92!

Debbie & soprano Judeth Shey Burns performed a recital for my Mom at the Woodlands for her 92nd birthday. It was a wide ranging program & they both sounded great! Mom was quite ill but enjoyed the music and the gathering of children & grandchildren to celebrate with her.

I'm not a mystery reader, but the setting for Skull Mantra, by Eiliot Pattison, hooked me: the mountains of Tibet. This book gives a brutally honest portrait of the life of Tibetans, after 50 years of Chinese genocide. If you are interested in the horrific plight of Tibetans in their own country, then give this a read. The tip of the iceberg: 1.3 million executed; 6,000 schools, libraries & monastaries destoyed; labor camps; forced relocation; "disapearances", brutal suppression of Tibetan religious practices & language. From Pattison's website: "I write about Tibet to give those who do not have the opportunity to travel there to understand what it feels like to witness an armed policeman assault a praying monk. ...the cause of Tibet does not mean a conversion to Buddhism, it means a conversion to compassion, self-awareness, human rights and political equality." It's a pretty good mystery novel, too. How's your Made-in-China microwave doing today?

Sam Adams' Photography

Our friend Sam Adams had a retrospective of his black & white photography at El Museo Cultural. Sam photographs street scenes & street theater, and has a wonderful knack for capturing the spirit of the place and the moment. He often focuses on older people and teens, a rich subject matter in his hands. He also shot some special situations such as the separation of Siamese twins in Viet Nam. Sam's photos are well composed & gorgeously printed the old fashioned way. The result is perfect contrast and saturation, with great compositions. This is so refreshing in our age of point-and-shoot slice of life photos with no attempt at composition or eye for color & contrast, found on every gallery's wall and winning prizes left and right, gimme a break! Thanks for your great work, Sam!

Patricia Racette sings cabaret

Opera soprano Patricia Racette sang a program of cabaret songs at the Lensic Theater. She was fantastic. I am very wary of opera singers doing jazz or cabaret programs because they usually sound like opera singers trying to sing jazz...negative outcome! Ms. Racette, however, grew up on this music & she nailed it. Her singing was as smoky as 20 year old Scotch. She sang "chest voice" for the entire evening. In fact, she warned the audience, "If you came for the high notes, you're not going to hear them tonight!" Craig Terry was her wonderful collaborative artist on piano. His day job is the Assistant Director of the Chicago Lyric Opera. But, he, too, began his career playing jazz and this was well evident. He played the hell out of the songs! A delightful evening!

First WOW

Finally, my first WOW book of the year: Susan Choi's A Person of Interest. This book is dense with insights, ideas & observations about marriage, friendship, betrayal, loneliness. At the end it morphs into Fugitive-esque suspense, without losing its literary stride. I worry that this will prevent the literati from giving the book its due, which is substantial.

The Book of Unholy Mischief, what a delicious stew. A chef in the Doge’s palace, dodging the Inquisition & a member of secret society protecting Knowledge, takes an orphan under his wing in the kitchen. Surprising mentions of The Present Moment sprinkled throughout. Oh, and lots of writing about food, wonderful food. The Buddha of Suburbia is the best Indian ex-pat in Britain novel that I’ve read. There’s certainly be a lot of them lately. I got to this one late, written in 1990. Fun portrait of actors & artists in the days of class warfare in Britain of the 60s & 70s. Some tough observations about families, love, self-discovery & the high costs of all three. Shift gears: Maynard & Jennica a quirky portrait of quirky NYers in present day, including using the word “like” frequently in speech by a few of the characters (oi vey). The structure of the book is a bit overbearing: one & two page monologues by all the characters are used to advance the story. A fun conceit, but for the entire 300 pages of the novel? OK, I’m being to hard on it, It’s funny at times & touching.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July, I'm glad I'm here in the USA! OMG, ain't that controversial?! Today I'm celebrating some of the best things about our country: art, literature & music!!! First, I finished a painting that I've been working on for a couple of weeks. It's quite different from recent works, related to chakras. Then I finished reading Sarah Dunn's secrets to happiness, which was a lot of fun. Think Saul Bellow collides with Sex in the City! When the protagonist see's The Cloud of Unknowing on her boyfriend's nightstand & he quotes Pema Chodren, I just about jumped! I am listening to a CD by Gil Shaham & Andre Previn of violin & piano sonate by Gershwin, Copland & Previn. Beautiful, tonal 20th Century music, gorgeously played.

So, red states & blue states you can kiss my keister......
My country is purple!