Birthday Festschrift: Second Decade

We have a lot more to choose from in the 10-20 age range. Since it’s Thanksgiving, I’ll start with….

Art

Another favorite of my mom’s. I believe it was drawn on an inner-office envelope from my dad’s work.

Music

I wrote a lot of music during this time period because my parents got me a small Casio electronic keyboard, and my dad helped me hook it up to our tape deck to record from it (kids, that’s what MIDI used to look like). Most of that stuff, according to my horn teacher, Dennis Heeter, “sounded like Vangelis.” He wasn’t wrong. And when I get those tracks scraped off my old mixtapes and turned into MP4s, I’ll update this post with one or two. This piece, however, is a bit different in that I wrote it for French Horn, which I started playing when I was 10 and continued to play into my 20s (even professionally for a bit toward the end, in ensemble and orchestral gigs). You’re looking at part 1 of a duet here called “Three Sketches.” I performed it with my buddy Cori at Hornswoggle, the annual workshop we went to at Hummingbird Music Camp in the Jemez Mountains.

Poetry

I only have a little training in poetic forms. I enjoy writing poetry, but only when I have a really intense emotion or experience to convey that I don’t think will translate into a story. Or, when I have an assignment for high-school English, as was the case here with “Winter Sunset.” This one remains a nostalgic favorite, and it’s good for the season.

A thousand years of light are told

In this moment’s story, blazing gold,

Of rooftops ancient crested white,

Of day that lies in wait for night

Like a snowy mane for sun grown old.

A sudden, secret shade of light

Between the day and dusk–now bright,

Now dim–it sets the pine a-fire

Makes snow-capped poplar a burning spire

And snares the golden clouds mid-flight

This song of light on twilit lyre

Will soon be sung by an eastern choir

Though this day’s ashes soon grow cold

The night can never keep its hold

On winter sun and phoenix fire.

Rap

Sorry, had to get this one in here even though I guess it’s technically poetry (?). But in honor of my best friends from high school coming for the holiday–Malena and Michael–I had to include one of our Shakespeare raps from British Lit our senior year. It’s how we studied for our exams on the major plays (and Mrs. Harris was indulgent enough to let us perform them for the class to wild applause widespread bemusement). This one is the one we did for MacBeth. To get the right rhythm and tone here it helps to imagine the opening rap to Fresh Prince of BelAir. Or anything by the Beastie Boys.

We had a big test on “that Scottish play”
Never was there so fair and foul a day
It started with a battle; the battle was grand
It made Macbeth a hero all over Scotland
We know this ’cause a sergeant, bleeding unto death
Came and made a lengthy speech all about Macbeth

Three witches on a heath–Macbeth and Banquo
Come trotting along and the witches say “Yo!”
“Macbeth will be Cawdor, and then he’ll be King,
But all of Banquo’s children will be the same thing”
Duncan’s coming over, so Macbeth starts plotting
But he’s far from home, so his horse starts trotting
He makes it to his castle, his lady has his letter
Macbeth doesn’t want to kill; his lady says, “You’d better”

Now there’s a murder, and the killer wore plaid
So Malcolm and Donalbain say, “Hey Dad!”
“We’ve gotta be running or we’re gonna get blamed”
So Malcolm splits the country and the other does the same.
Macbeth is King; Banquo knows he’s a sinner
So Macbeth knocks him off, but his ghost comes to dinner
Mac’s worried now, so he goes to the witches
And they dance and they chant ’round things drowned in ditches
Three apparitions tell Macbeth he’s secure
But he’ll kill Macduff anyway, just to be sure.

But Macduff flees to England; now the country’s empty
Except for his wife (and his son with a degree)
So Macbeth kills them and that makes three
Murders, that is, now I think you’ll agree
That Macbeth is scum; Malcolm and Macduff
Waste a scene crying that enough is enough
Then they get old Seward and they head for Dunsinane
Where the Queen is sleepwalking, and her husband’s insane
They dress like trees and they march up the hill
And Mac wastes some time calling his messenger ill
Then the Queen kills herself; this is too much to handle
But Mac manages to make a speech about a brief candle
He pulls himself together and he goes out to fight
Then Macduff comes along and Macbeth sees the light
“I’m not born of woman”  “Yes you are!” “No I’m not!”
Mac knows he’s been betrayed, and he doesn’t feel so hot.

Needless to say, Macbeth is soon gone
After all the mistakes, death got the right one
So here ends a tale of vaulting ambition
Next time around…we read the simplified edition.

Story

During this decade I mostly handwrote stories in notebooks and then copied them out into bound books for my family and friends for their birthdays, etc. I wrote my first complete novel during this decade, too: Dragonstone, which I sent to the publisher of my favorite fantasy novel at the time (Greenwood Books) and got a very nice rejection letter. What I’ve included here is the text of a story I also illustrated and submitted to a competition for high school writers called Written & Illustrated By (I don’t have the illustrated version scanned in yet, but don’t worry–the illustrations weren’t very good); it’s called “When Clouds Cry,” and it comes from relatively early in the decade, when I was 13 or 14, I think. I’ve also included a story I wrote for my friend Anneka later in the decade, maybe around the age of 17 or 18? It’s called “Kai” (sorry for the formatting if you decide to try to read it–it’s challenging preserving old stories through as many software and hardware changes as I’ve been through in my lifetime). I wrote Annie a birthday story and sent it to her every year for years–well into our 20s, and even into our 30s, off and on. It’s been a nice tradition.