Trailed by Paper

Tea: White Grapefruit

Music: Black Tape for a Blue Girl, "Across a Thousand Blades"

Time: Night.

I am surrounded by business cards, gallery price lists with scrawled email addresses, coffee-stained notebooks also bearing same. At nine o'clock, there's a pile on the floor, sorted only in the sense that I have weeded out everything that's already in my electronic address book. At eleven o'clock, a stack of cards filched from the pile. The information on these is to be entered into said address book, after which the cards are moved to a stack at one o'clock. Once all the information is secure, they're recycled. (I'd love to keep them all, but I need the storage space for tea -- which, unlike email contacts, cannot be stored online.)

Each time I think, "There. I've caught up on my correspondence," I find I haven't -- not because people keep writing to me, but because there are those to whom I have not yet written.

A card, used as a bookmark, falls from between the pages in a collection of ghost stories. Worse still, a jacket pocket yields a scrap with a name and an @ symbol -- and no context. Who is this person? Where did I meet him? Is she an artist or an editor? Am I supposed to be sending images for a possible photo show?

As Charlie Brown would say, "AAAAAUGGH!"

I know people who are expert networkers. I envy them that gift. Oh, I'm fine at meeting people. Keeping track of all the threads after that? (Pause for rueful chuckle.) Not so much ... yet.

I'm working on it, though. Patterns, though long-held, can be altered -- and in this case, must be.

So, back to the pile.

I'm going to need some more tea ...

Freebies for You, Food for the Hungry

Tea: Mandarin Green

Music: Mellodog, "Zombie Beach"

Time: Night.

We've all seen the banner ads: "FREE $25 GIFT CARD TO (INSERT CHAIN RESTAURANT HERE)! CLICK NOW!"

Of course, there's always the tiny asterisked disclaimer, something along the lines of:

*must complete offers (translation: jump through hoops and buy stuff) for eligibility

And, of course, it's printed in something that blends neatly into the background color of the ad. Thanks, but no.

But as we also know, there's legit free stuff out there on the web. No, this isn't another plug for Hulu, Horror Masters or Download.com, although all three are incredibly cool. This one's for Walletpop's "Fantastic Freebies" section.

Tonight's haul: One free movie rental, one free wall calendar and -- coolest of all -- one free tote bag. (Hey, at least one grocery store here cuts a nickel off the total for using your own bag. I'm not proud. I'll take it.)

For two of the offers -- the bag and the calendar -- I didn't even have to sign up for email alerts.

Best of all? Walletpop has a heart as well as a nose for bargains. One of their links isn't to free stuff for yourself; it's to freerice.com -- which, as with Kiva and Heifer International, I'm always happy to promote.

I hope Walletpop keeps Free Rice in heavy rotation. It would be a good thing, I think, if people "paid" for each freebie by making enough correct clicks to rack up 500 grains of rice. And if you get on a roll, by all means keep going.

Beats Solitaire any day.

Elsewhens and Otherwheres

Tea: Caramel Lapsang

Music: The W's, "The Devil is Bad"

Time: Night.

I like all sorts of visual art -- painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, fiber art, metalwork, you name it.

Within each medium, I like a lot of different styles -- from the hyper-realist to the utterly abstract.

But there is something about art that evokes a sense of familiar place -- and right now, in this moment (and knowing it could change tomorrow), that's what sticks with me most from the First Friday outing of two nights ago.

I'll go in reverse chronological order here. We'll begin at a later stop: Barkley (formerly the TWA headquarters), which hosted an opening for Harriet Bigham. She lives in the Crown Center area, and much of her work reflects that. I worked in that part of the city for a decade, and still find myself there at times. So in her paintings, I see places I've not merely passed by, but bonded with in some way. And somewhere inside, I'm there again.

Now we backtrack to Unit 5 Gallery, which is now featuring paintings by Richard Mattson. There's a good deal of work featuring the Flint Hills, which is well-traveled territory for me and mine -- and a lot depicting the Brookside/South Plaza area.

That includes Loose Park, a place dear to me for a number of reasons. One is a stand of evergreens, on the west side of the park (near the Narnia Lamppost, about which I'll write more later). I have been there in each season of the year, and each time I step under those trees I feel as though I'm in a sanctuary. (Snow heightens the effect, but nothing diminishes it.)

One of Mattson's paintings is of those trees. So, of course, that was the one I kept coming back to.

I'm a "try new things" person, sometimes to a fault. But at the same time, it can be good to go back to touchstone places -- even when they're hanging on a wall in 2-D.

Hello, I must be going

Tea: Wild Berry Green

Music: Phil Collins, "Through These Walls"

Time: Night.

I'm still going through my notes on the art I saw and the artists I encountered last night at First Friday. I covered a lot of ground, making sure I saw (a) everyone who sent me an invitation to an opening and (b) everyone who will be included in the art stories on my "to write" list.

That kept me on the move, although I'm not complaining about the walking (a little more than two miles, all told). It was cool but not bitter, and being able to park and rove saved gas.

The only bad thing was that I had to breeze through some of the galleries more quickly than I would have liked, and I had to cut several conversations short to move on to the next must-see location.

On the other hand, having to be so many places in not a lot of time kept me from glomming onto anyone for an extended time. It's easy enough to do -- I find artists and their work fascinating (probably a good thing for an arts writer), and wow, do I love to talk to people. (I did get the "Don't Talk to Strangers" memo, but I blew my nose on it.) But First Fridays are for the artists, who need to be able to circulate through their openings, talking to potential buyers and making other contacts. Having someone attached at the hip can't help.

And, to borrow a phrase from several songs on a single theme, how can people miss me if I never go away?

More tomorrow on the art itself. It's the night that keeps on giving.

Running Late

Tea: Chocolate Cherry

Music: The Beatles, "Come Together"

Time: Almost midnight.

It's been a long First Friday and I need to crash. I'm going to beg a 24-hour indulgence before I start sorting it all into words.

For now, let's just say I missed the Arts Incubator for the first time in 14 months -- but found a lot of new places. Much more of this, and I'm going to need to be twins. (No jokes about us both being evil.)

'Night ...

Back in Bible Black

Tea: Mandarin Green with Honey

Music: Robert Fripp, "Starlight I"

Time: Night.

As you might have noticed, I like mismatching musical references. If I quote a song in the post title, there's no way I'm using that song as the soundtrack for the post. This is sort of an unusual situation, though.

Tonight's title is an AC/DC - King Crimson mashup. Why? Eh. Just felt like it. Did you know, by the way, that Crimson's "Starless" -- whence comes the lyrical line "Starless and Bible black" -- isn't on the Starless and Bible Black album? It's on the subsequent album, Red. And to add to the confusion, "Starless and Bible Black" is also the title of an instrumental on Starless and Bible Black -- and sounds nothing at all like "Starless."

Sometimes I am a bear of very little brain, and the ways of prog confuse me.

All of which, to keep the musical theme going, is just so much vamping until the caffeine from a third steeping of Mandarin Green (It's been a long day.) kicks in, and some sort of groove takes shape.

Fripp recorded "Starlight I" during a performance in St. Louis. I wish I could have been there. Anyone who's ever been in Crimson is on my "to see before I die" list, but Fripp and Adrian Belew co-head it.

The solo piece incorporates the melody from the guitar intro to "Starless," which was performed live well before it went onto vinyl as the closing track of Red. (That line was originally played by violinist David Cross, who quit the band between Starless and Bible Black and Red. He came back as a session player on the latter album, but by then Fripp had made the intro line his own.)

(Yes, I like trivia, if you hadn't figured that out by now.)

Anyway ... I wish I could have heard this live, but part of me wonders if I would have been disappointed. Would it have been enough to hear those opening notes -- and then not hear the rest of "Starless," which is one of my favorite songs of any genre? Could I have appreciated "Starlight I" for its own sake, right out of the gate?

I don't know. I suppose I would have been ambivalent -- multivalent, even.

Yes, I'd love to hear "Starless" live -- ideally with the 1974 lineup of Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford and guests -- all former members -- Cross, Mel Collins and Ian McDonald (part of King Crimson's original lineup and later a cofounder of Foreigner.) But there's no chance of that happening. Still, I have to give props to Fripp for not playing the laurels card, for continuing to move ahead and make new music that actually sounds new.

I wouldn't want my writing or photographic style to be frozen in time. They have grown, through solo work and collaboration, and -- Lord willing, as they say, and the creek don't rise -- they will continue to do so for years to come. I can't, without being a hypocrite, expect my own work to evolve while demanding that my favorite artists stagnate.

Sure, the paychecks are probably better for nostalgia acts. They're safe. But so long as I can keep a roof over my head and food on the table, I'd much rather keep evolving. And someday, if I'm able to drop in a snippet of something I did more than 30 years ago -- and it still resonates with people -- well, how cool would that be?

Crank it to Eleven and Twist Off the Knob

Tea: Blood Orange with Ginger

Music: GVSU New Music Ensemble, 4'33"

Time: Night.

Sorry, I know I've been away for a few days. Contrary to what you may think, I haven't been hiding under a rock during the election homestretch. My guy didn't win, and I still think we've committed the political equivalent of putting a 14-year-old with a learner's permit behind the wheel of a Formula One car, but the sun still came up this morning and I'm willing to give the new guy a chance. I'll pass on the Kool-Aid, though.

I've been away because, quite frankly, clickety-clackety sounds are just a bit much for me right now. Something nasty has settled into my left ear and jaw, and it won't go away. As a result, most sounds are -- well, painful.

I have discovered a new appreciation for one particular piece of music, however.

I kind of like this version of John Cage's classic. Yes, I know it was written for piano, as performed here by Armand Fuchs, but the ensemble treatment works really well for me, too. That's the beauty of the composition: It lends itself to covers in all sorts of genres and is especially appropriate for boy bands, polka ensembles, death metal quartets and yodelers.

Its simplicity also makes it the perfect piece for beginners. I know I relished hearing my next-door neighbor's rap group rehearse it, back when I lived in a townhouse with tissue-paper walls, and I have suggested it to several garage bands in the neighborhood. A friend of mine who flies frequently would appreciate it, I'm sure, if more parents taught their children to hum the piece over and over -- for the duration of the trips, if possible.

At present, 4'33" is my favorite piece of music. I listen to it whenever possible. In fact, I've just discovered a ukulele version that completely blows me away. The toy piano interpretation is daring but suffers from rough transitions between movements. This guy's guitar version isn't bad to listen to, but it's clear he's not all that engaged in the piece. Fortunately, there's a Guitar Hero track that should make a great practice tool.)

If you're feeling edgy, here's a remix (although it's been shortened by more than a minute, probably to make it more radio-friendly). It's got a great beat, and you can dance to it in any step you choose. (No pogo for me, though. All that bouncing ... ow.)

Okay, I'm out. I'm going to try something. My son gave me a miniature didgeridoo when he came back from Australia this past summer, and I'm betting 4'33" will sound killer on that. Who knows? Maybe I'll do the second movement on sleigh bells and the third on a zither.

Just let the neighbors try to tell me to turn it down. I'm feeling like a rebel tonight. I may do an encore on rainstick and mountain dulcimer, just to show them. Heck ... I may play it all night. Not like I can sleep, right?