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May 11, 2006Want some free love?I’m giving the stuff away tonightI TELL MY 8-MONTH-OLD KITTEN ZAZUas she crawls all over me like I’m a rug with a face. Zazu likes to sniff and inspect that face, ending with a little kiss on the lips (which I retract) and placing her black wet triangle of a nose inside my left nostril—never the right. I TRIED NOT TO LOVEmy cats—after all, they’re only going to end up dead, with their heads hanging limp as Dr. Wong carries them out the door, and I’ll be crushed once more. But these little guys exist solely because people kept caring about them—from Wonderdog Rescue, who saved them from abandonment in a box in Brisbane, to their foster mom in Fremont, to the volunteer vets who went there to give them their shots, to the surgeon in El Cerrito who fixed Zzyzzy’s weirdo condition of a reverse eyelid, and don’t forget me, who gave them their home–all so they could live a life of love. Their whole purpose in life as they live it in my flat, is to love and be loved. Don’t tell me cats don’t love. When Zzyzzy sprawls across my chest, gazes innocently up at me and stretches his paw to rest on my cheek, it makes me purr. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO WAITSorry to disappoint, but I’m still working on losing my virginity. Next time. SPRING FEVER FANTASIASpring has sprung and I’m wound pretty tight and ready to spring myself. Too bad there’s no one to catch me in the mosh pit.
THE LAST MAN I LOVEDwouldn’t throw me the losing end of a wishbone. Amazing, isn’t it, how long it can take to stop loving someone who doesn’t care about you, or to give up the delusion that he ever did, or to stop feeling gypped that he resisted contact with you, or sorrowful for the wasted love that circled down the drain like undrunk wine. Maybe he does care, you’ll give him that—but not in any way that impacts your life as you live it. So I’m ready for a man of flesh and blood who wants to be with me. Lover man, O where can you be? Where I’d least expect it? Not holding my breath. Gonna get David Blaine to hold it for me. What are the chances Josh Lucas is outside my door with a flat tire and dead cell phone? Slay me with those feakin’ dimples, dude. BEETHOVEN’S NINTH–OVERDUEOK, moving on. If I’d been depending on Microsoft Entourage to remind me to attend Beethoven’s Ninth on Friday 4/21, I might have missed it, because it was not until returning from Beethoven’s Ninth that I turned on my computer and was notified that I was overdue on Beethoven’s Ninth. A coworker had told me, “You’re kind of dressed up today.” “Beethoven’s Ninth tonight!” “Oh! I love Beethoven’s Ninth but I’ll be out of town. Tell me how it was.” “IT WAS GLORIOUS,”I offered immediately. It can not, after all, be other than what it is. Actually this rendition by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was the first “historically informed” performance I have heard—a smaller orchestra playing period instruments of Beethoven’s day, including what looked to be a 10-foot-tall bassoon. The smaller size orchestra allows one to pick out individual instruments more readily, but also makes gaffs more noticeable. I think I pulled a half-dozen or so sour faces, which has never been the case with the SFS. They still packed a punch though, and with a 99-voice chorus (it’s a long symphony—I counted them) there was no lack of glory, even though truth be told I don’t particularly care for “this early music thingee,” as the fellow next to me put it. I prefer the lush grandeur of the modern orchestra. Sue me. The evening featured the most charming, elegant entrance I’ve ever seen on stage—a soloist entered from the upper gallery door and descended the staircase to the choral section in satin gown and stole. Lovely! It hearkened back to the days of Loretta Young and Audrey Hepburn and gave an intimacy to the proceeding, as if Davies were a huge parlor where Aunt Clementine had come to entertain us. SPEAKING OF LUDWIGMay 15th. May 16th. Davies Hall. Esa. Pekka. Salonen. Los Angeles. Philharmonic. Beethoven’s 8th. Beethoven’s 5th. Beethoven’s 7th. Be still my freakin’ heart. LEMME IN ON THATWhen I read in my April SymphonE News that soprano Celena Shafer had been scheduled to perform Berg’s Lulu Suite but had to cancel (preggers with twins) and was being replaced by “rising star” pianist Stewart Goodyear playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, I ran, not walked, to Davies. Here we go again, I’m thinking, get ready to be amazed. Goodyear is somewhere in his late-mid or early-late twenties. His playing was brilliant and crisp, his adagio dreamy and smooth, and I stand in awe of his prowess, but he did not manhandle my soul like Sergey Khatchatryan did. Nevertheless it was an aggressive, confident, clean performance delivered by a master of his instrument. The G major Concerto features one of the most sublime adagios in all the repertoire, of desert island quality (a piece of music you’d want with you if you were stuck on one). If I get to heaven and that’s what’s playing on the jukebox, I won’t be surprised. Perfect for when you want to indulge in feeling “blue” (not depressed), it’s the musical equivalent of Bob’s (Roberto Benigni) observation in “Down by Law”: “It’s a sad and beautiful world.” And when the orchestra definitively hammered out the final abrupt fortissimo of the last movement, in that brief but pregnant lacuna after the conductor lowers his baton, relaxes his shoulders and turns, but before the onset of audience applause, I spontaneously yelled, in 100 pt. boldface: WOW! “NOTHING TASTES BETTER THAN THE SPERM FROM A GENIUS”Alma Mahler was married three times, to famous, accomplished men. Her first kiss was from painter Gustav Klimt, she dumped composer Alexander von Zemlinsky for hubby No. 1, Gustav Mahler, dumped him for hubby No.2, Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius, conducted an affair with painter Oscar Kokoschka and dumped him for novelist Franz Werfel, by whom she became pregnant, then disposed of Gropius and made Franz hubby No. 3. So it is no wonder that she once made the above observation. THANKS, ALMA!Not only did Alma cheat on Mahler (driving him to consult Freud) and divorce him, she ignored his final wish, which was that if he died (as he did, at age 50) without having completed his tenth symphony, that it be burned. That she not only ignored his request but instead published the score in a facsimile edition of Mahler’s own hand, may have been and still is considered a controversial move, but it was cause for much rejoicing by me as I was deluged by the tidal wave of gorgeous music that had me swooning when I heard it for the first time later that same concert under the able baton of our own Mahler Master Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas. They were recording this performance as part of the SFS’s continuing Mahler series, and MTT turned to the audience and requested, “Please give us some beautiful silence so we can play you some beautiful music.” Yes, sir! When the last note sounded, I said to the gentleman beside me, “Alma Mahler was right.” O MEIN PAPADuring his life Mahler was more recognized as a conductor than as a composer. He spent his last years with the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic. The idea of Mahler himself conducting one of his own works is mind-boggling. If I could go back in time and see that, it would be a worthy destination. He was a striking man in the Raymond Massey mold, just right for my father-figure fantasies. MY DAD THE PEASANTFebruary 2nd was my dad’s birthday (as well as James Joyce’s). I was surprised when my sister said she’d said a prayer for him; it hadn’t occurred to me. He died in the ‘80’s—I don’t remember the year. Have you ever wished your parents would just accept you as you are, godammit!? Well guess what, it works both ways. At the symphony a while back I sat next to the adorable 8-year-old son of timpanist David Herbert, Oliver Herbert, who was there by himself in a trim navy blue suit and tie. The orchestra was playing babysitter that night. DRUMS OF PASSIONOliver studies drumming too. On the program were Ives, Schumann and Brahms. He told me he likes Schumann and Brahms, yes, also Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. He showed me his ticket and said he’d come in the back door where “Michael’s office” is. His dad came out at the intermission and kneeled on the stage, asking Oliver if he had everything he needs. I was thinking to myself, I wish I could have said, “My dad is the timpanist with the San Francisco Symphony.” “My mom is a literature professor at Stanford.” But hey guess what, my father was a Polish peasant and my mother a Lithuanian refugee who both struggled to make a life and a home in the new world and did they best they could with the least they had. So maybe they weren’t the formidable intellectual fantasy parents I’d have picked; they were just small-time heroes who survived World War II and lived to tell it. IT’S ABOUT TIMEI finally acquired something I’ve coveted for 30+ years—a uniform set of the entire works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Put out by Brilliant and acquired from my source, www.ArkivMusic.com, the 17″ long box contains 160 CD’s of choral works, concerti, orchestral works, keyboard works, cantatas, organ works, you name it, he wrote it. The man died at 65, having produced the aforementioned cavalcade of 1200 works and 20 children: Catherina Dorothea, Wilhelm Friedemann, the twins: Maria Sophia and Johann Christoph, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Gottfried Bernhard, Leopold August, Christiane Sophie Henriette, Gottfried Heinrich, Christian Gottlieb, Elisabeth Juliane Friederike, Ernst Andreas, Regine Johanna, Christiana Benedicta, Christiana Dorothea, Johann Christoph Friedrich, Johann August Abraham, Johann Christian, Johanna Carolina, and Regine Susanna. Ten of them died in infancy or childhood. PASSION OF MATTHEWI actually had trouble sitting through a Bach concert the other day (what?!), the American Bach Soloists’ St. Matthew Passion at Calvary Pres on Fillmore and Jackson. I had just come from lunch (and wine) with a friend at our streetside table at Enrico’s, where the annual boho gathering was happening, except that it didn’t look any different than any other random collection of San Franciscans, and 3-1/4 hours of even God’s music was a bit much on a glorious spring Sunday. The text and translation were 12 8-1/2 x 11 pages long. There was a young boy in front of me who followed the score for the entire performance. I asked him, are you a singer too, or musician? He nodded happily. He was twelve years old. “You are the future of Bach!” I exclaimed, extending my arms. “Keep it up,” I told him, with a thumbs up. He loved the attention. Musical kids can really astonish you. While living in Berkeley I spent three years on the Board of Directors of the Junior Bach Festival Association, http://www.juniorbach.org, handling the publicity for the concerts. You’d get a little girl in a pink frilly church dress, in white socks and mary janes, kicking her chair as she awaits her turn to play, then she sits down at the piano and rips through a freakin’ English suite. Pre-teens playing the Chaconne on the guitar or the violin, a dozen prodigies from the Crowden School. It brings home that kids could say out of trouble if only they have something to be interested in, something to pursue and excel in. And someone to encourage them. Though I would not have willfully foisted myself upon anyone as a mother, I do fantasize a life that would have held the opportunity to guide a child of my own to an appreciation and love of the beauty of life, to give my son or daughter a home full of music and cats and reading aloud and exploring the world. Next time. WELCOME TO MY HOMESergey Khatchatryan’s CD, featuring the luscious Sibelius Concerto and the Khatchaturian he performed at Davies, is on continuous loop in my writing studio. Certain of his high notes are so ethereal he could be stroking not a violin string but a spider web. It’s such personal playing I feel on more intimate terms with it than I do with most people. This guy is not afraid to show his hand. Recorded when Sergey was 18, the album compares favorably with my beloved Itzhak Perlman rendition. His playing reminds me of a comment Issac Stern made during a master class he was giving, shown in “From Mao to Mozart: Issac Stern in China,” when a young girl played a passage and he instructed her to stop and sing the same passage, which she did with heart and subtlety. “Now play as it as would sing it.” Sergey is already master of singing through his violin. He has actually changed my life, adding new dimensions of beauty and hope to life in the 21st century. From a 21-year-old master all this is a great act of faith for me that the world shall continue to be livable, even if one must search out its pockets of beauty. POLITICS, RELIGION, SEX and HIS PORTFOLIOThere was a buzz in the air. The excitement was mounting at Jack Adams Hall in the Cesar Chavez Student Center at SFSU. On a long table with a pleated skirt a pitcher of water stood at the ready next to a laptop computer awaiting commands. There was enough brain power in the room to run a particle accelerator, foreheads bulging with highly developed frontal lobes, Einsteinian halos of hair. After all this was the Einstein lecture and Benoit Mandelbrot was about to take the stage. I won’t bother to paraphrase whatever I could manage to understand, especially through his unusual Polish-French accent, but when someone asked him what he thought the big problems of the world today are, he said there are four things that should not be discussed in public. GET BUSYThe lecture reminded me again how much one, like Bach, can accomplish when one is not busy dwelling on oneself, one’s flaws and lackings and jealousies and lack of direction. If you’re bored, leaf through an encyclopedia or surf the web, just find yourself something to get interested in. Twirl the globe and stop it with your finger, saying “I am going here!” Look outward, discover something, learn something, create something, get good at something. Forget how lonely or inadequate and undeserving you are of your own happiness which you alone withhold from yourself and engage yourself with the world. Leave the house. HOW OLD WOULD YOU BE IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW OLD YOU WAS?or something like that, said Satchel Paige. IT WOULD BE BORING TO BE TWENTYDamn, I can’t remember who said that, some silver screen fading beauty perhaps. But as I enter my mid-early fifties, I am so glad I’ve already done everything I had to have done to be where I am. I was commenting to a friend about the thin sheet of plate glass that separates me from the homeless guy walking down the street and she said, hey, you belong on this side of the window. You put yourself here. I’m wearing my fifties comfortably. When I left Portland for the Bay Area everything had to be brand spankin’ new, so I chopped my curly “big” hair off and dyed it red. I thought, as long as I don’t look my age (this was 10 years ago), why have gray hair? And looking at the nest I’d made in the wastebasket my original color was one Shakespeare would have described as “dun,” that is, mousy, so I added some zip. WOULDN’T IT BE WRITERLY?But the other day I cut the remaining traces of color out of it because I realized I don’t give a damn what color my hair is. I can’t think of anything that matters less. Anyway the friends I’ve consulted in my informal poll insist that it suits me. Whatever. I’m 51, baby, take it or leave it. Stefan Stefanicus (that’s his botanical name), my dear, sweet friend and coworker, who has no doubt lived in dread of the day his name appears in this column, told me my graying hair makes me look “writerly,” like an “emerging” literary talent. As it has taken me a half-century to shed my chrysalis, I had better be one damned beautiful butterfly. But the gray panther look has had one other surprising effect. I am being given the lesbian eye. A gay friend confirmed, other (sometimes gray- and short-haired themselves) women definitely start checking you out. I can find a woman fun, attractive and sexy, but I don’t see myself falling in love with one. There is simply not the emotional “hook” that there is with a man. So while I would love to find love, I don’t think it will be with the gal across the aisle on the 6 Parnassus. But again, it’s spring, and my fancy has turned. Just remember, boys, I’m giving out free love tonight.
The author’s love of her life. ------------------------------------------------------------ If I could pick a father
Told you: givin' it away copyright Alexandra Jones 2006 |
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