"The point behind all this fuss about pianos: the MUSIC they make and we, with our own two hands, can become at least for a few moments, immortal. For you see, all the shouting over political and religious issues will never accomplish what a single, simple piece of exquisite piano music will accomplish."

--- from Grand Obsession, Perri Knize

Which of course made me think of the passage from T.S. Eliot's The Dry Salvages where he writes ~

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.

ferocity and fragility.

MP3 files (the song had to be uploaded in three parts) available for streaming/download on my reverbnation page. Or playable from the widget at the top of the column on the right ...

---

The idea.

Finally. It is finished. I posted the intro a while ago. But this is finally the whole thing. A song in three parts fourteen minutes long. A piano. An orchestra. A choir. A band. A voice. And now it is finished. This is just a demo. This is just the beginning.

[is there still hope for us?]

[is there still time for us?]

we torture ourselves

we have all this fear

we have all this rage

we have lost ourselves

through our course of action

our ignorance sustained

what have we learned

what have we to say

of how

of how

we have lost our way

and we

and we have lost our way

we must be the ones to save us from ourselves while there is still time

there is still hope for us

(if we learn)

there is still hope for us

(if we see)

there is still hope for us

The voice singing to the rising crescendo above the orchestra and choir as it builds and builds and builds and builds and builds there is still time for us.

...

cheers

the most incredible place of all.

So I have 'published' my first book (titled This Is The Most Incredible Place Of All). Weird. I'm not sure if it's really considered publishing. It's mostly a Christmas gift for family (sorry to spoil the surprise for any fam that reads this). Maybe I should say I have 'printed' my first book.

Anyways–it will be available in an 8x10 landscape softcover as well as a larger 11x13 landscape hardcover with dust jacket. The two versions will be exactly identical in content, but the larger format allows for both–well–larger photographs as well as more white space so everything does not seem so crammed on each spread. I'm making the larger one for myself really, but I wanted to have the smaller, more affordable softcover option for anyone who actually wants to order the book (the hardcover version will also be available in a week or so once I finish reformatting the design).

---

So this evening I picked up the first two that I had ordered (as a test) off the porch (and I bought two at a time cos I had purchased a pretty awesome Blurb Groupon - $20 for $60 worth of books - and it doesn't matter which city's Groupon site you use since it's an online deal - I bought mine from Colorado Springs or something). Opened the package and took a look–and despite being hard to impress on just about everything ... I was impressed. As in really impressed. The image quality was absolutely stellar. And the colour was dead-on to how I had meticulously retouched it. It took some basic color management (for those that don't understand color management, Blurb does a really good job of explaining it and how to set it up on their site) and I had to call them out on a flaw in their workflow (which involved neglecting a conversion to their printers' profile when making the PDF file from InDesign because without that conversion and thus no images tagged with profiles the spread previews looked really horrible online)–but once I ironed all that out I uploaded a final PDF and waited to see how a book would turn out.

Like I said–I am really impressed. I'd like to fix the spine of the softcover, but Blurb doesn't give as good of specs for the softcover variable width spine as it does for the fixed hardcover spine (they do provide a calculator but the safety margin on either side of the spine in my book's case was equal to the spine itself so they're clearly giving themselves some room to not be exact getting the spine copy lined up on the, well, spine) and the two books are assembled with the title on the spine aligning differently on each copy. Also, my only other nitpick is one of the two books was scored (this is a good thing) on the cover near the spine to make it easier to open. Not sure why the other one was not.

But overall I am blown away at the quality. And for a preview of the book, Blurb allows anyone to scroll through select spreads (of my choosing - didn't want to give it all away) with a little Flash player (and from there you can view fullscreen, see the book info and even order a copy if you're interested) -

This Is The Most Incredible Place Of All by Thom Schroeder | Make Your Own Book

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80 glossy pages
13 tri-tone black and white photographs
22 colour photographs
12 essays
Selected quotes

Available in 8x10" landscape heavyweight glossy softcover ($39.95) and 11x13" landscape hardcover with glossy dust jacket ($89.95)

Sad story.

Joseph Puryear - a photographer and climber and Washington native - recently died while climbing in a remote part of the Himalayan Range in Tibet.

When asked earlier where his climbing heart lay, Puryear's reply echoed in every ounce my own sentiment ~

"It’s hard not to say my own home mountains the Cascades, but really my heart lies in all alpine travel and exploration off the beaten path and away from civilization."

...

(the photo is one of his most popular taken high on the Infinite Spur on Mt. Foraker six thousand feet above the glacier below)