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2008 Journal Entries

Q&A, Part 2

Monday, October 20, 2008

1. I was wondering if you ever got the flowers and chocolate I sent you for your last concert at the Harbourfront centre.

Indeed I did... thank you!

2. I was wondering if you think about writing a book in the next years.

I have a lot more living to do before finding the courage to write a book...  Maybe after my hair turns grey, I've raised a teenager and a vegetable garden, played Massey Hall, etc. But yes... I greatly admire writers and wouldn't approach the endeavour lightly... thanks for watering the seed though...

3. I was wondering how you managed the days when you felt lonely in Paris.

Ahh. Well, to maintain the brutal honesty I always champion, I shall have to report that I did not really manage. I did a terrible job of it actually - did all the wrong things a desperate, angry, impatient, ego-imprisoned escape-artist does.  I put myself and my health in needless danger.  It is only by the grace of some supernatural benevolence that I am still here today. I look back on that time and thank the universe for being patient with me and protecting me when I was at war with myself. 

4. I was wondering what would be the vegetarian meal of your choice that you cook for your friends.

Juicy roasted tempeh, steamed kale and broccoli on brown rice covered in miso gravy. Yu-UM.

5. What does a day in the life of Ms. Slean look like?

No two are alike! Most start at around 6:30, 7am with some meditation or a good stretch, then involve some pianos, emails, meals, a bike ride to some rehearsal, show or meeting... it all depends. My life is pretty seasonal, touring and recording being two major ones that have their own speeds and energy levels.  Touring is fast, condensed, hot, external... it's output, giving, spreading, singing out, poignant that it's called "releasing" a record... after that the season starts to turn inward, slows down, and inner expansion starts - making room to gather insights, observe, to experience and take in.  Then when all the raw ingredients are there, I feel ready to start cooking ... er... recording. 

6. What are you working on now? Another tour, album, travel?

So many things - to focus is challenging! The Cabaret festival, the EP of Bsides, the score book, demos for the new record, an art show next year, the Modern Man movie, thinking about the ultimate eco-house...

7. In the song Parasol who is Virginia?

Well - this name is a good name for someone who is suddenly pure/ new/ re-born...

8. Any chance we will see a recording of Modern Man released? I love that song!

You do? WOW! People, you honour me! All of the music industry tells me these sorts of songs are my "artistic" indulgences.  I find it frustrating that so many business leaders in the arts continually underestimate the cultural appetites and tastes of the general public.  What, we only understand three minute rock songs? Sheesh.

Modern Man should be out very soon on the new EP - and with a gorgeous string section. I have ideas in the works for a mini-animated short film to go with it too.

9. When you are coming to Australia?

When I can find a way to get my records out there, and of course find a way to pay for the tour!

10. Will you print and publish a book containing music theory sheets for you music?

Working on it, I swear.

11. How did the song "Somebody's Arms" come about?
 
It started with a piano lick and then the rest came tumbling out...

12. What kind of kid were you during your high school years?
 
Busy. Pensive. Mildly anemic. Hungry for life.

13. What is your favorite drink?

Homemade lemonade - squeeze one half a lemon into a glass full of ice and one generous tablespoon of maple syrup.  Fill with water. Find a patio or balcony with lots of sunshine. Repeat often.
 
14. Have you ever thought of being a music teacher?
 
Yes - now and again the thought crosses my mind... I had some great teachers when I was starting out...

15. How did you come to discover the Baroness?

I counter that question with the zen koan "where does the wind come from?"

16. After over 10 years of albums and life experience, I was wondering what your relationship is like with your older songs ("High", "Weight", "Universe"), especially when adoring fans continue to request them live?

Hmm. The only way to describe how I feel towards them is distance - they feel far away. They feel like the property of some other home now, though they used to be in mine, and if it were to ever come back, it would look sort of strange and out of place. "Universe", however, still feels quite close to me, and I think that's because it was born out of a very timeless sense of wonder that hasn't diminished in me yet.  The other songs were more connected to specific events or stages of my life that have past and their emotions or scenes have gone with them  - "Universe" was (and still is) my humanity/mortality looking up at the night sky in awe. 

17. What are you reading now that is French?

I'm working on a lot of the French material from Kurt Weill's work, which I'm loving.  I still read French kids books to absorb the grammar... slow going, but satisfying.

18. Will Tales from the Baroness ever be available on DVD?

That I don't know.  Maybe when we have more visual material we'll put together a proper DVD and that can be a bonus track...

Voting.

Monday, October 06, 2008

I must vote early because I'll be away on the 14th... so down to the community centre I go.
The volunteers beam at me. The process is simple and efficient. They verify my identity, cross my name off with that little Elections Canada ruler...
I walk behind the screen and make an "X" next to the person I believe will do the best job of championing Canada's treasured ideals.  I watch the officer slip my folded ballot into the box. "Democracy!" I shout, raising a triumphant fist!  They cheer and smile!  The utopia needn't be here now, we just need to believe that working toward it is reward enough. And I do.

I then ride my bicycle home singing "O Canada, terre de nos aieux..." It's a beautiful fall day. Glorious and free! Flawed democracy perhaps, but democracy nonetheless! We are so lucky to live here. Go get a hope injection -- VOTE!

x
S

Ms. Jackie Richardson at the Cabaret Festival.

Monday, October 06, 2008

After a whirlwind day of singing, I wanted to be sung to one more time before heading home to heave a sigh in the bath.  Stand out performances up until then were numerous: Patricia O'Callaghan's “Saga of Jenny”, Mike Ross' tender little rendition of “My Ship”, Julie Crochetiere's steamy “Rules of the Game” by the Breithaupts, John Millard's “Lonely House”, the Broadway-tastic Palookas...

Jackie Richardson's voice is something especially extraordinary though - something all of her underlings (myself included) can only marvel at.  It's enormous and enveloping, fearless, warm and compassionate. I love this strange thing some of us humans do - stand on a platform and make sounds with our lungs and mouths... with our breath.  Doing so, Jackie accomplished what all great artists do - she called our attention to love - and while she sang, we could feel it so directly that it was practically there, in the room.

x
S

Q&A, Part 1

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

1.  I was wondering which book you’ve read that moved you and/or affected your worldview the most: a) ever, and b) recently

Marvelous question - a must-have in the event of a boring-dinner-party emergency. "How do you see the world" is the kind of question that really gets to the heart of a person, and bypasses all the other "so what do you do?" nonsense. Thank you!

To answer a) is much like choosing a favourite album or artist, akin to a mother having to choose a favourite child - impossible. Question b) is where I'll start.

Sophie's World - Jostein Gaardner : introduced me to the wonderful world of philosophy.

A Confession and Other Religious Writings - by Leo Tolstoy

Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke: every twenty-something on planet earth should read this.

Thomas Merton - The Seven Storey Mountain -- his Roman Catholic perspective is too myopic for me in this book, but it widens in his later writings. Even still, it is a moving account of being called to serve, of reflecting on life's meaning, of surrendering life to peace.

Real Magic - Wayne Dyer

The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings - Thich Nhat Hanh

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

How the Mind Works - Steven Pinker

Irrational Man - William Barrett

2. I was wondering if you will publish another book of poems. 

I will stop writing when the world ceases to amaze me....

3. Who are your favourite poets?

Rainer Maria Rilke
CharlesSimic
Anne Sexton
Pablo Neruda
Octavio Paz
Carl Sandburg
Ted Hughes
T. S. Eliot
William Butler Yeats
Amy Lowell
Suji Kwock Kim
Robert Frost

I could go on....

4.  Which is your favourite PJ Harvey album and why?

Great question... and I think my answer would have to be Is this Desire? I was pretty floored by To Bring You My Love, and it continues to stand out as a startlingly original record, so strange, timeless, and mean, it's like a black and white photograph of some tough teenager who ended up killing a man and then fleeing to the arctic or something...

Is This Desire? I think balances that hard darkness with some truly disarming gentleness and even beauty...  think of that eerie lone echoing piano line in "The Garden" ...  The same can be said of her voice on this record too, we often forget that she can sing as sweetly as a child at times. (When not growling about being "man-size" or "long-snake-moaning"... ahem....)

She inhabits so many varied characters on this album, and that's what I love about P.J. Harvey. She will not be an archetype, she will only write OF them and step into them, she won't be iconic - i.e the "sexy" singer, the "angry" singer, the "damaged" singer - 'madonna', 'lover' or 'mother,' she's having none of it.  She instead positions herself as the source of them - the chameleon WRITER - the one spinning, not the image spun.  This position has been easier for male artists to carve out for themselves because, in culture, they have historically been the lookers while women were looked at - that is, the stuff of images, and not image-makers.  It is a bold, wonderful thing that women have seized this role, and it's tricky to maintain it without slipping into "image" roles - but Annie Lennox, P.J. Harvey, Bjork and Tori Amos are all doing a fabulous job, non?

5. I know you're a fan of Queen.  What is your favorite song or songs of theirs?

"One Year of Love" is right up there.... the sheer force of Freddie's voice is what gets me...

6. Part of the James Lipton test:

What sound or noise do you love?

Ticking clocks. Wind in the trees. Genuine laughter. Venerable Samu Sunim singing "Ma-um" - my mind is Buddha.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

Constructions trucks backing up right outside my bedroom at dawn. Grrr. Subway brakes. It actually hurts.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

I would like to learn how to live off the land. That is one of my dreams for later in life if I am blessed with a long one...  Hmm. Writing has always appealed... teaching... studying... helping somehow.

9. What profession other than your own would you least like to attempt?

Though I feel very pressed lately to try to become more politically active and informed, I must say that running for office looks like terrible, pitfall-infested, discouraging toil.

10. A group of us really enjoyed your Christmas Show at the Enwave Theatre last year. Are you planning on a repeat performance? Here's hoping...

Hmmm, funny you should ask.....

11. I was wondering will U marry me?

Mmm, tempting... no.

12. I was wondering what got into you first, music or painting? And your paintings were very beautiful I must say... is there any painter or artist that has inspired you in a way?

Yes indeed... I've said before I really believe that all art comes from the same place - that meeting place or crossroads within every human - where the wondering, thirsty conscious mind in this particular time and place and form touches up against the eternal source or spirit...

I love Egon Schiele, Max Beckman, El Greco, Mel Kadell ...

13. I was wondering if you ever sing "I know" in live concerts. I have seen many of your performances, but I have never seen you sing this song. It is my favourite because I feel it is your saddest, and I love emotionally charged songs.

Thank you.... this song is really hard for me to sing now. I feel a very urgent need to make music out of joy and hope now, instead of out of pain.

14. I am so looking forward to all the unreleased songs from this album session!  “Parasol” was a real gem, I'm sure the other are as well!!  Hopefully we'll get to hear them some day!!

Why thanks! It will be on the EP.

15. Will the extra songs from The Baroness not included on the album ever be released separately, perhaps on an EP?

Yep, see above.

16.  I was wondering why the record execs don’t push your amazing product to the USA. Some of us here love you and your work and wish for US tours.

Yes - I've been asked this question a lot over the years.   Ditto for the UK, Australia, etc.  There seem to be a lot of Catch 22s involved in working steadily in America - promoters don't want to book you for a tour if you don't have a release, and you can't get a release unless you tour and have fans...  And record companies can't afford to take risks and spend money putting people out on the road if they don't have radio support, and how do you get radio support if you don't have all that other stuff in place? Ah, futile spiral. And if you put yourself on the road, it's a huge financial burden to bear - gas, vehicles, paying musicians, hotels, tolls, food, etc.  Also, people don't realize that ticket sales are split between loads of other people before what's left makes it to the artist.  Promoters, agents and managers need to be paid too.  So touring can end up being totally unfeasible.  About 8-10 years ago we went the grass roots route of earning each fan by touring on our own dime, (my musicians playing for very little pay) building on the generous support of great public radio stations like WBER in Rochester, and sleeping on a lot of couches.  We worked a small circuit in the northeast and it was amazing.  The fans were incredible and inspired all of us to believe we could make progress independently.  Then all sorts of other things happened and we had to abandon that goal ... but I do earnestly hope that, if I can find a way of touring that is self-sustaining, kind to the earth and to the people I take with me, then I'll be seeing you shortly at the Iron Horse or the Ark or the Kendall Cafe....    

17. I have heard that you don’t like to be filmed by fans while performing. Why is that?

The reason music so magical and wise is that it is happening in time - there is no illusion of permanence as with a relic or work of visual art.  Music, like life, is a continuous stream of nows... of appearing and passing away... and the magic of a concert is that everyone present is experiencing it at the same time, breathing in the same room together with each other and that invisible substance that reminds us we are here, now, together - the music.  Video-taping it seems to be missing the point.

18. I am a huge fan of the song "Twin Moon" I saw you perform at Fanshaw college in 2003 and this was one of the most moving songs in your set. Since then I've been to 5 of your shows in Toronto and you haven't played it again. I understand you didn't write it, but is there a reason you don't play it anymore?

Actually I did write "Twin Moon". (The song that has always been erroneously credited to me is "I Will Love You"... I don't know who wrote it, but it wasn't me!)
I don't play "Twin Moon" anymore because the newest music begs to come out. Songs that I wrote in my early twenties feel very distant to me now, with a few exceptions of course.

19. I was wondering Sarah, if you found ascending mountains while you were in the Rockies this spring an enjoyable experience? Is it a part of Canada that you could love?

Every place I have been to in Canada has land that could inspire reverence in even the most worldly traveller.  May we protect and nurture them!

20. You mention Anorexia in you latest album, is that something you struggle with? And coming from those of us who also deal with eating disorders, any advice?

There is no sorrow, no anguish, that love cannot heal.  And I don't mean just meeting a fabulous man or having a pet or being best pals with someone. I mean discovering for yourself love in its most profound sense - a feeling that inspires awe and an ocean of gratitude, and above all, a trust... What Tolstoy called "a relationship with the infinite".  You can find this.  Because, here is the beautiful secret, it is within you and it is endless.  The more you think about the silent wonders that abound - your lungs for instance, your eyeball and the incredible intricacy of its work, the trees growing right now (think of all the trillions of trees on earth growing so gracefully and silently right now!) the forces that keep the walls around you steady and the sun rising at dawn, and on and on, the more you begin to realize that you are part of the divinity that is this world, the divinity that is the infinite origin of everything.  How could you not be? And that nothing is asked of you or demanded of you other than for you to just BE. (How often I've tried to get in the way of this! To muscle a different path for myself! A bird is a bird, a fish is a fish, just be, just be who you are!! Kids are masters at this, and what other being emits as much pure joy?  You are enough, you are a miraculous creature, and that is all.  Part of eternity.  You are love.  The most amazing thing you could ever do is simply let that be - let the love express itself.  The rest, petty details. And you'll notice that when this realization really starts to live in your heart, you are less afraid.  And fear I think is at the heart of all hatred, all harm, all suffering. 

Fear was at the heart of the hatred I expressed toward myself for many years. And that hatred manifested in all sorts of destructive behaviours. 

For a long time I felt that I was useless. This is the cruelest thing anyone can utter to oneself, and over time, it starts to do serious damage.  I was so pained by the suffering I could see around me, by the anger and pollution and greed in the world.  And I would look in the mirror and say "What are you doing writing songs and tinkling on a piano for your living? You've got to be kidding! Is this what you are doing with your compassion and intelligence? Your time on earth? Selfish useless loser!" And so on.  I remember a moment in my apartment in Paris - I looked up from the bathroom sink and suddenly "witnessed" how I was speaking to myself in my thoughts.  I looked into my own eyes that were so full of disgust and sadness, red-rimmed from tears and booze and insomnia, and I realized I was looking at my sadistic captor.  I was looking at the tyrant. 

When you are full of cruelty it is as if you have a cruelty-seeking pair of glasses on.  The world looks unjust, sick, and callous because that is the filter you've chosen.  When you are fighting yourself so vehemently, you bring people and situations and thoughts into your life that will feed that combat.  Eating becomes conflict. Exercising is punishment.  Your career, your relationships, your speech, all become war.

When you disarm, everything changes.

Permit me this little instructive exercise for disarmament.  Go to a nearby park.  Sit down in a spot free from noise or distraction and have a good look at a tree.  A good long look.  Imagine it smiling at you.  Seriously!... You'll know what I mean.  Try it.

Disarming means knowing love and trusting it as truth.  Love then gets behind every one of your senses. You see food as the sun and the rain's conspiracy to strengthen and sustain you.  You see difficult people and situations as opportunities to deepen your compassion. You hear the plea for love that is hiding behind all complaints, attacks and criticisms.  You feel the life in your body, in another's body, and you're amazed.

I hope this helps.  I truly believe that we're here to elevate our understanding of love and to awaken to its transformative potential... I think there is no other more noble pursuit. 

x
S

Untitled

Monday, September 29, 2008

September has forgotten its duty to cool off and nudge us indoors, so I ride my bike to class. Sunshine and warm air sing through its rusty spokes. It is old and has only one gear. I go slow, if only to add a drop of slow to an ocean of lickety-split. This way I can see them, the passers-by, or those to whom I am a passer-by, in their startling clarity.

I thought this... there is a secret that everyone holds within their heart.  A secret that we perhaps conceal from ourselves as fervently as we conceal it from the rest of the world.  That we are made of love - that love is all we want, all we long to give, all we believe in, all we should believe in. Love is in some way the vital mysterious link between us and the infinity that surrounds us at every turn, the perfection of the divine (or whatever you want to call it) residing within every person.  Love is the entire truth.  And we love each other intuitively, without needing more information or certainty. But we see in each other a skittish hesitation - fear of having that raw beautiful love stung or attacked.  And so we burrow down into ourselves, under masks and bulletproof vests - the social conventions of feigned indifference.  Poor clever human!  Acts like a wise old owl but is really a flinching dog - a street stray hungry for tender contact.  I remember being fascinated when I was a kid by the after-school talk shows - if two people were in a seemingly bitter irreconcilable conflict, as soon as the host would ask them, "do you love so-and-so?" tough exteriors tumbled to pieces... dissolution, tears, surrender, release.

Why do we keep our enormous capacity to love dormant, unused, a secret? Today, I wanted to tell it, somehow let it out of myself. But we are shy. We are taught to be shy by a system of values that is so confused, hypocritical and contradictory it can no longer even attempt to justify itself, much less purport universality.  I wanted to tell it, and in this feeling, before deciding what future "action" was necessary,  I was just smiling - just smiling on my bicycle. Smiling in the taxi later on. Smiling to the squirrel on King St., the mad woman on campus talking to her hands, the students on the corner waiting for the light to turn.  At one point, I was taken aback when I saw my smile positively bloom in the face of a forty-something man on the street. His prior face had the stillness and intensity of one gripped by thoughts, but when his eyes fell upon mine, he stopped, and his mini-battle melted, and he smiled back.  It's as if that smile is in us all the time, but the mind is busy, so tangled, so reactive, so devoted to its (to quote Michael Stone) "chronic unhappiness"  that the smile can't get a word in edgewise... This smile is the one child putting its hand up in a classroom full of shouting students. It’s the lotus flower that the Buddha held in his hand as an answer to his follower's burning questions.   It’s effortless. It’s our natural state. And it may seem like this smile is a rather ineffective tool to employ against the evils that are out there, but as Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau maintain, to end violence and tyranny you must banish them from your own heart.  Your dream for the future can never employ the weapons you condemn ... and so Gandhi sat, and walked, and spoke softly.
Thoreau sat in jail and wrote Civil Disobedience.  Martin Luther King marched.  And the world changed.

Who can deny that love is man at his highest?  Does not a strident internal alarm bell ring when religious leaders want to destroy their enemies or governments want to continue the path that led us to this state? How can we let love sleep any longer?

Sea change. Shift. It's on the wind. I feel it!

Have a look at The Shift.

x
SS

Ego: The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

Friday, July 04, 2008

“One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.'”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

        Ego. The word itself is the essence of conflict. Team "e" pitted against team "o" colliding at a hard "g", the toughest most guttural sound in the English language.
I can just picture the battlefield...  at "g" the swords clash and the blood spills. Compare this word to words like "peace" or "breathe" that glide seamlessly. Language seems to contain a wisdom much like that of our dreams.  Both are direct products of the mind, made up of components it readily recognizes and can assign meaning to, yet they communicate far beyond those meanings.  This implies that we instruct and guide ourselves unknowingly - or better yet - that there are different kinds of knowing within us and the one we commonly consider "real" is not telling the whole story.  If that isn't another argument for our inherent divinity, then I don't know what is.  But I digress - back to my opening image, teams "e" and "o" duking it out... 

        Many contemporary spiritual thinkers believe the phenomenon of "ego" is what cripples our self-understanding and that this misunderstanding is the source of human suffering.  Ego is the part of us all that needs to classify, enumerate, divide, rank, distinguish, define and discriminate.   It likes to judge, strive, compete, to make us & them distinctions. It is one kind of knowing (the conscious mind) that has managed to convince the whole being that it is the only kind of knowing.  It creates the illusion that our conscious thoughts and our sense perceptions are the limit of reality - the entire scope - and that nothing beyond that is possible. It tells us that the Self is finite and contained within that limited reality.  Thus all ego actions are fear-based - all of its anxieties are fueled by a terror of death.  But to think of the Self in this way is analogous to thinking of science as the only eye, of minds as brains, and people as bodies. Science is very good at observing, predicting and labeling, but never bothers to address how it all happens in the first place. Why and how are still giant question marks, no matter how impressively technical we get with descriptions of physical phenomenon.  So, philosophy asks, why Self?

The ego conception of self must maintain its "separateness" from everything else. In ego's view, to fail to do so is to vanish or to no longer exist.  This capacity is a survival tool for us, a species that must navigate through time and space for food and mates, etc.  How would we function if we could not categorize and differentiate and organize great volumes of incoming sensory information? The important thing though, is that this way of seeing does not map total reality.  We forget that no such categories exist in nature and just because we think and perceive in a certain fashion does not mean that this is how the world works - or more simply - just because the world passes through our minds and senses in a certain way it doesn't then follow that the world is that way. A grasshopper sees reality through a very different ocular structure and so it looks totally different than what we see, but is it any more real? Is one version more true? In the human mind, ego says its version of reality is the true one. Yet the very acts of human perception and thought filter out an enormous percentage of what is actually going on in our bodies, our minds, our surroundings. Ego can be construed as very important evolutionary functions - perception, classification and differentiation of the physical world - that have gone haywire and taken over, convincing its owner that its mode of being is all there is, and moreover, that IT is the arbiter of what is real - its methods/perspective are the only ways to assess what is true and what is not true. This is an illusion of such psychological strength that it has effectively transfixed the entire human race. Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer have written extensively on this subject, and the Eastern thought traditions from which it springs explain it very elegantly.

Given that this impoverished conception of a Self offers no peace or certainty, we are constantly compelled to gather evidence for its claim of "separateness" out there in the world - a process that includes not only labeling and acquiring (agnostic, Muslim, feminist, yuppie, sculptor, in a certain income bracket, divorced, heterosexual, forty-something, Liberal, blah blah blah)  but also identifying enemies, "othernesses," or "that which is not us or opposed to us."  Therefore it is Ego at work in emotions like defensiveness, bigotry, greed, racial/national hatred, jealousy. There is a panic to protect such a narrow, fragile, time-bound definition of who we are.  No wonder we have such a hunger for a more expansive sense of reality!  The external chase is inevitably fruitless and can't even come close to describing what, in essence, a person is.  So we must look in the last place ego would have us look - within. 

Our intuitions - our mysterious kinds of "knowing" - are certain there is another plane, we feel it - that there is more to a human than just how he/she's measured in years, accomplishments, labels, and the long list of categories we put them into.  When you wonder at the miraculous workings of your own body, don't you feel like the chatter in your mind is just a small sliver of the universe that is inside you? Or as Nisargadatta points out, what within you is noticing your thoughts? Who is the noticer?

While I was reading the other day, I was struck by something that made the entire maze of this concept come clear for me. The whole truth seems to be that there is no otherness. That's what we can hear the natural world saying to us in times of clarity.  It says, with peace and ease, that all one and all is infinite. This is what I think that mournful forgetfulness is in the work of Levinas. When we are confronted with the face of another, some other, eternal timeless face stares out at us, begging to be remembered and recognized.  This is why humans experience compassion, an emotion that seems to offer no evolutionary advantage whatsoever.  Ego is standing in the way of truly understanding ourselves, of the world, each other. We mistake the shadows on the wall for the actual things, to borrow from Plato. We forget that we are the same substance that flows through the tulip, the fish, the elk, the ant.  We have the same power that lies within an ancient rock. Nothing is really solid or separate - physics states that it all matter is mostly energy and empty space.  Yet we come to believe that we get one chance and that we must frantically construct a describable identity, often fighting each other in the process, so that perhaps we will be written about or remembered. Is it so necessary for me to compare and compete with my fellow humans if I feel as though they ARE me? Is it so necessary for me to draw a fence around myself if I understand that it's actually impossible to do?

Hmmm. How love explodes within me when I put down my weapons, so to speak.  The Buddhist will say that a small bowl-sized heart can be ruined by just a drop of poison, but a limitless ocean can't ever be, no matter how much you dump in. This little image moves me greatly. In that chaos of wanting to help the world but not knowing how to, I feel that if I trust in this image and in the part of me that is beyond ego, I will know what to do, I will be guided.
 
I'll leave you with one of my favourite Krishnamurti quotes: "What we are inwardly exposes itself outwardly."

Roses, blue velvet, limos and rain

Friday, July 04, 2008

When I look at a goat or a passion flower (look it up, it is astonishing) I am convinced that the Spirit or Life-Force or whatever it is has a fantastic sense of humour and is having a gay old time playing around with form. Rhinocerous, wasp or rooster - it's all rather hilarious. The same applies to circumstance, and my delightfully ridiculous weekend at Montreal JazzFest definitely qualifies.  First of all, Montrealers seem to sing and dance nonstop for the entire warm season, so imagine an atmosphere of pure revelry. Add to this that Q92 has requested that I perform at their charity event in Dorval that same evening, so we are shuttling around all day, back and forth for staggered sound checks, in one of their hired limousines. What silliness! I buy a little box of Timbits for the fellas to even out this illusion.  Timbits in a limousine. Ah life!

 

Add to this the spastic weather, at one moment, thick with golden sunshine, the next, pouring rain. Add to this that Andy The-Anh made me a blue dress at the 11^th hour that miraculously slid over my skin perfectly like Cinderella's slipper. Add to this that I am out of sorts because my regular touring band mates were all unable to accompany me on this trip. Wanting to shine my brightest for the beloved Montreal crowd, I admit I was a wee bit heartbroken about it, but one would not want to be vulnerable or take a risk in any other town, for this place applauds it!  They are as fierce a force as a performer, they are not in any way passive listeners. I love this!

 

After the show we are whisked in another ridiculous vehicle back to the Q92 site.  I have flowers and pastry gifts from the beautiful Montrealers.  Sigh.  We step into the whirl of circus chaos in Dorval after circling the venue several times. It is utter disorder.  I feel like I'm singing but the sound of a crash symbol is all I hear. Stage hands are scrambling like insects all over the stage. Frazzled and slightly deaf I teeter back to my trailer.  How densely we can pack the seconds.... after it is often necessary to experience seconds with nothing but cool empty space in them.  I do this in the car on my way back to the hotel with my face pressed into a bouquet of roses.

 

 

P.S. Thrilled to report that I will be participating in January 2009's episode of "Canada Reads" on CBC. Can't divulge just yet what great work of Canadian fiction I've chosen, but it's a goodie and I am preparing to defend it with vigour...

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Monday, June 02, 2008

Ottawa

I wake up in my hotel suite that morning after spending the previous day with journalists.  Remembering how they asked me intelligent, penetrating questions, my heart hurts from their earnestness.  I answered truthfully. Sometimes I think I can't lie. If someone asks me something difficult, I feel compelled to answer with the truth, no matter how much of that truth should be concealed for decorum's sake... a peculiar malady.

The sun was out. I walked to a park near the Natural Sciences museum and stared for a while at a fake triceratops.

After sweating wildly in the gym to hush my accelerating mind, I get ready to meet industry dudes in leather jackets.
Part of me repels this, resists like two same magnet ends, and my internal monologue goes haywire, wobbly, like a surfer losing the wave.
Hmm. I watch my own discomfort with detached curiosity - good little monk-in-training.

Post-lunch I speed over to the venue to reunite with my sanity - the band. Ah. There they are, setting up their equipment.
Exhale.

The Bronson Centre is falling down!  Old gal, keep it together for us, we want to roar magic through your peeling, reeking hallways.
Seriously, the place smells like a locker room but I have Pink Tartan dresses in hand - beauty will reign, dammit, by any means necessary.

But what is it? I can't tell. Something in the air, the weather, the creepy clock ticking is putting me on edge. Put your white dress on Slean, I mean...your armour.
I step on stage but I can't shake the eerie feeling and it sticks to me throughout the opening songs. I wrestle it for the first half of the set and then it finally relents. Sheesh. What was that? Some ghosts like to mess with me, even when I play the piano with all my heart in green high-heels.

Once I shake it, we really catch a wind. The beautiful audience cheers and sniffles and sighs. Voila, the chariot is back in orbit. Merci, milles fois Ottawa.

Toronto

Strings o glorious strings.
Five hours on the road and 15 minutes to frantically load up merchandise from my apartment.
Arriving at the Danforth Music Hall with an hour and a half to spare and a brand new quartet getting ready to sight-read 10 scores cold, I am, uh, in a state.
Full body clench, head down, just rehearse. Never mind that in a few hours all those seats will be filled with expectant faces.
Do not even utter the words "train wreck". Oops.

In sound check I discover that I've made grave errors in a few of the scores. Barking instructions and whipping pencils around I do believe I am sweating while the
piano tuner taps his foot, grunts, looks dramatically at his watch. The piece finally coalesces. Sweet heaven, I guess my little tousle with the ghost in Ottawa earned me a cosmic get-out-of-jail free card. Phew.  The tuner can commence his A440 poking and I must get out of my sneakers and into something more befitting of, hmm, a Baroness.

Poor strings players are attached to their microphones, so our two encores are, hmm, not really a surprise...
but it didn't matter!  I could feel friends in the audience. I could feel good flames licking their throats, goose bumps on their arms.
Sadly the security guards kick everyone out of the lobby. Grrr. This makes me irate. 
Suddenly I am ravenously hungry.   It's amazing how music can feed feed feed you when you're weak - and then when your body is back in the driver's seat you realize
the machine wants more than carrot sticks and ginger candies. Homeward bound in a black car with flowers on my lap and your singing, Toronto, tucked into my ear.

Kitchener

Buying pantyhose in a Shopper's drug mart, a young woman with a walkman stops me and tells me she's listening to me, "right now".
I walk back to the venue in wind and sunshine through the streets that are weirdly vacant, except for two swearing skateboarders and the goofy nodding tulips.
Sometimes I don't know what to say. If the world was asking me something just then, I would be standing, staring, unsure.
The theatre is a dark hollow - a vast gaping mouth. There are blazing white spotlights fixed on us that don't dim or change direction. I feel like I'm being interrogated. A snarky comment from some constipated woman leaps out of the silence. I shoot a blazing arrow back in her direction.  We play like soldiers. The sound is surprisingly rich and full.
I still love my job. Though I need a shower and some Charles Simic. 

Fredericton

This piano is the stuff of erotic dreams. HOOO-eee. And the Playhouse is pretty much an ideal sound environment. My purple dress officially needs dry-cleaning so I pull out some bright pink. Look out Fredericton, it's short. Two encores later, beautiful ladies give me home-made earrings.  Thanks!

Moncton

Speaking of presents - WOW! We were all blown away by the gift of a painstakingly hand-crafted journal from a sweet-eyed lady in the lobby. I shall only put my most electric truths in there, thank you kindly! The Capitol Theatre gave me shivers upon first glance. Ornately carved and delicately painted, opera boxes, velvet red seats, elegant pillars and trim, the dream I dream when mentally casting my musical. Sigh. There is even a front stage apron where young starlets-in-training can practice their charm-weaving and general tom-foolery... ahem. I contributed an exercise or two. In a puff of Chanel I stroll out and greet the sparkling souls of Moncton. Ah Canadians....

Halifax

So simultaneously relieved and sorrowful - the last show of a month long tour. I love this venue. Another triple-fudge-sundae of a piano. And beautiful shining Halifax hearts, open to all songs, every song, every note I can hear them drinking in, digesting. In my Andy-The-Anh dress with a shimmery blue cape (wing?), I stir their minds into a giant soupy vortex. We spin and sigh together. My heart cracks and breaks looking at the faces of the lads in my band.  Just like that, tomorrow we will plug ourselves back into real life - groceries and the streetcar and day-planners and doctor's appointments.  I am a lousy Tao-ist as of yet.

(A beautiful dress by Canada's own Andy The-Anh)

St. Johns...

Sunday, May 18, 2008

The fog rolled out. I got on a plane. The fog rolled in. The plane landed in Halifax, refuelled, and flew back to Toronto.  I climbed stairs and did airport laps trying to keep the blood moving in my legs. The fog rolled out, I boarded another plane.  At midnight, St. John's finally decided to grant me entrance. I can only curtsy.

The next gloriously bright day I stroll over to my favourite restaurant, The Sprout, and order brunch fit for a queen. (I would eat here three times a day if possible but it's clear that air travel to this part of the world is sketchy at best.)  Just at the end of the meal my blasted blackberry buzzes.  "Sssshhh" I admonish.  "I'm digesting some quality nutrients!"  It falls silent. Then Royal's phone beeps. He does the same. Then mine buzzes again, with that cow-mooing insistence I find both humourous and creepy. "Uh oh" I am thinking. Uh oh indeed. All's well with the boys, the tour manager, except, uh --- no bass player.  My adrenals start to squirt. Oh nice meal, I'm so sorry!
Tod speaks in calming, tender tones but I'm ready to throw things. Large breakable things.

After several Tums and a few moments later we are setting up equipment and Rhodie is systematically calling all local bass players. Song charts are being furiously printed.

St. Johns' own Andrew Dale shows up, plows through a rapid-fire song-by-song rehearsal smiling, making goofy jokes and looking generally un-phased.
Stress is just not on the menu here. St. John's officially banned it or something.
Two hours later I am packing up in my dressing room wondering what just happened. A big thank you to the Rock. Educational always.

xoxo
SS

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

What a rag-tag motley crew we are in the lobby of this posh hotel. A long drive
has ground down our prettiest angles to a weary lumpiness.
I think I have pillow creases on my forehead and Dean and Chris have surely smelled better.
Fluffing my oh-so-Audrey green coat I smile brightly at the receptionist. Yes please, we would like the key to the mini-bar.
Inside my room I melt into the king-size bed.
No world for Slean tonight. Go lads, frolic. I need the crossword and a bathrobe.
Tomorrow night is going to require power. Me and my battery have to discuss things.
The band sets out in search of Thai food. I am asleep at 8 o'clock.

After a few press things in the lobby the next day I'm off to sound check.

So many miles indeed....

Thursday, May 08, 2008

On either side, as far as the eye can see, Deerfoot trail is flanked by smoothly combed yellow grain fields and the vegetation just stubborn enough to flower.
After such arduous winters, it can only be called a valiant act.

Weather is king in these parts, and the sheer size of the sky reminds me of impermanence; how our plans and our structures are really always at the mercy of a continuous conversation between air water and fire.

Medicine Hat and Edmonton seem to be neighbours on the maps, but such a vast stretch of highway exists between them you'd think we were driving to Vegas...

What to tell you, now that I have these peaceful hours of nothing but the wind purring at the windows and the engine's low drone? Officially half way through the first leg of the tour we have just spotted a hazy, end-to-end rainbow. Methinks it is the universe smiling back at us. But then again, I could find omens in my breakfast cereal...

Thus far:

April 29
Ah Vancouver, together we are like an old French movie, umbrellas and parks and rainy nights that twinkle with streetlamps and candlelight! I want you, you want me, mais naturellement, c'est impossible! For Toronto and I have too much history, it will always be home... but let us have these trysts, this whirlwind romance! How sweetly painful it is to visit you - like taking a mouthful of the most beautiful wine, knowing it must be swallowed. Yes, we have to part, perhaps for a long time, but may the next mouthful be silkier still...

First show jitters float away as the welcoming warm theatre darkness swirls at our feet, all around the peppy Baldwin Grand, in between the mikes, the wires and the band, guiding us together like a school of fish.  I can't remember my fatigue, my sorrows. They've vanished.  A lovely girl brings us cupcakes at the end of the night. Another charming lad presents a sumptuous bottle of red.  We are speechless. Such wild bright hearts! So kind, open to life!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=iPOO94XCrew

April 30
Injected by the energy of the first show we vow to top it with the next - and the audience, again, brings its own bristling fire.  My black vintage Audrey Hepburn dress does the trick (a garage sale find of my dear friend Kate. Yep. Two dollars). At the end I walk offstage into the audience, forgetting myself, while they sing the simple refrain of “Wake Up” out loud, together, as if it were not a miracle...

After the show a trembling woman in an orange dress unravels tearfully to me. I send her a prayer before I fall asleep that night. Each person, each person is a universe, galaxy upon galaxy of triumphs, tragedies, moments. We must recall this before we are tempted to categorize or dismiss.

May 1
I wake up and start a two hour marathon of phone interviews, but by some happy coincidence they are all intriguing, comic, insightful and clever. What a perfect good morning cup of joe! Ah but I feel the city around me lying to itself, trying to keep up appearances, dancing with the tourists, and something in me turns blue.

Victoria, Victoria, you old dame. No amount of the Queen's horse-drawn carriages or cucumber sandwiches can rid you of your junkies and lost souls. Where from, this bizarre attraction to monarchy? In the middle of a modern world, your Plasticine diorama re-casting of aristocratic scenes is, well, weird.

This is what perplexes and fascinates me about you - the strange and strident juxtapositions.  In some places it is more noticeable than others.
We pull up to Alix Goolden Hall and there are schizophrenics perched like maimed pigeons all over the front steps.

Inside, however, is a glowing sanctuary - not just the breathing, life-like building itself, but the soft-spoken gentle souls within it. A very tattoo-ed stage manager tells me he teaches music theory to children. I think, marveling at him, that eyes make summarizing stories so fast, and are more often than not, wrong.

On stage I can hear the audience breathing. I am wearing a purple dress that Pink Tartan has graciously loaned me. The piano is butter. My aunt and uncle have come. I want to conjure fire. The sound soars up into the ceiling and over the undulating balcony rim. But there is a gritty blue-ness in me that I am fighting to kill. Their listening, their eyes, ignite me, give me power. I catch glimpses of my band mates playing with the fullness of their being - and fire is born.

May 2
We play a short private show in Banff and spend the next two days sleeping deeply and climbing mountains.
Is this for real?  Elk are grazing nearby. Clean, tree-filtered air startles our downtown lungs. A real meal makes me feel as though several internal organs have just woken up.

(Sarah in Banff, Sulphur Mountain)

May 5
Calgary. I have a deep crush on you. You are that concierge who is respectful and yet oh-so flirtatious.

 

You are the maitre d' who perfectly balances loose charm and dignified formality. Every time I come here it seems something, someone, gives me a very sly wink.

I am awe-struck upon arriving at the venue. Knox United Church positively buzzes with that good peace, the clear ringing bell that is compassion. I can smell it.  Tonight - a white dress - to signify the arrow aimed at goodness, at light - and green shoes to keep one's feet firmly planted in the earth whilst reaching for such heights.

We have re-made “Lucky Me” and “When Another Midnight”.

These songs itch me, they want to get born a thousand ways, and it's a thrill to obey their commands.  We are almost out of the new book The Baroness.  I shall have to make more, bless you, readers.

May 6
Medicine Hat - we didn't know you cared!

On the drive in, I am sound asleep in someone's lap until I open my eyes and see giant fluffy white clouds in the window. Brilliant sunshine blankets an abandoned downtown core... where is everyone?

"Working for a living!" our promoter jokes. (Not downtown I presume?)  Vietnamese veggies and vermicelli recharge my lagging battery.

The theatre is ridiculously top-notch and a giant beast of a grand waits on stage, snickering to itself:
"Better stretch your fingers little lady..." I ignore its taunts and head downstairs to tackle some laundry.

Sigh - I am wearing shocking pink. (Will life ever stop making these subtle jokes? Ah, I hope not.)  But all that slips away when they ask for an encore. A small voice in the magical theatre darkness peeps "We are cultured!" Every time I think of that it warms my heart 2 degrees and makes me laugh out loud. I'll be back. Just try to stop me.

S

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Dear heart, furious mind!

 

I feel a tornado inside of me.  I wake sometimes in the middle of the night to the sound of my rib cage rattling... like the bones of an old house sensing the coming storm - like steel quivering at the threat of a faraway train. You know I only write when the the pen is on fire. I worship this dignified understanding in you.

 

In February, Winnipeg violinists caressed their glorious instruments behind me and flooded my soul with unutterable wonder. The Art of Time Ensemble let me drive their magical chariot through an enchanted forest of songs.  Cognitive Science dug its way into my cerebral cortex and the Symphonies of Beethoven cozied up next to it. Such strange bedfellows, what paintings will that marriage spawn?

 

My parents had birthdays, my sister was reliably hilarious and my brother taught his son how to slam dunk. His 2-year old son. Friends came and friends left. I kissed and got kissed.  Ah life, life, you feast!

 

I've posted a whole universe of new vitamins because art has been whipping me into a frenzy of late ... it is a sure sign that the hard learning has occurred, the desert has been crossed, and now it is time to strengthen and prepare for the telling - the showing - the shining forth.  

 

During the desert stage, I shrivel and allow my mind to almost consume me.  It is like a  fast of sorts.  My limits are tested.  This is when all the raw pearls are forming - the living, trembling songs. At the edge and the end of the cycle, something draws me back to life. Something tells me to turn around.  In 2003 when I lived in the cabin it was the mice coming indoors for the winter.  "Get outta here!" they whispered "You've finished your task! "

In Paris, it was the mysteriously perfect timing of unexpected places becoming available and leases running out... but also the very strong sensation that the city was no longer hostile toward me, that the giant riverside trees were actually nodding respectfully to me as I walked by.

 

Then there is the slow delicate process of extraction.  Younger Sarah tried to yank the pearls out as fast as possible.  But impatient hands do damage.  I learn this with each year and each album.  The scratches on the pearls are those unnecessary structural changes, instrument choices, production goo, vocal edits, etc. etc. And they take you further away from the white hot glow....

The gentler you are, the more original truth that little thing retains. I find it so very hard to patient.

 

At the "shining forth" stage - the butterfly moment - what was shriveled then expands and stretches back into its fullest from.  I am reminded of the Incredible Hulk exploding out of his clothes, but that's perhaps a tad extreme. How about a dried up plant soaking up the rain and becoming green and supple again?...   Eat up, get strong! the world urges. And there is "food" everywhere I turn - brilliant young painters, transcendent performances, music that can dissolve even the most stubborn apathy.

Hence my overflowing "Vitamins" entry, and after such a drought...

 

My precious listener, this journal is not for the every whim of my flitting neurons.

It is not to tell you what I ate for breakfast or what cool people I hung out with. There will be no photos of anyone with sunglasses on indoors. Like you, I live in books, in weather, in the burning, crackling force field between us and the street folk who slipped off the edge and into the abyss of madness. I live in the yearning for 'god', or more so, the need to dismantle the distinction between It and You and Me and Everything. I live in the ironic ache of love.  "Try to love the questions themselves" Rilke wrote to the young poet.  When I first heard them, I tucked these words inside of me, right between the lungs. They are an inexhaustible treasure.

 

So this journal aims an arrow. It aims at a wider, deeper truth. The tip is aflame and the archer might be bleeding, but I am certain the act is noble. May it never degrade into dull reporting. May it always dance dance dance its way into your teeming, open meadow-ed heart.

 

 

Ever yours,

 

SS