really jazzy, different, like you say, different tableaus of different jazzy styles to kind of increase the…
D: It’s a great dance piece…
S: That’d be fun.
D: In other words, there’s lots of possibilities.
Okay. We’re going to move on.
“Of Roses and Lilies”, this is for soprano, piano, soprano recorder, which I don’t think I hear very often used in these kinds of chamber pieces. And it’s a perfect color. English horn… what got into you ?…and women’s chorus. And then the, are there strings there? I have this question.
S: String orchestra.
D: String orchestra, because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it in the, in the brief and it’s from 2013, so we’re getting closer to, to the bottom of the stack here. Tell us about it.
S: This one’s a really fascinating piece for me. I, like I said, I had first written it many, many, many, several decades ago. And this was written…
D: Don’t be so hard on yourself…It’s only been 10 years…
S: But the original piece for just soprano and piano was written, like I said, in the late nineties or early aughts, um, this was when I was still with my very Christian family, um, yeah, there you go. And so I fell in love with the song of Solomon and I thought, why don’t I write quick snippets of the song of Solomon and put it together as sort of a love song. And so I did. And, um, eventually just another like 10 years or so down the road, I’d said, you know what, I really love this piece. I’m going to flesh it out. So, um, I took the original just two parts and added the strings and added the color of the soprano recorder and the English horn, um, and, you know, added the women’s chorus as sort of this almost Greek chorus kind of response thing.
So it’s a very, it’s a very different piece. Uh, it’s a very dramatic kind of theater-esque, drama-esque kind of, uh, kind of a feel.
D: And you don’t use the word romantic. It reeks of romanticism. I see in my notes there, a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. I was not ready for that.
S: Well, actually, uh, every, everybody don’t hate on me, but I actually recorded it myself. So it’s only, it’s only two microphones with, uh, the soloist, Claire is one of my best friends and she teaches at Azusa. So she was able to grab us a classroom. And so I recorded with the two microphones, her and another good friend of mine, the pianist, Lydia. Um, and at the time we weren’t sure if I was just going to put together a digital background to it and like release it online or something. But, you know, this CD was coming to the, coming toward finishing and I was like, you know, this would be really awesome if we can get the rest of it recorded.
So I, yeah, I took two more sessions. I got the strings and the winds together for one session. Uh, and then I finally got the women’s chorus together for a session.
D: So that makes sense too. Very hard undertaking just in terms of production.
S: Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good learning experience. And again, so many of my dear, dear friends are on that recording and it’s just, it was just so special to me.
D: It’s something else. And I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because we want to get this, these pieces performed. It’s a beauty. It’s very accessible. So it doesn’t sound terribly hard to put together. What do you think? Am I all wet? I don’t know, but just, it seemed very, it seemed to just flow pretty freely.
S: Here’s the… I would say, here’s the danger with my music. And, um, especially with this piece, this has happened before. There have been pianists who think they can sight read it and they suddenly quit. It’s like, oh, I can’t sight read this. So this is something my very first composition teacher warned me about is that my music seems really easy. But then you dig into it and there are some little quirks in there and some tricks that you might not be expecting. So as long as you know…
D: It shouldn’t be a big problem. If you know what I mean, so I think I’m okay in saying that I think it’s not like, you know…
S: It’s not terrible.
D: Yeah…[not] terribly virtuosic. And that is, that is to say this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. And that’s exactly what I see. Nothing but college, college ensemble. Because of the difficulty of getting, you know, professionals together in that kind of complex, you know, but, but, so I found it really very, very…a flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. Boy, that came out of my head. Geez. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
S: Thank you.
D: Let’s see. Now this is “The Oracle,” for violin, cello, flute and piccolo, clarinet, piano. That’s from 2016. Go ahead. Tell us, but the bottom line is you constructed this thing from random throws of tarot cards. Go.
S: Exactly. Okay. So…
D: Aleatoric indeed!
S: Uh, I really, like I said, this was the time in my life when I had just really started to latch on to tarot as a means of exploring my own subconscious.
D: Which is correct, by the way. Let’s make sure. Exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, let the self-conscious speak to us.
S: Exactly. I like to think of it, it’s like a mirror for myself. It’s a way for me to talk to myself when sometimes I’m having trouble understanding my brain. So, uh, I really love tarot and I wrote this when I first really started getting into it. And so what I did is, um, I had an opportunity. It was like a call for scores for this ensemble. Uh, and so I was like, this will be fun. Why don’t I use that as an excuse to try it out?
So, and I wanted to do sort of a homage to John Cage by using an aleatoric kind of method. And so tarot seemed like the perfect way to do it. So I set up, um, I think it was five different spreads of 10 cards. I think I did like, um, some kind of a sacred pyramid, uh, spread for each of those. Um, and what I did is I, I assigned certain, you know, in tarot, the different suits represent different aspects of life and personality.
So you have the cups, which is emotion. Um, you have, you know, the, uh, the pentacles, uh, the pentacles are, uh, earth, uh, and, um, material wellbeing and reality and such. Uh, so what I did is I attached each of the instruments to those suits. The, uh, violin was fire, uh, or wands. Uh, the, uh, the cello was water or cups and the, uh, the clarinet was earth and the flute, of course, was air. And then for the piano, uh, I made the piano, the tree of life itself. Uh, because I like to read tarot from a Kabbalistic tree of life sort of interpretation.
D: You’re starting to get over my head. I thought I was with you pretty well, but Kabbalistic something, something…with a tree of life.
S: So Jewish mysticism, basically. So on the tree of life, each of the cards have their place on that tree. And the higher up the tree you are, the closer to the divine source you are. And then you travel down the tree and experience various phases of life and emotion, et cetera, until you get to the bottom, which is material reality. Everything you’ve experienced becomes real. Uh, and then you cycle back to the top, back to the divine source again.
So for the piano, um, when I had a spread that, that spoke of being closer to the divine source, I had the piano playing up in its higher registers. And then as it got closer to the bottom, to the ground, the piano went down. So the higher, if you hear the piano going, noodling up really high, that’s up at the divine source of things. If you hear the piano kind of in the middle, that’s sort of where balance and harmony are. If the piano is down in the basement, that’s down in material reality.
And then in the meantime, you have all the other instruments that are reflecting on emotion or, um, you know, or, or thought, or power
D: …and character that may be interpreted…in countless ways. That’s the beauty of the idea of randomness, the beauty of the order, if you will, of randomness, that even random events will speak to us.
S: Exactly.
D: Once in a while, I really want to play an album, uh, for other people in my, you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. Um, what an amazing chamber piece. I say this is, uh, this long cello obbligato, then into the klezmer aesthetic I call, uh, with, with all of that playing. Now I understand the cabalistic, if you will, right. Uh, meaning to it all. Uh, but the klezmer, uh, aesthetic is, is clearly there. The, and of course the Oracle is a Jew, right? I say the Oracle is a Jew? Question mark.
A wonderful transition, transitional writing. And you know what I mean? Making segments and, and, uh, themes make sense. That transition material is very, very important to get it right. [Your] compositional savvy is top notch. I think I’ve been saying that, but the piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. It’s a complex narrative. Um, and as you have just described the instruments are characters.
S: They’re, they’re the suits of the, of the cards, but they do have sort of, they evoke their sort of, uh, certain characteristics about it.
D: Okay. That’s much more complex. Thank you. That clarifies.
This is quite a journey. So, and, uh, and then I say, um, a jaunty section now as CODA, I assume that’s a CODA. Uh, still a fun ending. I love it. I don’t think you can get any more, you know, any, any better than that.
Okay. Next is, is, uh, Wabi-Sabi, this, uh, uh, the aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese Wabi-Sabi encapsulates. Tell us about Wabi-Sabi. Is it animist or something? Is it part of their religion? Animist religion?
S: It can be. Uh, I’m trying to remember where it historically started. It actually started with monochromatic Chinese drawings and then the Japanese sort of took that ideal and enhanced it. A lot of people think of a Zen garden when they think of Wabi Sabi.
D: I see what you mean. Now I understand exactly what you mean. Even the artwork, strokes, you know, just very spare strokes.
S: Yeah. The tea ceremony. Um, everything about that ceremony is part of their Wabi Sabi aesthetic and metaphysical ideals.
D: I’m trying to remember this [for] parties.
S: Simplicity is, is a major part of it, but it goes beyond that. This, and this is what the string quartet throughout the three movements sort of encapsulates is that, uh, the beginning that, that…you know, in the west the idea of nothing is like zero, there’s nothing there. It’s very stark, but in Wabi Sabi ideas, um, nothing is full of potential. There’s a lot that could be there, but isn’t there yet.
D: That’s so profound.
S: Um, and then you go through, especially at the beginning of the first movement, sort of these random particles where the players can choose how they want to play it.
D: I understand that. We’re talking about the first movement Emergence, what have you just said that the players have some choice and they have choices.
S: So, so each of the players have a collection of notes that they can choose from to play. Uh, and they do it in different ways. Like the cello trills all their notes, but they can choose how they want to trill and how fast they want to trill and when they want to come in, uh, and things like that. Um, until they finally come together in the middle of the first movement and it sort of builds from there. So the idea is like that of creation of these particles coming into space and slowly merging together to become something.
D: And by the way, this sounds like an homage to Stockhausen, you know?
S: Yeah, absolutely.
D: Another great. Distance… these distant sounds… I remember performance, you know, Stockhausen, and it all comes together.
S: And then, and then Evolution is a short, it’s intentionally a short little two minute burst because that’s where everything is kind of locked in.
D: This is Evolution.
S: This is the, the cells are coming together and creating fish that are coming out of the water and, you know, becoming man. Um, et cetera. Possibility.
D: Alive with possibility, yeah. …Nothingness itself…
S: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then it gives way to Entropy, uh, and Entropy starts with a very strict structure. Uh, funnily enough, I wasn’t sure compositionally how I wanted to go about the third movement, but I was in the middle of teaching about isorhythm in one of my classes. So I’m like, Hey, I can do isorhythm with this. That’d be fun. So it starts out very strict, um, but then gets really complex and starts falling apart. And again, that’s the idea of returning back to nothingness. Everything’s falling apart.
Uh, and, and that’s the idea of, um, the idea that you, um, sometimes the best course of action is to decide to do nothing, you know…
D: I think you have just described an exact, uh, arc in the, they come together. I’m looking at Emergence. The first one builds quite satisfyingly. Uh, the construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect, I say to myself. And of course, if there, if you don’t get it off the ground, intellectually from the beginning, you’re in trouble… Ok, Evolution. Um, I love this, uh, I call it a flowing sea sort of opening. Or whatever that vibe could be. Anything, forget sea, whatever that undulating flowing thing…so mesmerizing. Again, wonderful quartet writing.
I’m going to have to stop using this word accessible, but that’s the whole idea to get these performed. And that’s exactly to be well written and also to be a happy time for an audience. Give me a break. And I, and here’s the thing about Evolution that it’s, uh, utterly accessible to the listener, though the subject, listening, but I think I got it. Although the subject matter may have sub-basements. Now a walking cello fits that, that walking cello thing. It’s wonderful to keep the piece moving and, and, uh, energetic. Um, quite a narrative.
S: It’s like a little metronome marking I have in the, uh, the second movement is “Like dancing molecules.”
D: Oh!
S: Kind of the spinning, whirling…
D: I might have to dream about that tonight. And the third movement, if you will, Entropy. It’s such a nice, uh, I, I, do I hear a little fugue…? I wanted… the stream of consciousness thing…fuguetto. You know what I mean? That opening is a, is it a genuine, but it’s a fuguetto, right?
S: Yeah, it’s, um, it starts out exactly as a canon. Then what happens is that each time the line comes back, uh, I either in diminution or augmentation. Uh, so I, I, like I said, if you see the score, um, I start doing crazy little sub meters within each of the parts just to help, just to help the players keep, keep time with each other, but yeah, that’s part of the unraveling part is they start very much together and then they start in like ratios of two to one or one to two, but yeah, then it starts getting into weird ratios…
D: …because I think I wondered about those, those asymmetrical collisions… A slightly dysfunctional intentional section. I’m toward the end here of pizz’s.
S: Well, the very ending, I go back to the beginning idea where the, each player has a selection of notes. They can pizz. whenever they want to. So each performance should be a little different than each other.
D: So the end of entropy, they go back to this idea and they can even change their mind about it.
S: Exactly.
D: Stockhausen, he’s smiling.
“Nevermore,” this major Sonata, I think for viola and piano from 2019 to 2021. Nevermore for viola and piano, also a subtitle of a Gothic Suite, so delightful, it’s an absolutely magnificent Sonata for viola and piano. It’s just absolutely, it’s so American, because we’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe and each movement is after one of his most famous pieces. But you have, I feel very powerfully about American composers choosing American subjects. The Raven, Annabelle Lee, the Telltale Heart.
S: Actually, Charlotte Goode, the violist on this recording, is actually another one of my bestest friends. And she is also a gothic nut and a fellow autistic. And she just, she was like, oh my gosh, we need to collaborate. We need to do this for viola. And I’m like, yes. So I started out with the Raven, you know, and she debuted that at a recital. And then I was like, okay, we need to come up with two other, you know, two other movements to finish it out. And the thing I love about the recording of this, again, this is so her, the viola part is so her, the subject matter is so her, and then I was lucky enough to be able to fly out with her to Boston to have her record it for PARMA. So…that day I went to Salem after we recorded it. So it was perfect.
D: You mean, the Witch Town or Salem, Oregon?
S: No, no, no, the Witch Town, yeah, Salem, Massachusetts.
D: So Poe inspired you to go to the seat of evil.
S: Exactly. It was so good.
D: Well, what I have to say is here, I worked on looking at the first movement. First of all, a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament, so congrats to your friend. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic.
S: Yeah, it is. I won’t play it on my viola. I’ll let somebody else do it. I’m not that good.
D: Well, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece, you know, and it’s romantic, there are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man, nice new idea… that roiling keyboard stuff toward the end of the piece, does that make any sense? Under viola, that middle and low register as it goes.
“Annabelle Lee.” It’s gorgeous, that movement is just gorgeous.
S: So beautiful, it’s one of my absolute favorites, just, and the poem, too, is just absolutely, it really struck me.
D: It brings you to tears, really, that poem.
S: It really does. I really wanted to capture that complete childlike innocence, just absolutely purest childlike innocent love of a little boy and a little girl. And then the angels cruelly take her away from him, you know, and just that drama.
D: And that’s the true story, isn’t it? Doesn’t he marry her, his wife, when she was 15, and then did she die? I can’t quite remember.
S: I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up.
D: We just missed the good parts that neither of us can remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Annabelle Lee speaks to a very personal experience.
S: I do know this was his last poem that he wrote before he died. That’s also a very haunting little tidbit. So, yeah, I love this movement so much. It actually, it was the hardest to record, too, because it’s deceptively simple. But it’s because it’s kind of like Mozart in that way, where it’s so simple and exposed that the violist has to be really careful and really in tune. So it took us a little bit longer to do this one.
D: Nice. Yeah, it’s a beautiful reading. I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking, and the floorboards… Then the beginning of real paranoia. I mean, you describe this tale very well.
S: Actually, I decided the best way to put it together was to take the story apart and make each of the sections of music a section of the story. So it’s probably the most narratively accurate of the three movements.
D: And that makes good sense to me.
S: Yeah, and in the music, each of the section headings has a little quote from the story. So you can kind of tell where you are in the story. But yeah, the idea of just. I wanted the opening theme that the viola starts playing is supposed to be sort of the love theme that the narrator has for his master.
“I loved the old man…It was his eye!” …you know, so it’s this really creepy. It’s a love song, but it’s twisted. It’s got something off.
So that’s where it opens. And then from there, then I get into the part where it’s for seven nights. He he peeks in at the bedroom. And so that section is like in seven four or something like that. It has odd. It’s asymmetrical. So, again, it feels a little off, you know, a little bit of the heartbeat taps and then, you know, stuff like that. And then little answering in the piano… And then you hear him murder him.
D: I call it shades of the shower scene in Psycho.
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Brava, I say after that.
S: …yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then you just get, like you say, the paranoia as the cops won’t leave. But the narrator keeps hearing the heartbeat and he can’t get away from it. And he just has to give up.
D: And indeed, it’s an internal conflict. Yeah, that’s the order of the soundscape. It’s kind of this internal conflict that becomes, you know, insupportable, disturbingly deliberate. And it’s so well done, well done.
So that’s a beautiful sonata. And as I mentioned, here it is. It’s a, it’s a viola sonata. It’s, it’s tough. Well, you know, at a certain level, you know, you almost want it to be. So it’s not inaccessible at all. It has a it has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
So take note, everybody. Nevermore for viola and piano.
And then now the last, the grand finale on the CD, The Dark Glass Sinfonia: We see through a glass darkly. For orchestra from 2017 built upon an integrated set…Oh, here you go again.
S: I love patterns!
D: …that’s why I pulled it. Because in all of my life in the arts and even at college, these things never came up in my experience. “Built,” she says, confident, “built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae.” End quote. I say to myself, please explain. You will, then you go on: “Free atonality with modal harmony…In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing emotional flux of the soul.”
S: This is another…it started out as just a love affair with patterns. And one thing, I’m not a major post-tonalist. You can tell from the accessibleness of my music. But I do love some of the number patterns that come about from, you know, post-tonal exercises. And hexachordal combinatoriality is one of my favorite ideas. I just love saying it. Hexachordal combinatoriality.
D: Yeah, I bet when you have students, they just sort of collapse.
S: Yeah, I’m like, OK, learn how to say it, you can impress all of your friends.
D: But then again, formulae is rather…
S: …It’s very pompous sounding…it’s basically it’s built upon the 12-tone ideal, but it breaks up the 12 tones into six tones, hexachords. So each of the hexachords has its own unique intervallic character to it. And so in the same way that you can take kind of the same way where I cheated with DodecaFunky, where I took segments of it and like transposed it, it’s kind of like that, but I did less cheating. Hexachords kind of do their own cheating because you can take one part of the tone row and then take the second half of it and flip it or reverse it. Or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then if you break them down into numbers, you can add them up into cool combinations and things like that. So that’s what this was. This piece was sort of a play on that and seeing what I could do with it. And that’s how I developed the main themes.
You really hear it come out, especially in the little woodwind stuff throughout the top. That’s really where it shines. But it really is woven into it.
D: The row shines?…
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Well, you must have been in heaven putting this piece together.
S: It was very, very fun. And again, and I don’t know how my brain does this, but what starts out with a whole bunch of numbers and patterns usually comes out as something really lovely that I continue to love listening to.
D: Well, guess what? That’s exactly the whole point of the genius of autism. You just exactly described what we’ve been kind of…that autism is, is just different.
S: You know, you know, that’s another thing that shines through with this orchestral piece, too, is that one of the comments sometimes I get from other people is, oh, why can’t you just have the instruments all stacked up on top of each other? You know, why can’t they all play at once? And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I like to have the layers. Somebody’s always doing something. And so there’s kind of a medievalness to it, you know, going back to that old polyphony idea. But then I’ll integrate it with these numbers and patterns. And I just love seeing it layer.
D: Speaking of layering, did I hear I see in my notes here. Is there any kind of pyramid that you constructed a sound pyramid somewhere in the beginning of that piece? Or is it a stupid word?
S: No it’s not stupid. I like to call it a waterfall, where…
D: Yeah, ….I got the idea of what you were creating there.
S: Yeah. The hexachordal pattern is there. But what I do is I pass it starting from the top and have it kind of trickle down like that.
D: So pyramid is not quite the right way of describing it. But I was hearing a very specific concept. And of course, thinking pyramid, I’m describing it as from the bottom up. But you’ve just described it as from top to trickle down, if you will.
Let’s see… There was a lovely little brass tune. I’m hearing that I’m hearing cinematic moments. Of course, it’s an orchestral piece. I’m sure you really got your teeth into that one.
Let’s see, lovely wind section work, as we’ve discussed, nicely orchestrated. Well, it’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible and a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece of what? I can’t remember. Seven minutes or…
S: Yeah, it’s only like seven minutes or so, which I have found, again, economically and just competition wise…
D: That’s exactly right.
S: People like shorter, shorter pieces.
D: That’s kind of what we ask, because then the next question is how? Because I’m again thinking collegiate orchestras. And then let’s see that as we’ve discussed, there’s that thematic return, you know, that the whole thing does a perfect arc. So there you go.
S: I just really love the very, very ending of it. When I first put it together and to me, it evoked sort of almost this organ, this organ like texture with. I just love the resonance… T
D: That section with percussion. That’s toward the end. I see more complicated in narrative in terms of just the construct of the piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible. It’s a perfect piece for a college orchestra if it’s in that sphere of capability.
S: Yeah. …that little fast march like scherzo thing. I kind of had a like a like a Russian, Russian romantic vibe almost or like early 20th century Russian vibe, you know, almost like kind of Shostakovich-esque, you know…
D: Each question mark was starting to rise out of my head there, the Shostakovich-ish.
S: Yeah, exactly.
D: What a great talk we’ve had. And I think just anybody could pick up that the world of our profession, of our music making, is the world at large. I mean, we speak to the wonderful, fascinating world around us. That’s the whole idea of being a creative person.
So, again, wonderful chat with composer Sarah Wallin Huff. And we’re talking about your 2023 Navona release. It’s contemporary classic chamber music for diverse instrumental combinations. You’ve heard this before. It’s called Shards. Don’t worry, anybody. It’s fine. And wonderful pieces that as we’ve discussed that are chamber works and then, of course, the orchestral piece at the very end.
But this is music that should be heard a lot more. And it’s not off the top of the charts of virtuosity. But, it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making with enough virtuosity to keep…Why did I say those of us who are gifted…busy…you know what I’m trying to say… I’m gonna shut my mouth up here.
Anyway, great fun chatting with you.
S: Thank you so much. I really I’m really flattered, you know, that you reached out.
D: Well, I’m flattered that I heard what I heard. I’ll tell you, because it’s always a gamble. I just sort of pick up, pick up whatever. And I thought I’ve never heard of this thing. Well, who is this person and what is that stuff? And that’s got us started.
It’s been a tremendous treat and a really important and a very important CD you’ve got. So, congratulations all around.
#chamberMusic #classical #Interview #orchestra #review #StudioRecording
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Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl
Back in the fall of 2023, right after the release of my second solo album with Navona, I got the opportunity to sit down with longtime American conductor, arts administrator, and music/theater/dance critic, Daniel Kepl, and talk with him about my album, SHARDS.
Unfortunately, the audio in that video interview was extremely unbalanced and distorted, so I took some time to try and clean it up, to make it as listenable as possible. So… that edited video is now here, below, ready for your viewing pleasure (complete with chapter breaks, if you’d prefer to jump around)!
While the pops and crackles and background noises are mostly gone, sometimes the words are still a little garbly, so I’ve embedded captions in the video and am providing a full transcript, for those who would prefer to read the discussion. If you would like to see the original unedited video, you can do that here.
Dan Kepl’s Review Highlights
The high points of Dan Kepl’s praise, as stated in the video below.
About the Album:
[SHARDS is] a wonderful album, very interesting and very accessible, if I may say. It’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music… This music is just simply gorgeous. You use instruments in the most magical way.
This is music that should be heard a lot more…it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making. It’s…a very important CD you’ve got.
About “Ayre of Grievances”:
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece. The balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
About “DodecaFunky”:
I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire, this is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. It’s just a delicious piece, it’s aggressive in its funky way. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be on programming all over the place. This is irresistible. Audiences would love it, I think.
About “Of Roses and Lilies”:
It’s a beauty; a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. …this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. A flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
About “The Oracle”:
Once in a while, I really want to play [a track of] an album, uh, for other people…you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. What an amazing chamber piece. Wonderful transitional writing; compositional savvy is top notch. The piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. This piece is quite a journey.
About “Wabi-Sabi”:
The construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect…quite a narrative…wonderful quartet writing.
About “Nevermore”:
An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. …a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking…the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho – Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending.
About “The Dark Glass Sinfonia”:
…wonderful piece for orchestra, “The Dark Glass Sinfonia,” gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful.
Lovely wind section work…nicely orchestrated. It’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible…a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible.
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl (Edited, with Captions)Full [Edited] Interview Transcript
D: I’m chatting with composer Sarah Wallin Huff and we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release. Thank you, Parma. Thank you, Navona. Thank you, all of you wonderful people out there that put this, these kind of packages together. Just a quick aside about Navona, including everything that we need as critics, really somewhat truncated, makes perfect sense, but up on a website. And very few other companies do this. I just think it’s fabulous.
I’ve seen your interview, or I’ve read your interview, I should say, with Parma. And we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release of Contemporary Classical Chamber Works and an album for diverse instrumental combinations. Anyway, the CD is called Shards. Do not run away in the night and be afraid. It’s a wonderful album of very interesting and very accessible, if I may say so, and I think it’s perfectly OK to say so.
Here, just a sampling: Ayre of Grievances, for viola, violin, flute, lovely. The flute I wondered about. Those are pretty heavy instruments and the balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
DodecaFunky, let me say that once more. DodecaFunky, for piano, and it is cute… oh, did I miss one?
S: DodecaFunky.
D: Anyway, it’s cute. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. And it’s a wonderful, very fascinating piano piece. Audiences would love it, I think.
“Of Roses and Lilies.” This one’s a little complex for soprano, piano, soprano recorder. Nice colors. Nice. English horn, very interesting. And women’s chorus. I mean, not since Holst have I heard women’s chorus used in this way.
So, Wabi-Sabi, it’s in three movements. Juventas, the new music ensemble performs it. This is a string quartet, so four players of the Juventas ensemble. I hope I’m pronouncing that right since I live in California. Three movements: Emergence, Evolution, Entropy. Very, very interesting. And maybe even kind of the heart of who you might be. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
The next piece, Nevermore for viola and piano, an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, three-movement sonata for viola and piano. The movements: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart. And I love Poe, what a genius, what a genius. So glad you have included this wonderful, wonderful piece for viola and piano. And I mean by that, again, your compositional skills, the way you use these, didn’t you play viola? I thought I that read somewhere. Were you a violist?
S: I double on viola. I feel more comfortable on violin, but I can pick up a viola if I need it.
D: Okay. So you got all that stuff, you know, under your fingernails, so to say.
And then the last piece, wonderful piece for orchestra, The Dark Glass Sinfonia, gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful. And with a little subtype, if I’m reading it correctly: “We see through a glass darkly.” Wonderful piece, performed by wonderful people, while you really say it right out, right, and I just want to deal with this a little bit before I get to where you know, I’m going.
We all know people with autism and what I have found in my experience with people, and you know, autism is here, there, everywhere in various variations. You’re going to speak to it, I think in a bit, but the people that I have known with autism, some people have had troubles, others have been really, really talented, clever, and innovative. Autism is not a deficit. Okay.
S: Yeah. It’s a difference.
D: It’s a difference. Thank you. That’s better. Okay. Because I too, like most of, especially like with dyslexia, in the seventies, we all thought people with dyslexia were just lazy. Just didn’t want to do a job. Well, they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t read. Everything was backwards. My, my oldest nephew, uh, is dyslexic. So I just want everybody to understand…
And, and where are you in the autism spectrum? Can I ask that question?
S: Sure.
D: Of course, you’re clearly under great control. You have mastered the magic of autism.
S: Yeah. Well, what’s funny about that is I’ve actually only just in the past year, really got confirmation. Um, I’m still don’t have, yeah, I still don’t have an official diagnosis because that’s a whole other bag of worms for adult diagnosis and it costs thousands of dollars. And, uh, some doctors still don’t believe that women have it. Um, so, but just taking several screening tests, um, I’ve taken about five of the clinical screening tests and they all point very highly to autism. Um, and thinking about my experiences growing up, it really makes a lot of sense.
D: That’s what I was going to ask you next. You must have known, you know, that something was different.
S: Well, yeah. I, I thought something was always…
D: Can you give an example or two, you know, when you were a little kid. What I remember is the kids that I’ve known have various symptoms of autism.
S: Definitely. Um, emotional dysregulation, um, is still difficult where, well, and for me, because I kind of triggered emotional response to things like, um, there’s a famous phrase that “you don’t have enough spoons”, but the phrase means basically like, I only have so many ways of coping with life and when I’m out of those ways, I have to take a nap. I have to, I have to go to the corner for a second. And for different people, there’s different levels of that.
And growing up with a family who expected me to be normal. Um, I got really good at masking. I got really good at holding it all in, but then I’d get home and just. Like, um, I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except just sit there after school. Um, unfortunately I had to keep pushing through. Um, and so I just got used to doing that, hiding who I really was, you know?
D: Um, as you know, we talked, I’m very openly gay and…what we’re getting to, the bottom line is you have to be who you are. To keep these things secret or to try and work around who you are is exhausting, as you said. And just mentally, you know, exactly.
S: I’ve actually, I did actually get a diagnosis like 15 years ago for anxiety disorder and what I’ve discovered since then is that it is a part of the autism masking, just, I had been masking for 40 years. And so, um, that just built up a lot of anxiety in me for everything, you know? Um, but now that I’m just past year, starting to learn who I am and learn what my triggers are.
Um, I am very sensitive to sound, ironically enough, um, disorganized sound, I really have a hard time handling with, but music is organized sounds. So for me, my brain likes it, you know? Um, but yeah, so I’m just learning a lot more about myself and how my brain works and that it’s okay that my brain has trouble where other people seem to have things worked out, you know? And that’s okay.
D: You see, if you will, with your brain, things that we don’t, and so on. So, you know, I mean, that’s the beauty of all, for all of us. Uh, it’s the tremendous beauty of diversity.
Um… Let’s talk about Ancients. This is psycho-messaging to our brains. I mean, give me a break. It’s not random. It’s pure messaging to ourselves, uh, Tarot and all the rest of it. And I love traditions that have been there for 8,000 years. We’re going to talk about it. Cause you use, you do, you do this formula for a piece with Tarot cards that drives me crazy, but often told me it, speaking of what you had spoken to, uh, just a moment ago, when one gets kind of focused, the focus becomes quite, uh, extravagant. And was that for you? You really got into constructing this piece around Tarot.
S: Oh, yeah, I tend to, this tends to be a theme that I, if I hit on something that’s been very useful for me, um, mentally and psychologically, spiritually, I tend to write a piece about it. So that’s what the Oracle, the Oracle tended to be Tarot. I fell, fell onto, um, as a way to deal with my anxiety and it really, luckily, I had a therapist at the time who was open to the idea of me exploring my subconscious through the Tarot cards.
D: It’s about this idea of finding oneself, of reveling in these discoveries, uh, you know, and so is there any, can you give me a, um, what a topography of when, where, if even you feel now, like who you are, you know what I mean? How, what, what trajectory, where did you arrive? Have you arrived yet?
S: Um, well, definitely starting roughly a little less than a year ago when I finally did those, um, screenings for autism, like is when everything really started clicking and, and I did a lot of reading and, and, um, researching and, and finding others like me, you know, um, and it just helped click, you know, uh, it helped make, help me make sense of who I am and why I am the way I am.
Um, so often, especially throughout my whole life, um, I would be upset that I didn’t seem to be like everybody else. Even as a teacher, I mean, one of my favorite compliments from a student of mine was I’m the quirkiest teacher on campus. And I wear that like a badge. You know, I don’t teach like other teachers teach. I don’t think like other people think, and I’ve learned that that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Um, that diversity is a great thing.
D: So now we’re going to deal with the, uh, the product of your, uh, satisfactions, although this is, let’s see, 2023. I know these are recorded over a rather large span of time.
S: Maybe, uh, yeah, about five years or so.
D: So in other words, I guess what now has me curious is feeling where you are feeling now. Do you see, do you hear, see things in your focus on this CD?
S: I do actually. Um, the CD actually came about simply by virtue of, um, the way the economy works in the music recording industry and classical music, et cetera, where we just recorded piece by piece by piece as we could, um, and then finally had enough and say, Hey, let’s put together an album, you know…
D: And then let’s figure out how to pay for it. That’s what everybody watching this knows all about. It’s not like it [just] happens.
S: Exactly. Uh, so now, like I said, especially after these past several months, I look at the CD and I do really see it as if it’s sort of a culmination of my past 15 years or so, um, because all the pieces have been written, I think the earliest one was. Well, I think “Roses and Lilies” was what, like 2012 or something like that. Um, 2013, maybe.
D: Oh, well, we’ll find it.
S: I don’t remember.
D: Why did you use the word, “Shards”?
S: My husband picked it. He, he actually made up the title Ayre of Grievances too. He comes up with great titles. We thought about “Shards” because there are pieces like Dark Glass Sinfonia, so glass and, and breaking, uh, Wabi-Sabi is sort of like the fractal nature of life. And so you see shards of glass reflecting, reflecting different things, um, basically it’s supposed to be sort of the fragmentations of personality and life and spirituality.
D: That’s a good definition here. I was, I was expecting, uh, the, as I told you, I was expecting a wild ride. And by the way, everybody knows it isn’t, it’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music. This is what just blew me away.
In a way, this text that’s on your CD tells us how fresh the CD is. So it’s been put together. You’ve done that. It’s been five years. You’re there. And then it’s like, son of a gun.
“One inherent trait I possess is finding my emotional fulfillment through the active, creative manipulation of music.” And this fascinates me. I’m, I’m not a fix the watch kind of guy. I don’t get into the little details. I’m, I’m the conductor. I’m the, you know, I want the big pastel, you know, horses crossing the plains or something. You know, does that speak to your autism in a way, the focus?
S: I think so. The hyper fixation. I mean, there are times when I’m working on a piece that if my husband wasn’t there to remind me, I’d forget to eat, you know, I’ll just be like focused on these patterns and what else can I do with them? And, and, oh, that sounds really cool. Let me try this. Let’s see.
D: And you say, “I’m not, I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners.” That’s something that’s very important, “…but rather to facilitate a deeper connection with their inner selves.” Now, I’m not quite sure what kind of, what kind of a labyrinth you just, you know, created with those words. “I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners” yet, “I would like them to get in touch with their deeper…” you know, you know what I mean, you’re clever, aren’t you?
S: Well, that’s a question I get a lot is, well, how do you want the audience to feel? Even, even composition teachers… “How do you want them to feel?” And, and I think that’s another part of my autism. I relate to emotions differently than some other people do from what I can tell. Um, I, for me, the emotion and joy comes from the patterns. And so that’s what it is for me. Um, you know, it can be a completely atonal piece and if the patterns are cool then I’m getting such delight out of it. Uh, but for other people that might not be the case and I totally recognize that. So I’m hoping through my music, even though I might find joy in places they won’t, um, that they’ll still find something that they can resonate with.
D: Oh, that was very well, well, spracht and I can only agree with you because as I think I mentioned to you and probably everybody else and probably about three times already by now, but that was the shock. This music is just simply gorgeous. And I was expecting a few more “shards”, something expecting something, something a little, little more fractious, if you will.
The first piece on the, on the CD is Ayre of Grievances. I love the spelling. I presume clever, uh, you know, and, and, uh, awfully medieval or something. For viola, violin, and flute. It’s from 2020. So that’s a bad year. Oh my God.
S: Hence the grievances.
D: Hence the grievances is right. Uh, composed during the worldwide COVID epidemic. And you and I’ve talked about it. People are not yet clear how profoundly we as a planet of human beings and animals have been affected. This is going to take another half dozen years if we don’t have World War Three somewhere in between to sort it out. So it’s a, this was a big thing. And the biggest thing in my life, maybe, uh, to go through. So, Ayre of Grievances, and, uh, and, you know, you set us up with all the frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger, and I’m going, Oh, can’t wait.
And I put it on. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. I totally did not expect it. Here’s a bit of my stream of consciousness, totally not expecting such… well, tonality. It’s wonderful already. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. I mean, it’s, it’s totally accessible. And I, again, I almost want to spit when I say that word, but I think it’s okay now to use that, to create accessible music, um, things get a little crazy and frustrated.
You mentioned in your program notes, there’s that frustration and you describe it very well. How, although in my case, I just went comatose and just stared out the windows for two years and allowed the checks to come in. Cause I was a freelancer unemployed and boy, the money was better than I’ve ever received. Thank you, Uncle Sam, but, but so I didn’t really experience a whole lot of frustration. I just sort of couldn’t believe what was going on for about two years.
In other words, there is a narrative to this piece, Ayre of Grievances. Um, but I think it, you know, it is much more than the sum of its narrative is what I’m trying to say. Uh, tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece.
Go, give me an overview. What was this about for you?
S: During the, during the lockdowns for me, it was frustrating. Well, because… guy, giving three hour lectures on zoom, I never want to do that again. Oh my gosh. Not being able to see anybody, not being able to see family. Um, that was really frustrating, but at the same time, because I wasn’t able to play live concerts, like I had been, um, it gave me a chance to sit down and really think about who I am.
Um, up until that point, it was very much, oh, I’m a major violinist and a composer and a teacher at all at once.
D: Don’t forget viola… and viola too.
S: Yes. I love the viola. Um, but then I came to realize. I really much prefer writing, uh, and recording. Uh, so I, I allowed myself to let go of the, the things that maybe didn’t bring me quite as much joy. So when things did open back up, I’m, I’m being more careful to balance my life, uh, with what really brings me more joy and less stress, hopefully. Um, that’s, that’s what that piece really sort of represented is it was frustrating. It was lonely. I was angry at the world. Um, but at the same time, there was some beauty in there and some peace.
And, um, and I just love the interaction of the three parts. They’re both, they’re all three very independent, but they speak together and sometimes they’re arguing with each other. Sometimes they’re singing with each other and supporting each other. And, um, I just really liked that intimacy of the work.
D: Well, that whole narrative thing about what you’re very good, uh, you know, voices, uh, having discussions between each other, but I found, and I may sound like I’m an idiot or something, but when I saw that viola, violin, flute, I told you earlier, I thought, I remember thinking that’s going to be tricky, you know, that the flute doesn’t get lost, and all of that works beautifully. And that is not about, you know, microphones. It’s about the way you wrote the piece. Using those three instruments. So, so beautifully. And later you use instruments in the most magical way.
S: Yeah, we actually debuted it during the pandemic where I recorded the violin and viola part. And then I recorded a friend of mine playing the flute part and we just did one of those YouTube stitched videos where we stitched our videos together. That was the thing.
D: Yeah. Am I pronouncing it reasonably close? “DodecaFunky” And of course we’re playing, playing with, uh, dodeca cacophony or something. You can fill me in on that. There’s all this funny stuff going on. That’s all inside stuff for musicians.
It’s for flute and piano from 2015. I think you mentioned this might be the earliest piece, maybe…
S: “Of Roses and Lilies”, I actually wrote the original piece for voice and piano in like the early aughts. But then I went back and fleshed it out and sort of made it fuller.
D: So then you know, the early aughts, I love that. So DodecaFunky, uh, flute and piano. I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire. This is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work. Is that me or you?
S: I think it’s me.
D: I think it was you. So it… “exploits various manipulations”. Oh, here you go. Yeah, it is you… “of a 12 tone row (dodecaphony).” I’m supposed to be a musician and I couldn’t care less how it’s pronounced or even what it is these days. It’s just the serial melody to a backdrop, et cetera, et cetera. But the point of, oh, this is why it’s so cute. A hard bop and swing and, uh, and stuff. It’s just a delicious piece. And it’s, it’s aggressive in its funky way. I say about the opening, while the piano adds to the delightful confusion with various playful styles, a pause and it starts to get feisty. Uh, now I don’t know where I am in the piece, but now some casual virtuoso boogie woogie, boogie funky, uh, it’s a delight.
It’s kind of a series of descriptive tableau. Am I closer? Cause I love dance. I, you know, I reviewed dance a lot and these are like little tableau. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be, uh, on programming all over the place. It’s a beauty.
Tell me, tell me, what do you think? What do you think of this?
S: I love this piece. It just makes, it makes me giggle.
D: It’s just a charm. Beautiful. It’s so cute.
S: Thank you, thank you.
D: Again, if you, you’ll forgive me the accessibility word. This is irresistible. Of course, you know what I’m trying to say?
S: I’m glad you like it. That one actually took a little bit of inspiration from Bernstein. Um, I, I love, uh, I was studying his symphony, Age of Anxiety. Oh, and I love how he merged, well, he merged…
D: By the way, you know, I’m a conductor. Uh, and I know all three of those symphonies very, very well. I’ve never conducted them because they’re too hard. “Jeremiah” I could conduct. That one makes sense. Uh, the, the age of anxiety for piano and orchestra is unbelievable, but it’s also unbelievably difficult to conduct, you know? And then Kaddish, he wrote the original and then tore it all to pieces and stuff. So, but anyway, I just want, I’m so glad somebody also has studied [those works]. Anyway, excuse me.
S: That’s okay. Uh, but yeah, I really loved the idea of merging modernist, modernistic tendencies as Bernstein would say, um, with jazz and other accessible popular genres. And so that’s what I did with this flute piece is I took a 12 tone row and it is an authentic 12 tone row, but I, you could say I cheated, I cheated a little bit because I used transpositions. So what I would do is it’s still the same row, but I would transpose fragments of it to places that I liked it, where it fit better.
D: Arnold [Schoenberg] is turning into his grave.
S: Well, this is true. Ah but see, Stravinsky did it first. So, you know, let’s blame him.
It’s still, it still has the same intervallic structures. Um, but then I back it up, with that really jazzy, different, like you say, different tableaus of different jazzy styles to kind of increase the…
D: It’s a great dance piece…
S: That’d be fun.
D: In other words, there’s lots of possibilities.
Okay. We’re going to move on.
“Of Roses and Lilies”, this is for soprano, piano, soprano recorder, which I don’t think I hear very often used in these kinds of chamber pieces. And it’s a perfect color. English horn… what got into you ?…and women’s chorus. And then the, are there strings there? I have this question.
S: String orchestra.
D: String orchestra, because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it in the, in the brief and it’s from 2013, so we’re getting closer to, to the bottom of the stack here. Tell us about it.
S: This one’s a really fascinating piece for me. I, like I said, I had first written it many, many, many, several decades ago. And this was written…
D: Don’t be so hard on yourself…It’s only been 10 years…
S: But the original piece for just soprano and piano was written, like I said, in the late nineties or early aughts, um, this was when I was still with my very Christian family, um, yeah, there you go. And so I fell in love with the song of Solomon and I thought, why don’t I write quick snippets of the song of Solomon and put it together as sort of a love song. And so I did. And, um, eventually just another like 10 years or so down the road, I’d said, you know what, I really love this piece. I’m going to flesh it out. So, um, I took the original just two parts and added the strings and added the color of the soprano recorder and the English horn, um, and, you know, added the women’s chorus as sort of this almost Greek chorus kind of response thing.
So it’s a very, it’s a very different piece. Uh, it’s a very dramatic kind of theater-esque, drama-esque kind of, uh, kind of a feel.
D: And you don’t use the word romantic. It reeks of romanticism. I see in my notes there, a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. I was not ready for that.
S: Well, actually, uh, every, everybody don’t hate on me, but I actually recorded it myself. So it’s only, it’s only two microphones with, uh, the soloist, Claire is one of my best friends and she teaches at Azusa. So she was able to grab us a classroom. And so I recorded with the two microphones, her and another good friend of mine, the pianist, Lydia. Um, and at the time we weren’t sure if I was just going to put together a digital background to it and like release it online or something. But, you know, this CD was coming to the, coming toward finishing and I was like, you know, this would be really awesome if we can get the rest of it recorded.
So I, yeah, I took two more sessions. I got the strings and the winds together for one session. Uh, and then I finally got the women’s chorus together for a session.
D: So that makes sense too. Very hard undertaking just in terms of production.
S: Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good learning experience. And again, so many of my dear, dear friends are on that recording and it’s just, it was just so special to me.
D: It’s something else. And I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because we want to get this, these pieces performed. It’s a beauty. It’s very accessible. So it doesn’t sound terribly hard to put together. What do you think? Am I all wet? I don’t know, but just, it seemed very, it seemed to just flow pretty freely.
S: Here’s the… I would say, here’s the danger with my music. And, um, especially with this piece, this has happened before. There have been pianists who think they can sight read it and they suddenly quit. It’s like, oh, I can’t sight read this. So this is something my very first composition teacher warned me about is that my music seems really easy. But then you dig into it and there are some little quirks in there and some tricks that you might not be expecting. So as long as you know…
D: It shouldn’t be a big problem. If you know what I mean, so I think I’m okay in saying that I think it’s not like, you know…
S: It’s not terrible.
D: Yeah…[not] terribly virtuosic. And that is, that is to say this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. And that’s exactly what I see. Nothing but college, college ensemble. Because of the difficulty of getting, you know, professionals together in that kind of complex, you know, but, but, so I found it really very, very…a flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. Boy, that came out of my head. Geez. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
S: Thank you.
D: Let’s see. Now this is “The Oracle,” for violin, cello, flute and piccolo, clarinet, piano. That’s from 2016. Go ahead. Tell us, but the bottom line is you constructed this thing from random throws of tarot cards. Go.
S: Exactly. Okay. So…
D: Aleatoric indeed!
S: Uh, I really, like I said, this was the time in my life when I had just really started to latch on to tarot as a means of exploring my own subconscious.
D: Which is correct, by the way. Let’s make sure. Exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, let the self-conscious speak to us.
S: Exactly. I like to think of it, it’s like a mirror for myself. It’s a way for me to talk to myself when sometimes I’m having trouble understanding my brain. So, uh, I really love tarot and I wrote this when I first really started getting into it. And so what I did is, um, I had an opportunity. It was like a call for scores for this ensemble. Uh, and so I was like, this will be fun. Why don’t I use that as an excuse to try it out?
So, and I wanted to do sort of a homage to John Cage by using an aleatoric kind of method. And so tarot seemed like the perfect way to do it. So I set up, um, I think it was five different spreads of 10 cards. I think I did like, um, some kind of a sacred pyramid, uh, spread for each of those. Um, and what I did is I, I assigned certain, you know, in tarot, the different suits represent different aspects of life and personality.
So you have the cups, which is emotion. Um, you have, you know, the, uh, the pentacles, uh, the pentacles are, uh, earth, uh, and, um, material wellbeing and reality and such. Uh, so what I did is I attached each of the instruments to those suits. The, uh, violin was fire, uh, or wands. Uh, the, uh, the cello was water or cups and the, uh, the clarinet was earth and the flute, of course, was air. And then for the piano, uh, I made the piano, the tree of life itself. Uh, because I like to read tarot from a Kabbalistic tree of life sort of interpretation.
D: You’re starting to get over my head. I thought I was with you pretty well, but Kabbalistic something, something…with a tree of life.
S: So Jewish mysticism, basically. So on the tree of life, each of the cards have their place on that tree. And the higher up the tree you are, the closer to the divine source you are. And then you travel down the tree and experience various phases of life and emotion, et cetera, until you get to the bottom, which is material reality. Everything you’ve experienced becomes real. Uh, and then you cycle back to the top, back to the divine source again.
So for the piano, um, when I had a spread that, that spoke of being closer to the divine source, I had the piano playing up in its higher registers. And then as it got closer to the bottom, to the ground, the piano went down. So the higher, if you hear the piano going, noodling up really high, that’s up at the divine source of things. If you hear the piano kind of in the middle, that’s sort of where balance and harmony are. If the piano is down in the basement, that’s down in material reality.
And then in the meantime, you have all the other instruments that are reflecting on emotion or, um, you know, or, or thought, or power
D: …and character that may be interpreted…in countless ways. That’s the beauty of the idea of randomness, the beauty of the order, if you will, of randomness, that even random events will speak to us.
S: Exactly.
D: Once in a while, I really want to play an album, uh, for other people in my, you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. Um, what an amazing chamber piece. I say this is, uh, this long cello obbligato, then into the klezmer aesthetic I call, uh, with, with all of that playing. Now I understand the cabalistic, if you will, right. Uh, meaning to it all. Uh, but the klezmer, uh, aesthetic is, is clearly there. The, and of course the Oracle is a Jew, right? I say the Oracle is a Jew? Question mark.
A wonderful transition, transitional writing. And you know what I mean? Making segments and, and, uh, themes make sense. That transition material is very, very important to get it right. [Your] compositional savvy is top notch. I think I’ve been saying that, but the piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. It’s a complex narrative. Um, and as you have just described the instruments are characters.
S: They’re, they’re the suits of the, of the cards, but they do have sort of, they evoke their sort of, uh, certain characteristics about it.
D: Okay. That’s much more complex. Thank you. That clarifies.
This is quite a journey. So, and, uh, and then I say, um, a jaunty section now as CODA, I assume that’s a CODA. Uh, still a fun ending. I love it. I don’t think you can get any more, you know, any, any better than that.
Okay. Next is, is, uh, Wabi-Sabi, this, uh, uh, the aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese Wabi-Sabi encapsulates. Tell us about Wabi-Sabi. Is it animist or something? Is it part of their religion? Animist religion?
S: It can be. Uh, I’m trying to remember where it historically started. It actually started with monochromatic Chinese drawings and then the Japanese sort of took that ideal and enhanced it. A lot of people think of a Zen garden when they think of Wabi Sabi.
D: I see what you mean. Now I understand exactly what you mean. Even the artwork, strokes, you know, just very spare strokes.
S: Yeah. The tea ceremony. Um, everything about that ceremony is part of their Wabi Sabi aesthetic and metaphysical ideals.
D: I’m trying to remember this [for] parties.
S: Simplicity is, is a major part of it, but it goes beyond that. This, and this is what the string quartet throughout the three movements sort of encapsulates is that, uh, the beginning that, that…you know, in the west the idea of nothing is like zero, there’s nothing there. It’s very stark, but in Wabi Sabi ideas, um, nothing is full of potential. There’s a lot that could be there, but isn’t there yet.
D: That’s so profound.
S: Um, and then you go through, especially at the beginning of the first movement, sort of these random particles where the players can choose how they want to play it.
D: I understand that. We’re talking about the first movement Emergence, what have you just said that the players have some choice and they have choices.
S: So, so each of the players have a collection of notes that they can choose from to play. Uh, and they do it in different ways. Like the cello trills all their notes, but they can choose how they want to trill and how fast they want to trill and when they want to come in, uh, and things like that. Um, until they finally come together in the middle of the first movement and it sort of builds from there. So the idea is like that of creation of these particles coming into space and slowly merging together to become something.
D: And by the way, this sounds like an homage to Stockhausen, you know?
S: Yeah, absolutely.
D: Another great. Distance… these distant sounds… I remember performance, you know, Stockhausen, and it all comes together.
S: And then, and then Evolution is a short, it’s intentionally a short little two minute burst because that’s where everything is kind of locked in.
D: This is Evolution.
S: This is the, the cells are coming together and creating fish that are coming out of the water and, you know, becoming man. Um, et cetera. Possibility.
D: Alive with possibility, yeah. …Nothingness itself…
S: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then it gives way to Entropy, uh, and Entropy starts with a very strict structure. Uh, funnily enough, I wasn’t sure compositionally how I wanted to go about the third movement, but I was in the middle of teaching about isorhythm in one of my classes. So I’m like, Hey, I can do isorhythm with this. That’d be fun. So it starts out very strict, um, but then gets really complex and starts falling apart. And again, that’s the idea of returning back to nothingness. Everything’s falling apart.
Uh, and, and that’s the idea of, um, the idea that you, um, sometimes the best course of action is to decide to do nothing, you know…
D: I think you have just described an exact, uh, arc in the, they come together. I’m looking at Emergence. The first one builds quite satisfyingly. Uh, the construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect, I say to myself. And of course, if there, if you don’t get it off the ground, intellectually from the beginning, you’re in trouble… Ok, Evolution. Um, I love this, uh, I call it a flowing sea sort of opening. Or whatever that vibe could be. Anything, forget sea, whatever that undulating flowing thing…so mesmerizing. Again, wonderful quartet writing.
I’m going to have to stop using this word accessible, but that’s the whole idea to get these performed. And that’s exactly to be well written and also to be a happy time for an audience. Give me a break. And I, and here’s the thing about Evolution that it’s, uh, utterly accessible to the listener, though the subject, listening, but I think I got it. Although the subject matter may have sub-basements. Now a walking cello fits that, that walking cello thing. It’s wonderful to keep the piece moving and, and, uh, energetic. Um, quite a narrative.
S: It’s like a little metronome marking I have in the, uh, the second movement is “Like dancing molecules.”
D: Oh!
S: Kind of the spinning, whirling…
D: I might have to dream about that tonight. And the third movement, if you will, Entropy. It’s such a nice, uh, I, I, do I hear a little fugue…? I wanted… the stream of consciousness thing…fuguetto. You know what I mean? That opening is a, is it a genuine, but it’s a fuguetto, right?
S: Yeah, it’s, um, it starts out exactly as a canon. Then what happens is that each time the line comes back, uh, I either in diminution or augmentation. Uh, so I, I, like I said, if you see the score, um, I start doing crazy little sub meters within each of the parts just to help, just to help the players keep, keep time with each other, but yeah, that’s part of the unraveling part is they start very much together and then they start in like ratios of two to one or one to two, but yeah, then it starts getting into weird ratios…
D: …because I think I wondered about those, those asymmetrical collisions… A slightly dysfunctional intentional section. I’m toward the end here of pizz’s.
S: Well, the very ending, I go back to the beginning idea where the, each player has a selection of notes. They can pizz. whenever they want to. So each performance should be a little different than each other.
D: So the end of entropy, they go back to this idea and they can even change their mind about it.
S: Exactly.
D: Stockhausen, he’s smiling.
“Nevermore,” this major Sonata, I think for viola and piano from 2019 to 2021. Nevermore for viola and piano, also a subtitle of a Gothic Suite, so delightful, it’s an absolutely magnificent Sonata for viola and piano. It’s just absolutely, it’s so American, because we’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe and each movement is after one of his most famous pieces. But you have, I feel very powerfully about American composers choosing American subjects. The Raven, Annabelle Lee, the Telltale Heart.
S: Actually, Charlotte Goode, the violist on this recording, is actually another one of my bestest friends. And she is also a gothic nut and a fellow autistic. And she just, she was like, oh my gosh, we need to collaborate. We need to do this for viola. And I’m like, yes. So I started out with the Raven, you know, and she debuted that at a recital. And then I was like, okay, we need to come up with two other, you know, two other movements to finish it out. And the thing I love about the recording of this, again, this is so her, the viola part is so her, the subject matter is so her, and then I was lucky enough to be able to fly out with her to Boston to have her record it for PARMA. So…that day I went to Salem after we recorded it. So it was perfect.
D: You mean, the Witch Town or Salem, Oregon?
S: No, no, no, the Witch Town, yeah, Salem, Massachusetts.
D: So Poe inspired you to go to the seat of evil.
S: Exactly. It was so good.
D: Well, what I have to say is here, I worked on looking at the first movement. First of all, a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament, so congrats to your friend. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic.
S: Yeah, it is. I won’t play it on my viola. I’ll let somebody else do it. I’m not that good.
D: Well, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece, you know, and it’s romantic, there are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man, nice new idea… that roiling keyboard stuff toward the end of the piece, does that make any sense? Under viola, that middle and low register as it goes.
“Annabelle Lee.” It’s gorgeous, that movement is just gorgeous.
S: So beautiful, it’s one of my absolute favorites, just, and the poem, too, is just absolutely, it really struck me.
D: It brings you to tears, really, that poem.
S: It really does. I really wanted to capture that complete childlike innocence, just absolutely purest childlike innocent love of a little boy and a little girl. And then the angels cruelly take her away from him, you know, and just that drama.
D: And that’s the true story, isn’t it? Doesn’t he marry her, his wife, when she was 15, and then did she die? I can’t quite remember.
S: I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up.
D: We just missed the good parts that neither of us can remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Annabelle Lee speaks to a very personal experience.
S: I do know this was his last poem that he wrote before he died. That’s also a very haunting little tidbit. So, yeah, I love this movement so much. It actually, it was the hardest to record, too, because it’s deceptively simple. But it’s because it’s kind of like Mozart in that way, where it’s so simple and exposed that the violist has to be really careful and really in tune. So it took us a little bit longer to do this one.
D: Nice. Yeah, it’s a beautiful reading. I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking, and the floorboards… Then the beginning of real paranoia. I mean, you describe this tale very well.
S: Actually, I decided the best way to put it together was to take the story apart and make each of the sections of music a section of the story. So it’s probably the most narratively accurate of the three movements.
D: And that makes good sense to me.
S: Yeah, and in the music, each of the section headings has a little quote from the story. So you can kind of tell where you are in the story. But yeah, the idea of just. I wanted the opening theme that the viola starts playing is supposed to be sort of the love theme that the narrator has for his master.
“I loved the old man…It was his eye!” …you know, so it’s this really creepy. It’s a love song, but it’s twisted. It’s got something off.
So that’s where it opens. And then from there, then I get into the part where it’s for seven nights. He he peeks in at the bedroom. And so that section is like in seven four or something like that. It has odd. It’s asymmetrical. So, again, it feels a little off, you know, a little bit of the heartbeat taps and then, you know, stuff like that. And then little answering in the piano… And then you hear him murder him.
D: I call it shades of the shower scene in Psycho.
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Brava, I say after that.
S: …yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then you just get, like you say, the paranoia as the cops won’t leave. But the narrator keeps hearing the heartbeat and he can’t get away from it. And he just has to give up.
D: And indeed, it’s an internal conflict. Yeah, that’s the order of the soundscape. It’s kind of this internal conflict that becomes, you know, insupportable, disturbingly deliberate. And it’s so well done, well done.
So that’s a beautiful sonata. And as I mentioned, here it is. It’s a, it’s a viola sonata. It’s, it’s tough. Well, you know, at a certain level, you know, you almost want it to be. So it’s not inaccessible at all. It has a it has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
So take note, everybody. Nevermore for viola and piano.
And then now the last, the grand finale on the CD, The Dark Glass Sinfonia: We see through a glass darkly. For orchestra from 2017 built upon an integrated set…Oh, here you go again.
S: I love patterns!
D: …that’s why I pulled it. Because in all of my life in the arts and even at college, these things never came up in my experience. “Built,” she says, confident, “built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae.” End quote. I say to myself, please explain. You will, then you go on: “Free atonality with modal harmony…In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing emotional flux of the soul.”
S: This is another…it started out as just a love affair with patterns. And one thing, I’m not a major post-tonalist. You can tell from the accessibleness of my music. But I do love some of the number patterns that come about from, you know, post-tonal exercises. And hexachordal combinatoriality is one of my favorite ideas. I just love saying it. Hexachordal combinatoriality.
D: Yeah, I bet when you have students, they just sort of collapse.
S: Yeah, I’m like, OK, learn how to say it, you can impress all of your friends.
D: But then again, formulae is rather…
S: …It’s very pompous sounding…it’s basically it’s built upon the 12-tone ideal, but it breaks up the 12 tones into six tones, hexachords. So each of the hexachords has its own unique intervallic character to it. And so in the same way that you can take kind of the same way where I cheated with DodecaFunky, where I took segments of it and like transposed it, it’s kind of like that, but I did less cheating. Hexachords kind of do their own cheating because you can take one part of the tone row and then take the second half of it and flip it or reverse it. Or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then if you break them down into numbers, you can add them up into cool combinations and things like that. So that’s what this was. This piece was sort of a play on that and seeing what I could do with it. And that’s how I developed the main themes.
You really hear it come out, especially in the little woodwind stuff throughout the top. That’s really where it shines. But it really is woven into it.
D: The row shines?…
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Well, you must have been in heaven putting this piece together.
S: It was very, very fun. And again, and I don’t know how my brain does this, but what starts out with a whole bunch of numbers and patterns usually comes out as something really lovely that I continue to love listening to.
D: Well, guess what? That’s exactly the whole point of the genius of autism. You just exactly described what we’ve been kind of…that autism is, is just different.
S: You know, you know, that’s another thing that shines through with this orchestral piece, too, is that one of the comments sometimes I get from other people is, oh, why can’t you just have the instruments all stacked up on top of each other? You know, why can’t they all play at once? And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I like to have the layers. Somebody’s always doing something. And so there’s kind of a medievalness to it, you know, going back to that old polyphony idea. But then I’ll integrate it with these numbers and patterns. And I just love seeing it layer.
D: Speaking of layering, did I hear I see in my notes here. Is there any kind of pyramid that you constructed a sound pyramid somewhere in the beginning of that piece? Or is it a stupid word?
S: No it’s not stupid. I like to call it a waterfall, where…
D: Yeah, ….I got the idea of what you were creating there.
S: Yeah. The hexachordal pattern is there. But what I do is I pass it starting from the top and have it kind of trickle down like that.
D: So pyramid is not quite the right way of describing it. But I was hearing a very specific concept. And of course, thinking pyramid, I’m describing it as from the bottom up. But you’ve just described it as from top to trickle down, if you will.
Let’s see… There was a lovely little brass tune. I’m hearing that I’m hearing cinematic moments. Of course, it’s an orchestral piece. I’m sure you really got your teeth into that one.
Let’s see, lovely wind section work, as we’ve discussed, nicely orchestrated. Well, it’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible and a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece of what? I can’t remember. Seven minutes or…
S: Yeah, it’s only like seven minutes or so, which I have found, again, economically and just competition wise…
D: That’s exactly right.
S: People like shorter, shorter pieces.
D: That’s kind of what we ask, because then the next question is how? Because I’m again thinking collegiate orchestras. And then let’s see that as we’ve discussed, there’s that thematic return, you know, that the whole thing does a perfect arc. So there you go.
S: I just really love the very, very ending of it. When I first put it together and to me, it evoked sort of almost this organ, this organ like texture with. I just love the resonance… T
D: That section with percussion. That’s toward the end. I see more complicated in narrative in terms of just the construct of the piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible. It’s a perfect piece for a college orchestra if it’s in that sphere of capability.
S: Yeah. …that little fast march like scherzo thing. I kind of had a like a like a Russian, Russian romantic vibe almost or like early 20th century Russian vibe, you know, almost like kind of Shostakovich-esque, you know…
D: Each question mark was starting to rise out of my head there, the Shostakovich-ish.
S: Yeah, exactly.
D: What a great talk we’ve had. And I think just anybody could pick up that the world of our profession, of our music making, is the world at large. I mean, we speak to the wonderful, fascinating world around us. That’s the whole idea of being a creative person.
So, again, wonderful chat with composer Sarah Wallin Huff. And we’re talking about your 2023 Navona release. It’s contemporary classic chamber music for diverse instrumental combinations. You’ve heard this before. It’s called Shards. Don’t worry, anybody. It’s fine. And wonderful pieces that as we’ve discussed that are chamber works and then, of course, the orchestral piece at the very end.
But this is music that should be heard a lot more. And it’s not off the top of the charts of virtuosity. But, it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making with enough virtuosity to keep…Why did I say those of us who are gifted…busy…you know what I’m trying to say… I’m gonna shut my mouth up here.
Anyway, great fun chatting with you.
S: Thank you so much. I really I’m really flattered, you know, that you reached out.
D: Well, I’m flattered that I heard what I heard. I’ll tell you, because it’s always a gamble. I just sort of pick up, pick up whatever. And I thought I’ve never heard of this thing. Well, who is this person and what is that stuff? And that’s got us started.
It’s been a tremendous treat and a really important and a very important CD you’ve got. So, congratulations all around.
#chamberMusic #classical #Interview #orchestra #review #StudioRecording
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Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl
Back in the fall of 2023, right after the release of my second solo album with Navona, I got the opportunity to sit down with longtime American conductor, arts administrator, and music/theater/dance critic, Daniel Kepl, and talk with him about my album, SHARDS.
Unfortunately, the audio in that video interview was extremely unbalanced and distorted, so I took some time to try and clean it up, to make it as listenable as possible. So… that edited video is now here, below, ready for your viewing pleasure (complete with chapter breaks, if you’d prefer to jump around)!
While the pops and crackles and background noises are mostly gone, sometimes the words are still a little garbly, so I’ve embedded captions in the video and am providing a full transcript, for those who would prefer to read the discussion. If you would like to see the original unedited video, you can do that here.
Dan Kepl’s Review Highlights
The high points of Dan Kepl’s praise, as stated in the video below.
About the Album:
[SHARDS is] a wonderful album, very interesting and very accessible, if I may say. It’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music… This music is just simply gorgeous. You use instruments in the most magical way.
This is music that should be heard a lot more…it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making. It’s…a very important CD you’ve got.
About “Ayre of Grievances”:
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece. The balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
About “DodecaFunky”:
I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire, this is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. It’s just a delicious piece, it’s aggressive in its funky way. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be on programming all over the place. This is irresistible. Audiences would love it, I think.
About “Of Roses and Lilies”:
It’s a beauty; a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. …this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. A flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
About “The Oracle”:
Once in a while, I really want to play [a track of] an album, uh, for other people…you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. What an amazing chamber piece. Wonderful transitional writing; compositional savvy is top notch. The piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. This piece is quite a journey.
About “Wabi-Sabi”:
The construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect…quite a narrative…wonderful quartet writing.
About “Nevermore”:
An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. …a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking…the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho – Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending.
About “The Dark Glass Sinfonia”:
…wonderful piece for orchestra, “The Dark Glass Sinfonia,” gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful.
Lovely wind section work…nicely orchestrated. It’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible…a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible.
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl (Edited, with Captions)Full [Edited] Interview Transcript
D: I’m chatting with composer Sarah Wallin Huff and we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release. Thank you, Parma. Thank you, Navona. Thank you, all of you wonderful people out there that put this, these kind of packages together. Just a quick aside about Navona, including everything that we need as critics, really somewhat truncated, makes perfect sense, but up on a website. And very few other companies do this. I just think it’s fabulous.
I’ve seen your interview, or I’ve read your interview, I should say, with Parma. And we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release of Contemporary Classical Chamber Works and an album for diverse instrumental combinations. Anyway, the CD is called Shards. Do not run away in the night and be afraid. It’s a wonderful album of very interesting and very accessible, if I may say so, and I think it’s perfectly OK to say so.
Here, just a sampling: Ayre of Grievances, for viola, violin, flute, lovely. The flute I wondered about. Those are pretty heavy instruments and the balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
DodecaFunky, let me say that once more. DodecaFunky, for piano, and it is cute… oh, did I miss one?
S: DodecaFunky.
D: Anyway, it’s cute. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. And it’s a wonderful, very fascinating piano piece. Audiences would love it, I think.
“Of Roses and Lilies.” This one’s a little complex for soprano, piano, soprano recorder. Nice colors. Nice. English horn, very interesting. And women’s chorus. I mean, not since Holst have I heard women’s chorus used in this way.
So, Wabi-Sabi, it’s in three movements. Juventas, the new music ensemble performs it. This is a string quartet, so four players of the Juventas ensemble. I hope I’m pronouncing that right since I live in California. Three movements: Emergence, Evolution, Entropy. Very, very interesting. And maybe even kind of the heart of who you might be. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
The next piece, Nevermore for viola and piano, an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, three-movement sonata for viola and piano. The movements: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart. And I love Poe, what a genius, what a genius. So glad you have included this wonderful, wonderful piece for viola and piano. And I mean by that, again, your compositional skills, the way you use these, didn’t you play viola? I thought I that read somewhere. Were you a violist?
S: I double on viola. I feel more comfortable on violin, but I can pick up a viola if I need it.
D: Okay. So you got all that stuff, you know, under your fingernails, so to say.
And then the last piece, wonderful piece for orchestra, The Dark Glass Sinfonia, gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful. And with a little subtype, if I’m reading it correctly: “We see through a glass darkly.” Wonderful piece, performed by wonderful people, while you really say it right out, right, and I just want to deal with this a little bit before I get to where you know, I’m going.
We all know people with autism and what I have found in my experience with people, and you know, autism is here, there, everywhere in various variations. You’re going to speak to it, I think in a bit, but the people that I have known with autism, some people have had troubles, others have been really, really talented, clever, and innovative. Autism is not a deficit. Okay.
S: Yeah. It’s a difference.
D: It’s a difference. Thank you. That’s better. Okay. Because I too, like most of, especially like with dyslexia, in the seventies, we all thought people with dyslexia were just lazy. Just didn’t want to do a job. Well, they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t read. Everything was backwards. My, my oldest nephew, uh, is dyslexic. So I just want everybody to understand…
And, and where are you in the autism spectrum? Can I ask that question?
S: Sure.
D: Of course, you’re clearly under great control. You have mastered the magic of autism.
S: Yeah. Well, what’s funny about that is I’ve actually only just in the past year, really got confirmation. Um, I’m still don’t have, yeah, I still don’t have an official diagnosis because that’s a whole other bag of worms for adult diagnosis and it costs thousands of dollars. And, uh, some doctors still don’t believe that women have it. Um, so, but just taking several screening tests, um, I’ve taken about five of the clinical screening tests and they all point very highly to autism. Um, and thinking about my experiences growing up, it really makes a lot of sense.
D: That’s what I was going to ask you next. You must have known, you know, that something was different.
S: Well, yeah. I, I thought something was always…
D: Can you give an example or two, you know, when you were a little kid. What I remember is the kids that I’ve known have various symptoms of autism.
S: Definitely. Um, emotional dysregulation, um, is still difficult where, well, and for me, because I kind of triggered emotional response to things like, um, there’s a famous phrase that “you don’t have enough spoons”, but the phrase means basically like, I only have so many ways of coping with life and when I’m out of those ways, I have to take a nap. I have to, I have to go to the corner for a second. And for different people, there’s different levels of that.
And growing up with a family who expected me to be normal. Um, I got really good at masking. I got really good at holding it all in, but then I’d get home and just. Like, um, I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except just sit there after school. Um, unfortunately I had to keep pushing through. Um, and so I just got used to doing that, hiding who I really was, you know?
D: Um, as you know, we talked, I’m very openly gay and…what we’re getting to, the bottom line is you have to be who you are. To keep these things secret or to try and work around who you are is exhausting, as you said. And just mentally, you know, exactly.
S: I’ve actually, I did actually get a diagnosis like 15 years ago for anxiety disorder and what I’ve discovered since then is that it is a part of the autism masking, just, I had been masking for 40 years. And so, um, that just built up a lot of anxiety in me for everything, you know? Um, but now that I’m just past year, starting to learn who I am and learn what my triggers are.
Um, I am very sensitive to sound, ironically enough, um, disorganized sound, I really have a hard time handling with, but music is organized sounds. So for me, my brain likes it, you know? Um, but yeah, so I’m just learning a lot more about myself and how my brain works and that it’s okay that my brain has trouble where other people seem to have things worked out, you know? And that’s okay.
D: You see, if you will, with your brain, things that we don’t, and so on. So, you know, I mean, that’s the beauty of all, for all of us. Uh, it’s the tremendous beauty of diversity.
Um… Let’s talk about Ancients. This is psycho-messaging to our brains. I mean, give me a break. It’s not random. It’s pure messaging to ourselves, uh, Tarot and all the rest of it. And I love traditions that have been there for 8,000 years. We’re going to talk about it. Cause you use, you do, you do this formula for a piece with Tarot cards that drives me crazy, but often told me it, speaking of what you had spoken to, uh, just a moment ago, when one gets kind of focused, the focus becomes quite, uh, extravagant. And was that for you? You really got into constructing this piece around Tarot.
S: Oh, yeah, I tend to, this tends to be a theme that I, if I hit on something that’s been very useful for me, um, mentally and psychologically, spiritually, I tend to write a piece about it. So that’s what the Oracle, the Oracle tended to be Tarot. I fell, fell onto, um, as a way to deal with my anxiety and it really, luckily, I had a therapist at the time who was open to the idea of me exploring my subconscious through the Tarot cards.
D: It’s about this idea of finding oneself, of reveling in these discoveries, uh, you know, and so is there any, can you give me a, um, what a topography of when, where, if even you feel now, like who you are, you know what I mean? How, what, what trajectory, where did you arrive? Have you arrived yet?
S: Um, well, definitely starting roughly a little less than a year ago when I finally did those, um, screenings for autism, like is when everything really started clicking and, and I did a lot of reading and, and, um, researching and, and finding others like me, you know, um, and it just helped click, you know, uh, it helped make, help me make sense of who I am and why I am the way I am.
Um, so often, especially throughout my whole life, um, I would be upset that I didn’t seem to be like everybody else. Even as a teacher, I mean, one of my favorite compliments from a student of mine was I’m the quirkiest teacher on campus. And I wear that like a badge. You know, I don’t teach like other teachers teach. I don’t think like other people think, and I’ve learned that that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Um, that diversity is a great thing.
D: So now we’re going to deal with the, uh, the product of your, uh, satisfactions, although this is, let’s see, 2023. I know these are recorded over a rather large span of time.
S: Maybe, uh, yeah, about five years or so.
D: So in other words, I guess what now has me curious is feeling where you are feeling now. Do you see, do you hear, see things in your focus on this CD?
S: I do actually. Um, the CD actually came about simply by virtue of, um, the way the economy works in the music recording industry and classical music, et cetera, where we just recorded piece by piece by piece as we could, um, and then finally had enough and say, Hey, let’s put together an album, you know…
D: And then let’s figure out how to pay for it. That’s what everybody watching this knows all about. It’s not like it [just] happens.
S: Exactly. Uh, so now, like I said, especially after these past several months, I look at the CD and I do really see it as if it’s sort of a culmination of my past 15 years or so, um, because all the pieces have been written, I think the earliest one was. Well, I think “Roses and Lilies” was what, like 2012 or something like that. Um, 2013, maybe.
D: Oh, well, we’ll find it.
S: I don’t remember.
D: Why did you use the word, “Shards”?
S: My husband picked it. He, he actually made up the title Ayre of Grievances too. He comes up with great titles. We thought about “Shards” because there are pieces like Dark Glass Sinfonia, so glass and, and breaking, uh, Wabi-Sabi is sort of like the fractal nature of life. And so you see shards of glass reflecting, reflecting different things, um, basically it’s supposed to be sort of the fragmentations of personality and life and spirituality.
D: That’s a good definition here. I was, I was expecting, uh, the, as I told you, I was expecting a wild ride. And by the way, everybody knows it isn’t, it’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music. This is what just blew me away.
In a way, this text that’s on your CD tells us how fresh the CD is. So it’s been put together. You’ve done that. It’s been five years. You’re there. And then it’s like, son of a gun.
“One inherent trait I possess is finding my emotional fulfillment through the active, creative manipulation of music.” And this fascinates me. I’m, I’m not a fix the watch kind of guy. I don’t get into the little details. I’m, I’m the conductor. I’m the, you know, I want the big pastel, you know, horses crossing the plains or something. You know, does that speak to your autism in a way, the focus?
S: I think so. The hyper fixation. I mean, there are times when I’m working on a piece that if my husband wasn’t there to remind me, I’d forget to eat, you know, I’ll just be like focused on these patterns and what else can I do with them? And, and, oh, that sounds really cool. Let me try this. Let’s see.
D: And you say, “I’m not, I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners.” That’s something that’s very important, “…but rather to facilitate a deeper connection with their inner selves.” Now, I’m not quite sure what kind of, what kind of a labyrinth you just, you know, created with those words. “I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners” yet, “I would like them to get in touch with their deeper…” you know, you know what I mean, you’re clever, aren’t you?
S: Well, that’s a question I get a lot is, well, how do you want the audience to feel? Even, even composition teachers… “How do you want them to feel?” And, and I think that’s another part of my autism. I relate to emotions differently than some other people do from what I can tell. Um, I, for me, the emotion and joy comes from the patterns. And so that’s what it is for me. Um, you know, it can be a completely atonal piece and if the patterns are cool then I’m getting such delight out of it. Uh, but for other people that might not be the case and I totally recognize that. So I’m hoping through my music, even though I might find joy in places they won’t, um, that they’ll still find something that they can resonate with.
D: Oh, that was very well, well, spracht and I can only agree with you because as I think I mentioned to you and probably everybody else and probably about three times already by now, but that was the shock. This music is just simply gorgeous. And I was expecting a few more “shards”, something expecting something, something a little, little more fractious, if you will.
The first piece on the, on the CD is Ayre of Grievances. I love the spelling. I presume clever, uh, you know, and, and, uh, awfully medieval or something. For viola, violin, and flute. It’s from 2020. So that’s a bad year. Oh my God.
S: Hence the grievances.
D: Hence the grievances is right. Uh, composed during the worldwide COVID epidemic. And you and I’ve talked about it. People are not yet clear how profoundly we as a planet of human beings and animals have been affected. This is going to take another half dozen years if we don’t have World War Three somewhere in between to sort it out. So it’s a, this was a big thing. And the biggest thing in my life, maybe, uh, to go through. So, Ayre of Grievances, and, uh, and, you know, you set us up with all the frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger, and I’m going, Oh, can’t wait.
And I put it on. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. I totally did not expect it. Here’s a bit of my stream of consciousness, totally not expecting such… well, tonality. It’s wonderful already. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. I mean, it’s, it’s totally accessible. And I, again, I almost want to spit when I say that word, but I think it’s okay now to use that, to create accessible music, um, things get a little crazy and frustrated.
You mentioned in your program notes, there’s that frustration and you describe it very well. How, although in my case, I just went comatose and just stared out the windows for two years and allowed the checks to come in. Cause I was a freelancer unemployed and boy, the money was better than I’ve ever received. Thank you, Uncle Sam, but, but so I didn’t really experience a whole lot of frustration. I just sort of couldn’t believe what was going on for about two years.
In other words, there is a narrative to this piece, Ayre of Grievances. Um, but I think it, you know, it is much more than the sum of its narrative is what I’m trying to say. Uh, tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece.
Go, give me an overview. What was this about for you?
S: During the, during the lockdowns for me, it was frustrating. Well, because… guy, giving three hour lectures on zoom, I never want to do that again. Oh my gosh. Not being able to see anybody, not being able to see family. Um, that was really frustrating, but at the same time, because I wasn’t able to play live concerts, like I had been, um, it gave me a chance to sit down and really think about who I am.
Um, up until that point, it was very much, oh, I’m a major violinist and a composer and a teacher at all at once.
D: Don’t forget viola… and viola too.
S: Yes. I love the viola. Um, but then I came to realize. I really much prefer writing, uh, and recording. Uh, so I, I allowed myself to let go of the, the things that maybe didn’t bring me quite as much joy. So when things did open back up, I’m, I’m being more careful to balance my life, uh, with what really brings me more joy and less stress, hopefully. Um, that’s, that’s what that piece really sort of represented is it was frustrating. It was lonely. I was angry at the world. Um, but at the same time, there was some beauty in there and some peace.
And, um, and I just love the interaction of the three parts. They’re both, they’re all three very independent, but they speak together and sometimes they’re arguing with each other. Sometimes they’re singing with each other and supporting each other. And, um, I just really liked that intimacy of the work.
D: Well, that whole narrative thing about what you’re very good, uh, you know, voices, uh, having discussions between each other, but I found, and I may sound like I’m an idiot or something, but when I saw that viola, violin, flute, I told you earlier, I thought, I remember thinking that’s going to be tricky, you know, that the flute doesn’t get lost, and all of that works beautifully. And that is not about, you know, microphones. It’s about the way you wrote the piece. Using those three instruments. So, so beautifully. And later you use instruments in the most magical way.
S: Yeah, we actually debuted it during the pandemic where I recorded the violin and viola part. And then I recorded a friend of mine playing the flute part and we just did one of those YouTube stitched videos where we stitched our videos together. That was the thing.
D: Yeah. Am I pronouncing it reasonably close? “DodecaFunky” And of course we’re playing, playing with, uh, dodeca cacophony or something. You can fill me in on that. There’s all this funny stuff going on. That’s all inside stuff for musicians.
It’s for flute and piano from 2015. I think you mentioned this might be the earliest piece, maybe…
S: “Of Roses and Lilies”, I actually wrote the original piece for voice and piano in like the early aughts. But then I went back and fleshed it out and sort of made it fuller.
D: So then you know, the early aughts, I love that. So DodecaFunky, uh, flute and piano. I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire. This is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work. Is that me or you?
S: I think it’s me.
D: I think it was you. So it… “exploits various manipulations”. Oh, here you go. Yeah, it is you… “of a 12 tone row (dodecaphony).” I’m supposed to be a musician and I couldn’t care less how it’s pronounced or even what it is these days. It’s just the serial melody to a backdrop, et cetera, et cetera. But the point of, oh, this is why it’s so cute. A hard bop and swing and, uh, and stuff. It’s just a delicious piece. And it’s, it’s aggressive in its funky way. I say about the opening, while the piano adds to the delightful confusion with various playful styles, a pause and it starts to get feisty. Uh, now I don’t know where I am in the piece, but now some casual virtuoso boogie woogie, boogie funky, uh, it’s a delight.
It’s kind of a series of descriptive tableau. Am I closer? Cause I love dance. I, you know, I reviewed dance a lot and these are like little tableau. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be, uh, on programming all over the place. It’s a beauty.
Tell me, tell me, what do you think? What do you think of this?
S: I love this piece. It just makes, it makes me giggle.
D: It’s just a charm. Beautiful. It’s so cute.
S: Thank you, thank you.
D: Again, if you, you’ll forgive me the accessibility word. This is irresistible. Of course, you know what I’m trying to say?
S: I’m glad you like it. That one actually took a little bit of inspiration from Bernstein. Um, I, I love, uh, I was studying his symphony, Age of Anxiety. Oh, and I love how he merged, well, he merged…
D: By the way, you know, I’m a conductor. Uh, and I know all three of those symphonies very, very well. I’ve never conducted them because they’re too hard. “Jeremiah” I could conduct. That one makes sense. Uh, the, the age of anxiety for piano and orchestra is unbelievable, but it’s also unbelievably difficult to conduct, you know? And then Kaddish, he wrote the original and then tore it all to pieces and stuff. So, but anyway, I just want, I’m so glad somebody also has studied [those works]. Anyway, excuse me.
S: That’s okay. Uh, but yeah, I really loved the idea of merging modernist, modernistic tendencies as Bernstein would say, um, with jazz and other accessible popular genres. And so that’s what I did with this flute piece is I took a 12 tone row and it is an authentic 12 tone row, but I, you could say I cheated, I cheated a little bit because I used transpositions. So what I would do is it’s still the same row, but I would transpose fragments of it to places that I liked it, where it fit better.
D: Arnold [Schoenberg] is turning into his grave.
S: Well, this is true. Ah but see, Stravinsky did it first. So, you know, let’s blame him.
It’s still, it still has the same intervallic structures. Um, but then I back it up, with that really jazzy, different, like you say, different tableaus of different jazzy styles to kind of increase the…
D: It’s a great dance piece…
S: That’d be fun.
D: In other words, there’s lots of possibilities.
Okay. We’re going to move on.
“Of Roses and Lilies”, this is for soprano, piano, soprano recorder, which I don’t think I hear very often used in these kinds of chamber pieces. And it’s a perfect color. English horn… what got into you ?…and women’s chorus. And then the, are there strings there? I have this question.
S: String orchestra.
D: String orchestra, because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it in the, in the brief and it’s from 2013, so we’re getting closer to, to the bottom of the stack here. Tell us about it.
S: This one’s a really fascinating piece for me. I, like I said, I had first written it many, many, many, several decades ago. And this was written…
D: Don’t be so hard on yourself…It’s only been 10 years…
S: But the original piece for just soprano and piano was written, like I said, in the late nineties or early aughts, um, this was when I was still with my very Christian family, um, yeah, there you go. And so I fell in love with the song of Solomon and I thought, why don’t I write quick snippets of the song of Solomon and put it together as sort of a love song. And so I did. And, um, eventually just another like 10 years or so down the road, I’d said, you know what, I really love this piece. I’m going to flesh it out. So, um, I took the original just two parts and added the strings and added the color of the soprano recorder and the English horn, um, and, you know, added the women’s chorus as sort of this almost Greek chorus kind of response thing.
So it’s a very, it’s a very different piece. Uh, it’s a very dramatic kind of theater-esque, drama-esque kind of, uh, kind of a feel.
D: And you don’t use the word romantic. It reeks of romanticism. I see in my notes there, a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. I was not ready for that.
S: Well, actually, uh, every, everybody don’t hate on me, but I actually recorded it myself. So it’s only, it’s only two microphones with, uh, the soloist, Claire is one of my best friends and she teaches at Azusa. So she was able to grab us a classroom. And so I recorded with the two microphones, her and another good friend of mine, the pianist, Lydia. Um, and at the time we weren’t sure if I was just going to put together a digital background to it and like release it online or something. But, you know, this CD was coming to the, coming toward finishing and I was like, you know, this would be really awesome if we can get the rest of it recorded.
So I, yeah, I took two more sessions. I got the strings and the winds together for one session. Uh, and then I finally got the women’s chorus together for a session.
D: So that makes sense too. Very hard undertaking just in terms of production.
S: Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good learning experience. And again, so many of my dear, dear friends are on that recording and it’s just, it was just so special to me.
D: It’s something else. And I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because we want to get this, these pieces performed. It’s a beauty. It’s very accessible. So it doesn’t sound terribly hard to put together. What do you think? Am I all wet? I don’t know, but just, it seemed very, it seemed to just flow pretty freely.
S: Here’s the… I would say, here’s the danger with my music. And, um, especially with this piece, this has happened before. There have been pianists who think they can sight read it and they suddenly quit. It’s like, oh, I can’t sight read this. So this is something my very first composition teacher warned me about is that my music seems really easy. But then you dig into it and there are some little quirks in there and some tricks that you might not be expecting. So as long as you know…
D: It shouldn’t be a big problem. If you know what I mean, so I think I’m okay in saying that I think it’s not like, you know…
S: It’s not terrible.
D: Yeah…[not] terribly virtuosic. And that is, that is to say this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. And that’s exactly what I see. Nothing but college, college ensemble. Because of the difficulty of getting, you know, professionals together in that kind of complex, you know, but, but, so I found it really very, very…a flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. Boy, that came out of my head. Geez. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
S: Thank you.
D: Let’s see. Now this is “The Oracle,” for violin, cello, flute and piccolo, clarinet, piano. That’s from 2016. Go ahead. Tell us, but the bottom line is you constructed this thing from random throws of tarot cards. Go.
S: Exactly. Okay. So…
D: Aleatoric indeed!
S: Uh, I really, like I said, this was the time in my life when I had just really started to latch on to tarot as a means of exploring my own subconscious.
D: Which is correct, by the way. Let’s make sure. Exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, let the self-conscious speak to us.
S: Exactly. I like to think of it, it’s like a mirror for myself. It’s a way for me to talk to myself when sometimes I’m having trouble understanding my brain. So, uh, I really love tarot and I wrote this when I first really started getting into it. And so what I did is, um, I had an opportunity. It was like a call for scores for this ensemble. Uh, and so I was like, this will be fun. Why don’t I use that as an excuse to try it out?
So, and I wanted to do sort of a homage to John Cage by using an aleatoric kind of method. And so tarot seemed like the perfect way to do it. So I set up, um, I think it was five different spreads of 10 cards. I think I did like, um, some kind of a sacred pyramid, uh, spread for each of those. Um, and what I did is I, I assigned certain, you know, in tarot, the different suits represent different aspects of life and personality.
So you have the cups, which is emotion. Um, you have, you know, the, uh, the pentacles, uh, the pentacles are, uh, earth, uh, and, um, material wellbeing and reality and such. Uh, so what I did is I attached each of the instruments to those suits. The, uh, violin was fire, uh, or wands. Uh, the, uh, the cello was water or cups and the, uh, the clarinet was earth and the flute, of course, was air. And then for the piano, uh, I made the piano, the tree of life itself. Uh, because I like to read tarot from a Kabbalistic tree of life sort of interpretation.
D: You’re starting to get over my head. I thought I was with you pretty well, but Kabbalistic something, something…with a tree of life.
S: So Jewish mysticism, basically. So on the tree of life, each of the cards have their place on that tree. And the higher up the tree you are, the closer to the divine source you are. And then you travel down the tree and experience various phases of life and emotion, et cetera, until you get to the bottom, which is material reality. Everything you’ve experienced becomes real. Uh, and then you cycle back to the top, back to the divine source again.
So for the piano, um, when I had a spread that, that spoke of being closer to the divine source, I had the piano playing up in its higher registers. And then as it got closer to the bottom, to the ground, the piano went down. So the higher, if you hear the piano going, noodling up really high, that’s up at the divine source of things. If you hear the piano kind of in the middle, that’s sort of where balance and harmony are. If the piano is down in the basement, that’s down in material reality.
And then in the meantime, you have all the other instruments that are reflecting on emotion or, um, you know, or, or thought, or power
D: …and character that may be interpreted…in countless ways. That’s the beauty of the idea of randomness, the beauty of the order, if you will, of randomness, that even random events will speak to us.
S: Exactly.
D: Once in a while, I really want to play an album, uh, for other people in my, you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. Um, what an amazing chamber piece. I say this is, uh, this long cello obbligato, then into the klezmer aesthetic I call, uh, with, with all of that playing. Now I understand the cabalistic, if you will, right. Uh, meaning to it all. Uh, but the klezmer, uh, aesthetic is, is clearly there. The, and of course the Oracle is a Jew, right? I say the Oracle is a Jew? Question mark.
A wonderful transition, transitional writing. And you know what I mean? Making segments and, and, uh, themes make sense. That transition material is very, very important to get it right. [Your] compositional savvy is top notch. I think I’ve been saying that, but the piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. It’s a complex narrative. Um, and as you have just described the instruments are characters.
S: They’re, they’re the suits of the, of the cards, but they do have sort of, they evoke their sort of, uh, certain characteristics about it.
D: Okay. That’s much more complex. Thank you. That clarifies.
This is quite a journey. So, and, uh, and then I say, um, a jaunty section now as CODA, I assume that’s a CODA. Uh, still a fun ending. I love it. I don’t think you can get any more, you know, any, any better than that.
Okay. Next is, is, uh, Wabi-Sabi, this, uh, uh, the aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese Wabi-Sabi encapsulates. Tell us about Wabi-Sabi. Is it animist or something? Is it part of their religion? Animist religion?
S: It can be. Uh, I’m trying to remember where it historically started. It actually started with monochromatic Chinese drawings and then the Japanese sort of took that ideal and enhanced it. A lot of people think of a Zen garden when they think of Wabi Sabi.
D: I see what you mean. Now I understand exactly what you mean. Even the artwork, strokes, you know, just very spare strokes.
S: Yeah. The tea ceremony. Um, everything about that ceremony is part of their Wabi Sabi aesthetic and metaphysical ideals.
D: I’m trying to remember this [for] parties.
S: Simplicity is, is a major part of it, but it goes beyond that. This, and this is what the string quartet throughout the three movements sort of encapsulates is that, uh, the beginning that, that…you know, in the west the idea of nothing is like zero, there’s nothing there. It’s very stark, but in Wabi Sabi ideas, um, nothing is full of potential. There’s a lot that could be there, but isn’t there yet.
D: That’s so profound.
S: Um, and then you go through, especially at the beginning of the first movement, sort of these random particles where the players can choose how they want to play it.
D: I understand that. We’re talking about the first movement Emergence, what have you just said that the players have some choice and they have choices.
S: So, so each of the players have a collection of notes that they can choose from to play. Uh, and they do it in different ways. Like the cello trills all their notes, but they can choose how they want to trill and how fast they want to trill and when they want to come in, uh, and things like that. Um, until they finally come together in the middle of the first movement and it sort of builds from there. So the idea is like that of creation of these particles coming into space and slowly merging together to become something.
D: And by the way, this sounds like an homage to Stockhausen, you know?
S: Yeah, absolutely.
D: Another great. Distance… these distant sounds… I remember performance, you know, Stockhausen, and it all comes together.
S: And then, and then Evolution is a short, it’s intentionally a short little two minute burst because that’s where everything is kind of locked in.
D: This is Evolution.
S: This is the, the cells are coming together and creating fish that are coming out of the water and, you know, becoming man. Um, et cetera. Possibility.
D: Alive with possibility, yeah. …Nothingness itself…
S: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then it gives way to Entropy, uh, and Entropy starts with a very strict structure. Uh, funnily enough, I wasn’t sure compositionally how I wanted to go about the third movement, but I was in the middle of teaching about isorhythm in one of my classes. So I’m like, Hey, I can do isorhythm with this. That’d be fun. So it starts out very strict, um, but then gets really complex and starts falling apart. And again, that’s the idea of returning back to nothingness. Everything’s falling apart.
Uh, and, and that’s the idea of, um, the idea that you, um, sometimes the best course of action is to decide to do nothing, you know…
D: I think you have just described an exact, uh, arc in the, they come together. I’m looking at Emergence. The first one builds quite satisfyingly. Uh, the construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect, I say to myself. And of course, if there, if you don’t get it off the ground, intellectually from the beginning, you’re in trouble… Ok, Evolution. Um, I love this, uh, I call it a flowing sea sort of opening. Or whatever that vibe could be. Anything, forget sea, whatever that undulating flowing thing…so mesmerizing. Again, wonderful quartet writing.
I’m going to have to stop using this word accessible, but that’s the whole idea to get these performed. And that’s exactly to be well written and also to be a happy time for an audience. Give me a break. And I, and here’s the thing about Evolution that it’s, uh, utterly accessible to the listener, though the subject, listening, but I think I got it. Although the subject matter may have sub-basements. Now a walking cello fits that, that walking cello thing. It’s wonderful to keep the piece moving and, and, uh, energetic. Um, quite a narrative.
S: It’s like a little metronome marking I have in the, uh, the second movement is “Like dancing molecules.”
D: Oh!
S: Kind of the spinning, whirling…
D: I might have to dream about that tonight. And the third movement, if you will, Entropy. It’s such a nice, uh, I, I, do I hear a little fugue…? I wanted… the stream of consciousness thing…fuguetto. You know what I mean? That opening is a, is it a genuine, but it’s a fuguetto, right?
S: Yeah, it’s, um, it starts out exactly as a canon. Then what happens is that each time the line comes back, uh, I either in diminution or augmentation. Uh, so I, I, like I said, if you see the score, um, I start doing crazy little sub meters within each of the parts just to help, just to help the players keep, keep time with each other, but yeah, that’s part of the unraveling part is they start very much together and then they start in like ratios of two to one or one to two, but yeah, then it starts getting into weird ratios…
D: …because I think I wondered about those, those asymmetrical collisions… A slightly dysfunctional intentional section. I’m toward the end here of pizz’s.
S: Well, the very ending, I go back to the beginning idea where the, each player has a selection of notes. They can pizz. whenever they want to. So each performance should be a little different than each other.
D: So the end of entropy, they go back to this idea and they can even change their mind about it.
S: Exactly.
D: Stockhausen, he’s smiling.
“Nevermore,” this major Sonata, I think for viola and piano from 2019 to 2021. Nevermore for viola and piano, also a subtitle of a Gothic Suite, so delightful, it’s an absolutely magnificent Sonata for viola and piano. It’s just absolutely, it’s so American, because we’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe and each movement is after one of his most famous pieces. But you have, I feel very powerfully about American composers choosing American subjects. The Raven, Annabelle Lee, the Telltale Heart.
S: Actually, Charlotte Goode, the violist on this recording, is actually another one of my bestest friends. And she is also a gothic nut and a fellow autistic. And she just, she was like, oh my gosh, we need to collaborate. We need to do this for viola. And I’m like, yes. So I started out with the Raven, you know, and she debuted that at a recital. And then I was like, okay, we need to come up with two other, you know, two other movements to finish it out. And the thing I love about the recording of this, again, this is so her, the viola part is so her, the subject matter is so her, and then I was lucky enough to be able to fly out with her to Boston to have her record it for PARMA. So…that day I went to Salem after we recorded it. So it was perfect.
D: You mean, the Witch Town or Salem, Oregon?
S: No, no, no, the Witch Town, yeah, Salem, Massachusetts.
D: So Poe inspired you to go to the seat of evil.
S: Exactly. It was so good.
D: Well, what I have to say is here, I worked on looking at the first movement. First of all, a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament, so congrats to your friend. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic.
S: Yeah, it is. I won’t play it on my viola. I’ll let somebody else do it. I’m not that good.
D: Well, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece, you know, and it’s romantic, there are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man, nice new idea… that roiling keyboard stuff toward the end of the piece, does that make any sense? Under viola, that middle and low register as it goes.
“Annabelle Lee.” It’s gorgeous, that movement is just gorgeous.
S: So beautiful, it’s one of my absolute favorites, just, and the poem, too, is just absolutely, it really struck me.
D: It brings you to tears, really, that poem.
S: It really does. I really wanted to capture that complete childlike innocence, just absolutely purest childlike innocent love of a little boy and a little girl. And then the angels cruelly take her away from him, you know, and just that drama.
D: And that’s the true story, isn’t it? Doesn’t he marry her, his wife, when she was 15, and then did she die? I can’t quite remember.
S: I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up.
D: We just missed the good parts that neither of us can remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Annabelle Lee speaks to a very personal experience.
S: I do know this was his last poem that he wrote before he died. That’s also a very haunting little tidbit. So, yeah, I love this movement so much. It actually, it was the hardest to record, too, because it’s deceptively simple. But it’s because it’s kind of like Mozart in that way, where it’s so simple and exposed that the violist has to be really careful and really in tune. So it took us a little bit longer to do this one.
D: Nice. Yeah, it’s a beautiful reading. I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking, and the floorboards… Then the beginning of real paranoia. I mean, you describe this tale very well.
S: Actually, I decided the best way to put it together was to take the story apart and make each of the sections of music a section of the story. So it’s probably the most narratively accurate of the three movements.
D: And that makes good sense to me.
S: Yeah, and in the music, each of the section headings has a little quote from the story. So you can kind of tell where you are in the story. But yeah, the idea of just. I wanted the opening theme that the viola starts playing is supposed to be sort of the love theme that the narrator has for his master.
“I loved the old man…It was his eye!” …you know, so it’s this really creepy. It’s a love song, but it’s twisted. It’s got something off.
So that’s where it opens. And then from there, then I get into the part where it’s for seven nights. He he peeks in at the bedroom. And so that section is like in seven four or something like that. It has odd. It’s asymmetrical. So, again, it feels a little off, you know, a little bit of the heartbeat taps and then, you know, stuff like that. And then little answering in the piano… And then you hear him murder him.
D: I call it shades of the shower scene in Psycho.
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Brava, I say after that.
S: …yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then you just get, like you say, the paranoia as the cops won’t leave. But the narrator keeps hearing the heartbeat and he can’t get away from it. And he just has to give up.
D: And indeed, it’s an internal conflict. Yeah, that’s the order of the soundscape. It’s kind of this internal conflict that becomes, you know, insupportable, disturbingly deliberate. And it’s so well done, well done.
So that’s a beautiful sonata. And as I mentioned, here it is. It’s a, it’s a viola sonata. It’s, it’s tough. Well, you know, at a certain level, you know, you almost want it to be. So it’s not inaccessible at all. It has a it has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
So take note, everybody. Nevermore for viola and piano.
And then now the last, the grand finale on the CD, The Dark Glass Sinfonia: We see through a glass darkly. For orchestra from 2017 built upon an integrated set…Oh, here you go again.
S: I love patterns!
D: …that’s why I pulled it. Because in all of my life in the arts and even at college, these things never came up in my experience. “Built,” she says, confident, “built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae.” End quote. I say to myself, please explain. You will, then you go on: “Free atonality with modal harmony…In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing emotional flux of the soul.”
S: This is another…it started out as just a love affair with patterns. And one thing, I’m not a major post-tonalist. You can tell from the accessibleness of my music. But I do love some of the number patterns that come about from, you know, post-tonal exercises. And hexachordal combinatoriality is one of my favorite ideas. I just love saying it. Hexachordal combinatoriality.
D: Yeah, I bet when you have students, they just sort of collapse.
S: Yeah, I’m like, OK, learn how to say it, you can impress all of your friends.
D: But then again, formulae is rather…
S: …It’s very pompous sounding…it’s basically it’s built upon the 12-tone ideal, but it breaks up the 12 tones into six tones, hexachords. So each of the hexachords has its own unique intervallic character to it. And so in the same way that you can take kind of the same way where I cheated with DodecaFunky, where I took segments of it and like transposed it, it’s kind of like that, but I did less cheating. Hexachords kind of do their own cheating because you can take one part of the tone row and then take the second half of it and flip it or reverse it. Or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then if you break them down into numbers, you can add them up into cool combinations and things like that. So that’s what this was. This piece was sort of a play on that and seeing what I could do with it. And that’s how I developed the main themes.
You really hear it come out, especially in the little woodwind stuff throughout the top. That’s really where it shines. But it really is woven into it.
D: The row shines?…
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Well, you must have been in heaven putting this piece together.
S: It was very, very fun. And again, and I don’t know how my brain does this, but what starts out with a whole bunch of numbers and patterns usually comes out as something really lovely that I continue to love listening to.
D: Well, guess what? That’s exactly the whole point of the genius of autism. You just exactly described what we’ve been kind of…that autism is, is just different.
S: You know, you know, that’s another thing that shines through with this orchestral piece, too, is that one of the comments sometimes I get from other people is, oh, why can’t you just have the instruments all stacked up on top of each other? You know, why can’t they all play at once? And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I like to have the layers. Somebody’s always doing something. And so there’s kind of a medievalness to it, you know, going back to that old polyphony idea. But then I’ll integrate it with these numbers and patterns. And I just love seeing it layer.
D: Speaking of layering, did I hear I see in my notes here. Is there any kind of pyramid that you constructed a sound pyramid somewhere in the beginning of that piece? Or is it a stupid word?
S: No it’s not stupid. I like to call it a waterfall, where…
D: Yeah, ….I got the idea of what you were creating there.
S: Yeah. The hexachordal pattern is there. But what I do is I pass it starting from the top and have it kind of trickle down like that.
D: So pyramid is not quite the right way of describing it. But I was hearing a very specific concept. And of course, thinking pyramid, I’m describing it as from the bottom up. But you’ve just described it as from top to trickle down, if you will.
Let’s see… There was a lovely little brass tune. I’m hearing that I’m hearing cinematic moments. Of course, it’s an orchestral piece. I’m sure you really got your teeth into that one.
Let’s see, lovely wind section work, as we’ve discussed, nicely orchestrated. Well, it’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible and a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece of what? I can’t remember. Seven minutes or…
S: Yeah, it’s only like seven minutes or so, which I have found, again, economically and just competition wise…
D: That’s exactly right.
S: People like shorter, shorter pieces.
D: That’s kind of what we ask, because then the next question is how? Because I’m again thinking collegiate orchestras. And then let’s see that as we’ve discussed, there’s that thematic return, you know, that the whole thing does a perfect arc. So there you go.
S: I just really love the very, very ending of it. When I first put it together and to me, it evoked sort of almost this organ, this organ like texture with. I just love the resonance… T
D: That section with percussion. That’s toward the end. I see more complicated in narrative in terms of just the construct of the piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible. It’s a perfect piece for a college orchestra if it’s in that sphere of capability.
S: Yeah. …that little fast march like scherzo thing. I kind of had a like a like a Russian, Russian romantic vibe almost or like early 20th century Russian vibe, you know, almost like kind of Shostakovich-esque, you know…
D: Each question mark was starting to rise out of my head there, the Shostakovich-ish.
S: Yeah, exactly.
D: What a great talk we’ve had. And I think just anybody could pick up that the world of our profession, of our music making, is the world at large. I mean, we speak to the wonderful, fascinating world around us. That’s the whole idea of being a creative person.
So, again, wonderful chat with composer Sarah Wallin Huff. And we’re talking about your 2023 Navona release. It’s contemporary classic chamber music for diverse instrumental combinations. You’ve heard this before. It’s called Shards. Don’t worry, anybody. It’s fine. And wonderful pieces that as we’ve discussed that are chamber works and then, of course, the orchestral piece at the very end.
But this is music that should be heard a lot more. And it’s not off the top of the charts of virtuosity. But, it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making with enough virtuosity to keep…Why did I say those of us who are gifted…busy…you know what I’m trying to say… I’m gonna shut my mouth up here.
Anyway, great fun chatting with you.
S: Thank you so much. I really I’m really flattered, you know, that you reached out.
D: Well, I’m flattered that I heard what I heard. I’ll tell you, because it’s always a gamble. I just sort of pick up, pick up whatever. And I thought I’ve never heard of this thing. Well, who is this person and what is that stuff? And that’s got us started.
It’s been a tremendous treat and a really important and a very important CD you’ve got. So, congratulations all around.
#chamberMusic #classical #Interview #orchestra #review #StudioRecording
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Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl
Back in the fall of 2023, right after the release of my second solo album with Navona, I got the opportunity to sit down with longtime American conductor, arts administrator, and music/theater/dance critic, Daniel Kepl, and talk with him about my album, SHARDS.
Unfortunately, the audio in that video interview was extremely unbalanced and distorted, so I took some time to try and clean it up, to make it as listenable as possible. So… that edited video is now here, below, ready for your viewing pleasure (complete with chapter breaks, if you’d prefer to jump around)!
While the pops and crackles and background noises are mostly gone, sometimes the words are still a little garbly, so I’ve embedded captions in the video and am providing a full transcript, for those who would prefer to read the discussion. If you would like to see the original unedited video, you can do that here.
Dan Kepl’s Review Highlights
The high points of Dan Kepl’s praise, as stated in the video below.
About the Album:
[SHARDS is] a wonderful album, very interesting and very accessible, if I may say. It’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music… This music is just simply gorgeous. You use instruments in the most magical way.
This is music that should be heard a lot more…it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making. It’s…a very important CD you’ve got.
About “Ayre of Grievances”:
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece. The balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
About “DodecaFunky”:
I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire, this is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. It’s just a delicious piece, it’s aggressive in its funky way. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be on programming all over the place. This is irresistible. Audiences would love it, I think.
About “Of Roses and Lilies”:
It’s a beauty; a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. …this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. A flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
About “The Oracle”:
Once in a while, I really want to play [a track of] an album, uh, for other people…you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. What an amazing chamber piece. Wonderful transitional writing; compositional savvy is top notch. The piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. This piece is quite a journey.
About “Wabi-Sabi”:
The construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect…quite a narrative…wonderful quartet writing.
About “Nevermore”:
An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. …a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking…the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho – Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending.
About “The Dark Glass Sinfonia”:
…wonderful piece for orchestra, “The Dark Glass Sinfonia,” gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful.
Lovely wind section work…nicely orchestrated. It’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible…a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible.
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl (Edited, with Captions)Full [Edited] Interview Transcript
D: I’m chatting with composer Sarah Wallin Huff and we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release. Thank you, Parma. Thank you, Navona. Thank you, all of you wonderful people out there that put this, these kind of packages together. Just a quick aside about Navona, including everything that we need as critics, really somewhat truncated, makes perfect sense, but up on a website. And very few other companies do this. I just think it’s fabulous.
I’ve seen your interview, or I’ve read your interview, I should say, with Parma. And we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release of Contemporary Classical Chamber Works and an album for diverse instrumental combinations. Anyway, the CD is called Shards. Do not run away in the night and be afraid. It’s a wonderful album of very interesting and very accessible, if I may say so, and I think it’s perfectly OK to say so.
Here, just a sampling: Ayre of Grievances, for viola, violin, flute, lovely. The flute I wondered about. Those are pretty heavy instruments and the balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
DodecaFunky, let me say that once more. DodecaFunky, for piano, and it is cute… oh, did I miss one?
S: DodecaFunky.
D: Anyway, it’s cute. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. And it’s a wonderful, very fascinating piano piece. Audiences would love it, I think.
“Of Roses and Lilies.” This one’s a little complex for soprano, piano, soprano recorder. Nice colors. Nice. English horn, very interesting. And women’s chorus. I mean, not since Holst have I heard women’s chorus used in this way.
So, Wabi-Sabi, it’s in three movements. Juventas, the new music ensemble performs it. This is a string quartet, so four players of the Juventas ensemble. I hope I’m pronouncing that right since I live in California. Three movements: Emergence, Evolution, Entropy. Very, very interesting. And maybe even kind of the heart of who you might be. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
The next piece, Nevermore for viola and piano, an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, three-movement sonata for viola and piano. The movements: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart. And I love Poe, what a genius, what a genius. So glad you have included this wonderful, wonderful piece for viola and piano. And I mean by that, again, your compositional skills, the way you use these, didn’t you play viola? I thought I that read somewhere. Were you a violist?
S: I double on viola. I feel more comfortable on violin, but I can pick up a viola if I need it.
D: Okay. So you got all that stuff, you know, under your fingernails, so to say.
And then the last piece, wonderful piece for orchestra, The Dark Glass Sinfonia, gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful. And with a little subtype, if I’m reading it correctly: “We see through a glass darkly.” Wonderful piece, performed by wonderful people, while you really say it right out, right, and I just want to deal with this a little bit before I get to where you know, I’m going.
We all know people with autism and what I have found in my experience with people, and you know, autism is here, there, everywhere in various variations. You’re going to speak to it, I think in a bit, but the people that I have known with autism, some people have had troubles, others have been really, really talented, clever, and innovative. Autism is not a deficit. Okay.
S: Yeah. It’s a difference.
D: It’s a difference. Thank you. That’s better. Okay. Because I too, like most of, especially like with dyslexia, in the seventies, we all thought people with dyslexia were just lazy. Just didn’t want to do a job. Well, they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t read. Everything was backwards. My, my oldest nephew, uh, is dyslexic. So I just want everybody to understand…
And, and where are you in the autism spectrum? Can I ask that question?
S: Sure.
D: Of course, you’re clearly under great control. You have mastered the magic of autism.
S: Yeah. Well, what’s funny about that is I’ve actually only just in the past year, really got confirmation. Um, I’m still don’t have, yeah, I still don’t have an official diagnosis because that’s a whole other bag of worms for adult diagnosis and it costs thousands of dollars. And, uh, some doctors still don’t believe that women have it. Um, so, but just taking several screening tests, um, I’ve taken about five of the clinical screening tests and they all point very highly to autism. Um, and thinking about my experiences growing up, it really makes a lot of sense.
D: That’s what I was going to ask you next. You must have known, you know, that something was different.
S: Well, yeah. I, I thought something was always…
D: Can you give an example or two, you know, when you were a little kid. What I remember is the kids that I’ve known have various symptoms of autism.
S: Definitely. Um, emotional dysregulation, um, is still difficult where, well, and for me, because I kind of triggered emotional response to things like, um, there’s a famous phrase that “you don’t have enough spoons”, but the phrase means basically like, I only have so many ways of coping with life and when I’m out of those ways, I have to take a nap. I have to, I have to go to the corner for a second. And for different people, there’s different levels of that.
And growing up with a family who expected me to be normal. Um, I got really good at masking. I got really good at holding it all in, but then I’d get home and just. Like, um, I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except just sit there after school. Um, unfortunately I had to keep pushing through. Um, and so I just got used to doing that, hiding who I really was, you know?
D: Um, as you know, we talked, I’m very openly gay and…what we’re getting to, the bottom line is you have to be who you are. To keep these things secret or to try and work around who you are is exhausting, as you said. And just mentally, you know, exactly.
S: I’ve actually, I did actually get a diagnosis like 15 years ago for anxiety disorder and what I’ve discovered since then is that it is a part of the autism masking, just, I had been masking for 40 years. And so, um, that just built up a lot of anxiety in me for everything, you know? Um, but now that I’m just past year, starting to learn who I am and learn what my triggers are.
Um, I am very sensitive to sound, ironically enough, um, disorganized sound, I really have a hard time handling with, but music is organized sounds. So for me, my brain likes it, you know? Um, but yeah, so I’m just learning a lot more about myself and how my brain works and that it’s okay that my brain has trouble where other people seem to have things worked out, you know? And that’s okay.
D: You see, if you will, with your brain, things that we don’t, and so on. So, you know, I mean, that’s the beauty of all, for all of us. Uh, it’s the tremendous beauty of diversity.
Um… Let’s talk about Ancients. This is psycho-messaging to our brains. I mean, give me a break. It’s not random. It’s pure messaging to ourselves, uh, Tarot and all the rest of it. And I love traditions that have been there for 8,000 years. We’re going to talk about it. Cause you use, you do, you do this formula for a piece with Tarot cards that drives me crazy, but often told me it, speaking of what you had spoken to, uh, just a moment ago, when one gets kind of focused, the focus becomes quite, uh, extravagant. And was that for you? You really got into constructing this piece around Tarot.
S: Oh, yeah, I tend to, this tends to be a theme that I, if I hit on something that’s been very useful for me, um, mentally and psychologically, spiritually, I tend to write a piece about it. So that’s what the Oracle, the Oracle tended to be Tarot. I fell, fell onto, um, as a way to deal with my anxiety and it really, luckily, I had a therapist at the time who was open to the idea of me exploring my subconscious through the Tarot cards.
D: It’s about this idea of finding oneself, of reveling in these discoveries, uh, you know, and so is there any, can you give me a, um, what a topography of when, where, if even you feel now, like who you are, you know what I mean? How, what, what trajectory, where did you arrive? Have you arrived yet?
S: Um, well, definitely starting roughly a little less than a year ago when I finally did those, um, screenings for autism, like is when everything really started clicking and, and I did a lot of reading and, and, um, researching and, and finding others like me, you know, um, and it just helped click, you know, uh, it helped make, help me make sense of who I am and why I am the way I am.
Um, so often, especially throughout my whole life, um, I would be upset that I didn’t seem to be like everybody else. Even as a teacher, I mean, one of my favorite compliments from a student of mine was I’m the quirkiest teacher on campus. And I wear that like a badge. You know, I don’t teach like other teachers teach. I don’t think like other people think, and I’ve learned that that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Um, that diversity is a great thing.
D: So now we’re going to deal with the, uh, the product of your, uh, satisfactions, although this is, let’s see, 2023. I know these are recorded over a rather large span of time.
S: Maybe, uh, yeah, about five years or so.
D: So in other words, I guess what now has me curious is feeling where you are feeling now. Do you see, do you hear, see things in your focus on this CD?
S: I do actually. Um, the CD actually came about simply by virtue of, um, the way the economy works in the music recording industry and classical music, et cetera, where we just recorded piece by piece by piece as we could, um, and then finally had enough and say, Hey, let’s put together an album, you know…
D: And then let’s figure out how to pay for it. That’s what everybody watching this knows all about. It’s not like it [just] happens.
S: Exactly. Uh, so now, like I said, especially after these past several months, I look at the CD and I do really see it as if it’s sort of a culmination of my past 15 years or so, um, because all the pieces have been written, I think the earliest one was. Well, I think “Roses and Lilies” was what, like 2012 or something like that. Um, 2013, maybe.
D: Oh, well, we’ll find it.
S: I don’t remember.
D: Why did you use the word, “Shards”?
S: My husband picked it. He, he actually made up the title Ayre of Grievances too. He comes up with great titles. We thought about “Shards” because there are pieces like Dark Glass Sinfonia, so glass and, and breaking, uh, Wabi-Sabi is sort of like the fractal nature of life. And so you see shards of glass reflecting, reflecting different things, um, basically it’s supposed to be sort of the fragmentations of personality and life and spirituality.
D: That’s a good definition here. I was, I was expecting, uh, the, as I told you, I was expecting a wild ride. And by the way, everybody knows it isn’t, it’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music. This is what just blew me away.
In a way, this text that’s on your CD tells us how fresh the CD is. So it’s been put together. You’ve done that. It’s been five years. You’re there. And then it’s like, son of a gun.
“One inherent trait I possess is finding my emotional fulfillment through the active, creative manipulation of music.” And this fascinates me. I’m, I’m not a fix the watch kind of guy. I don’t get into the little details. I’m, I’m the conductor. I’m the, you know, I want the big pastel, you know, horses crossing the plains or something. You know, does that speak to your autism in a way, the focus?
S: I think so. The hyper fixation. I mean, there are times when I’m working on a piece that if my husband wasn’t there to remind me, I’d forget to eat, you know, I’ll just be like focused on these patterns and what else can I do with them? And, and, oh, that sounds really cool. Let me try this. Let’s see.
D: And you say, “I’m not, I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners.” That’s something that’s very important, “…but rather to facilitate a deeper connection with their inner selves.” Now, I’m not quite sure what kind of, what kind of a labyrinth you just, you know, created with those words. “I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners” yet, “I would like them to get in touch with their deeper…” you know, you know what I mean, you’re clever, aren’t you?
S: Well, that’s a question I get a lot is, well, how do you want the audience to feel? Even, even composition teachers… “How do you want them to feel?” And, and I think that’s another part of my autism. I relate to emotions differently than some other people do from what I can tell. Um, I, for me, the emotion and joy comes from the patterns. And so that’s what it is for me. Um, you know, it can be a completely atonal piece and if the patterns are cool then I’m getting such delight out of it. Uh, but for other people that might not be the case and I totally recognize that. So I’m hoping through my music, even though I might find joy in places they won’t, um, that they’ll still find something that they can resonate with.
D: Oh, that was very well, well, spracht and I can only agree with you because as I think I mentioned to you and probably everybody else and probably about three times already by now, but that was the shock. This music is just simply gorgeous. And I was expecting a few more “shards”, something expecting something, something a little, little more fractious, if you will.
The first piece on the, on the CD is Ayre of Grievances. I love the spelling. I presume clever, uh, you know, and, and, uh, awfully medieval or something. For viola, violin, and flute. It’s from 2020. So that’s a bad year. Oh my God.
S: Hence the grievances.
D: Hence the grievances is right. Uh, composed during the worldwide COVID epidemic. And you and I’ve talked about it. People are not yet clear how profoundly we as a planet of human beings and animals have been affected. This is going to take another half dozen years if we don’t have World War Three somewhere in between to sort it out. So it’s a, this was a big thing. And the biggest thing in my life, maybe, uh, to go through. So, Ayre of Grievances, and, uh, and, you know, you set us up with all the frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger, and I’m going, Oh, can’t wait.
And I put it on. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. I totally did not expect it. Here’s a bit of my stream of consciousness, totally not expecting such… well, tonality. It’s wonderful already. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. I mean, it’s, it’s totally accessible. And I, again, I almost want to spit when I say that word, but I think it’s okay now to use that, to create accessible music, um, things get a little crazy and frustrated.
You mentioned in your program notes, there’s that frustration and you describe it very well. How, although in my case, I just went comatose and just stared out the windows for two years and allowed the checks to come in. Cause I was a freelancer unemployed and boy, the money was better than I’ve ever received. Thank you, Uncle Sam, but, but so I didn’t really experience a whole lot of frustration. I just sort of couldn’t believe what was going on for about two years.
In other words, there is a narrative to this piece, Ayre of Grievances. Um, but I think it, you know, it is much more than the sum of its narrative is what I’m trying to say. Uh, tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece.
Go, give me an overview. What was this about for you?
S: During the, during the lockdowns for me, it was frustrating. Well, because… guy, giving three hour lectures on zoom, I never want to do that again. Oh my gosh. Not being able to see anybody, not being able to see family. Um, that was really frustrating, but at the same time, because I wasn’t able to play live concerts, like I had been, um, it gave me a chance to sit down and really think about who I am.
Um, up until that point, it was very much, oh, I’m a major violinist and a composer and a teacher at all at once.
D: Don’t forget viola… and viola too.
S: Yes. I love the viola. Um, but then I came to realize. I really much prefer writing, uh, and recording. Uh, so I, I allowed myself to let go of the, the things that maybe didn’t bring me quite as much joy. So when things did open back up, I’m, I’m being more careful to balance my life, uh, with what really brings me more joy and less stress, hopefully. Um, that’s, that’s what that piece really sort of represented is it was frustrating. It was lonely. I was angry at the world. Um, but at the same time, there was some beauty in there and some peace.
And, um, and I just love the interaction of the three parts. They’re both, they’re all three very independent, but they speak together and sometimes they’re arguing with each other. Sometimes they’re singing with each other and supporting each other. And, um, I just really liked that intimacy of the work.
D: Well, that whole narrative thing about what you’re very good, uh, you know, voices, uh, having discussions between each other, but I found, and I may sound like I’m an idiot or something, but when I saw that viola, violin, flute, I told you earlier, I thought, I remember thinking that’s going to be tricky, you know, that the flute doesn’t get lost, and all of that works beautifully. And that is not about, you know, microphones. It’s about the way you wrote the piece. Using those three instruments. So, so beautifully. And later you use instruments in the most magical way.
S: Yeah, we actually debuted it during the pandemic where I recorded the violin and viola part. And then I recorded a friend of mine playing the flute part and we just did one of those YouTube stitched videos where we stitched our videos together. That was the thing.
D: Yeah. Am I pronouncing it reasonably close? “DodecaFunky” And of course we’re playing, playing with, uh, dodeca cacophony or something. You can fill me in on that. There’s all this funny stuff going on. That’s all inside stuff for musicians.
It’s for flute and piano from 2015. I think you mentioned this might be the earliest piece, maybe…
S: “Of Roses and Lilies”, I actually wrote the original piece for voice and piano in like the early aughts. But then I went back and fleshed it out and sort of made it fuller.
D: So then you know, the early aughts, I love that. So DodecaFunky, uh, flute and piano. I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire. This is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work. Is that me or you?
S: I think it’s me.
D: I think it was you. So it… “exploits various manipulations”. Oh, here you go. Yeah, it is you… “of a 12 tone row (dodecaphony).” I’m supposed to be a musician and I couldn’t care less how it’s pronounced or even what it is these days. It’s just the serial melody to a backdrop, et cetera, et cetera. But the point of, oh, this is why it’s so cute. A hard bop and swing and, uh, and stuff. It’s just a delicious piece. And it’s, it’s aggressive in its funky way. I say about the opening, while the piano adds to the delightful confusion with various playful styles, a pause and it starts to get feisty. Uh, now I don’t know where I am in the piece, but now some casual virtuoso boogie woogie, boogie funky, uh, it’s a delight.
It’s kind of a series of descriptive tableau. Am I closer? Cause I love dance. I, you know, I reviewed dance a lot and these are like little tableau. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be, uh, on programming all over the place. It’s a beauty.
Tell me, tell me, what do you think? What do you think of this?
S: I love this piece. It just makes, it makes me giggle.
D: It’s just a charm. Beautiful. It’s so cute.
S: Thank you, thank you.
D: Again, if you, you’ll forgive me the accessibility word. This is irresistible. Of course, you know what I’m trying to say?
S: I’m glad you like it. That one actually took a little bit of inspiration from Bernstein. Um, I, I love, uh, I was studying his symphony, Age of Anxiety. Oh, and I love how he merged, well, he merged…
D: By the way, you know, I’m a conductor. Uh, and I know all three of those symphonies very, very well. I’ve never conducted them because they’re too hard. “Jeremiah” I could conduct. That one makes sense. Uh, the, the age of anxiety for piano and orchestra is unbelievable, but it’s also unbelievably difficult to conduct, you know? And then Kaddish, he wrote the original and then tore it all to pieces and stuff. So, but anyway, I just want, I’m so glad somebody also has studied [those works]. Anyway, excuse me.
S: That’s okay. Uh, but yeah, I really loved the idea of merging modernist, modernistic tendencies as Bernstein would say, um, with jazz and other accessible popular genres. And so that’s what I did with this flute piece is I took a 12 tone row and it is an authentic 12 tone row, but I, you could say I cheated, I cheated a little bit because I used transpositions. So what I would do is it’s still the same row, but I would transpose fragments of it to places that I liked it, where it fit better.
D: Arnold [Schoenberg] is turning into his grave.
S: Well, this is true. Ah but see, Stravinsky did it first. So, you know, let’s blame him.
It’s still, it still has the same intervallic structures. Um, but then I back it up, with that really jazzy, different, like you say, different tableaus of different jazzy styles to kind of increase the…
D: It’s a great dance piece…
S: That’d be fun.
D: In other words, there’s lots of possibilities.
Okay. We’re going to move on.
“Of Roses and Lilies”, this is for soprano, piano, soprano recorder, which I don’t think I hear very often used in these kinds of chamber pieces. And it’s a perfect color. English horn… what got into you ?…and women’s chorus. And then the, are there strings there? I have this question.
S: String orchestra.
D: String orchestra, because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it in the, in the brief and it’s from 2013, so we’re getting closer to, to the bottom of the stack here. Tell us about it.
S: This one’s a really fascinating piece for me. I, like I said, I had first written it many, many, many, several decades ago. And this was written…
D: Don’t be so hard on yourself…It’s only been 10 years…
S: But the original piece for just soprano and piano was written, like I said, in the late nineties or early aughts, um, this was when I was still with my very Christian family, um, yeah, there you go. And so I fell in love with the song of Solomon and I thought, why don’t I write quick snippets of the song of Solomon and put it together as sort of a love song. And so I did. And, um, eventually just another like 10 years or so down the road, I’d said, you know what, I really love this piece. I’m going to flesh it out. So, um, I took the original just two parts and added the strings and added the color of the soprano recorder and the English horn, um, and, you know, added the women’s chorus as sort of this almost Greek chorus kind of response thing.
So it’s a very, it’s a very different piece. Uh, it’s a very dramatic kind of theater-esque, drama-esque kind of, uh, kind of a feel.
D: And you don’t use the word romantic. It reeks of romanticism. I see in my notes there, a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. I was not ready for that.
S: Well, actually, uh, every, everybody don’t hate on me, but I actually recorded it myself. So it’s only, it’s only two microphones with, uh, the soloist, Claire is one of my best friends and she teaches at Azusa. So she was able to grab us a classroom. And so I recorded with the two microphones, her and another good friend of mine, the pianist, Lydia. Um, and at the time we weren’t sure if I was just going to put together a digital background to it and like release it online or something. But, you know, this CD was coming to the, coming toward finishing and I was like, you know, this would be really awesome if we can get the rest of it recorded.
So I, yeah, I took two more sessions. I got the strings and the winds together for one session. Uh, and then I finally got the women’s chorus together for a session.
D: So that makes sense too. Very hard undertaking just in terms of production.
S: Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good learning experience. And again, so many of my dear, dear friends are on that recording and it’s just, it was just so special to me.
D: It’s something else. And I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because we want to get this, these pieces performed. It’s a beauty. It’s very accessible. So it doesn’t sound terribly hard to put together. What do you think? Am I all wet? I don’t know, but just, it seemed very, it seemed to just flow pretty freely.
S: Here’s the… I would say, here’s the danger with my music. And, um, especially with this piece, this has happened before. There have been pianists who think they can sight read it and they suddenly quit. It’s like, oh, I can’t sight read this. So this is something my very first composition teacher warned me about is that my music seems really easy. But then you dig into it and there are some little quirks in there and some tricks that you might not be expecting. So as long as you know…
D: It shouldn’t be a big problem. If you know what I mean, so I think I’m okay in saying that I think it’s not like, you know…
S: It’s not terrible.
D: Yeah…[not] terribly virtuosic. And that is, that is to say this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. And that’s exactly what I see. Nothing but college, college ensemble. Because of the difficulty of getting, you know, professionals together in that kind of complex, you know, but, but, so I found it really very, very…a flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. Boy, that came out of my head. Geez. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
S: Thank you.
D: Let’s see. Now this is “The Oracle,” for violin, cello, flute and piccolo, clarinet, piano. That’s from 2016. Go ahead. Tell us, but the bottom line is you constructed this thing from random throws of tarot cards. Go.
S: Exactly. Okay. So…
D: Aleatoric indeed!
S: Uh, I really, like I said, this was the time in my life when I had just really started to latch on to tarot as a means of exploring my own subconscious.
D: Which is correct, by the way. Let’s make sure. Exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, let the self-conscious speak to us.
S: Exactly. I like to think of it, it’s like a mirror for myself. It’s a way for me to talk to myself when sometimes I’m having trouble understanding my brain. So, uh, I really love tarot and I wrote this when I first really started getting into it. And so what I did is, um, I had an opportunity. It was like a call for scores for this ensemble. Uh, and so I was like, this will be fun. Why don’t I use that as an excuse to try it out?
So, and I wanted to do sort of a homage to John Cage by using an aleatoric kind of method. And so tarot seemed like the perfect way to do it. So I set up, um, I think it was five different spreads of 10 cards. I think I did like, um, some kind of a sacred pyramid, uh, spread for each of those. Um, and what I did is I, I assigned certain, you know, in tarot, the different suits represent different aspects of life and personality.
So you have the cups, which is emotion. Um, you have, you know, the, uh, the pentacles, uh, the pentacles are, uh, earth, uh, and, um, material wellbeing and reality and such. Uh, so what I did is I attached each of the instruments to those suits. The, uh, violin was fire, uh, or wands. Uh, the, uh, the cello was water or cups and the, uh, the clarinet was earth and the flute, of course, was air. And then for the piano, uh, I made the piano, the tree of life itself. Uh, because I like to read tarot from a Kabbalistic tree of life sort of interpretation.
D: You’re starting to get over my head. I thought I was with you pretty well, but Kabbalistic something, something…with a tree of life.
S: So Jewish mysticism, basically. So on the tree of life, each of the cards have their place on that tree. And the higher up the tree you are, the closer to the divine source you are. And then you travel down the tree and experience various phases of life and emotion, et cetera, until you get to the bottom, which is material reality. Everything you’ve experienced becomes real. Uh, and then you cycle back to the top, back to the divine source again.
So for the piano, um, when I had a spread that, that spoke of being closer to the divine source, I had the piano playing up in its higher registers. And then as it got closer to the bottom, to the ground, the piano went down. So the higher, if you hear the piano going, noodling up really high, that’s up at the divine source of things. If you hear the piano kind of in the middle, that’s sort of where balance and harmony are. If the piano is down in the basement, that’s down in material reality.
And then in the meantime, you have all the other instruments that are reflecting on emotion or, um, you know, or, or thought, or power
D: …and character that may be interpreted…in countless ways. That’s the beauty of the idea of randomness, the beauty of the order, if you will, of randomness, that even random events will speak to us.
S: Exactly.
D: Once in a while, I really want to play an album, uh, for other people in my, you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. Um, what an amazing chamber piece. I say this is, uh, this long cello obbligato, then into the klezmer aesthetic I call, uh, with, with all of that playing. Now I understand the cabalistic, if you will, right. Uh, meaning to it all. Uh, but the klezmer, uh, aesthetic is, is clearly there. The, and of course the Oracle is a Jew, right? I say the Oracle is a Jew? Question mark.
A wonderful transition, transitional writing. And you know what I mean? Making segments and, and, uh, themes make sense. That transition material is very, very important to get it right. [Your] compositional savvy is top notch. I think I’ve been saying that, but the piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. It’s a complex narrative. Um, and as you have just described the instruments are characters.
S: They’re, they’re the suits of the, of the cards, but they do have sort of, they evoke their sort of, uh, certain characteristics about it.
D: Okay. That’s much more complex. Thank you. That clarifies.
This is quite a journey. So, and, uh, and then I say, um, a jaunty section now as CODA, I assume that’s a CODA. Uh, still a fun ending. I love it. I don’t think you can get any more, you know, any, any better than that.
Okay. Next is, is, uh, Wabi-Sabi, this, uh, uh, the aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese Wabi-Sabi encapsulates. Tell us about Wabi-Sabi. Is it animist or something? Is it part of their religion? Animist religion?
S: It can be. Uh, I’m trying to remember where it historically started. It actually started with monochromatic Chinese drawings and then the Japanese sort of took that ideal and enhanced it. A lot of people think of a Zen garden when they think of Wabi Sabi.
D: I see what you mean. Now I understand exactly what you mean. Even the artwork, strokes, you know, just very spare strokes.
S: Yeah. The tea ceremony. Um, everything about that ceremony is part of their Wabi Sabi aesthetic and metaphysical ideals.
D: I’m trying to remember this [for] parties.
S: Simplicity is, is a major part of it, but it goes beyond that. This, and this is what the string quartet throughout the three movements sort of encapsulates is that, uh, the beginning that, that…you know, in the west the idea of nothing is like zero, there’s nothing there. It’s very stark, but in Wabi Sabi ideas, um, nothing is full of potential. There’s a lot that could be there, but isn’t there yet.
D: That’s so profound.
S: Um, and then you go through, especially at the beginning of the first movement, sort of these random particles where the players can choose how they want to play it.
D: I understand that. We’re talking about the first movement Emergence, what have you just said that the players have some choice and they have choices.
S: So, so each of the players have a collection of notes that they can choose from to play. Uh, and they do it in different ways. Like the cello trills all their notes, but they can choose how they want to trill and how fast they want to trill and when they want to come in, uh, and things like that. Um, until they finally come together in the middle of the first movement and it sort of builds from there. So the idea is like that of creation of these particles coming into space and slowly merging together to become something.
D: And by the way, this sounds like an homage to Stockhausen, you know?
S: Yeah, absolutely.
D: Another great. Distance… these distant sounds… I remember performance, you know, Stockhausen, and it all comes together.
S: And then, and then Evolution is a short, it’s intentionally a short little two minute burst because that’s where everything is kind of locked in.
D: This is Evolution.
S: This is the, the cells are coming together and creating fish that are coming out of the water and, you know, becoming man. Um, et cetera. Possibility.
D: Alive with possibility, yeah. …Nothingness itself…
S: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then it gives way to Entropy, uh, and Entropy starts with a very strict structure. Uh, funnily enough, I wasn’t sure compositionally how I wanted to go about the third movement, but I was in the middle of teaching about isorhythm in one of my classes. So I’m like, Hey, I can do isorhythm with this. That’d be fun. So it starts out very strict, um, but then gets really complex and starts falling apart. And again, that’s the idea of returning back to nothingness. Everything’s falling apart.
Uh, and, and that’s the idea of, um, the idea that you, um, sometimes the best course of action is to decide to do nothing, you know…
D: I think you have just described an exact, uh, arc in the, they come together. I’m looking at Emergence. The first one builds quite satisfyingly. Uh, the construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect, I say to myself. And of course, if there, if you don’t get it off the ground, intellectually from the beginning, you’re in trouble… Ok, Evolution. Um, I love this, uh, I call it a flowing sea sort of opening. Or whatever that vibe could be. Anything, forget sea, whatever that undulating flowing thing…so mesmerizing. Again, wonderful quartet writing.
I’m going to have to stop using this word accessible, but that’s the whole idea to get these performed. And that’s exactly to be well written and also to be a happy time for an audience. Give me a break. And I, and here’s the thing about Evolution that it’s, uh, utterly accessible to the listener, though the subject, listening, but I think I got it. Although the subject matter may have sub-basements. Now a walking cello fits that, that walking cello thing. It’s wonderful to keep the piece moving and, and, uh, energetic. Um, quite a narrative.
S: It’s like a little metronome marking I have in the, uh, the second movement is “Like dancing molecules.”
D: Oh!
S: Kind of the spinning, whirling…
D: I might have to dream about that tonight. And the third movement, if you will, Entropy. It’s such a nice, uh, I, I, do I hear a little fugue…? I wanted… the stream of consciousness thing…fuguetto. You know what I mean? That opening is a, is it a genuine, but it’s a fuguetto, right?
S: Yeah, it’s, um, it starts out exactly as a canon. Then what happens is that each time the line comes back, uh, I either in diminution or augmentation. Uh, so I, I, like I said, if you see the score, um, I start doing crazy little sub meters within each of the parts just to help, just to help the players keep, keep time with each other, but yeah, that’s part of the unraveling part is they start very much together and then they start in like ratios of two to one or one to two, but yeah, then it starts getting into weird ratios…
D: …because I think I wondered about those, those asymmetrical collisions… A slightly dysfunctional intentional section. I’m toward the end here of pizz’s.
S: Well, the very ending, I go back to the beginning idea where the, each player has a selection of notes. They can pizz. whenever they want to. So each performance should be a little different than each other.
D: So the end of entropy, they go back to this idea and they can even change their mind about it.
S: Exactly.
D: Stockhausen, he’s smiling.
“Nevermore,” this major Sonata, I think for viola and piano from 2019 to 2021. Nevermore for viola and piano, also a subtitle of a Gothic Suite, so delightful, it’s an absolutely magnificent Sonata for viola and piano. It’s just absolutely, it’s so American, because we’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe and each movement is after one of his most famous pieces. But you have, I feel very powerfully about American composers choosing American subjects. The Raven, Annabelle Lee, the Telltale Heart.
S: Actually, Charlotte Goode, the violist on this recording, is actually another one of my bestest friends. And she is also a gothic nut and a fellow autistic. And she just, she was like, oh my gosh, we need to collaborate. We need to do this for viola. And I’m like, yes. So I started out with the Raven, you know, and she debuted that at a recital. And then I was like, okay, we need to come up with two other, you know, two other movements to finish it out. And the thing I love about the recording of this, again, this is so her, the viola part is so her, the subject matter is so her, and then I was lucky enough to be able to fly out with her to Boston to have her record it for PARMA. So…that day I went to Salem after we recorded it. So it was perfect.
D: You mean, the Witch Town or Salem, Oregon?
S: No, no, no, the Witch Town, yeah, Salem, Massachusetts.
D: So Poe inspired you to go to the seat of evil.
S: Exactly. It was so good.
D: Well, what I have to say is here, I worked on looking at the first movement. First of all, a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament, so congrats to your friend. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic.
S: Yeah, it is. I won’t play it on my viola. I’ll let somebody else do it. I’m not that good.
D: Well, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece, you know, and it’s romantic, there are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man, nice new idea… that roiling keyboard stuff toward the end of the piece, does that make any sense? Under viola, that middle and low register as it goes.
“Annabelle Lee.” It’s gorgeous, that movement is just gorgeous.
S: So beautiful, it’s one of my absolute favorites, just, and the poem, too, is just absolutely, it really struck me.
D: It brings you to tears, really, that poem.
S: It really does. I really wanted to capture that complete childlike innocence, just absolutely purest childlike innocent love of a little boy and a little girl. And then the angels cruelly take her away from him, you know, and just that drama.
D: And that’s the true story, isn’t it? Doesn’t he marry her, his wife, when she was 15, and then did she die? I can’t quite remember.
S: I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up.
D: We just missed the good parts that neither of us can remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Annabelle Lee speaks to a very personal experience.
S: I do know this was his last poem that he wrote before he died. That’s also a very haunting little tidbit. So, yeah, I love this movement so much. It actually, it was the hardest to record, too, because it’s deceptively simple. But it’s because it’s kind of like Mozart in that way, where it’s so simple and exposed that the violist has to be really careful and really in tune. So it took us a little bit longer to do this one.
D: Nice. Yeah, it’s a beautiful reading. I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking, and the floorboards… Then the beginning of real paranoia. I mean, you describe this tale very well.
S: Actually, I decided the best way to put it together was to take the story apart and make each of the sections of music a section of the story. So it’s probably the most narratively accurate of the three movements.
D: And that makes good sense to me.
S: Yeah, and in the music, each of the section headings has a little quote from the story. So you can kind of tell where you are in the story. But yeah, the idea of just. I wanted the opening theme that the viola starts playing is supposed to be sort of the love theme that the narrator has for his master.
“I loved the old man…It was his eye!” …you know, so it’s this really creepy. It’s a love song, but it’s twisted. It’s got something off.
So that’s where it opens. And then from there, then I get into the part where it’s for seven nights. He he peeks in at the bedroom. And so that section is like in seven four or something like that. It has odd. It’s asymmetrical. So, again, it feels a little off, you know, a little bit of the heartbeat taps and then, you know, stuff like that. And then little answering in the piano… And then you hear him murder him.
D: I call it shades of the shower scene in Psycho.
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Brava, I say after that.
S: …yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then you just get, like you say, the paranoia as the cops won’t leave. But the narrator keeps hearing the heartbeat and he can’t get away from it. And he just has to give up.
D: And indeed, it’s an internal conflict. Yeah, that’s the order of the soundscape. It’s kind of this internal conflict that becomes, you know, insupportable, disturbingly deliberate. And it’s so well done, well done.
So that’s a beautiful sonata. And as I mentioned, here it is. It’s a, it’s a viola sonata. It’s, it’s tough. Well, you know, at a certain level, you know, you almost want it to be. So it’s not inaccessible at all. It has a it has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
So take note, everybody. Nevermore for viola and piano.
And then now the last, the grand finale on the CD, The Dark Glass Sinfonia: We see through a glass darkly. For orchestra from 2017 built upon an integrated set…Oh, here you go again.
S: I love patterns!
D: …that’s why I pulled it. Because in all of my life in the arts and even at college, these things never came up in my experience. “Built,” she says, confident, “built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae.” End quote. I say to myself, please explain. You will, then you go on: “Free atonality with modal harmony…In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing emotional flux of the soul.”
S: This is another…it started out as just a love affair with patterns. And one thing, I’m not a major post-tonalist. You can tell from the accessibleness of my music. But I do love some of the number patterns that come about from, you know, post-tonal exercises. And hexachordal combinatoriality is one of my favorite ideas. I just love saying it. Hexachordal combinatoriality.
D: Yeah, I bet when you have students, they just sort of collapse.
S: Yeah, I’m like, OK, learn how to say it, you can impress all of your friends.
D: But then again, formulae is rather…
S: …It’s very pompous sounding…it’s basically it’s built upon the 12-tone ideal, but it breaks up the 12 tones into six tones, hexachords. So each of the hexachords has its own unique intervallic character to it. And so in the same way that you can take kind of the same way where I cheated with DodecaFunky, where I took segments of it and like transposed it, it’s kind of like that, but I did less cheating. Hexachords kind of do their own cheating because you can take one part of the tone row and then take the second half of it and flip it or reverse it. Or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then if you break them down into numbers, you can add them up into cool combinations and things like that. So that’s what this was. This piece was sort of a play on that and seeing what I could do with it. And that’s how I developed the main themes.
You really hear it come out, especially in the little woodwind stuff throughout the top. That’s really where it shines. But it really is woven into it.
D: The row shines?…
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Well, you must have been in heaven putting this piece together.
S: It was very, very fun. And again, and I don’t know how my brain does this, but what starts out with a whole bunch of numbers and patterns usually comes out as something really lovely that I continue to love listening to.
D: Well, guess what? That’s exactly the whole point of the genius of autism. You just exactly described what we’ve been kind of…that autism is, is just different.
S: You know, you know, that’s another thing that shines through with this orchestral piece, too, is that one of the comments sometimes I get from other people is, oh, why can’t you just have the instruments all stacked up on top of each other? You know, why can’t they all play at once? And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I like to have the layers. Somebody’s always doing something. And so there’s kind of a medievalness to it, you know, going back to that old polyphony idea. But then I’ll integrate it with these numbers and patterns. And I just love seeing it layer.
D: Speaking of layering, did I hear I see in my notes here. Is there any kind of pyramid that you constructed a sound pyramid somewhere in the beginning of that piece? Or is it a stupid word?
S: No it’s not stupid. I like to call it a waterfall, where…
D: Yeah, ….I got the idea of what you were creating there.
S: Yeah. The hexachordal pattern is there. But what I do is I pass it starting from the top and have it kind of trickle down like that.
D: So pyramid is not quite the right way of describing it. But I was hearing a very specific concept. And of course, thinking pyramid, I’m describing it as from the bottom up. But you’ve just described it as from top to trickle down, if you will.
Let’s see… There was a lovely little brass tune. I’m hearing that I’m hearing cinematic moments. Of course, it’s an orchestral piece. I’m sure you really got your teeth into that one.
Let’s see, lovely wind section work, as we’ve discussed, nicely orchestrated. Well, it’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible and a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece of what? I can’t remember. Seven minutes or…
S: Yeah, it’s only like seven minutes or so, which I have found, again, economically and just competition wise…
D: That’s exactly right.
S: People like shorter, shorter pieces.
D: That’s kind of what we ask, because then the next question is how? Because I’m again thinking collegiate orchestras. And then let’s see that as we’ve discussed, there’s that thematic return, you know, that the whole thing does a perfect arc. So there you go.
S: I just really love the very, very ending of it. When I first put it together and to me, it evoked sort of almost this organ, this organ like texture with. I just love the resonance… T
D: That section with percussion. That’s toward the end. I see more complicated in narrative in terms of just the construct of the piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible. It’s a perfect piece for a college orchestra if it’s in that sphere of capability.
S: Yeah. …that little fast march like scherzo thing. I kind of had a like a like a Russian, Russian romantic vibe almost or like early 20th century Russian vibe, you know, almost like kind of Shostakovich-esque, you know…
D: Each question mark was starting to rise out of my head there, the Shostakovich-ish.
S: Yeah, exactly.
D: What a great talk we’ve had. And I think just anybody could pick up that the world of our profession, of our music making, is the world at large. I mean, we speak to the wonderful, fascinating world around us. That’s the whole idea of being a creative person.
So, again, wonderful chat with composer Sarah Wallin Huff. And we’re talking about your 2023 Navona release. It’s contemporary classic chamber music for diverse instrumental combinations. You’ve heard this before. It’s called Shards. Don’t worry, anybody. It’s fine. And wonderful pieces that as we’ve discussed that are chamber works and then, of course, the orchestral piece at the very end.
But this is music that should be heard a lot more. And it’s not off the top of the charts of virtuosity. But, it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making with enough virtuosity to keep…Why did I say those of us who are gifted…busy…you know what I’m trying to say… I’m gonna shut my mouth up here.
Anyway, great fun chatting with you.
S: Thank you so much. I really I’m really flattered, you know, that you reached out.
D: Well, I’m flattered that I heard what I heard. I’ll tell you, because it’s always a gamble. I just sort of pick up, pick up whatever. And I thought I’ve never heard of this thing. Well, who is this person and what is that stuff? And that’s got us started.
It’s been a tremendous treat and a really important and a very important CD you’ve got. So, congratulations all around.
#chamberMusic #classical #Interview #orchestra #review #StudioRecording
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Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl
Back in the fall of 2023, right after the release of my second solo album with Navona, I got the opportunity to sit down with longtime American conductor, arts administrator, and music/theater/dance critic, Daniel Kepl, and talk with him about my album, SHARDS.
Unfortunately, the audio in that video interview was extremely unbalanced and distorted, so I took some time to try and clean it up, to make it as listenable as possible. So… that edited video is now here, below, ready for your viewing pleasure (complete with chapter breaks, if you’d prefer to jump around)!
While the pops and crackles and background noises are mostly gone, sometimes the words are still a little garbly, so I’ve embedded captions in the video and am providing a full transcript, for those who would prefer to read the discussion. If you would like to see the original unedited video, you can do that here.
Dan Kepl’s Review Highlights
The high points of Dan Kepl’s praise, as stated in the video below.
About the Album:
[SHARDS is] a wonderful album, very interesting and very accessible, if I may say. It’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music… This music is just simply gorgeous. You use instruments in the most magical way.
This is music that should be heard a lot more…it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making. It’s…a very important CD you’ve got.
About “Ayre of Grievances”:
It’s absolutely gorgeous. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece. The balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
About “DodecaFunky”:
I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire, this is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. It’s just a delicious piece, it’s aggressive in its funky way. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be on programming all over the place. This is irresistible. Audiences would love it, I think.
About “Of Roses and Lilies”:
It’s a beauty; a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. …this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. A flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
About “The Oracle”:
Once in a while, I really want to play [a track of] an album, uh, for other people…you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. What an amazing chamber piece. Wonderful transitional writing; compositional savvy is top notch. The piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. This piece is quite a journey.
About “Wabi-Sabi”:
The construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect…quite a narrative…wonderful quartet writing.
About “Nevermore”:
An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. …a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking…the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho – Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending.
About “The Dark Glass Sinfonia”:
…wonderful piece for orchestra, “The Dark Glass Sinfonia,” gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful.
Lovely wind section work…nicely orchestrated. It’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible…a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible.
Sept. 2023 Interview with Daniel Kepl (Edited, with Captions)Full [Edited] Interview Transcript
D: I’m chatting with composer Sarah Wallin Huff and we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release. Thank you, Parma. Thank you, Navona. Thank you, all of you wonderful people out there that put this, these kind of packages together. Just a quick aside about Navona, including everything that we need as critics, really somewhat truncated, makes perfect sense, but up on a website. And very few other companies do this. I just think it’s fabulous.
I’ve seen your interview, or I’ve read your interview, I should say, with Parma. And we’re going to talk about your 2023 Navona CD release of Contemporary Classical Chamber Works and an album for diverse instrumental combinations. Anyway, the CD is called Shards. Do not run away in the night and be afraid. It’s a wonderful album of very interesting and very accessible, if I may say so, and I think it’s perfectly OK to say so.
Here, just a sampling: Ayre of Grievances, for viola, violin, flute, lovely. The flute I wondered about. Those are pretty heavy instruments and the balancing and everything is wonderful in terms of your compositional skills.
DodecaFunky, let me say that once more. DodecaFunky, for piano, and it is cute… oh, did I miss one?
S: DodecaFunky.
D: Anyway, it’s cute. I think I can say it’s fun. It’s wonderful. And it’s a wonderful, very fascinating piano piece. Audiences would love it, I think.
“Of Roses and Lilies.” This one’s a little complex for soprano, piano, soprano recorder. Nice colors. Nice. English horn, very interesting. And women’s chorus. I mean, not since Holst have I heard women’s chorus used in this way.
So, Wabi-Sabi, it’s in three movements. Juventas, the new music ensemble performs it. This is a string quartet, so four players of the Juventas ensemble. I hope I’m pronouncing that right since I live in California. Three movements: Emergence, Evolution, Entropy. Very, very interesting. And maybe even kind of the heart of who you might be. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
The next piece, Nevermore for viola and piano, an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, three-movement sonata for viola and piano. The movements: The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart. And I love Poe, what a genius, what a genius. So glad you have included this wonderful, wonderful piece for viola and piano. And I mean by that, again, your compositional skills, the way you use these, didn’t you play viola? I thought I that read somewhere. Were you a violist?
S: I double on viola. I feel more comfortable on violin, but I can pick up a viola if I need it.
D: Okay. So you got all that stuff, you know, under your fingernails, so to say.
And then the last piece, wonderful piece for orchestra, The Dark Glass Sinfonia, gives me shivers, but it’s wonderful. And with a little subtype, if I’m reading it correctly: “We see through a glass darkly.” Wonderful piece, performed by wonderful people, while you really say it right out, right, and I just want to deal with this a little bit before I get to where you know, I’m going.
We all know people with autism and what I have found in my experience with people, and you know, autism is here, there, everywhere in various variations. You’re going to speak to it, I think in a bit, but the people that I have known with autism, some people have had troubles, others have been really, really talented, clever, and innovative. Autism is not a deficit. Okay.
S: Yeah. It’s a difference.
D: It’s a difference. Thank you. That’s better. Okay. Because I too, like most of, especially like with dyslexia, in the seventies, we all thought people with dyslexia were just lazy. Just didn’t want to do a job. Well, they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t read. Everything was backwards. My, my oldest nephew, uh, is dyslexic. So I just want everybody to understand…
And, and where are you in the autism spectrum? Can I ask that question?
S: Sure.
D: Of course, you’re clearly under great control. You have mastered the magic of autism.
S: Yeah. Well, what’s funny about that is I’ve actually only just in the past year, really got confirmation. Um, I’m still don’t have, yeah, I still don’t have an official diagnosis because that’s a whole other bag of worms for adult diagnosis and it costs thousands of dollars. And, uh, some doctors still don’t believe that women have it. Um, so, but just taking several screening tests, um, I’ve taken about five of the clinical screening tests and they all point very highly to autism. Um, and thinking about my experiences growing up, it really makes a lot of sense.
D: That’s what I was going to ask you next. You must have known, you know, that something was different.
S: Well, yeah. I, I thought something was always…
D: Can you give an example or two, you know, when you were a little kid. What I remember is the kids that I’ve known have various symptoms of autism.
S: Definitely. Um, emotional dysregulation, um, is still difficult where, well, and for me, because I kind of triggered emotional response to things like, um, there’s a famous phrase that “you don’t have enough spoons”, but the phrase means basically like, I only have so many ways of coping with life and when I’m out of those ways, I have to take a nap. I have to, I have to go to the corner for a second. And for different people, there’s different levels of that.
And growing up with a family who expected me to be normal. Um, I got really good at masking. I got really good at holding it all in, but then I’d get home and just. Like, um, I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except just sit there after school. Um, unfortunately I had to keep pushing through. Um, and so I just got used to doing that, hiding who I really was, you know?
D: Um, as you know, we talked, I’m very openly gay and…what we’re getting to, the bottom line is you have to be who you are. To keep these things secret or to try and work around who you are is exhausting, as you said. And just mentally, you know, exactly.
S: I’ve actually, I did actually get a diagnosis like 15 years ago for anxiety disorder and what I’ve discovered since then is that it is a part of the autism masking, just, I had been masking for 40 years. And so, um, that just built up a lot of anxiety in me for everything, you know? Um, but now that I’m just past year, starting to learn who I am and learn what my triggers are.
Um, I am very sensitive to sound, ironically enough, um, disorganized sound, I really have a hard time handling with, but music is organized sounds. So for me, my brain likes it, you know? Um, but yeah, so I’m just learning a lot more about myself and how my brain works and that it’s okay that my brain has trouble where other people seem to have things worked out, you know? And that’s okay.
D: You see, if you will, with your brain, things that we don’t, and so on. So, you know, I mean, that’s the beauty of all, for all of us. Uh, it’s the tremendous beauty of diversity.
Um… Let’s talk about Ancients. This is psycho-messaging to our brains. I mean, give me a break. It’s not random. It’s pure messaging to ourselves, uh, Tarot and all the rest of it. And I love traditions that have been there for 8,000 years. We’re going to talk about it. Cause you use, you do, you do this formula for a piece with Tarot cards that drives me crazy, but often told me it, speaking of what you had spoken to, uh, just a moment ago, when one gets kind of focused, the focus becomes quite, uh, extravagant. And was that for you? You really got into constructing this piece around Tarot.
S: Oh, yeah, I tend to, this tends to be a theme that I, if I hit on something that’s been very useful for me, um, mentally and psychologically, spiritually, I tend to write a piece about it. So that’s what the Oracle, the Oracle tended to be Tarot. I fell, fell onto, um, as a way to deal with my anxiety and it really, luckily, I had a therapist at the time who was open to the idea of me exploring my subconscious through the Tarot cards.
D: It’s about this idea of finding oneself, of reveling in these discoveries, uh, you know, and so is there any, can you give me a, um, what a topography of when, where, if even you feel now, like who you are, you know what I mean? How, what, what trajectory, where did you arrive? Have you arrived yet?
S: Um, well, definitely starting roughly a little less than a year ago when I finally did those, um, screenings for autism, like is when everything really started clicking and, and I did a lot of reading and, and, um, researching and, and finding others like me, you know, um, and it just helped click, you know, uh, it helped make, help me make sense of who I am and why I am the way I am.
Um, so often, especially throughout my whole life, um, I would be upset that I didn’t seem to be like everybody else. Even as a teacher, I mean, one of my favorite compliments from a student of mine was I’m the quirkiest teacher on campus. And I wear that like a badge. You know, I don’t teach like other teachers teach. I don’t think like other people think, and I’ve learned that that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Um, that diversity is a great thing.
D: So now we’re going to deal with the, uh, the product of your, uh, satisfactions, although this is, let’s see, 2023. I know these are recorded over a rather large span of time.
S: Maybe, uh, yeah, about five years or so.
D: So in other words, I guess what now has me curious is feeling where you are feeling now. Do you see, do you hear, see things in your focus on this CD?
S: I do actually. Um, the CD actually came about simply by virtue of, um, the way the economy works in the music recording industry and classical music, et cetera, where we just recorded piece by piece by piece as we could, um, and then finally had enough and say, Hey, let’s put together an album, you know…
D: And then let’s figure out how to pay for it. That’s what everybody watching this knows all about. It’s not like it [just] happens.
S: Exactly. Uh, so now, like I said, especially after these past several months, I look at the CD and I do really see it as if it’s sort of a culmination of my past 15 years or so, um, because all the pieces have been written, I think the earliest one was. Well, I think “Roses and Lilies” was what, like 2012 or something like that. Um, 2013, maybe.
D: Oh, well, we’ll find it.
S: I don’t remember.
D: Why did you use the word, “Shards”?
S: My husband picked it. He, he actually made up the title Ayre of Grievances too. He comes up with great titles. We thought about “Shards” because there are pieces like Dark Glass Sinfonia, so glass and, and breaking, uh, Wabi-Sabi is sort of like the fractal nature of life. And so you see shards of glass reflecting, reflecting different things, um, basically it’s supposed to be sort of the fragmentations of personality and life and spirituality.
D: That’s a good definition here. I was, I was expecting, uh, the, as I told you, I was expecting a wild ride. And by the way, everybody knows it isn’t, it’s absolutely a magnificent recording of simply superb music. This is what just blew me away.
In a way, this text that’s on your CD tells us how fresh the CD is. So it’s been put together. You’ve done that. It’s been five years. You’re there. And then it’s like, son of a gun.
“One inherent trait I possess is finding my emotional fulfillment through the active, creative manipulation of music.” And this fascinates me. I’m, I’m not a fix the watch kind of guy. I don’t get into the little details. I’m, I’m the conductor. I’m the, you know, I want the big pastel, you know, horses crossing the plains or something. You know, does that speak to your autism in a way, the focus?
S: I think so. The hyper fixation. I mean, there are times when I’m working on a piece that if my husband wasn’t there to remind me, I’d forget to eat, you know, I’ll just be like focused on these patterns and what else can I do with them? And, and, oh, that sounds really cool. Let me try this. Let’s see.
D: And you say, “I’m not, I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners.” That’s something that’s very important, “…but rather to facilitate a deeper connection with their inner selves.” Now, I’m not quite sure what kind of, what kind of a labyrinth you just, you know, created with those words. “I’m not seeking to impose specific emotions on listeners” yet, “I would like them to get in touch with their deeper…” you know, you know what I mean, you’re clever, aren’t you?
S: Well, that’s a question I get a lot is, well, how do you want the audience to feel? Even, even composition teachers… “How do you want them to feel?” And, and I think that’s another part of my autism. I relate to emotions differently than some other people do from what I can tell. Um, I, for me, the emotion and joy comes from the patterns. And so that’s what it is for me. Um, you know, it can be a completely atonal piece and if the patterns are cool then I’m getting such delight out of it. Uh, but for other people that might not be the case and I totally recognize that. So I’m hoping through my music, even though I might find joy in places they won’t, um, that they’ll still find something that they can resonate with.
D: Oh, that was very well, well, spracht and I can only agree with you because as I think I mentioned to you and probably everybody else and probably about three times already by now, but that was the shock. This music is just simply gorgeous. And I was expecting a few more “shards”, something expecting something, something a little, little more fractious, if you will.
The first piece on the, on the CD is Ayre of Grievances. I love the spelling. I presume clever, uh, you know, and, and, uh, awfully medieval or something. For viola, violin, and flute. It’s from 2020. So that’s a bad year. Oh my God.
S: Hence the grievances.
D: Hence the grievances is right. Uh, composed during the worldwide COVID epidemic. And you and I’ve talked about it. People are not yet clear how profoundly we as a planet of human beings and animals have been affected. This is going to take another half dozen years if we don’t have World War Three somewhere in between to sort it out. So it’s a, this was a big thing. And the biggest thing in my life, maybe, uh, to go through. So, Ayre of Grievances, and, uh, and, you know, you set us up with all the frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger, and I’m going, Oh, can’t wait.
And I put it on. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. I totally did not expect it. Here’s a bit of my stream of consciousness, totally not expecting such… well, tonality. It’s wonderful already. Tense, beautifully crafted, thoroughly contemporarily classical. I mean, it’s, it’s totally accessible. And I, again, I almost want to spit when I say that word, but I think it’s okay now to use that, to create accessible music, um, things get a little crazy and frustrated.
You mentioned in your program notes, there’s that frustration and you describe it very well. How, although in my case, I just went comatose and just stared out the windows for two years and allowed the checks to come in. Cause I was a freelancer unemployed and boy, the money was better than I’ve ever received. Thank you, Uncle Sam, but, but so I didn’t really experience a whole lot of frustration. I just sort of couldn’t believe what was going on for about two years.
In other words, there is a narrative to this piece, Ayre of Grievances. Um, but I think it, you know, it is much more than the sum of its narrative is what I’m trying to say. Uh, tonalities are altogether satisfying throughout the piece.
Go, give me an overview. What was this about for you?
S: During the, during the lockdowns for me, it was frustrating. Well, because… guy, giving three hour lectures on zoom, I never want to do that again. Oh my gosh. Not being able to see anybody, not being able to see family. Um, that was really frustrating, but at the same time, because I wasn’t able to play live concerts, like I had been, um, it gave me a chance to sit down and really think about who I am.
Um, up until that point, it was very much, oh, I’m a major violinist and a composer and a teacher at all at once.
D: Don’t forget viola… and viola too.
S: Yes. I love the viola. Um, but then I came to realize. I really much prefer writing, uh, and recording. Uh, so I, I allowed myself to let go of the, the things that maybe didn’t bring me quite as much joy. So when things did open back up, I’m, I’m being more careful to balance my life, uh, with what really brings me more joy and less stress, hopefully. Um, that’s, that’s what that piece really sort of represented is it was frustrating. It was lonely. I was angry at the world. Um, but at the same time, there was some beauty in there and some peace.
And, um, and I just love the interaction of the three parts. They’re both, they’re all three very independent, but they speak together and sometimes they’re arguing with each other. Sometimes they’re singing with each other and supporting each other. And, um, I just really liked that intimacy of the work.
D: Well, that whole narrative thing about what you’re very good, uh, you know, voices, uh, having discussions between each other, but I found, and I may sound like I’m an idiot or something, but when I saw that viola, violin, flute, I told you earlier, I thought, I remember thinking that’s going to be tricky, you know, that the flute doesn’t get lost, and all of that works beautifully. And that is not about, you know, microphones. It’s about the way you wrote the piece. Using those three instruments. So, so beautifully. And later you use instruments in the most magical way.
S: Yeah, we actually debuted it during the pandemic where I recorded the violin and viola part. And then I recorded a friend of mine playing the flute part and we just did one of those YouTube stitched videos where we stitched our videos together. That was the thing.
D: Yeah. Am I pronouncing it reasonably close? “DodecaFunky” And of course we’re playing, playing with, uh, dodeca cacophony or something. You can fill me in on that. There’s all this funny stuff going on. That’s all inside stuff for musicians.
It’s for flute and piano from 2015. I think you mentioned this might be the earliest piece, maybe…
S: “Of Roses and Lilies”, I actually wrote the original piece for voice and piano in like the early aughts. But then I went back and fleshed it out and sort of made it fuller.
D: So then you know, the early aughts, I love that. So DodecaFunky, uh, flute and piano. I want to tell everybody out there that’s looking for a repertoire. This is a beauty. This is a recital beauty. A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work. Is that me or you?
S: I think it’s me.
D: I think it was you. So it… “exploits various manipulations”. Oh, here you go. Yeah, it is you… “of a 12 tone row (dodecaphony).” I’m supposed to be a musician and I couldn’t care less how it’s pronounced or even what it is these days. It’s just the serial melody to a backdrop, et cetera, et cetera. But the point of, oh, this is why it’s so cute. A hard bop and swing and, uh, and stuff. It’s just a delicious piece. And it’s, it’s aggressive in its funky way. I say about the opening, while the piano adds to the delightful confusion with various playful styles, a pause and it starts to get feisty. Uh, now I don’t know where I am in the piece, but now some casual virtuoso boogie woogie, boogie funky, uh, it’s a delight.
It’s kind of a series of descriptive tableau. Am I closer? Cause I love dance. I, you know, I reviewed dance a lot and these are like little tableau. It’s wonderful to the max. Should be, uh, on programming all over the place. It’s a beauty.
Tell me, tell me, what do you think? What do you think of this?
S: I love this piece. It just makes, it makes me giggle.
D: It’s just a charm. Beautiful. It’s so cute.
S: Thank you, thank you.
D: Again, if you, you’ll forgive me the accessibility word. This is irresistible. Of course, you know what I’m trying to say?
S: I’m glad you like it. That one actually took a little bit of inspiration from Bernstein. Um, I, I love, uh, I was studying his symphony, Age of Anxiety. Oh, and I love how he merged, well, he merged…
D: By the way, you know, I’m a conductor. Uh, and I know all three of those symphonies very, very well. I’ve never conducted them because they’re too hard. “Jeremiah” I could conduct. That one makes sense. Uh, the, the age of anxiety for piano and orchestra is unbelievable, but it’s also unbelievably difficult to conduct, you know? And then Kaddish, he wrote the original and then tore it all to pieces and stuff. So, but anyway, I just want, I’m so glad somebody also has studied [those works]. Anyway, excuse me.
S: That’s okay. Uh, but yeah, I really loved the idea of merging modernist, modernistic tendencies as Bernstein would say, um, with jazz and other accessible popular genres. And so that’s what I did with this flute piece is I took a 12 tone row and it is an authentic 12 tone row, but I, you could say I cheated, I cheated a little bit because I used transpositions. So what I would do is it’s still the same row, but I would transpose fragments of it to places that I liked it, where it fit better.
D: Arnold [Schoenberg] is turning into his grave.
S: Well, this is true. Ah but see, Stravinsky did it first. So, you know, let’s blame him.
It’s still, it still has the same intervallic structures. Um, but then I back it up, with that really jazzy, different, like you say, different tableaus of different jazzy styles to kind of increase the…
D: It’s a great dance piece…
S: That’d be fun.
D: In other words, there’s lots of possibilities.
Okay. We’re going to move on.
“Of Roses and Lilies”, this is for soprano, piano, soprano recorder, which I don’t think I hear very often used in these kinds of chamber pieces. And it’s a perfect color. English horn… what got into you ?…and women’s chorus. And then the, are there strings there? I have this question.
S: String orchestra.
D: String orchestra, because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it in the, in the brief and it’s from 2013, so we’re getting closer to, to the bottom of the stack here. Tell us about it.
S: This one’s a really fascinating piece for me. I, like I said, I had first written it many, many, many, several decades ago. And this was written…
D: Don’t be so hard on yourself…It’s only been 10 years…
S: But the original piece for just soprano and piano was written, like I said, in the late nineties or early aughts, um, this was when I was still with my very Christian family, um, yeah, there you go. And so I fell in love with the song of Solomon and I thought, why don’t I write quick snippets of the song of Solomon and put it together as sort of a love song. And so I did. And, um, eventually just another like 10 years or so down the road, I’d said, you know what, I really love this piece. I’m going to flesh it out. So, um, I took the original just two parts and added the strings and added the color of the soprano recorder and the English horn, um, and, you know, added the women’s chorus as sort of this almost Greek chorus kind of response thing.
So it’s a very, it’s a very different piece. Uh, it’s a very dramatic kind of theater-esque, drama-esque kind of, uh, kind of a feel.
D: And you don’t use the word romantic. It reeks of romanticism. I see in my notes there, a rich tapestry of sound and a highly romantic tonal aesthetic. I was not ready for that.
S: Well, actually, uh, every, everybody don’t hate on me, but I actually recorded it myself. So it’s only, it’s only two microphones with, uh, the soloist, Claire is one of my best friends and she teaches at Azusa. So she was able to grab us a classroom. And so I recorded with the two microphones, her and another good friend of mine, the pianist, Lydia. Um, and at the time we weren’t sure if I was just going to put together a digital background to it and like release it online or something. But, you know, this CD was coming to the, coming toward finishing and I was like, you know, this would be really awesome if we can get the rest of it recorded.
So I, yeah, I took two more sessions. I got the strings and the winds together for one session. Uh, and then I finally got the women’s chorus together for a session.
D: So that makes sense too. Very hard undertaking just in terms of production.
S: Yeah, it’s such a good, such a good learning experience. And again, so many of my dear, dear friends are on that recording and it’s just, it was just so special to me.
D: It’s something else. And I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because we want to get this, these pieces performed. It’s a beauty. It’s very accessible. So it doesn’t sound terribly hard to put together. What do you think? Am I all wet? I don’t know, but just, it seemed very, it seemed to just flow pretty freely.
S: Here’s the… I would say, here’s the danger with my music. And, um, especially with this piece, this has happened before. There have been pianists who think they can sight read it and they suddenly quit. It’s like, oh, I can’t sight read this. So this is something my very first composition teacher warned me about is that my music seems really easy. But then you dig into it and there are some little quirks in there and some tricks that you might not be expecting. So as long as you know…
D: It shouldn’t be a big problem. If you know what I mean, so I think I’m okay in saying that I think it’s not like, you know…
S: It’s not terrible.
D: Yeah…[not] terribly virtuosic. And that is, that is to say this should go off the shelf and into performance and rehearsal. And that’s exactly what I see. Nothing but college, college ensemble. Because of the difficulty of getting, you know, professionals together in that kind of complex, you know, but, but, so I found it really very, very…a flowing, lovely, entirely tonal journey. The soprano recorder is charming. Your writing is absolutely first-class. You handle transitions of mood with smooth aplomb. Boy, that came out of my head. Geez. The piece soars with beauty. Your compositional savvy and skill are beyond question.
S: Thank you.
D: Let’s see. Now this is “The Oracle,” for violin, cello, flute and piccolo, clarinet, piano. That’s from 2016. Go ahead. Tell us, but the bottom line is you constructed this thing from random throws of tarot cards. Go.
S: Exactly. Okay. So…
D: Aleatoric indeed!
S: Uh, I really, like I said, this was the time in my life when I had just really started to latch on to tarot as a means of exploring my own subconscious.
D: Which is correct, by the way. Let’s make sure. Exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, let the self-conscious speak to us.
S: Exactly. I like to think of it, it’s like a mirror for myself. It’s a way for me to talk to myself when sometimes I’m having trouble understanding my brain. So, uh, I really love tarot and I wrote this when I first really started getting into it. And so what I did is, um, I had an opportunity. It was like a call for scores for this ensemble. Uh, and so I was like, this will be fun. Why don’t I use that as an excuse to try it out?
So, and I wanted to do sort of a homage to John Cage by using an aleatoric kind of method. And so tarot seemed like the perfect way to do it. So I set up, um, I think it was five different spreads of 10 cards. I think I did like, um, some kind of a sacred pyramid, uh, spread for each of those. Um, and what I did is I, I assigned certain, you know, in tarot, the different suits represent different aspects of life and personality.
So you have the cups, which is emotion. Um, you have, you know, the, uh, the pentacles, uh, the pentacles are, uh, earth, uh, and, um, material wellbeing and reality and such. Uh, so what I did is I attached each of the instruments to those suits. The, uh, violin was fire, uh, or wands. Uh, the, uh, the cello was water or cups and the, uh, the clarinet was earth and the flute, of course, was air. And then for the piano, uh, I made the piano, the tree of life itself. Uh, because I like to read tarot from a Kabbalistic tree of life sort of interpretation.
D: You’re starting to get over my head. I thought I was with you pretty well, but Kabbalistic something, something…with a tree of life.
S: So Jewish mysticism, basically. So on the tree of life, each of the cards have their place on that tree. And the higher up the tree you are, the closer to the divine source you are. And then you travel down the tree and experience various phases of life and emotion, et cetera, until you get to the bottom, which is material reality. Everything you’ve experienced becomes real. Uh, and then you cycle back to the top, back to the divine source again.
So for the piano, um, when I had a spread that, that spoke of being closer to the divine source, I had the piano playing up in its higher registers. And then as it got closer to the bottom, to the ground, the piano went down. So the higher, if you hear the piano going, noodling up really high, that’s up at the divine source of things. If you hear the piano kind of in the middle, that’s sort of where balance and harmony are. If the piano is down in the basement, that’s down in material reality.
And then in the meantime, you have all the other instruments that are reflecting on emotion or, um, you know, or, or thought, or power
D: …and character that may be interpreted…in countless ways. That’s the beauty of the idea of randomness, the beauty of the order, if you will, of randomness, that even random events will speak to us.
S: Exactly.
D: Once in a while, I really want to play an album, uh, for other people in my, you know, over a dinner or something. This is one of them. Um, what an amazing chamber piece. I say this is, uh, this long cello obbligato, then into the klezmer aesthetic I call, uh, with, with all of that playing. Now I understand the cabalistic, if you will, right. Uh, meaning to it all. Uh, but the klezmer, uh, aesthetic is, is clearly there. The, and of course the Oracle is a Jew, right? I say the Oracle is a Jew? Question mark.
A wonderful transition, transitional writing. And you know what I mean? Making segments and, and, uh, themes make sense. That transition material is very, very important to get it right. [Your] compositional savvy is top notch. I think I’ve been saying that, but the piece is a wonderful narrative. It’s complex. It’s a complex narrative. Um, and as you have just described the instruments are characters.
S: They’re, they’re the suits of the, of the cards, but they do have sort of, they evoke their sort of, uh, certain characteristics about it.
D: Okay. That’s much more complex. Thank you. That clarifies.
This is quite a journey. So, and, uh, and then I say, um, a jaunty section now as CODA, I assume that’s a CODA. Uh, still a fun ending. I love it. I don’t think you can get any more, you know, any, any better than that.
Okay. Next is, is, uh, Wabi-Sabi, this, uh, uh, the aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese Wabi-Sabi encapsulates. Tell us about Wabi-Sabi. Is it animist or something? Is it part of their religion? Animist religion?
S: It can be. Uh, I’m trying to remember where it historically started. It actually started with monochromatic Chinese drawings and then the Japanese sort of took that ideal and enhanced it. A lot of people think of a Zen garden when they think of Wabi Sabi.
D: I see what you mean. Now I understand exactly what you mean. Even the artwork, strokes, you know, just very spare strokes.
S: Yeah. The tea ceremony. Um, everything about that ceremony is part of their Wabi Sabi aesthetic and metaphysical ideals.
D: I’m trying to remember this [for] parties.
S: Simplicity is, is a major part of it, but it goes beyond that. This, and this is what the string quartet throughout the three movements sort of encapsulates is that, uh, the beginning that, that…you know, in the west the idea of nothing is like zero, there’s nothing there. It’s very stark, but in Wabi Sabi ideas, um, nothing is full of potential. There’s a lot that could be there, but isn’t there yet.
D: That’s so profound.
S: Um, and then you go through, especially at the beginning of the first movement, sort of these random particles where the players can choose how they want to play it.
D: I understand that. We’re talking about the first movement Emergence, what have you just said that the players have some choice and they have choices.
S: So, so each of the players have a collection of notes that they can choose from to play. Uh, and they do it in different ways. Like the cello trills all their notes, but they can choose how they want to trill and how fast they want to trill and when they want to come in, uh, and things like that. Um, until they finally come together in the middle of the first movement and it sort of builds from there. So the idea is like that of creation of these particles coming into space and slowly merging together to become something.
D: And by the way, this sounds like an homage to Stockhausen, you know?
S: Yeah, absolutely.
D: Another great. Distance… these distant sounds… I remember performance, you know, Stockhausen, and it all comes together.
S: And then, and then Evolution is a short, it’s intentionally a short little two minute burst because that’s where everything is kind of locked in.
D: This is Evolution.
S: This is the, the cells are coming together and creating fish that are coming out of the water and, you know, becoming man. Um, et cetera. Possibility.
D: Alive with possibility, yeah. …Nothingness itself…
S: Yeah, exactly. Um, and then it gives way to Entropy, uh, and Entropy starts with a very strict structure. Uh, funnily enough, I wasn’t sure compositionally how I wanted to go about the third movement, but I was in the middle of teaching about isorhythm in one of my classes. So I’m like, Hey, I can do isorhythm with this. That’d be fun. So it starts out very strict, um, but then gets really complex and starts falling apart. And again, that’s the idea of returning back to nothingness. Everything’s falling apart.
Uh, and, and that’s the idea of, um, the idea that you, um, sometimes the best course of action is to decide to do nothing, you know…
D: I think you have just described an exact, uh, arc in the, they come together. I’m looking at Emergence. The first one builds quite satisfyingly. Uh, the construct is fascinating and sensible to the intellect, I say to myself. And of course, if there, if you don’t get it off the ground, intellectually from the beginning, you’re in trouble… Ok, Evolution. Um, I love this, uh, I call it a flowing sea sort of opening. Or whatever that vibe could be. Anything, forget sea, whatever that undulating flowing thing…so mesmerizing. Again, wonderful quartet writing.
I’m going to have to stop using this word accessible, but that’s the whole idea to get these performed. And that’s exactly to be well written and also to be a happy time for an audience. Give me a break. And I, and here’s the thing about Evolution that it’s, uh, utterly accessible to the listener, though the subject, listening, but I think I got it. Although the subject matter may have sub-basements. Now a walking cello fits that, that walking cello thing. It’s wonderful to keep the piece moving and, and, uh, energetic. Um, quite a narrative.
S: It’s like a little metronome marking I have in the, uh, the second movement is “Like dancing molecules.”
D: Oh!
S: Kind of the spinning, whirling…
D: I might have to dream about that tonight. And the third movement, if you will, Entropy. It’s such a nice, uh, I, I, do I hear a little fugue…? I wanted… the stream of consciousness thing…fuguetto. You know what I mean? That opening is a, is it a genuine, but it’s a fuguetto, right?
S: Yeah, it’s, um, it starts out exactly as a canon. Then what happens is that each time the line comes back, uh, I either in diminution or augmentation. Uh, so I, I, like I said, if you see the score, um, I start doing crazy little sub meters within each of the parts just to help, just to help the players keep, keep time with each other, but yeah, that’s part of the unraveling part is they start very much together and then they start in like ratios of two to one or one to two, but yeah, then it starts getting into weird ratios…
D: …because I think I wondered about those, those asymmetrical collisions… A slightly dysfunctional intentional section. I’m toward the end here of pizz’s.
S: Well, the very ending, I go back to the beginning idea where the, each player has a selection of notes. They can pizz. whenever they want to. So each performance should be a little different than each other.
D: So the end of entropy, they go back to this idea and they can even change their mind about it.
S: Exactly.
D: Stockhausen, he’s smiling.
“Nevermore,” this major Sonata, I think for viola and piano from 2019 to 2021. Nevermore for viola and piano, also a subtitle of a Gothic Suite, so delightful, it’s an absolutely magnificent Sonata for viola and piano. It’s just absolutely, it’s so American, because we’re talking about Edgar Allan Poe and each movement is after one of his most famous pieces. But you have, I feel very powerfully about American composers choosing American subjects. The Raven, Annabelle Lee, the Telltale Heart.
S: Actually, Charlotte Goode, the violist on this recording, is actually another one of my bestest friends. And she is also a gothic nut and a fellow autistic. And she just, she was like, oh my gosh, we need to collaborate. We need to do this for viola. And I’m like, yes. So I started out with the Raven, you know, and she debuted that at a recital. And then I was like, okay, we need to come up with two other, you know, two other movements to finish it out. And the thing I love about the recording of this, again, this is so her, the viola part is so her, the subject matter is so her, and then I was lucky enough to be able to fly out with her to Boston to have her record it for PARMA. So…that day I went to Salem after we recorded it. So it was perfect.
D: You mean, the Witch Town or Salem, Oregon?
S: No, no, no, the Witch Town, yeah, Salem, Massachusetts.
D: So Poe inspired you to go to the seat of evil.
S: Exactly. It was so good.
D: Well, what I have to say is here, I worked on looking at the first movement. First of all, a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it’s followed by the viola’s intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament, so congrats to your friend. It’s a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic.
S: Yeah, it is. I won’t play it on my viola. I’ll let somebody else do it. I’m not that good.
D: Well, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece, you know, and it’s romantic, there are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man, nice new idea… that roiling keyboard stuff toward the end of the piece, does that make any sense? Under viola, that middle and low register as it goes.
“Annabelle Lee.” It’s gorgeous, that movement is just gorgeous.
S: So beautiful, it’s one of my absolute favorites, just, and the poem, too, is just absolutely, it really struck me.
D: It brings you to tears, really, that poem.
S: It really does. I really wanted to capture that complete childlike innocence, just absolutely purest childlike innocent love of a little boy and a little girl. And then the angels cruelly take her away from him, you know, and just that drama.
D: And that’s the true story, isn’t it? Doesn’t he marry her, his wife, when she was 15, and then did she die? I can’t quite remember.
S: I don’t remember. I’d have to look it up.
D: We just missed the good parts that neither of us can remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Annabelle Lee speaks to a very personal experience.
S: I do know this was his last poem that he wrote before he died. That’s also a very haunting little tidbit. So, yeah, I love this movement so much. It actually, it was the hardest to record, too, because it’s deceptively simple. But it’s because it’s kind of like Mozart in that way, where it’s so simple and exposed that the violist has to be really careful and really in tune. So it took us a little bit longer to do this one.
D: Nice. Yeah, it’s a beautiful reading. I call it magical writing. It’s exceptionally sensitive.
The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It’s exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking, and the floorboards… Then the beginning of real paranoia. I mean, you describe this tale very well.
S: Actually, I decided the best way to put it together was to take the story apart and make each of the sections of music a section of the story. So it’s probably the most narratively accurate of the three movements.
D: And that makes good sense to me.
S: Yeah, and in the music, each of the section headings has a little quote from the story. So you can kind of tell where you are in the story. But yeah, the idea of just. I wanted the opening theme that the viola starts playing is supposed to be sort of the love theme that the narrator has for his master.
“I loved the old man…It was his eye!” …you know, so it’s this really creepy. It’s a love song, but it’s twisted. It’s got something off.
So that’s where it opens. And then from there, then I get into the part where it’s for seven nights. He he peeks in at the bedroom. And so that section is like in seven four or something like that. It has odd. It’s asymmetrical. So, again, it feels a little off, you know, a little bit of the heartbeat taps and then, you know, stuff like that. And then little answering in the piano… And then you hear him murder him.
D: I call it shades of the shower scene in Psycho.
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Brava, I say after that.
S: …yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then you just get, like you say, the paranoia as the cops won’t leave. But the narrator keeps hearing the heartbeat and he can’t get away from it. And he just has to give up.
D: And indeed, it’s an internal conflict. Yeah, that’s the order of the soundscape. It’s kind of this internal conflict that becomes, you know, insupportable, disturbingly deliberate. And it’s so well done, well done.
So that’s a beautiful sonata. And as I mentioned, here it is. It’s a, it’s a viola sonata. It’s, it’s tough. Well, you know, at a certain level, you know, you almost want it to be. So it’s not inaccessible at all. It has a it has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.
So take note, everybody. Nevermore for viola and piano.
And then now the last, the grand finale on the CD, The Dark Glass Sinfonia: We see through a glass darkly. For orchestra from 2017 built upon an integrated set…Oh, here you go again.
S: I love patterns!
D: …that’s why I pulled it. Because in all of my life in the arts and even at college, these things never came up in my experience. “Built,” she says, confident, “built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae.” End quote. I say to myself, please explain. You will, then you go on: “Free atonality with modal harmony…In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing emotional flux of the soul.”
S: This is another…it started out as just a love affair with patterns. And one thing, I’m not a major post-tonalist. You can tell from the accessibleness of my music. But I do love some of the number patterns that come about from, you know, post-tonal exercises. And hexachordal combinatoriality is one of my favorite ideas. I just love saying it. Hexachordal combinatoriality.
D: Yeah, I bet when you have students, they just sort of collapse.
S: Yeah, I’m like, OK, learn how to say it, you can impress all of your friends.
D: But then again, formulae is rather…
S: …It’s very pompous sounding…it’s basically it’s built upon the 12-tone ideal, but it breaks up the 12 tones into six tones, hexachords. So each of the hexachords has its own unique intervallic character to it. And so in the same way that you can take kind of the same way where I cheated with DodecaFunky, where I took segments of it and like transposed it, it’s kind of like that, but I did less cheating. Hexachords kind of do their own cheating because you can take one part of the tone row and then take the second half of it and flip it or reverse it. Or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then if you break them down into numbers, you can add them up into cool combinations and things like that. So that’s what this was. This piece was sort of a play on that and seeing what I could do with it. And that’s how I developed the main themes.
You really hear it come out, especially in the little woodwind stuff throughout the top. That’s really where it shines. But it really is woven into it.
D: The row shines?…
S: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
D: Well, you must have been in heaven putting this piece together.
S: It was very, very fun. And again, and I don’t know how my brain does this, but what starts out with a whole bunch of numbers and patterns usually comes out as something really lovely that I continue to love listening to.
D: Well, guess what? That’s exactly the whole point of the genius of autism. You just exactly described what we’ve been kind of…that autism is, is just different.
S: You know, you know, that’s another thing that shines through with this orchestral piece, too, is that one of the comments sometimes I get from other people is, oh, why can’t you just have the instruments all stacked up on top of each other? You know, why can’t they all play at once? And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I like to have the layers. Somebody’s always doing something. And so there’s kind of a medievalness to it, you know, going back to that old polyphony idea. But then I’ll integrate it with these numbers and patterns. And I just love seeing it layer.
D: Speaking of layering, did I hear I see in my notes here. Is there any kind of pyramid that you constructed a sound pyramid somewhere in the beginning of that piece? Or is it a stupid word?
S: No it’s not stupid. I like to call it a waterfall, where…
D: Yeah, ….I got the idea of what you were creating there.
S: Yeah. The hexachordal pattern is there. But what I do is I pass it starting from the top and have it kind of trickle down like that.
D: So pyramid is not quite the right way of describing it. But I was hearing a very specific concept. And of course, thinking pyramid, I’m describing it as from the bottom up. But you’ve just described it as from top to trickle down, if you will.
Let’s see… There was a lovely little brass tune. I’m hearing that I’m hearing cinematic moments. Of course, it’s an orchestral piece. I’m sure you really got your teeth into that one.
Let’s see, lovely wind section work, as we’ve discussed, nicely orchestrated. Well, it’s brilliant and wonderful and very accessible and a beautiful, beautiful orchestral piece of what? I can’t remember. Seven minutes or…
S: Yeah, it’s only like seven minutes or so, which I have found, again, economically and just competition wise…
D: That’s exactly right.
S: People like shorter, shorter pieces.
D: That’s kind of what we ask, because then the next question is how? Because I’m again thinking collegiate orchestras. And then let’s see that as we’ve discussed, there’s that thematic return, you know, that the whole thing does a perfect arc. So there you go.
S: I just really love the very, very ending of it. When I first put it together and to me, it evoked sort of almost this organ, this organ like texture with. I just love the resonance… T
D: That section with percussion. That’s toward the end. I see more complicated in narrative in terms of just the construct of the piece. Definitely descriptive, martial, perfectly accessible. It’s a perfect piece for a college orchestra if it’s in that sphere of capability.
S: Yeah. …that little fast march like scherzo thing. I kind of had a like a like a Russian, Russian romantic vibe almost or like early 20th century Russian vibe, you know, almost like kind of Shostakovich-esque, you know…
D: Each question mark was starting to rise out of my head there, the Shostakovich-ish.
S: Yeah, exactly.
D: What a great talk we’ve had. And I think just anybody could pick up that the world of our profession, of our music making, is the world at large. I mean, we speak to the wonderful, fascinating world around us. That’s the whole idea of being a creative person.
So, again, wonderful chat with composer Sarah Wallin Huff. And we’re talking about your 2023 Navona release. It’s contemporary classic chamber music for diverse instrumental combinations. You’ve heard this before. It’s called Shards. Don’t worry, anybody. It’s fine. And wonderful pieces that as we’ve discussed that are chamber works and then, of course, the orchestral piece at the very end.
But this is music that should be heard a lot more. And it’s not off the top of the charts of virtuosity. But, it’s just good, solid, wonderful music-making with enough virtuosity to keep…Why did I say those of us who are gifted…busy…you know what I’m trying to say… I’m gonna shut my mouth up here.
Anyway, great fun chatting with you.
S: Thank you so much. I really I’m really flattered, you know, that you reached out.
D: Well, I’m flattered that I heard what I heard. I’ll tell you, because it’s always a gamble. I just sort of pick up, pick up whatever. And I thought I’ve never heard of this thing. Well, who is this person and what is that stuff? And that’s got us started.
It’s been a tremendous treat and a really important and a very important CD you’ve got. So, congratulations all around.
#chamberMusic #classical #Interview #orchestra #review #StudioRecording
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Adventures in the Fediverse.
-a short thread, summarising the key stuff I've learnt.
#welcome #FediTips #new #newHere #help #newbies #newbiesWelcome #Fediverse
RE: https://calckey.social/notes/9er7rlxy6r -
Click here 🧠 to expand.
Your wisdom and opinions here are greatly appreciated. The oppression of POC was, and is an ongoing plague on society. MLK and his wisdoms have always inspired and fueled my fight for Invisible Disability Rights (IDR) as well.To paraphrase your statement, I feel it is equally important to:
"listen to the (disabled) community, uplift their voices, celebrate their achievements, and lend support in the ongoing fight for (disability) justice and equality.Below are two articles. One about oppression and one about a great achievement from a black woman who is a hero to people with invisible disabilities. Lois Curtis' landmark SCOTUS case is touted as the "Brown vs Board Education" for persons with invisible disabilities yet, so few know who she is and fail to honor her for what she did.
Two of my favorites from MLK:
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it,” King said. “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Oppression:
https://kolektiva.social/@OutOfExile_IDR_Voice/109549519506159425Achievement of Lois Curtis:
https://kolektiva.social/@OutOfExile_IDR_Voice/109690867328587920#equality #change #amplify #inclusion #support #listen #BLM #EndBigotry #EndAbleism #disability #MentalHealth #DevelopmentalDisabilities #IntellectualDisabilities #TBI
#DisabilitySolidarity #Love4All #DisabilityCommunity #InvisibleDisabilityRights #Legend #LoisCurtis #MLK #ElaineWilson #OlmsteadDecision #JohnLewis MartinLutherKingJr #heros -
These anti-intellectual idiots think manufacturing is where it's at because they don't understand jobs where you use your brain and education.
Tuberville says Trump’s tariffs ‘only shot’ at ‘getting our country back’
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5197441-tuberville-trump-tariffs/#TommyStupidville #Alabama #UseYourBrain #Manufacturing #USPol
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Further to the last boosted post about the lawsuit against GitHub Copilot – https://fediscience.org/@riedl/109282064359790093
This case connects with something I’m thinking about in connection with AI image generators like DALL•E, but it shows that this issue generalizes to any case of AI trained on data scraped from the web. There’s a presumption in AI development that data of any kind that one finds on the public web is free for the taking. They treat those data as, in effect, unclaimed natural resources, the sort of thing that John Locke argued is yours once your labour improves or builds upon it to produce something new.
But this is false on its face. First, as decolonial thinkers have pointed out, no natural resources are “unclaimed”—what explorers found and declared to be terra nullius actually belonged to indigenous communities. Data on the web are no different: they don't just exist there waiting to be exploited; they belong to real people on the other side of the network. The resource-extraction mindset of AI development based on data scraped from the web is modelled after the plunder and pillage of colonization.
Second, and building on this, as the lawsuit against GitHub Copilot argues, these data are the intellectual property of their creators. Code uploaded to GitHub is rarely released into the public domain; it is often libre or open source, and where no licence is included the presumption should be that it is protected by copyright. The lawsuit alleges that coders’ intellectual property rights have been infringed by the developers who used their code to train Copilot, because the terms of the various copyright licences have not been respected.
Third, even if the lawsuit and similar legal arguments don't succeed, there’s an ethical argument about intellectual property that does. This brings us back to Locke: recall that he argues that things produced by your labour are yours by right. This argument has been used to justify intellectual property rights as well as physical property rights: the products of your labour belong to you, so long as what you transformed with your labour wasn’t itself stolen. This goes for both the labour of the body and the labour of the mind—creative and intellectual labour, such as that which goes into writing code or painting digital images. But Locke's argument is set up so that it doesn't depend on any particular legal framework of property rights, intellectual or otherwise. His account of labour and property is set in the state of nature, where there is no government or law to enforce anyone’s rights.
So the ethical point stands regardless of whether the lawsuit against Github Copilot succeeds or fails. Using code or images or whatever kind of data you can download from the web and encode for training AI, without seeking permission from the creators or respecting the terms under which they licensed their work, is theft. And, it is not just theft of intellectual and creative property: it’s theft of labour and plunder of goods that the colonialist mindset frames as unowned.
There are plenty of unanswered questions here of course but I'm interested to hear what folks think of this argument. I'm currently working on writing it up as a paper, maybe for @facct. Am I missing anything? What objections do I need to answer?
Here’s the announcement of the lawsuit against GitHub Copilot: https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/
#aiEthics #ethicsOfComputing #artificialIntelligence #AI #ethics #philosophy #facct #responsibleComputing #techEthics #computerEthics #computerScience
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Atheism and quietism
Quietism is a term with an odd and surprisingly contentious history. It is used of both a tendency in philosophy and a direction within Christian contemplative thought and practice. (You can find well- linked Wikipedia articles on the philosophy here, and the contemplative term here.)
But I believe the insight underlying both these Western traditions of stillness and unknowing can be found far farther back in history.
Chao-Chou [Zhaozhou Congshen] asked, “What is the Tao?”
The master [Nan-ch’üan] replied, “Your ordinary consciousness is the Tao.”
“How can one return into accord with it?”
“By intending to accord you immediately deviate.”
“But without intention, how can one know the Tao?”
“The Tao,” said the master, “belongs neither to knowing nor to not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it’s like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?”
(quoted by Alan Watts in Tao: The Watercourse Way)
In the Zen practice of shikantaza (just sitting) there is nothing to achieve: no particular state of mind, no exercise of concentration, nothing to get rid of. In doing nothing there is perfect freedom.
None of this requires a supernatural dimension at all; that fact seems to have been one of the reasons Christian quietism was condemned as heretical. Unknowing is a fundamental admission, the very underpinning of scepticism. Stevie Wonder wrote: “When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer – superstition ain’t the way…” Jennifer Kavanagh:
Welcoming uncertainty, embracing it, does not mean commending ignorance or trying not to know; it’s not about the rejection of knowledge. It’s not about the negation of the intellect, but its enhancement. It is a recognition that cognitive thinking cannot reach everything, an understanding that the scientific and spiritual approaches are not incompatible, just different, complementary, dimensions. Not either/or but both/and.
Unknowing, and the abandonment of the need to know, to possess knowledge, is in a sense the gate to the liminal lands I wrote about in my last post. It is also the starting point of the scientific method, and the heart’s defence against all kinds of creeds.
#AlanWatts #atheism #contemplative #JenniferKavanagh #philosophy #Tao #unknowing #ZhaozhouCongshen