Scale the Mountain, Drain the Depths: Music, Musician, Writer!

       The headline writer for the review might have been inspired himself:

       "Pianist Perahia scales the mighty 'Hammerklavier'"

       Critic Mark Swed's first words are "Beethoven's massive, daunting, imposing, terrifying, exhilarating, breathtaking 'Hammerklavier Sonata' is not Everest.  It just seems that way as one compiles a list of roaring adjectives. . ."

       Of musician Perahia, Swed says, "[H]e produces an unflappable beauty that seeks the reverberant essence of each note, just as a Japanese priest officiating at a tea ceremony finds in every sip the all-consuming spirit of tea."

       Perahia is so challenged, "He left the stage looking completely drained, this pianist who always puts the music first having not just played a sonata but lived through a momentous human experience, a pianist who had, himself, drained the bottomless 'Hammerklavier.'"

       Mighty heights, bottomless depths:  Beethoven, Perahia, Swed.

(from Los Angeles Times, Calendar Section, April 29, 2016)
 

Arising after "Arrival"

       We saw the science-fiction movie Arrival yesterday, how to communicate with "arrivals" from elsewhere, very different creatures.  But the theories behind it all didn't make much sense onscreen to Connie and me.

       This morning, Connie nudged me to get up, it was time.  I reached for her hand to indicate I was awake, and to do some hand-teasing, she chuckling a little sleepily, returning the gesture, I curled our fingers together; then I tickled her palm uttering "Meezala, Mazzala, Kitchi-kitchi-kitchi-coo," fingers racing up her palm and wrist (my grandma's way of teasing us kids).

       Connie relented, "We have five more minutes to sleep."  I think instead, realizing my blog post today, thankful for touch, and spoken language with its visible signs, whether alien creatures could ever decipher them or not!

"Echoic Writing" Lives Again

       Yesterday's blog entry might very well not be only an unusual coincidence of sound taking both writer and reader down strange pathways.

       It might be another fine (?) example of what I call "echoic writing" where the writer is simply influenced by his own writing preceding the "echo" word(s).  A word just said has sort of "imprinted" itself on the brain and is summoned for reuse, probably unintentionally.  It can be lazy or tired writing.

       Some previous posts of mine that have dealt with this odd, but not too surprising occurrence in verbal composition are discoverable here.

Being Circumspect with Circumcision

       In the very same Torah portion that prompted our young rabbi's hilarious comment on circumcision in my last post is the following sentence, the Lord speaking to Abraham:
 

        "And if any male who is uncircumcised fails to circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his kin; he has broken My Covenant."


       Read it aloud, and listen closely.  You will hear something strange.  If the translator had done so, I'm sure he or she would have found different words.

       Did you hear "cut off from his skin" as I did.  It's definitely there and seems to be some kind of contradiction of what has just been said!

       Language can play games with us, as we with it, and take us down peculiar, surprising pathways.

       

A Joke Too Good Not to Tell

       At Torah study Wednesday, we were discussing how Abraham at age 99 had himself circumcised.  As at least the males of us were wincing, thinking how bad that would feel at any of our respective ages, let alone his, our young Rabbi Sam, who was just visiting the class that day and not teaching it, blurted out something that had all of us in the room rocking with laughter for several minutes before class could resume:

       "My circumcision was so painful, I couldn't walk for a year."
      

"u too, u two"

       I messaged David at bedtime, concerned a little how he was, having helped Connie and me with a couple things the last two days while carrying on a full time job.  The brief exchange ended this way:

       Don:  I'll say good night.
David: Thx pops.
       Don:  Talk tomorrow.
David: Night u too, u two
       Don:  He's in London.  Good night.

       This earned me a smiley face.  I liked David's word play and figured my response was passable for an octogenarian who remembers pencils.

Misfired "Weather" Prediction

       I occasionally contribute my own "local" forecast to the "Local Conditions" weather website.  They actually request such.  They have generously printed my jocular attempts which wouldn't have helped anyone at all navigate the day's weather in my neck of the woods.

       I guess the one I sent in yesterday made them a touch more tetchy:

       "Snow today, followed by little boys and girls on sleds."

       They didn't print it.

"Breadcrumbs" Will Lead You Back Home

       My weather website sometimes uses the arcane language of computer-speak, but it's sweetened with user-friendliness:


       "If you are not finding the information you want, please . . . note the navigation tabs just above the breadcrumbs, which are links to other data relating to this city."


       Now I'll be sure to look for those navigation tabs just above the breadcrumbs if I only knew what breadcrumbs were and where to find THEM.  (Because then I might learn what navigation tabs are.)

       Fortunately I find a Webopedia Definition for "breadcrumbs":  "Breadcrumbs is a website navigation technique.  Links appear horizontally near the top of a page, providing links back to each previous page in the site hierarchy."

       OK!  (Maybe.)  And I do love breadcrumbs.

"Big Sky Country" and "Certain Women"

       It was after we came home from the movie "Certain Women" today, in which the background was consistently Montana's ever-present outdoors, that the term "Big Sky Country" came back to me.

       Yes, it is an appellation often given to Montana, and it felt right, having never been through the state and seeing it here for about the first time.  Flat, flat plains, mutiply-mountainous terrain, open, open skies.  ("Montana" is from the Spanish for "mountainous.")

       If you know people from Montana or of them on TV or film, there's a certain sturdiness, stoniness, as though they'd been steeped in that country and felt the imposition of that land and those skies.

       Perhaps the four different women in this movie, each living lives quietly, steadily, but somewhat impassively, yearning yet lonely, are echoing these very surroundings.

      

Hoping Hillary Voters Will Find a Chuckle

 Published on June 17, 2016

Dan Piraro's "Bizarro" can be found here.

  

Is "Characters" a Good Word for What Twitter Limits?

       I think it is a good word.   It's not only letters that are limited; it's punctuation, numerals, I guess anything that's a visible mark.

       And what does the word that means traits of a person's nature, actions, and morality, that "character," have to do with Twitter's useage?

       “Character” comes from Latin character, from Greek kharakter, from kharax, “pointed stick," something that was used "to inscribe" or "scratch" or "engrave," to make a mark.

       Shakespeare's Polonius gives advice to his son using "character" in an earlier English verb form:

       And these few precepts in thy memory
       See thou character.  Give thy thoughts no tongue....
                                             Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

       We sometimes say that a person's character is revealed in the face; we can see the qualities and values of a lifetime etched there: character.          

"The Dump Song"

       While driving, I listen to what's called the "Unforgettable" radio station that wonderfully but shamelessly plays the "Great American Songbook" 24-7 on its 1260 a.m. airwaves in Los Angeles.

       Most of the songs I recall and love from my childhood and youth and sing right along with the artists who are, yes, shamelessly (shamefully!) never introduced, never back-announced, never named, AND no titles, no composers, no conductors are ever given.

       Speaking voices come in periodically, announcing only their own first names and mentioning "Unforgettable."

       Last Friday, I hummed listening to one song I could barely remember, gradually picking out the prominent background beat--"DUMP da-de-dee DUMP da-de-dee DUMP da-de-dee DUMP DUMP."

       As I "sang" that this morning, Connie appropriately titled it for me:  "The Dump Song."
  

"He Put Us on His Back Again"

       Dave Roberts of the L.A. Dodgers was voted 2016 Sporting News Manager of the Year in the National League.

       There was lots of talk about the record breaking number of injuries on the team that Roberts had to foist with and come up with winning solutions for.  That was the most serious problem he faced as manager, but that isn't why he won.

       Dave Roberts earned the award because of the way he spoke of team members' play.  A quote like the one above when Justin Turner had a 3-run homer and 3 hits in a game indicates Roberts sees that good play is a function of will and determination and team spirit, not just talent and skill.  The nature of this praise is the way to build a team. 

       It's in the language.
      

"Pleasure awaits your company."

       Not often does a Chinese cookie give me pause for thought.  I liked it at once, not quite knowing why.  At first, I thought how nice it was, thinking of it as someone saying it to me.  Pleasure won't arrive until I'm there to be with that person.  Wow!  What a compliment.

       Then I thought, is it just I who brings the pleasure?  Or, is it just our being together that's the pleasure?  But perhaps, we have to foray out into the world as companions for the pleasure then to materialize, a joint adventure.

       Or, look, it has nothing to do with me, us, NOR things we do together!  It's just pleasure tapping its toe impatiently until I get off my duff:  it doesn't like to wait!

       Or, I make pleasure happen.

Words "fall almost unbidden to my tongue . . ."

       . . . as anyone reading this blog must know.  And so I'm very happy to find once again this unmatchable poem of images and sounds by Galway Kinnell:


Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.