Sweets for the Sweet

Little sweetheart, that local grocery store - Dagostino's -  we like so much here in NYC, you may remember, struck such a chord with us, in no small measure, because it reminded us of Safeway and especially the Safeway in San Francisco's Marina District where we used to go. 

One of the things we liked were those soft sugar cookies that were frosted like little pieces of cake. They did special ones for all the holidays - green shamrocks for Paddy's Day, red white and blue ones for July 4th, orange and black ones for Halloween - as well as the regular ones throughout the year. More than once you and I took a whole package down to Ocean Beach and ate them as we watched a school of dolphins playing in the waves. 

For years, Dag's had these too, but a year or two ago they stopped carrying them. Happily, today I discovered they are back! These seem to be Valentines themed. I'll have one or two tonight thinking of you, as always! 

With all my love.

Bakery Dream

A wonderful dream of you this morning, little sweetheart, before waking! 

We were standing together at a counter in a bakery of some kind. You had only just arrived and I didn’t know I was going to see you, that you were here and well and with me again at last. I was overjoyed. You said so yourself telling me, as we stood there in line “You’re so excited,” you said, “I think you might start dancing!”. 

As we waited our turn, I was impatient to place our order and just get outside so we could be alone together. I told you that I had so many things to ask you and to tell you. For some reason, I’d brought along a box of little cakes that I had saved to give you. I may have had them for years, for ten years or longer, like since I’d last seen you. I asked the guy behind the counter if they had these same little cakes fresh and could we get new ones for you. 

While we waited you asked me if I just wanted to get a little snack or did I want to have a full meal. Before I could even answer you told me that you were really hungry and wanted a full meal yourself. You asked me kind of perfectly teasingly, “or do you just want to have a coffee?”, knowing and remembering how I was always drinking coffee at every hour of the day or night and never having enough water or eating properly. 

We were actually waiting for coffee because they were out but were brewing a fresh pot. Other people were in line behind us. We decided we’d get a little something now and take it to go while we went on a walk in the lovely weather outside but would also go out for a nice dinner soon thereafter. 

It was incredible to have this wonderful, happy dream of you, little sweetheart, just before I woke up today. I’m so very grateful. How very much I love you. Forever, Forever!

The Other Room

Little sweetheart, I think I told you that one of the radio stations in France that we really like - CAMP Radio - and who have been playing us on several of their programs reached out, getting in touch through our Bandcamp page, to ask if we’d like to host and curate a show of our own on their station for broadcast. I said yes, of course! 

I was worried about over committing so I asked if we could have a one hour show, monthly, and they said that would be fine. It’s called Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” and is, like I said, one hour, monthly, of experimental and dark ambient music, field recordings and “otherness”. The first episode was broadcast today and is now also archived on the station’s MixCloud page here. The next one is February 1. 

Although I probably won’t feature our own music on the show - focusing instead on other artists we love and admire - I did compose a little opening “theme” with guitar underscoring, spoken word from Sylvia in French, your vocals over the top and a quick message just saying “on behalf of Summer Serafin and Sylvia Solanas, this is Michael Serafin-Wells from Bipolar Explorer and this is The Other Room.”  

The little theme/intro is just about 40 seconds long and will open each show, your voice soaring throughout and the last thing we hear before the first track of each broadcast. 

As ever, you’re on the radio, little sweetheart!