I will not be performing the score THIS IS IT any more. Don't be fooled by my calendar, which refers to all improvising gigs (well, there are only three left) as THIS IS IT. I am sick of the piece and have a feeling it is somewhere between condescending and outright stupid. It is something I feel funny/uncomfortable asking improvisers I know and respect to play, and therefore it is something I should not ask anyone to play. I don't agree with it anymore, I don't think, and I would like to be free to improvise with whomever without the specter of this piece looming above our heads. I think it generally ends up invalidating or trivializing its own performance, which is not something I want to be doing, at least not anymore. I really like improvising, and I think the way that group improvisation instantly creates community is really exciting - in fact, it is this very thing that I like about music. I don't care about virtuosity, I care about community. I don't want to trivialize it. Even if I am being overly negative and the piece does have some validity or positive value, John Baldessari does it better:

More happy thoughts from the Chicago Reader about Friday night's show at Elastic Arts! See article in its original context, or read a cut & paste below:

First of all, happy new year! 2010 has already been a busy year for me, starting with a New Year's Eve performance with Jason Ajemian & the High Life and White Blue Yellow and Clouds, Matt Bauder's doo-woop project, then a recording session on the 3rd and 4th with the High Life and another double-bill with the HL and White Blue Yellow and Clouds. I'm staying in Chicago until the 16th, visiting with my family and playing a few more shows, then heading through Toronto and Montreal to finish off the final leg of ROAD TRIP: drawing a perimeter of the united states.

The Northwest was great - did a little mini-tour with Wilson Shook, Carol Genetti, and Aaron Zarzutzki, travelling from Portland to Seattle and Minneapolis with them, played some really fun shows. Wilson and Aaron drove out with me from Seattle to Minneapolis, which was a hell of a trek; Carol wisely flew. As Wilson pointed out, a lot of people told me/us that we were crazy, idiots, or crazy idiots for driving from Seattle to Chicago in the winter, but really - why not?

It's been raining for a week. I haven't taken many pictures - a view of a state park in Oregon, one of Catboy:

He's obviously not as into JM Coetzee as I am...

Greetings from historic Mesilla, New Mexico! According to Wikipedia, Mesilla was the capital of the Confederate Territory of Arizona during the Civil War. Now it is home to tourist shops, mostly, it seems – if anybody wants any Southwestern tchotchkes, let me know!

Fort Worth-based photographer and graphic artist Kat Shinamoto has posted some pictures from Friday night's show in Dallas...

MARFA

Just got here - everything is closed, aside from the coffee shop I'm sitting at. It's possible/probable that I haven't done enough exploring, though. In a classic failure of foresight, neglected to look to see where the Chinati Foundation is or when it is open - turns out, it is about 500 yards from where I'm sitting (good), but only open for guided tours at 10AM Wed - Sun (bad). Oops. I had a nice drive here, though, through the Glass Mountains and some nice little mountain towns - Marathon, Alpine, and Marfa. Never seen sandy mountains like this - also saw tumbleweed earlier, which was exciting. I should probably have taken some pictures on my drive down here, which was absolutely beautiful - but taking pictures while driving seems like a terrible idea and stopping to take a picture also often seems like a terrible idea. I am also not very good at taking pictures, or at least not nearly good enough to capture anything worthwhile about where I was. Plus I'm pretty sure if you do a google image search for, say, "Alpine TX," the results are pretty good.