reading

BOOKS

Songs and Stories for Open Ears

Handfuls of Air: A Book of Modern Folk Tales

Mad Shoes: The Adventures of Sylvan Woods:

From Bronx Violinist to Bulgarian Folk Dancer

Crusader Tours and Other Stories

RECORDINGS

World of Guitar

American Folk Ballads

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including by photocopying, by recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Published in the United States of America

by Full Court Press, 601 Palisade Avenue,

Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632

fullcourtpress.com

Print ISBN 978-1-946989-53-6

Ebook ISBN 978-1-946989-63-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020904310

Editing and book design by Barry Sheinkopf

Table Of Contents

Writing

Languages

Life

Money and Its Brethren

Performance

Business

God

Inventions

Writing

Big Question

I’m in Prague with nothing on my mind.

I just changed the font size but the screen size didn’t matter. Something is wrong here, but I don’t know what. I’m totally bored with my writing. Am I at an ending? My writing is at a standstill. Where to now?

Should I move into a third person voice? Or write about history?

The emotional need to express myself in the first person, New Leaf style feels repetitive. And yet, I know no other way.

Where do I go from here? Do I even write at all? And if I do, what will I write about? In what style? In what voice? Or have I said everything I need to say?

Should I go back to children’s stories and fables?

Yes, where am I going from here?

This may be the big question of this tour.

Chronology versus Categories

I am considering editing my own New Leaf. This is a major step forward!

Now I can personalize the book even further. And answer the big question: Chronology versus categories. Barry believes in categories. Minimal categories…only six of them…but categories, nevertheless.

In my gut, I have never believed in categories. New Leaf is more real in its chronology. After all, that is the way it happened. It is the development process laid out exactly the way it happened, just as it unfolded in my mind.

Now is my chance to think about this deeply again…and, through my own editing, act on it!

Accepting Passion

Why write? Because I must. I enjoy it.

Why publish? Because I must. I enjoy reading my writing.

I may develop a small audience of fans. Or I may not. The main thing to remember is I enjoy reading my writing. My sense of humor is a blast as is my sense of beauty. As I reread Mad Shoes, Crusaders Tours, Handfuls of Air, Songs and Stories for Open Ears, what fun! What an off-beat sense of wild imagination!

I love reading what I write. That is the real and only bottom-line reason to publish it. It is based solely on my enjoyment. Just as others follow me when I enjoy my folk dancing, so they may enjoy reading the books I write. Or they may not. They may buy them…or they may not. But, bottom-line, I must enjoy them. Truth is, I do. I just have to recognize and admit it.

Passion, luxuriation, and enjoyment are forms of love. Before I can love others, I’d better love myself. Before I can love editing or publishing, I’d better love the process of editing and publishing.

Dubrovnik

I edited the Dubrovnik portions of my New Leaf. In the process, I started practically rewriting the entries using new language, and new poetic forms.

In the process, I realized that this was a way I could actually edit my pages…by changing them, transforming them, metamorphosizing them. In other words, my editing was not necessarily dry editing but actually hanging new words on the old skeleton, using the skeletal New Leaf form to create a new poetic work. I could also add foreign words and Joycean babble writing in the process. I could, actually create a new language, my own language, perhaps incomprehensible to others (or less comprehensible), but mucho fun for myself. Such a new language, new poetry, new form would move me beyond New Leaf!

“I Wonder If…”

Early morning writing is “I wonder if” time.

I like to wonder…especially early in the morning. Let’s look at the phrase:

“I.” Easily related to the ego, the self that is writing.

“Wonder.” This word is the key. A wonder is a miracle. Looking at the early morning world in awe and wonder, seeing it as miracle. Not a bad way to begin the day.

“If.” This word speaks of future possibility; what might happen. Certainly a good partner with “wonder.”

Summing up: Early morning “I wonder if” time is a fine way to begin the day.

This meditative wonder, as expressed through attitudes, styles, and movements, get more concrete as the day moves along.

Editing as Deepening

I am now editing to deepen my writing.

In the process, I clarify and sharpen my thinking. This is personally helpful. It also reminds me of the importance of written thoughts.

If they are important to me, they will also be important to some others. They key word here is “some.”

For “some,” a select few, reading these written thoughts will be vital.

Although difficult to acknowledge and remember, this fact shows the importance of publishing…no matter what!

The Fifty-Year Perspective and Practice

George Bush has said, “The history of my administration will be written and understood in fifty years.”

This is also true of my New Leaves, and my others books. Therefore, they should be published with this long-term perspective in mind. They are being written to handle the present, but being published for the future, for future generations, for my children, and my children’s children.

I am so focused on the present it is difficult to see the importance of what I am doing.

Developing a long-term perspective, fifty-years (as least) would be a very good practice.

Fine-Tuning

Reading New Leaf 3 in the morning is better than reading someone else’s work. As I reread, I fine-tune.

Fine-tuning is a better word for me that editing. I hate editing! But I don’t mind fine-tuning at all. In fact, I like it! Its like perfecting a guitar piece; I play it over and over again, for weeks, months, years, and, in the process, I make tiny changes and “improvements.” Fine-tuning can be fun.

Clarity and Brevity

I called Barry for his thoughts. He said: In the editing war between ego and insight, aim for clarity and brevity.

Editing Fun!

What is my personal test on “good editing?” How can I tell if I’m doing it right? What is my bottom-line emotional—and even intellectual—standard?

Editing has to be fun!

To my surprise, it is slowly becoming that way. I’m enjoying reading and believing what I’ve written.

Art, Artists, Soul…and Marketing

The trip to the library taught me something. After I searched and found the books on marketing on the Teaneck Library shelves, I felt nauseous. When I took them out and gave my card to the librarian, I felt disgusted. As I drove away with them in my car, I felt empty.

Finally, when I read, or rather, “glanced” through them at home, and felt totally bored, I realized I would never read them. Next day I returned them to the library, went down to the shelves on Artist Lives, and took out books on Rubens and an autobiography on Thomas Hart Benton. The Benton book is great. I can’t put it down. How did he live? How did he make it and get along? How did he “market” his art and survive in the art world? Plus I am sympatico to him as an artist. How do artists survive, inspire, and get along? Here are subjects I am vitally interested in. Books on lives of the artists: These are real books on marketing!

Preparation, Editing, and Publishing New Leaves

Visiting Eleni was good for me. She is not publishing her best historic work on economics, banking, and perhaps the Ottoman Empire, she is not realizing her personal dream, and neither am I. I encouraged her to publish. I also face a own publishing problem. Am I now ready to encourage, nay insist, that I prepare, edit, and publish my own works, my own New Leaves?

Why would I do this? Why put in so much work, if there are no public rewards up ahead, no sales. Why pile up more books in my basement? Why put in all this work “for nothing?”

Maybe I should do it because editing, preparing, and publishing all the Leaves of New Leaf is a Kantian good-in-itself.

It also has cosmic significance: Writing and publishing my works is one of the reasons I was put on earth.

These are two fundamental truths. By not plunging into this necessary, but often distasteful, preparation, editing, and publishing work, I open myself to the overwhelming, cosmically depressing feeling that life is purposeless, directionless, and meaningless. This feeling is, indeed, a killer. Since I prefer life over death, by fighting to prepare, edit, and publish New Leaves, I am actually fighting for my life! I am choosing life over death! A wise choice, indeed.

The very fact that cosmic depression consumes me when I do not write, or not work to fulfill my dreams, demonstrates that I’m on the wrong track, or rather, no track at all. Lost without purpose, wandering trackless and without energy, in a desert of meaninglessness.

There “is no choice” for me. I must prepare, edit, and publish all my New Leaves. It is part of my central life’s work. I will not be satisfied until it is done, or at least until the task is tackled. As Jews say at Passover, “Although we may not complete the task, we must constantly work towards liberation.”

Self-Publishing, Book Promotion, and Creative Marketing

Went to Carol Lutchen’s talk on self-publishing. Very good. Two things took place in my internal brain.

1. Embarrassed when she mentioned my name as “the famous Jim Gold” As she kept praising me in public, as a writer, self-published writer, folk dance teacher, traveler, and business man, I kept blushing.

Am I ashamed of myself as a writer…and all else? Was I not prepared for the “public assault” on my person? And this, even though it was all praise worthy? If I am ashamed of myself as a writer, and ashamed (or afraid) of what I have written, wouldn’t this certainly slow down even prevent sales?

Good questions. But I’ll look into them later. Besides, they may simply be remnants of my old self, the one I am leaving behind in my post-transitional period. My new me, the gone-public me, the one that lives on promotion, sales, and gone-public, is called, rather than surviving in a “Death of a Salesman” mode, now thrives as a Perpetual Salesman self.

2. I also realize my time to promote my books is not yet. Total sales focus is now on tours.

But I feel deep with my bosom, that focus on book sales is coming…perhaps post-tour season, in the fall.…

This will include upgrading my book (and CD) web site, listing myself on Amazon.com (ask Carol about how), and in other, at the moment, unknown ways. I’ll focus on a creative marketing approach.

Languages

Paean to Pain

If in the history of the French language, stress led to the reduction to shwa of Latin post-tonic vowels, then what is stress doing to my body? Is it reducing my “post-tonic vowels,” in their form of loose ideas, wandering thoughts, rough imaginings, to a stronger, more stable architecture, a more focused and concentrated power of mind?

Is the stress of a touring life as expressed in the jolts, bumps, pointed, jumpy, and jumping pains in my body, forcing me to focus more clearly? Are they pointing me in a more unitary, solid, focused, and powerful direction?

Certainly, this would be a positive view of the function of pain. Pain focuses the mind…and quite clearly.

Is the cosmic purpose of these pains to increase the power of my focus, and, in the process, concentrate my mental powers on my true purpose(s) in life?

Indeed, this could be viewed as a pain b’simcha approach. The pain of cutting off vague unfulfilling directions helps to increase focus in one direction.

Does pain ultimately increase focus on a greater good than the pain itself? Or is it simply a pain in the ass?

Visceral Linguistics?

I’m trying to memorize the French word “blafard” (pale, wan, livid). I realize as I search for synonyms, memory devices, part of me is saying: Why bother? Why make the effort?

After all, how important is learning an insignificant word liked this?

In fact, how important is learning French or any foreign language for that matter? Truly, I can get along without it. I can function and survive without French. Maybe my life will be richer with it, but truly, bottom line, who needs it?

If part of me is thinking these killer, deadening thoughts then no wonder it is difficult for me to memorize words, learn foreign languages, and, in general, make an effort, give it my all.

Why bother?

I still don’t have an answer. But until I do, I will continue to study languages “half-way” and half-assed. I don’t like to study that way. But my attention will remain divided until I heal my internal linguistic “Why bother?”

I don’t feel a visceral need to learn languages. The effort is not like music or the arts, or even the study of money. Or is it? Perhaps it is quite visceral. Only I don’t see it yet.

On the Linguistic Understanding of Computer Language

Evidently, I can only understand computers, electronics, and even science only on a poetic level. That’s why I have to look up the origins and etymologies of all words used: microprocessors, buses, digital, analogue, etc. In order to understand the concepts behind the language, evidently, I have to dream and wander through the words.

Thus I connect computer study with my love of language. Specifically, it means looking up computer words in both the Webster New World Dictionary: College Edition with its etymologies and word origins, and Isaac Mozeson’s The Word, with its etymologies and words origins based on Hebrew roots.

From Mozeson’s book, I would move to the bible, the Tannach, to find the Hebrew roots of words and their poetic etymological origins.

In the beginning, computer study with its movements into the fields of electronics, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and science was unconnected to anything else in my life. Now, however, it has been reconnected to my linguistic love, my love of music and sound, and thus to my soul.

I wonder if my left shoulder pain was related to this computer disconnection. Now that I have reconnected will the shoulder pain go away? We’ll see. But deep in my heart, I have confidence that it will!

The progression goes from computer language to etymologies to Hebrew word origins to the Bible to love of music and finally, to feeling and immersion into the Beautiful Vibrations of Sound.

Touring the Scientific Universe

This scientific voyage may not be a one-year detour, but rather a permanent shift in the direction of my psyche.

It may be a trip into the future by returning to the past. After all, I did start college as a physics major. I wanted to understand the romance of the universe.

Now that I have toured the artistic and cultural universe by developing myself as an artist, and, through my tour business, visited many countries, perhaps it is now time to shift my vision, my development and direction, and start touring the scientific universe.

“Science” from Latin scire, “to know” (and Hebrew sakhel, says Mozeson, with its relationship to words like skill: Old Norse, skil (reason, discernment).

Saxon: Knife, cutting, separating.

Hebrew: Sakhel: Mental discrimination.

What is science but knowledge with different spelling.

Rubato Guitar…Leads to a Rubato Life

I just looked up the word “rubato.” It comes from the Italian “robbed.” I rob pieces of tempo and expression. Rubato has an outlaw quality, a bit of the rebel, too. Doing things “my way.” Robbing the past to feed the present. I like it.

Only Bulgarian

Now I will be reading only Bulgarian until my tour to Bulgaria this August. Well, when I was nineteen, in France I read only French for a year.

When I started the tour business twenty-two years ago, I focused only on Hungarian for a year. Hungarian language, history, culture, everything Hungarian. After going through my transitional year, I am returning to past forms.

This is my Bulgarian year. Everything Bulgarian. Starting with language. In my life, it’s return-to-past-forms and consolidation time. I see it as lasting three to five years.

Life

Web Sites and Internet

The world of web site and internet is opening up.

I’ll explore and contact links to Hungary, Spain, France, Norway, Sweden, and Greece. I’ll contact others, link to their pages, create new pages of my own based on interests like language, classical guitar, writing, examples of my writing, yoga, running, and folk dancing.

This is about passion, the passion of learning, expansion, and growth, the passion about getting more.

Dribbling Away

I woke up with an unusual pain on the inside of my left knee. I interpret it as a new form of “folk dance knee.”

Also my body and I feel stiff and rigid; it resists movement in a loose and fluid manner.

I am at some kind of stationary, resting place. A rest-and-resist place. Good description. As I rest, I resist. What am I resisting? Is it the feeling of growth, expansion, ecstasy, jubilation, appreciation for my accomplishments?

It could be. I “don’t know what to do” with these feelings. They are similar to the intense feeling of peace and inner satisfaction I felt after my program/concert/appearance at the Hidden Children Hanukkah Party. What a great success that was. Inner glow, satisfaction, and peace, a quiet ebullient happiness over a job well done.

What do I do with such a feeling? In the past, I would simply get a headache, and that would be that. By the time the headache ended, I had forgotten the feeling.

What do I do with such a feeling now?

One answer is: Feel it.

Suppose

Suppose I need only minimal warm-up on guitar…or even none? Or am able to get warmed up during my first slow and easy piece.

Suppose it is the same for folk dancing, yoga, and running too (start with a micro-running warm-up).

Could that be the reason I am doing no running, yoga, or even guitar practice? That I no longer need it? Maybe it has become like singing. I never practice singing, or even need to. I remember all my songs, and, after minimal (even no) warm-up, can sing them in public.

Maybe the fruits of all this training and practice is that I no longer need training and practice. Maybe I now know it so well, totally, and deeply that further practice and training is unnecessary.

Suppose this is also true for organizing and running my weekends, tours, and even doing bookings like bar mitvahs.

Suppose, I am at the point where, in order to maintain my skills, I really have to do nothing. Or I need only do the absolute minimum.

Is this my new place?

Reflections on the above written on the following day: The answer is “No!” Proper warm-ups on the guitar, all the legato, scales, and arpeggios done for about fifteen minutes minimum; half hour is better. It can and should also include “Alhambra” and “Leyenda.”

The old way of playing with the old order, like the old miracle schedule, is right. I must maintain my skills. How is that done? If I do nothing, they will, no doubt, deteriorate. Therefore, I have to do something. What? The minimum. What is the minimum? How little must I do to maintain my skills? And, if I practice not at all, in other words, do nothing, will my skills really deteriorate? Or will they, like singing, remain the same, that is, go nowhere?

I believe, or want to believe the latter. Do nothing, and my skills will remain the same. I want this because, deep in my heart, I have no motivation to merely “maintain” something. Create or destroy is my motto. It is dynamic. Mere maintenance is enough to motivate me to do anything.

But I am in a maintenance mode…and probably will stay in this state of suspended animation, until a better idea comes along.

Revolution

What is a revolution but a turning around, turning over, turning upside down.

The idea that notes are secondary is totally radical and revolutionary. It turns my “Alhambra” on its head.

Excitement: A New Year’s Gift

I taught dancing for New Years First Night in Teaneck last night. It’s the first time I’ve taught or even folk danced since we went to Santa Fe.

I felt nervous before my teaching (a good pre-, per-teaching nervousness. It made me feel alive!

Pre- “anxiety” makes me feel alive! Time for a verbal change.

Leave out the prefix “pre.”

Use Energizer, Uplifter, Excitement. I like them.

I think Excitement is best.

Victory!

The process of writing is frustrating and painful.

Yet it is better to write than not.

But a creative cloud descended upon me.

It started Wednesday afternoon when I said “I deserve a vacation.” But it didn’t fully hit until Thursday when my stocks started to slide; Friday they collapsed, setting me back a few thousand dollars and putting me almost back to where I was at the end of December. I was down several thousand in December, up several thousand in January; now I’m down again. All this market effort has left me nowhere.

Why am I down? It’s partly related to the stock market merry-go-round, but not completely.

Most is because of victory!

Success makes me sick. But I also love it.

If I have been down, my victories can tell me why. Let’s look at them.

First comes the title of this New Leaf itself: Passion! It is the leaf after and beyond New Adventures. Adventures take you somewhere. Passion means you are there. No place to go. Firmly rooted in the present. Success in guitar playing. Look at the victorious words to describe my new musical place: “Sweet, Mellow, Sensuous, Sensual, Luscious, and Beautiful.” If that is not a victory, I don’t know what is. It tells me I can apply these new “guitar rules” elsewhere in my life. I can focus my passion on business and my miracle schedule.

Other victories: 1. Publication of Volume 2 of A New Leaf I’ve been very cool towards this victory. Why? I don’t care to discuss that now. But it’s true, nevertheless.

2. Computer. My lessons in web design, internet promotion, and computer knowledge are paying off. Victory afer victory, win after win. I feel comfortable and am actually starting to understand codes! Or at least, I am developing a desire to understand. A new field and direction in learning is opening up. I am slowly mastering Fidelity Active Trader Pro and Dreamweaver web design programs. Enthusiasm and joy in curiosity are victories here.

3. Stock market. Well, strangely and believe it or not, I have to include it. How can this be a victory if, in a mere three days, I’ve lost all my profit? Well, it is a victory of attitude. I am not panicked by my Triquint losses. I feel partly “I’ve been through this before.” One can make or lose lots of money in the market in a few days. I’ve done both. I am frightened and annoyed…but not panicked. That is progress.

Because of these losses, I developed new attitudes towards the market.

Short selling. Can I learn how to handle a down or up market and, hopefully, even make money in it? That would be major learning. Also there is the philosophical, gut wrenching—acceptance of up-down cycles of life reflected in market cycles. Can I flow with them? In this sense, the stock market becomes my teacher.

These are positive attitudes towards adversity. They help me deal with challenges, overcome difficulties, handle the miseries and afflictions of life.

All victories. Instead of clamping down on enthusiasm, denying the glory of victory, refusing to gush with joy, I will now leap out my door, charge down the street, and shout “Wahoo!”

And that will be another great victory!

Resistance!

Knees, ankles, shoulders, and back are stiff with resistance!

What do they resist? Mostly, the outward social and people activities. And yet, part of this is energizing. Part of me loves it.

Conflict and rubbing.

Will I always resist? Will the only place of comfort always be the inner chamber of Imagination, the teenage room at home in Riverdale? Maybe.

Can such a room ever become totally available in public? Or will there always be an element of defense against the outer forces of negativism?

Can one ever be comfortable in public? Will I consistently be threatened when I socialize, meet others, or perform? Will I always resist?

Will such resistance always be “expressed” in bodily aches and pains, stiffened lower back or joints? Is this the stiffed-necked, Jewish resistance?

Freedom through defense may be a good and necessary thing. It saves and protects the center, the spiritual core.

Thus, I ask: Is my body really falling apart? Or is it being fine-tuned to resist? Am I a resistance fighter belonging to a long line of ancient freedom fighters? Am I ever fighting for my right to be me?

There is also the fact that I have been in a social straight-jacket this entire week of Florida Folk Dance Camp and “vacation.” Soon it will be over. I can’t wait to get home!

This whole week was a big success.

My next challenge is: How to handle success, its pressures, tensions, responsibilities, life style, joys, defeats, and victories.

A post-Florida Folk Dance Camp door is opening. New questions and challenges are coalescing: How to deal with and handle success.

It means doing yoga with a new success attitude.

It means playing guitar with a new success attitude.

It means walking down the street, carrying luggage to the car, going to the airport, and more…all with the new success attitude.

Not being so disturbed by idiotic liberalism is also a victory. (“Liberalism” is a perversion of the word “liberal,” itself a perversion of the meaning of liberty). I brush it off now. I am solid and confident in my views of freedom, individualism, dignity, tolerance (in the old sense of the word), and self-worth. Modern liberalism consists of dried up Soviet regurgitations. It is “communist state control lite,” dictatorship gone soft. Nevertheless, thanks to our founding fathers, they have a constitutional right to idiocy.

I see a war with Iraq as one of liberation. On the deepest level, America is performing a public service.

No “liberal” would want to live under Hussein, or the old Soviet Union either. But they can criticize the United States and its love of freedom from afar. It’s fun because they are safe. Unlike Iraq, or the old Soviet Union, where you would be tortured and sent to prison for expressing opposing thoughts, here they have no price to pay for their views.

Beyond Books

No book can tell me about the relaxation, strength, and spiritual beauty I discover while playing the guitar. These feelings, thoughts, and ideas are not in books. I alone can delve into this secret of self.

The next step is beyond books. A personal, in-depth study. Entering deeply into my mind, I travel to places never seen before. No outside person can lead me there. Segovia and his ilk are out. I alone can only discover the shivers of this North Pole or the heat of its Equatorial Jungle.

I am on an expedition into the molten center of my being. It consists of white-hot passion, ice-cold calm, barren and luxuriant fields and valleys.

Beyond books I sink into the Mystery.

Strength and Clarity; Confidence and Illumination

Crack through old habits. How about playing the Villa-Lobos “Prelude Number 4” arpeggio fifty times.

Wow, now that’s different! Can I do it?

1-10…to 13: The warm-up period. Soft, mellow, slow.

13-17…Strong, somewhat slow.

17-20…Faster, strong, and clear.

20-23. . Strong and clear…but not fast.

23-27…Slow, stronger, and clear.

27 onwards…(slow), stronger, and clearer.

What are the values implied in this practice? Slow or fast may be valuable but they seem are not values.

Strong and clear are values. “Strong,” implies confidence. “Clear” implies illumination.

“Fast” and “slow” are servants of strength and clarity, of confidence and illumination.

My conclusion after playing Villa-Lobos’ “Prelude No. 4” arpeggio thirty times:

Practice for strength and clarity; confidence and illumination.

Passion Explorations

Am I willing to take the passion change and jump into passion?

This new leaf is called Passion! But feeling passion, doing passion, living passion is very different from merely writing the word.

Start with guitar. How do I express passion playing the arpeggios in Villa-Lobos’ “Prelude Number 4”?

By playing over the sound hole I now create “Sweet, Mellow, Sensuous, Sensual, Luscious, and Beautiful” tones. This is a technical change. But it is not passion.

Passion involves taking a “dive-right-in” chance.

Taking one means I might miss notes, makes mistakes, mess up before God and man. But the Mystery of passion’s energy would be released. That is the glory and terror of passion.

Returns

I continue the study web site design and stock market trading.

Runs: I have committed myself to daily morning runs. (I am “aiming” for a marathon by October of 2004.)

Writing: I have committed myself to daily writing.

Tours: I’ve sent out all my ads. I’ve entered all descriptions and key-words for my web site. I still can make calls.

Folk dance classes: Nothing more to do but show up, and give great, high-energy classes!

Weekends. Make some calls.

Klezmer Bookings: Bar and bat mitzvah dates, weddings. Let Michelle handle them.

World of Jim Gold concerts: I’m rewriting publicity copy. I’d like to promote these concerts. But I don’t know where and how yet.