The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

What Happened and different music

We left Brooklyn suddenly. We returned for the images last week.
The real estate bubble (we're across the street from the Barclay
arena) seems to have burst and I imagine another landscape of
despair and abandonment. We left the building on Dean Street
almost a year ago. It's still there, deteriorating, sad. Here's
a brief report:

http://www.alansondheim.org/varied01.jpg
Mail forwarding note fading, still attached to the door.
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied02.jpg
Our names still on the doorbells.
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied05.jpg
Electric unpaid for months, there are fines.
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied18.jpg
Nearby a magnificent fungus in decay mode.
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied23.jpg
Black pigeon next to the police station.
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied29.jpg
Our building old, front. Air-conditioners ripped out,
windows opened to the elements, are there squatters?
We repaired the roof before every major storm. Now...
http://www.alansondheim.org/varied31.jpg
The side. We had the top floor, our curtains still
there.
http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis01.jpg
Praying mantis on the side of the building, perhaps
praying for us.
http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis10.jpg
Over the street, the 911 memorial shines brightly,
killing birds on migration routes.
http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis12.jpg
The fungus, slightly earlier.
http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis18.jpg
And again, the color of blood. And I try to sleep,
thinking of beheadings and rapes, and feel lost
outside the city, and then think, how trivial is
that feeling, at least I'm alive, and it doesn't
help.
http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis22.jpg
Across the street, the Barclay center, cause of
it all; the new building is modular, the pieces
don't fit together, construction's stopped.

This is most likely of interest only to myself, my friends.
Displacement is almost always traumatic but this felt violent.
We protested and fought the takeover of the neighborhood but
lost. Our taxes were going up. We were forced out of Brooklyn.
I don't remember my name.

Some music on a small gimri without a string loop:
http://www.alansondheim.org/gimri.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/gimri2.mp3
Always a lost elegy.

Apologies for all of this, enjoy the different music.

My Qing qin (most likely, mid-19th-century or earlier)

for Stephen Dydo

http://www.alansondheim.org/illustrated.png

http://www.alansondheim.org/qingqin1.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/qingqin2.mp3

Stephen restored my qin, it sounds amazing.
Recorded with an H4n Zoom beneath it, no effects.
Peaceful.