Comments on: Thoughts on being well

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 21:35:52 +0000

You are a true soul mate to so many, me included. Thank you for this.

By: Rhea

Rhea — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 01:09:18 +0000

Hello Nico,
I read with interest and compassion the account of your emotional journey towards wellness.
As to that place of serenity and stillness, have you heard of Prem Rawat?
All the best for your life and music.
Rhea

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 17:59:42 +0000

I have an opposite story. Please please check your facts. I am an artist, musician, professor. I have Bipolar disorder. It is not a chemical imbalance. The APA is admitting that. I was on a bipolar medicine starting at the end of graduate school through 6 years as a professor. I had 3 blood clots that almost went undetected because I was so young and active and almost died at 29. I had a difficult time making any art, music, anything creative at all even reading after the medicine. It is toxic and dying is not worth the ‘relief.’ Please research ‘chemical imbalance.’ It could save your life.

By: Edgar Franceschi

Edgar Franceschi — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 19:43:50 +0000

Hi Nico-What an incredible treat to read your blog. Your honesty and clarity discussing all these complex, personal issues is extraordinary.
There’s also a lot of other stuff here that is fresh, so well observed and very amusing! I’m still laughing at the vision of the statue of Maria Callas(perhaps wearing her Turandot pagoda headdress-so regal!-like in the famous picture) by that fig tree…in Skorpios, for sure.
I loved the exquisite score for the Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie: it provided the emotional scaffolding for this delicate and melancholy play. Also, the dynamic score for The Reader( which really kept it moving), the very intriguing Two Boys and another movie score: Kill Your Darlings( what a curious bunch of 1940’s non -heterosexuals!).We know your mission is to compose music, but , please take time off to keep writing on this blog. Insights like yours don’t come our way frequently! THANKS.

By: Aly

Aly — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 11:47:54 +0000

Thank you for this post. It takes much courage to look at oneself honestly, let alone speak of such truth. I wish for good health and wellness your way.

By: Matías

Matías — Sun, 31 May 2015 23:01:44 +0000

It’s weird to say ‘thank you’ as a reply to this post, but at the same time I can’t help feeling a sense of gratitude when reading such a thorough and insightful reflection. As many here, I love the work you do (sounds like sloppy phrasing, but I can’t seem to put it in any other way), and to be given the chance to know a bit more about the person whose music I so much admire gives me a strange feeling of excitement.
Reading your post got me thinking about how much we demand of certain works in terms of giving an account of processes that involve being unwell, even the ones behind such works don’t realise how much being unwell affects them. Perhaps it’s unfair, on the ‘recieving end’, to make such demands, or to get angry at someone for not being able to meet your expectations of ‘authenticity’. Again: thank you thank your thank you.

By: Karl

Karl — Sun, 31 May 2015 06:24:20 +0000

Yes to this. Your honesty and vulnerability are super powers.

By: OT

OT — Sat, 30 May 2015 09:15:37 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMX9tAmiTHU

By: Naimah

Naimah — Sat, 30 May 2015 05:52:47 +0000

No other words but “thank you”.

By: Menya

Menya — Sat, 30 May 2015 04:10:59 +0000

This was an incredibly insightful read. I won’t compare myself to you or others that have posted…that’s a useless endeavor. To each his own – as someone once taught me.

What I learned here was the value of expression without censorship.

There is something great, unbridled even, within all of us. For me, I have learned to embrace everything – the good and the bad. The Goldfinch (by Donna Tartt) was an eye-opener for me, but not for the reasons most commonly expressed. It taught me that you can/could fuck up but still be an integral part of the human experience, and sometimes be a greater force for change than a “good” person.

By: Nico

Nico — Fri, 29 May 2015 21:55:37 +0000

In reply to S.R.. I did!

By: Cate

Cate — Fri, 29 May 2015 12:23:55 +0000

Beautifully written. Thank you. You speak for thousands of people.

By: No one

No one — Fri, 29 May 2015 06:39:21 +0000

I’ve read you post five times now, and while there is a transient sense of kinship that momentarily flitters between the cadences, I cannot help but descend into bile by the end of it.

I think:

At least you get to be showered in epistemic affirmations by an existent community of fans and comrades regardless if you acknowledge their praise and self-identification as being causally linked to your presence.

There is no mutual kinship. You exist in a realm I can only dream of from the other side of the barbed wire, a different class—social, academic, economic. And while I remain no less cloistered and no less consumed by 12 hour workdays, even on vacation, I can only mouth words and music in unuttered vocables to the blank page which is my only real audience.

I love your music. I love these words you’ve expressed in this digital enclave. Or, at least I can appreciate their aesthetic.

But I ultimately feel spiteful because to apply anything you have written to myself would be a lie of context. I don’t get to make Augustinian confessions to a group of attentive listeners. And to do anything of the sort would be seen as nothing more than the dregs of narcissism.

And I hate myself for feeling that way.

By: Magda Bogin

Magda Bogin — Fri, 29 May 2015 04:55:00 +0000

A tour de force, Nico. Equal parts courage and brilliance. May you thrive.

By: Mab

Mab — Fri, 29 May 2015 00:43:18 +0000

Thank you for this beautiful piece of writing. Thank you for sharing your story. I relate completely to all of it, and most of all to the plight of the blind woman who longed to hear the music and was not invisible to the music maker. Perfectionism is a cruel master but look at what you have wrought in spite of wrestling with this angel/demon/monkey-on-the-back, and at what sacrifice to your own life and peace of mind. I love you.