RISE UP

SITES / SOUNDS FROM BIRTHDAY SHOW

Both live sets from my birthday show are now up. Workshop Ensemble performed SILT and shown here - Movement Exercise No. 5 for Blindfolded Ensemble (modified to include party hats) Slaughterhouse 3 performed a set of material with originals by BF, Michael Owcharuk, Paul Kemmish, and Gino Jevdjevich, among other covers. Featured here, the Romani anthem: Djelem Djelem. Listen to full sets: http://kennedy-williams.net/scoobiesnax/2012/08/beth-fleenors-birthday-the-royal-room/ (special thanks to Steve Kennedy-Williams for recording)

UP THE IRONS

IRON MAIDEN!!!!!!!!! I kind of love them. love love love them. Will forever call on my inner Bruce for strength....

YEP

ART WORKS SEEN WHILE JOURNEYING

BF DIRECTLINE

the new BF webstation is taking shape....the DIRECTLINE will be my main spacecraft for internet exploration. http://bfdirectline.wordpress.com/

TUT UP

When it finds you, you must honor the bowling pin of bliss...

CATCH UP

I'm going to attempt to catch up m(eye) he(art)...that's never really possible, but I do want to add a few things to the journal here, that I've been collecting internally for sometime. It has been a busy time. A time of great change. A time of much unknown - and embracing that much unknown - and then hating that much unknown, and cursing it repeatedly...and then reveling and dancing in it...ah yes, it has been all of it... < LIFE IN FULL FORM > < THE DYNAMIC HUMAN > on display.... I have always loved this blog because it is the one place in my life where all of the projects/selves can be unified...the Artist, Frank, every tiny piece, every large extravaganza, all archived with the same weight...completion of the full person... The irony these days is that as I have jumped headfirst into the deep ocean of attempting to unify my many personalities, to understand and explore my many selves, I have had less energy to archive everything. I'm bummed about this, honestly, because the last 6 months have been a wash of happenings and they are all running together in my mind. Part of why this is frustrating is that I have a sort of video memory, which holds a strong chronology of past events, and now, instead of a linear timeline of the past, I have a sort of pollock-like explosion that settles as a rothko-sea before instantly being blast apart into alex grey esque supernatual particulate....and the emotions that accompany that experience are, well, varied.... In any case, I'm embracing this new whirlwind of color, form & motion in my life - I may drown in it at some point, but until then, I'm attempting to surf the biggest wave I've ever felt/faced....

HAIR BONNET

MAGIC EMU

I have now taken to referring to my email as emu....I find it makes the sea of constant correspondence more enjoyable....the notion that I'm spending time with my emu not just staring into a computer screen for hours on end...

(maybe this is also a sign that I need a vacation...yes, that certainly seems to be the case)

but amazing things are delivered by the magic emu...
sometimes it brings trips to amazing lands, or opportunities to create with amazing people....and sometimes it tells you that you owe money for stuff, which isn't as great.

Still, never underestimate the power of MAGIC EMU!

REVELATIONS

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”
(Benjamin Franklin)

Often people refer to insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results....of course "being insane" is something totally different, but there is some truth to be found in that old wives tale...for me, something has come into clear focus around this principle and is guiding me to make some different decisions.

Different decisions about old wounds.
New conclusions mean new manners of being.

Sometimes things happen and you keep trying to do the "right thing", the virtuous thing...to be the bigger person....giving the benefit of the doubt...but some things - and some people - are really just superficial in their essence - can't be anything more or anything less...and you can't change that. That's not to say people don't have the potential to not be superficial, just that it has to be their decision...you can't change it for them.

So, the lesson, regardless of what it is or where it is coming from - if it's toxic for you - don't ingest it...it's just that simple.

You can try to understand the toxicity, to have compassion for it, learn from it, etc...but that doesn't mean you need to interact or participate with it, and get all covered in it's yucky business...

Spit it out, walk away, don't look back...cultivate interactions as you would like to have them. Don't dwell on how others treat you - focus on how you are treating others. And above all how you are treating yourself.

There's plenty of toxicity in the world that you can't remove yourself from...so do yourself a favor and irradicate that which you can.

AIRPLANE CHIVALRY

Newark is never fun. Always difficult in some way. Back and forth across the airport, they tried to take Beatrice over and over....one agent who repeatedly just grunted at me, as I desperately tried to kindly understand what he was telling me to do or where to go, finally said "I don't like musicians - I don't like you"....finally I made it through security and all the way to the gate, both clarin...ets in hand. And then, in the final moment, another tried again - gate check, she kept saying, ignoring my pleas...."we have a full flight, you must gate check, you cannot have two spots in the bins".....and then he stepped forward, my knight in round plastic spectacles, "you can take mine so there's room for hers" - quite confused the attendant said "no, you can't do that" - and he argued..."yes, I can - I was going to take it on, and now I'm allowing that allotted space to go to her instruments - its ridiculous to check a musical instrument".....still conflicted she agreed and gate checked his bag - but still looked conflicted, and still looked at me suspiciously...and then another stepped forward - "take mine too - just so there's no worry".....the people, they came to my rescue, they heard me, they understood, they defended the music...all babies secured in overhead bins....and then I thought, let's get the hell out of New Jersey and breathe that first breath of fresh Seattle air......finally, it's always so good to come home.

BUDDHAS & THE BITCHES...A WEEK WITH BOBBY PREVITE

I recently asked the universe for some guidance about a piece I am working on for dance....I am composing in a very new way - quite different than anything I've ever done before - and through it, something keeps coming up quite clearly and for some reason I keep resisting it...

but I know we all have an individual voice - and it is our obligation to stay pure and focus on amplifying that voice...no matter what - to contribute our individual sound, we have a moral obligation...

So then I got this gig - my friend and colleague Wayne Horvitz got in touch and asked me to play bass clarinet with a 12-piece ensemble Bobby Previte was putting together in Seattle to play a Miles Davis tribute night - music from Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way.

Over the course of that week I got to talk to Bobby about the amazing piece he's been doing, Diorama - percussion solos for 1 audience member at a time and the ins & outs of energy exchange as a performer, improviser & composer....I attended his masterclass at Cornish College and got an hour-long earful of all of the things I am guided by and know to be true presented in a new language at exactly the moment I needed to hear them, and reveled in nights of music making with Wayne's Conduction Band, the Bitches rehearsals and an incredibly educational and energy churning Bitches performance at the Royal Room...

Thank you universe - thank you for Bobby Previte and the fertile community generating nucleus that is Wayne Horvitz.

"the battle is won or lost in the fold of the map"
www.bobbyprevite.com


Back to the composition...

HOOK UP

the initial test drive...

barrel microphone 101
Ken Jacobson and Stephen Parris egg me on...






(now in the process of making some modifications...more to come!)

ROAR!!!

ROOTS & BRANCHES 2

jammy jam happy time with the old school peoples - DISPROOF!
2001-2011

February 26, 2011
UNCA

Sounds by:
BF
Brad Hebert
Matthew Richmond
Cameron Juroff
Jeremy Gibson
Ben Painter
Tony Hood

ROOTS & BRANCHES 1

QUACK

Cracker Barrel
February 26, 2011

Discovery of all things mystical and a brief encounter with the Pat...