Election Days

11/3 PM Ringing on the Road to Reno
We had gone to Phoenix 4 years ago as poll watchers for election protection.org. We witnessed first hand such a deadly combination of corruption, incompetence, misinformation and intimidation that it was obvious that the will of the people was not being honored. So this time around, Norman and I voted early in San Francisco so we could go to Nevada for the election to help get out the vote there on election day itself. The sun set as we were stuck in rush hour traffic on a rainy Interstate 80 and we just pulled over to the side of the road and rattled some cowbells at the slowly passing cars. As we approached the Sierra Mountains, that rain turned to snow and we got caught in a blizzard going over the Donner Pass. The road was closed to anyone who didn’t have chains or 4-wheel drive. Our little rental car had neither and we couldn’t go ahead or turn back without them. So we got in line at the gas station and got some chains and put them on in the parking lot with the snow blowing and piling up at an alarming rate. Then off we went -over the mountains. There weren’t many cars on the road so when we spun around and went off the road, it was quiet and smooth and easy. Fortunately, once we came to rest and waited for the line of cars coming over the rise to pass, those chains gripped the road and we were off again.

11/4 AM Canvassing in Ne-VAAH-da
We were in Reno to canvass for the election and were on the road by 5:30 AM. By the time the sun was coming up, we were already out hanging election reminders and poll information on the doorknobs of many sleeping households. It was SO cold, but the snow on the distant mountains was turning a cotton candy pink, and the sight was worth freezing for.

11/4 PM Yes we can. Yes we did!
Wow. I didn’t believe it was possible. AUDIO (bells recorded at the Exploratorium).

11/5 AM
It was so dark in the room when I woke up this morning, I thought I might have gotten up too soon again. But then I remembered where I was and opened up those very effective blackout curtains found in all the finest hotels. And the Circus Circus was no exception. It really is a lovely sight to see the sun come up over those snow-dusted mountains. We left Reno to drive back to San Francisco this morning. What a difference two days make. The Donner Pass was clear and well salted.

First Week of November

11/1 AM Barking Crow
It’s our 11th anniversary today. There was a crow barking outside this morning. It was regularly and cawing in short bursts for at least 15 minutes. If it was a dog, I would have been irritated. I imagined for a moment that it was a dog and thought about why that would have bothered me. If it was a dog, I would have been annoyed at the owners of the dog for letting it bark. But because it was a crow, I only thought about the crow and the fact that it was a bird making the noises that a bird makes. It never would have occurred to me to think beyond the bird or to look for someone to blame for the persistent cawing of the bird. But I have gotten annoyed at the same persistent barking of a nearby dog.

11/1 PM Fish Song
We went out and bought a goldfish to keep our other fish company. She’s 13 years old and has outlived two other fish. We thought she might be lonely and several people who have come over lately have said the same thing. At sunset, we decided to serenade the new little fish on her first night in our house and rang some bells for her. Then we released her into the big tank and hoped for the best.

11/2 AM
Norman rang Hy’s bell this morning and I went and got the little tingsha (cymbal) bell. When we rang them, they were almost the same pitch. This was the first time I noticed that.

11/2 PM Sudden, Early Darkness
This was the first night since we have turned the clocks back. It was also the last evening of our training as volunteers for Jewish Family and Children’s Services Palliative Care Program. It’s been really wonderful to ring down the sun with a group of people who have looked forward to it and embraced the project and experience. Thank you all again. I am so happy that we have met, and I look forward to where we go from here.

11/3 AM Standard Time
I got confused this morning and thought the sunrise was at 6:08 AM. The darkness creeps into each day one minute at a time and last night the sun set at 5:09 PM. Somehow I subtracted a minute but it was from the wrong hour at the wrong end of the day. So when I woke up this morning, it was still pretty dark outside. But because there was a little bit of pink light peeking over my neighbor’s trees to the south I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole sun appeared. I just thought it was extra dark because of fog or clouds or some other mysterious reason. In any event, I didn’t want to wait around until it got lighter, so I got up and rang my bells and went back to sleep while it was still early dawn.

11/5 PM
Ringing down the sun just after 5:00 with Norman and Carl.

11/6 AM feed them and they will come...
There are so many more songbirds in the mornings now. It’s partly seasonal, but since Norman has started feeding the birds on our back porch, there are many, many more birds nearby as well (audio).

11/6 PM No Bells
I knew that I would be in the middle of my physical therapy appointment when the sun set so I brought bells with me. Then I left them in the waiting room. During my session as the therapist was working on my neck, she remarked about how dark it was getting so early in the day. So instead of ringing bells, we both looked outside at the fading day through a little crack in the blinds. We talked about turning the clocks up and back and how that disrupted what could be a gentle compression and expansion of our days and nights.

11/7 AM Easy Listening
The easy ringing home routine. Alarm goes off. Bells by the bed. Look outside. Sunny? Foggy? Ring the bells for a minute or so. Back to sleep.

11/7 PM Every available Friday,
I visit with my friend Krys and hang out with her 10 month old son (my Godson) and his 9 month old buddy. We spend the day juggling the 2 boys. If they weren’t so heavy, I would say, “literally juggling”. At the end of the day, just before I had to go, we all sat in the fenced-in play area known as the “mosh pit” and rang the sun down together. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that some of us rang, one of us sat still and listened and the other explored his bell with his mouth. It was lovely. By the way, it took me a while to understand what a mosh pit was. Because my mosh pit days are so far behind me, I only had the faintest of recollections of having heard the phrase before. And now after spending a bit of time in the mosh pit, I think a much better name would be the “mush pit”. I’ll say no more. I didn’t have a camera with me at sunset on Friday, so this is a photo of the boys at the polls on Tuesday.

11/8 AM That crack of dawn must be awfully loud
to wake up so many birds. By the time the sun is about to breach the horizon, the birds are very noisy and busy. As I opened the door to go out back and join them this morning, several pigeons flew off the porch into the crow tree next door (audio). Their wings made that creaky hinge sounds as they flew off.


11/8 PM It drizzled all day
so the porch steps were wet and shiny. They look pretty good since we cleaned them, too. So Norman and I stood at the top of the stairs and leaned over so our bells showed up reflected in the wet bricks.

The Whole Month of October

I know I said that I was taking the month off as far as documentation was concerned. However, I did occasionally record some audio or shoot a photo or movie. Not much. Just now and then. If you are interested in knowing more about how the month went, I did keep a daily journal for the month. The entries are generally quite short. It's a rough draft that I intend to finish at some point by putting in the links where they are indicated. But other than that, it's OK as is. It will open in MS word.

So Many Birds in the Mornings

10/17/08
SF 7:21 AM
I was so impressed by how loud it was yesterday that I made an audio recording this morning. I don’t know why, but there are so many more birds out at this time of the day. Birds can’t tell time and I had always thought that their schedule followed the sun. But now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s simply seasonal and there are in fact more birds around this time of year. Who knows?

10/23/08
SF 7:27 AM
There won’t be too many more mornings where the sun rises this late and the weather is this nice. I decided last night that I would wander around outside a bit in the morning and record the activity (audio). Even though there are so many more birds just now, it’s so late in the day already that the engines have already built up and there is a general din of cars, trams, and other machines. Still, it’s nice to have company on the street these mornings. I just caught my neighbor across the street returning home with his puppies.

Three National Parks in One Week

10/4/08 Yosemite

6:57 AM It was raining here this morning. A real raindrop kind of rain, not the drizzly suspended moisture in the air that passes for rain in San Francisco. We haven’t heard raindrops in quite a while so I took a little movie for the sound.

10/6/08 PM
San Francisco to Salt Lake City to Denver to Bozeman in 10 hours. There were also a variety of planes to sample as well. Now that’s getting your money’s worth for plane travel. The smallest plane was so small that we were not allowed to take off until 2 passengers voluntarily moved from the front of the plane to the back to redistribute the weight. In preparation for the sunset, I had figured out in advance where I should be for the sunset if everything ran on time. And it did. We were well into our descent into the Denver Airport when the sun was due to set. My seatmate in this very small plane was happy to take the picture out the window but not quite as excited about ringing a bell. So I offered him a bribe- if he rang the bell he could keep it. He did and he did.

10/7/08 PM Yellowstone Park

We had planned to leave at noon for the Grand Teton’s at noon so we could be there before dark. However, my teeth had other plans. While eating my cereal, a big piece of my molar broke off into my bowl. Fortunately my sister had a great dentist who just slapped some bondo material onto my huge existing filling and off we went. As a result of the late start, we were riding in the middle of Yellowstone Park when the sun set. It’s very common to see cars pulled over to the side of the road in the park. Wherever cars are clumped together, there is usually some large animal that people are looking at. As we were looking for someplace to pull over and ring some bells, we noticed a group of cars on the shoulder of the road up ahead. So we pulled off and saw a small herd of elk near the river in the distance. The largest was off by himself and had a set of antlers the size of a small rotary clothes rack. I couldn’t believe how graceful he was. I suppose he got used to it gradually as he and the antlers grew. His ease of balance and shifting of his weight into motion were as fluid and unconscious as a dancer. We stayed with the clump of other cars and silently watched him until we could no longer distinguish him as he joined the rest of his herd.

10/9/08 PM Grand Teton Park
Moose, WY.

We had pulled over to the side of the road next to a big pile of covered dirt to look at the Tetons. It was a great view, unobscured by trees which is why we stopped at that particular spot. There were still 40 minutes or so to go before the sunset, but we were on out way out of the park. Sadly we would be long gone by sunset. The sun was shining below the mountain peaks on the other side and was shooting a bright beam of light directly between two of the peaks. It was like a giant flashlight shooting towards the sky. It looked so amazing that I wanted to get some pictures of the mountains and ring the bells there even if it was early. So we hopped out of the car and took lots of pictures and made a little movie while we rang the bells. Because it was getting darker and colder by the minute, we had planned to jump in and out and had left our coats in the car. As soon as we finished our photo op and bell ringing, we ran back to the car to get warm. My sister got there first and before I reached my door I heard her say “Uh oh”. So there we were in the middle of freezing nowhere. Fortunately we weren’t alone. There was another car parked near us and they drove us to the park entrance and left us at the nearest building that we could get into. And that was the Moose Post Office. It was warm in there and there were lots of recycled catalogs to look at while we waited for the AAA man. The biggest bonus of all was that we got to be by the Tetons at sunset.

10/10/08 AM Jackson, WY
Last night was the first snow of the year. I went outside and rang the bells off the hotel balcony.


10/10/08 PM Emigrant, MT
We made it back to my sister’s house in time for sunset after driving through the first snowstorm in Yellowstone Park this season. I realized today that I have been in 3 national Parks in the last week. I have also gone from the warm sunny summer weather that characterizes San Francisco this time of year through the autumn of falling leaves and the rainy season in Yosemite to the snowy winter weather of Northern Wyoming and Southern Montana. In one week.

We Rang

Categorically Not!
Santa Monica 6:15 PM
KC Cole invited me to join this evening’s informal presentation on the topic of “entanglement”. John Preskill, physicist and Susan Diamond, writer and author were the other guests. Before the event began people arrived and milled around the Santa Monica Art Studios-Hanger. It’s a huge building and it was full of art, artists and artists’ studios. Tonight was the silent auction as well. In the middle of all the activity, the sun set at 6:15. I passed around my bag of little bells as if it was candy and people chose their bells and began ringing them immediately. They didn’t stop when the sun set. In fact, someone was still ringing her bell during John’s presentation on Quantum Entanglement. Maybe she was unaware that she was shaking her bell. Or maybe she was just nervous. Those little bells are very quiet but not silent.

Public Ringing- Entanglement

Anyone in the Santa Monica area on Sunday, October 19th at 6:15 PM? The sun sets during this evening's presentation in the series Categorically Not! It's a informal evening of conversation and presentation on the topic of Entanglement. I will be joining John Preskill (physicist) and Susan Diamond (writer) and our host KC Cole (author of Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos, and other works).The evening begins at 6:00 and is located in the airplane hanger at the Santa Monica Art Studios. Please join us if you are in the area, Bring a bell if you have one!

Imperfect Sunrises and Cable TV

The appearance of the sun breaking over the horizon yesterday was like something you’d see on one of those late night channel sign offs that television used to have in the days when stations didn’t have enough programming to broadcast for 24 hours a day. In these days of hundreds of channels and constant bombardment of every possible image and activity, it may be hard to imagine a time when there was such a limited range and amount of material that there would be down time. Maybe that downtime reflected a lack of imagination or a dearth of broadcastable materials for this relatively new medium. Perhaps there was a shortage of advertisers willing to pay for airspace to entice people with their products when those viewers were either half or completely asleep. Or maybe people were more discerning about what they were willing to broadcast to the public. Maybe “the public” was less a faceless entity of potential consumers and more a group of familiar people you might recognize when you were outside and not watching television. Neighbors, people in the grocery stores, coworkers, people on the bus- not people you knew but not exactly strangers, either. That is not to say that the content in those days of limited choice was more thoughtful or thought provoking than it is now. Game shows, sit-coms, quiz shows and soap operas abounded alongside the cowboy serials, doctor shows and police dramas. Before cable and HBO and before Ted Turner acquired all those movies from the 30's - 50's, the movies on TV were free. Before late night television was dominated by talk shows, those same movies played all night. For free. However limited the range and availability of programs- junk and gems- it was egalitarian. Now you pay. The more you pay, the more entertaining, the more variety and better quality of programming you expect. And one of those programs that used to be a throw away item at the end of a day that you can now pay for is the sunrise and sunset channel. The perfect sunrises and sunsets of your imagination. Over and over again. From one beautiful or exotic location to the next. Without the long wait, at an hour of your convenience and with music. So here is my second offering in a row of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. However, because of all the clouds, the sun doesn’t make an appearance near the horizon. So I left that part out and just concentrated on the waves and the ground and left the sky to the imagination.

End of September

9/21 AM
Taking it easy this Sunday morning. Just a few birds and me (audio).

9/21 PM
This is the end of the second marathon cabinet making day. Norman, Krys and I momentarily plopped on the floor in front of our handiwork. The sunset was a good excuse to stop. We were so tired; we just kept on ringing the bells so we wouldn’t have to stand up again so soon. To see "before" kitchen, click here and scroll down to yesterday's entry on 9/20 PM.

9/22 AM
No special celebration for the equinox. I woke up and listened for a while to a new bird sound before getting out of bed. The bird was right outside the door, and I knew as soon as I went out, it would fly away. So I stayed put for a while just so I could listen to it. Once the bird had flown away and I heard it in the distance, I recognized its voice. Today was the first time it had been so close and it sounded so different, I hadn't realized it was the same song.

9/22 PM
Norman wanted to see the sun go down by the ocean this evening. However, we left too late and the sun set as we were driving to the beach. I rang the bells out of the side window as we drove down the street.

9/23 PM
Tonight was the last night that our Tuesday meditation group will be together for the sunset this year. Too soon. It’s barely autumn, and we’ve already reached the end of a possibility. A last time. We won’t be meeting again in the daylight until next year. Like the birds flying south, this encroaching darkness on our daily routines is a familiar warning of how quickly we slide from here into winter.

9/24 AM Sunrise at San Francisco Airport
Riding on a plane at sunrise or sunset is one of the more difficult situations to determine the time, place and sometimes, the actual moment that the sun crosses the horizon. Sometimes when the sun is visible in front of the plane or across the aisle I need to find other indications of how close the sun is to the horizon: a shrinking patch of sunlight on the wing of the plane or a growing number of colored bands on the horizon. This morning we were still on the ground, taxiing on the runway when the sun rose. The passenger at the window was in charge of the documentation as the three of us in our row rang in the morning.

9/24 PM Sunset at the International Plaza
It’s my niece’s birthday tomorrow, and we needed to do some last minute shopping this evening on the way home from the airport. My brother and I were just leaving the International Plaza in Tampa on the way to the parking lot at sunset. This mall is like a small town and looks like a combination casino and hospital. It turns out the hospital is actually a big hotel attached to the mall and they have valet parking. Since there was no activity at the valet parking area, we walked over to the attendant and told him about the sunset and asked him if he would take our picture in front of the mall while we rang the bells. Then we took turns.

9/25 AM Bells and the Trampoline
Since we are hovering around the equinox, the sun rises and sets at about the same time here in Florida as it does in San Francisco. Hooray for small blessings. My nieces are up already by then because of school. In fact, by the time the sun comes up only one of them is still at home. So she and I went out into the backyard to ring the bells. She thought the trampoline would be a good place to greet the day. When we dropped the bells she said it made a sound like a thousand little church bells.

9/25 PM Hannah's Birthday Wish
We were eating and opening birthday presents when the sun set this evening and didn’t notice until it was getting dark. Too late. There is no cell phone reception here - hence any reminders from the phone alarm are not possible. So it’s more of a challenge to pay attention, and we’ll see how it goes for the next few days. In the meantime-
Happy Birthday, Hannah!!!

9/26 AM
In all the birthday excitement last night, the sunset wasn’t the only thing to slip our minds. This morning Ginger was doing the homework she “forgot” to do. It was a good thing, too, because she was the only person awake at that hour. She came upstairs and got me to watch the sunset with her again. Thanks. Ginger.

9/26 PM Pit stop at sunset - Florida


9/27 AM Sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean.
This is the first sunrise I witnessed over the ocean this year and only the second one breaking close to the horizon at all. I love the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the ocean I grew up with. It’s warm. It’s where I learned to swim. It even smells warm. The waves are big but not killers or sneaky like the Pacific. Speaking of killers- there are no great white sharks here, either. It’s true that “Jaws” took place in the Atlantic Ocean, but there are more Great Whites off the coast of San Francisco than here in Florida. There is also a certain hissing sound that accompanies the waves breaking and receding on the shore that’s unlike the cold crashing and sweeping on and off the shore of the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic feels more friendly. Less majestic, but much more inviting. And if you watch the birds along the shore here, they seem more relaxed than the little birds that skitter along the edge of the waves of the Pacific at Ocean Beach. Perhaps it’s because the water is so cold there, it hurts their little feet.

9/27 PM
My brother didn’t want to ring the bells at the dinner table in the restaurant this evening. It was one of those places where the center of the table is a huge grill and everyone sits along the perimeter as the cook prepares your meal on the grill. Since each table seats about 9 people, a party of three would never be allowed to occupy one table all on its own. So two couples joined my brother, niece and me and we ate together. As the sunset approached and I asked my brother if he wanted to ring bells outside or at the table, he didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about either option. However, he accepted the job of cameraman and the other people at the table seemed pleased to ring down the sun from our table.

9/28 PM
Saying goodbye with my brother’s family at sunset, we all took a break from watching television for a moment to ring bells one last time.

9/29 AM
A bleak and noisy morning at the Howard Johnson’s hotel near the Tampa airport came too early because I stayed up too late watching an old movie on the hotel’s cable TV.

9/29 PM
I had redeemed the vouchers I received as a result of that 30 hour flight from San Francisco to NY several weeks ago and was waiting for the plane to take off for the last leg of this trip. Northwest Airlines took over Delta and it’s been great. Things may not move quickly, but they are on time, and I am grateful. We were the 16th plane sitting on the tarmac waiting for takeoff in Atlanta when the sun set. Since we’d been waiting for quite some time by then, most people were already settled in and engrossed in whatever they planned to do for the next 4 1/2 hours. This was a large plane with 2 aisles and I was seated in the middle section of seats- nowhere near any windows. At the last minute, I disturbed the man across the aisle who was seated with his girlfriend next to the window. I asked him if he would mind trying to find the sun or simply shoot whatever he could see out there. He obliged and took the camera. However, when I offered him a bell to ring, he declined. The man sitting next to me took one and we jingled for a moment as we slowly inched our way forward in line.

9/30 AM
It’s good to be home (audio)

9/30 PM
This evening when I looked out the front window at sunset, I saw the children playing across the street and our friends Bill and Mary pulling into the driveway. Bill and Mary had just arrived after installing work at Seal Point Park in San Mateo all day. They were tired but willing to ring a few bells before dinner. While Norman walked around the corner to get the car (and the big bell), we went outside and told the kids we were going to ring some bells. They like to do it and came right over. After we finished I asked them if they still had their bells from the last time, and they said yes. One of the girls had even made hers into a necklace.

Bridge of Miracles

9/23 AM Garbage Day
This morning I chose a bell that I haven’t rung in a while. It’s one of my favorite bells and I had removed it from my daily collection because I like it so much. I love the way it sounds- so high and quiet and clear. I had removed it from the ones I travel with because I didn’t want to lose it. I was afraid that I would either leave it somewhere or that someone would take it and not give it back. This is what I learned about objects: the more desirable, the more valuable and the more likely they are to be stolen.

I didn’t understand this or expect it to happen when I first began this project. However, there were several occasions where I had passed out my bells and never saw some of them again. The ones that never returned were the most beautiful sounding or ones that were given to be and were my sentimental favorites. They were irreplaceable. I told myself that was the price of doing business but I still think of those bells, not with regret that I shared them, but with longing. I don’t imagine them with a new life. I miss them. Once I was down to having only a few remaining favorite bells, I decided to remove them from the pack and keep them safely at home.

So of course, I rarely use them and just look at them occasionally. Now they sit on the shelf—constant reminders of the betrayal of others. This morning, for whatever reason, I took this one little bell from the shelf and brought it outside to greet the day. There’s something about the sound of that particular bell which draws attention to other sounds in the environment. Especially to one bird in particular. (audio) This bell and that bird connected this morning through the air, and the honest clarity of that connection was a revelation. For a brief moment, there was no me. No bird. No bell. There was only a quiet, simple awareness of the fabric of this world. It was an amazing experience and in that moment there was no risk. No loss.

Crazy Obsessive

My stated goal at the beginning of this project was to observe the sun every time it crossed the horizon and to share the awareness of that moment with others. I am continuing to fail everyday, twice a day. Maybe that is the nature of the project. So far, I have rarely been able to both focus my attention on the moment when the sun crosses the horizon and to alert others to that moment in any meaningful way. However,I haven't given up. For the month of October, I will forgo the daily documentation. Just to see what it feels like. It would be nice to have some time for reflection and planning for the final part of the year. The Equinox is coming up as is the Winter Solstice.I plan to use the extra time that I am not documenting and editing the daily event to come up with other ideas and strategies. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy the sunrises and sunsets without the additional obligation of sharing those moments with anyone who is not there.

Fall Equinox

Misc. Info

On Monday, September 22 Autumn begins as the sun crosses the equator on it’s way towards the Southern hemisphere. If you live at the equator, the day will be divided into 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. However, because we are roughly 40˚ north of the equator, we won’t experience our day of equal light and darkness for another 4 days. On September 26th, if you live in San Francisco the sun rises and sets at 7:01. For those of you who live in New York the sun rises at 6:47 AM and sets at 6:46 PM. Depending on where you live, you can check out http://www.sunrisesunset.com to figure out which day you will have equal amounts of light and darkness where you live.

Mid September- Out and about

9/12 PM Children and Puppies at Sunset
There was a lot of activity across the street this evening. With children and new puppies running around, it looked like a good opportunity to go say hello to our neighbor. We could also get a look at our house from a distance with its partially applied, fresh coat of primer. Jesse, the painter had asked us to tint the primer with a touch of the house color. Now all the little girls on that side of the street love our house. This particular shade of purple is their second favorite color (pink being #1). They proceeded to show off their pink and purple sparkles, T-shirts and shoes. This was before, during and after the bell ringing. Tiny and tinny as they are, the bells were a big hit.

9/13 PM Bells in the Air
This evening Pauline Oliveros and Chris Brown performed a benefit concert, Music in the Air, for the Deep Listening Institute. WIGband (Johanna Poethig and Barbara Golden) opened the evenings concert with a fabulous and too short performance of 2 songs. The concert took place at the physically beautiful and sonically extraordinary Maybeck Studio for the Performing Arts in Berkeley, CA. Gregory Moore graciously hosted the performance at the studio. It was an amazing evening of incredibly skillful and beautiful improvisation for piano, accordion and interactive electronics. There were several people at the studio setting up, sound checking and hanging out long before the concert was scheduled to begin. Chris, Johanna, Barbara and percussionist Jennifer Wilsey came outside at sunset, and we rang the sundown together.

9/15 PM Do You Hear What I Hear?
When I arrived home this evening all of the children were outside playing across the street again. The painters were finishing up for the day and a few neighbors had come out to look at the progress and color combination on our house. It is a surprise and I hope, a delight. As we were standing around, the children wanted to know if they could ring the big bell later on, and I said, of course and that I would come back outside when it was time. I figured as long as we were going to ring the big bell, I would also bring the rest of the noisiest bells I could find. So I gathered up the cowbells, the ships bell and the most piercing little bell and handed them out. The commotion brought our neighbors from down the street out as well. They even brought their own bells.

9/16 AM Sunrise at the Marin Headlands
I have been trying to record large bells outdoors in a quiet environment for the past few days without much success. Last night I went to the Exploratorium and tried to record their bells that they ring at the end of the day to alert visitors that it’s time to go home. These are very loud bells. (One of them is the one I gave them after driving it around the country for a month). Even with all of the exhibits turned off and only a skeleton crew inside the building, it was still incredibly noisy. Blowers of all sorts, the ventilation system, coke machines and a very persistent soundtrack from a film that runs 24/7 somewhere in the back of the museum. I am trying to make these recordings for Charles Veasey who is doing his Masters thesis at RPI. He would like to recreate historical soundscapes, and one of the great signifiers for how the world sounded in times past is the sound of a large bell ringing in the distance. A distance that is not obscured by the sounds of cars, machines, planes or the general urban hum of electricity and constant motion.
This morning we drove out to the Marin Headlands. It’s relatively quiet out there and I was hoping that it would be early enough in the morning the world would just be stirring and perhaps not yet firing up the grand and ubiquitous combustible engine. Here’s a snippet of the audio I recorded while it was still dark.

9/16 PM "Between"
The sun is setting about 10 minutes earlier per week these days. Since people generally tend to arrive 10 – 15 minutes early for many different kinds of events, there is usually a short window of “between” time. “Between” being an unstructured period of time after arrival but before a scheduled event where people are where they want to be but are not doing what they came to do. Yet. “Between” is a time where unplanned things are possible. It’s a time for spontaneity. A time of possibility. And because there is nothing to do and nowhere to go during this little period of between time, it’s a great opportunity to enlist a number of people to do something you want to do. Well, it’s a good opportunity as long as it doesn’t take too much time or effort. Ringing the bells at sunset is a perfect activity for “between”, especially if the bells materialize and you don’t have to prepare in any way. The unfortunate thing about this short little window of time in relation to the sunset and our meditation group is - next week when the sun sets 10 minutes earlier than this week, it won’t be between yet.

9/17 PM Great Acoustics!
The sun set just after we found a parking place in the Sutter Stockton Garage near Chinatown and Union Square. The big bell was nice and loud and the sound bounced all over the place. As the doors were closing on the elevator, a young woman and her little dog raced over and hopped on. She’d heard the bell and wondered what we were up to.

9/20 PM It will look nice if we ever finish...
We took a short break from the cabinet construction business to ring our bells at sunset.

Ferry Building

9/12 AM Greeting Commuters at Sunrise
I arrived at the Ferry Building earlier than usual today so it was still quite dark. A few stragglers were disembarking from the latest ferry, and the Baylink bus had not yet arrived. However, someone was in my parking space! I waited him out and no sooner had I pulled into the space than the bus pulled up. I sat in my car in the dark and watched the passengers leave the bus and disperse into the city. It was another sunless morning. At some point it got light enough to pass for day. As I waited to pull away from the curb another big bus pulled in behind me as the earlier bus prepared to leave. I am so excited because this means when I come back on Monday there will be a whole new group of people who haven’t encountered the greeting and the bells on their way to work.

9/17 AM
Yesterday morning I was excited to go to the Headlands. When the alarm went off, I didn’t moan and groan as much as usual. Anticipation cheered me up and got me out of bed. It was the first time all year that this tiny bit of happiness and waking up so early in the morning occupied the same time and place. It was so much more pleasant than the usual chore of getting up too early has been than I decided to see if I could get as excited about going to the Ferry Building.
What do I like about going to the Ferry Building before sunrise? Hmm. Well, I like driving there. Since there are very few cars on the road, I can drive fast. The route goes through the park and the Presidio and along the bay. When I am not grumpy about it, it’s actually very nice. Once I have arrived, I like the routine of setting out the sign, unhitching the bell and posting whatever the current time for the sunrise is supposed to be. I have gotten used to being ignored and just go about my business. Ringing the bell well is something of a challenge. It’s awkwardly hung on blocks of wood so that it doesn’t swing freely. The bell is also out of balance and favors swinging in one direction more than the other so it is difficult to get a regular rhythm. But it is possible. And finally, on the off chance that anyone is interested enough in what is going on to stop for a moment, I get to talk with people I would never otherwise meet.

9/19 AM The Stage is Set, The Audience Awaits
Clear clear clear. There are many more cars on the road at this hour compared to even half an hour earlier. And even though there are more drivers, they are generally less speedy and aggressive than the earlier shift. Since I decided to slow down and broaden my focus to include all aspects of sunrise – including the preparation and time beforehand, I am enjoying this early morning a bit more. When I arrived at the Ferry Building today, I strolled around, took some photos, walked to the end of the pier and looked around. It smelled really good there this morning. Like the sea. As I walked around, I rang the little cymbal bells until it was almost time for the sun cross the horizon. Then I went back to the car and rang the big bell for the many joggers running by at this hour.

Mid September at Home

9/13 AM BEFORE
The painters are moving so quickly on our house I wanted to get a picture of it in the early stages so that we could do a before and after comparison. I was also looking for a minimal activity that would capture both the moment of the sunrise and the condition of the house. So I had asked Norman if he would mind just sticking his arm out the front window and ring a bell he liked while I went outside and recorded a little movie. It seemed like a good plan until we went to open the windows and found they had been painted shut.

9/14 AM Celebrating the Purple Primer
I'm just walking around in my pink pajamas in front of our house with the newly painted purple primer. Greeting the sunrise.

9/14 PM Sunday Evening Bells


9/15 AM Cosmic Downbeat
After 3 hours sleep, I decided to postpone going to the Ferry building until Wednesday morning. Instead, I wandered out into a quiet the backyard dangling the large cymbal bells. I had heard a crow out there while I was waking up and thought he would make a good companion. Much to my surprise, a different, sweet little voice piped in right at the first chime. Then suddenly, it was as if someone released machine sounds into the still and peaceful air. The trolley started up the street as an airplane flew overhead. It was as if the morning began on some large unseen downbeat.

9/18 AM AFTER

Last night before I went to bed I thought about where I would like to ring the bells in the morning. Since we had just finished painting our house, I thought it’d be nice to include the house in the documentation. One of my favorite things about the way the house looks now is the set of little lion heads above the windows. At first we didn’t see them. We thought they were just plaster medallions. Once we realized they were cats, we decided that when we finally got around to painting them, we would like to make them look like our cranky cat, Malcolm. However, when the time finally came, we were afraid to go up on the ladder. So we asked one of the painters if he would mind painting their little faces for us. Instead of mini-Malcolm portraits, we opted for a minimal touch to the lion face with only the eyes and mouths filled in with color. I love them. Each one is different and I had planned to ring a bell for each lion when I went out this morning. Unfortunately, when I stumbled outside this morning, I was only half conscious. While I remembered that I wanted o ring the bell five times, I forgot why. It wasn’t until I finished ringing the bell and the sun had come up that I remembered about welcoming the cats to their first sunrise experience with new eyes.

9/18 PM
Clean windows. Clear evening. The painters have long ladders. Very tall and shaky ladders. As long as they were already up that high to paint, they cleaned the windows. Thank you guys! I can't believe what we've been missing.

9/19 PM
Red sky in morning, sailors take warning
Red sky at night, sailors’ delight
The weather pattern along the coast in Northern California is so much different than the east coast that I never thought that saying applied to the west coast. There aren’t many thunderstorms. It’s mostly fog or drizzle as far as water in the air. No snow. No hurricanes or extreme weather conditions of any kind. Earthquakes are the extreme nature occurrence out here, not precipitation. So when it was so beautiful and red this morning, Norman quoted that little poem and I said, oh no not out here. Well. It is drizzling out here this evening. But it's not a dreary drizzle. It's deposited a gentle sheen on the ground so that everything shimmers (audio). Just a little bit.

9/20 AM
The first sound I heard when I woke up this morning was the ticking of the clock. Although it didn’t happen immediately or all at once. I gradually noticed what had been there all along. Gentle, steady reliable and persistent. It made a big impression on me- that erosive pawing at my awareness. So I decided to accompany that soft tick with a chime on the bowl for one minute as the sun rose. A small soundbridge (audio) from the night to the morning.

September 11, 2008

On September 11, 2006, I was tolling a 250lb bell in one of the parking lots at Arlington National Cemetery. The parking lot was deserted. There were no tour buses that day and I didn’t see a single person in the lot or the grounds immediately adjacent to the lot. I did hear, however, cannons being fired in the distance. A prolonged series of muffled explosions.

I had come to the cemetery to toll the big bell. At that time according antiwar.com- 2600 Americans had been killed. Iraqbodycount.org estimated that between 40,000 and 46,000 Iraqi’s had been killed in the war. Based on the tolling rate of that particular bell, I had calculated the number of days and hours it would take to commemorate every person that had been killed. At that time in 2006, if I tolled the bell for 45 minutes per day, it would take 2 days to ring for all of the Americans that had been killed. It would take another 34 days to ring for each Iraqi killed.

Two years later, the numbers of people killed in this war has more than doubled. Imagine waking up in the morning and hearing a bell slowly, constantly ringing for an hour. One peal every other second. Over and over. Each toll of the bell sounding for someone who has died. At the end of the hour, you would have heard 1800 individual sounds. 1800 individual souls. Now imagine waking up everyday for the next 2 and a half months and hearing the same thing.

People do not agree on the numbers of people that have been killed in the war. Especially when it come to the numbers of Iraqis. The most conservative numbers from iraqbodycount.org estimate that between 86,864 and 94,782 Iraqis have died as of June 2008. The Lancet Study places the count at 654, 9565 as of June 2006. Too many people no matter how or who is counting.

AM 2008
Norman and I began the day quietly in the backyard. I rang the new bowl(audio) that Norman had gotten in Germany from Der Glockenladen where the 3rd generation proprietor, Michael Metzler, makes the bowls and other bell creations. This bowl is not uniformly round or thick and so it has a shimmery quality from the different pitches. It's also a bit difficult to sustain the resonance, but it’s a lovely sound and I like it very much.

PM 2008
We went to the cemetery at Chrissy Fields in the Presidio to observe the sunset and ring the big bell. While Norman remained with the car, I climbed over a low stone wall and walked among the gravestones.

Beginning of September

9/1 PM
Such a beautiful, clear day. Most people associate Labor Day with the end of summer. But for us out here in the Bay Area, it’s the beginning of the nicest weather of the year. For the next two months, anyway.(audio)

9/2 AM Looking and listening.
Another day out in the back yard.

9/2 PM A Little Help From My Friends
As I ran out the door to take Norman to the airport I grabbed the camera case and some bells to ring later in the evening. However, at sunset when I went to get the camera, the case was empty. So I assumed I would quietly rang a few bells in the church courtyard, the same as last Tuesday night. Since the sunsets so close to the time our sitting group begins, there were a few stragglers arriving a bit late or waiting in line to use the bathroom. While there is no media documentation for this evening, there were a few additional witnesses to the sunset who joined me this evening. It shouldn’t matter whether or not I do this alone, but I love having company. Thank you stragglers!

9/3 PM Mummy Movie
Amir came by this evening, and we went to the movies again. This time we both set our cell phones to vibrate at 7:31. Since we were seeing the latest Mummy movie - preview. I had hoped that it would be very loud and that we would be able to ring from our seats. I like doing that. However, the movie had just started and was still warming up when it was time to visit the sunset. I went out to the lobby and there was an usher sitting on the bench. Only they aren’t called ushers anymore. Does anyone know what those young people in uniform with the badges are called these days? Anyway, I sat on the bench with him and chatted for a few minutes before it was time to ring the bells. He told me that he had just looked outside the theater and saw the sun setting already. So he and I rang the bells a few minutes earlier than I had expected. He is usually working at the theater at sunset and he said he would ring his little bell on other nights. Then I went back to sit with Amir and watch the rest of the Mummy movie.

9/4 AM Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning...
It’s too bad I am so sleepy first thing in the morning. I really do not appreciate the sunrise and some days I actually dislike it. Today was one of those days. I got up, stuck my head outside and pointed the camera around trying to find something interesting to land on. It looked the same as it usual does – either clear or foggy. And much too early.

9/4 PM Calling All Gongs!

This evening I walked by the living room and saw the gong hanging there. I had just finished writing the entry about Warren’s scary brush with death while he was in New York. The sun was still pouring into the room at that time and everything was very bright and magical. This evening’s observance is dedicated to Warren. Get well soon!

9/5 PM Ocean Beach by Any Other Name...
Each time Monique comes to San Francisco, she visits the ocean at sundown. The last few times, she has invited me to join her and now it’s become something of a ritual for me as well. On this occasion, Monique is here to perform in the 9th annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF) - which is already well underway. Although observing a sunset half an hour before the beginning of the evening’s events is cutting it a bit close, we met at the beach and rang bells together as the sun seemed to literally melt into the water. We enlisted a passerby to join us as well, and after the sun went down she said, “I don’t think I have ever been to Ocean Beach for the sunset”. It’s understandable that a place with such a practical and uninspired name like “Ocean Beach” would fail to motivate someone to visit if it required an effort at all. But don’t let the name fool you. For an urban location, this beach is relatively undeveloped with dunes and grasses and long clear beaches. Windy and cold it may be most of the time, but the air is good and the views are different every day.

9/6 AM Ringing tiny bells that sound like the birds
audio

9/6 PM No Parking Karma
Driving around the Mission looking for a parking space, I went up and down, round and round the same blocks over and over again, hoping that something would change while I was somewhere else. After 4 or 5 times running the same circuit and looking at the same cars in the same spots, I decided to swing further away. In the meantime, I missed meeting up with Krys and Thea who were waiting in from of We Be Sushi. Having come in on public transportation, they were on time. So at 7:30 I grabbed a few bells, plopped the camera on the dashboard, turned it on and continued to drive around jingling as I went. Police at every turn...

9/7 AM
There was a lot of activity outside this morning – especially for a Sunday. I added to the noise for a moment (audio), trundled back into the house and fell asleep.

9/7 PM Looming Insanity
As so often happens, I am behind in editing the documentation for the blog. I am obsessed and will sit slavishly at the computer trying to catch up as long as there is media to edit. In the name of sanity, or merely a desperate rationale, I am curtailing the documentation. I am too obsessive to completely eliminate it at this point in the year. Or maybe I will do it when some other form of craziness overtakes the obsession. For now, I will continue to ring with pleasure. I look forward to it, at least in the evenings. And for the documentation- here’s a photo of the bells I chose for this evening’s foggy sunset observance.

9/8 PM Social Security- gone to the dogs
My neighbor, Helen called just before the sunset this evening. She had received her “Explanation of Benefits” from the Social Security Administration, and it got her all excited. She is due to retire in a few years and the amount of money she is entitled to receive wouldn’t feed a dog for a month. After we rang some bells together for a minute, we went inside and sat in the kitchen for a while. Helen doesn't have much confidence in her English speaking ability, especially when it comes to navigating any kind of official business concerning money. She said she was entitled to some percentage of her ex-husband's benefits and she wanted me to call Social Security in the morning and find out how much. The really awful part is that while her husband’s check could feed himself and a dog for a month, there wouldn't be enough left over for anything else.

9/9 AM Mindless Exuberance
I had decided before going to bed last night that I would like to ring as many bells simultaneously as possible. I tried it out and I loved the way it sounded. It was exuberant and melodious, and I looked forward to greeting the day in that way. Well, too bad. There’s a big difference in my physical coordination at the end of the day when I am fully awake compared with my abilities first thing in the morning when I approach stairs as if they were an escalator. Abundant enthusiasm without a mind or physical dexterity looks pretty frantic.

9/9 PM Meditation Bells
In anticipation of this evening’s sunset just a few minutes before the beginning of our meditation, I had invited everyone present last week to ring bells at sunset this evening. As people trickled into the garden, some walked directly into the Church and others began to congregate along a low stone wall where I had dumped a little pile of bells. As soon as someone had a bell in their hand, they started ringing it and very soon, the garden was sparkling with sound. And then it was over. (Historical photo of Church)

9/10 PM A Tree for Toyoji
This evening was the memorial for Toyoji Tomita. It was held at Mills College and jointly presented by the Mills College Music Dept. and the Deep Listening Institute, LTD. We gathered next to the music building just before sunset for the tree planting ceremony. The sun set a few minutes before the ceremony was due to begin so we all rang bells while we waited. After dedicating a young Red Maple to Toyoji’s memory, we all walked over to Lisser Hall where friends and family remembered Toyji with words and music. Very sad. Much love. Make a donation in memory of Toyoji

Return to the Ferry Building

9/1 AM Labor Day at the Ferry Building
Finally. Back to the Ferry Building. I was so excited about going back to the Ferry Building that I forgot that today was a holiday. No ferries this early on Labor Day. Since I was last here on Memorial Day, the area has been determined to be unsafe and is closed indefinitely. At least one other person arrived this morning and was surprised by the closing. He was angry and walked around swearing in front of the Ferry Terminal for a few minutes before leaving to find other parking. Fortunately for me, there was a tiny spot behind the bus zone that I could squeeze into.

9/3 AM Greeting Sunrise Commuters
I arrived at the Ferry Building quite a bit before the sunrise, and the first of two ferries was already coming in. I set up the sandwich board, untied the bell and spilled a few of the tiny bells onto the sidewalk in front of the board. By the time I finished setting up, all of the people were gone so I just stood around for a few minutes staring into the morning. There were still 10 minutes or so to go until the sunrise and as soon as I started to ring the bell- the Baylink bus showed up! I was so surprised to see it because it was much later than the one I had met in the Spring. Of course, it was a different bus and different driver. This driver didn’t even get out of the bus, but many passengers did. One of them came by to read my sign and asked me what it was all about. I told her the sun was rising and she smiled in surprise. She took a bell and blessed me. By then the second ferry had come in and those passengers were disembarking. I rang and rang for them and kept an eye on the time so I would know when the sun was actually crossing the horizon. I figured that would be my stop time. One more person came by and took a bell and rang it as she walked away. Those free bells are so tiny and quiet, the woman had to hold it to her ear as she crossed the street and then she rang it in her friend’s ear as well. When there was only two minutes until the actual event, I turned on the camera and rang the bell double time for the last few minutes. All by myself.

9/5 AM Leaving a Little Pile of Gold
Because I got to the Ferry Building just 5 minutes ahead of the sunrise, I had to rush around to set out all of my accessories and do my little chores: update the sign board so that it showed the correct time for the sunrise, scatter the tiny bells on the ground in front of the sign, unhitch the bungees on the bell and the clapper, etc. Once finished with the set up, there wasn’t much time left to look around and see what was going on. I quickly set up the camera so that it faced a different direction than the last time and began the filming and the chiming. Although no one stopped this time, it felt very satisfying to ring for the joggers, cyclists and early morning tourists who happened by.

9/8 AM Sunrise Under the Bay Bridge
As I approached the Ferry Terminal this morning, I saw the thin line of early morning passengers leaving the boat and heading into town. They have all disappeared by the time the sun comes up. Not so for the Baylink bus passengers who arrive just as the sun is rising. Not that there is much difference in the amount of light. The biggest change in light comes when the streetlights and parking lot lights switch off. The one person who stopped and spoke with me this morning told me that she worked at the next pier. She says she watches the sun rise under the Bay Bridge every morning when she is at work. It’s a great vantage point.

9/10 AM Losing Light
Another trip to the Ferry Building. We are losing light. The pace has noticeably accelerated since the summer solstice. At the turning point just after the solstice, we were losing less than 5 minutes a week for the first few weeks. Now we are almost 15 minutes of light per week. Last week when I arrived at the Ferry Terminal just before sunrise, the ferry had just arrived and people were still getting off the boat as I set up. Today, the boat was already pulling away from the dock and zipping along the bay while it was still dark outside. I had a repeat visitor this morning. The security guard who sang and rang last week, came back while I was setting up and I gave him another little bell. They’re like the little candies by the register on the way out of the restaurant. Maybe he is spreading them around. I hope so, and I hope others will do the same. I forgot the little pile of bells that I had spilled onto the sidewalk in front of the signboard today. It’s a lovely little pile of gold waiting to be discovered. At least I remembered the signboard this time.