The 2004 American Guild of Organists convention in LA was a beautiful experience. There was much fine music making - Especially by James Hopkins, Joseph Adam, Mary Preston, Alexander Mickelthwate and the LA Philharmonic. It is so wonderful to see composers of today writing such fine music for organ and orchestra. Wonderful, too, to see new pipe organs built with appropriate voicing and power to play with modern orchestras in new acoustically interesting concert halls. I can only hope that this continues to encourage orchestral composers to consider the organ as a major player in and with the orchestra.
Photography/Writing
Photographs Paul took, the cats he lived with, and his own words.
Photography
Paul was a talented photographer. Photography ran alongside the music for most of his life: he shot the cover images for three of his own ARKAY releases — Incantation, Tyme’s Escape, and OUTBURST! — and kept a gallery of landscape and nature work on his site for years. These are photographs he took in the 1990s and 2000s.
Paul’s Cats
Paul’s love of animals was known to many. From his childhood cats, Mister Softee and Tiger, to almost a dozen others throughout his life, cats in need tended to find him and trust him.
Here are the memorial pages he created for six of the cats who called his house “home” in the 2010s and 2020s.
Writing
Paul kept a page of his own thoughts. These are his words, as he left them.
From The Editorial Page on fejko.com. Undated, and reproduced here unaltered apart from the correction of obvious typing slips.
Why do people have so much of a problem with death and dying? So much emphasis is put upon prolonging biological life ad infinitum and little on just why or how that life continues. When somebody dies unexpectedly, it is said that they did not live out a 'natural' lifespan. I would say that they did. Their natural was just not some else's natural. Death is just simply the last great voyage in what we know as life.
Why isn't music and the music business very exciting anymore? Much experimentation is gone, replaced by a certain homogeneity among most performers. I am almost never surprised at a concert anymore. Does everyone simply live and die by recordings? Are all searching for the one-and-only correct and proper version to the exclusion of all others?
Are those who are eclectic and versatile penalized (fairly or unfairly) for their continual lack of focus? Is the narrow specialization so cherished by this society really a good thing?
Airbags suck!! Do you really enjoy driving in a vehicle with an explosive device within inches of your face that could (and has for some!!!) detonate at ANY TIME??!?!!?!?!?!?
Is the AGO a religious organisation? Why does the pipe organ have such a hard time surviving as a viable concert instrument?
Why are Americans such bad drivers? I easily drive 30,000+ miles per year and am continually astounded by what I see! This is what happens when a license is granted after one pays a very small sum and then wanders around in a parking lot for about 2 minutes.
Aren't storms just the most wonderful thing? They can show the 'all powerful' humans just who or what is boss! The earth really does rule. No matter what some may say!