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The Fourth Drum

Martin Kent, multi-instrumentalist, spent a summer visiting his famous brother, didjeridu master Stephen Kent, and came to Clarion Music regularly to practice on the piano.  Martin made two little friends that year—my two children, Lawrence and Julia, who came to work with me and took swimming lessons at the YMCA across the street.

When the children became too rowdy around Martin we decided that he should give us (children, me and another lady who worked at the shop) drumming lessons.  We began with the African djembe, then the Middle Eastern doumbek and even tried our hands on the Indian tablas.  It was with great fondness that we said goodbye to Martin at the end of the summer, when he went back to the UK.

This brief exposure of drumming planted a seed in me, so that many years later I began playing the hand drum when reciting poetry.  I collected drums that worked well with the voice.  In a dusty music shop in Essaouira, Morocco, I fell in love with a goat skin bendir (frame drum with a snare).  From the internet I found the Drum People and spoke with the maker, Keith Little Badger, and auditioned his Native American drums over the phone.  At Clarion I picked out an 18 inch beauty that was full of resonance no matter the weather condition.  I play these three drums alternately.  Only the fourth one sits in silence.  It is a log drum from Taos, New Mexico.  I bought it before I knew how to play, when I could only appreciate drums aesthetically and use it as a side table.

Photo by Bob Hsiang.

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Without A Camera

My birthday in the Sahara with two Berbers, hashish and sand cake

I surrendered my digital camera when I sold Clarion Music in 2005.  The camera was a business purchase so it rightfully went to the new owners.  Since then I have been without a camera.

It was a conscious decision not to buy another one, especially when I made my solo journey to Morocco in 2007.  I knew it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but as a poet I wanted to use my eyes and my pen to record the journey, and not through a lens.

It was a lofty goal.  At times I regretted not being able to take a snapshot of this or that.  But the universe provided.  On the bus to the Sahara I met a Japanese tourist with a great camera.  We ended up going into the desert together and I was gifted with six photos later through email.

Without a camera I became less of a target in the strange country.  The hustlers didn’t care to spend their energy on people who didn’t look like they have much.  After I returned home, two friends got infected by my journey and went to Morocco for vacation.  They had a great time and took hundreds of photos.  On their last day they went one last time to the souk (market) and the camera was robbed.  What was left in their memory was bitterness.

Photo by Ken Aoki

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