Weird things I overhear, again

Overheard at the yoga studio I use, near the shoes-and-coats cubbies:

"See you next time!"  "'Bye!"  "Have a good weekend!"

                             "Yogi up!"

Now playing on K-REN

Above, a sheet music store on the Left Bank of the Seine, across from the bouquinistes.

Below, Tuvan musicians playing outside the Beaubourg Pompidou.

I get earworms. It's not a medical condition, although it may perhaps be a neurological one. I'll get a tune in my head and it will play and play, and repeat and play some more. I think of it as K-REN, the soundtrack of my life. Today, for instance, I've got an entire set, including so far:

"Runaway" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziLagAgoPCE

"I Feel Free" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_Uu0eTNWk

"Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7sU5B_ibM

I know, I know--it's a very weird playlist. I don't really have a good interpretation of why these pieces of music are insisting that I listen to them. These particular clips have ads, but you can usually skip them after a few seconds.

With Paris

What happened? and what will happen next?

Paris feels like home to me in ways that actual home does not. I like the self that I am when I have been there--perceptive, understated, witty, responsive.

And why attack the locals, the people who are simply living? How could this improve anything?

We are filled with horror when we are not numb.

Our time is so fleeting, so brief. No need to shorten anyone's. Paradise is only here.

You need this word, part 2. Also many cool shoes.

The next needed word comes from someone, also in Doug Powell's workshop, who apparently had not been paying attention to the sound or sight of words in his many years, and who pronounced a word to be "sartori." But, it is a good new word, s a r t o r i, useful for the many of us who fret over dressing properly for some--for any--social situation, from going to the market to, oh, attending a writing conference. I define it as the state of bliss, the state of freedom from desire, induced by knowing that you have chosen precisely the right clothing for the situation.

Also, has anyone else ever noticed that, however oddly or idiosyncratically writers may dress, they always have *really* cool shoes?

You need this word, part 1

At last summer's Napa Valley Writers Conference, I had the grace to choose Doug Powell's workshop. Doug always presents wrapped in flannel and knitted vests, with a tractor cap jammed down on his skull. He may run cold, but his seminar was hot. I still cannot encompass how marvelously he got back to the roots of writing. One of his exercises was to write one-word poems. Go ahead. You think about what makes a poem, and how to pack that into one evocative word. Another was to create a new word, a word that we need but that does not exist in English. I am still sorting these out.

I propose a new word:  t o n e d e f t . It means the opposite of "tone-deaf;" that is, the quality of using precisely the right word, or words, for the situation and the task. For instance, "D.A. Powell is tonedeft."

How to make your point

Our printer gave up the ghost recently, and we went online to read reviews of new printers. There was one that Consumer Reports liked, and it got decent ratings on Amazon. There was, however, a negative review that made the decision for us. I paraphrase:  I hate this printer. I cannot express strongly enough how much I hate this printer. It has sucked my time, my money, and my energy. I hate this printer so much that, if I had a gun with two bullets, and I went into in a room with Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and this printer, I would shoot the printer. Twice.

 



Made us laugh, and scared us off!

Emerson, making music before your very eyes

Yesterday I heard a wonderful chamber concert, courtesy of the Emerson String Quartet. When I first learned about this quartet, many years ago, they were known for playing new music, under-heard music, not the kind I like to listen to. For me, for music to be musical, it has to stir something in the body--desire to dance, goose-bumps, tears, a sense of something building. Most atonal music is only cerebral to me. So, I never really tracked what Emerson was doing. They were young! which is to say, roughly my own age. They are still roughly my own age, no longer young. Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer  – violins. Lawrence Dutton – viola. Paul Watkins - cello, who replaced David Finckel in 2013 (I like David just fine, but he is really over-extended, and I'm glad he let this one go). And their musicality is a river and all its tributaries. The cellist is seated, as he has to be, and on a dais, so that his head is level with the other three, who all play standing. This lets them really lean into the music, really get free with the bow arm, almost dance themselves. First and second violins alternate 'chairs' between pieces, which has got to contribute to the cohesion of the group. They also generally synchronize their bowing, a beautiful thing to see with the music under it. The cellist has what looks like a lot of fun getting into the character of the music, facial expressions showing how he means. The violist does not play a particularly large instrument (I've seen some that look like young cellos) but has no trouble at all producing rich sound and big tone. A lot of play of the eyes among all four. And, I always love seeing as well as hearing the theme passed from instrument to instrument.

Yesterday they played Haydn's Quinten Quartet op. 76 no. 2. A beautiful, rigorous, well-seated job, made the music fresh. Then a hair-raising performance of Shostakovich's Quartet no. 10, composed in 1964. I had never listened to this work before, and it was thrilling. I hadn't known that music like this was being composed during my lifetime. The violist played the second movement roughly, fiercely. Faaantastic! I'm not big on standing ovations, but I jumped up for this one. The concert closed with Dvorak's "American" Quartet, something of a warhorse by now. Emerson played it like a hoedown. Whee.

There really is nothing, nothing, nothing, like hearing good music played live by dedicated musicians. I'm grateful that we have chamber concerts available within driving range.