Pastoral - Pleasingly Peaceful and Innocent

Dear Readers, 

Dear Friends,

I sometimes 

wonder what you do.

Do you commute to work every day?

Do you run around in the 

maze and madness of modern day traffic?

Have you ever got caught up in it inadvertently?

If in fact you do have to deal with this malady,

and even if you don't, 

I may have just the thing for you. 

Music to calm and relax you

when all around you there's chaos.

(Sir Edward Elgar & bike)

A Tunnel Of Time - Selected British Piano Music of the Twentieth Century

is a stunning collection

of beautiful,

and mostly calming,

pastoral pieces

by

Sir Edward Elgar,

1. In Smyrna

2. Serenade

3. Adieu

Frederick Delius,

Three Preludes

4. Scherzando

5. Quick

6. Con moto

Ernest John Moeran,

7. Summer Valley

John Ireland,

8. The Island Spell

Benjamin Britten, 

Holiday Diary

9. Early Morning Bathe

10. Sailing

11. Fun-Fair

12. Night

Christopher Headington,

13. Ballade-Image

14. Cinquanta

and

 Paul Patterson,

15. A Tunnel of Time Op 66

If, 

in fact we do drive to the music,

it is music like this

that will deliver us to our destination intact, relaxed,

and with wistful and knowing smiles on our faces.

This recording could be hard to find. 

A friend of mine brought me a copy from the UK. 

A Tunnel Of Time

Selected British Piano Music of the Twentieth Century 

was manufactured & marketed by

Kingdom Records Ltd.

Crown House, 119 The Broadway, London N.W.2 3JG

Tel: 081-208 4448  Fax: 081-208 4343

Barcarolle

A barcarole (from French, also barcarolle; originally, Italian barcarola) 

is a folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, or a piece of music composed in that style. 

(Wikipedia's definition)

Many composers have written them including

Chopin,

Offenbach,

Rachmaninov,

Gaubert,

Koechlin,

even Pat Metheny.

I love these waltz like pieces 

that can,

with their rocking motion,

be like lullabies.

Faure 

wrote 13 of them

and these often dreamy pieces 

take me back to another time. 

It is a very attractive place. 

The recording

on Testament,

by 

Germain Thyssens-Valentin

should not be missed.

Such A Great Scene

Welcome back Dear Readers.

As many of you know,

I've been really enjoying the works 

of many of the 

Scandinavian Crime 

authors. 

I started off with Karin Fossum

and had to read all of her works. 

Loved them. 

I'm looking forward to this new one pictured above

which is out August 24th.

I read all of Larsson's

Millennium Trilogy 

and loved them!

Moved on to the works of Camilla Lackberg.

They are also very fine

and I look forward to getting my hands on

The Stone Cutter.

Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole

Detective novels are also wonderful. 

I've read the first two and will have to pick up 

The Devil's Star 

soon!

In the meantime,

with nothing Scandinavian 

to be found chez moi,

I grabbed a book I've been 

planning on getting to for some time. 

Haruki Murakami 

is one of my favorite authors

and 

Kafka On The Shore 

did not disappoint.

Everyday 

I'd eagerly rush home to be with it. 

To settle down somewhere quiet

and 

spend time with these 

wonderful,

fantastical,

characters, 

and cats.

It was very special

and I recommend it 

highly!

Here's a scene  of Kafka that I really loved. 

Let me know what you think.

                   In the afternoon dark clouds suddenly color the sky a mysterious shade and it

                   starts raining hard, pounding the roof and windows of the cabin. I strip naked

                   and run outside, washing my face with soap and scrubbing myself all over. It

                   feels wonderful. In my joy I shut my eyes and shout out meaningless words as

                   the large raindrops strike me on the cheeks, the eyelids, chest, side, penis,

                   legs, and butt  -  the stinging pain like a religious initiation or something.

                   Along with the pain there's a feeling of closeness, like for once in my life the 

                   world's treating me fairly. I feel elated, as if all of a sudden I've been set free.

                   I face the sky, hands held wide apart, open my mouth wide, and gulp down

                   the falling rain.

Gulp it down my boy!

The Fascinating People We Meet

Last week while doing the laundry

I bumped into my new neighbor. 

As we chatted, 

she told me of trips to New York City

and a bit about her family. 

Apparently her grandmother was a poet

named 

Sarah E. Wright. 

A rather famous writer/poet 

as it turns out. 

Following is a copy of 

Sarah E. Wright's 

obituary from 

The New York Times:

Sarah E. Wright, Novelist of Black Experience in the Depression, Dies at 80

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: October 2, 2009

In 1969 Sarah E. Wright, a Maryland-born writer living in Manhattan, published her first novel, “This Child’s Gonna Live.” Issued by Delacorte Press, it portrays the lives of an impoverished black woman and her family in a Maryland fishing village during the Depression. Often compared to the work of Zora Neale Hurston, the novel was unusual in its exploration of the black experience from a woman’s perspective, anticipating fiction by writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.

Robert DesVerney

Sarah E. Wright

Related

A Novel That Was Based on a Life(October 4, 2009)

“This Child’s Gonna Live” was hailed by critics around the country and named an outstanding book of 1969 by The New York Times. Reviewing it in The Times Book Review earlier that year, the novelist Shane Stevens called it a “small masterpiece,” adding: “Sarah Wright’s triumph in this novel is a celebration of life over death. It is, in every respect, an impressive achievement.”
Ms. Wright never published another novel. She died in Manhattan on Sept. 13, at 80; the cause was complications of cancer, her husband, Joseph Kaye, said. Today “This Child’s Gonna Live” remains highly regarded in literary circles though little known outside them.
The novel centers on Mariah Upshur, the wife of a black oysterman on the Maryland shore. Set in the fictional community of Tangierneck in the early 1930s, it unsparingly depicts the hunger, disease, racism and hard labor that were the stuff of daily life.
Capable, sensual and fiercely determined, Mariah engages in an interior dialogue with Jesus throughout the book. In the opening passage, she prays for a sunny day so she can earn money in the fields, where the young potato plants “weren’t anything but some little old twigs and promises.”
Mariah is pregnant with her fifth child. She has already lost one child in infancy and before the book is out will lose another. She dreams of escaping Tangierneck, “a place of standing still and death,” and is adamant that her new child will live.
While novelists like James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison had explored the black male experience, Ms. Wright’s novel was among the first to focus on the confluence of race, class and sex. Republished by the Feminist Press in 1986 and again in 2002, “This Child’s Gonna Live” remains in print today.
Not every reviewer embraced the book. Writing in Harper’s Magazine in 1969, the critic Irving Howe called its style “overwrought.” But many others praised Ms. Wright’s densely interwoven poetic language, her deft use of local dialect and her ability to convey the extraordinary predicament of being black, female, rural and poor.
“It’s a very difficult novel in a lot of ways,” Jennifer Campbell, an associate professor of writing studies at Roger Williams University, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. (Professor Campbell wrote the afterword to the novel’s 2002 edition.) “It’s very, very painful to read: the pain of not being able to keep your children safe, of not being able to feed them properly, of not being able to give them two pennies for the Halloween celebration.”
Ms. Wright spent about 10 years working on a second novel but did not complete it, her husband said last week.
She scarcely seems to have had time. Besides working full-time as a bookkeeper, Ms. Wright taught, lectured and was a past vice president of the Harlem Writers Guild. She published critical essays; a volume of poetry, “Give Me a Child” (Kraft Publishing, 1955, with Lucy Smith); and a nonfiction book for young people, “A. Philip Randolph: Integration in the Workplace” (Silver Burdett, 1990). She was deeply involved in political causes, protesting everything from the Vietnam War to South African apartheid to the present war in Iraq.
There was something else, Ms. Wright’s husband said, that kept her from the second novel: the anguish of writing the first. For the story of the Upshur family, though its characters were composites, was in large measure Ms. Wright’s own.
Sarah Elizabeth Wright was born on Dec. 9, 1928, in Wetipquin, Md., a historically free black community on the eastern shore. Her father, like Mariah’s husband, was an oysterman; her mother, like Mariah, shucked oysters and picked crops. Sarah had nearly a dozen siblings, several of whom died in childhood. She began writing poetry when she was about 8.
After graduating from Salisbury Colored High School, Sarah entered Howard University, where she became editor of the newspaper. She left before graduating, her husband said, “because she was literally starving.” Her parents had no money to send her for food.
“When Sarah went off to Howard, they had no idea what it meant in terms of the financial requirements,” Mr. Kaye said last week. “They gave her oilcloth that they thought she could barter with other people to obtain what she needed.”
Ms. Wright moved to Philadelphia in the late 1940s and to New York a decade later. There, in a three-room apartment on the Lower East Side, she began work on “This Child’s Gonna Live.”
“That took such a toll on her, because she was forced to dredge up painful childhood memories that she thought she had run away from when she left the community,” Mr. Kaye said. “Death just seemed to be a constant companion in her childhood, and the spirit of death just hovered over the community.”
Besides her husband, Ms. Wright, who was known in private life as Sarah Wright Kaye, is survived by a son, Michael; a daughter, Shelley Chotai; three siblings, Wanda, Howard and Gilbert; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
She also leaves behind a box containing the manuscript of her unfinished novel, the second installment in a planned trilogy about the people of Tangierneck. During the decade she worked on the book, Ms. Wright never discussed it, even with her husband.
Mr. Kaye has not opened the box. To judge from the heft, he said, it contains several hundred pages. From a chapter he found elsewhere, the novel appears to concern Bardetta Upshur, Mariah’s daughter — the child who was meant to live, and did.

 It is fascinating,

 the people you can discover,

by just reaching out and 

chatting with a neighbor.

(Thanks to the NY Times)

SonjaFest - Coda

Word is in from around the globe.

Pictures too!

These shots from the recently feted Sonja!

I had a lot of fun

and believe my guests did as well. 

This is the Smoked Sturgeon that we started off with.

The Salad that followed.

Our Lamb with Ancho Sauce

(I was in such a hurry I forgot the garnish).

And here we find a lovely little gift that Sonja gave us all,

a little something to remember her by,

cute little  Penguin Christmas ornaments. 

Ciao

4 

now.

Song For Sonja

Welcome back Dear Readers.

Last week 

I wanted to do something special 

for my friend 

Sonja

who is moving back to Denmark soon. 

So I decided to have something 

of a 

surprise dinner party for her.

For days I planned, schemed, and  plotted.

Then there were stops, and some repeat stops at many shops. 

When all my ingredients were assembled 

I cooked my tail off!

I think Sonja and all my guests 

enjoyed themselves. 

Here's my

Dinner For Sonja

French 75

 - a flute of Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve with 

a float of Germain Robin Select XO

and a lemon twist.

Small Plates 

of Wild Boar Proscuitto,

Caperberries, Speck, Olives, 

Pickled Garlic Cloves,  Peppers

and Marcona Almonds

First Course

Smoked Sturgeon 

served on a Burgundy Dandelion garnish

with Lemon and Tobiko Caviar

Salad

Mache and Watercress Salad

with French Icicle and Rainbow Radishes 

and Mushrooms 

in a Champagne Vinagrette

2006 Ravenswood Dickerson Zinfandel

Main Course

Broiled Lamb Rib Chops on an Ancho Sauce

with "Everything" Mashed Potatoes,

and Swiss Chard

Dessert

Individual 

Strawberry Rhubarb Blueberry Crisps 

served with Vanilla Ice Cream

Daterra Farm Calabria Espresso Roast Coffee

and

Sri Lankan Ratnapura Tea

with 

Various Parisian Macaroons 

and Chocolates

Strains of Astrud Gilberto and laughter

could be heard throughout the 

candlelit room.

A good time was had by all. 

I hope you'll agree that this was a meal fit for 

My Great Dane 

Sonja!

D.C. is The Place To Be

Welcome back Dear Readers. 

So nice to see you again.

Have you ever felt that 

while it may great to be handsome,

or brilliant, 

or the life of the party,

that sometimes it's

 just nice to be lucky?

That's how I'm feeling this week as 

Global Around Town 

previews some of the most exciting events in

The World of the Arts,

in my own backyard

Washington D.C.

Wednesday night,

 any of you who happen to be in or around D.C.

 should try and get one of the remaining tickets to see 

Pat Metheny and his Orchestrion 

in concert at Strathmore Performing Arts Center. 

The prolific and ever creative Metheny

has created an Orchestrion

and knows how to use it 

to create his inimitable magic.

Here's Wikipedia's definition - 

"An orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced differently to those found in a pipe organ, as well as percussion instruments. Many orchestrions contain a piano as well."

I've been listening to Pat for the past 35 years or so. 

From his days with Gary Burton, to his trio with Jaco & Bobby Moses. 
I've been with him for his solo and various group excursions.
Seeing him take charge of this immense instrument Wednesday night should prove to be 
fascinating and beautiful.

As if this were not enough,

one of the most important contemporary composers around, 

John Adams,

is in town conducting his own and others' works. 

What a special and rare opportunity this is!

Saturday night John Adams will lead 

The National Symphony Orchestra with violinist

 Leila Josefowicz

 in the following concert - 

BRITTEN - Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op.33a

ADAMS - The Dharma at Big Sur

STRAVINSKY - Feu d'Artifice

ADAMS - Doctor Atomic Symphony

I have enjoyed listening to this Pulitzer Prize winning composer for many, many years. 

Some of his music has been described as "minimalist" 

although I think it can be very romantic & sweeping.

You may be familiar with his operas 

Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer

or

Dr. Atomic. 

Adams won the Pulitzer for his piece

On The Transmigration of Souls

which commemorates those who lost their lives in 

the September 11, 2001 attacks on 

the World Trade Center in New York. 

A couple years ago I took friends to hear 

El Nino - A Nativity Oratorio

and it was very special. 

I know the concerts led by Adams this week

will be as well. 

See ya there!

Also opening in D.C Thursday the 20th, 

Yves Klein: With the Void Full Powers

at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. 

Revel in the works of one of

 "last century's most influential artists."

Klein,

 you may recall,

bathed nude women in blue paint and used them as 

"living brushes" 

on his canvases. 

As you can see 

D.C. 

is a great place to be this week.

I hope you'll be able to take advantage of it.



For more information on Metheny go to http://www.patmetheny.com

John Adams - http://www.earbox.com

Yves Klein at The Hirshhorn - http://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/view.asp?key=21&subkey=252

The Girl Who Played With Fire - The Movie

Perhaps you've read 

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

or the entire 

Millennium Trilogy. 

Maybe you saw the movie

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Millions & millions did. 

So, 

if you are like me,

how excited will you be,

knowing that the film, 

The Girl Who Played With Fire,

part deux of 

The Millennium Trilogy,

opens July 2

?!?!?!?!?!?!

I cannot wait!!!