Summer, here, and we prep for travel

 Well, well, well (again), here we are once more. Me and my imaginary readers. 

Wait. I know you're real and I know how grateful I am for you. Let me pop over to my online Gratefulness Journal to say that.

Back.

My boy Colin is in town from his hometown of choice, Missoula Montana. I am so happy to be in the same room, car, or Nashville venue with this centered, talented, and kind human being. I miss him every day when I am not, but I am happy with his decision to live in that beautiful place. I remember when I lived in Anchorage lo those many years ago I hardly spoke and never saw either of my parents for over 5 years. Thank god that's not the case with either of my magic children. Here's me and Colin at table in our Nations Nashville home:

scott and colin at Chez Merrique, courtesy of Tim Buell

And a pic of both our children, smooching on their beautiful mom, on our paradisial back porch:

Colin, and Miranda Lee smooching mom on Mothers Day

Why do I blog, still, after so long? It should be obvious: blogging provides a consistent wandering ripple throughout my years and helps me clear my head and honor my thoughts and those of others. Look back on some posts, from 2005 on, and see for yourself. Take a look at a short story, my novel (available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback), my novella, or a post about the future of education, my bailiwick for nearly 30 years, an original song, or jump around for a poem or two. It's all there. As my dear sis-in-law Amy explains to my cherished wife, "It's his book."

That's a simplification, of course, as the blog contains most of my books, but I like it. Many of my links have gone dead, as platforms used for photo sharing, news sites, and other blogs have crapped out and been nullified; but I likely won't take up the goal of revising anything from 18 years ago to present. I prefer to be here now. It's my thing. But a perusal of past posts will reveal some trends and share some good past, and may be of historical use to the alien researchers who follow us. 

These past couple weeks I've been working on an abstract that I am as of yesterday calling finished. Why do so many of these efforts result in color studies and shapes that are full of motion and energy? I don't know, really, but I'm calling this one "terminal ascension," and it may be whatever it may be to you. I see things and suggestions of events and natural phenomena in this piece. My mentor, Charles Brindley, hasn't seen this, as I completed it at home. There is a lot underneath it, and a concentration on tensions of both texture and color, and I had fun with the palette knives and the brushes. I have promised myself to seek some softness and peace in my next abstract, but here is 

"terminal ascension", photo of 16x20 acrylic painting by scott merrick

On the more realistic side, a study of dusk at Cheatham Lake, my preferred local camping waterside, is underway. Charles has helped with this one with cutting insights on contrast and underpainting, along with color mixing suggestions. It's not finished but it is sneaking up on it, a process that is undercut every time I see something new in the iPhoto I took that delicious evening. I want to express calm here. Maybe that's the thing aforementioned: I work for expressing peace in my landscapes and my left-behind work, like "on the inside" and "rocky's ridge from rocky's ridge." Anyway, definitely a WIP, here is 

"dusk @ cheatham lake", photo of a work in progress, acrylics on 16x20 canvas by scott merrick

I'll end with a little humorousity (sic). My dear love-of-my-life was messing around in my studio closet, rearranging things as she will, and this painting on up-cycled scrap treated lumber (a medium I may well revisit) was maybe precariously propped up on the door trip above the closet door. I'm not sure how, but it decided to drop from its perch right on her noggin, falling to the floor. I'm not sure if it broke on her head or on the floor, but break it did. This one doesn't have a name, as is sometimes my wont, but, anyway, I propped it up on the floor and in between the two halves I placed a curio I purchased in a thrift store years ago, an incense burner just tacky enough to have caught my eye. I sort of like the staging and may do some media work to make it a permanent piece. What should I call it?

"untitled", acrylics on treated scrap lumber, by scott merrick

We are journeying overseas in a couple of weeks, for a couple of weeks. We'll be in Spain excepting for one brief outing into France near San Sebastian, staying in only 4 overnight hotels over a period of 17 days, and hopping from one to the other via train and plain. The trip was planned through consultations with the (highly recommended) RH Travel Design here in Nashville, and we are soooooo looking forward to it. It's all upscale accommodations and travel, and we both are expecting, literally, the trip of a lifetime. There are LOTS of food, wine, cultural, and art experiences built in along the way, along with ample down time to explore or just relax together. I'll be documenting, most likely, but don't hold me to that, and don't expect anything while it's underway. I plan to be here now, there, in my most present ways. Think good thoughts about safe travel for us--we are all in. 

For all the slum bag lurker thieves out there, our good friends Matt and Anitra will be staying here with our killer dog Watson, and the NCA alarm system will be in use. Don't even think about it.

To everyone else, regardless of your politics or any other enlightened or misguided beliefs, I hope your days will be good and that you will remain safe and well and alive as we roll around the center of the planet and circle around the good ol' sun.

songs for myself and you--Teddy Confetti's newest EP!

The amazing Teddy has written, perfomed, recorded, engineered, and now released everything comprising this 6 piece thing of beauty, including tailoriing the one sample you may recognize. Listen and enjoy. Please click the cover pic, listen, love, and share on your platform of choice…https://bit.ly/sfyam

@WXPN

@IndieMusicNash

The Wait is OVER! Get "Colin Merrick" Today!

Hey all,

Colin Merrick

Just to share with you, the fantastic music that I've heard grow from acoustic guitar and vocal, to added rich harmonies, to additional electronic and percussive instrumentation, over the course of the last year and become something I listen to at least five times a week, well, it's HERE, the eponymous debut CD from my boy, my son, my Colin.You can listen to it now too! Finally, he's YOUR Colin, too!

If  you give it a listen you'll love it, and all 5 songs just get better with repeated playings. Fantastic production by David Spencer Music (with Colin's help) and beautiful lyrical writing by Colin (with David's help) throughout. The ballad "This Town" features Colin's beautiful sister, Miranda, with spot-on sensitive harmony and a hauntingly lovely cello line by Cara Fox. There are musical treats in every song, certainly enhanced by the final masters by famed Brad Blackwood for Euphonic Masters. Blackwood won a Grammy in 2012 for his engineering work on a chart-blaster Alison Kraus and Union Station single.

I have no favorite song: Each one is my favorite! Give it a listen and a download. We thank you in advance and we say "you're welcome" as well! If you're local and want your own copy, it'll be at Grimey's tomorrow or the next day and I have some on me at the more than fair price of $6 or $10 for 2. If you're not and want a CD, CDBaby has them for $7 and their download is $5. Fb me and we'll work out a time to pick up...

Colin's a "Creep"

Sharing this from last night's performance at Nashville Street Theatre Company, as Colin opened for What Up, English, four stellar lads performing original rock in very entertaining ways.

Miranda had just driven in from a vacation jaunt to Ohio and was suffering a bronchial infection that limited her voice, so Colin had to readjust his setlist on short notice for a solo performance, but his sister couldn't help herself--she bravely joined in on Colin's final song for a beautiful rendition of Deftone's "Sextape."

I loved that closer, but I have to say my fave song of the night was Colin's arrangement and performance of Radiohead's 1992 "Creep." Indeed. Enjoy:

Happy Birthday Colin!

After a wild holiday break, visited by fire, flood, power outage due to falling trees, and illness-- blessed by visiting loved ones and their two golden retrievers who joined our own minor league menagerie of one big black dog and one odd little cat--we had a lovely on-demand (by the birthday boy) dinner last night. We started with a salad with baby leaf lettuce, goats' cheese, and apples. The main course was a lovely "from scratch" fettucini alfredo with chicken marsala and peas with baby onions. Miranda had spent the afternoon baking a wonderful Red Velvet sheet cake, and we added in some vanilla ice cream for dessert. Just before dessert, Colin opened his few presents, culminating in a little box wrapped up with earplugs. Thanks to friend Jon Elliot and his sweet wife Loren, Colin opened the box and found two tickets to the January ACDC concert January 31st at the Sommet Center here in Nashville. Yay!

I'm writing this on the Sunday night before we head back to school and work tomorrow. It's been a memorable break...

Fire? The resident in the Wessex Towers 507 left to take a friend to the airport and, by report, something fell over onto his stovetop, turning it on and igniting adjacent newspapers. The fire and smoke grew heavy enough to activate the new sprinkler system, which ran full-blast, emptying the pool into the building (Wessex Towers is at the top of one of the highest points in Nashville, and last summer an expensive sprinkler system, tied to the pool, was installed). The new system worked, but apparently no one knew how to turn it off. By the time my mother-in-law, who lives in 207, called, pleading for us to come up with all our towels and sheets to help stem the inch of water seeping from the ceiling into her condominium, soaking antique rugs and hardwood floors, the damage was irreversible--Flood. So much for the Christmas Eve dinner at their place!

The next day, Lee Ann and Amy were cooking for the relocated dinner, and Jim and I were wrappng presents in the basement garage, blasting ACDC's "Black Ice" out of my computer in my adjacent office. Suddenly the lights surged, flashed, and failed. I looked out the garage door windows and saw beautiful fireworks floating down to the ground from the sky.

A neighbor's dead tree had achieved ultimate unbalance in the equation of rotting root system, weight, soil erosion, and angle and had fallen down to the ground, smack across the street, taking with it power lines, cable lines, telephone lines, and all the power to the neighborhood. The fireworks were from the transformer at the end of our driveway, exploding with its 14,000 volts of energy.

Long story short, we ended up relocating to TGI Fridays for dinner. That was our choice partly because that's where my lovely Lee Ann and I met, oh, so many years ago, me slinging drinks and she waiting tables without a notepad. It was a good, well, okay dinner and we got home to candlelight present wrapping until the lights finally reignighted, thanks to the efforts of the Nashville Electric Service workers, hard at it on Christmas Eve, thanks to gravity, weather, and nature.

Christmas morning was wonderful, as our picture album will verify. Now we're off to the new year and I'm hoping for a nice few (relatively) uneventful weeks!



Oh! Read a great article in the Nashville Tennessean newspaper about the play that Colin's in, Shakeapeare's Richard III! It runs February 15 through February 1 at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre!

Quick-flic! "Without You" video from April's Cabaret Night

Well, using DVDx to rip the video from the DVD sent to our family from the school, then editing the resulting .avi file with Windows Movie Maker took a while, but even though the video is iffy after all the compressions it's pretty tasty. Have at it:

It's a relatively long download, so I'll just link to it here:

A Personal Post: My Stellar Children!

I don't do "personal" on my blog much, or at least beyond the fact that I take my teaching and my learning very personally ;)...

However, last night at the annual USN High School Cabaret Night my two children, Colin and Miranda, banded together onstage (in a rare inclusion of a 6th grader into a High School performance evening) to sing a song they wrote together. I gotta share. Their performance was introduced by a skit about the songwriting performed by the evening's spectacularly funny trio of emcees; so Miranda takes the opportunity to clear the air just before 12 year old Colin hits the first chord to start the song. When he does, a funny thing happens.

I'm sooo proud of my urchins, pleased with Colin's progress in voice guitar (he's more accomplished at 12 than I was at 16!) and, as always, proud and amazed at my daughter's voice. Her instrument is her voice, and she plays a mean piano as well. Here's a promo picture of Miranda, flanked by two of our talented HS Chorus' young men:

Listen to "Without You," by Colin Merrick and Miranda Merrick, unveiled in public at University School the evenin' of April 3, 2008. Enjoy!

Miranda also performed a favorite of mine, Stardust, accompanied by Ben Easton on grand piano, then led the chorus into a beautiful rendition of Somewhere, from West Side Story. My audio may not be the best in the world, but my daughter is. Not that I'm biased. Enjoy...

Happy 60th Birthday to My Brother Ed!!!

Today is the 60th birthday of my brother Ed, of whom I'm justifiably quite proud. Ed's a successful cutting-edge industrial safety consultant with a Masters degree in Metallurgical Engineering, and founder/CEO of the Augustus Group (website build in progress).

My son Colin and our cat Ruby, along with a (posthumous) guest star who's one of our faves, just concocted a little happy birthday song for me bro'.

Listen hear (sic).

May you have manymanymany more, brother mine!