Announcing the Premier of a Choral Work

Sanford Dole Ensemble presents:

"All New - All Local"

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 8:00pm
San Francisco Conservatory Recital Hall
50 Oak St., San Francisco

Featuring four new works by Bay Area composers, receiving their local premieres:

David Conte: The Nine Muses with text by John Sterling Walker

Peter Scott Lewis: The Changing Light sets three poems about the light in California by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Michael Kaulkin: Waiting... sets various poetry by Elisabeth Eliassen

Sanford Dole: Gertrude and Alice songs from a work in progress about the lives of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas with text by Brad Erickson

All of the works on this program employ various combinations of chorus, strings, piano and percussion.

Tickets available at the  Sanford Dole Ensemble web site and also at the door.

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You might notice that one of these works is a setting of "various poetry by" me! So, I thought I might take a moment here to talk a little about that, as well as to invite you to come, if you live in the San Francisco area.

First of all, I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled to be involved in this concert as a performer. I am really enjoying the sonic thematic material that is embroidered throughout the piece, and I can't wait to hit the stage with my colleagues at its premier. 

So, here is a little background. Two years ago, I was introduced to Michael Kaulkin at concert of the Bay Area Choral Guild, by Sanford Dole is the group's Artistic Director. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Sanford Dole Ensemble, whose mission is to present contemporary music written for voices and instruments. Sanford had set one of my poems as a movement in his fabulous work called "Fabric of Peace", a commission for the 50th Anniversary of the Oakland Symphony Chorus, and I was in attendance at this BACG presentation, hearing the piece again for the first time.

As he introduced me to Michael, Sanford mentioned that he was interested in having Michael create a piece for the Sanford Dole Ensemble. The introduction led from exchanging business cards to exchanging emails, and now, two years later, there is this piece of music! I have to say that I really enjoy that my work moves beyond me into the world to find new life through the vision of others.

To find out more about Michael, please see his website, where you can hear excerpts of some of his other compositions, and even hear a snippet of this new work called "Waiting..."!

The most interesting aspect for me about this piece is that it is a single movement with an array of emotional content. After exploring themes, density and speed of my written material (more for a future discussion), he finally selected not one piece, but five! I was flabbergasted, frankly. What audacity and courage to work with that many words that are not, I have to confess, really all that lyrical! I asked him what he was planning to do, and he said that his intention was to create a single movement that worked all the texts together, revolving them around one poem in particular--a piece from Songs of a Soul Journey entitled "Come Again."

Over the next year and a half, bit by bit, Michael engaged with my poetic material in his musical process. Ultimately, he decided not to use all the stanzas of "Come Again", since the piece was becoming very long, and also for a contextual reason. Throughout his creative process, Michael was concerned that the pieces he chose to weave into the single movement he had envisioned would have a coherence. I am pleased to say that I find a great deal of coherence to the way the material is wedded into a single thought, if you will--although I haven't disclosed to Michael the what and why of that. My feeling is this: Michael found a coherence to the material that has resulted in his music. The audience will find a coherence to the material, as they hear it and process it during the performance. Meaning lies in each person's experience of the work.

I won't give anything away by printing "Come Again" in its entirety, but you should know that only the first four stanzas are set in "Waiting..."

Come Again

Waiting,

an eternity of waiting,

a people of waiting in-waiting,

whose sole occupation is waiting,

for an end or a beginning, waiting

for that something beyond waiting

that will make all the waiting

worth having been waited.

Waiting,

this grand pause of waiting,

for a turning or a returning, waiting

as if life were stalled on a comma, waiting

to be launched into a newer verse, waiting

to be sung by all the returning dead, waiting,

as have we done, for the next coming; hoping and waiting,

waiting, waiting, waiting for a next coming.

Waiting,

but what of living, doing, being? Waiting,

as it were, on the presumption of an IF, waiting

for future thought to manifest itself into action, waiting

without a thought that this thought now must also breathe, waiting

on the heartbeat of the collective soul, waiting

for us all to act on our common goal, waiting

for this generation to generate the next anything.

Waiting,

beyond waiting, there is nothing waiting,

and no one shall come down from on high, waiting,

as one might be, for a sign that we are ready and waiting,

for, lacking such an offer, still for some reply we are waiting

for something, from what we suppose to be a heavenly realm, waiting

for a new and familiar face to appear, waiting

to be acknowledged, to be loved, to be led.

Waiting,

surely, we must be beyond waiting;

could not that new and familiar face facing me, waiting

for me to hurry up and move, to get up and go, waiting

for me to do the chores and the mending, waiting

for me to make a beginning and an ending, waiting

for me to heal the tedium of all this waiting,

could that face be the face of God? Waiting?

Waiting,

day on day, moment on moment, waiting

in sight of the face of God, waiting

in the reflection and shadow of God, waiting

on the endless pageant of all the faces of God, waiting

is not the fulfillment of the promise; waiting,

we miss the clear and present signs awaiting

our recognition that the kingdom is here, subtly waiting;

patiently and impatiently, the face of each being is waiting

for me to take the next step.

from © Songs of a Soul Journey, 2002 by Elisabeth Tamar Eliassen

Mirage

It is as if I have been following you
along a trackless path,
and I have been
always.

The desert is the only place
where you can be found,
it seems
—and every place is
its own desert,
isn’t it?

You are like a mirage,
flowing somewhere before me
across the steaming plain,
the parched nowhere,
this empty expanse
of possibility
that I inhabit;
you seem always out of reach.

When the rains come,
you don’t flow as freely,
and I cannot see you

in the stream of my own consciousness
for being washed
into and down arroyos of
tracklessness
and unremitting emotion.

What are you?
A dream or a reality?
Why can’t I see you,
face to face?

Possibility, breezes breathe,

by way of answer.

I am what you make of me;
my being is because of you
—I am nothing without you.

You are not a dream,
but a Dreamer;
I am not a dream,
but I am Possibility
—we are twins, you and I,
mirror images
on an outbound journey called Reality;
we see one another as creation.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Between Time

The veil is thin
—oh, we are separated
(from sight, sound and touch),
but not by much;
the signs are palpable
that you are near,
as if just ahead,
behind or far to one side,
and the gardener of Eden
has just dropped
(or discreetly stood aside from)
a sign of you in my path
—a bird feather, a colored rock,
a soft leaf or a sound of watery music
that recalls your laughter—
to remind me;
even the wind conspires
to lay your hand on my shoulder.

Ah, precious are these moments we share,
even across the unfathomable boundary,
and I am profoundly grateful
for our continued conversation:
between time is, to me, all in good time.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Revolution

You think you are safely rooted in
corporate greed,
the thin veneer of class-conscious complacency,
in technological innovation;
sadly, all technology is primitive
when compared with what mind,
in cooperation with heart,
can envision and accomplish

—you have not been set free
by your mastery of machines,
but are instead enslaved
to a system that
neither honors the dignity of life,
nor is concerned with its preservation,
and that believes culture to be a waste of time.

But, verily I say,
you will be taken unawares,
you will be overpowered;
you have no choice:
this is war.

Surrender is the only option;
your thoughts will no longer be your own

—your blood and your being shall belong to another;

pinch your mean pennies, I dare you!
—this beast cannot be starved.

You will slowly be deprived
of indifference and hate,
of the necessity for isolated thought;
you will be grafted to the tree of integrity
whether you like it or not

—this is a matter of life and death,
and love.

When money is short,
it gets even worse, this conflict;
you blithely think,
I don’t need that,
and you hold back.

The operatives in this war defy gravity and the law;
they are guerrillas and thugs,
and they run the oldest black market in the world;
they are embedded everywhere,
these merciless mercenaries,
these freelancing villains,
and you cannot out-think them

—this is a syndicate with no bosses.

They assault you with color,
or cunning, dance-like motions;
they draw you when you are vulnerable,
or they tattoo your flesh;
they yammer sublime verse at you
or they capture you in clay;
they snap images of you and, worse, nature
or make a harmonic racket to compete
with your own noises
—at any rate (and all),
they substitute your emotions
for theirs,
wearing you down,
day after day,
until you turn to their side
—the side of beauty and light—
and then it is all over,
and they have won.

Damn these fiends called Artists!

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

More and more, we are seeing that economic slowdown called “The Great Recession” have a negative impact on the arts. When churches decide to layoff their musicians and opera companies and symphony associations lock out their unionized musicians, it can only mean that tomorrow the lights will be dimming on Broadway. And from there, it trickles down to all the small arts organizations who are on the bubble of making it for one more year or folding. I know of a number of such organizations.

People think, oh, I don’t need to support art—someone else will. This is the big lie. It is the biggest lie ever perpetrated. Culture is the work of the people, and if the people won’t support it the way it should be supported, art and artists will inveigle their way to, if not a livelihood, at least the satisfaction of invading your life with their art.

History shows us the palpable work of artists. We can see and sometimes even touch or hear what the artist left behind. Culture and history have passed through artists’ hands, not the hands of the patrons whose image and ego demanded excess—their involvement is frequently distanced from the passion of the actual work. We can read about the patrons and appreciate that they invested, but it is the art that we can know and have a relationship with. Which is more important, of more value? I think you know the answer to that. It is a marvel that vast amounts of money have been spent, in all times and places on the earth, to produce art, but the art produced is more marvelous still.

Ultimately, this has been true forever. 

No Soliciting Sign

I have had a small sign posted in the window by the front door for years. It says, very simply, “No Soliciting”.

Every solicitor and door-to-door evangelist or canvasser on the planet ignores the sign.

I now have a larger sign in the window. Bold. Clear. Red and White. Let us hope it garners more attention.

However, what I really need is a huge banner, unfurled somewhere near the mailbox, perhaps even completely obscuring the front porch. The banner would read “No Soliciting”, in big red letters, but it would also contain the following, in smaller print:

We honor your religious views and your spiritual calling.

We currently subscribe to more newspapers and magazines than we can read.

We shampoo our own carpets.

We believe in a higher power.

We support—yea, even demand—democratic process.

We know about global warming; we're trying to lessen our footprint.

We are trying to get rid of stuff, not acquire more.
We drive as little as possible (because it is expensive).
We are taxpayers, and we like it that way.
We are activists.
We help our neighbors.

We are community volunteers.

We give food to the Food Bank.

We give clothing to the Shelter.
We support ASPCA.
We shop locally.
We recycle, repurpose and reuse and reduce.
We honor the Union label, and prefer it to Made In China.

We buy Girl Scout Cookies from Girl Scouts we know.

We give what money we can to just causes.
We are tired, downtrodden, poor and harassed.
We have to listen to the whine and hum of machinery all day, everyday.

We consider our home to be a retreat from all that and, with all due respect, from you.

We did not ask you to come with literature and a pitch for money.

We don't care that you have a license from the city to be doing what you are doing.
We do not have money for you.

We wish you well, but please, respect our privacy and leave us alone!

We give you our blessing to try your luck down the road!

On a Bridge, Overlooking an Endless River

Evening digresses, as it will, into sleep and rest and dreaming. And in those moments before sleep overtakes me, I wonder, both at the life I have known, and the one I have yet to meet.

For the most part, I know that what has been, what is, and what will be is a continuous celebration, one whose venues and themes shift to match whatever moment passes through a window called now. The situations are all the same, but the current that runs through them is very like a river flowing under a bridge—the bridge may stay the same from one moment to the next, but the water flowing under it is always new.

I suppose that what astonishes me the most, as I look over my shoulder, standing on my bridge as a bundle of sensations and experiences collected through that portal called now—at least the now that stretches from this moment back beyond 50 years to those moments when my body formed and waited for my soul to enter—is how much my life has been dedicated to the various arts that have washed over me and sifted through my hands, my heart, my soul, and through my expressions of being and doing.

For so it is that I have been, for as long as I can remember, held tightly in the web of the Muses. I know that this is so because whenever I have tried to venture away, it was only to be firmly led back to that consciousness or source that persists in the realm of audiovisual sensation, thought and action that I know to flow within a river of muses. The only choice is to engage with this river of expression, and yet the river offers endless choice.

Perhaps this realization only means that the living of life is a river through which all actions and sensations, all waking thoughts and dreams flow all expressions are indeed art, whether they result in form or are “successful” experiments or not.

As I fade into the refreshment of sleep this day, I know that I will dream about something that will touch my life, or yours, as the river flows on, carrying everything onward in celebration.

Flow on in beauty, sweet river.

Flow through the songs of my soul and the work of my hands. And when it is my time, carry me into the onward.

Spend Money To Make Money

You must spend money to make money.

The saying is so old that it is a cliché. It was penned by the best-known poet and playwright of ancient Rome, one Titus Maccius Plautus, who was from Umbria. They called him Plautus, for short, which means something like “Flatfoot”. He might have been a village clown, but he had made and lost money in business before taking up the pen.

His New Style Roman comedies were written at a time when Rome was a very strong Empire, a time in which political satire was frowned upon, much less any kind of public movement like the modern Occupy Wall Street. Plautus was got his licks in by employing proverbs and paradoxes in his writing, his plays are more or less social commentaries.

These times in the United States are not unlike the times in which Plautus wrote his comedies. While we aren’t ruled by a despotic emperor, our government has become rigid and has tuned itself to serve big business, rather than the needs of average people. The populace has by turns been trained either to be complacent or ruled by irrational fears. The least have to pay the most to keep everything running. The greatest pay almost nothing; and in the current world financial crisis, the rich do very little to create what is needed most: jobs for the least so that they can keep everything running.

You must spend money to make money.

This holiday season, one of the latest in a series of discoveries of crime and corruption is a debit / credit hacking scheme in which alternative computer boards have been surreptitiously placed inside self-checkout stands located in fairly large number of California chain stores, one of which is located in my town. Customers’ accounts have been hacked and there are claims pending. Some of the banks are waffling about dealing with the debit card claims.

U.S. Banks and the credit card industry are making money hand over fist. There has never been a time in which the industry has had more power and less regulation. And yet, the industry is reluctant to help clients who have sustained losses due to debit fraud. While other countries have gone over to “smart cards” with encrypted chips and enhanced PIN technology, the U.S. banking and credit industry continue to make the most of old magnetic strip technology. This older technology is much less secure. In essence, the hacker remotely records the account information and PIN number from the magnetic strip swipe and creates a duplicate card, which can then be used fraudulently.

You must spend money to make money.

Investing in upgraded technology is the cost of doing business. Is this not what we have been told? The industry, however, is not investing in its business or its customers. In fact, the industry charges its clients the cost of doing business by way of hidden and escalating fees.

Plautus also wrote:

You're asking for water from a pumice-stone.

The industry is making no move to convert to chip and PIN "smart card" technology. Why? Because the cost of doing business is upwards of  $9 billion.

Plautus again:

The poor man who enters into a partnership with one who is rich makes a risky venture.

That the industry needs to start investing in the security of its customers is obvious, but don’t look for it to happen soon. Banks and merchants will have to upgrade or replace all payment terminals. Banks, will have to spend significant amounts of money to roll out smart cards to customers.

So, what do we do to protect ourselves? The banks lamely tell us to make all of our transactions be the credit type, as our PIN numbers cannot be accessed during such transactions.

The Secret Service is investigating these hacking schemes. Good luck with that! 

In the meanwhile, holiday shoppers and buyers beware! 

To quote Plautus once more:

Dictum sapienti sat est.


A word to the wise is sufficient.

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http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176936/Smart_credit_cards_arrive_in_U.S._finally

https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/5472-Old-Credit-Card-Tech-Facilitates-Skimming-Fraud.html