Après-Hop

Cindi in Sydney keeps her chameleon in quarantine.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I think it’s really tragic when people get serious about stuff. It’s such an absurdity to take anything really seriously … I make an honest attempt not to take anything seriously: I worked that attitude out about the time I was eighteen, I mean, what does it all mean when you get right down to it, what’s the story here? Being alive is so weird .

— Frank Zappa

I’ve formed the idea of adapting Music for the Un-Hip Hop for two violins, for my friend John M^cLaughlin Williams. As reported here, for the twelfth (and final) organ solo piece of the Opus 169, when this poor lisping stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, Eric Mazonson’s request for the tune “Cleansing Fountain” poses a good challenge for me. Indeed, I felt nearly clueless. I should add that Eric graciously gave me the “out” of a number of other hymn tunes, but I wanted to honor his choice. In a way it would have been bad form for me to have extended the invitation, only to nix my fellow artist’s selection. Also, I considered that when Mark Frazier requested “Mit Freuden Zart," a tune with which I was certainly familiar, for № 11, it nevertheless took me a little while to find my way. I felt, therefore that as a musical challenge, it was not a genuine obstacle but only a problem to be artistically solved. In the intervening week, the project has moved from Where do I find a handle? to Is the piece writing itself? Enough invention is percolating, that my focus is almost more on  QC. Well, back to work, then,