April rains are upon
us. Once again, thanks to global warming, the April rains come in
May.
I’ve been out between
downpours churning up the earth so the grass and other green stuff will spread
about the property around our little log cabin here in Staunton, VA, in the Shenandoah
Valley. It’s that time of the year or growth, and that means not only for
the trees, shrubs and ground cover but for me too.
These days I’ve found
myself turning my attention more fully to playing banjo, organizing properly
for banjo lessons, and focusing on some banjo projects I have on my woodworking
agenda in my little basement shop.
I’ve been putting a
lot on my Youtube library, including multiple “takes” of various tunes. Hopefully each “take” represents an
incremental advance in style and capability.
I’ve been doing a
good bit of banjo writing and blogging for a variety of platforms.
I
try to pick about one writing project that focuses on profiling a local banjo
player, and I’ve stuck to a pace of one per year which I work on for Banjo Newsletter. My last project was “Interview with Cutch Tuttle,” Banjo Newsletter, August 2013, pp. 16 – 20. https://banjonews.com/2013-08/cutch_tuttle.html.
Now I’m preparing to write about Paul Bock, who has played banjo in and
around northern Virginia since the early 1950s, in the company of a bunch of
other distinguished players including Bill
Rouse in Maryland, the legendary Bill Emerson, Delbert Purkey, and Johnnie
Whisnant, the cantankerous old-timer who had begun playing in the 1930s.
I’ve
also been participating in the Banjo Hangout Tune of the Week drill, and I’ve
taken the lead on several of these including:
Ø
“Walking Up
Georgia Row,” Tune of the Week, 6
September 2013, Banjo Hangout, Clawhammer and Old-Time Styles, http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/269990
Ø
“Over the
Waterfall,” co-authored with Stefan Curl, Tune
of the Week, 3 January 2014, Banjo Hangout, Clawhammer and Old-Time Styles,
http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/27700
Ø
“ ‘Round the
Horn,” Tune of the Week, 4 April
2014, Banjo Hangout, Clawhammer and Old-Time Styles, http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/282659
Ø
“Come Back
Boys and Let’s Feed the Horses, Tune of
the Week, 9 May 2014, Banjo Hangout, Clawhammer and Old-Time Styles,
forthcoming.
I’m
contemplating doing a Tune of the Week essay on two other tunes, Molly Put the Kettle
On, and Ragtime Annie. It’s a challenge
that let’s me see how quickly I can pick up a tune, what kinds of tunes are
complex and difficult for me, and how various learning approaches work relative
to one another and to various different types of tunes. It has made me think a lot more about
teaching banjo, not to mention learning music.
And
it has connected me to a slice of the population on Banjo Hangout active in
promoting old time music. We’re only
connected by this slim, ephemeral tether of electrons that constitute the
Hangout but the friendships that blossom through these links to BHO have great
depth and meaning. I’ve been able to put
my tunes in front of several of these people, these new “electronic” friends,
and get interesting comments, advice and guidance on how to get better sound
from the banjo, and how to produce better music.
I’ve done some
gigging out and about town, and I’m “booked” to do a bunch more – simple
antique store type vendor settings, really just background noise for such
events – between now and October. I found another fiddler friend and
we’re supposed to be focusing on some duet work. I’m contemplating
setting up a running weekday jam here in our now refinished basement – with
such improved acoustics.
I’ve
played with an Irish session musician during the last week of April at two
“Bridge Day” gigs here in Staunton -- commemorating the re-opening of the Sears
Hill Bridge.
Part of the growing
is sloughing off elements of the old. I
just boxed up the last of my personal papers for the Vietnam Center at Texas
Tech University. I sent them the bulk of those boxes (about 6 big boxes
in my memory) about two years ago but “spring cleaning” revealed some caches of
photos and files and other memorabilia I wanted to put in the hands of the
Center. I sent about 30 boxes of Vietnamese language books I collected
during a long government career to the Southeast Asia Library at the University
of Seattle, a career focused entirely on Southeast Asia, and specifically on
Vietnam.
During that long 30 year
run, I served ten years in the Central Intelligence Agency, including a tour in
Bangkok, Thailand, attached to the Indochina Operations Group. I served for 20 years as a Southeast Asian
specialist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. From September 2002 to August 2008 I was the
Director for Southeast Asia, Office of the Secretary of Defense, managing a
team of civilian defense professionals and military officers responsible for
security and defense relations for mainland and maritime Southeast Asia. I wrote four books on contemporary Vietnam
including Defense Relations Between
The United States And Vietnam: The Process Of Normalization, 1977-2003, (North Carolina, McFarland, 2005).
After
my retirement in October 2010, I served
as an Adjunct Professor in the Asian Studies Program, Mary Baldwin College, in
Staunton, VA. I was an Adjunct Senior
Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National
Strategic Studies, National Defense University for 2010. In 2012 I taught a course on contemporary
Vietnam as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science, James
Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA. And
I have been a Senior Advisor on Southeast Asian Affairs for Avascent
International, a global advisory and consulting firm working in partnership
with the Avascent Group and a Senior Advisor on Southeast Asia for the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA).
In the first few
months of 2014 I continued some contract writing work. I’ve written two or three recent pieces on
Vietnam politics, Vietnam security and US-Vietnam relations, but apart from
those I’m not aiming at doing anything more. I have lined out a project
aimed at recounting my years in government, more for my two children than for
any public consumption, so they have a better sense of why I did what I
did.
I’ve been asked to read a Vietnamese language dissertation prepared for
the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam on U.S.-Viet defense
relations, possibly the first such Ph.D. thesis written by a Vietnamese MFA
type seeking higher education credentials. Flatteringly, it features a
positive focus on my last book on this subject. Interestingly, it assumes
the format of a typical American university dissertation – ponderous dissection
of the topic, long and laborious assessment of existing scholarly literature,
and a torturous attempt to fit events and reality into a theoretical
framework. Aside from that, I’m glad to say that Vietnamese scholarship,
both "official" and academic, is blossoming, with more younger scholars
or aspiring PhDs beginning to turn their attention to defense related topics.
My growth now, so
to speak, is focused on doing other thing, things connected with banjo music,
teaching banjo, repairing old instruments, and coaxing others on their first
steps toward playing music on the banjo.
I am doing well and
enjoying April/May showers . We’re really getting rain here. The
hounds aren’t happy about the wet morning walks, but they are much shorter
walks than our normal 5-6 milers, so they are grateful for the way Mother
Nature is enforcing a rest period during the rains. And I’m happy to see, in the first light of
dawn, exactly how much is really growing out there under all this rain.
Take care.
Play hard.
Lew
No comments:
Post a Comment