April 30, 2009
I hate politics, I really do. So much political discourse seems to engage some universal impulse toward millennarianism. Whoever might be in charge at any given moment, the other side busily cries out in alarm. The sky is falling, the end is near, doom is upon us.
Several years ago I frittered away numberless hours blogging about politics and participating in message boards where I joined my peeping and cheeping with that of other Henny Pennys. Somewhere along the way, I burned out my capacity for foreboding. I just can’t bring myself to expect the end of the world as we know it.
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April 28, 2009
To instructors of indoor cycling classes everywhere:
You’re not new at this, but some of your students are. In any given class, there’s likely at least one person who’s done fewer than three of these workouts. I thought it might be helpful to get a fresh perspective from someone whose quads are not yet like steel.
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I’ve been meaning to post a link to this essay by Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise. (If I wait till my usual evening “blog time,” I’ll forget again.)
Ross points out that “[w]hen people hear ‘classical,’ they think ‘dead.’” It goes to the heart of something I’ve been thinking about in connection with the CSO: How do we convince people to sit in auditorium for a couple of hours, listening to “dead” music?
(No one at CSO is going to ask me what I think, of course, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it.)
On this day in 1124, David I became the king of Scotland. On this day in 1667, John Milton, blind and destitute, sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for ten pounds. On this day in 1810, Beethoven composed “Für Elise.” On this day in 1865, the steamboat SS Sultana sank in the Mississippi River.
And on this day in 1923, my grandmother was born. She would have been 86 years old today. As I wrote here, I’m not entirely sure how long it’s been since Grandma died, but I think we’re coming up on four years.
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April 27, 2009
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (and on a side note, isn’t it kind of remarkable that I’ve already been doing this for a couple of weeks?), a Facebook quiz revealed that, of the four Golden Girls , I am Dorothy. So it is with deep sadness that I report that Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak Hollingsworth has gone on permanent hiatus. There will be no further reunion specials–she will live on only in reruns. Beatrice Arthur, erstwhile queen of stage and sitcom, died yesterday.
Bea is the second of the Golden Girls to check out of the Golden Palace. Estelle Getty, who played Dorothy’s mother, died last summer. Betty White and Rue McClanahan are thankfully still with us.
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April 24, 2009
Farm Town makes me happy.
For those of you who are not down with the social networking, Farm Town is a game on Facebook, and it’s a little addictive. This screen shot will illustrate what the game looks like, though not why I love it so:
 My Farm (more…)
April 23, 2009
A little over a week ago, I complained bitterly about a brutal “indoor cycling” class and the preternaturally healthy woman who taught it. I ended with a promise/prediction that I’d go back. Tonight, I did.
What a difference a week makes.
I had to have a light touch with the resistance, and for the last few iterations of a “jumping” routine I had to stay in the saddle a bit more than everyone else, but otherwise I kept up and felt energized rather than tormented. In short order my shirt was soaked through. At times I was sweating so hard I thought my glasses were going to fall off my face–and I did have trouble holding onto the handlebars till we took a break between songs and I could wipe them down. No matter. I was up, I was on, I was almost-but-not-quite beginning to understand how something like this could be within the realm of possibility (if not within the realm of sanity).
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April 22, 2009
When I chose music as my college major, my highest ambition was to become a songwriter–ideally a singer-songwriter, my generation’s piano man. My familiarity with classical music didn’t extend much beyond The Four Seasons, whatever happened to show up in Amadeus, and–only because my high school chorus had performed it– A Ceremony of Carols.
Recitals and concerts of all sorts are obligatory for music majors. Early on, I found them nearly insufferable. Old stuff–Mozart, Haydn, Schubert–was yawningly dull. New stuff was laughably incomprehensible. There appeared to be a vogue for piano pieces in which the pianist was required to plunk his or her forearm onto the lower half of the keyboard. I remember one performer wore a look of aesthetic rapture during this procedure, as if the thunder of 30 white and black keys being struck all at once could be made into some sort of poetic and expressive gesture.
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April 21, 2009
When I got to my desk this morning, my calendar popped up a handy reminder that my grandmother’s birthday is a week away. Time has gotten away from me, so I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think this May marks the fourth anniversary of her death. My grandfather’s birthday was in March, and the Good Friday just past marked the tenth anniversary of his passing.
My grandparents were like a backup set of parents for me. Their house was my second home. I spent large portions of every summer with them. The long days were ample and aimless. I rode my bike in the driveway, sat on the swing in the yard, read Agatha Christie novels, watched TV, ate popsicles with Grandma. The dining room was my first writing workshop–I spent countless hours banging away on an old portable typewriter set up on the lace-covered table. (It was, obviously, an independent study kind of situation.)
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April 19, 2009
I went to the Charleston Farmers’ Market this morning. (Apparently the apostrophe is omitted from the official name, but I can’t quite bring myself to do that.) I was significantly stoked about this trip. Call it the Kingsolver Effect.
I’d emailed Rita of Rita’s Roots to see if there were slots available in this year’s CSA. There aren’t, unfortunately, but in her reply, Rita said she’d be at the farmers’ market. I like the idea of meeting and knowing the person who grows your food is undeniably comforting.
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