Pre-Production, Demystified

How does an artist build a body of work in the pre-production stage? It’s the end of the Chinese New Year holidays and people keep asking me what I’ve been up to during my time off. My standard answer is the truth: I’ve been focused on the pre-production stage of my new album project. My non-musician friends often follow that…   …read more.

We Didn’t Leave!

I see now, after several years, that it’s been some time since I uploaded this blog in any manner that wasn’t pandemic-related. My friends and family have stopped asking that oft-heard question: “When are you moving back?” Back in 2017, I was gearing up for a summer of 2018 move. Then, I started to freak out. I couldn’t imagine leaving…   …read more.

Corona Update #4 (Months!) from Beijing

It’s one week into May and I’m sitting here typing this in Beijing, on my quiet couch, marveling at how nearly half a year has sped by during a time of global freeze. Life as we knew it stopped more than four months ago, but “time waits for no man” (or virus). We always have time. Time is all we…   …read more.

Pet Play Date! (Borrow A Dog!)

When fears around pets transferring the disease were finally squashed by health experts, a friend’s offer to “loan us” his dog was something I finally took him up on. My kids were thrilled. His dog is a gentle 13-year old granny who was very sweet house guest. But let’s back up for a second: for the last two months, we’ve…   …read more.

Lockdown: Imposition or Opportunity?

COVID-19 just “got real” in the rest of the world, but we are sitting over here in China as the spring unfolds, bringing with it the warmth of an imminent unfurling of our lives. It’s been 7+ weeks of lockdown and “intense” seems like a mild word for the experience. Many of you are feeling that fear and panic right…   …read more.

10 Tips to Surviving the COVID-19 Crazy: From Beijing

1. Obsess About Numbers: Watch the stats every day and analyze how some charts and different from others, how most governments are controlling the numbers, and how freedom of information is a joke. Hyperventilate a little when certain benchmarks are exceeded, like the newly surpassed 100,000 global cases of this virus. Have several websites bookmarked so that you can compare…   …read more.

Corona Update #3 from Beijing

“Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I…   …read more.

Corona Update #2 from Beijing

Last night, I felt like I had been infected… …by the panic. I started to sweat. I started to wonder what chaos is on its way and what it’s going to look like. The virus is coming for us. There’s a wave about to fold over Beijing and we will be trapped here under it, suffocating. How do I get…   …read more.

Corona Update from Beijing

Jan 31st, 2020 I have received so many worried messages from friends that I thought perhaps a proper blog was in order. I’ll give you a glimpse of my life here in Beijing especially now that the Corona Virus (capital letters intentional) has taken over as the omnipotent leader to whom all must bow… Okay, there it is. My opinion…   …read more.

Home For Christmas

I’m sitting alone at a table in a nearly deserted restaurant in a mall on Christmas Eve Day watching my kids play in a play area designed for toddlers. They’re innovating the toys and being too loud, but there’s almost no one here and I’m just watching them with an absence much like misty nostalgia, which is really just a…   …read more.

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