When Lyric wakes up...

When Lyric wakes up at night, when Christin and I are awake in the other room, I love it. She come out with her eyes scrunched tight, her hands opening and closing in the air for someone (usually me to pick her up). Somehow, she rarely runs into things. The last time I picked her up, Christin said she got a look of pure joy on her face as I put her back to bed.

Lyric's new bike...and Ethics...

Today, I took Lyric to pick up her new bike. I had intended to give it to her on her birthday proper, but after I rode my new bike yesterday, I just couldn't wait. On the way to the shop, we walked past the Juilliard, and a poster for one of their current opera's captivated Lyric's attention. When she asked me what it was, and I explained to her that it was an opera, she asked what the people were doing. I responded that since it was an opera, they were probably behaving very badly, and not treating each other very well, but they would all sing about it. She asked, "'Being bad', like not listening to God?" Stunned, I asked her from where she got that definition of bad. "I learned it from my brain!"

Lyric's new bike...and God...

Today, I took Lyric to pick up her new bike. I had intended to give it to her on her birthday proper, but after I rode my new bike yesterday, I just couldn't wait. On the way to the shop, we walked past the Juilliard, and a poster for one of their current opera's captivated Lyric's attention. When she asked me what it was, and I explained to her that it was an opera, she asked what the people were doing. I responded that since it was an opera, they were probably behaving very badly, and not treating each other very well. She asked, "'Being bad', like not listening to God?" Stunned, I asked her from where she got that definition of bad. "I learned it from my brain!"

What would it be like to meet Jesus?

For some seventeen years now, I've been constantly writing and directing several films in my head. Almost all of them contain some scene or other in which (usually a not lead) character meets Jesus face to face. Even in my imagination, I have trouble telling the actor what they are supposed to express to the camera when they see Him. The closest I can get is this: meeting Jesus is like all in one day finding your most beloved childhood toy that you lost so long ago you began to question your memory of its very existence, and reuniting with your most beloved friend whom you haven't seen for decades, but both of you knew would always love each other.

A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tonight I asked my daughter if she would like to fall asleep at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Luckily, she did! It made for an interesting and really great date (which we are now both writing about). I find dating my pregnant wife with our almost four year old to much more fun and romantic than any of the teen romance flicks I saw suggested such a thing would be.

The exhibit featured beautifully crafted guitars and other stringed instruments, mostly from luthiers from Italy or Little Italy. It is no exaggeration to say that most of the pieces were as exquisite as the Crown Jewels, or any of the finest masterpieces adorning the galleries above. One could stare at any given component, a fretboard, a headstock, tuning pegs, any of the bodies, and get nearly swallowed by deeper and deeper layers of fine detail. It was such expertly artistic work.

The were pictures on the walls of some of the recording artists who played the guitars, and almost any guitar's description mentioned the more famous artists who favored them, or their maker's work. This shift of focus from the work of the luthier to the work of the musician made me think about how there was a time where I would have looked at this exhibit more from the eyes of an artist, rather than those of an engineer. At first it made me want to shift a lot of my current energy into playing and singing and creating more. But then, after some more thought, I realized that without the luthier (or some other type engineer), Jimi Hendrix or Beethoven or Shigeru Miyamoto or Steven Spielberg can do nothing. Then, I was fine again.

One last note: there was a large picture of a professional recording studio at the exhibit. The audio commentary rentals were implemented via iPod touches. It struck me that after thousands of years of musical history, hundreds of years of study, math and engineering thrown at the development of instruments and musical theory, and all of the passion of humanity that gets fused into songwriting, we listen to it via a digital recording at a 16-bit/48khz sampling rate, in a 128kbs .mp3 on $50 digital audio player equipped with factory ear buds. \sigh Let's all do ourselves, and musical history a favor: support musical appreciation, and high-end (or at least not crappy-low-end) audio equipment!