But here we are. Michael Feldman, who directed the film, and I got to work on submitting our film to festivals, and on February 17th I’m headed off to the New Jersey Film Festival to screen our work. If you’re around, come and join us!

We’re second on the program, too, so if you have a problem with Film Festivals in general (an allergy to thick plastic-rim glasses and black turtlenecks?) you can duck out early. Here’s the YouTube embed in case you want to see exactly what we’re screening in New Brunswick, but in HD:

Not as usual, I stuck a Flip camera in Ian’s face as he played through Oberon’s opening monologue for the second time ever. Then I put it through a very Instagrammy effect on Youtube, and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

I’m collaborating with you right now

Given everything I’ve been writing about audience collaboration and bringing all the cool new techniques of marketing the arts online into the process of making art online, I thought it was high time I put my money where my mouth is. Or, maybe put my music where my mouth is.

So, what do you think? The new version of Summer’s Twilight opens with Oberon striding onto an empty stage, and playing this monologue on his marimba, while no words are spoken.

I with the morning’s love have oft made sport.
And, like a forester the groves may tread,
Even till the Eastern Gate, all fiery red,
Op’ning on Neptune,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.

The big question

Here’s what I want to hear from you. This is the first time you meet Oberon. From this music, what’s he like? You know he’s supernatural, he’s playing a marimba after all, but is he nice? evil? manipulative? cautious? benevolent? Does he have a lot of friends, or is he very serious? Let me know in comments, on twitter, facebook, google+, whatever. Who is this guy?

A secondary question: can you follow along with the words? There are some arpeggios that don’t have words attached, but the rest of the monologue does. Can you hear the text? Should I upload the score to this passage for you?

And a small disclaimer: Flip cams have terrible microphones and marimbas are notoriously hard to record well. Live, they fill the room with a magical wooden warmth. It’s delicious. Recorded…. they tend to sound like big xylophones. The bottom notes in particular tend to sound funny unless you’re in a big room and like thirty feet away. In this recording, a lot of the bottom octave sounds an octave up! (For nerds: the wavelength of the fundamental pitch is pretty huge, like bigger than the room we were in. This is a marimba problem particularly because marimbas are kind of like bells and have really weird spectra.)

The rest of my meeting

We also spent a good chunk of time talking about me producing a production, film, Kickstarter and tour of Mauricio Kagel‘s Dressur with Ian, Candy Chiu and John Corkill. I’ve seen those three do the piece at Zankel Hall at Carnegie, and you can see them do it for Vic Firth right now. That performance was a few years ago, and they just keep getting better.

I’m incredibly psyched to get to work with them on this. Oh, and did I mention that Kagel studied with my idol, Jorge Luis Borges?

Apparently my film is helping students cheat on their homework. This isn’t too much of a surprise, actually. From watching the Insight data I can see that a lot of our traffic is coming from teachers and students all over the country. We’ve had traffic from high schools in the South and Upper Midwest as well as from the sort of course-supporting-materials sites generally used by universities.

When I set old texts, which I do a lot, I’m trying to show everyone else what got me so excited. The Seafarer an Old English poem that no one would come across in their daily lives, and it’s something so wonderful that I want to share it. Composing these pieces is my way of showing you what I love so much, and getting you excited.

I never thought that this film would end up in classrooms all over the country, but I’m incredibly proud that it did. And at least if the film is more engaging than the reading I’ve done my job a little bit right. Just watch out, WhiteBoyNJ, I only set the first half of the poem!

These three videos feature haiku by Mindy Klenoff, Georg Lauer and myself. The original Facebook thread on which they were written and the walls of Journeyman’s bathrooms have many more. As for performers: Elisabeth Halliday is singing, and Lorna Krier is playing a really cool piano/synthesizer hybrid. Those hands washing themselves belong to my uncle, Brian. Enjoy!

Cucumbers & Gin Project Home

I’ve known Dennis from a very early age, when he taught me to get out of my crib at night, seriously annoying our parents. Since then he’s become a certified Rogue Geometer and all around giant geek with some very wacky side projects. I recently collected a more complete list of his accomplishments for a stele celebrating his 30th birthday. Several of his friends and family are having it inscribed in Linear B for future generations.

The Shoot My Brother

for the shot:
-1.5 oz. cucumber infused Hendricks gin
-0.5 oz. black peppercorns

for the chaser:
-grapefruit supremes
-a splash of grapefruit juice
-English cucumber slices
-a dash of bitters (angostura or blood orange)

for the salt:
-kosher salt
-grapefruit zest or candied grapefruit
-roughly crushed black peppercorns

Put the whole peppercorns and cucumber-infused gin into a shot glass to infuse. Toss the supremes, cucumber slices, and a dash of bitters with a little of the grapefruit’s juice. Stir the salt with the pepper and finely chopped zest or candied grapefruit. Plate the three elements together.

This is a finicky cocktail. We all know by now about cucumber-infused Hendricks. For this cocktail infuse whole black peppercorns as well. I like leaving the peppercorns in the shot glass for service. It’s not hard to avoid eating them and they look really cool. I did the pepper as a second infusion in the shot glass itself to save on washing (ten minutes give a nice heat, but leave them longer if you want more kick). Black pepper and cucumber in gin is, by the way, awesome. I’m trying it in many different cocktails the next chance I get.

For the salt, the ratios are really up to you. You should be able to taste the pepper, and a little bit of grapefruit. I used the zest of the same grapefruit that furnished the supremes, but Dennis used candied grapefruit he had on hand when he tried the recipe for himself. Both work well; I might even add a little sugar to help balance the gin next time.

The chaser is based on one of Dennis’ inspirations. We were preparing a 60th birthday dinner for our parents, and Dennis came up with this gorgeous palate cleanser: clementine supremes and a dash of bitters. Amazing. You can plate it ahead. It’s elegant, surprising and refreshing. Here I used grapefruit, one of Dennis’ favorite fruits, and a very good partner for the gin (see both Wheaton’s Elixir and Dennis’ favorite punch recipe, Mother’s Ruin). The cucumber slices add crunch, and a lightness to the grapefruit’s bitter edge.

A quick note on supremes: they’re fiddly to cut but more impressive than they are difficult, so give ‘em a shot. Basically, they’re skinless sections. Lop off the top and bottom of your citrus fruit, then carve away the peel and pith. Then take your very sharp paring knife and cut out each individual section just inside the membranes. That’s it, and everyone will act impressed (except Timo Andres).

This cocktail is a riff on a tequila shooter, traditionally enjoyed in rapid succession. Enjoy this drink more slowly, but finish with the grapefruit. It’s better that way.

This is the last of our cocktails for Cucumbers & Gin, but stay tuned for news on mastering the CD recording, editing the film, and just how hard Sean rocked the piece itself on game day.

That shoot was smooth as silk. We were on time, we had a blast, we got the gorgeous shots we wanted, and a we made a killer recording. And something that makes every producer proud, we were out on time. Leaving the shoot, both of these comments came out of professionals with film degrees: “I’ve never left a shoot not hating someone before” and “I was about to apply to law school, but that was a really good shoot”. That’s got to make you feel good.

Now I’ve got one more cocktail recipe, audio editing with Zach, film editing with Mike and Alan, post-production with the illustrious Victoria, liner notes to print, CDs and DVDs to distribue, film festivals to submit to…. the list goes on. Also, next week I’m back to work running a new music funding platform, producing a three concert festival, and helping manage a big merger. So, it’ll be a pretty relaxed week. I tweeted as many photos as I could during the shoot, and I’ve put them in below with their tweets or captions. I can’t wait to see what we got in the real cameras.

One more time: to everyone who helped make this possible, thank you!

Earlier in the week, the forecast said cloudy, rainy and gross. But the sun’s come out, so if our luck holds you can look forward to gorgeous sunset views from 27 stories up in Brooklyn Heights. I’ll be tweeting photos from the set as much as I can at @kevinefclark.

One last bit of bookkeeping before I start my Very Long Day: we’ve got one final cocktail recipe to do. This one’s for my brother, Dennis. I was toying with a hot toddy made with cucumber, gin and miso. I was doing thought experiments with chicken stock. Luckily for all of us I’ve got another idea. I’ll test it out and present the final version after the shoot, but here’s a preview: grapefruit supremes and black pepper gin, all based on a tequila shooter.