Remember!

Little sweetheart, in listening to and thinking of Christmas music, including our own, I sometimes forget that we've made not one but two Christmas albums!

There's been so much attention to the more recent and rather more epic one from last year, Til Morning Is Nigh, that sometimes the earlier one BPXmas (2014) gets less attention. That's okay, mostly, but I certainly wouldn't want the song I wrote especially of and for you - the lead track, "It's Christmas, Sweetheart" - to be overlooked.

It's one of the first of our songs that the great Irene Trudel played on her show on WFMU it could be seen as beginning their wonderful advocacy of us. We even did a video for it, which calls so many things to mind and memory, not least because Jason was still in the band at the time.

I know you are closer than I can imagine, little sweetheart - I have faith! - and that we will together again soon and always. With all my love...

The First Snow

We had our first snow today, little sweetheart.

I took a picture or two from the window and then ventured outside to take a few more. I was heading to the post office to mail a few Christmas cards - with the black and white photo of you and I together on the roof here during the first snow just before our first Christmas - it’s a card that I send out to a handful of friends (there seem to be fewer and fewer of them each year, sadly) annually.

Also in the outgoing mail today -  a copy of our Christmas album to that new DJ, WFMU’s Samantha Simmons, who seems to have taken a liking to us.

Afterwards, I walked to the market to get a few things I needed to bake Christmas cookies and I took a picture of the playground there at W52nd and 10th covered in snow. When I got home, I went up to the roof and took a couple more.

I’d been thinking about it because I’d remembered, just a few days ago, that I had some film of last year’s blizzard, also from the roof. So, I edited that footage and dropped it over a bed of music - our version of “Emmanuel” from BPXmas - and made a music video. It’s here. 

It’s getting close to Christmas, little sweetheart. And as you said in your beautiful letter to me on our very first one, “I am missing you.”

May our separation be a brief one, my darling girl. May it be only a preface to the Forever, where I long to be reunited with you in eternity. With all all all my love.

NPR's "On Being"

Little sweetheart, I’m sure I’ve told you about a program on NPR that I often listen to. It’s called On Being. It’s hosted by a woman named Krista Tippett who had a career I think in the diplomatic corps before changing direction and getting an advanced degree in Divinity and the starting this radio show with  her editor and producer and co-founder, Trent Gilliss.

It’s really interesting. There’s usually one guest for the entire hour, someone from the arts, sometimes - a poet or novelist or musician - sometimes someone from the world of politics or journalism, sometimes someone from academia or of a religious order. And much of the discussion is about matters of faith and life and the nature of existence. That maybe sounds a bit grand but it’s not. It’s very intimate and revealing as well as being enlightening and thoughtful.

About two years ago, I actually met and spoke with Krista when she was here giving at talk at St John the Divine. I told her about you and gave her Of Love and Loss and she signed a copy of her book for your mom.

Since then, I’ve kept in touch with Trent, fitfully, sending updates - especially news of Electric Hymnal and a copy of it after its release. I was just writing him again a couple weeks ago when he wrote back to tell me that he’s stepping down from On Being. He put me in touch with a couple of his colleagues and I wrote to them.

One of them, Mariah Helgeson  - a senior producer - wrote back to say it was great hearing from us and that she’d first heard about the band when we were featured on the On Being blog. What? Yeah.

Apparently, one of the digital producers wrote a little piece about you and I and the group when we released our Christmas album in 2015. Incredibly, I didn’t ever see it at the time. The link is below.

Isn’t that amazing, little sweetheart? I know how much you like NPR. And your mom and my mom! Hey, you’re on the radio again, little sweetheart. You’re on National Public Radio. With all my love forever.

https://onbeing.org/blog/reimagining-a-christmas-classic/

Summerlight

Little sweetheart, one of the most comforting things in my sadness is to have all the many wonderful pictures of you here all around me, covering nearly every space of wall and desk and mantel. It’s such a comfort to have my eye fall upon you wherever I might turn my gaze. And sometimes, often magically, a light will fall upon one of them, upon you, when the sun finds its way through the blinds or through some sliver in the clouds.

The other day came just such a moment.

High up almost directly at eye level to the right when I sit here at my desk are several photos of you perched atop the tower of sound equipment. Among those are the mini-poster collage of photos of you from the Of Love and Loss album, the back cover photo from BPXmas of you in your winter coat and hat on the roof, a photo of you leaning against the fridge in the kitchen and a note to myself (something you said to guide me) taped it the bottom of its frame, a lovely full face picture of you with your pretty red hair down and framing your face again with a note taped to the bottom (“It is she Love has destined for you!”) that I saw once walking home past Lincoln Center when the opera was being broadcast outside with subtitles and in the middle a lovely picture of you I took while we rode a London bus together.

Late yesterday afternoon as the sun began to move from east to west over the building, the light pinpointed its way through the blinds illuminating this photo from behind and casting the most incredible light framing your face through the picture.

It was, as I say, a back light, but it raised your features and your eyes making you glow. This magic light hit nothing else - only you and from behind and perfectly making you the sole focus of the room.

In moments like these I know there are so many things beyond my mortal comprehension and I know you are doing your best to let me know you are near me, far nearer than I can imagine. Thank you, my angel. May I do in all things my best to honor and hear you. I love you with all my heart and soul and pray so very fervently to be what you want and desire of me. Please take me to you the moment that heaven will allow. Oh, my bright, wonderful angel!

Two For Tuesday

Little sweetheart, we were on the radio twice yesterday on two different shows. First on Liz Berg's great noon-3pm slot on WFMU. She opened her show with our soundscape shoegaze version of In the Bleak Midwinter. Then WFMU's legendary Irene Trudel opened her penultimate set of the evening with our dreamcore version of Silent Night - the one that has all that neat spoken word stuff of yours - in her 9pm-midnight program. It marked our 11th and 12th times on the station this year and 2nd and 7th times on Liz and Irene's shows, respectively, little sweetheart. Both tunes are from our holiday album, BPXmas which is turning out to be the best selling album in our catalog on iTunes. Sweetheart, you're on the radio! At Christmas! Love you forever.

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/64186