Japan & My Embouchure

There we are, in a nutshell. On a throne, with our feet in a pile of shit.

The vistas of unremitting destruction shake me to the core and my dreams are taken up with loved ones rushing away from white clouds of poison. Amid this miasma of empathy mixed with paranoia, the act of blowing the trumpet is completely self-indulgent and also necessary.

I brew and stew about catastrophes, but obsess about my embouchure. It's escapist, but imperative. It's not art "in the face of something" (You'd know that if you heard me). It's simply one other act of attempted self-definition which, in the face of crises around the world, is simply narcissism writ small.

Jazz and humor still remain central, but the gravity of recent days weighs upon us all, as well it should.