Working with free103point9
this month, we received more than 60 audio recordings from all over the world
in response to our invitation to observe and record sunrises and sunsets this
month. Those recordings replaced the usual documentation this month, and I
posted those pieces to two different entries. Sunwatchers Audio Archive is a
daily record of what came in from where and whom for the entire month. The
EMERGENCY AUDIO RESPONDERS entry is a collection of all the emergency audio
responders that came through with recordings for the Solstice. I continued to
observe and ring bells at each sunrise and sunset and occasionally collected
some media or thoughts of my own. However, for the most part, I invite you to
enjoy hearing from others for a change. I know I did!
FYI We rang bells in front of the house (including the big
bell in the back of the car) for 19 out of 25 consecutive days. That’s a
record.
What follows is the odd collection of media from the entire
month. I discontinued the journal and finished off the month
with the Solstice Saga and miscellaneous media.
12/1 Sunset. Henry came through again. His sister, Gracie
joined him and they both raced down the stairs and ran across the street to
ring the big bell. We have to keep an eye on Henry- he just runs right out into
the street.
12/2 Sunrise and sunset pieces arrived throughout the day
here as the earth moved out of and back into the rays of the sun.
12/3 Another photo at sunrise from my backyard in San
Francisco. Same view. Foggier day. This evening we arrived home a few minutes after
the sun had set but rang the big bell anyway, just in case anyone wanted to
come over and join us. Nobody did, but Mr. Paul from across the street came out
and stood in his driveway although I think that was a coincidence.
12/4 We continue to make an effort to ring the big bell at
home as many evenings as possible.
12/5 Getting ready to leave for New York tomorrow. I waited
until the last minute to stop working to catch the sunset. It was a minimal
observance. Just Norman and I out front ringing the big bell. I like the
routine of it. It’s no big deal around here and I like that about it.
12/6 The plane was not very crowded and I had a row to
myself. No watch. No cell phone and no animated map in the seatback in front of
me. So I had to rely on what I could see out the window and the man who
happened to walk down the aisle when I was beginning to wonder what time it was
somewhere in the world. It was 6:45 PM in New York and the sun was almost
finished. I figured it must be about 4:45 where we were and that would have put
us over someplace like Missouri. That’s my best guess. I took a little movie
out of the plane window because I liked the moving shadow on the wing of the
plane. As soon as I had put the camera back into it’s case and under the seat,
I looked back out the window and the wing of the plane was gray. Finished.
12/7 It’s cold here. Too cold to go out first thing in the
morning. I almost missed the sunrise because I couldn’t remember where I put
the bells after I unpacked last night. After scrambling and stumbling around
for a minute, I found two bells lying on the couch. I opened the back door and
watched a train roar by, completely overpowering my feeble and stubborn little
bells.
12/8 Another morning of placid half asleep clinking towards
an empty train rattling by overhead. This evening, I rang a few small bells as
I ascended the stairs to the 4th floor on my way to visit my
neighbor and her new baby. Mom was waiting to make sure the baby was finished
her business before changing her, so the three of us hung out by the changing
table. She's a beautiful baby girl, lots of hair and very calm. As I was
leaving I rang the little bells for her and she got very still and opened her
eyes and smiled. I rang each one by itself to see which was her favorite. She
liked the bell with the highest pitch- the tinkliest. So now it’s hers. Maybe
her first bell?
12/9 Bells for the subway in the morning. Those trains are right on time.
This evening I was in Delhi, NY planning for the Fun Faire
which will be at the South Kortright School next April. We were all talking,
drinking tea and eating cake when the sun went down, and we missed it by a few
minutes. It’s amazing how quickly it gets dark this far north once the sun
actually crosses the horizon. The sky was already a deep blue when we noticed
and passed the bag of bells around the table. Then we resumed our meeting. The
Fun Faire will be held on Friday, 4/3/09. It’s to be a school wide event and
hopefully will include all kinds of exhibits, demos and performances. I will
present a variety of work to grades 7 – 12 at an assembly tomorrow for
inspiration and to give the kids some ideas (and permission) for things they
might like to do. Doing what matters and sharing what you do—that’s the theme.
12/10 It’s so fucking cold here – I didn’t want to go
outside this morning. So I sat by the window and rang very quietly so I
wouldn’t wake Martha or her dog, Simon. Although I forgot that Simon is almost
deaf. This evening at sundown, I was driving out in the middle of nowhere here
trying to find a place to eat. Anything. I had a piece of toast for breakfast
and some gummibears for lunch before my presentation. And that was it.
12/11 The snow on the ground looked very pretty this
morning. Also pretty cold. The sun never appeared all day. In fact, it began to
sleet and slush. I was on the road in the teeny Toyota Yaris all day. Once I
drove over the Catskills, torrential rains replaced the sleet. I almost made it
to Connie and Bob’s before the sun set. But not quite. So I rang in the car as
I drove deeper and deeper into the grey.
12/12 Connie and Liz stayed in Brooklyn with me overnight
and we all got up to ring the bells this morning. It was too cold for me and
too noisy to stay outside, so Liz and Connie greeted the day and the subway
passengers. Connie also sang - very calmly in the face of all that noise. She
and Liz recorded their greeting and we sent it to free103point9 for tomorrow’s
daily broadcast.
12/13 It was brisk here today, even in the sunshine. So I
just wandered out into the shelter of the back of the building at sunset to see
what I could see and to say goodbye to the day. The trains rattled by on the
bridge as usual and there was a steady stream of cars passing in both
directions. There’s no way to see the sun from there, but it is possible to see
some reflections in the windows of a very tall loft building on the other side
of the bridge. A somewhat more subtle but prettier indicator is the pink
reflection coming off the dome of the bank down the street. I watched the pink
fade and checked in with the window across the way and just stood there ringing
the bell each time it faded away. Eventually the color faded too.
12/14 My father sings in his Church choir and they performed
their Christmas Cantata three times today. The first two times were in their
local Churches in Lambertville
(Old Rocks) and Stockton (Stockton Church), NJ. I attended the third
performance that was at the assisted living part of the Hunterdon Medical
Center. When we first entered the recreation room where the choir was scheduled
to sing, my dad looked around and said, “It looks like a good crowd” and there
were indeed quite a number of people already assembled. But it wasn’t your
ordinary audience. Everyone was seated in wheelchairs and the closer to the
time the performance was set to begin, the more people quietly wheeled
themselves into the room. The 16-member choir sang really well together- nobody
stood out and the blend was perfect. The amount of love and good will in the
room was overwhelming at times and I was aware of monitoring my face so it
wouldn’t look like it was about to cry. It was that beautiful and humbling.
After the concert, Charlotte wanted to go back to her room and lie down so we
wandered back there and a little while later, we watched the sun go down from
her window.
12/15 Today was the first day of the Sounds Elemental
workshop for radio producers co sponsored by AIR and Harvestworks. This is the
second one this year, the first was in August. Each workshop has a “theme” –
this one is “fire” and the last one was “water”. The themes are handy points of
focus. However, the workshops are not “about” either fire or water but are
intended to provide immersive and hands on experience with sound. This is the long
way of saying what was happening at sunset this evening. Since we were in the
middle of the workshop and everyone was intently concentration on their pieces
in headphone isolation, I didn’t want to disturb anyone by telling them that
the sun was setting. However there were a few people standing around the office
and we went out into the hall and stood by a window overlooking the inner
courtyard of the building with absolutely no access to the sky. There we stood
and rang down the sun on faith alone.
12/16 We turned the corner today- at least as far as the
sunset is concerned. The sun continues to rise a minute later each day, but the
sunset has finally reversed itself. The sun went down one minute later today
than yesterday. Oh happy day. Someone asked if there was someplace we could go
to watch the sun go down. “Perhaps the roof?” they suggested. I said maybe from
a helicopter. But even that wouldn’t have worked this evening. It had begun to
snow. Sparkly. Silently into the slightly lingering daylight.
12/17 I have enjoyed having to interrupt my participation in
the workshop to witness the sundown every night this week at Harvestworks. The
staff and interns have joined me and even some of the women in the workshop who
happen to be taking a bathroom break or making a cell call at that time are
suddenly available, too. The biggest window is right by the bathrooms in a
short hallway where there are no other doors or offices. So this is where we go
to ring the bells. You can hardly see the sky—just a small square of grayish
blue- 7 stories above us mirroring the courtyard below. We are holding at 4:29
for three days in a row now—slowly, slowly stretching the end of the day.
12/18 One other person joined me out by the window in the
hall across from the bathroom this evening to note the sunset.
12/19 Peeking out the window this morning just so I wouldn’t
feel like a total cheater, I dinged the bells thrice and fell right back to
sleep. This evening however, there was a natural pause in the class just a few
minutes before sunset. We had just finished listening and commenting on
somebody’s radio piece when I notice the time. I mentioned that the sun was
setting and invited everyone to ring bells with me and we did. It was so nice.
YouTube descriptions:
Sunset. December 28, 2008. Final installment for
dailybell2008: We all brought noisemakers to ring down the sun in this final
video of the year. Happy New Year everyone! Members of the band in nor
particular order are: Zoey Leavons, emcee; Finn Holland, recorder; Jenny
Holland, flute; Isaac Narell, flute; Michael Brown, drum: Tom Miller, cowbell.
Assorted percussion: Bonnie Holland, Cecilia Holland, Brenda Hutchinson, Carol
Kemper, Mia Narell, Jon Patmore- (video, too), Chris Tripoli and Linda Wang.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the project this
year. Anyone stumbling on this for the first time, check out the whole year of
daily sunrise and sunset observances at-
12/30 Sunset. Encore! This isn’t really much of an encore,
more of an after thought. However,
it is actually the last in the
series for the year. Norman and I were on our way to a family reunion in
Montana when we stopped for the sunrise in the parking lot of this casino. We
were near Pocatello, ID and this was just before we resumed out trip and got
stopped for speeding.
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