Finding a good title for a piece is hard. In the July 4th issue of the New Yorker, Anothony Lane begins his review of the new film “Bad Teacher” with this aside on bad titles:

Waiting for “Bad Teacher” to begin, I caught a trailer for the upcoming “Horrible Bosses.” What is it with these titles? Studios may think that they can palm us off with flat, sour recitations of what their products contain, but, back in 1975, no one would have paid to see a Spielberg film called “Nasty Fish.” In the words of Raymond Chandler, whose ear for a good title was the sharpest of the twentieth century, the names of books and films should conjure “a particular magic which impresses itself on the memory.” “The Maltese Falcon,” as he said, “makes the mind ask questions.”

I have a hard time with titles. While I know a good one when when I hear it, actually creating a great title is a different challenge. In the past, I’ve appropriated names from some of my favorite literary titles: The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), For Whom The Bell Tolls (John Donne, but also Hemingway), In Search of Lost Time (Proust), and The Hand of Day (Octavio Paz).

Those are all great titles, I just wish I had come up with them myself. I’m trying to get away from this literal borrowing, so I may try brainstorming some completely original titles for my new saxophone piece to see what I can come up with. Currently the working title is What the wind was making, which is a line from one of Pablo Neruda’s love poems. At least it is not already well-known title itself, but I still may try to come up with something completely original. If I have any ideas, I’ll post them here.

It’s been on the front page of this site for a few weeks, but I’m excited to share that Jeff Vickers will be recording Obsidian Butterfly for a CD to be released in the Fall! Jeff has performed Obsidian Butterfly a couple times already with funding from an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, though unfortunately I haven’t been able to hear him play it yet. I have heard him perform other repertoire though, and he’s a phenomenal saxophonist, so I can’t wait to hear how this CD turns out.

Jeff has set up a Kickstarter page to help fund this recording project to which you can contribute. It’s basically a way to pre-order the CD for only $15 ($10 for the digital version), and the funds will help cover his studio costs. There is going to be a lot of great repertoire on this CD which has never been recorded before, so please check it out!

My dad was almost attacked by a bear over the holiday weekend.  My parents and Becky (my godmother) drove from Indiana to spend a few days with me in Shenandoah National Park.   We had just started hiking a short trail when we saw a black bear very close to us, in the underbrush.

My dad had his camera with him and went up the trail a bit closer to try to take some photos.  He took a few, but all of a sudden the bear growled and charged towards him — and although my dad did not exactly follow the recommended protocol for bear attacks, the bear stopped the fake attack after just a few steps.  But it was a scary few seconds!

A few years ago, I took a photo of a sign at a trailhead in Kenai Fjords National Park which summarizes what to do if you are attacked by a bear.  If you are in Grizzly bear territory, you must first determine which kind of bear is attacking you.  If it is a black bear, hold your ground and fight back.  However, if it is a brown bear, play dead — unless the grizzly bear starts to eat you.  Then you can fight back.

Now that my new website is finally ready, I have decided to make a fresh start with my blog.  I began blogging before I was old enough to drive, and it was interesting having content which dated back to the start of high school but also a little awkward.  So I am starting over at this point.

Kokopelli Polka was my first blog with Google’s Blogspot (now called Blogger).  It lasted for about five years.  During my freshman year at Indiana University, I migrated all the content to a new blog at WordPress with my own domain name, www.johnleszczynski.com.  I redesigned the site and used this picture and caption as a header:

John Leszczynski
descendant of the largely ineffective Polish king, Stanisław Leszczyński

And now, after about five years I have redesigned my whole website again (with a lot of help).  I think this one will last more than five years, and I hope it does because it took a very long time to make.  The new header: