Last Sunday I brought a copy of Jimmy Smith’s The Sermon to Roanoke Vineyards, where I was scheduled to work for the day. I’d been bringing a few discs from my jazz collection to the winery, all with the hope of keeping the North Fork swinging at all times (because everything’s better swinging).

As my boss Rich and co-worker Adam tried to figure out how to hang a new wine rack, I started The Sermon spinning. If you haven’t heard it, the title track is a 20-minute jam on a strutting 12-bar blues that swings so deep it actually alters your heartbeat. I was immediately in the groove.

Then the magic started its work.

Watching Rich and Adam  analyze the best arrangement for the racks, I noticed Rich start tapping his toe and clacking his pencil against the bar in a swinging one-and-a-two rhythm. Meanwhile, Adam started to tap his hand on two and four against his leg. They both kept talking, and never acknowledged that they were fully in the groove.

Then a couple entered the tasting room and as I was pouring them wine I noticed the same thing, their toes tapping, hands clicking, heads nodding. Again, they never acknowledged the music or the groove, but they were in it.

One more couple, same exact result.

Taking it in, I stood in a room full of mellow, swinging folks, happy and at peace, and I smiled.

So here’s my plan: Pump this across the Middle East and through the halls of Congress. Let’s see if a population of swinging cats can make the world a better place. It’s worth a try.

Dig it.

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Poem: It is peace

Chapter 1 – ‘Round Midnight

“He’s a clown.”

But Irwin’s words couldn’t cut the clamor, the hundred mashed-up voices, the heat the smoke the bass and the funk, the song and the singer, the cigarettes the booze the blur and the blues. The bar killed the words, dead in his mouth.

“What?” said Will.

The beat shook spirals in Irwin’s scotch … his sixth.

“A clown, man. A sad clown,” Irwin howled.

Will shook his head.

They sat at the corner table, the one closest to the stage at the bar, University West on 116th Street in Manhattan. It was a bi-leveled college bar mostly packed with students from the Ivy League school that stood across the street. The street level of the bar was the brown level, a spectacle of wood and brass. The booths, wood. The bar, a wood and brass island, where everyone packed tight against it to wave their arms, hold up twenties and say “me, I’m next” to the pretty bar maidens.

In this first year of the new millennium the bar was not much more than a meat market where young students met to nurse a healthy buzz before pairing off and fucking the night away in city dorms or homely Harlem apartments. But long ago, before bar music was a meatloaf of one-hit wonders, the famous Beat poets sat in those same wood booths and wrote of life and sex and scrawled in unlined notebooks while jazz bopped off the walls, all with at least healthy buzz, of course.

The underground level of the bar, however, was the black level. The walls, the tables, the chairs, the stage … black. Down there the music played, the bands raged. The young danced and spilled beer on the floor. And there, in the black room, surrounded by chaos, Irwin Jones sat with his friend Will, at the table closest to the stage.

“I’m telling you Will, it was weird. This guy, this clown. He wore this … trench coat, all ripped up, pockets full. One of those round hats, you know, like the ones the old-time cats used to wear. Oh, big shoes too, but not those funky-colored clown shoes, you know man. They were ordinary, brown wingtips, just at least six sizes too big, or something. I don’t know. But, man, his face –”

“What?” said Will.

The boom, the bass and the singer, a red-faced, freckled woman dressed in a tight, yellow plastic jumper and a big purple afro, made Irwin sway. The music was strong, the groove tight, and Irwin should have shut up, poured out that unnecessary sixth scotch and enjoyed the old Marvin Gaye song the young musicians played with a new, more urgent sense of soul. But Irwin only thought of the clown, of the noise … and of steadying his twirling head.

The scotch was Irwin’s sixth drink at University West but not his sixth drink of the night. Hours before, he and Will started out with a seven-dollar bottle of vodka, and took turns shooting the Russian gasoline while listening to Coltrane’s Sun Ship in Irwin’s dorm room. Irwin cranked the music so loud that the guy across the hall, a student at the Ivy League school who had traveled to New York from Denmark, threatened to break the damn stereo if Irwin didn’t leave. So they did, off to University West to listen to funk and keep the buzz alive.

“His face! It was painted. All white, black around the eyes. The little triangles on his cheeks. But man, it was the frown he painted. The brightest damn red you’ve ever seen, and liquid looking too. He kept the lips white. It was crazy. This sad-faced clown. Oh, and he had on black gloves that had the fingers cut off, you know. You could see his tips.”

“ … Yeah, man,” said Will.

There are not many people who, after drinking as much as Irwin did that night, would still have the necessary motor function in their lips to construct a sentence. But typical slurred speech and heavy lethargy didn’t afflict Irwin when he was drunk. Instead, the more Irwin drank the more wired he became. His eyes blew open, pupils dilated and swirled back and forth and up, down, in a circle, like he was dreaming. His hands twitched. His fingers bent and opened, bent and opened, like he was playing his horn or pointing everywhere. He leaned back and forth like a metronome. Another friend of his, Sally, once gave him the nickname “google-eyed Irwin,” to describe his uber-boozed persona. It captured well the crazy, wobbly, electric Hyde Irwin became.

Irwin’s google-eyes spied a lithe brunette as she danced in the opposite corner. But sad clown was the only character he could focus on.

“Yeah man, it’s so he can play his horn.”

“What?” said Will.

“He wasn’t just hanging out in the park, making balloon animals or riding a tricycle. He was there to play. He had this brown leather gig bag, and – a Mark VI. The clown had a Mark VI, the best sax you can get and the clown’s got it on his shoulder. So I grabbed a seat under a tree … so I could listen. Wait, listen, you gotta hear this.”

“Yeah man,” said Will, as he stared at the curvy brunette and kept the band’s beat with his head.

“Dude, it was incredible, check it out. He starts playing this minor blues-type thing, ripping these killer lines, and he keeps landing on the low B-flat, like BOOM then killer blues licks, then BOOM and back to these blues lines … but after each BOOM he’d add a few more color tones to the lick, changing the feel from minor to half-diminished and then it shifted to this augmented riff and then to some other colorful line until the whole key that he started in seemed … gone. But still, it was the BOOM B-flat, still there, still the power of the thing, but its relationship to the harmony of the piece had changed. It was like everything around that tone fought it and … embraced it at the same time. And he didn’t stop. That B-flat just BOOM and the colors just swirling. And somehow, he just falls back into B-flat major … and then he blew this serenity, this winding down riff that just painted this peace on you. And man. It was huge, it opened my eyes. It’s what I want, what I want to find. I never felt so close to a song before and–”

“Dude, I’m sorry,” said Will. He leaned into Irwin’s ear. “I see you’re excited about something but I can’t hear you. It’s just too loud in here.

Irwin shot his scotch.

Then his eyes grew extra googly, extra wide, and if you looked at him you’d swear that the brightest black, that pure malice flickered on and off behind that glance. Pure pupil, no color. And you’d keep an eye on that devil, knowing that something sour was soon to erupt from within him.

I heard it, his pang. Imagine the effort it took, drunk as he was, to feel so inspired by a saxophone playing clown. Imagine it, the roar, the band, the bar, the warbles, echoes and dizziness, all conspired to sheath this one sight, this one scene that touched him. Imagine that kick, when an alcohol inflated dream was pricked, when Irwin felt his song die in his mouth. And imagine the extreme level of Irwin’s intoxication, so extreme that he couldn’t suffer a tiny interruption to a thought that could only be that precious to him.

Indeed, he looked to be plotting something much more than wrong, but in his head there was no plan. Instead, where you’d expect to find the list, the premeditation and the decision … where you’d expect to hear my little voice in battle with a very bad idea … there was music. And it wasn’t the funky band. It was more like a stampede, like Shostakovich’s Seventh, one … and two two, from tubas and bells and horns, while clarinets trilled and snares snapped time. The motive, resolute and repetitive grew louder. You’ll regret this Irwin.

He stood up.

“What are you? … C’mon , sit, man,” said Will.

But Irwin couldn’t hear him. It was too loud.

He leaned over the table as he stood, and spun out from his chair. Irwin looked straight at the stage, saw the afro on the singer’s head, the tight drummer. Then he stared through the crowd with those rash eyes. A small woman noticed it, saw that something wasn’t right in Irwin’s head, and she danced out of his way.

He moved, tripped, ricocheted off of each dancer, and opened and closed his hands as he bounced from shoulder to shoulder.

Then I tried so very hard to get through to him, to cut the music, to alter his menacing motive. I tried to make him see what would happen, to bring a little sense to his deranged song. This is wrong Irwin, that would be rude Irwin, this will only turn out bad. But one … and two two ruled, and sense was exiled.

Who am I? I’m Irwin … but only half of him. If you called me his guardian angel I’d only apologize for the piss poor job I’d done so far. There’s no halo on my head, no wings on my back. I’m just Irwin.

I’m not plugged into any heavens, nor am I a messenger between an almighty God and Irwin. I’ve no idea about Alpha and Omega. Call me Zed. I’m nothing but a sense.

I am good, though, I know that to be true. I’m everything Irwin has come to know as right. As he is only nineteen, I am too. He lives, I live. He learns, I learn. I’m both egos and the id. I’m wise and I’m always right as far as Irwin is concerned. When sees what his right, it is because I reminded him of it. Call me third person interactive, or first person omniscient. I live the story and watch it from far away at the same time.

I affect the story too, when I’m listened to. Essence, kindness, truth, compassion, jurisprudence, karma, desire and spirit, that’s me. I’m true Irwin, the voice in his head. And I guard him only as well as he guards himself.

Like Irwin I live for jazz, for beauty, for ideals and hope, but I never run astray. When Irwin despairs I turn on the light, and when he makes a bad decision I learn too, so that next time, and there is always a next time, I can sing to him the lesson in the memory.

I am Irwin without time, without flesh, without motion. The imprint he wants to leave behind, and the tool that can help him do so. But without that flesh, that motion, that place in time, I’m essentially powerless if Irwin chooses to ignore me.

Because all I can do is dream Irwin’s life.

He lives it.

And Irwin was definitely living it without me as he bounced his way to the foot of the stage, and climbed onto the platform.

Back at the table, Will stood up, and watched.

The singer sang with her eyes closed so it took a few moments for her to realize that Irwin was there. The guitarist, the bassist, drummer and keyboard player each smiled at Irwin, laughed and mouthed ‘Yeah man.’ The crowd started to cheer and whistle, and Irwin stood as close as he could to the shut-eyed singer, and pointed his google eyes at her. She’d shut her eyes tighter, so she never saw Irwin coming.

Maybe she thought the sudden crescendo in the crowd was for her, and she dug in, wailed high tones, rich blues, soul and rhythm. And she danced harder, bent her knees deeper, shook her wild body … and bumped into Irwin.

She stopped singing when she caught the chaos in Irwin’s eyes. His hands opened, fingers pointed, and his body swayed back and forth. It almost looked like he was dancing to the music.

“Give him the mike, he wants to sing,” the keyboard player shouted to the singer.

“What?” she screamed back. It was picked up in the microphone and the crowd laughed a little and cheered louder for wobbling Irwin.

”Give him the mic.”

She heard him … and she did.

Irwin started to sway even more. That last quick shot of scotch was exploding inside of him. And I tried to get him to see the drummer’s smile, the guitarist’s sincere nod of his head. If Irwin wasn’t going to listen to me at least he could feel the music, perhaps feel some respect for this honest band. Just give the mic back Irwin.

But in Irwin’s mind that motive lingered, one … and two two, deep tuba, flutes and trills and tensions and clacking snares.

“Sing, man.”

Will started to laugh.

Irwin brought the microphone close to his lips, his head tilted into it. He stared at the singer. The crowd cheered, the keyboardist played glissandos, the drummer beat hard time, clacking the snare … and then Irwin spoke.

“Why don’t you motherfuckers shut the fuck up I’m trying to talk to my friend.”

………………………..?

Will mouthed “Oh … fuck,” under his breath.

The whistles cut off, the noise cut in half. The keyboardist and guitarist stopped playing, but the bassist and the drummer kept on going. It didn’t look like they’d made out what Irwin said.

At least a quarter of the crowd gasped, their jaws dropped. Heads shook, howls grew angrier. Irwin kept the mic close to his lips and swayed like a snapped guitar string hanging from the neck.

In the back of the bar a few guys yelled towards the exit, and pointed to Irwin, the drunk idiot on the stage. Two massive bouncers waddled through the door and split the crowd like an ax splitting butter. When Will saw them coming he jumped around the table and pushed his way to the stage. He got there first.

Irwin remained on stage, rocking back and forth. He looked the singer right in her eye, and she shot a fierce look back. She looked devastated, yet Irwin held nothing in his eyes, no malice, no regret. The singer hurt, I saw it, everyone else in the crowd saw it, and the howls and boos boomed louder.

“Irwin, hey Irwin,” said Will, who stood below his drunk friend. “C’mon man. It’s time to go.” Will looked at the singer and said, “I’m … sorry, he’s drunk.”

She turned around.

Irwin placed the mic back in its stand while the drummer and bassist kept playing the beat and the bass line, perhaps trying to the scene from turning into a lynching. The guitarist, yelled “asshole” at Irwin.

“Come on man, we have to go,” said Will.

Irwin stepped off of the stage.

The bouncers burst through the last layer of the crowd and grabbed Irwin by the arm. “It’s cool,” said Will. “We’re leaving.”

“Yes, you are,” said the taller of the bouncers. “Your friend’s a real fuck,” said the shorter.

“He’s just wasted,” answered Will.

“No excuse.”

And the three of them carried Irwin upstairs and outside into the cold night, into December. That scene had passed, the curtain descended on the black hall below the bar, and I had never even made an appearance. I was useless.

Will ran back inside to grab Irwin’s coat.

In Irwin’s mind the music faded. The cheers from University West echoed down Broadway. Blurry streaks of red chased cabs down the street, and the moon swayed over Irwin’s head.

It was early yet.

Flickr photo by Tina Hsu

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

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1. The bebop in my head
2. The Host: Bear’s Second Dream
3. The Host: Epilogue

I read a list of “things writers do” the other day, the type of list that always pisses me off because there is this idea growing like the blob on the Internet that only a set group of people who have conformed to a certain set of behaviors, and bookmark the same blogrolls, could dare call themselves writers. They must always read, always write, always talk about why they write, always suck up to agents on their blogs, follow the same writing experts on Twitter that everybody else does, write the same way, waste time using other people’s prompts, etc. and blah blah blah.

My advice is be yourself, make up your own rules, write what you want to, when you want to. There is only one hard-fast rule: Be honest.

Though, one tip did make a lot of sense: Allow some time to pass between writing a piece and editing it.

Five years have passed since I wrote my second novel, Imaginary Bebop, in a crazy 13 days. It was raw, it was honest, and it was all over the place. Now it’s time to make it something worth publishing.

The point of Imaginary Bebop was to take a character from my first novel, The Host, center the action around his first year of college, and infuse it with a lot of my own struggles with alcohol.

Because there are many times in my past I am not proud of, many, many drunken disasters that not only ate holes in my character, but ruined my reputation at the same time. It took a lot of work to build myself back up, to beat my drinking problem, and I’ve successfully done all of that. But the stories, my stories remain.

A lot of them ended up in Imaginary Bebop, filtered through fiction, often warped to advance plot and character, and even amplified to make a better story, but under all of those shrouds hides an outpouring of honesty, which is why I was able to write the short novel so quickly.

The character is Irwin Jones,  a young saxophone prodigy, and the story takes place during his first year of college at an esteemed music conservatory in New York City. Irwin had just come from an upstate town, where he’d witnessed a murder only a few months before he left for school. Before that, he’d never touched a drink.

I actually wrote Imaginary Bebop as part of the 2005 National Novel Writing Month, in which you sign up to write a 50,000-word novel in one month for no prize at all other than the journey and a sense of accomplishment. At the time, I thought it would be a great way to force this story, which had been floating in my head for years, out of hiding. It did, the plan worked. Once I got started I couldn’t stop, and 13 days later I had 53,000 words and a brand new book.

But I’ve hardly touched it since. Maybe it was how much of myself I put into it, or how exhausting the process was, I’m not sure. I just know now it’s time to come back.

My favorite part of the story is the point of view I used to tell it. Imaginary Bebop is told by Irwin’s conscience, a narrator that allowed the storytelling to have a 3rd-person distance from the character while also having a 1st-person prejudice. The narrator is Irwin, a distant one, the voice in his head that he has chosen to ignore.

So I’ll be posting chapters as I finish editing them here. When it’s done I’ll start shopping it around. I’d love to find a small, independent press to publish it, by that is a ways ahead. Let’s start with the first chapter.

Flickr photo by realname

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Imaginary Bebop: One – ‘Round Midnight
2. New plan for The Host: Move on
3. More writing, a must

So, let there be local wine.

Since Roanoke Vineyards contracts Roman Roth, winemaker for Wolffer Estate, to make its wines, it also sells some Wolffer wines in its tasting room. And since Wolffer is one of the few Long Island wineries I knew about before moving to the region, due to its wider distribution and press activity, I knew what I was in for when I picked one of its wines up.

Wolffer 2007 Merlot – $20

This is basically its first tier when it comes to Wolffer’s serious wines. The winery does make a cheaper, La Ferme Martin, bottling of Merlot and Chardonnay, which are easy drinking for sure. But if you want to taste how Wolffer’s terrior plays into its wine, this is where you start.

I also picked up this wine because it is from the famed 2007 vintage. A hot and dry growing season that allowed Long Island fruit to achieve uncommon ripeness.

On to the notes.

The wine had an inky purple color, with loads of black cherry on the nose, followed by hints of dried mint and red currants.

On the palate, that big, black cherry flavor took over, reminding me of those semi-frozen cherries you find in the middle of a tartufo. But the big fruit was balanced by those lean cedar and herbal notes that tend to signify a merlot as coming from Long Island. The palate also held cola, mint and black raspberry flavors, followed by a dry finish that had just a touch of ocean saltiness on it.

The wine had a round mouthfeel, good acid but not so much tannins. It’s drinking pretty well right now.

Verdict: Not overly complex, yet ripe merlot that for $20 is Long Island all the way.

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Not the zin I wanted
2. Reds from the Finger Lakes?
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While last time I got to taste a series of Finger Lakes cabernet francs, which were as a whole quite good, this time my cohorts and I tasted sparkling wine made in the upstate New York region. I’d never had a bubbly from there, I didn’t even know they were making them in the Finger Lakes, so my expectations were wide open.

Roanoke Vineyards, where I’ve just started working part-time, was the venue this time around, and while host and New York Cork Report mogul Lenn Thompson and Undertaking Wine author Michael Gorton Jr. were again in attendance, this time Roanoke’s wine-geek-in-residence and biology professor Adam Ehmer joined. More on our quartet later.

I’d also stockpiled a few things to toast to, starting with world peace and ending with a rather selfish wish for a faster metabolism (it’s the wine), so was I counting on the bubbly being booze worth celebrating.

Unfortunately, they mostly fell flat.

Chateau Frank 2002 Blanc de Blancs – $29.99

This 90 percent chardonnay and 10 percent pinot blanc wine was the first wine we popped open, and all of us ended up chuckling at the short, stubby cork that Lenn said fell off the bottle like a piece of chewing gum accidentally falling out of a person’s mouth. It was a truly sad one.

But the wine had a bright, citrusy nose, with aromas of white grapefruit and hints of wet stone.

The flavors on the palate were clean, with grapefruit and lemon pith notes. And the slight residual sugar added apple flavors to the palate and created round, fleshy mouthfeel. The wine finished with nice acid with yeasty notes at the very end.

For a lot of people, this was the favorite of the night, but there was something bitter in the finish, like the skin of a hazelnut, that only became more dramatic as the night progressed. The fruit also fell off the longer it was open.

It was a good bubbly, but, for the price, I wasn’t impressed.

Goose Watch Winery NV Pinot Noir Brut Rosé – $18

This was the wine I was most looking forward to, as I really love pink sparklers. The berry fruit adds a bit of character that I usually love.

This 79 percent pinot noir and 21 percent chardonnay bubbly was actually made using the charmat method, which ferments the wine in large tanks as opposed to in the bottle like in the classic Method Champenois. I hold nothing against it for that. Italy’s famed Prosecco wines are made the same way, and they’re wonderful.

This one wasn’t, though.

First, the color was electric pink, like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. And the candy references didn’t end there.

It had smoky nose, with loads of candied strawberry, cherry and banana. It smelled like a sparkling Beaujolais Nouveau.

It actually had watermelon flavor on the palate, along with those banana notes, as well as tart finish reminiscent of pink grapefruit peel. It also had good acidity and a bitter finish that dried out the mouth as if you’d bitten into a raw stalk of rhubarb.

But the candy notes killed this wine for me.

Glenora Wine Cellars 2002 Brut – $25

Then things went south … real south.

This 54 percent pinot noir and 46 percent chardonnay wine started me thinking something was wrong when I saw the deep golden color, which you sometimes see in oxidized or past-peak whites.

Then came the nose, which was smoky, but not wood smoke. It was almost like burning rubber, and there was no sense of fruit at all.

The wine had some honey flavors on the palate, but there was a medicinal quality to the finish. It also had those oxidized apple flavors, but they fell off fast. There really was no fruit.

Now, if you’ve ever had a bad wine with fellow geeks it usually goes down like this. The noses go deep into the glasses, and then the brows furrow. The geeks start throwing out adjectives, clearly under the assumption that what they are tasting is supposed to taste this way. Then one guy says, “I don’t know.” Then another one says, “there’s something off here.” Then there’s silence before someone says, “It’s bad,” and everybody jumps in, “It’s bad, real bad, terrible,” nodding their heads and heading for the spittoon. That’s how it went.

When we learned the wine was just released I think we said “Doh!” in unison. Most of the tasters on Twitter said the same thing, that the wine was too old, it was past.

I don’t know how anybody could get $25 for the wine, and I’m just sorry I couldn’t have tried it when it still had some fruit. It might have been great.

We’ll never know.

Lucas Vineyards NV Extra Dry Cayuga White -$19

Then came this 100 percent Cayuga bubbly – Cayuga is a hybrid grape that does well in upstate New York – and a collective “Ah” rang through Roanoke as the flavors erased the lingering funk from the previous bomb.

The nose was very refreshing, with yeasty notes, steely, lemony aromas and faint hints of honeysuckle.

It was austere in its dryness, which worked very well with the tart citrus. But it had a really quick finish, which I think kept it from being the unanimous favorite in the room.

While I didn’t find it to be that complex, it was so refreshing, reminding me of a simple Cava in its cleanness.

It ended up my favorite of the night, because of its simplicity, cleanness, citrus flavors and bang for your buck. I would drink this any time.

Now I really do love Finger Lakes wines. Rieslings and Gewurztraminers grown up there can be amazing. And last month’s cab francs were great too. But bubbly? Not so sure. After this I don’t think I’ll be reaching for a Finger Lakes sparkler in the near future, especially when Long Island, which already does much better things with chardonnay than upstate, makes such wonderful bubbly.

Next month’s Twitter Taste Live features Finger Lakes pinot noirs, and after the cab francs, I really look forward to it.

As for our tasting quartet, which we can’t decide between calling “The Four Poursmen” or “There’s No Such Things as Decant,” we’ll be meeting monthly for our own tasting sessions not broadcast on Twitter … at least not with a hashtag.

For our first meeting we’ll be sipping Napa cabernet sauvignons. I’ll make sure to bring the marshmallows.

Finally, I brought my new camera to the tasting to take a few photos of the group. I organized them into a quick slide show. Lenn’s got the goatee, Adam’s got the red beard and Michael thought the tasting was very funny. I make an appearance at the end.

Enjoy. All of the photos are up on Flickr, too.

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Reds from the Finger Lakes?
2. Ah, Long Island Merlot
3. Not the zin I wanted

Again, I’ve used a simple motive, in this case the movement between two chords, and have tried to create a piece that has steady degree on movement without relying on harmonic changes and instead leaning on a repetitive rhythm and dynamic changes to create the mood.

It reminds me of a see-saw, or a sunflower swinging back and forth on a growing and fading summer wind.

I’m happy with the outcome, it’s peaceful.

Enjoy.

Piano Meditation 6

Flickr photo by Claudio.Ar

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Piano meditation: Peace, dark or light
2. Piano meditation: The steps
3. Piano meditation: The tempest

When I woke up this morning, a few inches had already fallen, and since the snow was pretty wet it stuck to all the trees, filling my property with scores of white, twiggy knots of snow-caked branches. I ended up taking a walk through the acre of woods I have next to my house, which has seen a lot of its tress fall down this windy winter, to snap a few photos of the snow on the branches.

I figured I’d share them with you.

Enjoy.

[View with PicLens]

 

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Winter kicks off … hard
2. Same winter, different camera
3. At the very end of fall

First, my little girl Gwyneth turns nine moths old this month, and it’s such an amazing thing to watch the transformation a baby goes through during its first year of life. She came out a wet noodle, a mushy cuddle too weak to support the weight of her own head, dependent on us to give her what she needed, while giving only basic cries telling you what she wanted. But now she’s a personality, she’s crawling and standing and dancing. She has her own will, a sense of humor. She already has favorite things, such as music, thank god, and a purple bunny that she shrieks with pleasure to find and nuzzle and rub over her eyes. I’ve said this before, but this new love fatherhood has brought is the most sacred thing I’ve ever experienced, and it gets better and better.

My second bit of news isn’t as close to the heart, but it does involve something I hold dear. The recession is making things tough for families all across the world and mine is no exception, which is why I decided to get a second job on the weekends to make things a little easier. Lucky for me, I landed the best part-time job ever.

I just started working at Roanoke Vineyards, a boutique winery on the North Fork of Long Island. Plainly put, Long Island’s wine country has been the saving grace of this region for me. Since moving here from New Paltz, N.Y. I’ve been frankly miserable with the vapid suburban sprawl and the complete lack of a jazz scene which I could take part in. I used to play all the time, but on Long Island, unless you play in a cover band you might as well keep your horn in its case. It’s depressing. Luckily there’s wine region, beautiful place that produce wines that have a real regional character. And now I get to play a part in it while exploring something I love: wine.

Roanoke has been one of my favorite wineries since I started visiting the North Fork, and it makes some incredible wines. I’ll post tasting notes soon, as long as you understand that calling me a shill for the winery won’t bother me. My notes are always honest. Luckily, I don’t have to lie to brag about Roanoke’s juice.

And in addition to the job being a lot of fun, the position technically makes me an industry insider when it comes to Long Island’s wine region, which has already opened up great opportunities to meet with various local winemakers at insider events and dinners.

So this winter is a bit warmer than usual. Things at the day job are going well, my daughter continues to expand my heart, and the weekend drives to the slowed down fields of the North Fork are bringing me peace and an extra-curricular activity at last that I can enjoy on Long Island.

No complaints, here.

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Ah, Long Island Merlot
2. Last hurrah with David Amram
3. Almost living in wine country

(UPDATE: My Twitter friend @badbadbad suggested “Writing to music,” which of course is the right thing to call these. Thanks, my friend.)

The idea is to listen to an album, a song, an orchestral work, a piano piece, a concert or any other type of musical composition and write as I’m listening to it, trying not to stop at all, but going with the movement of the piece, recording whatever thought I have that’s inspired by the music. It’s really an exercise in writing from the heart, not so much the head, and using the music to inspire ideas.

I got the idea when I started paying attention to the types of thoughts, visions, and ideas I came up with when I was listening to the music, and I found that I probably wouldn’t have had those exact ruminations if I weren’t listening to that piece of music in that chunk of time.

Last night I gave it a try while listening to The Emerson Quartet perform Shostakovich’s 5th String quartet.

Enjoy.

Shostakovich’s 5th string quartet

It’s starts like a quiet step, reminds me of when I walk upstairs to check on the little girl, leaving my slippers below, so they don’t flop and shuffle and wake her. But, then I could stomp and growl and groan or maybe scream, for joy or just to hear myself holler, and it would make no difference. The emotions are there, the loud ones, no matter how quiet I am trying to be, climbing up the stairs without my slippers.

Maybe I start back at the bottom and try again, and it’s not stairs that lie ahead, it’s somewhere else, a bridge, over a stream, over a river, or a rocky mountain pass. It doesn’t matter where it is, or how quiet I’m trying to be, because the point is I’m walking, never stopping, over rapids or up a soft hill carpeted in wildflowers.

Everywhere’s movement. Even my dogs, who sleep like quotation marks on my couch, curled in the baby doll blanket my wife wouldn’t be happy to see them sleeping on – one smells terrible and leaves the terrible smell in the blankets – they move. You can’t see it without looking closely, but it’s there, a breath, another breath, a twitch, both moving, both alive in their sleep.

How long have I been moving, forever? I try to remember a time I may have stopped, but I can’t find one, and, to be honest, this searching only makes me move faster. Even in sleep I march, through the dreams. This week I dreamed I was in a forest that looked like the suburbs, and every time I stopped to admire one of the trees I noticed it had a price tag. Some of the trees were only displays made of plastic, and they always hid some door, or some window, or some garage. Even the night in the forest, which I thought flickered with fireflies, was fake, because each time I tried to catch a glowing insect I found myself in the path of oncoming traffic.

Though, even when I stopped and sat in a pile of fallen branches that turned out to be a heap a trash waiting for the Monday pickup, I could never stop moving, not for a moment.

Soon, I was awake, listening to my little girl chant “Da da” in her crib, which I lay in bed listening too for a while, not still, but beating my heart and breathing my breath. And then I stepped out of bed. The chilly air that streams in the the winter just above the wood floor stung my toes, and I stepped into my slippers and walked to her nursery.

She smiles, and rocks back and forth, waves her tiny hand and spins the pacifier in her mouth. I’m awake and warm when I take her out the crib and nuzzle her neck, her fingers pulling at my shoulders, and smell her slightly sour breath dried on her cheek.

If there’s any chance that things stop, it’s then, when she smiles me awake. But things aren’t stopped at all, they’re moving faster than ever, time is speeding up, because last week she could hardly lift her head and the week before that she didn’t even have a name.

The morning always moves, and I end up in my car, the news boring the shit out of me, though I listen to it anyway. There are so many stories, in this world, where plots turn and twist with every human soul. Is the news wrong for singing about them, even the bad plots, the phony plots, the idiot plots?

I’d hold down the gas pedal and never let it up, which I think while listening to a news report about gas pedals that have just been recalled for getting stuck on the floor mats, if I wasn’t too afraid of killing some child at a bus stop, or a mother on her way to work, or a migrant walking his bicycle on the shoulder. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t hear about somebody being run over because the driver never let up on the gas.

At times, when I’m at a red light and spot a seagull soaring on a gust of wind, and I wonder if he can still see the sea that high up, I feel as close to stopped as I ever am, and the news report almost dims on its own. Then I think that when the light turns red, no matter how hard the guy behind me might honk and wag his fist at me, I might just stay put, let it turn green and then red again. He might drive around, but I’ll stay there, until the light changes again and then changes again, because if I can’t stop moving I might as well sit still and think about why that’s so.

Flickr photo by PIXNOIZE

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. More writing, a must
2. Up late, waiting and waiting some more

I’ve had the Root: 1 Cabernet Sauvignon before and I found it to be a very nice entry-level Chilean cab that had a bit more balance than Los Vascos, the bottom rung, fruit-forward label from Rothschild’s South American estate.

Carmenere is another Bordeaux varietal that does well in Chile, and it’s often blended with cab. In this case, this wine is actually 75% Carmenere, with 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Syrah.

I’ve begun to see Root: 1 more often in wine shops, and the winery claims the name has to do with them cultivating some of the oldest rootstock in Chile.

Root: 1, 2007 Colchagua Valley Carmenere – $11.97

On the nose the wine has straightforward blackberry aromas with hints of vanilla oak and popcorn kernel.

The palate has That unmistakable herb and almost mustard-green-like flavor common to many Chilean wines, with black plum to dried plum fruit semi-sweet chocolate on the finish. It’s a chewy wine, due to the rich dried plum and chocolate on the palate. There’s enough acidity on the finish to stand up to food. I’d like to try this with a sharp Asiago cheese. There’s not much tannin on the wine, so I wouldn’t hold onto it too long.

Frankly, I like it. It has good fruit, but not too much. It’s a nice bargain that’s a little different from your average Chilean cab.

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Not the zin I wanted
2. Reds from the Finger Lakes?
3. Ah, Long Island Merlot