Julia and Not Me

When Julie and Julia came out (which I really enjoyed) I listened to my friends talk about watching her on PBS, cooking her recipes, etc. etc. and I couldn't contribute because I didn't do any of those things. I didn't watch Jacques Costeau or anything edifying really. I watched Zorro and spent the rest of the time outside. But sitting in the concert hall (yesterday's blog) I suddenly remembered what I did watch: Young People's Concerts with Leonard Bernstein. He shared his love of classical music in a kid's terms and I'll always be grateful to him for that. The video above is one I actually remember, about how music inspires feeling, even to the humming below the music which I found endearing even if I didn't think of it in those terms.

There was a riot

"Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra",  John Singer Sargent

I've always been intrigued by the fact that there was a riot when Igor Stravinsky premiered his work "The Rite of Spring" in Paris in 1913. Catcalls, boos, fist fights between those who loved it and those who hated it until finally the police were called. Part of the strong feelings were due to the ballet by Njinsky which was primitive and violent but the music itself has what Leonard Bernstein described as ". . . the best dissonances anyone ever thought up, and the best asymmetries and polytonalities and polyrhythms and whatever else you care to name." So when I saw the Minnesota Orchestra was going to perform it, I got a ticket. A ticket in what I thought was the nosebleed section but the balconies are tiered on top of each other and the sound was very good -- I could see and hear everything. You will probably recognize the beginning notes of the solo bassoon (LA Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting) -- it's in Disney's "Fantasia" Genesis. 

 

I know these videos are not the same as being there and feeling the music stir you but take a listen anyway. There is one part in the section below that the program notes called "dauntingly black" meaning that it is has a furious energy, constantly changing bar lengths, gathering excitement (and a lot of notes on the page). Stravinsky himself confessed that parts were so complicated that at first he could play them but could not write them down. The concert I attended was a combination of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Orchestra so there was a huge amount of instruments on stage and towards the end it seemed like every instrument was playing, especially the drums, the drums! You can see the physicality of the music in the conductor. The Mn. Orchestra conductor (Osmo Vänskä) was doing the same thing, bounding about on the podium. At one point I counted 9 English horns playing all at once! I didn't feel like a riot but it was definitely exciting and stirring.

 

I feel lucky

Goofy video, great song.

I used to suffer around cynical people. I felt like they believed that cynicism and sarcasm were intellectual. Happiness and feeling lucky meant you were lacking brain cells. I might even have heard the word "Pollyanna". (OK, I confess. I loved that movie. Loved it.) I have always felt lucky and even occasionally describe myself that way.

Yet another scientific study of happiness caught my attention a while ago because it said that one of the attributes of happy people is that they feel lucky. They aren't necessarily luckier than anyone else and in some cases their lives may even be rockier than normal -- they just feel that things go their way. I know that accentuating the positive has a way of broadening and sharpening your awareness. So yes, rotten things happen but sometimes you can see it coming and step out of the way.

I'm thinking of this because tonight I went to see/hear the Minnesota Orchestra perform "The Rite of Spring." It was amazing, more about that in another blog. I rushed out of the house so I could catch my bus. The streets have turned to sheer ice so I didn't want to drive and yes, I felt lucky that I could get there by bus. After the concert, I realized that I didn't have my keys. The keys to my apartment and the keys to my car, all on the same ring. I looked everywhere, an usher helped me look, phone calls were made. I looked around the bus stop and retraced my steps home. 

My own unscientific study. I felt lucky. I decided that maybe I had dropped my keys outside my apartment door but if they weren't there I already had a back-up plan: I would call a cab, stay at a hotel and call my landlord in the morning since it was late and the streets were ice. Because I felt lucky I wasn't crying or feeling sorry for myself and I could make a plan. I almost felt cheerful. At this point you either get it or you think I'm delusional. One of my neighbors was home and let me in the front door. My keys were on the carpet in front of my apartment door.

Just one more thing. Good luck deserves gratitude. I'm not talking about superstition, just feel gratitude.

Work Rest Work Rest

I love that feeling when things link together in your mind and the light bulb goes off in your head. Or when something you know intuitively is stated in a beautiful way. 

First I read this passage in a book. Then I read it out loud to someone who wanted to hear it which made it stick in my head. 
"Levin, dark and melancholy, is trying to forget Kitty. It is springtime, he goes off with peasants to mow the fields. In the beginning the task seems too arduous for him. He is about to give up when the old peasant leading the row calls for a rest. Then they begin again with their scythes. Once again Levin is about to collapse from exhaustion, once again the old man raises his scythe. Rest. And then the row moves forward again, forty hands scything swaths and moving steadily toward the river as the sun rises. It is getting hotter and hotter, Levin's arms and shoulders are soaked in sweat but with each successive pause and start, his awkward, painful gestures become more fluid. A welcome breeze suddenly caresses his back. A summer rain. Gradually his movements are freed from the shackles of his will, and he goes into a light trance which gives his gestures the perfection of conscious, automatic motion, without thought or calculation, and the scythe seems to move of its own accord. Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings where the pleasure of doing is marvelously foreign to the striving of the will."
From "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" Muriel Barberry 

A week or so later, I was trying to explain to my kids why you should rest in savasana, corpse pose, after a strenuous yoga class, why the muscles won't benefit if they aren't allowed to rest but they didn't believe it. When the lights go dim and we lie down on the mat they are more inclined to jump up with their cell phones with all the other driven souls and run out the door. Why waste time lying there and twitching?

The next link. I was in a Yoga seminar with a Swami and she touched on this. I asked her to elaborate and she said that doing restorative poses, such as corpse pose or child's pose, gives vitality back to the muscles that were used. Restoration on a cellular level. Muscles want to be fed with breath and restoration. If you get up and leave, the muscles are still exerting and tired and subject to tear and injury.

As she said this, I heard the passage above in my head and connected it. The pleasure of doing is not possible without the balancing power of rest.

the diaphragm is a muscle

I don't know what I thought it was. Something like a blowfish blown up, like a bellows only more delicate. It's not delicate at all, it's a big strong muscle. I went to see the Bodies exhibit. Again. For the third time. The first time in DC, out of curiosity. The second time here in Minneapolis because I am taking Yoga teacher training and will be studying Anatomy. The third time because the exhibit was leaving and I just can't get enough of it. I see something new every time, like the diaphragm.

I always loved Anatomy. I loved the colored acetate overlays showing the different systems of the body, lifting them up and seeing how it all fit together. Well, that's nothing compared to this exhibit. These are real bodies that have had the fat and fluids extracted -- anything that decomposes. Look here for an explanation of how it is done.

The first room shows the skeletal system, bodies in different attitudes -- sitting, hitting a ball, etc. Lots of info included and scientific types wandering around to answer questions. Then the muscles on the bones. The respiratory system, lungs. Then the nervous system and arteries -- you can trace the beginnings and ends of veins and nerves. You can look at kidneys, diseased and healthy, you can see a brain, a fetus, toenails. Basically, you are looking at yourself.

the heart, the lungs (bronchioles)

Circulatory system. This might be my favorite partly because you walk into a darkened room and inside of plastic cases are all the blood vessels of the body, suspended. It is so amazingly beautiful.

There has been some criticism of using real bodies which you can look up. I think I wrote about it awhile ago but I can't find it. Bottom line: The bodies are donated. I don't see how anyone can go through this exhibit and not be awestruck at how our bodies work and not want to take care of what you have. As one of the directors says, this was once limited to morticians, forensic scientists, universities. On my third visit, I followed a coroner for awhile. He was pointing out things to the person with him, so excited to be seeing everything that it was catching. As he said, you can't see these sort of things in dissection. Leonardo would be ecstatic.

Cosmic philosophy: you will be eaten

If you are ever in Monroe, Wisconsin, stop by Fireside Books (1157 11th Street, 608-329-7323). There you will find an amazing collection of rare books, used books, fun books, books, books, books to your heart's delight. I found a number of treasures but the best was "Archy and Mehitabel" by Don Marquis. These were characters Don Marquis invented while a columnist at the New York Sun in 1916. Archy is a cockroach with the soul of a poet and Mehitabel is an alley cat who believes she was Cleopatra in a previous life. Because Archy is a cockroach he can't hit the shift lever on the typewriter so everything is lower case with no punctuation. I don't remember when I first encountered them, ages ago, but it was love at first read. And when I saw this book on the shelf I actually stopped breathing. Anyway, I want to share this piece which I am relating to since I have been reading about yoga and enlightenment and cosmic type stuff: 

the robin and the worm

a robin said to an
angleworm as he ate him
i am sorry but a bird
has to live somehow the
worm being slow witted could
not gather his
dissent into a wise crack
and retort he was
effectually swallowed
before he could turn
a phrase
by the time he had
reflected long enough
to say but why must a
bird live
he felt the beginnings
of a gradual change
invading him
some new and disintegrating
influence
was stealing along him
from his positive
to his negative pole
and he did not have
the mental stamina
of a jonah to resist the
insidious
process of assimilation
which comes like a thief
in the night
demons and fishhooks
he exclaimed
i am losing my personal
identity as a worm
my individuality
is melting away from me
odds craw i am becoming part and parcel
of this bloody robin
so help me i am thinking
like a robin and not
like a worm any
longer yes yes i even
find myself agreeing
that a robin must live
i still do not
understand with my mentality
why a robin must live
and yet i swoon into a
condition of belief
yes yes by heck that is
my dogma and i shout it a
robin must live
amen said a beetle who had
preceded him into the
interior that is the way i
feel myself is it not
wonderful when one arrives
at the place
where he can give up his
ambitions and resignedly
nay even with gladness
recognize that it is a far
far better thing to be
merged harmoniously
in the cosmic all
and this comfortable situation
in his midst
so affected the marauding
robin that he perched
upon a blooming twig
and sang until the
blossoms shook with ecstacy
he sang
i have a good digestion
and there is a god after all
which i was wicked
enough to doubt
yesterday when it rained
breakfast breakfast
i am full of breakfast
and they are at breakfast
in heaven
they breakfast in heaven
all s well with the world
so intent was this pious and
murderous robin
on his own sweet song
that he did not notice
mehitabel the cat
sneaking toward him
she pounced just as he
had extended his larynx
in a melodious burst of
thanksgiving and
he went the way of all
flesh fish and good red herring
a ha purred mehitabel
licking the last
feather from her whiskers
was not that a beautiful
song he was singing
just before i took him to
my bosom
they breakfast in heaven
all s well with the world
how true that is
and even yet his song
echoes in the haunted
woodland of my midriff
peace and joy in the world
and over all the
provident skies
how beautiful is the universe
when something digestible meets
with an eager digestion
how sweet the embrace
when atom rushes to the arms
of waiting atom
and they dance together
skimming with fairy feet
along a tide of gastric juices
oh feline cosmos you were
made for cats
and in the spring
old cosmic thing
i dine and dance with you
i shall creep through
yonder tall grass
to see if peradventure
some silly fledgling thrushes
newly from the nest
be not floundering therein
i have a gusto this
morning i have a hunger
i have a yearning to hear
from my stomach
further music in accord with
the mystic chanting
of the spheres of the stars that
sang together in the dawn of
creation prophesying food
for me i have a faith
that providence has hidden for me
in yonder tall grass
still more
ornithological delicatessen
oh gayly let me strangle
what is gayly given
well well boss
there is something to be said
for the lyrical and imperical
attitude
believe that everything is for
you until you discover
that you are for it
sing your faith in what you
get to eat right up to the
minute you are eaten
for you are going to be eaten
will the orchestra please
strike up that old
tuntankhamen jazz while i dance
a few steps i learnt from an
egyptian scarab and some day i
will narrate to you the most
merry light headed wheeze
that the skull of yorick put
across in answer to the
melancholy of the dane and also
what the ghost of
hamlet s father replied to the skull
not forgetting the worm that
wriggled across one of the picks
the grave diggers had left behind
for the worm listened and winked
at horatio while the skull and the
ghost and the prince talked
saying there are more things
twixt the vermiform appendix
and nirvana than are dreamt of
in thy philosophy horatio
fol de riddle fol de rol
must every parrot be a pol

--Don Marquis
artwork by george harriman who also drew Krazy Kat

PS I had to look up vermiform appendix. It refers to the shape of the human appendix. Vermiform is Latin for worm-like.

How cool am I?

As cool as I think I am. ? As cool as you think I am? I sit on the bus and watch a man rub his hands over and over, compulsively. He wrings them and rubs them until I think of Lady MacBeth. I've been traveling with crazy people all day long. I look out the bus window, it's dark, I'm reflected back to myself, and I see how easily I could start talking out loud.

When we remember we are all mad, 

the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

-- Mark Twain

Thank you for making a different kind of sandwich

Looking through old letters, I found one that my little sister sent to me. I was 22, just out of college, on my own and working. She was 11. She and my parents had come into town to visit me. She was the last one at home and essentially an only child and she didn't want to go back home. I remember that I had other things to do but I let her stay with me and said I would take her back later. I kept her letter because I remember the feeling of astonishment that the smallest, seemingly inconsequential things could be of so much importance.

Thank you for taking me to the park!
Thank you for the lemonade!
Thank you for my top and making it for me!
Thank you for going shopping with me!
Thank you for making a different kind of sandwich for me!
Thank you for taking the longer path in the park!
Thank you for curling my hair!
Thank you for not going home!
Thank you for the ice cream cone!
Thank you for everything but most of all thanks for just being you!

Resolutions & Wishes & Blogs of 2009

 Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis

THREE. That's all, only three resolutions. And because I am apparently a Future-Oriented Person (see "Silliness" blog) I need to slow down and have a little fun, staying in the Present. I also need to look to the Past, for what I can learn there. And it's true, as a Type A, driven person I already have a list a mile long of everything I hope to accomplish in 2010. That's a plan; these are RESOLUTIONS.

One. I've already stated one and that is to learn to play and sing "Appalachian Round". I heard this sung by Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers and fell in love with it. I started practicing the guitar and found a good youtube video guy to learn from. Only one problem: I couldn't find the chords or even the notes for the song. It's an old traditional song "Welcome, welcome every guest" (c. 1700) with new lyrics. I looked for a long time, nothing. So I went on Claudia Schmidt's website and emailed her, never thinking she might reply. Well, several lovely emails later and I might get a chart & maybe even get to meet her when she is here in March. Some of you may wonder how one person can sing a round. You can't, you can just sing the tune. So that's not a resolution but a wish -- that I might find eventually find some friends to sing it with.

Two. Do the Grand Rounds. This is a 50.1 mile National Scenic Byway in the city of Minneapolis. Inside the city! How can I pass that up? I can't. I've already done part of it without realizing it. When I first got here I drove aimlessly (exploring, getting my bearings) and meandered down the West River Parkway, a quiet road that ambles along the Mississippi River. I ended up at Minnehaha Falls. I will do that again because now I can see the falls frozen (above). There will be quaking bogs, ancient Native American paths, the Mississippi River Gorge, a streetcar line, bird sanctuaries, rose gardens. I can stop and smell the roses.

Three. I've been cleaning up my files (see "A Fine Mess"), getting organized so I can work unimpeded by flurries of paper. I threw everything that should be in a scrapbook in a special drawer. But that's the Past, where I should be looking for inspiration and I'm not sure what else. So that's number three, make a scrapbook. It's already turned into more than one scrapbook. I found a lot of love letters (from men, women and children) so that will be one book. When my mother died, she only left one photo album which I don't have. So I will make two scrapbooks if I can, one for each of my children, keeping in mind their different personalities and what they might want to have. They already have Baby Books and school stuff, etc. This will be my history, intertwined with theirs.

Happy New Year to everyone and thank you all for making 2009 so much better than it might have been. It was a hard year for a lot of us -- here's to a more serene 2010!

What are your New Year's resolutions? Please leave a Comment.

 PS I don't know where I got the photo. Sorry.