this piece was inspired
by my very first “zen experience”
there have been a few since
rare - but yes real
all because
of this
w h i t e k i t e s
it was early spring 1984
unusually warm, but still that familiar
chill in the air
my younger brother and i bought
two kites
and on a beautiful Saturday afternoon
we trekked down to the Thames River near Woodstock - to fly them
Dave
always had a way with these things
as his kite went up effortlessly and in
minutes
he laid back on the grass
lit
up a smoke and watched it sail
beautifully over the river
i struggled with mine for at least an hour
it crashed several times in a plowed, muddy
field
cursing, dirty - fucked - bullshit, oK ...
here we go
when i finally did manage to get it up
(no pun intended)... it wasn’t
positioned right
it was over the field,
not the river
i continued to struggle
with it
until i eventually lost my patience
and tied the damned thing to a
bush
not caring if it crashed again
frustrated, i went for a walk
along the rivers edge
when i turned to
look
a couple of minutes later
i was shocked to see that my white kite was
gliding beautifully
over the river
my life
hasn’t been quite the same since
dedicated to my brother - David
and to my Uncle George Enz
Woodstock, Ontario
night parachuting
I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of weightlessness. As a child I remember looking up at the sky and watching birds in flight, the stars at night, kids flying kites - soaring beautifully then falling/plunging down - around and around and down and crashing. I was drawn to it - riveted by it. To this day, I dream regularly of falling off of something high up. Gravity. Wow. What's so cool, is having these simple HD video editing tools now. I can bring this music to the surface and actually show you what I was 'envisioning' when I created it 25 years ago. It's all about getting closer, to what it feels like - to fall.
Night Parachuting is a contemporary instrumental album dedicated to the art of flying. In 1992, Night Parachuting was released and it is my most successful album to date. Various tracks from the album were (still are) featured nightly on CHUM-FM, CHFI-FM in Toronto and on major market stations all across Canada and is my only album available on iTunes.