9. The Weightless Bubble Machine

You unclip a brass window-lock shaped like an oyster mushroom.

With a gentle push, two windowpanes swivel out above a courtyard, cobblestoned and dented with raindrops.

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Chestnut bookcases line the walls of this reading room, their shelves decorated with star-globes and twisty specimens of driftwood. An unlacquered piano stands shoulder’s height.

[ Shimmy a step to your right, to try out some notes befitting the current mood ] —

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Clouds enter. Newly invited, they swarm the window opening, jostling for pole position.

(A distant voice continues mid-convo, rising and falling with your awareness of it.)

Iridescent bubbles float through the air one after another as if by languid river current. Since the procession passes above your head, you glance up . . . to discover that they follow an invisible highway through a sharp left turn towards the open window — received there by throngs of clouds, conspiratorial flair and so on.

You walk across the room to look for their source. How are these bubbles being made? Here appears to be a most astonishing contraption, translucent and hovering.

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// Side B //

Thank you for tuning in — that was “pitter-patter against the drawing room window”, excerpted from a piano journal last Sunday.

So much music I compose for myself emerges melancholy, or at least contemplative, or at least embracing of aloneness (comprising exuberance). Could be a reason for that:

That’s from a story-thread using “Periscope Forest” as a diving board to showcase how a song evolves — in uncanny similarity to how I think I’ve evolved over the years. Live concert clips from Taipei, Berlin, and Brooklyn are included, illustrating how the composition has morphed from this solo piano number —

— to this trio rendition with additional sections added, where and why:

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Hello from London this week! A stunning concert from Madison Cunningham, Jacob Collier, and Chris Thile in grand collaboration last Thursday finds me still levitating in wonder.

I love how Jacob and Chris bring unfettered joy to music-sharing, but I am continually awestruck by Madison’s connection to the truth, accessible as a ton o’ bricks in a live setting but already clear-as-north-star in recorded form. My favorite single of hers is “Broken Harvest”:

🌾