Today - Nov 13th

 Happy Birthday, little sweetheart. I love you so very much and forever.

Yes, it is wonderful...

Little sweetheart, I was going through things here this morning and I came across a screenshot of a text you sent me (I have all of them!) on my old pre-iPhone phone. 

Yes, it is wonderful! 

Love you forever. 

Love Stories

It’s Halloween season, little sweetheart - a close second to Christmas for you as a favorite, I think - and I’m starting to work some seasonally appropriate films into my evening watching. 

Tonight I’ve got “Let The Right One In” on and of course I’m thinking of you because we first saw it together, renting it from Le Video and holding hands on your bed in The Inner Sunset. 

I’ve always held it as a love story although almost everyone says it’s not, pointing to the novel that was its source and other opinion pieces. But, like a lot of things, I came to it with you and in the giddy throes of your saving my life with a love that took my breath away. 

For me, Oskar and Eli’s story is like our own, however impossible that may sound to anyone else. Only you could have found me - perhaps through a thousand years of trying - and utterly saved and changed me. And given me faith that we are forever, you are closer than I can imagine and that I will be with you again so very soon. 

With all my love forever …

Friday, I'm in Love

My dearest dear Summer - oh, little sweetheart, I love you so! Tonight I was in the middle of something and suddenly really wanted to hear “Friday, I’m in Love” by The Cure. You and I were standing together in the kitchen in Kris and Joy’s flat in Kentish Town when we both heard it for the first time. Even though it had come out almost 15 years before you and I heard it then for the very first time and it became one of our most holy songs. 

Tonight, I watched I video with the sound up loud. I’ve seen it many many times and with you too but I cried and cried after. I’m still crying. I miss you so very much. It’s unbelievable how much I love you and how you absolutely shatter and put me back together again. I will always feel this way, I know. I love you with my entire soul and can’t wait to be with you again and forever on the other side. With all of my love, forever.

 

Eire, pt 9

One last picture from Ireland, little sweetheart. On one of our hikes we found a stone circle and stepped inside it. Thought to be magical and sacred, it seems a perfect place to remember - knowing that you (and we) are forever and that we will find one another again. 

Eire, pt 8

On our final day in Ireland, little sweetheart, we were driving south down the coast en route to Cork City, when we came across an Irish country fair. We stopped and strolled the grounds - lots of families out together enjoying the food and the fall weather, prizes being given for giant vegetables, a dog race (!) with results being announced over the PA, rows of tractors proudly on display. Just lots of fun and a totally unexpected detour. I came up underneath your big black Zorro-like sunhat and took this picture of your beaming, beautiful happy face... 

 

 

 

Eire, pt 7

In the last days of our visit to Ireland, little sweetheart, we took another epic hike along the coastal path, ending with this shot of you against the sun setting over the Atlantic. 

Afterward, we drove to Bantry and had the most amazing dinner at our favorite restaurant, The Snug. You, Kris & I had the place almost to ourselves (a rare occasion -at the height of the season, it's hard to get a table at all, Kris & I would usually eat at the bar) and when we came out into the gorgeous star-filled night, there was a flock of swans swimming there in Bantry Bay. Magic!

Eire, pt 6

One day, with Kris behind the wheel of our rental car, we drove over to one of the neighboring peninsulas, The Beara, and then all the way out its very edge where a cable car takes you to Dursey Island - the westernmost point of Europe. There was a sign there that whimsically pointed the direction to Tir na nOg (which of course was also the title of the play that was the occasion of our first meeting one another). Kris took this picture there of us, little sweetheart...

 

 

Eire, pt 5

More pictures from our trip to Ireland, little sweetheart. One day out walking together, a little Jack Russell terrier suddenly came out of the bushes to greet us. He was very friendly and instead of just following us, ran on ahead, looking over his shoulder every now and again to make sure we were still behind. He was as good as a tour guide. He wound up leading us down to the pier and that's where we took this picture together...

Eire, pt 4

We always liked to take epic walks together, little sweetheart, and Ireland was a great place for us to do just that! Here's two pictures of us way out at the end of the Sheep's Head Penisula. We took the path all the way out to the lighthouse. This was taken just beyond/beneath the lighthouse itself, overlooking the ocean... 

Eire, pt 3

The anniversary of our week in Ireland continues, little sweetheart. Here's Kris & Joy and you with our friend, a local, Johnny. After visiting him at his house, we all walked down to the pub for pint...

Eire, pt 2

 More of our Ireland trip. This one in the field just behind our house in Kilcrohane...

Eire Days (pt 1)

Little sweetheart, thirteen years ago this week was our trip to Ireland together! I'll post some of the pictures here over the next few days to remember, okay? 

This one was taken down on Doneen Pier as we went for a walk late that first afternoon... 

With all my love forever.

Directions

Running errands today, little sweetheart, I had been to the post office and had to duck into the housewares store just up the block. The sidewalk there on W52nd Street is a bit narrow with all the delivery bicycles and store displays. 

 

An older couple were walking very slowly in front of me, she leading and he behind her looking at his phone. “I’m trying to find it, sweetheart”, he said. Sweetheart. That is, of course, how I addressed you (and still do!) and no one else ever. 

 

I ducked into the store, got my stuff and when I came out they were at the corner looking up at the vacant building where my dry cleaners used to be. 

 

The address is still printed on the awning and she read it aloud. “782”. I stopped and told them that the numbers go up as you walk north. I asked what address they were looking for. 

 

She said “764”. I said, pointing, “okay, so you guys want to go south. Next block, this side of the street”. She thanked me and started walking but her husband stood there and shook my hand looking at me intently. “You’re a good guy!” he said. 

 

I laughed and said, “Likewise! You guys have fun!” 

 

Sometimes when something random like that happens and I can help someone, I really feel like you are with me. I know you are. And you were today.

With all my love forever.

 

Bad Dreams Considered

All dreams of you are good, in a way, little sweetheart, even the more difficult ones, because they signal your presence. Some are truly transcendent - you and I are together and all is well - others more disquieting. 

What I remember upon waking this morning was simply speaking of you, telling someone that your loss was more than I could bear and that I would never recover. While that is certainly true, in way I also welcome the all-too-familiar feeling of grief because it actually brings your spirit near. It tells me that you are hovering to remind me, refocus me, get me back on track. 

I'll take all of it, my little sweetheart, even the painful parts, knowing that you come with them. As long as you draw near, there's always comfort in that. 

With all my love forever.

I Hear You Call to Me

A starling high above the fray, 

Perched atop the highest light post, 

A sentinel, he sings so brightly I scan the horizon looking everywhere until I find him. 

His message, at last, is heard. 

One only needs to pause, give over, heed his very real and truthful call. 

Thank god, I do. 

Thank god for you because I know it is you who had sent him. 

"Table of Silence"

Little sweetheart, it’s been so hot today, I couldn’t bring myself to go out. I’ve been very light with using a/c this year but a couple of times when it’s been this hot, I’ve finally given over.

I really wanted to get out for a walk at some point, though, so I waiting until dusk and then headed west and north. It was dark by the time I was heading home and I decided to walk through Lincoln Center, where I saw the most amazing event unfolding. I asked one of the security guards what was happening and he said that it was a rehearsal for a performance that was going to be staged here on Monday, which is 9/11.

It is almost impossible to describe little sweetheart but I’ll try. All around the fountain were two or three circles of white-robed dancers - there must’ve been over a hundred of them - in simple uniform motion. Farther removed at the border of the plaza were two guys with huge kettle drums like they have in an orchestra playing in a steady almost mournful rhythm. And at another remove were a trumpeter, a saxophonist, a violinist and three women with megaphones. Much of the performance was in silence but parts of it were punctuated with sound including these musicians and the dancers themselves who sometimes take up a wordless chant. 

There was a moment where they seemed to pause for a break, for some words from the director while staying in formation and I found a woman with a headset I took to be a stage manager.  I asked her about the performance and she told me that it was a piece called “Table of Silence” that had been created in 2011 to observe 9/11 and that they would be performing it right here at 8am on Monday. That it was free to attend and would also be live streamed. I’m definitely going to watch that, little sweetheart and will leave a link to it right here.

It was absolutely mesmerizing and terribly moving. And although it’s meant to be performed in the early light of morning there was something incredibly special about seeing in at night. I’m so glad I happened by it! And to top it off, as I walked home I could see that they had lit the twin beams downtown, as they do every year around 9/11 to commemorate and remember where the towers once stood.

Thinking of you, as ever. With all my love. 

Blue Supermoon

Everyone’s talking about a lunar event that's happening tonight, little sweetheart. It’s the Blue Supermoon, the biggest and brightest moon of the year. 

We can’t go on the roof here, anymore, little sweetheart but I’m going to try and walk up into the park where there’s less artificial light and see if I can watch the moonrise tonight. 

It always, needless to say, makes me think of you and this song of ours about that very phenomenon - the perigee-syzygy. 

With all my love… 

 

A nice walk - at last...

It took a whole week, little sweetheart, but I’m finally feeling a bit better. I was starting to think I was going to miss the whole rest of August. I honesty love autumn and spring in New York the best season-wise, but there’s something a little sad, too, as Labor Day approaches and the glorious season that bears you very name draws to a close. 

I haven’t been for a run in two weeks and running was spotty during my travels, so I fear I’ve lost a lot of my conditioning. I’ll need to sort start back up from scratch. It’s actually quire hot here now. I kinda thought we’d passed the heatwaves for the season but one more seems in store, so getting back on the running routine with temperatures in the high 90’d might not be well-advised. 

Regardless of the weather, even if I don’t run, I like to take long walks - we both do, right, little sweetheart? After a week of rest I finally got out today and was surprised and delighted to see that they’re showing movies every day over at Waterline Park. They’ve got a big screen up and a schedule of triple features each day right up until Labor Day when they’re going to switch over to broadcasts of the US Open. A lot of the seasonal outdoor events are over by this time in August, so it’s nice to see this. Lots of families come out and watch. I didn’t stay long by I like the idea of just stopping by after a long walk or coming back after a run and seeing what’s on. 

It would be so nice to come over here with you and watch something. With all my love…  
 

Felled by a Cold!

I may have overdone it a bit, little sweetheart. 

I’ve been felled by a pretty bad chest cold and wound up sleeping most of the day. I managed to rally long enough to get to D’Agostino’s and buy vegetables and a couple packages of chicken thighs so I can make my famous homemade chicken soup - like a huge pot of it! I’ll just lay low, sleep, drink lots of water and subsist on the homemade chicken soup goodness until I feel more like myself. Soon, I hope! 

With all my love and a voice an octave lower than usual… Your Michael  

A Cardinal Sighting!

I had my first long walk since I got back today, little sweetheart. I often walk along the route that’s also my running one - all the way west along the Hudson and up into Riverside Park - but today I decided to go through Central Park. I haven’t been there in a while - like since the classical music concert at Naumburg Bandshell in June. I usually head north and cross east around Lincoln Center, then walk up CPW to the park entrance there a little above W66th Street.

Today, as I was going up the stairs there was a big male cardinal perched in the branches there! I stopped in my tracks and watched him. I tried to surreptitiously slip my phone out of my pocket and take a picture since I was so close to him but he got wise to that and fluttered away, returning but deeper into the bushes, unseen. It still seemed very much like a blessing, though, little sweetheart.

It feels good to be back in NYC although I took quite an epic walk - like you and used to! - and am pretty knackered right now on top of the jetlag. Before I fade and hit the hay with an earlier than usual bedtime, I just need to prepare a birthday card for your mom and order her a cake for next week. Then, it’s off to sleep. See you in my dreams, I hope!

August Days

Little sweetheart, I'm returned from travels armed with writings and recordings and so many thoughts of you. 

I managed to avoid the crazy heat wave that all but engulfed New York in my absence and am running around now in the relatively mild weather getting caught up on things. Including your mom's birthday which is in less than a week! 

I usually like to bake her a birthday cake (just like I would do for your own!). She particularly likes a lemon cake. I can't get to California for the occasion, so I'm ordering one, a vanilla bean one, for her later today to arrive the day before. 

So many thoughts of you, my little sweetheart! And all my love forever.

Travels...

Little sweetheart, I may be posting lightly here for a month or two as I’ll be traveling. I don’t have a laptop anymore (!) and I do all my computer writing on a desktop at home.

My thoughts will, as ever, be of you and I’ll be writing in my notebook and talking to you everyday in prayers and quiet conversation. For I know that wherever I am, you are with me even closer than I can imagine.

To be continued and with all my love forever…

Two Cardinals!

I think I’ve told you before, little sweetheart, how wonderful it is to spot a cardinal here in New York. I’d never seen one in the city until a couple of years ago during the pandemic when it seemed that the pause on human bustle led to an abundant return of nature.

There are a couple of places where I’ve seen cardinals in the city. High up in Riverside Park, almost to Grant’s Tomb, there’s a wooded section called “The Wild”. I went up there a year or two ago in the height of August to record cicadas and I saw at least half a dozen cardinals as I made my way quite up through the winding paths. Sometimes in between buildings just west of Lincoln Center, where there’s something of plethora of trees, I’ll see one alight.

They’re incredibly songful! They have the most unique calls, probably at least half a dozen different ones. It’s hard to believe it’s all coming from the same bird!

Anyway, today I saw both a male and a female cardinal. And in a place I’ve never spotted one before - over near the dog run in Riverside Park. I saw the bright red male bird first and then right afterward, his more muted-colored mate. They sort of went back and forth between trees, alighting a bit higher each time they took wing and then came in for another landing.

The legend of cardinals is, of course, that when you see one, it means that someone who you love dearly and has passed has come to visit you for a while. I also quietly stop whatever it is I’m doing and just watch and listen to them. And think of you, of course.

With all my love…

The First Butterfly of Spring

Little sweetheart, even though we’re had a relatively mild winter, it sure has been reluctant to make way for spring! It’s finally beginning to warm up into the high 50’s and 60’s a feel a bit more like what we imagine late May and June to be - just, ya know, a bit more seasonable.

Very much like the route I use running along the Hudson and then up into Riverside Park, I also take a similar path when going for a long walk and in the midst of either/both is the long pedestrian path they call the Serpentine. Around 93rd Street is a beautiful little fenced-in garden that volunteers attend to.

That spot is almost invariably where the first signs of spring are visible, I think. The foliage begins to emerge, blooms and blossoms appearing and finally, like today, the first butterfly of the season! It was a monarch and absolutely glorious.

We’ve been worried about monarchs - you mom and I talked about this last year - they’re in danger of going extinct. In fact, your mom planted some milkweed (which monarchs feed on) to do her part. It’s so lovely seeing this beautiful sign of spring’s arrival, little sweetheart. And unfailing I think of you. 

With all of my love...
 

A Love Letter of Faith

Little sweetheart, I wanted to tell you that yesterday the great BBC 3 and Soho Radio broadcaster, Max Reinhardt had us on his show. We spoke for an hour, much about you, of course and he had some very kind and thoughtful words about both the new album and our entire body of work together.

He called us “holy sonic icons”, little sweetheart, and I think that’s going be hard to top, don’t you?!

One of the things he said that really struck me was that the music has always seemed to him like sacred music and that that had so very much to do with you. 

That is so very much what I’ve often hoped others would take from this, little sweetheart, because writing, composing, playing, recording, our music has always been to me a form of prayer - for and to you. A love letter of faith.

Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio! With all my love…

In The Hours...

I don’t want to go too heavily within these pages in talking about the band - even though, as I’ve told others so many times the entire project is of, for and about you. But exactly because it is so very much about you, I just want to say that In The Hours Left Until Dawn has somehow really seemed to have struck a chord with people and, especially, remarkably, in a spiritual sense.

A lot of reviews and broadcasters have focused on that. Montreal’s Jefffey Davison (CKUT) among them who said that all of our work has had a spiritual component but perhaps never more so than this album. Another, Portland’s Uncertain Reverie, has described it as “Beautiful, shimmering, hypnotic, dreamlike; always a sense of passage through unnameable dimensions; the haunt is palpable but as an enveloping wonder and at times I felt I was listening to stained glass…" .

An interview I did with Fringes of Sound editor Lars Haur a few weeks ago was broadcast on April 25 and I got to talk a lot about not only how much the project is devoted to you, little sweetheart, but how you yourself are the very soul of it. I love that people understand that. I think you may remember that I told you our friend Neal Huff did a podcast with me on the anniversary of the release of Of Love and Loss and one of the things that he remarked on was how extraordinary he thought it was that this project continued to bring you to others, for people to be touched, as so many of us have been so deeply, by your beautiful spirit.

That’s entirely why this project goes on, little sweetheart.

I had stepped away from this blog briefly last year and honestly I am rather daunted still by trying to complete the first book of memoirs for you. But I will continue to return here, just to tell you little things about daily life, my memories of us together, my enduring love and admiration for you, and my faith that we will one day be together again in The Forever. 

With all my love…

 

April 25th

There’s never a day I’m not thinking of you, little sweetheart, but some of them are even more keen than others and today is one of them. Of all our years together this day will always hold both great joy and great sadness. 

One year one this date we had a wonderful weekend in Davis together, you took me to see DCfC in Sacramento and made epic cupcakes for us. And just two years later on the same date I was speaking at your memorial. 

I remember being in the car with you once and you telling me that you thought that we had ten years before your health would fail again - you were so hyper-aware of your own mortality - and that you wanted me, after you passed, to listen to our music and think of you and also that you wanted me to speak at your service. I remember how the tears began burning my eyes when you said that and how I cried and told you I wanted to die before you. 

The words I did write and speak for you that day, that awful day, I returned to, recording this tribute for our album Sometimes in Dreams. 

I can’t say much more just now, little sweetheart, except that I love you with all my heart and soul and pray that we will be together sometime again soon and forever. With all of my love…

The Great Vigil

Little sweetheart, it’s Holy Saturday. The services are really quite special and I’ve only ever actually been to just one - the one at St Thomas years ago. West End didn’t have a Holy Saturday service. I’m not sure why. I think it’s almost exclusively Episcopalian. I may be wrong. 

It’s a midnight service and takes the form of what is called The Great Vigil. It’s the hours after Good Friday leading through the long night into Easter morning and the resurrection. At St Thomas there was quite a literal split between the two. The service begins mournfully and somber, much like the Holy Thursday and Friday services, around 11pm, and at midnight, full light returned in what was almost like the Easter Sunday service itself. 

Trinity Church’s service is a bit different and I think I might actually prefer it. It really is like Matins - early morning pre-dawn prayers -  beginning in darkness and progressing into the light, quite literally as a special candle, the Paschal Candle is lit from a bowl of fire. Liturgy is read, baptisms are performed and the entire service has a kind of ancient early church feel to it, evoking the four primal elements - fire, air, water, and earth - of the cosmos. It’s intensely moving, little sweetheart, for a variety of reasons, I think. 

When I was going to West End, I often found myself very moved by baptisms. I think so much of you when I see children now, little sweetheart, both because of your inherent goodness and because of your desire to raise a child with me. Easter Sunday is wonderful, too, with its bright colors and triumphant music, its flowers (I always make a flower donation in your name) and its declaration of faith, that death is not our end. But this journey through the night from darkness into light is one that resonates so deeply with me, little sweetheart, as I make my own long journey through the rest of my life as best I can until I may finally be reunited with you. 

How I love you! Forever!   

Also - Good Friday...

Today is also Good Friday, little sweetheart. 

At noon there are often services around the world and three or four that I have been to here in New York. The first one I ever attended was at St Thomas. I’ll watch the Trinity Church one today. And for many years, I attended the one at West End, including three consecutive years when I was one of the speakers. 

The Good Friday service is known for its prolonged silences, its meditative component, between the seven pieces of liturgy that are spoken over the course of a service that lasts between one and three hours. The liturgy consists of what are referred to as Christ’s Last Seven Words, although to be more precise, they are Christ’s last seven utterances, what he was heard to say while on the cross. 

Often, these services have seven parishioners choose one of these passages both to read and to compose a mediation upon its theme. That’s what I did those three years in a row at West End, little sweetheart. I always spoke of you, of course. And the final year, the service was recorded. 

That’s what’s here below, little sweetheart. My meditation on “The Seventh Word”, very much to do with you - my love for you, my grief, my faith that you are forever and that I will be with you again soon. 

How I love you! Forever! 

Today: April 7th

Today is April 7th, little sweetheart. 

It’s your late big brother Jesse’s 52nd birthday. I know you two are together now to enjoy it and to make your celestial presence known to all of we who love and mourn you - that you’re both helping and comforting and guiding us to you. 

Today is also, quite purposefully, release day for In The Hours Left Until Dawn. We picked Jesse’s birthday especially for it - this journey both through the literal night and through the night of our lives toward the dawn of being again with our beloveds passed into The Forever. 

I’m sure I’ll be back to tell you of how the release unfolds and how it may resonant with others because your spirit so brightly touches everyone who lets it into their heart. Meantime, I’ll just say that I love you so very much, my little sweetheart. Forever!

Holy Maundy Thursday

I think Maundy Thursday is perhaps the most resonant of all the days of Holy Week for me, little sweetheart, because of the Tenebrae service, which I only first knew of a few years ago. 

Not unlike Taize, the sanctuary is lit almost exclusively by candlelight and then, as each subsequent reading or hymn is offered, one of the candles is extinguished until just one is left, a hidden candle, leaving the sanctuary in darkness. The choir bang their hymnals and the organ sounds discordantly until the sole hidden candle is revealed and brought forward in procession and all leave in silence. 

It’s incredibly dramatic and moving and so rich in symbolism and resonance, little sweetheart, as concerns loss and grief and ultimately, faith. I haven’t been able to attend a in-person Tenebrae in several years now but tonight I’ll watch one broadcast online from Trinity Church downtown and my thoughts will be of you. 

With all my love.  
 

Holy Week: April 2-9

Holy Week begins this Sunday, little sweetheart, with Palm Sunday and then the very solemn days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. 

Since the pandemic I haven’t had an in-person service to attend. You probably remember that lovely little church over on West End where I went for years every Wednesday to Taize service (which largely inspired our album Electric Hymnal) and often attended Sunday services too, not infrequently reading the lesson. Sadly, West End had both a change of leadership and closed its doors over the course of Covid. 

Having a regular practice of sitting in silence and prayer and song and worship really helped me, little sweetheart, to hold you near. I find others ways, of course, but Holy Week is a very good time for me to be especially observant and I’ll probably share little thoughts with your here throughout. 

Love you forever.

This Month's Radio Show

Little sweetheart, yesterday the latest edition of our show for France's CAMP Radio was broadcast and is now archived on MixCloud here for on demand. 

As always, the show opens and closes with your voice and in between are tracks of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and more. The show was #67 in the global ambient charts (!)...

The last track this month is a song that always makes me think of you and always makes me cry. It's Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" with its repeated chorus of "she's an angel". 

You are. My angel. Love you forever. 

A Closer Listen

Little sweetheart, as release day for the new album approaches, we’re hearing more and more wonderful things about how this music - of, for and about you - touches others. There was quite a lovely mention today in the UK’s wonderful A Closer Listen. The album heads their Spring Preview list of new releases and, in part, had this to say:

“Bipolar Explorer’s ‘In The Hours Left Until Dawn’ is a sprawling suite of instrumentals, sung and spoken word. Loss permeates the music, gracing it with a tragic mystery.”

It’s all for you, little sweetheart! 

A Happy Day

Little sweetheart, as incredible as it and we couldn't know, of course, this day, the day after such a sad, tragic day, comes the day you and I always thought of as our "anniversary" because it was the first night we spent together. I'll always hold it close to my heart, as I do you. Always. Always.

Remembering Forever

Little sweetheart, this is the very difficult day each year and I try to think of it not as the day I lost you but as the day you ascended, transcending this earthly plane for the forever one. And that I will meet you there one day, where we will be together at last again and as I will come to see and know we have been forever. 

On that night as we left the hospital, little sweetheart, there was the most amazing celestial event in the sky - a super moon, the Perigee-Syzygy. I wrote this song for you about it, found on our album Sometimes in Dreams. 

How I love you! Forever!

And At That Hour, Above (Perigee-Syzygy) 

 

 

Black Cherry

Thinking of you and one of your favorite songs, today, little sweetheart. It's "Black Cherry" by Goldfrapp. I always thought I knew all the words but I had one verse slightly wrong when I looked it up today. Here's the lyrics. Love you forever.

How can it be?
I can taste you now
How can I see
When you're everything

All my world in one grain of sand
And I've blown it
All my world in one grain of sand
And you own it

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Hearing you say it
I could die
Trembling star
Just reminds me

All my world in one grain of sand
And I've blown it
All my world in one grain of sand
And you own it

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Excite me, ignite me
Oh and you know,
I miss you, I kiss you
Oh and you know

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Black cherry
Black cherry
Stone

Excite me, ignite me
Oh and you know,
I miss you, I kiss you
Oh and you know

Supporting WFMU

Little sweetheart, non-commercial, community and public radio have all been particular advocates of our music over the last decade from London’s Resonance to California’s KFJC to The Netherlands Radio Hoogeveen to France’s CAMP. They’re all quite different stations in their own right but all have in common that they are listener-supported and do not take corporate or even governmental funding. Individual listener contributions, often quite modest ones, are what keep them on the air. 

One of our greatest champions, little sweetheart, has been WFMU, who are currently in the midst of their annual fundraising “Marathon”. Most public radio stations give away prizes or “premiums” as gifts during the fundraising and, fervent listener-supporters ourselves, we’ve been honored this year to be included in all that. 

Two shows on WFMU have made our upcoming 11th album, In The Hours Left Until Dawn, a pledge prize (one of them a Grand Prize) as part of their efforts. It’s honor to help support WFMU and very kind of them, too, in letting more people know about our work - which is of, for and about YOU! 

Listen, little sweetheart, you’re on the radio!!
 

March Eight

I’ve been girding for this day for a week or more, little sweetheart, and just trying to take it as easy as possible. It’s impossible to believe that it’s been 12 years, it’s also impossible to believe it ever happened. I feel as if I can still reach out and touch our life together, that it’s only just out of my grasp, as are you. I also know that you’re closer than I can imagine. It’s gets harder, not easier over time, somehow. I still feel so fragile around these days, maybe all days. And I know I need to be very quiet and calm today. Sleep, lay down in the middle of the afternoon, if that’s what I’m called to. How I miss and love you, little sweetheart. Forever. In my prayers, in my heart. We’ll be together again, I know….
 

The Night Before

It’s the anniversary of our last wonderful night together, little sweetheart. We had pizza (!) and fell asleep entwined waking up that way so sweetly, too, the next morning. And it was a lovely, wonderful day until it became the Worst Thing Ever. I was already planning to take things very easy tomorrow, hyper aware of this dark anniversary but I was sitting here on the sofa and the moon was so full and bright, it drew me to the window and your attention. How well I know you are forever and always, but even if I begin to gird myself, sure that I will fall into despair and grief, you come for me, just as you did from the first, saving me with your incandescent love. Thank you, my little sweetheart. I see you. I love you. Forever.
 

London Radio

Little sweetheart, we’ve been getting some really nice airplay over the last couple of years in the UK, especially via a London station that our friend Kris turned you and I on to - Resonance-FM. Remember listening to it in the kitchen at their flat in North London? 

Kris always thought our stuff would be good on some of their programming and a few years ago we reached out to them, around the time of Dream Together, I think. Four or five shows at the station have now become friends of ours, little sweetheart. Two shows with the word “sonic” in their titles - Sonic Imperfections (mostly experimental music) and Sonic Tapestries (mostly ambient music) are among them. Also, The Sound Projector - which is a show curated by the editor of the music zine of the same name and the storied experimental music group, Soviet France, who have a weekly show on Saturday night called “A Duck in a Tree”. 

All have previewed and/or premiered tracks from the upcoming album this month, little sweetheart, and another favorite, Fog Cast, devoted half the program to their own preview tonight. 

Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!
 

Lent

Today is the first day of Lent, little sweetheart. As I’ve said before, I really didn’t know much about these days of religious observance until after your tragic passing - when I truly needed both to examine my own beliefs and to find some sense of ritual in contemplation, meditation and prayer. Also, your passing was in those very months of Lent and Eastertide. Because the pandemic made in-person worship all but impossible, I don’t really have a church just now, but the days themselves can provide guidance. As do you, always. Please be near me, little sweetheart, and help me be as good as you want me to be. Help me find you. With all my love forever…

Each Song A Prayer

Sometimes after we finish an album, little sweetheart, I don’t pick up a guitar for weeks but tonight I did. Instead of the very specific concentration on overdubs, which was where I was at - writing, playing and recording guitar and other parts for the new songs - I just powered up and played whatever came to mind, not necessarily any of the songs from the new album. 

I think I’ve said this before, little sweetheart, that playing and singing the songs I write for, especially when I revisit one or two that I haven’t played in a while, is a very intense and emotional experience, very much like prayer. I cried and cried as I played some of them tonight, little sweetheart. And that is as it should be. 

How very much I love and long for you. With all my heart. 

Valentines

It’s Valentines Day, little sweetheart! 

Remember those cookies we liked at Safeway, so much? Kind of almost like little pieces of cake, soft and vanilla and thick with icing for all different sorts of holidays - green shamrocks for Paddy’s Day, Red White and Blue for July 4th, Pink and white hearts for today? We’d get a box of a dozen and try not eat them all in your car as we sat by the bay watching the waves come in, sometimes spotting a dolphin or two! Well, they had a few boxes at D’ags this weekend, so I bought a dozen (a dozen cookies, not a dozen boxes!) just for the occasion. 

Thinking of you, as always. Oh, also... I sent flowers to you and your mom, which I believe have arrived safely. 

With all my love forever. 

 

Weighty Days

It’s an odd day, today, little sweetheart. It’s a date always sticks in my mind. 

February 12th. It was the day, 12 years ago, when I came out to San Francisco for what I couldn’t know at the time would be the last of our days together. We had many more plans, including your returning here to New York for my birthday in April - to do a workshop of one of my plays, to go into the studio to record more of the Flag Day EP and for an overnight trip to Philly to see Low in concert.

My mom used to get me a desk calendar every Christmas, the kind where you pull off the page from yesterday every morning to see the new day’s image and date. As often, my flight to SF was very early before dawn that day but I did turn the calendar’s page so that it read February 12. It never had another page turned. When I returned on April 4 after your tragic passing, it still read Feb 12. And it has to this day. For years it was here in the front room on the bookshelf and later out in the red table room on the dresser. I never threw it away but I apparently put it away somewhere last year and don’t immediately know its whereabouts. It’s an incredibly sad reminder, so I suppose it’s for the best that I don’t actually have it my immediate field of vision.

That morning was begun with such excitement and promise. I was on my way to see you! A screening of the short film we’d made - an adaptation I’d written of one of my own one act plays - was scheduled for the next day and then I was going with you down to San Jose to see you in “On The Waterfront”. I stayed on to work on another project with you that came together during my visit and changed my flight back to April 4, the weekend after it finished, but we never got that far.

These days now leading up to the dark anniversary of your accident and tragic passing are coming on, as they do each year. I can feel their weightiness. And I will bow my head in prayer and quiet contemplation with faith that we will endure and you and I will be together again soon and forever. 

With all my love.
 

KFJC...

Little sweetheart, when Of Love and Loss first came out, we got a really nice review from Toronto’s Ground Control Magazine. The writer, Daryl Darko Barnett, later interviewed me and I found out he actually lived in NorCal. Over the next few years we got to be friends and he was often telling me about a great college station in Los Altos Hills - KFJC. He really thought they’d like our stuff and it was his - and I’d later discover - lots of NorCal folks favorite station. 

I routinely sent them new releases but never heard anything until one day when Daryl called me. He was driving around and he had the station on but he was in the mountains and it kept coming in and out but he heard them back announce us. He didn’t hear the song but he heard our name, little sweetheart. So, I looked up who was on air just then and it was Carson Street, kind of KFJC’s main deejay. 

I got in touch and he told me the station had loved Til Morning Is Nigh and that it had been in their Heavily Played Albums list. Carson, of course, has gone on to be a great friend and advocate of ours. It was he, little sweetheart, who did the three hour special about us in 2020 just before we released Deux Anges. 

Today, Carson and the station added In The Hours Left Until Dawn to the current library. The album doesn’t come out until April 7 but they have an advance copy and it should be on several shows before the week is even out. 

Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!  

CAMP Radio Show - Jan 31

Little sweetheart, our CAMP show is actually every four weeks, so even though we say it’s a monthly show, sometimes, like this month, there’s actually two of them! The second January show was aired yesterday and is now up the MixCloud archive, here. I love that always the very first and very last thing we hear each month is your voice! With all my love forever.
 

Kind Words

Little sweetheart, like I was saying, the new album doesn’t release until April 7, but we’ve already gotten some lovely airplay and very kind words from WFMU’s legendary Irene Trudel to KFJC’s great Carson Street, from NSPR’s wonderful ambient music show Tapeta Lucida, to Italy’s White Light/White Heat music zine, who named it to their “Picks of the Week”. We’re very honored and grateful and, little sweetheart, it is, as ever, all for you. With all my love…
 

In The Hours Left Until Dawn

Little sweetheart, our 11th album is complete! I’d been tinkering with the mixes even into January but finally sent them off for mastering and then with the finished artwork to our CD manufacturer. The digital and CD versions will both come out the same day - April 7th (Jesse’s birthday). 

The album is another double-album - 22 tracks over two discs and 2 hours and is called In The Hours Left Until Dawn. 

As ever, it is very much for you and, as always, your soaring vocals weave their way throughout the journey. Advance copies will head to some radio stations and music from here to Europe and beyond. I’ll let you know what we hear. As ever, it’s so very much for you. 

With all my love.

CAMP Radio Show (Jan 3)

Our most recent show for France’s great CAMP Radio aired yesterday, little sweetheart. It’s the anniversary of our first broadcasts - we’ve been doing this for a whole year, now! - and the show is now archived and up on the station’s MixCloud here. Thinking of you, always. Listen, little sweetheart - you're on the radio!
 

New Year's Day 2023

The first day of 2023 is a cold clear one, little sweetheart, and I’m sitting here at my desk with a cup of coffee doing some writing, which I hope will find me making progress toward completion of one of our books by this time next year. Things seem to get a little harder each year, I find I need to rest more often, but I’ll keep going and trying to be as good as you want me to be. It helps to know that you want me to do just that. Happy New Year, little sweetheart. I’ll do my best to make it a good one, I promise. With all my love forever.