i rarely know what i will write about when i sit down to make these podcast episodes. sometimes i make notes throughout the month in my calendar so that when i sit down on a monday to start writing, i have some guides. the notes for today said:
wind and rain
outlander
chicago jackson park sunset
fiddles and dogs
i am becoming human/ancient
deciphering these fragments like an auto-archaeologist, i think i can see the shape of something to say.
i have been traveling some this last month, and in between i have had some big life events (carl turned 1 and i had my birthday too) plus a big deadline for our experimental musical in chicago. hence my skipping of our usual mid-month episode.
now i am gratefully back home and able to settle in for a moment. this means i get to sit on my porch while i write this. this means that carl is banging around next to me, dropping a marrow bone onto my laptop over and over so that i will pay attention to him.
this also means that this last weekend, i got to have a fiddle session with another beginner. for this jam, he selected “the skye boat song”, which unbeknownst to him is also the theme to the very awesome and sexy tv show, outlander, of which i am a fan. to hear that tune come out of my own violin was the simplest of pleasures and as satisfying as any of the flashier things i did this month.
i think the violin is especially suited for this kind of pleasure. it is the most human instrument i have yet learned. the sound it produces is so near that of the human voice. you never forget that the bow is hair, the strings gut. the idea is to get the wood to resonate and sing. without effort at all, it fills a space. for as difficult as it is to play, it has few accessories and is light and small. more than any other instrument i play, it feels like an extension of the person playing it.
this is what made me note “wind and rain” in my pre-pod jotting. i have always loved that old folk tune, first encountering it through the grateful dead and jerry garcia. the image of the fiddler who comes along the road and makes a fiddle of the dead sister is impossible to forget. a fiddle made of a human, gory as that is, makes perfect sense.
carl loves to sit at my feet while i play violin. he has since he was little, and i was awful. but i’m slowly making strides in my playing, and he still seems to approve. to have a dog sitting at my feet while i played an old instrument as old as a violin, and a tune as old as “the skye boat song”, unlocks something inside of me. i can feel some part of my self come into alignment. an old, human, ancient alignment.
for years, i engaged in the most modern of things: fast travel, internet culture, the relatively recent invention called the music industry. recording, marketing, hustling. it’s been fun, but as i sit in my 45th year, i am hungry for something different.
i don’t have kids and i am not married, two standard life markers that also serve as links to a common, human past that bypasses and soothes the dislocations and distance of modern life. but i do have a dog, and i do sometimes play music for my own enjoyment. or the pleasure of friends in close company. social music and animal companionship, these are also links to long relationships.
hey yall - it’s hard to believe 2022 is almost over! i’ve got just one more show on the calendar for the forseeable future, a show in gorgeous jamestown, RI on november 19. meanwhile, this month productions of Miss You Like Hell can be found in Santa Barbara CA, Wilkes-Barre PA, and Richmond VA. i’m so proud and excited that our show is living on in these communities. get out and support local theater! as always, tickets and details on the shows page of my website.
and finally, a reminder, if you’re listening in a podcast app, check out the fully linked version of this essay in the show notes. and don’t forget to check out my social media for the accompanying visuals.
the other night, i had a one-off gig in boston. to be honest, it wasn’t my favorite scenario - a restaurant with no greenroom, a staff who could have cared less that there was music, a sparse crowd. but i dressed up and made the best of it. a friend, seeing me said, “you look fancy”, and i declared the motto of my new mid-life, half-life as a performing musician: “the shittier the gig, the better the clothes.” i’m telling you, it really helps.
i had a great time playing, which is the exact result i have been cultivating by performing less and less. when i do, it feels like drugs, in a very good way. and afterwards, i got to chat with some very awesome folks who gave their hard earned money and precious time to come to a show on a sunday night. i had more or less the same conversation with each of them:
first they say: “what a great show”
then i say: “thank you so much for coming”
then they say: “we haven’t seen you play in years. you were the soundtrack to our 20s.”
and i say: “that’s wonderful. thank you. how old are you now?”
to which they reply: “45” (or thereabouts)
and i laugh and say: “same”. then we proceed to talk about how life gets complicated, with kids and jobs and partners. and how we are usually in bed at this time of night.
i live for these conversations. when we say “45”, it comes out like a sigh. a kind of song of wonder and resignation and also pride. here we are. how did we get here? i suppose that’s a perfect description of mid-life.
carl has decided to stop dropping his bone on my computer and has settled onto to his porch bed. i’m about to get my violin down from its peg and dig in for an afternoon of practice. i am slowly becoming more human and more ancient.
x erin
ps - let me address the last item on my initial list of notes for this episode: “chicago jackson park sunset”. as i’ve mentioned, i’m a fellow at the gray center at the university of chicago this year, making an experimental musical. so fun! i go to chicago for one week a month and have been loving getting to know the South Side. i recently connected some very cool dots: the campus of the university is on land that was also the location for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. often called The White City, the temporary structures and the exposition itself had enormous impact on society, architecture, and popular culture long after the fair closed. On my 2005 album, We Will Become Like Birds, i even wrote a song about The White City, positing that something temporary could be beautiful, maybe even more so for its fleeting nature.
Raise! And be razed!
Our hands face up and our faces forward
We can fall
But the fall won’t hurt us
when i wrote that song, i had no clue that nearly 20 years later, i would be making theater on that very same land, experimenting in new forms and pushing my creative self way way beyond a 3 minute song or a 10 song album. the other night, on my way home from my lab, i pulled over my divvy bike and paused to look at an amazing sunset. the white city lives on!
pps - your requisite carl content
our birthday cake.
carl sees the ocean for the first time. he loved it.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
the NWSL season is wrapping up, and i have to admit i haven’t paid much attention. but i do love crystal dunn. i consider her a tiny inspiration since we are the same size!! but i can’t score goals like this. get your tissues ready! listen to that crowd!!
massachusetts now has a state dinosaur.
baseball HOF pitcher randy johnson is also… a very good pro photographer!
interview and photoshoot with hannah waddingham? CLICK.
speaking of ted lasso, here is the cross-over moment you were waiting for with The Great Horan.
turns out i am one of the last american kiddos to have learned to write and read cursive. except now MAGA people are trying to bring it back!?!?? ex-harvard president drew gilpin faust has the fascinating story.
the history of black majorettes and dance lines? CLICK.
here is a clever/depressing/fascinating history of photos of the supreme court. unsurprising content warning: it’s ALOT OF DUDES.
the detailed history of siegfried and roy you always wanted.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Nov 19 - Jamestown RI
TICKETS
***
Nov 3 - 13 - Santa Barbara CA
Miss You Like Hell at Out Of The Box Theater
TICKETS
Nov 10 - 19 - Wilkes-Barre PA
Miss You Like Hell at King’s College
MORE INFO
Nov 17 - 21 - Richmond VA
Miss You Like Hell at University of Richmond
MORE INFO
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023
Jan 19 - Feb 19 - San Jose CA
Miss You Like Hell at City Lights
MORE INFO
Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
MORE INFO
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
fiddles and dogs