New Year's Eve tonight

It’s New Year’s Eve, little sweetheart. You and I never got a chance to have one together but I do remember you calling me each year and especially one year when you were at a party and had gone into another room especially to book a flight to New York and called to tell me you were coming! 

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen your parents because of the pandemic but for several years I’d been with them and I began a tradition of making beef stroganoff each New Year’s Eve - which your dad, in particular, likes - so, that’s what I’m doing tonight. 

Probably be a quiet night, here. But my thoughts, as ever, will be of you and wondering when I will fly to your side. Whenever that may be, I will endeavor to do my best in this coming year. 

With all love forever.
 

Davis Christmas

I’ve so many memories of being with you in the beautiful house in Davis, little sweetheart, and the haven, the heaven, the sweet little retreat it was for the two of us to kind of get away from everything for a few days every now and then.

I won’t unpack every single one of them here just now but am thinking today of how lovely it was in the days after Christmas when, before we headed back to San Francisco, we first stopped off in Davis for a bit.

As ever, we started off by swinging by the Nugget Market for a few provisions, including all the ingredients I needed to make yet another batch of Christmas cookies. I had my mom’s vintage cookie cutters with me - stainless steel ones from the ’60’s in the shapes of a bell, a star, a snowman, an angel and a Christmas tree - but you encouraged me to use some cutters of your own and you retrieved them from the pantry to show me. I quibbled because they were decidedly non-Christmas shapes but you wanted to “shake things up”. Ha! Who could argue?!

I remember, even though California is not nearly as frosty as New York in December, that the house was a a little chilly when we arrived and that, instead of just cranking up the central air to a higher temp and heating the whole house - since we mostly stayed in the living room, your room and the kitchen - that we’d light the little potbelly stove just this side of the garden doors. It had a pilot light that required getting down flat on the title floor to find and engage its button. It was kind of a two person job - one person had to hold the button down from below and the other watch from the top to see that the flame went on. You took the hard part, the floor job, and we got it up and running after a try or two.

I also remember your “floor work” there because you’d recently gotten a new series of ear piercings, and ever vigilant, made sure to soak them in salt water for 2 minutes, three times a day. You’d lay on your side, little sweetheart, dipping your ear in a little teacup and ask me to time you. I have a picture! I’ve gotta find that!

Anyway, here is it, the third day of Christmas and my thoughts, as ever, are of you. Wonderful you. My treasure. With all my love…  
 

On Christmas...

We've made not one but two Christmas albums over the years, little sweetheart (!) - BPXmas in 2014 and Til Morning Is Nigh in 2018. 

This track, written for you, of course, opens the first of them. 

You are in my heart, my prayers, my every thought. Love you forever. Happy Christmas, little sweetheart! 

 

 

Christmas Day...

It’s Christmas Day, little sweetheart! Happy Christmas! I’m on my own but I’ll always remember our Christmas together with your folks.  

I’d gotten you a couple of things. As always, a little something from our London friend, Joy’s, jewelry shop in Newburgh Street near Oxford Circus. And I’d remembered that you’d said something about wanting a pink angora sweater, so I found a nice one for you from Karen Millen. You’d completely forgotten about it, so you were delightfully surprised.

Your mom made a point to give us a couple of gifts together, and because she knew we liked watching movies and shows together - “watching a story with my partner at the end of the day”, you used to say - she bought us a box set of the first season of Gabriel Bryne’s show “In Treatment”, with the instruction that we were only to watch it together. I loved that.

As everyone opened there presents in the living around the tree, you sat right next to me on the sofa and watched me especially carefully as I began to unwrap another present from your mom and dad. When I slipped the gift paper off, there was a small square box. I opened it to find what at first glance looked like an antique pocket watch but upon closer examination turned out to be a compass. I looked up and your dad said to me, “so you can always find us”. I burst into tears.

I’d lost my mother just a few months before. I’d been in London when I got the news and you and your mom had gotten me back to New York and then on to Detroit, where you met me and stayed at my side for that entire week as we planned the funeral and everything. It was the most extraordinary thing anyone had ever done for me and now this. When I turned the compass over, I saw that that very phrase “so you can always find us” had been engraved by your mom. Later she told me that when she had shown it to you before Christmas you had said to her, quite presciently, “oh, mom, you’re just going to make him cry”. The beautiful compass remains here, little sweetheart, on my mantle with many pictures of you and other treasures.

So many memories, my little sweetheart. I’m so very grateful. And I love you forever.

Christmas Eve tonight...

I’ll always think of you, little sweetheart, when I think of Christmas, even more than any I had as a child or the three quite magical ones I spent in Ireland in the years before I met and was found by you.

You brought me to your parents house that last and only year we were able to have Christmas together, and I remember pulling into the driveway and you cried out because you suddenly remembered that you’d left your gift for me back at your apartment in San Francisco! It would have to wait but it was well worth it - it was a lovely leather jacket that I wore every day pretty much from the day you gave it me until quite recently when I semi-retired it because I’ve nearly, literally, worn it out. (Don’t worry, I had it restored! Just being careful with it, now…).

Christmas Eve was really special at your house. We all went out to a Christmas Eve movie together and when we got home, your mom had new pajamas and slippers for everyone. We all got changed into them and that was our wardrobe for the next 24 hours - or longer, I kept my on for days, I think! And when we had to run out the next day for something we’d forgotten - extra eggnog, I think - your dad, brother and myself just jumped in the car wearing same!

It was a full house, too! Your folks and your brother and friends of his from Portland; friends of yours from San Francisco; as well as, Michelle and her kids. There might’ve been 20 of us! It was a wonderful night that stretched on late, even though Christmas Day was to follow.

It’s very quiet here tonight, little sweetheart. I’m on my own. I’ll make dinner tomorrow, getting the turkey in the oven after morning coffee and will probably watch Midnight Mass from bed in an hour! But as I lay my head down, I’m thinking of you - as ever.

With all my love.

The Winter Solstice

 

Tonight is the Winter Solstice, little sweetheart - the longest night of the year. It’s been a thing with me for a while, I guess. As you’ll remember - because you were in one of the casts! - my play, Seven Pages Unsigned, is set on the night of the Winter Solstice. 

When I was a good deal younger than I am now, little sweetheart, I think I used to enjoy the night - not just this night, but night itself - much more than I do now. I even rather liked cloudy, sunless days. But I’ve found that I’ve grown much more photosensitive. I really need and long for the light. 

That’s both a literal statement of fact and simultaneously the more poetic one - I miss and long for the light that is you. The light you brought into my life. 

Anyway, the thing about the Winter Solstice is that every day now until the Summer one (quite appropriately), the days will grow longer, the light come earlier and stay later. Something to look forward to, yes, little sweetheart? 

With all my love…

Angel Frequency....

When we were putting together Til Morning, little sweetheart, I very much had something I'd long admired in mind. 

Sometime around 2002 or 2003 I first heard the BBC broadcast of "Nine Lessons and Carols" - an annual Christmas Eve service performed by The Kings College Cambridge Choir. The mixture of spoken word and devotional music - much like Taize and Electric Hymnal - inspired me to want to do something in that vein. 

The spoken word component was helped tremendously by the literal godsend of Sylvia coming into my life, into our life, and as she joined the band with you and I. 

A further thing I admired about 9 Lessons was the tradition of a new work being commissioned each year for inclusion in the service. This often led to a piece being highly modern and I thought we should do something not unlike that. That as we placed older, less well known Christmas songs in new shoegaze-y arrangements, I also compose and record an experimental music piece to be at the album's center. 

And that's what the track "Angel Frequency" is. Below is the video we did for it. 

Happy Christmas, little sweetheart! 

 

 

On Irene's Show

Another of our champions, little sweetheart, the legendary Irene Trudel included a track of ours on her Christmas show on WFMU this week. Another of my favorites from Til Morning, mostly because it features your soaring vocals. It’s "Noel". 

The full show is amazing. It’s up on WFMU’s archive here. And the the track itself on Bandcamp here. 

Happy Christmas, little sweetheart!

Winter Birdsong

Little sweetheart, I saw some lovely little sparrows on my walk in Riverside Park today. Even though it’s gotten quite cold, they were out and up in the bare limbs of the trees, singing happily. I always stop to listen to their songs and think especially of you. It’s been a little while since I’ve seen a cardinal - which is always so magical - but I’ll be on the lookout. 

Our neighbor, KC, over on W51st, right next to the Sacred Heart rectory, has the steps and edifice of her brownstone festooned with lights and evergreen branches. The beaches are so thick and prolific, some robins have taken to nesting there! It's really wonderful to pass by and linger on the sidewalk watching them each day. And I'm right next door to say our prayer, after. 

Thinking of you, as always. Love you forever.
 

The 11th Album

We’re nearing completion of the new album, our 11th (!), little sweetheart. Just about at final mixes. It’s another double album, 22 tracks over two discs and 2 hours, and you, as ever, are at its center. Much more on this in the coming days!
 

"Finding Joy"

I’ve been following an account on Twitter for a while, little sweetheart, by an artist and illustrator named Gary Andrews. He lost his wife to a sudden illness a few years ago and later, when he could bring himself to, he began doing drawings of their life together and his life (and their kids - they had two small children) after. It’s very moving and lovely. 

This year he published a book telling the story - a book of those illustrations telling the story I should say. It’s called “Finding Joy” (Joy is his late wife’s name). I ordered a copy and it arrived a few days ago. I have it out here but I kind of can’t bring myself to read and look at it. But I know you’d tell me to, so I will and I’ll come back and tell you more about it then. 

Meanwhile, remember - I love you!!

Advent

I never knew much about Advent, little sweetheart, until a few years ago, but it’s kind of a wonderful season - these 24 days leading up to Christmas. There was a wonderful program on BBC Radio 4 a few years ago, I taped the broadcast and later burned it to CDR, all about the Advent service they do each year at Salisbury Cathedral. 

The service is called “Darkness to Light” and the choir and vergers move in a procession about the church as they sing and speak the lessons and light the space one candle at a time from a single flame. The program weaves through interviews with the staff while including some of the music both of the service itself and the choir - both children and adults - as they rehearse. It’s really wonderful and I listen to each year at this time. 

Darkness to Light is resonant, too, I think, little sweetheart because it so well describes my own journey and the gift you brought - the light and love you illumined my life with. How grateful I am! Love you forever!  

Nov 22, '23

Today is your dad’s birthday, little sweetheart.
 

Because of the pandemic, I haven’t seen your mom or your dad in almost three years. I sure do miss them. We text one another quite a bit and talk on the phone occasionally. I’ll call you dad after I write this, I already texted him this morning.

I like being with your parents any time, little sweetheart, but it’s always been nice to be with them on their birthdays so I can bake them a cake. I usually make a chocolate one for your dad and a lemon one with vanilla frosting for your mom. When I can’t be there, I send them one! So, that’s what I did for today. There’s a lovely service, actually based here in New York, where you can order a cake and have it delivered anywhere in there country. They pack it in dry ice and send it overnight express via UPS. I’ll keep checking on the tracking all day probably to make sure it arrives safely.

Your mom and dad are both so dear to me, little sweetheart and I suppose unsurprisingly, I see so much of you in them.

With all my love forever…

On Max's show

We’re always excited, little sweetheart, when the great Max Reinhardt - BBC Radio 3/Soho Radio - plays us on his show... and he has again this week! 

As Christmas nears, he featured one of my favorites from our album Til Morning Is Nigh - "Milles Anges Divins". It’s a French carol that Sylvia suggested for the album. I learned and re-arranged it and wrote out all the French in phonetics so I could sing it properly! Ha! I also play melodica on it! 

This particular episode of Max’s show is not available on the MixCloud archive but here’s a link to the track on Bandcamp and below is the video we did for it. 

Love you forever!

Remember November, November 13th!

 Happy Birthday, little sweetheart! Love you forever! 

 

Boston Memories...

I find myself thinking of our time together in Boston, today, little sweetheart. 

I arrived a few days before your birthday, so that we could spend it together. I took the Bolt Bus up. President Obama had just been elected and there was a wonderful electricity of promise in the air. You met me at South Station and we took the “T” back to the lovely little apartment the theatre had put you up in. 

What a wonderful week it was! We had snow the very first night! It was crazy cold but I went for a run everyday in my cold weather gear down one bank of the Charles River, across a bridge and back across a second one returning to your apartment. I went to the show with you every night and got used to our little route to and from the theatre. They had a nice grocery store, sort of reminiscent of Whole Foods, along the way and we’d go shopping together so that I could plan and cook our meals in your sweet little kitchen. 

I went back on my own to get things for your birthday dinner so that it would be a surprise. I made turkey croquettes and salad and baked you a birthday cake. 

One night we went out with everybody after the show to a late night resturant and bar. We had the backroom almost entirely to ourselves and when we all walked back to the apartment buildings - it was all housing for graduate students at Boston University - it was freezing! It was kind of lovely as each of us peeled off to adjacent buildings and apartments along the lovely tree-lined block and said goodnight. 

Outside of you having the show each night, we mostly kept to ourselves, nice and cozy in your little apartment, listening to music - DCfC and Goldfrapp both in heavy rotation - and watching shows on my laptop. 

One night we were offered tickets to a benefit for the Boston Film Society, so we hoped the “T” over to Cambridge and turned up at a semi-swanky event in a hotel ballroom. We felt a little under-dressed but everyone was super nice and we got to meet the event’s honoree, Willem Dafoe. The food was so good we took some home. Ha! They insisted! 

Mostly, we just clung to one another - or, if I’m completely honest, I clung to you. They were the happiest days of my life. God, how I loved you! How I still do! How I always will! 

With all my love, forever…

CAMP Radio Show #12

The new edition of our show for France’s CAMP Radio aired yesterday, little sweetheart, and is now archived online here. 

Thinking of you, always, some of the artists include a really wonderful Detroit-based electronic musician named Swartz et, a sound collage artist named Ave Grave and the great Delia Derbyshire... 

Hey, little sweetheart - you're on the radio!

 

 

Nov 2 - All Soul's Day

Today is All Soul’s Day, little sweetheart. The twin of yesterday’s observation of All Saint’s Day. 

Both because of the pandemic and because of other changes in leadership, I don’t really have a church to go to in person to observe the day. But I have found some very beautiful and meaningful services online. 

I think my favorites are those from Trinity Church all the way down at the bottom of the island, near the World Trade Center memorial. Trinity Wall Street, it’s sometimes called. It’s one of the oldest churches in New York and has really thoughtful, beautiful services. An old friend of mine from DC actually works as a church administrator there, so perhaps I’ll go in person, someday. 

And I’ve just begun to know of a much smaller little church, somewhat closer to home - in the East 60’s - called the du Saint-Esprit, a French church where they hold Taize services. Taize is that French traditional candlelight meditation service that I used to attend at West End. Saint-Esprit holds Taize on Thursdays and I think I may go to one soon. 

Regardless, my little sweetheart, I am in prayer and meditation today, thinking of and longing for you with all my heart and soul.  

Nov 1 - All Saint's Day

You probably remember, little sweetheart, that one of the first things I liked to do after arriving in London was get up the next morning, go for a run on Hampstead Heath, then shower and change and head down to Embankment, walking over one bridge, then along the south bank before crossing back and going to St Paul’s for Evensong. It so resonated with me that I began attending services here in New York at St Thomas and then later, still, after your tragic passing, at West End Collegiate. 

Some of the Christian feast days and holidays I didn’t know about before have become sort of lovely new traditions to observe in quiet thought, prayer and contemplation. Today is one of them. 

Today is All Saint’s Day. There’s belief that the spiritual bond between the living and the departed grows stronger - as the moon, perhaps draws nearer to the earth on a particular day of its orbit - and we should listen even more intently to hear. 

I will be ever mindful today and tomorrow, little sweetheart, to listen to your call. With all my love forever…  
 

Halloween

When I think of holidays, little sweetheart, I invariably, of course, think of you. 

Spending Christmas together was one of my favorite memories of all time. Our first Valentines Day together was pretty special, even though we weren’t technically “together” until a few weeks later - you sat next me at dinner when Edna took everyone out after Tir na nOg to a restaurant that had no power and was lit only by candlelight. In Irish tradition, everyone around the table was asked to tell a story or sing a song and I sang Roberta Flack’s “Let Them Talk” with such emotion, the proceedings fell entirely silent. But you squeezed my hand and told me that you wanted me to sing it again later, to and just for you. 

Our second Valentines Day was that amazing trip your dad took everyone on to Lake Tahoe - our "trip to the snow" we came to call it. And we sure had a crazy and eventful 4th of July about a year later when your dad took us all up to stay on the Oregon Coast! Your brother Ryan shot off some fireworks from the porch that went off target and started a small brush fire at the edge of the property. 

Our gatherings never lacked for drama, little sweetheart, and as you told me that first week we were together as we raced toward some last minute appointment you were a little late and a lot panicked about, “it’s always like this.” 

All this to say, of course I think of you on every holiday but if someone were to ask me what your favorite was, although I’d be inclined to say Christmas, I think Halloween might give it a run for its money. You loved Halloween and it really revived my own affection for the day. I wrote about this in our book, little sweetheart, so it’s sort of on my mind. 

I had gone down to LA for a double-workshop reading of my plays 7PGS and Real Real Gone, you were getting ready for the transfer of the production of Rock n Roll from ACT in San Francisco to The Huntington Theatre in Boston. You flew out just a day or two before I - me back to New York and you to Boston, were I would join you the following week in advance of your birthday. I was staying with my friends from the theatre company in LA and since they lived in Van Nuys, the Burbank airport was closer, so I arrived and departed from there instead of LAX. It was a much smaller and friendlier airport and it was nice way to end the trip, which had been successful and fun. 

I’d forgotten until I got there that it was Halloween and when I got to my gate, all the Jet Blue crew and staff were in costumes. It was a really festive and cheerful atmosphere and it made me think of you instantly - how much you would love it. As I thought about that, it dawned on me that I hadn’t celebrated Halloween in years, had even come to find it a little annoying, people out on the street shouting, spilling out of bars in the wee hours. I was a curmudgeon before my time. When had I lost the joy, the childhood delight of Halloween? 

Like some many things, little sweetheart, you brought the holiday back, you gave it to me again. As ever, you brought the light back into my life. 

With all my love, always… Your Michael

Ireland, pt 5

One more from our Ireland trip, little sweetheart. At the very edge of the Sheep's Head Peninsula on the water side of the lighthouse there. If I look dizzy it's because I am - dizzy in love with you!!

Ireland, pt 4

We had to get up so early, well before dawn, the day we left London to fly to Cork and then the two hour or so drive up the coast. We were exhausted! But we rallied and made it out every day for long adventures, little sweetheart. This one finds us at the literal edge of Europe - Dursey Island off the Beara Pennisula. So far west, the next stop is New York (or maybe Greenland, actually)! Nice little signpost here pointing the way to Tir na nOg - Gaelic for "Land of Youth" and the title of play we met doing together...

Ireland, pt 3

More from our Ireland trip, little sweetheart. This one finds us down the path to Doneen Pier. We had some many lovely walks!

CAMP Radio Show #11

We’ve continued this radio show, little sweetheart, that France’s CAMP Radio invited us to curate on their air. It’s considered a monthly show, but it's actually every 4 weeks, so it’s slightly more often than that (by a day or two!). 

It always opens and closes with your voice - I composed a short theme song for the show and we both begin and end with it. It’s called Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” and is one hour of deep listening soundscapes, experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. After the show is broadcast, each edition is archived on the station’s MixCloud. The most recent is here. 

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

In Ireland, pt 2

A few more pictures through the week, little sweetheart, from our trip to Ireland together. Here’s one… It's us inside of a stone circle we discovered on our long hike to the lighthouse!
 

 

On This Day - 12 Years Ago

 Twelve years ago today, together in Ireland, little sweetheart. Love you forever. 

Forever!

I'm still here, little sweetheart, with lots of news, thinking of and praying for you constantly - everyday! 

Our book - oh, dear lord, what a tome! -continues but I can't in good conscience not post here, as well, even lightly. So, consider this the return! 

Honestly, little sweetheart, it's hard to write a book. It's so different from writing plays and because its subject is so massive, it took years just to find my way (which I did!) and years more to press on. We'll get there! I promised you and I will fulfill that promise. 

Much more news, as I say, including what seems like such long form progress on our story, further BPX adventures and just muddling through my life - with faith! 

Love you forever!

Briefly Noted...

Little sweetheart, I'm working to finish our memoir, thinking of you every day. My posts here may well trail off for a little while but you are always on my mind, in my prayers, in my heart. So many things to tell you. More anon. With love forever. 

May 7

You taught me to remember, little sweetheart, that today is the anniversary of the surgeries that saved and changed your life. I marked the date on my calendar and am remembering how grateful I am for you always. You, who saved and changed my life, from the first, when I met you, when you found me just seven months later. 

With all my love forever.

A New Month

 It's May Day, little sweetheart, and it seems like the weather has finally turned more springlike! Yay! Going for a walk and thinking of you. With all my love forever...

CAMP Radio Show #5

Little sweetheart, the fifth edition of our show for France’s CAMP Radio aired yesterday and is now up, archived, on their MixCloud page. The link is here. 

As ever, it’s a monthly hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. And also, as ever - it’s all for you! 

With all my love…

For Sore Eyes...

Little sweetheart, I had to replace our DVD player. It was doing something weird where the audio connection was a making a loud hum the moment you selected it as a input on the tv. I tried switching out the cables but it still made that hum. It would get a little quieter once a movie was running but then grow louder in a quiet scene. Gah!

Anyway, they’re not super expensive these days, so I got a new one, just to see if the sound improved and it did instantly.

Tonight, I thought I’d use it for the first time. I had a whole queue of DVDs I had been thinking about watching around my birthday but you may be surprised that I didn’t choose a Bergman film or Eric Rohmer or something arty like usual. I chose that old Steve McQueen movie, “Bullitt”.

Your dad really likes it. We talked about it not long ago when it was on TCM. But I think I wanted too see San Francisco, honestly, little sweetheart.

I think that’s what was calling me. There’s the whole famous car chase - the first of its kind - through the streets and across the bridge, but the parts I like the most are when he’s just walking along in his neighborhood - his apartment’s at Taylor and Clay - stopping by the corner grocery and picking up a few things along with a half dozen frozen tv dinners.
 

It reminds me so much our time in the Inner Sunset. The movie came out in 1968 and you and I were there thirty years later but its look is blessedly unchanged. Just iconic.

I just needed to see it. And think of you…

April 25 - pt 2

Little sweetheart, today, of course, is my birthday. 

I’ve already mentioned one of things that distinguishes it and posted something but I’d also like to remember how you gave me the best birthday of my life when you took a few days off and decamped with my to the lovely house in Davis. 

You surprised me with tickets to see one of our favorite bands - DCfC - in Sacramento over the long weekend and made the most exquisite, and exquisitely complicated, giant chocolate cupcakes to celebrate. We had the loveliest time alone together in beautiful Davis, which will always be sacred and so very special to me. 

I’m so very grateful for you, my little sweetheart. With all my love forever. 

April 25 - pt 1

It’s my birthday, little sweetheart, twinned forever with you for a multitude of reasons but certainly very much so because your memorial was held on the day. 

You and I were meant to be together here in New York working on my play My Before and After, which I’d written so very much with you mind - a big role unimaginable for anyone but yourself. And we had tickets to go see Low in Philadelphia the day itself, on my birthday night. 

Instead, I was speaking at your memorial in San Francisco. 

When we made the Sometimes in Dreams double-album, I revisited, with a couple of edits and additions, what I said that day for you, composed underscoring and putting it together as the centerpiece of that album - The Choral Text Passage. I’m posting a link to it here . 

I’m so grateful for you, my little sweetheart. How I love you! Forever! Forever! 

Easter Sunday

Little sweetheart, today is Easter Sunday.

Sunday service is really nice but honestly, it’s the ones leading up to it that are the most meaningful to me. Maybe because I don’t remember observing any of them as a child - just Easter Sunday itself. And mostly, I think, for the reasons I’ve told you here - how the great gift of your love so changed and saved me.

I do have on our album, our 5th - Electric Hymnal - which I’ve often described as a sonic prayer for you. It was very much inspired by my experiences at West End and I had wanted to write and record something to express that - how it helped my mindfulness and listening for your celestial, guiding presence. It kind of marks, too, the beginnings of our using spoken word in our work. I think it holds up pretty good - it came out in June 2016 - and it takes me to you immediately.

Happy Easter, my little sweetheart!

The Great Vigil - Holy Saturday

Little sweetheart, today is Holy Saturday and, tonight, the Great Vigil of Easter.

After Good Friday service, when again, everyone leaves the sanctuary in silence in the early afternoon, the church is closed until this evening service. Sometimes, very dramatically, it doesn’t begin until after 11pm, so that the second half begins at midnight and is Sunday morning. Some begin even later, just before Sunday dawn.

Again, the sanctuary is in near darkness, illuminated this time by a fire, the Easter Fire, and a single candle, the Paschal candle, that is kindled from it. Eventually, parishioners each holding their own candle, light them from the Paschal one and when the service reaches its second half, lights fully illumine the sanctuary and bells peal. It’s really rather wonderful, little sweetheart.

Tonight, again, I watched the Grace Church service, which is held a bit earlier, closer to 8pm. Now that I think of it, it’s not unlike Advent which also observes a kind of waiting for the light to return, darkness to light. And this is why this whole week is so resonant to me, I think, little sweetheart.

In my grief and longing for you, it helps remind me that you are closer than I can imagine and just to have faith and listen for your guiding presence. I will be with you again, soon and forever.

With all my love.  

Oops!

Little sweetheart, I had a plan to dye some Easter eggs tonight.

I did a half dozen last year all in a sort of shade of robin’s egg blue. Your mom gave me that lovely deviled eggs dish with the two little bunnies in the center, and I thought I’d place them there and later make the deviled eggs.

I had a dozen this time but the colors came out all wrong. The dye looked fine. I mean, they come in little tablets according to the different colors. I dissolved the blue one - you dissolve them in a mixture of water and white vinegar - and the liquid itself looked fine but the eggs kept coming up shades of green, not blue. If I left them in a few minutes longer they still weren’t right but I tried to convince myself they were getting closer to something resembling blue. I even tried a few of the other different tablets to see how those colors came out - the red one, the one that was supposed to be green, the yellow one - and they were a bit closer to the right colors but still really kind of darker and off.

It wasn’t until I’d used the entire dozen that I realized, remembered - these were all brown eggs to begin with! Not white! You need white to get the colors right! It was so ridiculous of me!

I just know you’d be laughing and laughing and not only at me but with me because it’s exactly the kind of thing we would do together! Don’t you think? Like both of completely baffled, mystified, no idea of why things were going so wrong until… we finally figured it out!

I told your mom right away, she loved it! Then I went out and got half a dozen more eggs - white this time. I saved the cup full of blue dye. We’ll try this again tomorrow!

With all my love.
 

Good Friday - To Be Ever More Mindful

Little sweetheart, one of the most resonant readings in the Good Friday service I watched this afternoon from Grace Church was an excerpt from something called “God’s Daring Plan” - from a book called “Bread of Angels” by Barbara Brown Taylor. The passage was incredibly original and intensely moving and I went looking for more information about its author soon after.

The author was an Episcopal priest and her stories began as a collection of some of her absolutely breathtaking sermons. “Bread of Angels” weaves its way through the stories of the Bible with insightful scholarship, humor and directness, using language both conversationally and brilliantly.

The excerpt read last night from a chapter highly regarded as the very center of the book itself is called, as I said above, little sweetheart, “God’s Daring Plan”. The full passage takes one from creation and Eden all the way up to there Incarnation. It’s absolutely wonderful. I didn’t get to read it in full until just now. Last night there was just this short bit, that even reading aloud now, makes me start to cry. It reads thus:

“He had made them, it was true, and he knew how fragile they were, but their very breakability made them more touching to him, somehow. It was not long before God found himself falling in love with them. He liked being with them better than any of the other creatures he had made, and he especially liked walking with them in the garden in the cool of the evening. It almost broke God’s heart when they got together behind his back, did the one thing he had asked them not to do and then hid from him – from him! – while he searched the garden until way past dark, calling their names over and over again. Things were different after that. God still loved the human creatures best of all, but the attraction was not mutual. Birds were crazy about God, especially ruby-throated hummingbirds. Dolphins and raccoons could not get enough of him, but human beings had other things on their minds. They were busy learning how to make things, grow things, buy things, sell things, and the more they learned to do for themselves, the less they depended on God. Night after night he threw pebbles at their windows, inviting them to go for a walk with him, but they said they were sorry, they were busy.”

There’s something in regret, little sweetheart, in remembering all my mistakes, that makes me long ever more for you and just always to do better. And I think there’s something in this passage too about thinking we have time - the Buddha’s famous caution. May I listen quietly and remember and hear you as you guide me through my days. How very much I love you. How very grateful I am. With all my love forever.
 

Good Friday (remarks)

Little sweetheart, today is Good Friday. It has a special resonance to me for a variety of reasons but perhaps especially because for three years in a row I was asked to write and deliver remarks as part of West End’s service. The last of these was actually recorded, so it could be posted on the church’s website. It’s very much about you, of course, and I’m posting it here, below. With all my love forever. 

Holy "Maundy" Thursday

Little sweetheart, today is Holy Thursday or what they sometimes call “Maundy Thursday”. 

It was the day and night of The Last Supper. Sometimes yesterday’s Tenebrae service is also observed on this day (as it was at West End, when I used to go there pre-pandemic) and it’s also considered something of a day of service. You might remember that, little sweetheart, from your times at school in England because the Queen and Royal family always visit and assist homeless shelters on Holy Thursday.

Another thing about Maundy Thursday is that Christ washed the disciples’s feet and that ritual is sometimes recreated in services. I’ve never been to one that did do that but it was something I watched tonight during the service at Grace Church. In their service, anyone who wanted to, could come forward, sit at one of the chairs they’d brought out along with basins of warm water and fresh towels, and one of the clergy washed and dried their feet. Then that person would kneel and wash the next parishioner’s feet and so on.

The first I ever heard of this at all, little sweetheart, was when I was in college. Kris and I were going to different schools and I happened to call him on Maundy Thursday. He and Chas had this wonderful old apartment - I’d been up to visit them - off campus. They had a great music room set up in front with Kris’s stereo and a slew of instruments, including Chas’s Stratocaster, Kris’s Hofner bass and this vintage Vox organ (the kind with the keys colors reversed - the chromatics white and the others black) they’d bought secondhand.

When I called I could hear loud music in the background and Kris told me they were having a Maundy Thursday “party”. They’d all gathered, kind of “togo party”-like, dressed in bed sheets and sandals, and had washed one another’s feet with great ceremony, drinking wine and listening to the original album (“The Brown Album”) recording of Jesus Christ Superstar.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you that story before, little sweetheart. I do remember that you met Ted Neeley, who was the first Jesus in the Broadway production (and in the film) and still playing role in a national tour when you saw the production as a teenager almost twenty years later. Tonight, after the service, I didn’t have wine or dress in a bed sheet but I did play the Brown Album… loud. My thoughts, as ever, of you.  

With all my love.
 

Tenebrae

Today is Holy Wednesday, little sweetheart, and the service - Tenebrae - that some observe today and others tomorrow - is one of the most fascinating and moving of them all. 

I’d never attended a Tenebrae service or even known of it until about ten years ago when I went to the one at St Thomas. St Thomas is rather High Episcopal and kind of grand, not in a bad way, but my whole experience there was more observational than participatory. When I discovered West End the following year, it was a good deal more intimate and I felt more engaged than just spectating, if that makes sense. 

In both services, indeed in all Tenebrae services, I think, the sanctuary is almost solely illuminated by candlelight. A big candelabra is usually center and as the service progresses through readings and song, the candles are extinguished one by one. After the very last reading, when the final candle is blown out, a tremendous cry goes up! The organ plays loud and discordantly, the choir bang their hymnals on the railings - until one sole candle returns, usually from on high, where it had been hidden. Then, in silence, all depart. 

Like all the services this week, little sweetheart, and as it’s been since the pandemic began, I’m not able to attend but instead am watching remotely. Grace Church, way downtown near Battery Park, has lovely services and film them so beautifully it’s almost as if one is there. I watched tonight and read along from here at my desk. It was very moving and, as ever, I feel brings me ever closer to you. 

With all my love forever.  

Holy Week

Little sweetheart, Holy Week - the seven days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday - begins today. I remember that even when you were here, it was of interest to me. I think my curiosity was first piqued when Kris and I were wandering around a particularly deserted part of London one Christmastime looking for something to do and discovering that St Paul’s had organ recitals. 

The music first brought me in. Then later, I’d just go as soon as I arrived. Typically, I’d fly in late night, so the first things I’d do when I woke up in North London was to go for a run on Hampstead Heath, and then take the tube down to Embankment, walking along the Thames on the South Bank side before crossing over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s. 

One time when I visited, I found the cathedral thick with incense and didn’t put two and two together until I remembered that is was a Wednesday - Ash Wednesday. 

Anyway, I began to look for services like those at St Paul’s, here in New York, once I got back. For some time I found them at St Thomas and then later at the little church - West End Collegiate - that I told you about up at W77th Street. I was already inclined to a kind of quiet contemplation even before the tragic events but the observation of holy days became ever more important to me, little sweetheart, in your absence. 

For within these quiet moments I am helped to find your presence - your celestial, encouraging, presence helping to comfort and guide me. Mid week is when these days are most resonant, little sweetheart, and I’ll observe them and tell you of it all, okay? 

With all my love forever.  

Saw a Cardinal!

I’ll admit, little sweetheart, that I begin to get more than a bit impatient for the weather to turn nicer once we get to April. A kind of frosty air more identified with February than the first days of spring often seems to keep us in its grip periodically all the way to May 1st! And it was still a bit on the chilly side today as I went for a long walk, taking a day off running because my knee is acting up. If you weren’t in the sun and the wind kicked up, it wasn’t very springlike. 

But as I was walking through the leafy courtyard that adjoins four tall apartment buildings around W68th Street between West End and Amsterdam - a little space I affectionately call “The Quad” -   I saw a cardinal alight before me! 

He was a really small little guy. It’s too soon for babies, I think he was just petite- ha! And he kept flying back and forth between trees and branches and singing. Cardinals are incredibly songful, I’ve discovered. 

Of course the thing I like most is that legend has it that when one sees a cardinal, it signals the spirit of a beloved calling to and visiting us from the other side. I always stay and watch, linger and listen, and say a little prayer. My thoughts, my heart, filled with you. Thank you, my love.

In Between Days

These days ahead, little sweetheart, while not quite as dark as those of March, also have a kind of bitter memory to them. They are the days between my returning to New York after your tragic passing and my return to San Francisco for your memorial - held, incredibly on my birthday.

There was a something about flying back to New York that held a kind of magical hope that I would find you here. Joan Didion speaks of how she kept her husband’s clothes after his own tragic passing, very consciously thinking that he would need them when he came back. This place, of course, our little apartment here, is very much filled with your things to this day and pictures of you on every wall and surface surround me. But even then, I felt somehow I would find you here when I got back. I’d been gone two months and the landlord had to get into the apartment to fix a couple of things. They’d been waiting until I got home. They were very kind and empathetic, knowing of your loss, so they didn’t bother me for a few days but they did finally have to repair a radiator that had been leaking - my neighbor had let them in weeks before so they could shut it off - and all the stove/ovens in the building had been replace except for mine while I’d been gone. They went from gas to electric, I think because there’d been some problems with the gas lines - remember when you were here and you thought you noticed a funny smell, like gas escaping? Remember, I called them and they were quite unusually prompt, arriving within the hour.

I was here alone for that first week and then Sean and Meg asked if I’d like to come out Rye Brook and stay with them and their two little girls (they’re both very big girls, high school and college, now). It was enormously helpful, actually, little sweetheart to be with them. They knew you, of course, and were unfailingly kind. You and I were supposed to have visited them on Cape Cod that summer. It was nice to be around their family, having dinner and playing with the dog, going for walks, hearing about the girls’s day at school and staying up talking with Sean and Meg. I told Sean at one point that I didn’t know how I was going to do this (like keep going on) and he said, very kindly “you’re doing it”. It was way too soon to start working on the album you and he and I had begun, again, but the thought did occur that I would do. I wrote my speech for you for your memorial and spent my days out there with our lovely friends until it was time to fly back to SFO.

I rented a car and got lost trying to get in from the airport. I’d only ever traveled to and from SFO with you and I wound up way over on the other side of town, near the stadium just as a Giants game was getting out. I was, literally, lost without you.

These days, these three weeks in April always give me such pause, little sweetheart. I know they will again this year. In a way, they fold somewhat neatly into Holy Week, which begins on Sunday. My thoughts, as ever, of you. With all my love.

Holy Days - April 4th

Little sweetheart, it's April 4th. As the month turns from March to April, I always have this day in mind somehow, intuiting its approach. 

April 4 was the day my return flight to NYC was scheduled after you and I had gotten the "Blackbird" production together. Closing was meant to be a few days prior, so that you and I could decamp to Davis and have a lovely weekend together before I flew back east. Already, we knew you would be following just a few weeks later. My birthday was the 25th and we had tickets to see Low at that really special church venue in Philadelphia. We thought we might either take the train down or even rent a car and drive, because you were going to be here also for the workshop of my play My Before and After. We'd arranged to have the day off so we could make the trip. 

Instead, tragically, none of that came to be. I did fly on April 4th, heartbroken, ruined, alone. 

This day haunts me, little sweetheart, so I must do everything I can to be mindful, to listen quietly for your presence and to heed your call, your guidance. And simply to have faith - faith that you are closer than I can even imagine and that I need to keep my heart open, do our work and know that you will one day soon call me home. 

With all my love forever.

CAMP Radio Show #4

Little sweetheart, the 4th episode of our show for France's CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer's "The Other Room" - aired yesterday and is now up on the station's MixCloud here. 

We've been describing the show as a monthly one but it's actually every four weeks, so this is the second one in the month of March. As ever, it's an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings, spoken word, soundscapes and otherness but I also found myself compiling it very much with these days of March and all it brings to memory, in mind. As ever, it's so very much all for you. 

With all my love forever... 

The Day After The Day After St Patrick's Day

Little sweetheart, for all the bitter anniversaries that March brings of loss, another far more joyous one remains and I hope to hold it close to my heart today and all in all the days of my life yet to come. 

March 19th - the day after the day after St Patrick's Day - was one that you and I used to cite as our anniversary as a couple. We'd met, of course, months earlier and had been getting to know and deeply care for one another from almost that very first moment. But this night proved a special one for us and later we'd think of it in that way - as our Anniversary, writ large.. 

So, Happy March 19th, my darling girl, my True Love, my soulmate, my gingersnap, my little sweetheart. With all my love forever.

In Your Arms

Little sweetheart, on this sad day, my thoughts are, as ever, of you. How terribly I miss you. How grateful I am that you found me and brought such light and love into my life. How I long to be with you again when God finally calls me home to your side. 

Last night, something very unusual happened. The westside was cloaked in fog, as if we were back in the Inner Sunset of San Francisco as we were in those best days and nights and years of my life - simply with you. 

Fog in NYC is quite rare and I couldn't help but think, indeed, know, that you were putting your arms around me, letting me know you’re so much closer than I can even imagine. 

My every thought is of you. On this day and every day. And I love you. Forever. Forever.

 

About Today...

11 years ago, little sweetheart, I woke with you for the last time. You were curled up in my arms with your little feet around my ankles, your hot water bottle pushed off the side of the bed to the floor, warm enough now in an embrace. You kissed me and we lingered together for an hour.
A beautiful day, warm and glistening and filled with love and promise and adventures together, that ended in tragedy and left me forever broken.

I look for you everywhere and seize upon anything that might be a sign, a trace of you trying your best to comfort and guide me. I can't know the day. I can't know the hour. I can't even know why I remain. But I must listen quietly and simply have faith that someday, some hour, sometime (and may it be soon), I will be returned to you.

I've a picture of us, a selfie before people called them that, of you and I, our faces pressed together, your lips upon my cheek, standing within a stone circle at the edge of the world - the end of the Sheep's Head peninsula out beyond the lighthouse on our trip to Ireland. Moments after it was snapped and we began trekking back to the village, we got lost, taking a wrong turn and losing the path. It was becoming dusk and I got worried. I ran ahead looking for a fork that would return us before it got dark and we were truly lost. You cried out, because I was walking too fast for you, and I turned. When I did I saw a sign - only visible from this direction, only able to be perceived because I was turned away from the rogue path, only visible because I was turned to FACE YOU - an arrow that showed me, showed us the way. The True Way.

And that way is you, my little sweetheart.

In all things, how you have saved and changed and guided me, from the day I met you to this very moment when I can't touch or see you, when I ache to do so, still you find a way to help me find the way. Ever grateful, I love you forever. And trust my soul, which is best equipped to hear you, which is itself half of your own, to perceive your guiding presence and lead me home. For home is you.

With all my love forever. Forever, Summer. Forever, my little sweetheart. Forever.

Quick Note

Little sweetheart, a quick note to say... I've so much more to say! I write often in a Pages document to you and then post those little messages here. I've two months of them to catch up on and will post them all next week. Meantime, know - I know you do - that my every thought is of you. With all my love forever.

Spring Awakening

Little sweetheart, it’s been such a bitter cold winter. The wind! I think because we’re on the west side it’s even more pronounced. 

I’ve been endeavoring to run every day even through all of this, trying to regain my conditioning. Everything seems a bit harder these days. I bought some new cold weather gear last winter but have really been using it this season. It’s especially bone-chilling closest to the river - the winds really seems to kick up along the shore there. But today we had our first hint of spring’s arrival. 

It’s still a few weeks off yet, but we had a bit of a warmer day, the wind taking a respite, the birds singing a little more cheerfully and a few of the heartier flowers - snowdrops, in particular - beginning to bud, undeterred by a return of frost. 

I think spring is maybe my favorite season, little sweetheart. Probably because it reminds me so much of the light and warmth you brought to my life. In some way, the cycles of the seasons are a comfort like that because their inevitability, if I embrace it, deepens my faith that you abide and I will one day, when Heaven allows, be with you again and forever. I need only to look to the seasons and my heart to know that it is so. 

With all my love forever.

CAMP Radio Show #3

Little sweetheart, the third episode of our show for France’s CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” - has aired and is now up on the station’s MixCloud. 

It’s a monthly show, technically, but actually is every 4 weeks, so there will be two shows in March, the second on the 29th. Again, it’s actually charted in the Top 100 in the global experimental charts. 

As ever, it’s an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness - including a special track just for you. Link here. 

Love you forever!!!

Our Morning Bird

Little sweetheart, I think I’ve told you how much I’ve come to be enchanted by birdsong and look forward to seeing the beautiful sparrows and starlings and magical cardinals when I’m running or out for a long walk. Once last summertime, I ventured into the northernmost part of Riverside Park and saw several cardinals, one after the other, singing sweetly to one another. When I got home I excited wrote down “Saw a cardinal today!” and attached the note to the door to remind me that there’s always something to be grateful for - you! 

Sometimes a little avian friend will perch just outside the window and I’ll see and hear him as I sit here working at my desk. I’ll go quiet and move gently toward the blinds, careful not to startle him, as I try to get a better look. 

For the last little while, still in bed in the early mornings just after daybreak, I’ll hear a little friend chirping sweetly, excitedly, with musical trills and happy whistles. But I can never see him! I think he favors a place just under the housing for the air conditioner outside. I think he’s made himself a little home just under the sheath there, protected against the elements, and alights to sing his morning song. 

I read somewhere that birds call to one another like that in the morning to let their partners know that they got through the night safely and are here, ready to join the day. I think that’s especially sweet and altogether resonant. 

I hear and feel your own presence often in birdsong, my little sweetheart, and it its this that is such a blessing to me. I know you see and hear and seek to guide me. I have faith! And I love you with all my heart and soul. Forever! Forever!

Honored and Grateful

Little sweetheart, we were terribly excited to discover that we were on WFMU’s great, long-running experimental radio program, Strength Through Failure, today. Indeed, we opened the show!!! 

The host (who goes by the semi-ironic pseudonym of “Fabio”) chose the track “The Dark Outside, The Light Within” from our new album, our 10th - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside. 

We’ve been listening to this program, literally for decades, so it’s an incredible honor. The link to the show in its entirety follows here. 

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

Feb 14th

It’s Valentines Day, little sweetheart! I made those sugar cookies that you like using the heart shaped cookie cutters and frosted with pink icing. Sometimes I take a few over to the rectory at Sacred Heart but it still feels too close to the pandemic to be wandering over with homemade treats, however well intended. I did send flowers for both you and your mom and I think they got there safely. I’m keeping an eye out online for delivery confirmation! 

All this really just to say, I’m thinking of you, my love, on this day and every day. 

With all my love forever.

"Forests" charting!

Little sweetheart, there’s continued to be a groundswell of support for the new album - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams - as it has made the Heavily Played Albums charts of both WFMU and California’s KFJC, where it has charted just this week at 31. 

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

 

Ash Wednesday (2022)

Little sweetheart, today is the first day of Lent - Ash Wednesday. These days of observation - especially Holy Week, which marks the end of Lent and continues on to Easter - have become increasingly important to me over the years. 

Ash Wednesday wasn’t something I knew well growing up. It was only after I found that little church up on West End Avenue and regularly attended their Ash Wednesday service that I came to understand its importance, feel its weight, find it resonant in strengthening my faith. And of course, there was the awful and surreal vision of seeing early morning visitors and healthcare personnel arriving with their foreheads marked by ash in the corridors of SF General the morning after your accident eleven years ago. That realization that Tuesday night had become Wednesday morning and indeed was Ash Wednesday itself, remains seared into my memory. 

It’s terribly sad, little sweetheart, but also underscores my belief that there is so much more beyond what, merely mortal, I can perceive with my senses. I know you see all. That you see me and do your best to comfort and guide me. Maybe the most important thing I routinely speak of in my prayers is a wish that I listen ever more closely for your voice and guidance. This day is a very good one to remind me of that. 

With all my love forever.

CAMP Radio Show #2

Little sweetheart, the second episode of our show for France’s CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” - has aired and is now up on the station’s MixCloud. It’s actually charted in the Top 100 (at 73rd) in the global experimental charts. 

As ever, it’s an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. Link here.  

 I love you!!

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!