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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching undertow
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the shimmer

 

Somehow, the old case is pulled from the closet. In the back of my mind I had hoped for a horn part on the album, but did not want to assume it would happen. The instrument almost bursts from the case as it is unzipped - maybe it gained some weight. The reed soaks on my lips. The neck is twisted in. The neck strap dangles, always in the way. It smells of oil, and cork. And then the first note. Breathy, and sour. There is no way to detour this sinking feeling that I do not sound the way I used to. All the same, I know it takes time and practice. I am like a 6-year-old, impatient and ready to be disappointed. 

The afternoon unfolds as I lay down track after track, all sigh and moan, all wail and whimper. If I play them back together, they shimmer. 

This is the last song to record on the new album, a collection of instrumentals. I had no idea how much more the music speaks when you remove words from the equation. 

The horn parts are done, but I leave it out of the case. It languishes on the couch, as the afternoon sun reaches deep into the rooms for an hour. Let it see a little of the world, I think to myself. Let it get some sand between its toes. 

Later, V points at it. It could be be an escaped octopus, or a robot butler if you could see her mouth hanging open. I play it for her and she nods, satisfied. Maybe she sees a little bit of my former life, the man with the old horn, balancing two slices eaten in the street on the way to a gig on Avenue B. Or maybe, she sees none of this, after tiptoeing beyond her curiosity and ready for dinner. 

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