RLPF.ar

4:30 PM New Year's Eve, just on the way out the door to a new year's concert by the Conservatory's symphony orchestra, a call comes in to Jimmy's phone. It's the owner of the apartment we're renting. She is selling the place and we need to be out in 2-3 weeks.

Welcome to 2011!

That's the way things go here. One year contract? The owner can break the contract any time, of course (whereas if we left early, we would certainly lose the deposit). The one saving grace is that not so many people are looking for rentals in early January and the agents may have a little less latitude to drive hard bargains. We already have some leads on places within the same development, and we're also considering something closer to the city. But it's still a pain, just another element of uncertainty right before going to Zhuhai for the Spring Festival.

OK, something more fun. I'd wanted to do this for a while and figured New Year's Day was as good a time as any. You can now listen to part of the Affectations music on soundcloud. The whole piece has five sections, focusing on different parts of the body: feet/legs, hands/arms, head, torso and finally the full body. This is the torso section: the center, the heart, stillness, rootedness but also the source of vitality. To reflect those ideas, I used long drones with a lot of inner modulation; the sounds are static on the surface but also always changing, and able to explode into action when needed.

Listen

Wishing friends and family far and near a joyful and peaceful 2011!