Lighten Up

I've read a lot of very dark novels this year. So it was refreshing to encounter two in a row that are light and airy. Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist is about poetry, meter, rhyme, reading poetry, writing poetry & life. This short book is a running monologue of a middle aged, unemployed poet. He makes observations about poetry &, since it's Baker, random things around him & thoughts about life. It's fun, even if you know nothing about poetry, like me. The NYT called Sylvia Brownrigg's Morality Tale "divinely deadpan" & for once a jacket blurb is right on. A troubled woman marries & discovers life is not as expected with two step children & a husband who spirals down into divorce wars & money problems. She works in a stationery store & sort of falls in love with a kind, jolly, Zen-ish envelope salesman. They have lunches, get found out, trouble ensues, she sort of stops loving the man, & demands changes in her marriage. You'll smile.

October 12th

Mom left us on October 12th after a brief illness and a powerful fight. I was able to spend 5 days in the hospital with her along with two of my brothers. Hopefully we were able to comfort her with our presence. The viewing, Mass & funeral were in NJ, with her sisters, brother & extended family in attendence. Randy's eulogy & the priest's sermon captured her life: scholarship to college, science, theater, business owner, mother, compassionate & gracious friend. I thanked her then and always for my interest in music, art, literature, business and her support for my spiritual path and meditation. Be in Peace, Mom.

Mom Likes Me Best.

Brothers, sister, spouses, children gathered to celebrate Mom's 92nd birthday. Unfortunately, Mom was sick so she missed our lunch. We gave Randy a set of Japanese chisels in thanks for all of the time and energy he has spent caring for Mom over the past three years. At the end of his thank you remarks, he told us the real reason he has spent this time with Mom, by revealing the t-shirt that I gave him for Christmas....

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!