Winter Solstice 2010

Seed Swap and Bell Ringing at the Dearborn Garden
What a lovely garden. Congratulations and good luck as we now move into the light

A little chilly but homemade food, drinks and good company warmed up the evening. Thanks to Liz Keim, Sam Sharkey and the Exploratorium and to Bill Basquin, Johunna Grayson, Greta Snider and the members and friends of the Dearborn Community Garden.

Happy Solstice Everyone!!!! And thanks for the seeds.

Winter Solstice Seed Swap and Bell Ring

SAVE YOUR SEEDS!

Sunset is at 4:54PM

The annual Solstice Seed Swap and Sunset Bell Ringing is just around the corner. dailybell will be joining artists and urban gardeners Bill Basquin, Johunna Grayson, Greta Snider.
When: 3:00 - 7:00 pm. Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Where: Dearborn Garden, at the corner of Dearborn and Bird Streets, very near to the Women's Building; SF, CA.
What: Bring seeds or plants to share. Bells.
Who: you and others who love to garden, compost, and protect the genetic commons through seed saving and sharing.
Who else: young people are welcome; dogs are NOT
Please label your seeds with as much information as you can provide:
• Location and date of collection.
• Species and variety. Color of bloom (when applicable).
• Adaptability to particular microclimates (which one are you in?).
• Cultivation preferences of the plant (does it like to have cool feet and a warm top?) if you know them.
Supported by Liz Keim and The Exploratorium.

Ring Round The World

OK. Let's do it.

On September 23, 2010, the date of the Harvest Moon, we will create a Ring Round the World by following the sunrise or sunset as it travels around the globe for 24 hours and by ringing bells at that moment. We could begin tracking the sunrise as it rises over the International Date Line and follow it from there.

As the 3rd year of the dailybell gets underway, I thought this would be a good time to plant some seeds for what could happen. The idea of tracking the sunrise and sunset as it travels around the globe, even for just one day, is such a joyous notion.

I am not quite sure how this works yet, but I've started a google group and you can go there and join.

Happy 2010!

At the beginning of 2009, I decided to keep the large cast iron bell in the back of my hatchback. I figured I would most likely be with my car at the end of the day and that it would be really nice to have the big bell handy. Since I was already at home for many of the sunsets, I rang the bell regularly in my neighborhood. Over the course of the year, some of my neighbors have joined me consistently. The fact that most of them are under 10 years old and need to be accompanied across the street by an adult should be mentioned.

I look forward to embarking on year 3 and have yet to decide how I would like to participate in it’s evolution. The daily practice is great and I would also like to instigate and document more events this time around. It would be great to have more people join the project and to know about their various activities.

The big picture?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a ring around the world- a constant trail of bells following the sun as it crosses the horizon across the globe? Oh…!
Reality check
This is a picture one of my young and loyal bell ringers slipped under my door the other day. I was so excited because I thought he had drawn himself striking these two little round school bells that he often likes to play. When I thanked him for the drawing and told him how much I liked it, especially the part with him playing the bells, he told me they weren’t bells. They were the spots of light he was casting with his new flashlight that I gave him for Christmas. AAH bells, flashlights- what’s the difference…

Winter Solstice

Following the Light

Sunrise and sunset times from 11/29/09 - 1/11/10 in San Francisco, CA

It's all still a bit mysterious to me. Even though the sun continues to rise later and later until the middle of January AND the sun has already begun to set later a week before the Solstice, December 21st still has the least amount of daylight in the year.

Any ideas? It's interesting to compare this chart to the Summer Solstice chart from last year. As you would expect, the lines are reversed.

Greetings!

HOORAY!! It only gets lighter from here. Today is the 72oth sunrise and 721st sunset since beginning this practice on New Year's Eve 2007.

Happy Holidays to everyone!
love,
Brenda

4th of July Weekend In the Light Cone

July 3 - 5, 2009 Anacortes, WA
Lasercave Presents: In the Light Cone at the Department of Safety
This was a magical, communal event- indoors and out- installations, performances, BBQs, fire kite launching at night—all in a very quiet, beautiful town surrounded by water and mountains. It felt very clean and as if time was looking the other way as it passed by this little piece of heaven.
The curatorial premise behind In The Light Cone was simple: makers from throughout the country made dynamic, site-specific work based around the notion of two viewing times, during the day, when natural and artificial light commingled in a traditional gallery setting and at night, when piece-specific and -generated lights and shapes transformed the space into a wholly new environment.
Sunset at the Department of Safety
7/3 and 7/4/09 PM
The sun sets late way up in the Northwest, so I arrived in plenty of time on the first evening of the festivities at the Department of Safety in Anacortes, Wash. While the evening bell ringings on the 3rd and 4th of July were energetic and well attended, the 5AM sunrises were solo affairs.
Where is Everybody?
7/4 AM
Quiet Solo Bells (listen)
The first morning, I was the only person at the Department of Safety. I saw people moving indoors, but the streets were deserted. I found out later that everyone was camping on someone’s lawn in another part of town.
7/5/AM Shhhh... So on my way out of town on Sunday morning July 5th, I drove over to where everyone was sleeping on the ground. I tiptoed quietly among the tents and sleeping bags on the ground and quietly rang the smallest bells over each person as they slept. It felt somewhat sacred and I was moved to be in the presence of so many trusting and vulnerable people. It was a mutual blessing and I thank you all for a wonderful weekend.

The show was curated and organized by Jonah Adels, Jade Ajani, Adam Baz, Polly Bresnick, Tim Donovan, Maggie Jones, Jesse Malmed and Raven Munsell.

Other participants included: Mark Essen, Carlyn Elin Wutkee, Ben Segal, Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, Sidney B. Russell, Bethany Miller, Rebecca Leopold, Tim Donovan + Jonah Adels, Adam Baz, Jade Ajani, Tim Karpinski, Allison Cekala and Timothy Karpinski.
The video program was curated by Jesse Malmed and featured works by: Jonah Adels, Tyrone Davies, Molly Bradbury, Chris Rice, Aurora Halal, Josephine Shokrian, Jade Ajani, Duncan Malashock, Jesse Malmed, Adam Davies, Brandon Rosenbluth and Jesse McLean.

Summer Solstice 2009

Chapel of the Chimes


Listen






Video








with Francesca and Rose at sunset. photo and audio recording: Thea Farhadian
Thank you, Thea!

Happy Solstice!!!
Thank you Sarah and all the volunteers. This year was super smooth!

We rang bells during the sunset at the Annual Chapel of the Chimes Garden of Memory event. Anyone there care to add any comments or photos from the event? Everyone who was celebrating the summer Solstice elsewhere care to say a few words or share some images or sounds from wherever you happened to be?

FAREWELL, FOR NOW

Sunset. December 31, 2008 Leaving the Pamida grocery store in Bozeman, MT
Happy New Year!
I had no idea how many exceptionally generous and wonderful people I knew. I was and am overwhelmed and humbled by your support, creativity and generosity.

Regarding the Solstice- Thank you all for your kind and immediate offers of assistance and for the many fabulous solstice recordings you sent in on such short notice. That was beyond luck. The Solstice Sunwatch recordings are so incredible, and they would have never happened under ordinary circumstances. If I had to point to a single moment from this past year in terms of gauging the success of the dailybell2008 project, that was the moment. Thank you all; truly, from a part of myself I hadn’t known existed.

I have decided to continue to observe the sunrises and sunsets as a daily practice-- I really like it. I haven't figured out yet where to take the project but have some ideas.

In the meantime, let's continue to track the sun...

December Odds and Ends

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. To read the aborted daily journal, click here. I discontinued the journal and finished off the month with the Solstice Saga and miscellaneous media. The stories are more buried this month.

12/30 PM Encore, sort of...


12/28 PM Final Procession


12/13 AM Sunrise by the Williamsburg Bridge


12/12 AM Connie and Elizabeth ringing bells and singing by the bridge at 7:05AM (audio)

12/6 PM Somewhere over Missouri?


12/1 AM and 12/3 AM San Francisco day to day.

December Sunwatchers Audio Archive

In response to the invitation, people are sending in recordings from all over the world- they trickle in as the path of the sunrise of sunset moves around the globe. I gather each day's recordings and send them to free103point9 where they are broadcast at noon (EST) the following day. To listen to the daily offerings - live each noon- "tune into" the online radio show at free103point9.

To hear the ones you missed, they are archived here on the dates they were recorded, not broadcast. Just click on the time of day to listen.

11/30 PM Brenda Hutchinson reads poem by Jenneth Webster SF, CA 4:51PM
12/1 AM Norman Tuck "Hy's Bell" San Francisco, CA 7:07AM
12/1 PM Al Margolis at home Chester, NY 4:30PM
12/2 AM Stephan Moore Radiator Brooklyn, NY 7:01AM
12/2 PM Julia(2) and Sonia Vilafranca del Penedes, Barcelona 6:05PM
12/2 PM Erik Deluca What I was Doing Miami, FL 5:45PM
12/3 AM Alyce Santoro 6000 ft Davis Mountains, West Texas 7:30AM
12/4 AM Stephen Vitiello Thursday Morning Richmond, VA 7:09AM
12/5 PM Chris DeLaurenti for Brenda at 4:18 PM on Dec 5 Seattle, WA 4:18PM
12/5 PM Vince Rubino with Dianne Baasch, Heejung Kim, Maureen Kim, Stan Crocker, Alex You, Juhae Park and Cheong Keoul Songdo Incheon, Korea 5:15PM
12/7 AM Jenny Holland "Morning Practice" Albany, CA 7:12AM
12/7 PM Laura Vitale "Rainy Corner" Brooklyn, NY 4:28PM
12/7 PM Pauline Oliveros and Ione Living Room Kingston, NY 4:24PM
12/8 AM Tom Bickley and Nancy Beckman Blessing Berkeley, CA 7:13AM
12/8 PM Ginger Miles "Fire Escape" New York, NY 4:28PM
12/10 PM Jon Brumit kernel-shit-storm and farce-basil-miami-beech Miami, FL 5:30 PM
12/11 PM Sebastian (Beau Casey and Margot Bevington, parents) 7:14AM
12/11 AM and PM Lyn Goeringer Providence, RI 7:04AM/4:16PM
12/11PM Janice Misurell- Mitchell “Border Crossings" Chicago, IL 4:18PM
12/12AM Connie Kieltyka and Elizabeth Robinson "J-Train Sunrise" Brooklyn, NY 7:05AM
12/12PM Charles Veasey Stillwater, NY 4:20PM
12/14PM Kathy Kennedy "Montreal Bells" Montreal, Quebec 6:00PM
12/14PM Sharon Cheslow "On This Day Dec. 14th" Los Angeles, CA 4:45PM
12/15PM Maria Mykolenko "nysunsetdec15" NY, NY 4:28PM
12/15PM Lu Olkowski "BNC_Daily Bell_Dec 16 2008" Brooklyn, NY 4:29PM
12/16PM Judy Dunaway "For Dec 17" Boston, MA 4:13PM
12/17PM Maggi Payne "Berkeley BART" Berkeley, CA 4:51PM
12/18AM Brenda Hutchinson "Broadway Window" Brooklyn, NY 7:14AM
12/18PM Barbara Held and Nil Tous "diagong" Barcelona, Spain 5:24PM
12/19AM Yvonne Buchanan Central New York 7:15AM
12/20PM Roxanne Amico and Heather Kuhn Buffalo, NY 4:44PM
12/21 AM&PM SOLSTICE (See SOLSTICE AUDIO ARCHIVE)
12/22AM Caterina De Re "Snow Seattle Prayer" 7:45AM
12/23AM Erin Espeland and Paul Kaufman Sydney, Montana 7:44AM
12/24PM Raylene Campbell Montreal, Quebec 4:13PM
12/25AM Monique Buzzarté City Island, NY 7:19AM
12/26AM Georgina Lewis Making Breakfast Boston, MA 7:12AM
12/27AM Pilar Subirà Barcelona, Spain 7:17AM
12/27AM Jaime Robles Berkeley, CA 7:23AM
12/27PM Norman Tuck Ocean Beach San Francisco, CA 4:58PM
12/28PM Jenny Holland, Bonnie Holland, Jon Patmore, Finn Holland, Cecelia Holland, Mia Narell, Isaac Narell, Zoe Leavens, Tom Miller, Linda Wang, Michael Jones, Chris Tripoli, Carol Kemper, Brenda Hutchinson, Lucy Holland. "Backyard Band" Berkeley, CA 4:59PM
12/30AM Vicoria Estok "Sunrise" Roosevelt, New Jersey 7:20AM
12/31AM Maria Mykolenko "New Year's Bells" Southeastern Michigan 5:31PM
Laura Spero Sunrise in Kaskikot, Nepal on 12/24AM for the New Year

December Journal

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 4^th 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-

http://dailybell2008.blogspot.com

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.

EMERGENCY AUDIO RESPONDERS

Since there are so many entries for this one day AND it is the Solstice, I am posting all Solstice recordings on this entry. Just click on the time of day to listen.
SOLSTICE SUNWATCH ARCHIVE
Many, many thanks to all of you who sent in recordings on the solstice in response to my distress call. I am very grateful. This was so perfect and wonderful and appropriate. It was worth limping around Newark, NJ indefinitely waiting for a ride home. Thank you again!

DEC21 NOON Barbara Held Andora Mountains, Spain NOON
DEC21PM Thea Farhadian. Sesenheimer Str. 1. Berlin, Germany 3:54PM
DEC21PM Bun Ching Lam. Paris, France 4:54PM
DEC21PM Raylene Campbell. Montreal, Quebec 4:11PM
DEC21PM Georgina Lewis Boston, MA 4:15PM
DEC21PM Lyn Goeringer Providence, RI 4:18PM
DEC21PM Monique Buzzarté City Island, New York 4:23PM
DEC21PM Al Margolis. Chester, NY 4:31PM
DEC21PM Betsey Biggs. 14th Street. New York City 4:31PM
DEC21PM Jenneth Webster. Brooklyn, NY 4:31PM
DEC21PM Alyce Santoro. Truth or Consequences, NM 5:51PM
DEC21PM Vince Rubino On an Airplane somewhere above Eastern Washington time?
DEC21PM Caterina De Re. Seattle, WA 4:04PM
DEC21PM Chris DeLaurentis Seattle, WA 4:21PM
DEC21PM Krys Bobrowski and Chien Wong. KAZ Berkeley, CA 4:54PM
DEC21PM Beau Casey "Soulstice" Berkeley, CA 4:53PM
DEC21PM Paul Stepahin. The Exploratorium- Seed Swap and Bell Ringing. San Francisco, CA 4:53PM
DEC22AM Wendy Suiter. Mt Keira. New South Wales, Australia 5:44AM

WINTER SOLSTICE SAGA

67 hours door to door from New York to San Francisco
TaDa! That must be some kind of record. Although I know there were 1000’s, maybe 10’s of thousands of people who slept in the airports these past few days leading up to Christmas. My sister and I would have been two more of them. Fortunately for her, when Lisa learned her flight was cancelled she went back and stayed with my father and rerouted herself through Philadelphia. She had to wait two days but she hung out with my Dad and watched TV and got stuff out of the refrigerator when she wanted a snack.
For more details of the saga, click here. To jump to the end, read on:
It really turned out to be a very wonderful thing. A huge blessing. The absolute finality of not being able to leave New York on time. The falling down and hurting myself. The main things I was concerned about missing were the Seed Swap and Solstice Bell Ringing and my audio contribution to the December Sunwatch project. The Exploratorium event went on without me. The Seed Swap was fun and successful. And the bell took on a life of it’s own. Norman brought the Honda and the big bell over to the museum and rang it outside in the parking lot in the pouring rain. Inside the museum, the Explainers rang the two big bells that they usually ring only at the end of the day. (One of those bells is the one I drove around the country in 2006). People who were gathered in the theater rang bells and shook their keys before wandering out to join Norman in the parking lot. Thank you everyone who made this happen and especially Norman and Liz. I was sorry that I couldn’t be there but unbelievably happy just imagining it happening. What happened next was unexpected and honestly has changed my life in ways I don’t really understand, but I am forever grateful and appreciative.

When I had arrived at the hotel, it was 5:00 in the morning on the 21st. I knew that I wouldn’t make it back for the Exploratorium event and I knew that I would be unable to record my sunrise or sunset observance. And I was very tired. I should have just gone to bed, but instead, I sent up a flare. I sent an email to everyone that I had originally invited to participate in the daily recordings. I should have been more selective, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, and my computer was running out of battery power. What I wanted to convey was that I wouldn’t be able to record on the solstice and wondered if anyone would be willing to do so in my place. I should have simply made the request and left it at that, but I explained my situation and it seemed more dire than it actually was. Because my phone had already died, I was unaware of how many people called and left messages for assistance and it wasn’t until I woke up and checked my email that I realized how many people so generously and quickly responded to my cry for emergency audio. I had no idea how many exceptionally generous and wonderful people I know. I was and am overwhelmed and humbled.

Thank you all for your kind and immediate offers of assistance and for the many fabulous solstice recordings you sent in on such short notice. That was beyond luck. These Solstice Sunwatch recordings are more and better than anything I could have possibly done and they would have never happened under ordinary circumstances. If I had to point to a single moment from this past year in terms of gauging the success of the dailybell2008 project, this was the moment. Thank you all; truly, from a part of myself I hadn’t known existed.

Happy Holidays. And “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”…

Approaching the Solstice

December 13, 2008
Sunset 4:29 PM Brooklyn, NY


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.

OM to the train

December 12, 2008
Sunrise 7:10 AM. Brooklyn, NY.

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.

More or less fog

December 1 & 3, 2008 
Sunrises 7:06 & 7:08 AM. San Francisco, CA

More photos at sunrise from my backyard in San Francisco. Same view. More or less fog.

This evening (12/3), 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.

Who's Who- Sunwatching on the Radio

I have extended an invitation from Free103point9 to broadcast 1-3 minutes of audio each day for the month of December. This invitation grew out of my collaboration with Lines of Sight #6 produced for Radio Web MACBA in Barcelona by Barbara Held and Pilar Subirá. I made the initial invitation to 30 people from all over the globe.
It's a very exciting line up and you can listen to a new piece each day at noon (EST) on free103point9. I will also archive each piece here on the blog.

December 2008 BROADCAST dates (due dates are one day earlier):
1- Jenneth Webster/Brenda Hutchinson
2- Al Margolis
3- Stephan Moore,
Sònia López and her daughter, Julia
Erik Deluca
4- Alyce Santoro
5- Stephen Vitiello
6- Chris DeLaurenti
7- Vince Rubino with Dianne Baasch, Heejung Kim, Maureen Kim, Stan Crocker, Alex You, Juhae Park and Cheong Keoul
8- Jenny Holland
9- Tom Bickley and Nancy Beckman
Laura Vitale
10- Ginger Miles
Pauline Oliveros and Ione
11- Jon Brumit
12- Lyn Goeringer
Sebastian (Margot Bevington and Beau Casey's baby boy)
13- Connie Kieltyka and Elizabeth Robinson
Charles Veasey
Janice Misurell- Mitchell
14- Norman Tuck
15- Kathy Kennedy
Sharon Cheslow
16- Lu Olkowski
Maria Mykolenko
17- Judy Dunaway
18- Brenda Hutchinson
Maggie Payne
19- Barbara Held and Nil Tous
20- Yvonne Buchanan
21- Roxanne Amico
22- Barbara Held
Thea Farhadian
Bun Ching Lam
Raylene Campbell
Lyn Goeringer
Georgina Lewis
Al Margolis
Monique Buzzarté
Betsey Biggs
Jenneth Webster
Alyce Santoro
Vince Rubino
Caterina De Re
Chris DeLaurenti
Krys Bobrowski & Chien Wang & Kaz
Paul Stepahin @ The Exploratorium
Wendy Suiter
Liz Keim
23- Caterina De Re
24- Erin Espeland
25- Raylene Campbell
26- Monique Buzzarté
27- Georgina Lewis
28- Pilar Subirà
Norman Tuck
29- Jenny's House Jenny Holland, Bonnie Holland, Jon Patmore, Finn Holland, Cecelia Holland, Mia Narell, Isaac Narell, Zoe Leavens, Tom Miller, Linda Wang, Michael Jones, Chris Tripoli, Carol Kemper, Brenda Hutchinson, Lucy Holland.
30- Jaime Robles
31- Victoria Estok
1/1/09- Laura Spero
Maria Mykolenko

"Twighlight into Darkness"

Tonight was the first recording in a series of daily audio responses to either the sunrise or sunset each day. My friend, Jenneth Webster sent a poem she had written about a sunset in Brooklyn. I read her poem here in San Francisco this evening at sunset while Norman rang the big bell out in the street. Thank you, Jenneth.

Listen to a new recording from someone different each day during the month of December at free103point9. I will also archive the pieces here on the blog.

TWILIGHT INTO DARKNESS
by Jenneth Webster

So old ocean
I am with you again.
Lost baby possum: narrow tall head, small neatly folded black ears
Skeletal eye sockets, narrow tall body. buff with a ridge of hairs along the spine, small naked tail.
Walking, slowly, questioningly along the base of rock wall.
Lost baby possum, sniffing each gap among big stones.
In the bottom of the garden in Brooklyn's heart.
Where did you come from?

In the cab window, the small space between glass and door, a lady bug climbs and slides back,
climbs again. She will not climb my finger, but mounts a morsel of newspaper which flies
out the window. Little girl, where did you go?

I am alone, red Dragonfly, Mocking Bird, Woodpecker.
Squirrel:I see you hunching dead still in a treefork. I have seen you eating avocados, apples.
Bunny, sitting in lush bright last of sunlight grass of the Children's Garden, I know your ways.

I lived here once for ten minutes, shut in the Botannical Garden at closing. Silent, blissful world.

I am trying so hard to remember, so hard to remember you.
The Fall darkness is coming.
Trying so hard.

Last Week of November

We have been ringing the big bell on the street at home most nights since November 11th. It is becoming a regular part of the day and sometimes our neighbor come out to join us in the evenings.

11/24 AM Malcolm is getting old
It’s a mixed blessing with him because the older and more frail he becomes, the sweeter and more mellow he gets. Maybe mellow is to optimistic of a word, but he definitely has moments of availability and softness that he never had in his feral and high-strung youth. So this morning when it was time to get up, I just couldn’t move. Sometime in the night, Malcolm had weaseled his way over my arm with his body pressed against mine and his face jammed into my cheek. I wasn’t exactly afraid to move, but I wasn’t in a hurry either. It was such a rare moment. So Norman got his usual bell from his bureau and passed it to me very carefully so we wouldn’t alarm the cat. Then we took turns ringing it as gently as possible.

11/24 PM I was on the phone at sunset this evening and missed it by a few minutes. When I hung up, it was still light outside so I grabbed some cowbells and ran downstairs to get Norman to come outside with me. We ran out of the garage clanging the bells and were surprised to see Henry and his father standing in their driveway across the street. Looking closer, we saw that Henry (who is only 3 years old) was ringing the little free bell I gave him months ago. It turned out that he and his father were out walking Gladys and Gus when they noticed the sunset. It was particularly colorful this evening because of all the dirt in the air. Suddenly Henry said they had to go ring their bells and they hurried home, ran into the house and were standing in their driveway ringing that tiny little bell when we came barreling out of the house with the cowbells. Magic.

11/25 AM I was hoping to capture that early morning hum. (audio)

11/25 PM Oh Henry!
We were racing home this evening so we would be there in case Henry was waiting. I kept flashing to the image of Henry standing at the bottom of his driveway ringing that tiny little bell last evening. Norman and I were late, but Henry was there for us. So it was with some urgency that we zipped home tonight and pulled up in front of the house - just on time. As we hopped out of the car to open up the back, Henry’s dad pulled up across the street in their car. Henry’s dad had barely parked the car when he jumped out to open up the back door, and Henry popped out. We had already started ringing the big bell when Henry came running across the street. We put the adult sized hearing protection over his ears and told him to push on the bell. He had never rung the big bell and was a little shy of it and had to push it over and over again until it finally rang. Once. And that was enough. I love Henry. His dad said that when they pulled up and saw us ringing the bell Henry just started yelling “letmeouletmeoutletmeout!”

11/26 AM Still Pondering the Birds
There are a few really large trees in the nearby back yards and they must house 100’s of birds. I remember wondering in the spring where all the birds had gone. Was their absence some new indicator of either global environmental change or crow dominance in our local area. Perhaps it turns out to be partly seasonal. Wintering in San Francisco?

I realize that even after a year of watching and listening to the bird activity in my own back yard, I know very little about what’s going on. Are the birds in peril? Are their times when there are more birds than others? Do certain birds dominate at different times of year? And where does one go to find out information about one’s local bird activity? So I started searching the web for some answers. I googled “San Francisco seasonal bird population” and went from there. Here’s what I found. The birds are in peril- some times more than others. They are seasonal. When it’s a quiet morning and there aren’t many birds around, can I tell the difference? Do I know if everyone is present and accounted for? How can I know if some birds are dead, never born or are merely elsewhere? I still don’t know. But I do have a small audio record of their songs and presence in my yard over this past year. In the overall scheme of things- eras and eons- I do have a very tiny sampling to use for comparison in the upcoming year.

11/26 PM Sunset on the Escalator
Budd, Norman and I met at the wrong movie theater. The names were sort of similar (Bay Street 16 and Emerybay 10), and they were both in the same confusing wasteland of massive mall, home depot and IKEA. It took us an hour to find the place, park the car in a garage and be in front of the theater at the agreed upon time. Right place. Wrong time. Just before heading back into the parking garage so we could drive around, under and past the on and off ramps to 3 different freeways without getting lost again, we took out some bells and rang them. An escalator ran right in front of the theater where we were standing and we informed the people smoothly ascending past us that the sun was setting as we toasted them with the bells.

11/27 AM Thanksgiving morning
Busy little birds. (audio) Because it’s a holiday, there is no traffic at this time of day. It’s like Sundays when you can hear the local activity so much better.

11/27 PM Turkey Time

Amir came over to join us for dinner just before sundown. I hadn’t realized that Amir had never rung the big bell. Usually he tries to give the impression that he knows how to do everything and projects an assurance and confidence about doing things. It’s hard to know what he’s done before and what he’s trying for the first time. So I was surprised when he said he wasn’t sure he could ring the bell. But he did and one by one kids started coming out of neighboring houses. Each time a new person showed up and rang a bit, I thought that was it. The last one. And then another would come. It turns out they were all cousins. The two girls live next door to one another and they are old hats with the bell ringing. Their other cousin must have been visiting for Thanksgiving, and when they all finished ringing, the girls asked if their cousin could have a bell to keep. I like how normal it’s become around here.

11/28 AM I vaguely remember ringing the bicycle-disguised-as a-hotel-bell this morning while Norman rang Hy’s little bell. It was a sweet performance. Malcolm was about as attentive as he usually is - which is to say he didn’t move. The sun came up as usual and I went back to sleep, also as usual these days.

11/28 PM Evening Bell Ringing Routine
Since my neighbors have been coming out to join me these past few evenings, I thought I’d bring the movie camera out for a change to catch some of the action. Jinxed it. Nobody came. Maybe nobody wanted to come out into the grayness.

11/29 AM There is no other time of day that sounds like the early morning. On Saturday it’s possible to hear the small, busy birds fluttering and chattering everywhere. (audio).

11/29 PM Walking the Grid
Jenny and Isaac came to visit this afternoon, and we all walked down to the beach. We had just started walking away from the house when I thought to go back and bring some bells with us in case we didn’t make it back before sunset. But we had a few hours and figured we would be back in plenty of time. Three hours later we were still zigzagging our way back home through the grid of numbered and alphabetically named avenues when the sun went down. I had a few of the free bells in my bag and we rang those. They are so small and quiet you can hardly hear them. Change in your pocket makes more noise than those bells. In any event we found a spot on a corner up the hill from the ocean where we could actually see the sun dipping below the water. We weren’t alone. The family whose house we were standing in front of was also outside watching the sun go down. We shared our bells with them and watched together.

11/30 AM Norman and I rang our favorite combination of bells again this morning.

Where have all the birds gone?

11/26 AM

There are a few really large trees in the nearby back yards and they must house 100’s of birds. I remember wondering in the spring where all the birds had gone. Was their absence some new indicator of either global environmental change or crow dominance in our local area. Perhaps it turns out to be partly seasonal. Wintering in San Francisco?

I realize that even after a year of watching and listening to the bird activity in my own back yard, I know very little about what’s going on. Are the birds in peril? Are their times when there are more birds than others? Do certain birds dominate at different times of year? And where does one go to find out information about one’s local bird activity? So I started searching the web for some answers. I googled “San Francisco seasonal bird population” and went from there. 

Here’s what I found. The birds are in peril- sometimes. They are seasonal. When it’s a quiet morning and there aren’t many birds around, can I tell the difference? Do I know if everyone is present and accounted for? How can I know if some birds are dead, never born or are merely elsewhere? I still don’t know. But I do have a small audio record of their songs and presence in my yard over this past year. In the overall scheme of things- eras and eons- I do have a very tiny sampling to use for comparison in the upcoming year.

Third Week of November

11/16 AM
This morning I woke Lisa up with the gong she had given me for Christmas last year. It’s the same gong I rang for Warren when he was so ill. Every morning and every night when I open or close the curtains, I ring that gong and think about the sound carrying blessings out beyond those windows. Of course, this morning, I just wanted to wake Lisa with it.

11/17 AM Cazadero Wake Up
This is working out so nicely. The sun rises just about the time Lisa needs to wake up to get ready for her conference each day. So I get to be her wake up call. It reminds me of being at Cazadero Music Camp more than 30 years ago. Cazadero was a summer camp in a redwood forest in Northern California where city kids from the Bay Area would go for a few weeks each summer to sleep in tents at night and play music all day. We’d have up to 170 kids there at a time, and we needed to wake them all up by 7:30 in the morning. So one by one, day-by-day, each tent full of kids or faculty would take turns waking everybody up. It was called Creative Wake-up and it was sort of a contest to see who could come up with the most imaginative and effective way to wake everybody up. Running around yelling and screaming at people to wake up was low on the list. A small band of strolling musicians was regarded much more highly. Having a group of people think about, plan and perform a ritual wake-up call was a really lovely way to be nudged out of what was usually a very deep sleep. I thought about this when I woke my sister up this morning as I gently rang the gong for her.

11/17 PM Norman is working with our former neighbor, Will to build several of Norman's OscylinderScopes that the Exploratorium has ordered from him for resale to other science museums. They were working in the garage all day and took a break to ring some cowbells with Lisa. Then she wanted to ring the big bell in the car, so we ran out to the street to set up. We discovered that the hearing protection was missing (I guess they needed it for the metal cutting) so Lisa only rang the bell a couple of times. It hurt her ears.

11/18 AM We didn’t have to wake my sister this morning since she finished her conference yesterday. She wanted to sleep in. So Norman and I rang the hotel bell-disguised-bicycle bell and Hy’s little hand bell without getting out of bed ourselves. They sounded really nice together. The fog has returned. Or the sun is leaving with Lisa. It’s cold again.

11/18 PM
Will and Norman were still working on the OscylinderScopes this evening. They took a break from the welding and cutting of the metal to clang some (audio).

11/19 AM I had so enjoyed this combination of bells the other day that I wanted to record them. Unfortunately for the recording, I opened the door to go outside and made a lot of noise with the mic cable. I’ll try again another day.

11/19 PM A dream come true!
It’s been great ringing the big bell on my street every evening. It feels like part of the expected landscape. Part of the day. The other day when someone down the street honked a car horn in rhythm with the bell, it was so unexpected and exciting. Last night was even more so. Norman and I zipped home just in time for the sunset. I had carried lots of bells around in the car with me all day- just in case I didn’t make it home. So we pulled the bag out of the car and Norman picked the little tingsha bells as I hurried up and opened the back of the car. Fortunately, I had found the hearing protection in the garage after the construction job was finished and had already replaced them in my car. Just as we started ringing, our neighbors from a few doors down pulled up in front of their house. Mary ran inside to get her bell and she came out with her daughter and father. I was already beside myself that they had come uninvited when another neighbor from further down the street came walking over with her daughter running in front of her. Everyone rang bells and we hung out until the sun went down. It was so good.

11/20 AM When the alarm went off this morning, I was more alert than usual. So I went and got the bowl bell and took it outside while Norman rang Hy’s bell in the bed. Malcolm was also more alert than usual, and he tried to escape out the back door. However, I managed to slip out on my own and quietly stirred the bowl for the birds. There were so many.

11/20 PM I love when other people come out to join us. So casual and normal.

11/21 AM The sun is rising at almost 7AM, and during the week it is really humming out there. The roar from the traffic has displaced what had been a delicate spaciousness. The soft band of noise that is the sound 1000’s of cars moving all over the city is constant, thick and indistinct. It is everywhere, yet nowhere you can point to. It fills the air in the same way as background music. It doesn’t really command attention but it occupies space and washes out other, smaller details. Because the ambient sound level is so much louder and more present, it makes it more difficult to hear and appreciate small, local sounds. Quiet sounds with brittle edges like a rustling leaf or the flap of a bird’s wing. Even the sharp burst of a bird’s call is smothered. These tiny, bright sounds are lost, muffled or buried in the dense ambience of so many distant car engines.

11/21 PM Chewing on some bells

Krys and I in the mosh pit with the Obama boys.

11/22 AM Another lazy morning just looking out the window at sunrise and ringing bells in the bed.

11/22 PM We rang the big bell outside again this evening. (audio). This time nobody came. It was very foggy. Cold and wet. Better to stay inside.

11/23 AM

Last night, Norman finished turning Bob’s bell into our doorbell. (See entry: Bob's Bell One Year Later)

11/23 PM For the past few months, my friend Evangel King has been creating a monthly series of dance performances she calls “Dance As It’s Made”. She invites the audience to first witness her in the process of creating dance and then to discuss it over tea immediately following her performance. This was the first one I was able to attend, and it was very special. I enjoy watching work in progress and sharing that experience with others. The feeling in the audience is relaxed and engaged and it’s extremely pleasurable for me. Since I hadn’t seen Vangie in a long time, we went out to eat afterwards and our meal coincided with the sunset. We rang bells at our table and when I offered our waiter a free bell, he wanted to know how many he could have. He took several and shared them with other people working in the restaurant.