Catching Up

Actually, there haven't been a lot of events to write about since I did my post on February 8.

I went to the theater in Boston on February 13 to see "Red Eye to Havre de Grace," a play with music about the last days of Edgar Allan Poe (who, I was surprised to learn, was born and raised in Boston, the son of actors who had immigrated from England). It showed his impecuniousness, and his attempts to present his latest ideas about the origin and destiny of the universe, which he had spelled out in a book titled "Eureka." While there is, as the playwrights note, some slight foreshadowing of the Big Bang theory, mostly it came across as incomprehensible. On the lecture circuit, where he tried to present his theory, audiences were more interested in hearing him recite "The Raven," which he found very frustrating. All the while, he was haunted by the death of his wife. After a lecture in Philadelphia, he was supposed to go to New York, but he was seen headed south on the train going to Havre de Grace. Several days later he died in a hospital in Baltimore. It was fascinating to see the depiction of this unfold.

Amazingly, perhaps, I've only been to one concert during this time: the Boston Symphony on February 20. But the BSO has only given one other on a Thursday in that time, namely, "Salome" on March 6. I had a ticket for it but exchanged it for the concert on March 18, when they'll play Beethoven piano concertos and one of the Leonore overtures — part of a series which will include all 5 piano concertos, all 3 Leonore overtures, and the triple concerto. I'll get to all of them. As for the Harvard Musical Association, they had a concert on March 7, but I forgot about it until it would have been difficult to get there.

But I have been making plans. My 50th college reunion will be May 29-June 1 in D.C. I've registered for it and made my flight and hotel reservations. I've also made arrangements to spend June 23-27 at the monastery I thought of joining shortly after college. It will partly be a spiritual retreat, and partly a visit with my old friends. At some point in the summer, I'll go to PEI to visit my cousins and see some of the festivities marking the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference. And I'm very much looking forward to meeting (former?) fellow blogger Peter when he visits Boston for a Pops concert conducted by John Williams.

I went to the movies a couple of days ago and saw "12 Years a Slave." It's a powerful depiction of the evils of slavery in the pre Civil War South.

As I watched videos of Pete Seeger after his death, I came across a couple with Johnny Cash in them. Following links from those, I was reminded of the Carter Family. (Johnny Cash had married Maybelle Carter's daughter June.)I had first encountered the Carters' music through recordings of some of their songs by Joan Baez early in her career, and I had bought a couple of LP compilations of some of their songs. I started listening to videos of that music (audio, mostly, accompanied by pictures) and became really fascinated by them — so much so that I went to Amazon and bought three books about them, a set of 5 CD's of their earliest recordings, and a CD and vinyl LP of Sara and Maybelle. I even toyed with the idea of going to Virginia early in August to attend a couple of performances at the Carter Family Fold, but I don't think I can afford it this year, with all the other trips I have planned.

If you're interested in hearing what the Carter Family actually sounded like, here are some links.

Bury Me under the Weeping Willow, the first song they recorded. This may be a later recording of the song, but it gives the full flavor of what they could do. (Some of the accompanying photos, with children, are for a spread that was made for Life magazine in the fall of 1941. It was preempted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and never got published.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCniFuHlPG0

Wildwood Flower, which became one of the signature tunes for Maybelle and her daughters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4xjqpARrHM

The Storms Are on the Ocean, the fourth song recorded the first day in Bristol, Tenn. (That's Jimmie Rodgers at the left in the photo, which dates from several years later.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-iXemfEkFw

The Poor Orphan Child, third song they recorded. I hadn't heard it until this year, and it became an earworm for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-EkYhJR3gs

When the World's on Fire, with a tune that Woddy Guthrie later used for This Land Is Your Land. The Carters also used it for Little Darling Pal of Mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxo-zayI6tE

Farther On, sung by Sara in about 1966-7 on a reunion album with Maybelle (but this is a solo by Sara, at age 69), nearly 40 years after the original recordings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OSxpkNHshw

You'll see links to lots of other videos. God Gave Noah (pron. Noay) the Rainbow Sign contains the line, "the fire next time." The later ones with Sara and Maybelle have their own interest. I find the 8 minute one especially interesting — it contains some reminiscences by Sara along with footage of the two performing.

Recent Doings

New Doctor: Getting Acquainted & Physical Exam.
My "primary care physician" of the past 20 or so years retired last fall. He had been in partnership with another doctor, whom I decided to try before searching for anyone else. My first appointment with the new doc was on April 15. The nurse took my blood pressure etc. and then told me take of all my clothes and put on a johnny and left the examining room. Eventually the doctor came in, asked some questions and began the physical exam. He had me lower the johnny to my waist while he listened with the stethoscope, then to my groin to check for hernias, then to my thighs while he checked for testicular cancer. I was surprised at how light his touch was; I'd have thought that more pressure would have been needed to detect anything. He brought the johnny back to cover my genitals. Then there was some discussion during which I put my arms back into the sleeves and brought it back to my shoulders. Finally, there was the check of my prostate, which he did by having me lie on my side on the examining table. I somehow didn't feel it as much as when it's done with feet on the floor and bending over the table.

We talked about colonoscopies, Vitamin D supplements, and pneumonia vaccine. He was pretty clear that I needed the Vitamin D, and gave good reasons for the others. What I really liked was that he didn't  order me to do things. The way he put things recognized that I'm the one in charge of my health care decisions. So I'm quite satisfied with him.

I had been procrastinating on the pneumonia vaccine and decided to have the shot while I was there. The nurse administered it after he was through and I had put my clothes back on. My upper arm was sore until Friday.

I noticed that he had a faint Irish accent. Turns out he's from Dublin, but has been here so long that it's very faint except when he's with other Irish people or has had a few beers.


Play at Arts Emerson: Trojan Women.
On Wednesday, April 17, I went to Boston to see an adaptation of the play by Euripides. There's a pretty good summary in the Globe's review. I liked it better than "Neva," which I had seen a couple of weeks earlier. This play not only evoked some of the horror of war, but also showed the complexity of the chain of causation: was the fall of Troy the fault of Priam and Hecuba for allowing Helen to remain, rather than giving her back to Menelaus; Helen, for leaving Menelaus and going to Troy with Paris; Paris for seducing Helen; Aphrodite, for promising Helen to Paris if he declared her the most beautiful; Zeus for selecting Paris to judge among the goddesses; Priam and Hecuba for letting Paris live after it had been prophesied that he would bring about the destruction of Troy.

On the way back to the subway, I encountered a couple who wanted directions back to their hotel. With the help of a nearby map I was able to furnish the directions they needed.

Although it was the day after the Marathon bombing, things seemed normal on the subway and in the Theater District.


Symphony Concert.
Thursday evening, I attended the Boston Symphony's concert. Apart from not stopping at the Copley station the subways ran normally. At Symphony Hall, all bags were examined, but then the eveninig went as normal. (The following night's performance was cancelled because of the manhunt and the 'shelter in place' advisory.)

I posted about the concert on my music blog.

It seems to me that the actions of all of us who went to the theater or the symphony or were otherwise out and about on Wednesday and Thursday illustrate what President Obama said on Thursday at the service at Holy Cross Cathedral: "We don't cower in fear. We carry on."


A Movie and Dinner.
On Friday evening I went with a priest who had formerly been in my parish to see the movie "Quartet." It was quite enjoyable. Afterwards we went to The Black Cow restaurant for dinner. I had been there a couple of times before, but it had been renovated in the meantime. The interior had been opened up, and it seemed significantly noisier, with more patrons, largely of a younger age. No doubt it's a business success, but it was a personal disappointment to have lost the ambience of former times. Well, I still have good memories of dining there before the renovations.

Seth the Waiter.
On Tuesday evening this week there was a concert and social evening at the Harvard Musical Association. As usual on such evenings, I went to the Scollay Square restaurant, and was pleasantly surprised to see Seth there. He was equally surprised to see me, since the HMA events are almost all on Fridays: this was the first Tuesday that I can recall. He had been working Mondays and Saturdays, but now, as he told me, he's working Tuesdays as well.  We greeted each other warmly. Then he had to go back to work. Unfortunately, I was seated at a table which wasn't in his section.

Looking Ahead.
This evening (Thursday the 25th) I'll go to another BSO concert, and Friday to another evening at the HMA. I don't expect to see Seth, since he didn't say he works regularly on Fridays. Next week, the HMA has its last social evening on Wednesday, and my final BSO concert of the season is on Thursday, May 2.

Meanwhile, the yacht club reopens for the summer this Saturday. The racing season begins in earnest about a month later. The Race Committee schedule hasn't been issued yet, but I expect to be assigned to help run the races on seven or eight Saturdays from June through September. Then the concert and theater seasons will resume.

Christmas — Days 7-12 and Beyond

There's not much to report about days 7-12 of Christmas. We had lobster on New Year's Eve and beef tenderloin on New Year's Day. A $9 bottle of Spanish bubbly accompanied the steak to toast the new year.

I saw the movie "Flight" at the Cabot Street Cinema. It stars Denzel Washington as the alcoholic, cocaine-sniffing pilot who wile drunk manages to pull a plane out of an uncontrolled dive and crash land it with only six lives lost when it seemed that all aboard would be killed. The NTSB investigates. Good movie. Spoiler: he ends up in prison after he admits to being drunk. IMO, if flying drunk is a crime, he deserved it, but if it's for the deaths, he didn't since he saved 90 others who would also have died.

Friday I went to a recital at the Harvard Musical Association. Each year they have a competition for outstanding high school age musicians and the winner gives a recital at the association's "clubhouse." This year there were two winners, a cellist and a fl(a)utist, both of Korean extraction. They both performed very well. I had dinner at Scollay Square beforehand. Wendy the waitress was back — the one who is familiar with classical music. That was nice.

Even though it's after the 12 days, the Catholic Church  is still celebrating Christmas until Sunday. We extend it until the Sunday which falls on January 7-13. (Any excuse for a party: Catholics have all the fun!) So I decided to have some oysters. When my uncle was alive, he always wanted scallopped oysters on Christmas, but I wasn't able to squeeze them in when my brother, who won't eat them, was here. I got a pint and tried to fry half of them in olive oil, lamb fat, and butter on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the coating didn't stay on them and crisp up. Instead it blended with the fat to make a sort of gravy. It tasted okay, but it wasn't what I had been hoping for. And it's a wonder I didn't suffer a myocardial infarction from ingesting the lamb fat. Today, I was more successful with oyster stew. A tablespoon of butter, tablespoon of flour, 1/3 cup of water, 1 cup of milk, 14 oysters, 1/3 cup oyster liquor, 1/3 cup heavy cream in that order on the stovetop. Along the way I added pinches of nutmeg, chervil, pepper, mild paprika, celery seed, onion salt and sea salt. Half was lunch today, and half will be  lunch tomorrow. It's good, though I say it myself.

This has turned into a musical week for me. Wednesday evening I went to the HD movie theater retransmission of "Un Ballo in Maschera" from the Metropolitan Opera. It's got great music, and it was very well sung. Thursday evening, the Boston Symphony was back after their Christmas break. I'll write a bit about that on my music blog when I get around to it. And tonight there's another performance at the HMA — grownups this time, a string quartet. If I'm lucky "Tommy Kirk" will be my waiter at Scollay Square.

An Update — 2012/12/19

Not too much worth writing home about, but here's a bit.

A Night at the Cinema.  Tuesday of last week I went to the Cabot Street Cinema to see the 2011 movie "Wuthering Heights." I've never read the book, but I knew that it had to do with the doomed romance of Cathy and Heathcliff. What a shock the movie was! It was well made, but the central characters were awful people. (BTW, for those of you familiar with the book, the movie only covers the first generation. It stops with Heathcliff's gaining ownership of Wuthering Heights, and does not show the subsequent lives of his and Cathy's and Hindley's children.) The movie clearly depicts Hindley's brutality, Heathcliff's violence and Cathy's bad treatment of Heathcliff as well as her husband, Edgar. They're all a thoroughly unlikable lot. It is the Lintons' great misfortune to have come into contact with any of them, much worse for them that Edgar marries Cathy and Isabella marries Heathcliff. I found the brutality, the semi-squalid condition of the Earnshaw house, and the bleakness of the countryside quite unappealing, however true to the novel they may have been.


Christmas.  My brother and I are invited to our aunt's for Christmas dinner. That should be pleasant. She says that this year she will not cook a turkey — which probably makes this the first Christmas of my life when turkey was not Christmas dinner, although I can't be absolutely sure of the first three or four years of my life. I suppose I could get a bit of turkey somewhere and have it for supper and pretend it was the real dinner, with the banquet merely lunch — as if there were some cosmic importance to my keeping the sequence of turkey dinners at Christmas unbroken. But nah. I'm getting a little bit flexible in my old age, and if it will be lamb or what have you for Christmas dinner, that's okay — as long as it isn't bean sprouts and tofu. And I'm not going to buy a turkey and cook it on Sunday or Wednesday: too much leftovers.

I've been thinking a bit about what I will have, expecting my brother to be here from Saturday night (when we'll go to a party) through New Year's Day. Today I bought a small chicken, which will probably be Sunday dinner and possibly yield enough leftovers for one lunch. I've been thinking of doing my shrimp thing for Christmas eve. I also have to cook meatloaves for the soup kitchen that day. I could possibly make an extra one for us to have. It would furnish at least two dinners. Maybe I could have a roast of beef — or pot roast or braised beef — for Wednesday (with leftovers one or two days). Maybe salmon on Friday, or shrimp if we didn't have it on Monday. The usual steak and baked potato on Saturday? It would be fun to celebrate New Year's Eve with lobster. If I can find a duck anywhere, that would be good for New Year's Day. That leaves Sunday — restaurant perhaps. I'm sure we'll get by somehow.

I've sent off the gifts to my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, and I know basically what I'll be getting for my brother. Yikes! I haven't sent cards to my friends in Rothenburg. Now they'll never get there before Christmas.

It will be a busy time at the church, with me helping out here and there.

I still haven't put the candles in the windows. Maybe I will as soon as I finish this post. I've also got a few other decorations to display.


Other Stuff.  The car door handle has been repaired.

We had a prayer service this evening for the victims and mourners from the school shooting in Connecticut.

I posted on my music blog about the concerts I recently attended. Before the one at HMA I had dinner at the Scollay Square — got the same waiter as last time. Dang!

In My Life (Early February 2012)

No burnt Velveeta this time. I've been fairly busy, but a lot of it has to do with things that I can't talk about because it could blow my cover. But that still leaves enough for a decent post.

On Wednesday I went to the Cabot Street Cinema to see "The Mill and the Cross," a movie (or should I call it "a film"?) about a painting titled "The Way to Calvary" by 16th Century Flemish painter Pieter Breugel the Elder. The painting shows a moment in Jesus' way to Calvary, the moment when Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus carry the cross. Breugel has set the event in a landscape populated by numerous 16th century people going about their business — a landscape dominated by a fantastically placed windmill on the top of a rock spire. The movie goes Breugel one better and brings us into the daily lives of the miller and his family, the artist and his family, the artist's patron, and many of the others depicted in the painting. It imagines the effect wrought on all of these by the policies of Spain toward Flanders, which was then under Spanish rule. Strikingly, in all of this, it indicates that for most of the people on the scene, Jesus is not a focal figure: even those who are looking at what is happening with him are paying more attention to Simon. Hmm. Is that how it was at Jesus' time, in the 16th Century, and today? Does Breugel show us the truth about people? Anyway, it was an interesting film, and it fits well under their motto: "Films Worth Seeing More Than Once." If they bring it back, I'll try to see it again, because I think there is more to appreciate than I was able to get in one viewing.

Then on Friday I trekked into Boston for the play "God of Carnage" at the Huntington Theatre [sic] Company. It's by a French playwright, Yasmina Reza, and it's billed as a comedy, even though she says she regard her plays as comic tragedies. It's about two sets of parents who meet to discuss an incident in which the 11 year old son of one couple broke two teeth of the other couple's 11 year old son in a fight. It starts out civilized but deteriorates badly, with "alliances" among the participants forming and dissolving. I laughed! I didn't cry! The play's run has ended, but a movie has been made, titled simply "Carnage." It has different actors, and I gather it differs in some details, but if you're interested, you can catch it in a theater near you.

This afternoon, I had thought I would attend a performance of "Brighton Beach Memoirs", but I got distracted by the Boston Symphony rebroadcast, and it slipped my mind. Oh well.

In the week to come, I have three musical events in Boston: the opera "The Lighthouse" on Wednesday, the Boston Symphony concert on Thursday, and a Harvard Musical Association social evening, including a chamber music concert, on Friday. The opera is based on an event in 1900 when a supply ship came to a lighthouse on an island off the coast of Scotland and found that the three keepers had vanished. The BSO is giving a Beethoven piano concerto and a Rachmaninoff symphony. The HMA evening will have the Leipzig String Quartet performing music related to Thomas Mann's novel Dr. Faustus. I'll probably have dinner at Scollay Square that evening. Time permitting, I may also go to one of the Wednesday daytime screenings of "Melancholia" at Cabot Street.

Sometime this week I should stop by the garage and have them put some brake fluid in my car. The "brake" light in my instrument panel lights up occasionally, and the mechanic said it's probably from low fluid when I met him by chance at the sandwich shop. Also, I may need new wiper (or wipre, in the British Commonwealth) blades.

Doings

Cinema  I went on Monday evening to the Cabot Street Cinema to watch "The Way," a movie about a man (played by Martin Sheen) who walks 800 km on the pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela, along with three other characters he meets as he goes. It's part travelogue, part explanation of the pilgrimage, and part character development. I'm not sure what I think of it. Maybe I'll think some more. Meanwhile, if it comes your way, I recommend watching it.


This was my second time in that theater. The first time was also for a religion-themed movie set in Spain: "There Be Dragons," about St. Jose Maria Escrivá, mostly during the time of the Spanish civil war.


In a couple of weeks they'll be showing "Anonymous," which pushes the thesis that the works of Shakespeare were written by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Essex. I hope to get to see it. The idea that the author of the works of Shakespeare knew too much to have been the actor from Stratford has always made some sense to me.




Taxes  I just mailed my tax return for 2009 to the IRS. It was finished in draft by the deadline, May 11, 2010, but I got busy with other things and never made the final copy to send in. And since I'm owed a refund there was no urgency, since there would be no interest or penalty for late filing. But recently there has been a series of letters asking for the return. The latest threatened to assess me $9,411.30 in taxes, interest, and penalties on top of the $3,384.00 which had been withheld. The prospect of having to pay them $9,400 when in reality they owe me $1,186 got my attention. So I sent in the return to claim my deductions and adjustments.




Not Done  For the first time in several years, I decided to skip the Handel and Haydn Society's annual performance of Handel's "Messiah." I had a bit of a cold and so I decided not to go to Boston on Friday evening or Sunday afternoon. Instead, I took echinacea and stayed home both those times — which gave me the chance, as reported on my other blog, to listen for the third time in four days to John Harbison's fifth symphony.


I think it was the right decision, even though "Messiah" is the better work IMO. My cold is almost gone, and I should be able to go to Boston on Thursday to see the play "Captors," about Adolf Eichmann and the Mossad agents who have just captured him, as they try to get him to agree to go to Israel for trial.




Shades of Torchy and Setboyardee  Today is one of my two lottery days, so I went to the store where I usually get the tickets. The regular clerk was there. I think he's from India. Anyway, at the end of the usual transaction he wished me good luck and a good evening, smiling, and leaned slightly over the counter toward me. It actually felt, in that instant, as if he were leaning in to kiss me. Absurd, I suppose, and no doubt it says more about me than about him.

Dinner and a Movie

I had dinner on Wednesday evening at Bugaboo Creek Steak House with a fellow blogger. This is the second time I've met him. The first time was in September, also on a Wednesday night, as he pointed out. On that occasion we went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. We started off the meal with grilled shrimp. The shrimp were our appetizers. They were delicious. I love shrimp. I had a bourbon manhattan to accompany the appetizer. My entree was a (17 oz.?) rib eye steak cooked medium rare and topped with a "demi-glace" with mushrooms and onions — with a side of mashed potatoes. With that I had a glass of merlot. I also got a wedge salad with blue cheese dressing. I could only finish about 3/4 of my steak, so I took a box for it and the leftover mashed potato. They made a nice lunch on Thursday. The salad was also very large and I didn't even finish it, but I didn't want to put it in the box with the steak. I was afraid the dressing would get on the steak — but come to think of it, that might have been okay. We looked at the dessert menu, but all of the desserts were too rich and we needed to catch our movie at nine o'clock. But there was enough time for a cup of coffee.

The movie was Sherlock Holmes. It was okay. There is a review in Time magazine which points out some things about it that I would not have been able to put into words. It's not a must-see, but it's an interesting take on the characters of Holmes and Watson, and it was fine as something to do while spending time together. It was so cold outside. We parked our cars in the restaurant's parking lot and walked across the plaza to the theater. Fortunately, I was warmly dressed. It was a great evening. The best part of it was having time for a relaxed conversation over dinner with a friend, and I hope we'll be able to hang out again fairly soon.

And I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed (plagiarized?) his post and used it as a template for this one.