You can't throw a pine cone in these parts and not hit somebody doing great live music of some kind (hence, the sensible local no-pine-cone-throwing ordinance). Especially this time of year. The Fairgrounds hosted the annual California Bluegrass Association music festival Father's Day weekend at the fairgrounds. We didn't attend this year, but listened to quite a bit of it on live radio (I like knowing that it's there, even if I'm not). World music and Celtic music fests are coming right up.
Among other events, our Music-in-the-Mountains chorus is currently in the middle of the last four concerts of the summer season. Last Tuesday, ours and two other choirs in the area (200 voices all together!) sang in a program featuring mostly brand new music composed by local people. It was a blast! Many of the new pieces were written for percussion only--so cool and such a vast and interesting array of instruments--BUT there may have been a just few too many of those sorts of pieces in a row--nearly the entire first half of the concert, actually (hint to program guys). The third or fourth percussion composition starts to sound rather a lot like the prior ones. Tom reports that the final piece, though, a work by modern composer, John Cage--and also percussion-only--was quite different and wonderful. Alas, I missed it because I was already backstage getting ready for ours (which were terrific!).
Friday night, however, we went to the Fairgrounds for an outdoor concert featuring Bela Fleck, a fave musician of ours, along with a couple of other guys new to us, as a part of the M.I.M. summer concert series which has featured everything from mariachi music with Doc Severinsen (yes, that Doc Severinsen) to opera (Hungarian soprano, Veronica Kincses, who also happens to be mom of our artistic director/conductor, Gregory Vajda) and everything in between (like, for example, Kronos Quartet).
We have followed Mr. Fleck's career since he was the banjo player in our favorite bluegrass band in the '80s/90s--New Grass Revival. He's since taken his banjo and explored classical, African, blues, pop, jazz, country, and so many more musical traditions than I can name, in the process winning 13 grammies (in the most categories of any artist ever). The banjo! Classical music! Seriously! Plus, he gathers other astounding musicians around him. This time, they are master (I mean it!) stand-up bass player, Edgar Meyer and virtuoso (ditto!) tabla-guy, Zakir Hussein.
All the outdoor concerts at the fairgrounds, by the by, open early so patrons can bring picnics and eat beforehand. Which we do, of course. You can see Tom, here, hangin' with the crowd just before the music started. We like to sit close to the front.
Anyway, the orchestra started with a lovely piece, Dvorak's (imagine your own diacritical marks here) Carnival Overture. You would recognize it. Then, the orchestra and the trio performed a composition by Meyer called Triple Concerto--a great showcase for the three featured performers!
But the real fun was listening AND watching the guys perform sans orchestra in the second half of the program. Here's my review: AWESOME! Everything was amazing and we sat there in our sand chairs with our mouths hanging open the whole time. Say 'hello' to a new tabla fan! So many sounds (some like chimes!) and even musical tones! Hussein's hands moved so rapidly and evenly, I could barely comprehend how what he did was even physically possible!
Meyer could make the bass sing like a viola or growl like a tuba! And he threw in a Bach Partita for laughs! And, of course, there's Fleck--he's transformed the banjo from a tinny country-music plucking instrument into a multi-dimensional sound that can morph any kind of music into something new and cool! He's quick and light and his hands are a blur, all while the rest of his body looks like it's just chilling out at home with a mocha latte.
So. We were impressed. Rachel and Mike will be able to see/hear them at the Sierra Music Festival in Quincy (north of here) this next weekend. They'll love it (they've seen Fleck at other venues with other musicians, so they know). Check them out for yourselves--live (long "i")--if you can. Heard any brand new music lately? Treat yourself!
The fun never stops here, in Nevada County, and while we're looking the other way, we get a little behind in the keeping-up-with-the-noodleheads department.
As visual entertainment, this time, I'll slip in a few recent photos of our yard--#1, a crazy Jerusalem sage bush that popped up last year along the driveway. Wild, three-tiered flower systems. #2, Foothill Penstemon in my front planters (near the little yellow daylilies)--gorgeous! It grows wild around here, but I can keep it going longer in the planter where it gets watered more often. #3, The peas in the garden have been doing quite well, this year--sugar snap, melting mammoth and Oregon pod. They and a few other veggies survived the late frost earlier this month, no problem. Most others, sadly, did not. #4, Lettuce bolting in the warm weather we had last week. And, #5, Me, doing my garden thing, taken from Tom's office, where he does his thing.
And now, we check in with folks who call the police station with important news like:
"11:07 p.m.--A group of men from the 16000 block of Dry Creek Lane called 9-1-1 to report they were eating melting Butterfingers." [and drinking a little something, as well, I dare say]
"7:48 p.m.--A caller from Kidder Cemetery reported three juveniles were building a bike ramp. They were moved along." [probably figured they wouldn't actually be bothering anyone...]
"9:15 p.m.--A woman from the 11000 block of Rough and Ready Rd reported she returned home and thought someone might be inside. Items were in disarray. It was found to have been a dog. [been there...]
"2:20 p.m.--A caller from the 1200 block of East Main Street reported a man asked a woman to have coffee with him and now she was sleeping on the counter." [I'm pretty sure I know that guy...]
"11:56 p.m.--A caller from the 400 block of Colfax Avenue reported a man running down the street yelling 'military things.'" [what, like "hup two three four", or calling in air strikes? Important to know...]
"7:36 p.m.--A woman from the 13000 block of Woolman Lane reported her 11-year-old son was not listening." [like reporting that water is wet]
"12:35 a.m.--A caller from Main and Bennett Streets reported a life-size blond Barbie doll with no legs in the middle of the road. The road was cleared." [Life-sized Ken's got some 'splainin' to do]
"12:17 a.m.--A man in the hospital emergency room reported he broke his hand punching someone in the face." ["...yeah, and I also twisted my shoulder stealing this case of beer..."]
"8:34 p.m.--A caller on Neal Street reported three people throwing salad dressing at her from a passing car." [perhaps she forgot she was wearing her lettuce hat...]
"8:00 p.m.--A caller from South Auburn Street and La Barr Meadows Road reported finding a chihuahua in a leopard coat." [so embarrassing! The blue pinstripe was in the laundry]
"12:38 p.m.--A caller from the 100 block of South Church Street reported a woman in her 70s sitting in a lounge chair on the sidewalk. It was not known whether she was wearing underclothes. She was found to have appropriate attire." [We have underwear police, now?!]
"5:46 p.m.--A caller from Cook Road and Rough and Ready Hwy reported a man parked, pulled a trampoline out of a minivan and was jumping on it. He was gone when deputies arrived." [can't let a thing like that get out of hand. What's next, Stairmaster on the freeways?]
"10:54 a.m.--A caller from the 600 block of South Auburn Street reported two men dressed all in black putting items in a vehicle and acting suspiciously. They were moving." [and everyone knows black is a no-no on moving day. Duh!]
Happy summer! More soon!
If you've seen pt. 1, apologies for the extreme wordiness! It reads like I was on something. Deep breath. Less verbiage.
By 8pm the second day, Monday, the three of us had gotten to a point that promised the work would be completed on time. There was some staining and final finish for the Stink Tree table and mainly just final assembly for the island. 
I had to drive back to Grass Valley that night to get ready for the election, but Tom decided to stay a couple more days to help Dylan finish the furniture, deliver it and get him ready to hop a plane Wed afternoon. All of which he was able to do. As I mentioned in the last post, Tom is a terrific organizer and an amazing dad!!
They rented a van and delivered the pieces to the house in Los Gatos on Wed morning, well ahead of the deadline. Tom reports that the Designer Guy and Sunset Lady (again, no name) LOVED the tables! I suspect that they will be fairly prominent in the Idea House spread in the magazine in October. Of course, we'll send out a notice beforehand. It should be a rather nice piece of advertising for Dylan. And, we hope, someone also buys the tables. That would also be nice.
It's difficult to get a business like Dylan's up and running from scratch. There are so many moving parts, not the least of which is making the right connections with the right people. From his first year (he's in his third, now), he's impressed folks with his designs and developed some very good relationships. Now, he needs to find a good partner to help him build the pieces faster and keep on top of the all the paperwork/email/scheduling (not his strong suit). That person might not be so easy to find.
But, for now, he and Emi are roaming around Italy for a couple of weeks, eventually attending the wedding of Emi's close friend in Tuscany, somewhere. The furniture design biz can wait, but he has a stack of orders waiting for him upon his return.
Photos: 1--Dylan and Tom inspecting my (flawless) staining job at the end of the day on Monday. The island is in the foreground, nearly completed. (The shelves, which appear white, are covered with a protective membrane that the Sunset folks will peel off just before the show to reveal the stainless steel surfaces.)
2--The assembled island (no finish on the legs or top, yet). The drawers pull out in either direction and have stainless steel bottoms.
3--A close-up of the island table surface to reveal a hidden butterfly embedded (after finishing).
4--The Stink table in Los Gatos, sitting on a furniture dolly.
5--The island coming out of the van in Los Gatos.
Quick overview since last post:
During the last few weeks, I've been working primarily on the computer making "buttons", tiny icons for Forte (Tom's software co.)--specifically, for their new iPhone app. It's slow work when one is a mostly-self-taught Photoshop user (with significant help from Dylan from time to time) and lacking in a few critical PS skills (when it goes prime time, I'll post the links).
Beginning Wednesday, the 2nd, though, life started to become uncharacteristically dense--
First, there was choir practice Wed, Thurs, & Fri eves to prepare for a concert Saturday evening (great concert--Copland, Kodaly, Biegal: all challenging and quite stunning works--we did good!).
I attended two poll-worker training sessions to prepare for Tuesday's elections.
Friday, Rachel, Mike (in town from Chicago) and Walker (Rachel's roomie) stopped for a visit on their way to a bluegrass music festival in Truckee (a great time--but, who makes that much food as a "snack" for 5 people? sheesh).
Saturday morning, we talked with Dylan, receiving a big SOS for his Sunset table project (details to follow), so we scurried around for several hours to prepare to be gone for a few days.
Concert over, Sunday morning we arrived in SF by 10am to transform ourselves into woodshop elves. We all worked hard for two long days, making excellent progress, I must say.
I had to drive home Monday night (arriving around 10:45) to prepare next day's food, irrigate parched seedlings, etc., in order to be ready to get to the Nevada City polling place to which I had been assigned by 6am (we, ourselves, live in a mail-in-only precinct). Election day (all 14 1/2 hours) went quite nicely this year (different set of folks at a different location this year=much better experience, thanks for asking!).
Also, on Wednesday afternoon (yesterday), I received an SOS from Music in the Mountains (the org of which our choir is a part) to get more warm bodies (for free) into a concert that evening for which too few tickets had been sold--it was a wonderful instrumental ensemble (The Third Angle), just back from a tour to China, playing Beethoven, Stravinsky, Chinese something and something else. I was struggling to stay awake, but called Tom at intermission and I discovered he was close to home, so I left.
Meanwhile,Tom had stayed a couple more days to help Dylan finish and deliver his tables and get the rest of his life put together so that he and Emi could leave Wed afternoon (yesterday), on time, for two weeks in Italy. Last night, then,Tom headed for home after dropping them off at the airport, mission accomplished (whew!).
So. Why the big SOS from Dylan? You might recall that about two months ago, he had hired a part-time wood-worker to help him with a big load of work that he'd contracted. We had all known that, eventually, he would need to hire regular help if he was ever going to be able to turn out enough pieces to sustain the business. That time had come. Coincidentally, a friend knew of a guy who needed work and seemed to have at least some of the skills Dylan needed. They met and Dylan hired him for two months as a trial period. Lets just say that it didn't quite work out as planned. Nice fellow. Some good skills, indeed.
But he couldn't catch on to the kind of work Dylan needed from him. It turned out that Dylan spent as much time trying to teach him and fixing his mistakes as he received in real help, especially for the fairly high wages he was paying--all without any sign that things would get better. That trial period ended last Friday with Dylan's biggest project not even close to being finished, deadline looming.
That project, for Sunset Magazine, consists of two tables. Dylan had made the acquaintance of the designer that oversees the Sunset Idea Houses each year. This year, the house is a remodel in Los Gatos and will be featured in the October issue of Sunset. The Guy (forget his name) wanted a kitchen island, the design of Dylan's choice, and the Stink Tree table, which he'd seen on Dylan's website (http://www.dylangold.com). 
This is the fourth "Stink Tree" Dylan has made. They're a bit of a pain to make, but people seem to like 'em. For the island, Dylan designed a beautiful wood/stainless steel piece with two two-way drawers. The top is a version of his signature "Wasted", a random lamination pattern of scrap wood.
When we arrived Sunday morning, the Stink was in pieces, still needing veneer and finish (first photo). The island was in many pieces still needing some tricky assembly (especially the drawers) and finishing.
Dylan set me to work veneering Stink while he and Tom worked on the island drawers (second photo), which had to hang from the under the top on aluminum t-bars--all new territory. Tom is so great at helping to arrive at complex solutions, step-by-step.
You can see me finessing veneer in the third picture, after which there's a shot of the veneered and assembled Stink before it had to be disassembled, again, and stained (pics in next post). The last photo is of Dylan doing a final sanding of the island top before applying a finish of walnut oil. Those are work-table legs, not the real legs.
Next: Finish and delivery...
Dylan was born on the traditional Memorial Day before the "Monday rule". I don't remember when, exactly, that 3-day-weekend-creating legislation was passed, but I know it was after 1974. I'm also pretty sure that teachers, among others, love that little holiday law. I'm still adjusting. That has almost nothing to do with this post--
--except that Dylan and Emi took the Amtrak to Sacramento Saturday evening to spend most of the long weekend with us. We liked that idea. After picking them up from the station, we found a BJ's Brewery restaurant on the way back up the hill in which to get a bit of fun food and watch some Lakers basketball, or whatever else showed up on the giant screens around us. I think I saw some UCLA girls softball. I have precious little experience in the "bar" areas of even familiar eating establishments. But I'm beginning to appreciate how a party of four can walk right past a long waiting list of hungry diners and grab a bar table and order a meal right now instead of standing in the entrance for 30 minutes or more. I can learn new things.
Time for some outside fun. Sunday, Dylan's actual birthday, Tom gladly played the part of support crew for our hike along the Yuba River (Tom--to hike or read and do crossword puzzles? Duh.). He dropped us off at Purdon Crossing and picked us up a little more than three hours later at Edward's Crossing. The hike was about 4 1/2 miles of lush woods and fabulous wildflowers along the roaring river. Our only care was to somehow dodge all the poison oak encroaching the trail.
Dylan is especially susceptible and I have no idea how we avoided at least some exposure, but we did, which was amazing. The stuff was everywhere. Much of the time, the trail ran high above the river, so we took a couple little spur trails down to scramble over the boulders and watch the kayakers pass by. A gorgeous day.
After that, we found lovely patio dining at Posh Nosh in Nevada City. Then cake and ice cream back at home.
Monday, both of them had to do a bit of work, so they took laptops into the living room to write (Emi) and design (Dylan). In the cracks of the weekend, we watched a red-tail hawk chick and it's mom/dad in the nest through our telescope. Awesome view! I'll make a separate post for that. Tom ordered a camera attachment, so we're practicing snapping some Nature-style pics.
After some home-made fish tacos for dinner, they had to mush along back to SF. They both have crammed schedules for the next week+ til they leave for Italy for a friend's wedding (and two weeks of traveling). Hard to imagine how they would beat the cool weekend we just had, though, but they'll have to try...
Meyer could make the bass sing like a viola or growl like a tuba! And he threw in a Bach Partita for laughs! And, of course, there's Fleck--he's transformed the banjo from a tinny country-music plucking instrument into a multi-dimensional sound that can morph any kind of music into something new and cool! He's quick and light and his hands are a blur, all while the rest of his body looks like it's just chilling out at home with a mocha latte.
