My apologies. But these were written in chronological order, each day, at different times. Then all posted when I got online. If you want to develop a sense of what we experienced then you are best off reading the blog chronologically too. Starting with Day One!
Here is a useful contents for it if you like.
Day One - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs – Adapted - (Lark Camp Post 1)
Day Two - Whale Oil Beef Hooked. Lark Camp Day 2
Day Three - Lark Camp 2014 - Day Three – Muscle Memory
Day Four - Day Four Lark Camp 2014 – An early start and wet pocket syndrome
Day Five - Lark 2014 - Day Five - Where are all the young people?
Day Six - Lark Camp Day 6 - We leave the Camp for the Mendocino Ukestration Workshop
Day Seven - Lark Day 7 - Friday morning - 8am. It's basically over.
Day Seven.1 - They call it Lark Camp, not Sleep Camp - Day 7 - late....
Oh. But wait. There's a contents set of links at the side ----> just over there --->>> see?
Sunday, August 10, 2014
They call it Lark Camp, not Sleep Camp - Day 7 - late....
They call it Lark
Camp, not Sleep Camp – if you whinge about being up too
early, this is what the wise old jazz men from the morning group will
quip. A day after leaving permanently, I now know what they mean. The
level of fatigue is somewhat like jet lag. Lark Lag maybe. All week
it was up for breakfast in the mess, then first workshops begin at
9:30am. But this is after dancing until well after midnight, then
listening to some perfect music by the campfire. It's hell. I can't
begin to imagine what being a soldier at war must be like.
Friday night we felt
like we conquered Camp One. But we didn't really. We made a raid and
survived. Almost like they didn't notice us. Except the Lord of the
Camp – Mickey Zekley. He saw first hand what we can do and
seemed to suitably approve. Put it this way. He didn't use the big ceremonial wooden
hook which he was bearing.
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| Camp Director, Mickey Zekley sitting with his hook. |
The Lark Camp Ukestra
went really well, and we added some suitable cheese with the heavy
artillery of the brass band joining us for the last verse of Sunshine
of Your Love. So lovely it were.
Karen introduced Jane and I using our application submission for the performance. The application
asked “why do you think you would be good in this concert”. I
answered “because Americans think us Aussies are cute, like
chipmunks”. So she used that quote to introduce us. Needless to say
people started doing chipmunk moves, and when we started talking one
audience member interjected “awwww, they're so cute!”.
I also stepped into the breech of inter-camp rivalry - one more comment please - Camp Two rocks!. The suitably Camp Two stacked audience roared in approval (I think).
Into My Arms is a great
song for a listening and participatory audience. There was a PA but
we stepped in front of it, didn't use it, and went completely
acoustic. Always the preferred option. The whole room sang (100? 150?
people) in full harmony. That always sends chills up my proverbial.
Such an incredible way to finish our time here.
Finally I need to make
a comment on the whole cuteness issue. I get it now. We heard around
camp that there was another Aussie, so after our performance I chased
her down. Myf was working in the kitchen and came out when she heard
her name called out in an Australian accent. We had a good chat
(turns out she is an ethnomusicologist from Brisbane) but it was so
giggle and smile-inducing for me to hear another Australian (I cannot
hear my own accent, or Jane's).
I found her accent
sooooo cute. Like a chipmunk.
Lark Day 7 - Friday morning - 8am. It's basically over.
Click this link to hear the accompanying melancholy Lark Camp piano music that I listened to as I wrote this one.
It's ridiculously and deliciously ironic. I come to hide in a breakfast corner, to eat my last words and breakfast. The computer is on, facing away from everyone. I want to be by myself and write, document. Just as I sit down with a plate of fruit and indescribable leftover concoctions, a man sits at the piano and starts playing melancholy. How strange. How wonderful. How sad. Another opportunity to cry at the imminent end of this camp is easily at hand.
There is a quiet frenzy
of sad desperation in the air. The end has snuck up on us. The end is
nigh. It is Friday, but if you stay tonight, you MUST be out by 8:30
Saturday morning. We plan to leave after Friday night performances in Camp One, and head on down to Mary Jane n Jovan's in Mendocino to a shower and soft bed.
Opityme
Two people epitomise
something about this camp for me. What that opityme is, I'm not sure. They are just
two people. We got home last night on the esteemed 12:45am garbage
truck. The fire back at home is still there, the cafe is reluctantly
open. We scoff. And we aren't even stoned. Drugs n alcohol don't seem to be a real big part of this camp. Not that we've seen any anyhow. And we are this is in California where medical marijuana laws allows nearly anyone to have a diagnosis that gets you a script so you can grow your own.
Tea and scones purchased, we sit by the fire. It is a trap. After the huge swing party, it is the firetrap that sucks the final bits of life from us. Heath is one of those opityme people. Which is not to say, take pity on him. But opityme who will miss this place and the experience. I will rue the day I drive out of the forest and back into reality, in a country far far away.
Tea and scones purchased, we sit by the fire. It is a trap. After the huge swing party, it is the firetrap that sucks the final bits of life from us. Heath is one of those opityme people. Which is not to say, take pity on him. But opityme who will miss this place and the experience. I will rue the day I drive out of the forest and back into reality, in a country far far away.
Heath
Heath is a quiet
Virginian, clawhammer banjo player. And teacher. But almost everyone here is
a teacher. Jane has had a reserved
affection for him since she started taking banjo classes with him six
days ago. Heath is sitting by the
fire, with three others. They are in a very close huddle, giving the
strong message that this is not a welcoming jam. This is a sensitive
love affair between two guitarists, a vocalist and fiddle player. The
beauty and tenderness of their 1am musical ministrations is
indescribable, which must be why I am writing. So much of this camp
cannot be photographed or videoed, though tens of iThings
desperately try. My word pictures are an endeavour to capture something richer
(for me) than digital visuals.
Heath, Carlo, female
guitarist / vocalist and female fiddle are singing the very essence
of old timey Americana. Fine fine harmonies, tooo beautiful. Texas,
lost love, flowers. I stand, with my backpack, for a while, trying to
will myself to leave to go to bed. But then my bum is glued back to the seat next to Jane and for that moment it becomes the most
beautiful music, most beautiful singing I have EVER heard.
I saw Heath earlier in
the night, at dinner time, cajoling people to play with him quietly
around the empty Camp Two campfire. Most (including us) decamp to
Camp One for the Swing Dance. It looks like he has had maybe 6 hours
of success. This is clearly a fin de siecle
frenzy. The end is coming. I will play until I die. That is what it
feels like. That is one person's act expressing their sadness the end
is nigh.A fury of quiet intent playing to last for another year.
Karen
The
second is Karen – the pain in the ass ukulele student whose
character is all that more understandable when you realise she is one
of those neurotic Woody Allen New York Jewish types. Karen has turned out to
be our greatest ally here. She knows we are newbies, she likes us,
she is an experienced hand at this. A very useful pain in the ass.
(ass, not arse). She fusses, conniving to include us in the last
night Variety concert over which she lords. The ukestra is performing
two songs, and it sounds as though Jane and I will close it. Again,
it will be at Camp One, which is nowhere near as good as Camp Two.
But I would say that. I am an undeviably confirmed Camp Two
aficionado.
Karen
is so straight up and down she hasn't worn a dress in ten years.
Until tonight. Amidst the myriad other swing-ready cocktail dresses, she
possesses the microphone, frocked up in front of her own swing band,
and a swinging audience. For just one song. There are fourteen
vocalists – some novices - all taking it one song at a time,
including Jane and myself. We, like Karen, acquit ourselves
admirably. The scratch band sort of intelligently makes it up as they go along.
The variety concert goes an hour and fifteen over time so the big band starts really late at 11:45 or somesuch. You've
got to be kidding. The trumpet works on my lips, but my eyes don't
work so well on the music reading. I can do the bwa da, bwa da bits,
but not so well the dibbideedipdadowwhaaadevudabadip bits. But it is
fun, and my pocket is suitably wet (see previous posts).
Karen's frenzy is to
organise and do as much as possible before they close the road at 9am on Saturday morning. Heath's frenzy was to put off sleeping for the sake
of good music until the very very end. Though I cannot see him this
morning.
Jane didn't leave the
campfire. I went to bed by myself. She came in another hour or two
later. I think it was 4am. (Means more early morning writing time for
me). She stayed, recording the beautiful Americana songs and the
tight harmonies of the intimate foursome, then threesome, then twosome,
then one lonesome, as the bed takes its toll.
On being a respectful jammer
Jane also tells a rather apocryphal tale, a salient lesson in being senstiive to the dynamics of a public 'jam'. Their's was not a public jam, but one rather annoying (I can confirm that feeling from several independent sources, but, as Tim Minchin apparently quipped – if anecdotal evidence was any good, it'd just be called evidence)...I digress....where was I? Oh yeah....the salient point. This one person comes in, with their guitar and insistent voice, desperate to make the intimate circle into a more open jam (wrong! Don't do that!). The intimates gently (and perhaps not so subtly) deny her the room to ruin their feel. The interloper sings her song, then realises the error of her ways and either desists, or leaves. I can't recall, and it isn't important.
What is important is to
'read' jams or sessions, your potential to join, how your abilities
and sensibilities match with those already around the fire. That is a learned skill, and an important one.
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| 2nd last dinner, the Marimba band perform |
Lark Camp Day 6 - We leave the Camp for the Mendocino Ukestration Workshop
Our performance in the
dinner line on Tuesday night (Day 4/5?) attracted some new people to today's workshop. They were
impressed by our energy and what we do. After that we went into town to
prepare for our Mendocino ukestration workshop. 2012 – 7 people.
2013 – 14 people. 2014 – 21 people. Not that that is a pattern or
anything. Let's not get too excited.
One person at the
Mendocino workshop asked a really critical question. How do we get
to keep doing this? Such questions belong with a whole swag of similar queries and comments from people exposed to the
prevailing 'ukulele culture'.
We
aren't able to improve! We can't learn new stuff! We just sing a song
and move onto the next one.
There
are lots of people we are meeting at Lark Camp who - as ukulele
players - are aspiring musicians. They are not satisfied by the
prevailing strum n hum culture of the new ukulele movement.
My answer to the question How do we keep doing this stuff
was simple.
Pay
someone.
To
my mind this achieves two things.
Firstly, it potentially provides a sustainable incentive for someone to harvest, arrange and teach new songs (and hence techniques and music theory), to organise and create opportunities for learning and performance.
Second, when you hand your money to someone you are saying – here, take my fifteen bucks, and you now have the responsibility to organise, teach, and handle the group and personal politics that inevitably arises. This buck is stopping with you!
So we
live in hope that someone in the 20 or so Mendocino Coast souls takes
up this challenge and thinks about running groups in such a way. It would / should complement the slew of volunteer groups that already exist in the area.
I feel a disturbance in The Force
But going ten miles to
Mendocino was a challenge in some way. It made me think of Obi Wan
Kenobi, when the Death Star destroyed Princess Leia's planet.
I'm not sure what it is, but I felt a great disturbance in The
Force …
Well,
I did. I felt a disturbance in my own force, my own equanimity. We
got connected back to the internet. To an unwell mother, to daughters
who miss their father, to business issues, to payruns, to how much
money is in the bank back home, to abandoned Thai-Australian
surrogate babies with child molester parents on the news, to the
remnants of MH17. But we also had to re-orient ourselves back to a
new set of relationships – even if only for one night.
How
quickly we have become accustomed to a new set of relationships in the
forest. These are now my daily community in my new life environment. The people who serve the food, who have specific musical
specialties, the same haircut (is that Leo? Bill? or Radim?), the
lady with the pretty (fake) hair braid who gives me the tickets for lunch (Bonnie), the San Rafael woman who I flung
around on the dance floor the other night (Janene from Santa Rosa), the diurnal rhythm of the
sun through the timbers (of the forest or the cracks in the cabin),
the hot chocolate (chocolat caliente as the girls ask me to
say in my cute accent), the rudimentary camp bed and dirty sheets, the dirty
clothes in one corner, the clean still in the bag. How quickly we
become comfortable, and uncomfortable with a subtle change ten miles
down the road.
But
always through this I have another planet with whom I revolve. It
is so reassuring. Jane and her ways. And an accent that I cannot hear.
Tomorrow
is our last day. It will be a big one. And in an hour or three I
perform for the first time in my life with a Jazz Swing Big Band on
the trumpet. Wish you could be here Mum. You'd be proud of my rather appalling music reading abilities and occasionally ok trumpet playing. You could keep
company with Carol, who is 78, from Atlanta Georgia. She seems quite
straight compared to all the recalcitrant 1960s hippies and draft
dodgers. Yet Carol has embraced singing, marimba and all manner of other workshops. And stood on benches around the edge of the dance floor. And you could also then take the due credit for the cascade
of compliments for all my lovely sweaters.
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| Her last swim. The footbridge just below our cabin |
Lark 2014 - Day Five - Where are all the young people?
You don't mess with
US Border Security services. Such a contrast to the Hanoi airport
security guard who joked about me having a gun in my ukulele case. He
smiled at me, laughed, said 'joke!', and waved me through. At the US
Customs entry you don't make such jokes. Any jokes. Or banter of any kind. You don't even dare crack a
smile. Just be straight up and down and hopefully keep walking.
Its sorta similar with
me mouthing off at gigs – I often tread a fine line with what quips
comes out of my mouth when I perform (or host a performance). Our
debut Lark Camp Ukestra performance (to the dinner queue passing
through the hall into the kitchen) went off a treat. The dubious
hundreds who stayed away from the twice-daily Ukestra workshops were
instant converts.
“You did
that with the ukulele? You
got everyone playing parts??!!! You mean you disciplined
people? That sounded fantastic!! You guys have such a great time!”.
And
the master musician / mentor ukulele teacher here at Lark, he came up
after and very solemnly shook my hand saying what a fantastic job we
had done – I think it was Mum's colourful woollen Fair Isle vest
and Jane's beautiful dress, big hair and our very large quantities of
happiness that helped give a good show too. Catch My
Disease, My Girl,
and Way Down in the Hole
– all resulted in hoots of approval from the audience. The last one
in particular, with big American (hungry) hoots of “Yeah!”,
“Bring it on!”.
And the solos, introduced by yours truly, dubiously; and deferring to
geography (as is appropriate).
I
have worked with Skip a little, in the big band, a fellow surfer
(crazy Mendocino kind of surfer – water temp is never above 14deg
C), a kindred 64 year old spirit who looks 49. Ladies and
gentlemen! Give it up for Mr Skip Stand Up Paddle Boarder from
Mendocino County!. And then it
was Julie's solo – a better uke player – except I don't know her
last name either, or even worse, her geography.... uh oh … here
goes mouthing off improvisation. Ladies and Gentlemen!
Give it up for Julie! An American! God Bless America! -
I'm just glad a bunch of straighter people weren't there, or US
Border control. I think it worked. Sitting around the campfire later
a passing stranger whispers to me - God Bless America.
My
6:30am start yesterday finished with a campfire performance by myself
to about 3-4 people – maybe 3-4 songs in 45 minutes, in between
chats. My standard folk song – Gloria Gaynor's I will
survive rocked the house, with
Jim, proud new owner of a Low C charango joining in with soulful
backing vocals. It went off, probably much to the morning chagrin of
the seven closely parked RV's.
The Ignoramus
The campfire
conversations also included respectful discussions about Rolf Harris
(yes, they do know about our tortured Australian childhood souls),
and succession planning at such Folk Camps. I asked where are the
young people?
My
ignorant question was answered at midnight, and in the kitchen. Us
oldies are there in the kitchen, plates at the ready to be dished up
our slops. Behind the counter, slaving in the kitchen are a bunch of
young people – working for their ticket entry. Then at midnight the
bus disgorges all the pretty young people, (they say they mostly
reside in Camp One). They are ready to party and are here in spades.
On our wander home to bed at midnight we pass a erstwhilely
abandoned marqueed dance floor. Seems barely used in the daytime,
albeit for an occasional practising piper. But why the very long
electrical cable connecting it to mains power? Ahhhh!!!! now, at midnight,
it is heaving with dancing to contemporary songs played by
traditional instruments played by young people. Here they
are! They are vampires! Only appear late late at night, or in the
kitchen!
Questionus Ingnoramus Answerus.
Everywhere there are
dumped instruments. Looking abandoned, they litter strategic corners,
far away from their sleeping owners. Some are probably really
valuable. Who knows. When you return to your own strategic corner –
your instrument is there. No doubts at all.
There is a lost
property box. I had a peep for my water bottle (eventually found in
my trumpet case). In there I found Jane's Shower Gel that I had left
in the shower, with about a centimetre of juice in the bottom. No
finders keepers culture here. Just a downright honest and loving
culture. My God this place, this culture, this week. It is amazing and
wonderful and I will miss it in a few days when we leave.
Day Four Lark Camp 2014 – An early start and wet pocket syndrome
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| Dust is a feature of Lark Camp - Camp Two at dawn. |
I am up at dawn. Let's
see what is going on at this hour. The volunteers are cleaning the
tables. Creating dust storms with brooms, but no-one has lit the fire
yet.
I thought I'd crawl out
of bed early to see how it feels. Wandered down to main camp, and
hope no-one disturbs my writing. All the other early people (two I
can count) are taking advantage of the return of daylight to read …
books. And to have their first coffee.
Now (obviously) I am
writing. But before I was practising and arranging St. Thomas. In the
distance, at the coffee house, a loudish guy (a great drummer who
always wears a tall hat), is telling jokes about Betty's Bitter
Butter. I didn't hang around to hear how it ends, or even progresses.
So now I write, we are
behind in the manual, but the affirmations are flowing thick and
fast. Like the quote we got yesterday (see Day Three post). I don't feel like visiting the manual,
but I may try. But I do have just one observation in relation to that writing task.
Jane has observed that
I haven't been 'ukestrating'. Documenting what we do is taking a lot
of energy and focus, so arranging for ukulele is down the priority
list.
So this morning I sit
on a song that I heard last night. I first heard it from a bass
player in Bendigo 15 or so years ago. St. Thomas. A simple modern
jazz tune. Yeah. That can work. What teaching principles can I pull
out of it? Is it an engaging tune? Can we write simple sensitive
accompaniment parts that still teach beginner uke players something?
Can we provide a challenge for more advanced players? Bob the Builder can we fix, I
think we can. But I need a little help from the internet. The
Internet!!!!! I WANT THE INTERNET!
...not really. I am coping
well. In reality, engaging with this computer is really difficult when every
day and night is consumed with engaging with music and people.
Mum, you'd be proud.
I've been playing heaps of trumpet. Wonderfully generous people here.
Mardi from Grass Valley responded to my request on Facebook and pulled a long lost trumpet from her cupboard, took it to a
fixer shop, got it serviced and has loaned it to me for the duration.
It has had good use. But that means I am now caught up in the 9:30am obligation to
play Glen Miller tunes. 'Play' is only one part. I have to 'read'
music. That is a challenge, and I am not really up for the task or
the commitment. But again, the affirmations and praise flow thick and
fast. This time not because of ability, but because the band is
desperately short of trumpet players. The competition for 'students'
is pretty fierce. I could be at a uke workshop instead. But it is
lovely to be reacquainted with my first parentally imposed musical
obligation.
All the praise for my
trumpet playing. I know it is primarily because they want me –
Second Trumpet – to hang around. I warn some of my praising brass
colleagues about wetting my pocket too much. I have to explain the
lovely Australian metaphor, and tell them not to 'piss in my pocket'
too much. Their praise is somewhere between praise, and fear that I
will not return. So far so good though. I am hanging around.
I might leave this blog
now and go visit the manual. Or maybe the fire (now started) is calling me. I think
it's the fire. And the guitar. It's 7:12am.
 |
| The main action at Camp Two is in this area. The (small) RVs are circled in an defending action against the outside world. |
Lark Camp 2014 - Day Three – Muscle Memory
 |
| Dancing in the dining room at Camp Two - Lark Camp 2014 |
 |
| Jane and Janene (from Santa Rosa), Camp One - the last night |
3 nights of dancing. I
think. Is it Monday? The lunch menu board says so, so I believe it is.
Which makes it four nights of dancing, but three whole days. I can't
keep up with Jane, who wants to keep dancing – tonight it is Cajun
/ Zydeco. Tomorrow's theme is Balkan, the next Swing or Contra or....
I remember Warren
Coleman saying backstage at a Castanet gig in the early 80s that he
loved America because if there was any minor craze somewhere in the
world, then in America it was a whole big movement. That's what it is
here. They've got the density and diversity thing going on big time.
A different style of dance each night. If you move between tables or
tents or fires then there is bound to be some different cultural form
being expressed, with a whole bunch of people doing it. And this is
just Camp Two. Camp One is apparently bigger – we still haven't
strayed from Camp Two. There is plenny diversity here, without
introducing too much Irishie Celticie streams to make matters even worse.
Around the fire I was
joining the Mexican trumpet player doing Mexicanie sorta stuff, lead
by a female accordion player. I have never seen so many hurdy
gurdies, or guitarrons, or, or.... then back inside for some more
Cajun dancing. I get told and bossed around by various women,
including Jane. This is how you dance – not like that.... Cajun seems to really use my calves more - they hurt.
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| Workshop Area 1 - our teaching home for 7 days |
The trudge home from
dance, in the dark, is now more familiar. Muscle memory is kicking
in. Dodge that overhanging limb – turn left at the giant sequoia
tree stump – swing past someone's cabin – up the hill to the loo.
Down the hill, I'm home, with minimal or no lighting.
We keep teaching people
about muscle memory, for fingers on frets. We assure them that, if they practice and play then the
muscle memory will soon take over.Thank God for auto-walking and auto-fretting.
We're on a mission from the Blues Brothers
People are really
loving what we do, and today I think we snagged the quote of the trip...
I
thought ukulele was boring til I met you guys.
And that's the point
exactly. Too often we are hearing stories of newly minted, musically curious ukulele players feeling that hum n strum on the uke is the only form of music on offer. Many of them then leave disenchanted because they feel there is nothing more to it.
Our Ukestration webpage sets out some of our mission - to allow
people to be simple on the uke whilst continuing to learn; to introduce them to musicality, initially through their nostalgic curiosity; and to enable audiences to hear the ukulele as more than just hum n strum.
 |
The cultural
difference between this folk camp and uke festivals and camps to which we
have been is enormous. Utterly enormous. So many ukers have an exciting journey ahead of them - engaging with and learning about musicality. But to achieve that one needs leaders who are musically literate and curious. Music is about so much more than nostalgic reproductions of songs. Yes the uke is introducing thousands upon thousands of new people into a life of making music and is creating new communities. But experienced leaders and musicians need to help those inexperienced musicians to know that we need a diverse set of skills so that music can help us celebrate life and help us personally mark its joyous and sad passages.
This is our mission, our mountain. That should keep us amused for a while. It's good to have a mission. And it is places and events like Lark Camp that help keep that mission focussed.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Whale Oil Beef Hooked. Lark Camp Day 2.
Day Two – Sunday. No weather information,
no communication with the outside world. Electricity only in limited
places. Toilets are clean, food is reasonable. Someone else cooks it.
I front up and am happy.
But tonight I am ill,
ever so slightly. Means bed by ten. The walk home is dark. The
useless relic of my city life – the iPhone with no reception –
serves as a reasonable torch.
Words like that –
torch – cause some laughter – it's 'flashlight'. But not as much
consternation as my name. Hi Mike! Pleased to meet you. Or jokes
about the 'cute aussie accent'.
Whale Oil Beef
Hooked.
Thanks for that.
So I'm home alone. I
hear a rare sound across the creek – an electronically produced noise. It's a
transistor radio of some sort, playing … I mean ... replicating a
sound. Voices, singing.
It is a rare sound
because it is not being produced live.
Everything happening
here is live. Not virtual, though I did briefly see one kid today
with a gameboy (or somesuch).
All the music, all the
conversations, all the learning. It is all happening
face-to-real-face. I leave to go home (sick) and cannot pass up the
chance to play with two of the most incredible improvising musicians
here at camp. Both of them are Czech-American virtuosos – Radim and
Leo - respectively - jazz mandolin and melodica. I trot back to get my
trumpet and join in. I can join in, on the instrument and in spirit –
I am welcomed. It is wonderful creative stuff – I help them turn
Santana's 'Europa' into disco hit “I will survive” vocally, and
then its back to Europa. And there is another song, that sounds like
Piazola's 'Libertango'. It's all fabulous.
Life here at Lark –
will I survive seven whole days?
The sun ...
I miss the sun. It does
eventually penetrate through the perpetual sea fog, which doesn't
quite rule this far inland, but still has an effect. It is
mainly the trees that block the sun. We sunbathe in bed, between 3:30 and 3:55, the light streaming along the opening in the canopy caused
by the creek. And
then it is gone again, for perhaps another 24 ish hours. The only time it really shines down is when it can
shine straight down, between the giant sequoia trunks.
I now understand the
comment by the previous Mendocino Woodlands caretaker who lived here for ten years, but then had to
leave. It was just too dark. She now lives on a treeless ridge
top with 360 deg views. I can understand that. I get that.
We are looking forward
to home. But are learning and enjoying so much.
God Bless America. Well
at least this tiny little bit.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs – Adapted - (Lark Camp Post 1)
Stardate – August
2nd, 2014. Now entering the second full day of life
without the internet. But forge onwards I must. Everyone else has
succumbed, consumed by the cavernous maw of community music. Everyone
is interacting with each other, learning, copying, playing, joking,
laughing, struggling. There is no hope. I'm not sure that I can last
– another full six days to go before I again will have access to
life's basic sustenance – a wireless internet connection. If you
don't get a Facebook posting from me by 10 August, please send in the
ghost of Steve Jobs, for I will have been eaten up by the
non-virtual.
As an anthropological
piece, and as some form of Internet Replacement Therapy, I shall type
on this computer, smuggled through border security.
It's a Lark
I am trapped deep in
hills and valleys, somewhere behind Mendocino, Northern California.
California, ironically birthplace of the internet and all things I. Here in the
giant sequoia forests there is no I. There is us. There is music.
There is no internet. No Facebook. Just Faces, bodies, instruments,
music.
Lark Camp shows no
mercy for those virtually committed. No respect whatsoever. They have
blatantly ripped off the graphical work of Jurassic Park, and made
stickers and t-shirts to create Jurassic Lark. Here be hobbits and
Morris Dancers, swaddled in music, from communities around the globe.
Camp One
I'm
not sure I'll venture there. I believe much alcohol is consumed
therein, with Irish sessions 24/7 (literally 7. This is a 7 (seven!
SEVEN!!!!) day camp). Legend has it that a tunnel / time port exists
there (perhaps only for the ale lines), directly through to the
Temple Bar district of Dublin. As a mere tippler I fear I do not have
the fortitude to enter this land of beer, Celts, and many headaches.
Camp Three
Somewhere lost betwixt One and Two (strange I know, but that's how it
is). They have no dining room or hall, only a reverentially whispered
cafe, which cooks mystical pastries and sweets, and ferries said
contraband to Lands One and Two. I hear they play mostly Balkan.
Balkan,
Eastern, 9/8 time signatures. Erghhhh....dare I enter that strange
non 4/4 world?
Camp Two
We are
here. Cabin 32. Our Cajun tutor flatmate ordered a transfer out as
soon as we arrived. We have the cabin to ourselves. A refuge from the
constant sounds and learnings of the main camp area.
 |
| Guitarron. Amazing. I want one. |
 | |
| The smokers |
 | |
| Our home for 7 days and nights |
 |
| The bed |
 |
| The sleeper |
The dark at night is
ink. But that is the only way home.
It's 4pm. Time for a
shower. I'm not going after ten.
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