Ervin’s Blog – Page 4

Thoughts About Creativity, Technical Work, and the Brain – [1/2]

I’ve been writing about the creative process, which is a significant part of my own work. Although I don’t have formal certification or credentials in this area, I consider myself to be knowledgeable in matters of creativity and the workings of the human brain; I may not be an “expert” but I am certainly a well informed amateur. Part of my education in these matters is that I notice things in the world around me; and I do a lot of writing. Writing helps me to sort out the things I’ve noticed and make sense of them. It helps me to discover things I didn’t know that I knew, or connections that were there to be made but that I hadn’t made yet. I think you might enjoy some of my mental meanderings as regards creativity.

We can start with the fact that I am a guitar maker. And, as a guitar maker, I want my instruments to “look right”.

“Well, of course,” one can say. “Who doesn’t? But what does that actually mean?” Well, it means one of two things. Either someone is completing a project whose parameters and details have been decided from the outset, or one is doing something personal and winging it on a creative impulse. In the first case the project is “done” when the recipe has been fulfilled; the thing “looks right” because that means the same thing as having followed the recipe. Alternately, when one is approaching a “creative” project in a mechanical way, and the project has to be delivered by a certain deadline, the place to stop is when the time allotted has expired; the project is done, by definition. In the second case there is no recipe or fixed deadline to rely on; the project is “completed” and the thing looks “right” when it “feels” right and one “knows” that nothing else remains to be done. Thus, the right look actually has two distinct meanings. To illustrate them one can imagine a project that entails engaging with an enemy. When the project is done in the army way it is completed when the enemy is dead. When the project is done in the creative or personal way, it may be completed when one has won the enemy over and befriended him, or negotiated a peace with him.

One interesting way to get a handle on these distinct aspects of “the right look” has been through studies of the brain – about which some interesting research has been done lately. Some of this research has focused on certain unfortunate individuals who had, for one medical reason or another, needed to have the entire right or left lobe of their brains surgically removed. This horrible circumstance presented a unique opportunity for studying such subjects after they returned to “normal post-surgical life”. Except that their lives were not “normal” any longer.

The Right half of the brain, the scientists have told us, is responsible for imagination, emotion, lateral thinking, creativity, intuitive connectivity, and capacity to appreciate beauty. The Left half is the critical mind: it carries out the functions of linear thinking, logic, assessment, planning, and calculation. And the surgical recoverees were observed to have new deficits in their mental lives that were, unsurprisingly, a direct function of which half of their brains they’d lost.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: the concept of strict division of right-brain/left-brain functions has taken some hits lately as the scientific community has published studies on the plasticity of the brain and how one half of it can learn to take over some of the functions of the other half. Still, if one really only has one half of a brain, I think we can be given a bit of slack in being categorical about how the brain works; if there is only one half a brain, there is no other half to share plasticity with. Also, even though having only half a brain is an extreme circumstance, it can be useful to push something to an extreme in order to make a point about, or to get insights into, that thing. Extreme doesn’t necessarily invalidate.]

Individuals who lost the emotional part of their brains were found to retain memory as well as verbal, computational, and mechanical skills. But they lost the ability to make personal on-the-spot decisions based in personal preference — such as we all make a thousand times a day without even stopping to think about it. Such people would be completely stymied, for example, in trying to figure out where to go for the weekend, or even which breakfast cereal they’d most enjoy eating — without making long lists of these choices’ various pros and cons. If Mr. Spock had lost his right brain just before the Klingons attacked the Enterprise then he’d have to make lists of every possible scenario involved in responding to the attack, and they would have taken over the Enterprise before he got halfway through with that list.

On the other hand, individuals who’d lost the left halves of their brains couldn’t plan their way out of a paper bag. They couldn’t hold thoughts together. Their lives were dominated by impulse. They’d lost the ability to engage in calculation and goal-oriented, systematic (first-this-then-that), exploratory (what if), critical (i.e., if-this-then-that type), or even ordinary sorting-this-out-from-that thinking. Most terribly, they had lost the capacity to feel personally invested in anything, in the moment – which has everything to do with getting the normal internal cues to any sense of “rightness” or “wrongness” of anything. These people became incapable of making assessments. Their “thinking” also lacked any sense of complexity, comparative significance, consequences, depth, flexibility, or carry-over. They really were stuck in the realm of impulse. And, needless to say, they were as incapable of meaningful personal attachments as they were unable to engage in disciplined behavior.

Ecce Donald Trump who, as I write this in 2017, gives every sign of being genuinely brain damaged in this way. He seems equally upset by being given a bad tweet by a nine-year-old as he is by a criticism from a head of state. He has no sense of proportion or carry-over; he doesn’t remember what he said last week; he spends time insisting that Mexico to pay for a wall instead of appointing the ambassadors, officials, and functionaries who would be making the government function. With Trump the dial is always set at the same number and the oven is always set at the same temperature regardless of what’s being baked. Please, re-read the previous paragraph.

An ability to sense the “rightness” or “wrongness” of things, just mentioned above, brings us to the doorstep of art and design — in which the dominant mindset is the striving to arrive at the internal cues that signal “it’s right and it’s done and I can stop now.” The striving can be endlessly modified by training and experience all life long; but the artist (or cook, athlete, gardener, fisherman, etc.) stops only when he knows it’s time to stop; short of that, he keeps on working, expressing, and seeking. There is otherwise no calculation, statistic, timer, rule book, syllabus, recipe, blueprint, or deadline to otherwise tell him that his task is complete. Those are all left-brain tools. The artist simply stops when he “knows” that it’s time to stop.

What I’ve Been Up To, September 2017

These “what I’ve been up to” letters each take me several days to write. I keep on adding and changing things, and deciding what to include and what not to mention. I don’t really know whether this kind of material is interesting to general readers, or T.M.I., or refreshingly candid, or embarrassingly personal. Well, I figure that people can simply stop reading if this stuff doesn’t float their boat. As for me, this is simply what is going on… and it is what it is. I’ve also sent these letters out to people I actually know, because I thought they’d be interested. But, as I said, if this is T.M.I. for any of you, then by all means go watch the televised national poker championships.

In any event, I’m doing fine after I got my pacemaker installed. I took three weeks off from work and I’m back at it and getting things done — although at a less-than-frenetic schedule. And I’m in a rather interesting mental space these days, pursuant to my cardiac… ah… adventures.

I mentioned in my first letter than I had realized, to my great surprise, that I might easily have died had the heart/fainting thing gone down in any slightly different way. I could have easily been driving, for instance, and killed myself and/or someone else. Or I could have cracked my head open when I fell. Or I could have been operating a power tool and done great injury. But I didn’t die. I did suddenly feel that I could see things more with fresh eyes, and regard as a gift every day and every thing I do, every meal I eat, and every conversation I have… including writing this letter to you.

That feeling is an awesome gift, the more so because this is the first time I’d ever experienced it. I still feel it a month later, if not quite so intensely.

Also, three new things have surfaced in the past few weeks that I want to tell you about. And… it’ll take another few pages to do so. I’m sorry if I’ll seem to be going on and on… but I can’t do this in a sound-byte.

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The first new thing is that I seem to have lost my desire to eat compulsively. For the first time since I-don’t-know-when, I’m not stuffing my face. Somehow, I am losing weight without a diet, a regimen, a plan, or anything else that I can put my finger on. It’s just happening… and I’m feeling very comfortable with that. Popular thinking about compulsive eating is that it is emotionally rooted and that overeaters are in fact seeking comfort and safety that they otherwise don’t feel. I’m sure this is largely true. But, somehow, I seem to have not been feeling off-balance enough that I need to shovel in comfort food. I’ll have something more to say about this further on.

I remember that when I fainted last month I simply blacked out, with no warning. I just keeled over and, as I said, I didn’t break my head open. I woke up a minute later (they told me I was out for about a minute)… and then fell over again about ten minutes later. Ditto about the head cracking open. But something shifted in me in those episodes, and I am slowly finding that I’m now not quite the same person as the one that collapsed (even though that person and I would be superficially indistinguishable, as in in a police lineup or beauty contest).

One of the differences between the old me and the new me is that I have, for the first time, a pretty real sense that, well, yes, I was lucky in that I didn’t die… but… I will die. It has certainly made me pause.

I will die. I’m 73 years old and this circumstance is, as the saying goes, right in front of me. I’m not being morbid, by the way; I’m being candid. Do you know the feeling you had when you were in school and your teacher gave you a lesson that you learned by rote… or one of your friends told you something that you thought you understood… and then at some point it all clicked and you really understood it!? It’s like that with me. It’s as though I’ve woken up in a place where everything looks the same, but everything also looks different than it looked before. It feels weird, and it also feels completely natural.

Sorry if this is T.M.I. If it is, please stop reading and go do something else. Anyway, I repeat: I’m not being morbid. I’m calling it as I see it.

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Another thing that I’m aware of is that I have lost my impetus to work, work, work, work, and work as I’ve always done. It is at this point surprisingly effortless for me to slow down… or perhaps stop entirely… and just think. And maybe smell the flowers. I’ve ALWAYS worked six days a week and now, for the first time, I don’t want to work six days a week. I want to take time for myself. As I said, it’s just a bit new and strange. The oddest thing is that this brush with mortality hasn’t frightening me; it’s managed to make me feel appreciative and, well, liberated… in a way that I have not experience before.

Who knew about this kind of thing? And why wasn’t I informed sooner?

Well, I’m rambling. But I do think this all goes some distance in explaining my loss of interest in compulsive eating. I somehow don’t need to hide behind food. Or deaden myself with it.

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There’s something else, too: I took three weeks off from work after I got back home from the hospital. Part of that had to do with the fact that I was sore from the incisions they made. And I was tired, a lot; it took my body some time to adjust to the pacemaker. I also was feeling lightheaded whenever I stood up (the medicos call this an orthostatic episode, when blood supply to the brain is momentarily reduced), and I was nervous about falling over again. That lightheadedness has mostly gone away and I feel that I can sit down and stand like I’ve always done. [NOTE: it helps to keep well hydrated.]

Most importantly, though, I used the time to reorganize my very cluttered room, which has long served as a combination storage room and office. I got rid of a lot of stuff (astonishingly easy once I got over my initial resistance!), made space, and converted the former office into a combination den and man-cave. I bought an EXPENSIVE easy chair that is VERY comfortable (I’ve never had anything like that before), got a flat-screen t.v., and cleaned the place up so that it has become something much more inviting than it ever was before. All of this was a high time a-comin’.

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One thing that has to be mentioned, I think as background to all this, is that for a long time I have felt tired. Even drained. I think I have been approaching burnout. I haven’t taken any time off for a long time, but/and I couldn’t back away sufficiently from my life to get this feeling in focus. It is coming into focus better now, though. I think my body and soul have really needed me to get off the merry-go-round and these events have conspired to get me to do that.

It’s not easy to explain, but, mainly, I have been feeling (to me) astonishingly calm in the aftermath of all this. I mean, nothing external has really changed in my life: I still have bills to pay; Berkeley/Oakland hasn’t changed; traffic certainly hasn’t changed; I haven’t gained 30 I.Q. points or gotten plastic surgery; I still have work and chores to do… but, strange though it feels to say it and strange it may be to hear it, knowing that I’m going to die feels liberating. Who knew?

I have nothing to compare any of this with. It’s new for me. I have never even had a conversation with anyone about this kind of thing. Ever. One might say that I just seem to be o.k. living with no map, or perhaps having only a very fuzzy one. At least, for now. I might also say the same thing using different words: it’s as though I’ve been traveling on a long road and all of a sudden come to a section where the road has washed away by a flood or landslide or something like that. At present, I’m standing at the end of the old road and looking to muddle through this featureless new territory until I can find my road again on the other side. It’s interesting. And, largely, it’s free of a sense of… I don’t know… heaviness, urgency, and needing to accomplish things that I’ve been feeling for such a long time that it’s felt absolutely normal to me.

I certainly don’t know what it all means, yet. I am back at work, but at a slower pace. I have been slowing down the past few years anyway simply because I’m getting older, and as I mentioned I really have been feeling used up for a long time… but without really paying attention to it. I mean, see here now: I’ve been busy, dude! I’ve had work deadlines to attend to and responsibilities to discharge, you know?! I say again: I’m not being morbid in any of this. Rather, to put it in a yet different way, it’s sort of like getting lost on the way to work and winding up in some unknown place, and discovering a half-buried lost city. I want to tell people about it.

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The feeling of liberation seems real to me. When I fainted I remember that I suddenly felt very dizzy and just collapsed. It took literally two seconds. I realized, after I came to, that I had heard a sound of a thud at the time of my fainting. That, it turned out, was my head hitting the floor. It’s strange hearing something when I’m 95% unconscious; but it really was lights out, period. That might just have been the whole ball game, right then and there. There was no pain.

There was no light at the end of a tunnel either; everything just went black. But then again I’m a Taurus and Tauruses don’t do lights at the ends of dark tunnels.

So, anyway, right now I’m not particularly fearful of life. Or losing it. I’m accepting it as something I have not much control over. I would be disappointed if I died right now, because I wouldn’t have gotten to do all the things I would have wanted to do (such as using up all my wood stash in the making of lovely guitars) before checking out.

I’m still working all this out. More later.

Love, Ervin

What I’ve Been Up To, August 2017

I’ve been feeling angina for a few weeks now, and also feeling very tired. You probably know that angina is discomfort in the chest, normally attributed to blood flow that is insufficient to the needs of the body’s muscles; the heart is straining. I’d also been experiencing some dizzy spells. So I made an appointment to see my cardiologist in early August.

On the very next day I had two fainting spells: I just keeled over with no warning. Fortunately, I didn’t hit my head hard or break any teeth out or anything like that. I was lucky in that. 911 was called and I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at local Summit hospital, to be checked out for what was going on with me. It speaks to my childishness that I felt embarrassed for inconveniencing the ambulance crew in this way.

Speaking of angina, by the way, you should know that there is no truth to the story that when a staffer told then-president George Bush that Dick Cheney had “acute angina”, he said that that was silly: men don’t have anginas.

In any event, to make a long story short, I spent five days in the hospital. I just got out a few days ago. I had a bunch of tests and procedures done on me while I was there. Fainting can be brought on by a number of things, but one of the things they worry about most is heart problems… which I have; you may already know that I had heart bypass surgery in 2004.

It turns out that the heart can have three main kinds of possible problems: (1) something wrong mechanically (with the heart muscle and valves), or (2) something wrong with the plumbing – that is, obstructions to blood flow — or (3) something wrong with the electrical impulses that regulate the heart’s beating. Remarkably, the heart has a different system that’s in charge of each of these different functions; knowing this makes me understand a bit better what a miraculous piece of engineering the heart is. Not only that, it is the only muscle in the body that never, ever rests. It can go on beating for a hundred years. That’s pretty impressive, really.

Parenthetically, I am impressed with how complicated it is to run a hospital. When someone like me comes in with an immediate problem the doctors have to scramble to diagnose and deal with what’s going on. They have to book access to various rooms and equipment, consult with various specialists, and to assemble the teams that will run the equipment and do the procedures – and interpret the results. Not least, someone has to schedule and coordinate all this in the face of the fact that the needed facility or equipment will likely already have been booked to deal with someone else’s not-so-urgent problems that will no doubt have been scheduled weeks previously. So between this and that and the other thing, it took three days before they were in a position to take a close diagnostic look at just what was going on with me. Until then they drew blood, took X-rays and gave me a CT scan, looked at my vitals, took bets on how long I’d last, etc.

Before I could be given either of the catheterization procedures they had planned for me, however, my heart stopped spontaneously… for 4.2 seconds. The nursing staff noted this because I was hooked up to all kinds of telemetry. I must say that doctors were grateful to me for having been helpful enough to provide them with such a major diagnostic clue; the electronic telemetry of the event solved a lot of the mystery for them. I think I heard champagne corks popping down the hall.

They rushed to bring in an E.I. specialist (that’s cardiac-electrical stuff) and gave me an electrocatheterization procedure (it’s called something else in hospitalese, but never mind that). This is when they open up a vein in the groin and insert a loooong thin wire that they snake into the heart. That wire is used to test various electrical nodes in the heart. They were able to induce another heart stoppage in a bundle of cells called the Bundle of His (named after Swiss doctor Wilhelm His who first identified it and its functions; it acts sort of like a spark plug). The reason for my fainting, it seems, was that I was experiencing episodes of my heartbeat stopping. The official medical term for this is syncope; it’s not exactly the same as a heart attack, but it’s a bad thing anyway. With no blood pumping, and the brain receiving no oxygen, one begins to function like our current president.

There are, I learned, specific “bundles” of specialized cells in the heart, that have different functions. There’s one that’s called the Widowmaker, because if it misfunctions then it’s game over; the others, they can do something about them if caught in time. They checked out my own Widowmaker and it seems to be doing well. With a name like that I expect it to hit men more than it hits women, but I’m sure it’s equally a Widowermaker. For more information on any of this, I refer you to Wikipedia.

I now have a pacemaker installed. Its function is to jump-start the heart in case it wants to take another coffee break during working hours. It is installed under my left clavicle, and that part of my body is a bit sore. The pacemaker is not large; it’s about the size of two fifty-cent pieces; and some wires go from it into both of my heart’s atria (the upper chambers). They had a representative from the company that produces these show up the next day to check that the placement, circuitry, and wiring were correctly done and that the wires were working as they should. These things can be programmed to function in various ways, to work at different speeds and settings, depending on just what kind of spark might be called for. It’s interesting to know this. And I’m instructed to not move my left arm very much, or lift it above shoulder height, for six weeks in order for the newly installed wires can… uh… blend into the flesh they’ve been inserted into. I’m not much motivated to move my arm: the incision site is quite sore. So, anyway: no more weightlifting or tennis or calisthenics for a while. I also have two newly made incisions in my groin to recover from… which is also sore.

Interestingly, I’m told that the pacemaker’s job is actually to just step in when it senses any irregularity in my heart’s electrical impulses; otherwise, if the electrical impulses are working, the pacemaker backs off and stays quiet. So, according to what they told me, the average pacemaker is inactive most of the time.

I was also given an angiogram the day after I got the catheterization; this is where they insert another catheter into the heart — once again starting at the groin — to take a look at whether there are any blockages to blood flow in the heart. If any blockages are found then a stent is introduced, to open them up (that is, if the blockages are not impossible to reach without risk of damaging something). Mainly, the doctors needed to determine whether I also had a problem (besides the electrical one) because of narrowed or blocked cardiac arteries. These can cause the electrical problems that I’d been having.

Apparently, and happily, I have no arterial blockages in my heart. That’s good news. And, according to the arcane medical taxonomy that is brought to these matters, I did not have a heart attack. I had Syncope. I think the difference is that with the latter the heart simply stops; with the former there is trauma and damage to the heart muscle. At least, potentially… depending on how quickly an intervention might occur. But there are so many other words for heart problems: ischemia, angina, fibrillation, infarct, stenosis, romantic breakups, etc. Will Shortz could probably come up with a crossword puzzle made up of only these kinds of words. But, well… none of them are exactly good news.

I might mention that my doctor was quite pleased to report that my bypass grafts, installed in 2004, were clear and unobstructed. He said that half of these things clog up again within ten or fifteen years! Wow; no one had told me that before. Well, it’s been 13 years for me and I seem to be all clear in that regard. Now, I’m simply going to be setting off airport security alarms. I hope my heart can stand the excitement.

I got home last Saturday and I’m very tired as I write this. I’ll recuperate and be back to normal, more or less, in four to six weeks. But I also am amazed at the luck that was with me in how this all came down. As I said, I fainted twice at home… and didn’t hit my head on cement; I hit it on carpeted wood flooring instead. The fainting came on without warning and without time to react. I simply collapsed. It was most fortunate that I wasn’t driving. Or crossing the street. Or up on a stepstool or ladder. Or leaning over my table saw. I could easily have killed myself and/or someone else. Things could have been so much worse.

I have to also say that I am grateful for the way the hospital nursing staff took care of me. They were kind, competent, professional, hard working, and without exception pleasant and friendly. On a chatting level, almost all the ones I met are multicultural and multilingual, and bring with them a wi i i i i i ide range of interesting life experiences. One of them, I found out by just talking with him, speaks seven languages! What an amazing bunch! If I were running the hospital I’d be giving them stock options.

Finally, having a pacemaker will add $300 to the cost of any future cremation that I might be subject to; it costs that much to remove it. If it is not removed then the oven blows up. Perhaps a burial at sea (you know; a sack and some rocks?) would be the way to go?

In any event, I intend to take it easy and recuperate for a while now. I am tired.

-Ervin

A CHRISTMAS STORY

[November, 2016]

There’s a story that I’ve loved ever since I first heard it. It comes courtesy of Alexander Woolcott, whom you may have heard of. Mr. Woolcott was the Dean of American Letters in the 1930s and 1940s. He knew everyone who was anyone and was the most respected single voice in the world of American arts and literature. His opinion of who was who, and what was good or not good – in both literature and the theatre — carried great weight.

Woolcott lived in the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. Because of Woolcott’s reputation and activities, the Algonquin management was good enough to set aside one of its rooms as a meeting place for anyone and everyone who was in town and desired stimulating and pleasurable conversation. The centerpiece of the room was a large round table — the fabled Algonquin Round Table. And around it sat many of the most significant thinkers of the day in the fields of literature, the arts, science, business, sociology, the theatre, psychology, film, economics, books, culture in general and even politics — all in free exchange of their beliefs, ideas, and knowledge.

The Algonquin round table ran from 1919 to 1929, in open discussion, and without any particular agenda other than to cast light on things and brainstorm. As I said, anyone who was in town and cared to have serious conversation about past, current, and future events – or just otherwise participate — was welcome to do so. Our phrase ‘round table discussion’ originated there. That cultural Mecca was the epicenter for one of the most significant outpouring of intellectual, artistic, economic, and creative thought and stimulation the modern world has known — and it was Mr. Woolcott’s invention and gift. You can learn more about it through Wikipedia.

Woolcott was a writer as well as an opinion maker, and he penned the following Christmas story that has long been dear to my heart. I’ll try to tell it as well as he did. I like the story because it seems to recognize the good in people that often goes unrecognized. It is, in its own way, a story about me, and you, and our neighbors.

I hope this doesn’t come off as too preachy and treacly. But it’s a story that has always brought a lump to my throat, when I think of it.

The story begins on a cold, bleak Christmas Eve. It’s Winter; the day has worn away, and it’s getting dark. An icy, cutting wind is blowing through the town’s empty streets. These are completely deserted. The townspeople are at home, in front of their fires with their families, with festive Christmas dinners soon to be had. All is quiet and still except for the whistle of the wind, and the incessant blowing of the sleety wind. There is an unexpected movement in the stillness, however. It’s an old beggar, poorly clothed and huddled in a doorway, trying to escape the freezing shafts of the wind. The poor man looks like he’s seen much better days. He moves along the street from doorway to doorway, slowly, trying to huddle out of the wind, and driven by the freezing cold. He seems to have no destination other than any little shelter he can find. After a while he reaches the town’s church, whose doorway is deeper and offers some greater degree of protection from the chill; he retreats into it as far as he can. And, pressing his back against the door, he is surprised to find it yielding. It has been left unlocked. He pushes it open and, cautiously, goes into the church.

The building is empty. All is quiet. The lights of many candles illuminate the space with a warm and intimate glow. And in the front, at the altar, a Christmas feast has been laid out. There are also festively wrapped packages and presents in a pile on the floor; the congregation has made lavish gifts to the Christ Child to celebrate his birth. Among the offerings and fineries there are bolts of expensive, colorful cloth. And in the center of it all is a table laden with delicacies that will be consumed in a short while, when the church members come in for that night’s special Christmas service.

The old beggar looks at this display hungrily. He hasn’t eaten in days. Cautiously, he approaches the table, drawn to its odors and promise of plenty, looking about to see if anyone is going to raise an alarm. But no: he is alone. He takes a little food . . . and then some more food. He eats, ravenously and gratefully, until he is satisfied. It’s not cold in the church, but with his tummy full now, and his blood going to it, he feels the cold. He wraps some of the cloths around himself to warm himself. The fabrics are of bright, vibrant hues.

Being wrapped in such festive colors, and being surrounded by the churchly shine and glitter, the beggar remembers that many years ago, when he was a young man, he worked in a circus. He was a juggler, and did his work in brightly colored clothing. The colors, lights, and sparkle have reminded him of that circus life left behind long, long ago, and that he hadn’t thought about in many years.

He has not done any juggling since he left the circus; and it occurs to him to wonder if he can still do it. So he goes to a large fruit bowl in the middle of the table and takes some apples from it, and begins to juggle a few of them. He can still do it! Slowly, revived by the food he’s just eaten, and being warmed up by his wrappings, and also loosening up the muscles of his arms and hands with the exercise of juggling, he gradually juggles faster. His coordination starts to come back to him. And he takes more apples from the bowl, and juggles them! Pretty soon, he’s juggling more things than he’s ever juggled before. He’s never juggled this well! He’s inspired! It is a magical, private moment.

But it is only a moment, and after a while the impulse and inspiration pass. It’s time for him to go; people will soon be arriving. The beggar puts the apples back into the bowl. He removes his warming fabrics, re-folds them, and goes out, back into the cold dark night. The church is silent.

Unbeknownst to the beggar, two priests have been watching him from an alcove behind a curtain. After he has left, one of the priests turns to the other and says, “Did you see that? Did you see what that filthy old beggar did? He touched our Christ’s gifts. He ate his food. He played with it! What a sacrilege! What a desecration!”

His companion, who is the older and wiser of the two, slowly turns to him and says, “oh . . . is that how you saw it? I saw it differently. You know, our congregants are prosperous people. Yes, they have bought many fine gifts for our Christ and our church. But they lead comfortable lives and these things are easy for them to buy and give. This old man, he gave a gift too. But . . . he gave of his ability. He gave of his skill. He gave of himself. Truly, he gave the finest gift of all”.

That, my friends, is a generous insight. And at times I think that this is us, the artists and guitar makers and musicians . . . and parents and homemakers . . . and healers and teachers . . . and anyone else like us who do the best we can in spite of hardships . . . of which there are plenty all around us.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

And, speaking of the finest gift of all, this brings me to someone who has made no discernible gifts to anyone, ever: the new prez, Mr. Trump; he never seems to have had a generous impulse or warm thought. As I write this, the 2016 elections are three days behind me and I feel ill.

What I’ve Been Up To These Days

August, 2016

I celebrated my 72nd birthday last May. Wow. I remember that, in college, I imagined 45 as being old. Wow again. I am doing o.k. these days, although tangibly slowing down. I have more things to be thankful for than I do things to moan and groan about (the complete list is of the latter is available on demand, though), and more work than I can handle. Also, aside from making guitars, training apprentices, writing, and having a home life, I am spending some time thinking about end-of-life issues. I am entirely a part of nature’s cycles of life, right up there with trees, jackrabbits, octopuses, and spiders… and I am 72 years old. I think about retirement, but I doubt that I will; when people ask me about that I tell them that if I ever do retire, I’m thinking of getting Michelins.

In thinking about retirement-type matters, the one about whatever legacy I can and will leave behind comes up. That likely legacy comes in several packages. The most visible one is my professional achievements, reputation, work, and all that. The second is to watch my daughter make her way through the world; she’s a lawyer, and a competent one, and is very happy at this point in her life. Then, there are my writings and publications. And then there is my place in the world, as a human being, in real terms. Well, as a friend of mine recently quipped, he started out with nothing, and after all these years he still has most of it. One of the things I haven’t had a lot of in the past, but that I’m earnestly working on having a better grip on, is the ability to say no to others, in favor of carving some time out for myself and my personal happiness. You know… as opposed to working on other people’s projects and catering to their needs all the time. Saying “no” in the proper way is a respectable skill set that I’m only slowly and lately acquiring.

MY WORK LOAD

I mentioned that I have more than enough work to do. The main reason that I am so busy is that, as my friend quipped, I really did start with nothing and worked without ever advertising myself commercially, and then managed to have myself be “discovered” by the larger public, all within the past few years. This has happened very largely through the internet, YouTube, magazines (I seem to be interview-worthy now; where were these people earlier on when I needed them?), social media etc.

The upshot is that is now not possible for me to continue to be the semi-anonymous little old guitar maker whom only other guitar makers as well as the more discerning members of the public have heard about. I am now a point of reference for people from places all over the world, with all the correspondence, multi-tasking, and administering that entails. It’s quite a load, especially at a time in life when everyone else normally goes out and buys Michelins. Otherwise I am greying, aging, sagging, and wrinkling with world-class grace.

On the “training” front I’ve recently taken on an 18-year old intern. He’s a friend of a friend of the family and he’s taking a gap year between high school and college, with the intent of seeing something of the real world and broadening his mind. He does not intend to become a guitar maker. Otherwise, he’s a young genius, a young science-whiz who is much brighter than I am, and he’ll be a millionaire when he’s an adult. No, I am not kidding. It is an interesting experience.

AN INTERESTING PROJECT

As an example of the work that I have been doing lately, I completed an interesting guitar-making commission for a client last year… that was unique enough to make us think about filming a ten-minute long YouTube clip. The initial commission was for three guitars that were identical in every way except for the choice of topwoods – which were to be European spruce, Sitka spruce, and cedar, respectively. The project soon morphed into a something more seriously academic: a methodical exploration that was intended to pin down and document the specific tonal differences that these woods carry.

Guitarist Michael Chapdelaine was brought on board to play, and record, and be filmed, playing these guitars. He edited our initially conceived short YouTube film and released it; you can view it here. Next, the videographer we hired wanted to expand the project and is presently applying for grants funds to finance a more ambitious documentary, for public television. This may or may not happen; we’ll see. In the meantime Michael Chapdelaine, on his own initiative, put out a CD featuring these three guitars. It is titled “The Somogyi Incident” and shows off the sounds of these three woods very nicely – particularly if played through a good quality sound system. Michael plays on each of the three guitars, and identifies which guitar is used for which track, and at the end plays the same song three times over, each with one of the guitars. It’s a brilliantly thought out production that highlights the tonal possibilities of these different woods – and the do produce audible differences. I recommend it to your attention.

I am now writing the whole experience and up as a report and an analysis of the relationship between specific wood species and their tonal possibilities. I also pause and reflect that, formerly, I would have simply made the guitar (or guitars), delivered it (or them), and that would have been it. But this new kind of thing has take time, planning, coordination, and effort… and this particular project is still not completed. It may take another year.

OTHER PROJECTS IN MY BUSY LIFE

I’m also writing my next book; actually, it’s likely to be a two-volume set just like my first one. That first set was published in 2009 and was well received; it has generated an enormous quantity of correspondence, requests, calling things to my attention and giving me information that I didn’t have before, telephone calls, corrections of typos — all in response to something that I said or didn’t say or didn’t say clearly enough. So much thinking and writing and new information have come out of these discussions that I noticed that I have enough material for another book project. All in all I am beginning to feel a little bit like a celebrity. . . but without the paparazzi, the notoriety, the autograph seekers, the toned body and suntan, and certainly without the money. Maybe a couple of racy centerfolds might help. (I might mention that one of my guitar-making colleagues had the idea of a nude guitarmakers’ calendar a few years ago, and put out the word for submissions. He failed to get twelve (my own submission was unfortunately wasted), so the project was abandoned. I think it was a silly idea, right up there with, say, calendars of nude photos of politicians, defense department subcontractors, therapists, jazz musicians, podiatrists, or city councilmembers.) I might also add that writing a book — any book — is endlessly time-consuming in its own right; my first books took me 8 years to write.

The main thing I am doing these days, besides teaching and making “Somogyi guitars” as people have gotten to know them, is making guitars that carry some rather extravagant ornamentation. I seem to be attracting clients who are older, more discerning and mature, and who have some money to spend, and who want something unique that they will leave to their children… rather than to go around buying and selling and swapping guitars as is often the case. This phenomenon did not exist when I began doing this work: handmade guitars have only relatively recently become “collectable”. Also, making unusual guitars is fun.

There are no limits to the kinds of inlays and ornamentation that one can put on or into a guitar. Art is forever and infinite, and many luthiers are doing artistic work of one kind or another. Rather few are copying my own artistic style, mostly because it’s so painstakingly time-consuming. I’m including three jpegs to give you an idea of some of my new projects. They are all hand-done wood inlay and wood carving: no paint, no decals, no laser work, no shortcuts.

A Systematic Comparison of Tonewoods

An interesting attempt to firm up the line between folklore and fact.

May, 2015

I want to tell you about a project I completed recently. In order to gain a better understanding of the tonal differences between cedar, European spruce, and Sitka spruce, I built three identical guitars that differed ONLY in the use of these soundboard woods. Backs and sides, gluing and assembly techniques, bracing, ornamentation, tuners, finish, and voicing were the same. (Technically, there was one difference besides the choice of topwood: the mosaic inlays on each of the instruments were of different colors; but I don’t think this affected sound in any way.)

The project began in 2012 when a client (who prefers to remain anonymous) bought a classical guitar from me. In the course of subsequent discussions we began to talk about a steel string guitar commission. This individual is genuinely interested in the ins and outs of guitars, guitar making, music, and sound; and he asked me a lot of questions and he patiently listened to my various answers. It eventually led to a conversation about the characteristic sound of one wood versus another… and how difficult it was to pin down those factors when comparing one maker’s work to another’s — or even two guitars built in different years that might or might not have structural or design differences significant enough to affect sound. There are too many building techniques and variables. So we began to consider the possibility of a multiple build that focused on keeping every variable — except for the choice of topwood — constant.

As far as we knew nothing like this had been done before. It would be a tricky challenge to keep everything else constant; it cannot be done in a factory setting because the ideal in that environment is dimensional consistency. And when it comes to sound, woods that are the same size/thickness/height do not predictably yield identical density, stiffness, or vibrational action. Especially if the woods are of different species.

So, the selection of materials and the construction of the soundboxes needed to be carried out with a hand, an eye, an ear, techniques, working conditions, back-and-side woods, voicing procedures, tap tones, etc. that promoted consistency. That was going to be my contribution. And after that, we would need a competent player with a sensitive touch and a discerning ear to evaluate the performance of such instruments. We both thought to ask Michael Chapdelaine, who is in our opinion second to none as a guitar player, to do this.

Finally, in order to make the resulting information available to others in a meaningful way, it seemed obvious that this ought to be written up and even accompanied by a videotape and high quality audio recording of the experience.

I am writing this up in the form of a two-part article that will appear as two chapters in my forthcoming book — with links to a website that will give access to both the visuals and the audio — so that anyone who is interested can read our comments and opinions of these guitars’ sounds, see how the tests were carried out, and also hear the guitars directly. It should be interesting.

I have been writing a second book. It is an outgrowth and continuation of my first two-volume work which is about the ins and outs of the contemporary guitar. I’m having trouble containing my writings to a single volume under a single umbrella title, though. Some of what I’ve been writing about is technical, and some is more personal, reflective, and biographic… and the material is altogether too wide-ranging to fit comfortably under one title. I mean, who wants to read about an author’s personal ups and downs in a how-to or method book? I’m pretty sure that titling this “a luthier’s further reflections on the guitar” or something like that will sound terminally boring. So, as with my last book project, this one will likely morph into a two-volume set. I’m thinking of titling these books as Guitar Making: Some of the Fine Points and A Luthier’s Life, respectively. Those titles seem more fitting than any one name I can think up.

Anyway, the prospect of getting a more scientifically-based handle on the contributions to sound of different topwoods has been an interesting one. I just thought I’d give you a heads-up on this one.

Sitka Spruce Top

Cedar Top

European Spruce Top

A Surprising Insight About Drums and Guitar Tops

March, 2015

I received the following letter from one of my friends. It’s good enough to share with others. He wrote:

Dear Erv,

I had a wonderful ah-hah! Moment that startled me greatly. I was so enthralled at the time that I didn’t think to take pictures, so I hope my words will be enough to give you an idea.

We went with some friends to the new strip-mall built outside of town. I went scavenging around the back, being that kind of dude that is always looking for treasures left behind, like some cargo-cult islander or a stranger in a strange land. Near the little tin hut that houses cardboard, later to be crushed and bundled, was a strange box. I opened it to get a look at what was inside. Well, it was something I had never seen before: a brown plastic disposable keg, made like a big coke bottle, but much larger, about a 4 to 5 gallon capacity, and with a heavy-duty cap & a siphon to the bottom. In volume, it was about the same as a dreadnaught acoustic. It had a very thin skin, but the cap was industrially tough.

Of course I didn’t know anything about it, and was frustrated like a chimp because I could not unscrew the cap. I knew that if I took it back to my wife and friends, who were eating & schmoozing, they would not want me to keep it. I started to finger-drum it like a drum. It had the most amazing acoustic response. I just could not believe my ears & hands because it literally bounced with my fingers and made the loudest sound I ever got from any plastic bottle of any size. It was a wonderful drum. And because this strong drum was so wonderful I was determined to keep it.

So I got out my pocket knife and began to disassemble the cap guards so that it would be able to be all mine, minus the siphon. As I began to cut the locks on the cap, a tremendous amount of CO2 gas began leaking out… not for just a few seconds, but for a long long time. I was surprised at what great pressure this plastic bottle was under. I had to cut about 9 plastic safety locks, and even though I had done two-thirds of them, and the cap got loose, more gas kept on coming out. It was under a lot of pressure, and that kept the skin of the plastic alive and responsive.

As soon as all the gas came out and I removed the siphon, the keg was all as loose as an old man’s scrotum after 3 hours in a steam room. In more polite terms, as loose as a big balloon that had once been tight but had all the helium (or air) taken out. At that moment I was sad that I had lost my drum, but happy to just discard the now flaccid jug in the garbage where it now belonged.

All of this led me to fantasize that perhaps, in an analogous way, the braced system of a guitar gives the skin a similar “personality” — as if it were (in its own way) “pressurized”. Perhaps there is a better word, but for an example of the difference between responsive & non-responsive, I could not imagine anything better.

I’m thinking of you, and enjoying your books, of course. Someday I will do things. Progress is my most important product, elusive as it may be.

Your garbage-bandit friend, Alan

Some Reflections On My Guitar Work

December, 2014

Steven Jay Gould is probably the most famous scientist, paleontologist, geologist, evolutionist, and scientific historian of our time. Well, even if he shares that distinction with scientific superstars Neil deGrasse Tyson (the most popular astrophysicist on television) and Steven Hawking (of Singularities and Black Holes fame), Gould is, in my opinion, the most broadly accessible. He has written many books that describe — in language that is easy to understand and that makes those subjects interesting — the natural world that preceded us. He even uses (brilliantly!) the game of baseball as a lens or prism through which to view, explain, and help us comprehend what might otherwise be considered obscure and arcane natural phenomena. All in all, Gould’s a cool dude — even though he died in 2002.

As far as evolutionary processes in general are concerned, authorities have generally taken the attitude that evolution has always been gradual and steady. You know: one step at a time. Gould, on the other hand, held that evolution was irregular and lumpy; millions-of-years-long stretches would occur in which nothing happened, and then, all of a sudden and for no apparent reason, a major leap or advance could be seen. This is certainly what the geological evidence has revealed to us. Gould called this process punctuated equilibrium, a concept he developed with colleague Niles Eldridge in 1972.

My guitars have, in their own modest way, followed this same path. That is to say, my guitars have evolved over the years; but they have not evolved at a steady pace. At times I’d have a new idea and I’d “put it into” a guitar. I do have an impulse to continually push the envelope (which is a phrase that has baffled me ever since I first heard it) and try something new. I tend to always wonder what is around the next corner; what would happen if I made something a bit thinner… or re-shaped a brace… Also, I’d be making guitars in my usual way… and keep on working like that… until I’d eventually discover or notice something, by accident, or have an insight into something that hadn’t jelled for me previously. And then, I am always looking for new ideas concerning artistry and decoration. Anyway, altogether, these kinds of alterations would result in a guitar that had a somewhat better look and free-er (freeer?) sound.

And, on the whole: how could any of this have been any different? The guitar itself has always been my best teacher. She has always revealed herself to me bit by bit, taking her own sweet time. I’ve been the student.

SOME OLDER GUITARS

Lately, some guitars of mine from the eighties and nineties have come on the market, and some of them have come to my shop for visits, checkups, or for a tweak or repair… or because the original owner was no longer playing guitar and wanted to see if I knew anyone who would want to buy their baby. And so on.

I have been pleasantly surprised in every instance by how well they’ve held up. Yes, they’ve had signs of wear and tear – if not in small scratches and such, then most notably in the look of the lacquered finish. (I used to lacquer my guitars rather than to French polish them. Mentioning this often opens the door to the lacquer-vs.-French-polish debate, but I’m not going into that now.) Lacquer has the capacity to separate from its underlayment, over time; and these guitars show small spots of lacquer separation/bubbling from the wood underneath. This is not in the least bit serious; it’s cosmetic and easily fixable; a guitar simply looks not-brand-new in this regard.

Happily, not one of the guitars that I’ve seen or heard about, from this period, has been mistreated: they seem to be structurally sound. And I’ve been pleasantly reminded of how far back I was using certain elements of decoration, or arrangements of bracing, that now seem to me like the most intelligent way to carry out this work.

One thing that I have noticed in these instruments is how my voicing work has evolved in the last twenty-five years: I’ve gotten bolder in wood removal. Everyone has always liked the sound of my guitars, and this was true even years ago. But my newer guitars give off more open tap tones. This is a result of the fact that I currently voice my guitars to a different point of physical/mechanical responsiveness than I used to. This is itself explained by the fact that I’ve allowed myself to push the envelope just a bit further, and a bit further, and a bit further, as far as my stopping-point in removing wood and manipulating physical structure are concerned. (Those of you who make guitars and voice them must also wonder, as I have done each time: what would happen if I shaved off another 1/32 of an inch off these braces, or sanded another ten thousandths of an inch off the top??? Well, I’ve traveled that road some.)

What this is all about is that I have long been aware of the adage (in Spanish guitar making, at least) that the best guitars are built on the cusp of disaster. That is, the best ones are built so that they are just able to hold together under the pull of the strings and the stresses of use. Anything less, and the guitar would be on the slippery slope toward falling apart; anything more, and the guitar would have less than its full voice. This is an intuitive concept that is central to my approach to making guitars. It also represents a metaphysical balancing act that, in its execution, is never the same for any two guitars. In any event, mostly, I’ve tried to sneak up on that balance point. I have overdone it and overstepped the mark a few times. And I can tell you with authority that these are useful experiences, because one has to have some idea of where to stop.

(Parenthetically, making a mistake isn’t the end of the world. I’ve learned a few things. One is that we’re talking about balancing acts, and not good guitar/bad guitar. If the braces are too small, then one can use lighter strings, or thin the top so that it is no longer underbraced for its stiffness. Or one can add bracing mass (or even entire braces!) through the soundhole to re-establish a previous balance point; it’s tricky, but not impossible. Finally, and not least importantly: even if I don’t like the sound of a particular guitar… someone else will eventually come along who does like it. Basically, if you can learn something from a given project it will not have been a complete failure.)

Anyway, I’ve been impressed by my older work. It’s held up well. When I act as an agent in re-selling an older guitar for a client, I show the guitar to prospective clients, talk with them about it, and along with that offer to do some retro-voicing. This is always an option with any guitar, by the way. And I do feel, when it comes to my guitars, that there is always a little bit of a responsibility for me to lead a client to an instrument that has the best possible sound… even though that is invariably a subjective quality. So I don’t push. I merely offer to do that. I do charge for this work, of course. But considering the selling price of these instruments it’s a modest one. I need to underline that I am in no way saying that there’s anything wrong with any of my older instruments; they merely have the response of older guitars of mine. And this procedure simply introduces the option of helping the sound, if not the look and feel, of these older Somogyi guitars to be more in line with my current work.

Guitar Voicing: Different Strokes for Different Folks? – [2/2]

August, 2014

One reason that the bringing out of a guitar’s best voice is the main challenge for steel string guitar makers today is that there is no agreed-on standard to aim for. This is so for two reasons. First of all, most of the makers of this instrument have never heard a steel string guitar with a really great voice of its own. Therefore their idea of great sound is frequently based in hearsay instead of direct experience, combined with a lifelong experience of having conventionally overbuilt guitars as their models. It is understandable that they’d knowingly or unknowingly copy these models – which, despite the fact that their own guitars might look distinctive, they are really copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of the same essential concept/blueprint – in the belief that their job is done when such an instrument is faithfully replicated and strung up. I say these things without intending to offend anyone, but because this is the territory as I see it.

The second reason is that whereas classic guitars are all pretty much the same size and shape, steel string guitars come in a wide variety of shape, size, and depth. This complicates the acoustic part of the work. It does so in the same way that a marksman is always called on to do the same work in shooting, but his emphasis will vary slightly as his various targets are placed at different distances away. Same skills, somewhat different factors.

Classical guitar makers, in my opinion, have more of a clue as to the sounds that better guitars are capable of: they have more of an agreed-on standard for what the Holy Grail of sound is (it is largely thought of as having the power, clarity, projection, and otherwise operatic voice that one would expect from a concert guitar). They also have had access to musicians with better-trained ears and better guitars, as well as other examples of more optimally-realized modern and historical models to study, listen to, and emulate. In comparison, the most familiar and widely accepted steel string guitar is the one that you can always plug into an amp or play into a microphone.

What I said above about “getting the most out of a steel string guitar’s potential” probably sounds too simplified and vague to be very useful. But consider the matter in this way: an OM model guitar and a Dreadnought differ in a number of specific ways: woods, scale lengths, body depth, possibly stringing, etc. How is one to factor these differences in? The best thing that a luthier can do is to make a really good OM and/or a really good Dreadnought; each will have its own voice because it will have brought different things to the table, blueprint-wise and tone-wise, from the very beginning. To repeat what I said above, the guitar maker’s task is to bring those qualities fully out without overbuilding, underbuilding, or misbuilding. And in the case of guitar makers just as much as with marksmen and cooks, it takes time and experience to learn to do the work professionally and well.

Guitar Voicing: Different Strokes for Different Folks? – [1/2]

August, 2014

I was recently in a conversation with a client during which he asked whether I voice my guitars differently depending on whether they are OM models, or Modified Dreadnoughts, or Jumbos, or 00s, or whether I make accommodations within a given model depending on whether it will be played in standard or open tuning. It’s not a bad question, and it’s a topic that’s come up more than once. The assumption seems to be that something has to be done differently because these guitars are different sizes and shapes and uses, and will of course have different sounds. How could one recipe voicing approach possibly work for all of them?

My short answer is no, I don’t have different voicing tricks or techniques for my various guitar models. Not really. There may be nuances and difference of emphasis here and there, of course, but the procedures are basically the same in all cases: to progressively and systematically lighten the structure so that the voice of the guitar stops being choked by too much wood, mass, and stiffness and begins to open up. This is, in fact, no more nor less than every serious guitar maker’s challenge.

Chances are high that every luthier you will ever have a conversation with will give you his own perfectly-good-sounding reasons for whatever he does to his guitars’ woods in order to tease the best sounds out of them. These accounts will undoubtedly surprise you with their variety. And some of them are certain to be on the right track. Nevertheless, I do NOT believe that the chief task of these luthiers is to apply this or that particular recipe procedure to get “this kind” of sound out of one model guitar and “that kind” of sound out of another. The various guitar models and types, together with their individual factors of size, depth, wood selection, stringing, etc. set most of the tonal possibilities for what such a soundbox will be capable of. The luthier’s task is, simply, to get any soundbox to fully release its tonal potential. Period. Just as a cook cannot make any food taste better than what it can be, a soundbox of a given size and volume cannot do better than its best. Short of that end result one simply achieves… well… something less than that.