“Does Time Tell Us?” by Recteur Schmitt

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Back in the late summer of 1996, my older daughter, Chloe, age three, and I were home, just the two of us on a Saturday night. My wife and Chloe’s mom, Melinda (who was pregnant with our younger daughter, Ella, at the time), had gone out with some friends. Together, Chloe and I made ourselves a casual dinner and now, the dishes cleaned up, it was nearing her bedtime.

At Chloe’s request, I had gotten out the art supplies and she was busy coloring, cutting paper, painting, and whatever else struck her artistic fancy at three-years-old. I was taken by the seriousness with which she was engaged, although it also struck me that part of her seriousness was to keep herself busy so maybe she would get to stay up past her bedtime. Watching her, all of these things kind of converged in my mind and this idea of who controls time came to me.

We use the expression “learn to tell time” to refer to being able to read a clock. But I had the inspiration that there was another meaning for that expression, that if we tried, we might want “to tell time” to ease up on us. I mean it’s Saturday night, your lovely little three-year-old is engaged in an art project. Do you really need to put her to bed because the clock says it’s 8pm? Who’s telling who what to do?

Do we tell time or does time tell us?

I made note of that expression and let Chloe stay up past her bedtime. After finally putting her to bed, I wrote a poem that ended with that line and referenced the evening we had had together. Over the next nearly 20 years, the poem was stashed in a binder where I kept things like it, songs, poems, ideas. Soon before Chloe graduated from college in 2015, I came across it while sifting through the binder in one of my frequent forays down memory lane. I asked an artist friend (Fish Astronaut) to illustrate the poem, and I presented the hand-printed illustrated version to her as a graduation gift (click on the image above, that’s it, to see it enlarged and read the original poem).

In the ensuing nine years, the poem would find its way back into my mind. Or, more accurately, the idea of being the master of my time or time being the master of me would find its way back into my mind. The concept of mindfulness, Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now,” and even expressions like “there’s no time like the present” would rattle around.

One night not loo long ago, I decided to see if I could make the poem into a song lyric, a song that would make the point about being the master of our time rather than the other way around with an added implication that maybe we could all learn something from little kids. The rewrite came fairly easily. Then this month, April of 2024, after I discovered the Suno AI music generator, I inputted my song lyric and the prompt “An eastern European gypsy punk ballad with accordion and power chords, sung fast.” The song here is the result. For the music video, I added pictures of Chloe from in and around the time she was three.

Postscript – I’ve named the “band” performing this song “Recteur Schmitt” for reasons I will explain at a different time. For now, understand that Recteur Schmitt is the name of one of the stops on Line 2 of the tramway in Nantes, France. Find an entire album of Recteur Schmitt songs on the usual platforms – Spotify, Amazon Music & Apple Music. If you want to buy a copy of the album for $1.00, go to Bandcamp and know you will have made my day.

DOES TIME TELL US?

Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.
You sit undisturbed, absorbed in the concentration of being three.
Your bedtime comes and goes, now what becomes of me?

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

I buried a wish in the sandbox when I was eight.
And lost more than my friends when they could not relate.
Now I hold your tiny hand and I’m back in the right place,
I thank the clock each time I see your face.

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

They mismanage the time they save for themselves,
while little kids listen for fire trucks, fairies, and elves.
You and me, we are the secret no one understands,
colored paper meeting scissors, manipulated by little hands.

Hour glasses to measure time, alarm clocks to wake us up.
Too much sand is passing through while morning is too abrupt.
Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

“The Trick of Your Trade” – Songwriting, Spring Break, & A.I.

Published on by Andy Smallman1 Comment

It’s spring break for me at Spring Academy where I’m the principal (yeah, a lot has happened since I last posted). I don’t want to talk about that right now, I want to talk about songwriting and AI.

I recently learned of Suno, an Artificial Intelligence music generator. To make use of it is pretty simple. Once you log in, you give it a few simple instructions and it will create a song for you. Want to write a country-tinged love song for your garbage collector, Suno’s got you covered.

For me, as much as I appreciate (love may be too strong) the people who collect our garbage, I’m not really interested in writing them songs of any kind. I am interested in taking many of the dozens of song lyrics I’ve written over the last 40 years and having them made into actual songs. I’ve had a couple of songwriting partners in the past but those fizzled out and the number of songs we created you could count on two hands. With Suno, I have a musical partner and a band wrapped into one. And after many weekend, evening, and now spring break hours of well-considered prompts and then some editing, Suno and I have collaborated on over 50 songs.

It’s a glorious feeling for me, tapping into a side of my history and creativity that doesn’t get a lot of attention these days. And with it being spring break, the timing is perfect.

[Click to Enlarge]
As an example, I present this song. I wrote the song lyric in late 1986 / early 1987 when I was a sappy 23-year-old undergraduate at The Evergreen State College. I was in what I wanted to be a serious romantic relationship but my girlfriend was interested in something less committed. Looking back, I can’t really blame her. It was college, after all.

Interestingly, this song was written in longhand on notebook paper, pages that I’ve kept all these years (click the photo above to have it enlarged). It started out as a poem so you might see some poetic structure to the verses. Once I added the chorus, it started to seem more like a song to me, although the rhyme structure of the verses (or lack thereof) is unusual for a pop song. My AI prompt was “Bouncy folky pop. Male singer. Brushed drums. Pedal steel guitar. Musical hooks.” There are a couple of errors with the output and the video generated by Suno misses the opening lyrics. But the falsetto-style chorus with the hook is genuinely beautiful to my listening ear, giving the song even more meaning for me than just the words on paper. Even 37 years later!

Oh, back in 1987 I called this “Trick or Treat” and even inputted it that way to Suno. But after listening to Suno’s output, “The Trick of Your Trade” sounded like a better title. Listen by clicking on the YouTube play button below and follow along with the lyrics, below that.

THE TRICK OF YOUR TRADE

(VERSE):
I’m so sorry, why are you feeling this way?
When I hold you close you smile.
When I tell you why you push me away and tell me not to lie.
Am I supposed to be thinking, I don’t know.
But I’m thinking and have never felt this dumb before.

(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.

(VERSE)
You say you’re sorry you drew me into this.
When both of us were drawn.
When both of us drew out that kiss, don’t say it was a lie.
Am I supposed to be sinking, I don’t know.
But I’m sinking and I’ve never felt this low before.

(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.

(BRIDGE):
You said you want my feelings to hide but this costume is not the right size.
It’s hard for me to cover up when I want to take off your disguise.

(VERSE):
I’m so sorry, I’m drinking fermented tears.
I cradle the bottle and cry.
I unscrew the cap, swallow my fears, am I living a lie?
Am I supposed to be drinking, I don’t know.
But I’m drinking and I’ve never been this thirsty before.

(CHORUS):
’cause your heart’s playing trick or treat, it’s dressed for the masquerade.
I knocked on your door, tasted the treat, but it’s the trick of your trade.

“You Have Been the Victim of a Random Act of Kindness”

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Since the 1990’s I’ve been promoting the importance of ordinary acts of kindness by offering classes, making suggestions via a newsletter, and writing kindness-related articles. A couple of my favorite kindness activities come from when I was facilitating an in-person intergenerational kindness class in a Seattle retirement community in the late 1990’s. The class consisted of elderly residents of the Fred Lind Manor and students from the Puget Sound Community School (PSCS). We met weekly to chat about kindness and, more importantly, to complete a group action.

Early in the term, the students had the idea of delivering flowers to some of the retirement community residents who had a difficult time leaving campus. A florist nearby offered to donate day-old flowers to the cause and we went door-to-door in the community delivering bouquets. One resident, a man, cried upon receiving a bouquet, telling us he’d never been given flowers before. The florist was so generous, a kindness unto itself, that we had a lot of extra flowers. The PSCS students decided to surprise Melinda at the PSCS office and delivered a bouquet to her.

The next week, one of the teens suggested we go to a nearby coffee house and anonymously pay for the coffee of a random stranger, someone who arrives at the counter, orders, only to find their drink has been paid for, a kindness act familiar to most people interested in the subject. I was a little nervous about this idea as I hadn’t taken any of the elders outside of the retirement community before. But the enthusiasm was palpable and, frankly, contagious. I checked with the Activities Coordinator, a person I greatly admired, pretty sure she wouldn’t stop us.

So off we went, walking about five blocks to a nearby coffee house. There were nine of us who went, four teens, four elders, and me. We pooled our pocket change as we walked, planning who would say what, and trying to figure out how we all could inconspicuously sit in the coffee house in order to see our unknown recipient receive our intended kindness.

Can you picture it, four teens, four elders, and me trying to be inconspicuous in a small shop? It was probably 2:30 in the afternoon, too, an odd time to be out.

In we went and up to the counter our chosen representatives went, a teen and an elder, with a couple of dollars in loose change. They tried explaining the idea to the barista, who at first didn’t understand. But after a second or third explanation, she got it and broke into a huge smile. I still remember exactly what she was supposed to say to the recipient of our kindness upon presentation of the drink:

“You have been the victim of a random act of kindness.”

Meanwhile, the rest of us had tried fitting around a small table as far away from the counter as possible but still within eyesight of it. The two rejoined us and we didn’t have long to wait. In walked a person and up to the counter she went. Around our table we tried hard not to stare, each of us individually excited, the collective excitement seeming to scream out our presence.

It went down just as you’d expect it to go down, the person ordered her drink, was told it had been paid for and that she was a kindness “victim.” At first she didn’t seem to understand, then took a second to see if it was some kind of joke. Assured it was legit, she accepted her drink and with a warm smile she walked out of the store. All of this took less than two minutes.

Upon her exit, we exploded with happiness. The barista waved to us and we walked out, united in what felt to us was an act of superhero proportions. The elders seemed younger and the teens wiser. It wasn’t four teens, four elders, and me any more. It was nine people.

We floated back to the reality of the retirement community.

The Longacres Mile, My Dad, and Me

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In 1974, my dad was transferred from the city of my birth, Omaha, to the Seattle area by Brach Candy, his employer. I sometimes say to people in the northwest, if you’ve heard of Brach Candy, my dad likely had something to do with your awareness.

Legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker after winning the 1978 Longacres Mile – photo credit: me!!
What also transferred from the midwest to the northwest was my dad’s love for horse racing. Not far from SeaTac Airport was a racetrack called Longacres. I’ve written about this place many times as it has significant memories for me and they can all be traced to my dad.

As a kid, I watched him pore over the Racing Form, interpreting those little numbers into something that pitted his intellect against that of others. The intellectual challenge of this practice, what’s called handicapping, has always had a great appeal to me. In fact, beginning in high school and beyond as I made a career in education, I’ve often said that the best standardized test question I ever encountered is this:

“Pick the winner from a field of ten going six furlongs for a claiming price of $6250.”

The showcase race event of every Longacres season was the Longacres Mile. Taking place in August, it often brought the best horses on the west coast to Seattle, along with top jockeys and trainers. In 1978, my brother Scott & I stood at the finish line all day so I could be in place to take a picture of the finish and maybe get a photo of Willie Shoemaker. I got both as you can see here.

Longacres Mile Finish 1978 – photo credit: me!!
The Longacres Mile was an important event for my dad and me for reasons that I hope have become obvious. We shared the joy of Trooper Seven winning the Mile in back-to-back years, 1980 and 1981, the first horse to ever do so. I’ve embedded the video of the 1981 race below, as called by legendary track announcer Gary Henson (who, incidentally, became a friend of mine when I worked at Longacres in 1988).

Longacres closed in 1992 but racing stayed alive with the opening of Emerald Downs in 1996. And I was more than pleased to see the new track officials honor the old traditions by keeping the Longacres Mile alive. In August each year, the famed race has taken place. As you might have watched in the video embedded in my blog post three posts back, my dad predicted the winner of the 2005 Mile for the local and national publications he wrote for. The winner, No Giveaway, went off at 60-1.

This is especially poignant for me today because a few weeks before my dad died, we had put on our calendars today’s date. Yes, it’s August, Yes, the Longacres Mile was run today at Emerald Downs. I thought about going by myself but instead went over to help my mom with some organizing in advance of my dad’s upcoming memorial.

Of additional poignance for me is this – The last (and final) time I took my dad to the racetrack was a year ago for the Longacres Mile.

Broken Heart Syndrome

Published on by Andy Smallman1 Comment

First, let me preface this post by saying that my mom is fine and after a night in the hospital is back home, resting comfortably.

Everybody good? Okay, then…

My mom with Remy last week, a few days after my dad had died.
Yesterday morning, my brothers & I received a text from our mom that said, “Having a bad morning physically after a bad night. Think it’s a food reaction but it isn’t going away. I really don’t want to call 911.  Keep you posted.”

I immediately called her and after she described chest pains and tightness of breath, we agreed she should call 911. I had just arrived at work so I quickly packed up my stuff and returned to my car. It was going to be a slow drive from Northgate to Mercer Island at 8:30am so I knew I had better get going. Fortunately, my new co-workers were again understanding and said they had me covered.

As I was crossing the I-90 Floating Bridge from Seattle to Mercer Island, my cell phone rang and the caller ID indicated it was my mom calling. It wasn’t. It was a paramedic who said, “Your mom is having a heart attack. Instead of coming to her place, meet us at the ER at Overlake Hospital.”

Simple enough to do physically. A little more challenging mentally.

Upon arriving at the ER, I saw four or five people attending to my mom, inserting lines, changing her into a hospital gown, speaking with reassuring tones, but acting with the utmost urgency. Within a couple of minutes, a cardiologist arrived who explained to us both, “Okay, you’re having a heart attack and what we need to do is called an angiogram.”

A coronary ultrasound.
As he’s explaining this, another person arrives with consent paperwork and a pen. He is holding the form over my mom as the cardiologist continued, “We’re going to insert a probe into an artery, either through your wrist or your groin, to see what’s happening in your heart. There is a 1 in 1000 chance of something bad happening during this procedure, a stroke, or a heart attack, or the artery may break.”

Let me say that that’s a lot to take in. But he wasn’t done, “If we discover a blockage, we’ll be able to do an angioplasty and hopefully clear it. But there is a 1 in 100 chance of something bad happening during this procedure. But it’s much riskier to do nothing.”

My mom turned to me, “What do you think I should do?”

“I think you should have the procedure.”

At that point, the pen was placed in her hand and she signed the form. Almost immediately, her gurney was moved from the ER to wherever they would do this procedure. I hurried along after her, walk-jogging with the cardiologist, carrying my mom’s purse. The cardiologist repeated some things and told me she was in good hands, then took me to a waiting room with these words, “While the procedure is pretty quick, please don’t assume the worst if I’m not back out to update you for a little while. No news is good news.”

I sat down, updated my brothers and others via text, and wondered what a person is supposed to think about at times like these.

Just before my brother, Scott, arrived, a different cardiologist came out and invited me to sit down (is that good or bad when you’re invited to sit down?). She said, “We didn’t find any blockages; in fact, I hope I have the coronary arteries your mom has when I’m 90.”

Exhale.

Back in her apartment today having lunch.
“What we think your mom is experiencing is something called ‘Broken Heart Syndrome.’ It’s when a person has recently experienced a significant loss or some other kind of trauma and it impacts their heart. We’re going to admit her for observation but otherwise I think she’ll be just fine. Expect one or two nights in the hospital.”

It turned out to be one night.

About Broken Heart Syndrome, learn more at the Mayo Clinic website. It’s a pretty interesting read.

Continuing to Process My Dad’s Death

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On Friday last week, I attended a meeting at the school I’m now working for (I’m the new principal at Spring Academy in North Seattle – want more detail, ask). While still in France, I had informed the leadership team that my dad had died and that I might need some extra time away than I had already been granted for Melinda’s and my France trip. They’ve been extraordinarily generous with time off, given my status as a new employee. And they responded to the announcement of my dad’s death with continued generosity – “Take as much time as you need.”

Anyway, there was a meeting of the leadership team on Friday and I thought it was important for me to attend. It turns out that they weren’t expecting me so it was a surprise when I walked in. I first saw the retiring principal, Frank, who greeted me with warmth and kindness. He’d read the two previous posts I’ve made here about my dad and after the first sent me a very supportive message. Having read the second, the one with the video of my Dad at the local racetrack, Frank said, “I didn’t know you had a connection to horse racing.”

My dad and me at Emerald Downs in the late 90’s.
“Yeah,” I said, “It was a major connection for my dad and me. I even worked for The Daily Racing Form on multiple occasions back in the 80’s & 90’s.”

“My father-in-law was a trainer at Longacres back then,” Frank said. “Maybe you heard of him. His name was Marion Smith.”

“You’re kidding me? Smitty, Million Dollar Smith? Everyone knew him!”

So there was one of those small world connections, the kind that make you think there is more to this world than just random coincidences.

Our school meeting got started and I was still basking in the connection Frank shared. Knowing I’d be heading over to my parent’s apartment after the meeting, I compartmentalized the story, saving it to share with my dad when I arrived at my parent’s. I knew he’d really appreciate it.

Seconds later, I thought, wait. I can’t tell my dad that story…

That’s what’s going on right now.

Al Smallman : Angles From Experts

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Processing my dad’s death is like how imagine it is to ride a roller coaster (I say imagine because I don’t ride roller coasters). The ups and downs, the feeling of celebration in one second followed by confusion or something like fear in the next. I suspect that anyone who has experienced the death of someone close knows what I mean.

My folks at Chloe’s & Alex’s wedding celebration – July, 2022.

I’m back home in Seattle and spent yesterday with my mom, along with my brother Steve who is up from the Bay Area, working on those menial transition tasks that you don’t really think about before someone dies (like how the credit cards were all in my dad’s name). I spent a couple of hours connected to his email account unsubscribing him from the many mailing lists he followed. Each click of an unsubscribe link had a little pang of pain, like I was deleting part of my father’s reality from the present. But it also brought a feeling of clarity, like removing a veil that allows me to better see his true essence.

See what I mean? Roller coaster.

I’m adjusting back to the Seattle timezone which after being in France for a couple of weeks takes some doing. As such, I get tired at odd hours and am wide awake at others, like 2am Seattle time (11am in France). This past night, at 2am when I was wide awake, I remembered a fabulous video that Emerald Downs made of my dad in 2017. I looked for it and found it on YouTube and am embedding it below. Playing it, it’s the first time I’ve heard my father’s voice since he died.

That’s another of those roller coaster moments, believe me.

31 July 2023 : Al Smallman (1934-2023)

Published on by Andy Smallman11 Comments

My dad died yesterday, having suffered a stroke overnight. Due to my mom’s awareness and fast-thinking, he was transported to the emergency room where local family members were able to be with him at the moment he passed away. Melinda & I were able to be with them all, and him, from France via FaceTime.

My dad turned 89 in July and had a marvelous life, including his marriage of nearly 65 years to my mom, raising three sons, being involved & seeing his seven grandchildren become adults, and knowing three great-grandchildren.

And as deaths go, his was pretty good. Having set the table for breakfast on Saturday night for him and my mom, he awoke at around 2am Sunday in a somewhat disoriented state that quickly deteriorated. He left his body less than five hours later. The doctor told us he didn’t suffer.

You could say he had a great life and a good death.

I’m including a few photos below as an initial tribute, captioned for context. And for anyone who’d like to know him a tiny bit better, here are some other times I’ve written about him:

On July 4th, my parents (along with Melinda, Ella & me) got to babysit Remy. This picture, from Remy’s house with Alex, Remy & Chloe, may be the last photo I took of my dad.
Last night in Nantes, soon after my dad had died, my buddies Bérnard, Laurent, & I toasted him in the best way possible – with three IPA’s.
Given my dad died early on Sunday, the local family accompanied my mom to church while I watched along via Zoom from France. I took this screenshot of the minister moments after she referenced my dad.
After the church service yesterday, the family returned to my parents’ apartment for lunch. My mom got in some “Remy Therapy.”

30 July 2023 : 365 Faces of Celeste (2023 Edition)

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Celeste is the third child of Christine and Bérnard, although she was the first of their children that we met back in 2010 (as memorialized in this post when I thought she was a mermaid). Quite quickly back then, and as the months & years have passed, Celeste came to hold a special place in my heart. Quietly, to her and sometimes her parents, I call her “my favorite French person.”

Back in 2015, Celeste came to stay with Melinda and me in Seattle for over five months. She attended the first semester at Roosevelt High School and lived in Ella’s room while Ella was attending culinary school in Portland.

This year, we weren’t sure if we were going to get to see any of the four Bertail children. All grown, they have their responsibilities to attend and these have currently taken them away from Nantes. Celeste lives and works in Paris, as an example.

So imagine our pleasure at learning that Celeste would be arriving in Nantes this weekend. She is beginning a 3-week vacation that will take her to Italy and decided to have it start by spending time in her childhood home with her parents and saying hello to Melinda and me. The five of us, Christine, Bérnard, Celeste, Melinda, and I, went out to dinner last night and in the process we got to get caught up on Celeste’s life. What a joy this was.

When Celeste was living with us in Seattle in 2015, I joked that I should start a special blog called “The 365 Faces of Celeste.” She is very expressive and extraordinarily photogenic as you can see from these two photos I snapped last night. And below the photos are all the links to the prior posts under this title. I invite you to enjoy getting to know my favorite French person.

Celeste 2023

3 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste I

5 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste II

6 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste III

15 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste Circa 2010

17 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste Circa 2010 Part II

22 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste (Blue C Sushi)

29 October 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste

27 December 2015 : 365 Faces of Celeste is Back!

5 January 2016 : 365 Faces of Celeste (circa 2011)