Here is how to keep yourself happy and cool all of a summer’s day: 

Buy a bag of lemons, oranges, grape­fruits, and a bunch of limes and squeeze them into a bowl. (Limes are 25 for a dollar at Pioneer! Get them while they’re hot) 

Combine the juice with a batch of simple syrup (2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, boiled); if you’re feeling fancy you can throw some inter­est­ing herbs into this. Once I used Holy Basil. 

Stir in a couple tray­fulls of iced cubes. 

If possible, serve in labo­ra­tory glassware.

Photo by Adi Shiderman.

Multi­me­dia evidence has been flooding in lately from my shows with Metrop­o­lis Ensemble, which you can view/hear over at their exem­plary website. I’ve also posted the MP3 for Para­phrase on Themes of Brian Eno for download. 

Happy Inde­pen­dence Day from Charlie Ives, everyone: 

I got my first bad review a few days ago, of Shy and Mighty. My reaction was initially one of outrage: “how could this guy I’ve never heard of not like my music?” To make matters worse, the one track he singled out as worth­while— Flir­ta­tion Avenue— is the one that‘s kind of purposely “bad”. (No account­ing for taste, I suppose.) After receiv­ing a few condo­lences from friends who’d seen the writeup, I began to see the issue more philo­soph­i­cally. In fact, why would I want entirely good reviews? If one’s music is a little bit polar­iz­ing, isn’t that a good thing? My god, I have friends who don’t even like Brahms, so what hope do I have?