Michael McTigue – suggests…

Be here now

Recently, I was on a British Airways flight, and their theme song, The Flower Duet from the opera Lakmé by Leo Delibes, came on. The song is sung by two characters—Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest in Colonial India, and her servant, Mallika—as they gather flowers and prepare to bathe in a river.

As the song played, I thought about the lyrics. Lakmé and Mallika are completely in the moment, describing the aroma of the jasmine, the way the various plants are intertwined and rely on each other for support…how they glide through the water, reaching toward the river bank “covered with flowers, laughing, in the morning.” That’s all. Just reporting what is all around in the most beautiful, reverent, and grateful way. Taking it in. Seems like such a natural thing to do and yet we forget all the time.

Fluorescent translucence

RobertIrwin-DiaBeacon — Robert Irwin – Dia:Beacon

Artist Robert Irwin has become an obsession of mine. At Dia:Beacon, he created an ordered maze of square rooms with walls made of translucent scrim, called “Excursus: Homage to the Square³”. In each room are wall-mounted fluorescent tube lights sheathed in varying stripes of theatrical gels which make an intense lighting scheme as you walk through. You can see into the next room. You are aware of its existence, but your focus is on what is in front of you. If that’s not a great metaphor for meditation then I don’t know what is.

One time after I left the galleries and got into my car, “Eclipse” from Wooden Shjipps’ album V. was the first song that played on the stereo as I began the drive back. Lead singer/guitarist Ripley Johnson once said he intended to write V. as a “summer album” but that was the summer of 2017—the return of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and fire and ash raining down on the Pacific Northwest, where Johnson is from. He felt the sun was obscured—literally and figuratively—that summer. Instead, he wrote an album all about finding moments of joy wherever you can.

“Eclipse” goes from sinister to sublime, along a river of liquid guitar. And man, does it flow.