Beyond the Score

Classical music purists and snobs would scoff at the idea that a symphony concert needs anything more than a conductor and musicians on stage. But there's a trend now for orchestras to present "multimedia" concerts with a projection screen along with live actors as commentators. Part of the idea is to attract a new audience by helping the music along with visuals to keep those short attention spans from wandering. When they work, these programs can be entertaining and make a nice change. For example, two years ago we watched the 1936 movie Alexander Nevsky above the stage while the Seattle Symphony played the complete score by Sergei Prokofiev.

This year John bought tickets to a 3 concert series called Beyond the Score, and yesterday we heard (and saw) Vivaldi's Four Seasons performed. It was perfect for a multimedia production, with its vivid musical scenes of weather, countrysides and activities. In the first half, the commentator and actors talked about Vivaldi and the music while Italian art and scenery was projected on the screen. Then in the second half, the Symphony played the piece through without any other "visual enhancement." A nice mix and introduction to favorite, familiar music.

Speaking of weather, yesterday afternoon our deep freeze suddenly turned into a sideways rainstorm, which whipped my umbrella inside out multiple times walking one block to Benaroya Hall. We are so ready for the Spring Concerto to start in the Northwest.

We did blow into the Brooklyn Oyster House for some Happy Hour treats before heading home in the rain.

Bright, cold weekend

After running errands yesterday, I drove home along Alki Beach and left the car just long enough to take a few pictures. The snowy Olympic mountains looked beautiful across Puget Sound. Despite the bright day, it didn't get above freezing here. With a stiff north wind blowing, only a few hardy dog people were walking near the water. But the sea birds were happy.
Here's a classic Seattle view across Elliott Bay. That seagull was nice to fly in front of my camera at the perfect moment, and make me look like a better photographer than I am.

Well! Tomorrow is our 18th wedding anniversary. How about that. I'm thinking of family and friends who were with us on that winter day in 1993. It's nice, because we have Symphony tickets and so a reason to "go out" tomorrow afternoon. Instead of coming home and eating warmed-up stew as usual, maybe I'll twist John's arm to take me out for oyster happy hour downtown.

Winter flowers

Happy birthday to our Mom in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
She's 86 years young today!

Yesterday I took this picture of my Valentine's Day roses-- they opened perfectly and have stayed like this for days. A real "super" rose, considering how far they've traveled and how many hands touched them along the way to Kroger's supermarket in Seattle. Most long-stem roses are grown in Columbia and flown in massive shipments to the Miami airport, where flowers are the largest import. I guess that isn't any more amazing than a plum from Chile, but still...

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth! Roses are wonderful on a snowy winter day. We're still a good 20 degrees colder than normal in Seattle. By now the daytime temperature should be well into the 50's, but we barely got above freezing yesterday. At least there will be bright sunshine today, and rain will be back by next week. Oh, boy.

Gather Ye Rosebuds
John Waterhouse

Movie night

Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in An Education

We just watched a couple of Netflix movies you might enjoy if you like something a bit different. These aren't big Hollywood productions with complicated stories, but entertaining because of the unusual settings and good acting. An Education takes place in London in 1960, right before the Beatles and rock n' roll changed everything. Life was still quiet and conservative as Europe finally recovered from the war, and the movie captures the atmosphere of London and Paris perfectly. The storyline is a bit light-- it's about a bright 16 year old girl who is seduced right under her parent's noses by a suave man twice her age. I know that sounds creepy and salacious, but the acting was great and it was interesting watching this drama slowly unfold. Carey Mulligan looks like a young Audrey Hepburn. Peter Sarsgaard is a heel, but a likable one. And the music in An Education was so good John bought the soundtrack.

White Wedding is a romantic comedy that takes place in South Africa. While his bride-to-be is busy planning a big white wedding, the groom Elvis leaves Johannesburg to pick up his best friend in Durban. The two journey across the beautiful country, but of course things don't go according to plan. The guys get lost and reluctantly allow a British hitchhiker to travel along with them. The story is predictable, but sweet and witty with (of course) a happy ending.

Graupel and robins

Graupel: A form of frozen precipitation consisting of snowflakes of ice crystals and supercooled water droplets frozen together. Not to be confused with sleet or hail.

We watched the graupel hit the deck last night as we sat inside eating our pork chops. This morning on the news, dire warnings of enough snow to cause havoc on the afternoon commute. And then record cold temperatures in Seattle tomorrow. Usually by late February, the ornamental trees are blooming up and down our street. But not this year.

I heard the first robin this week though-- a cheerful sound after months of waking up in dark silence. Now he's probably sorry he came out so early. When Nova is visiting, she likes to watch the birdies eating at the feeder. Here's a little poem for her this morning about a poor winter robin:

The fireside for the Cricket,
The wheat stack for the Mouse,
When trembling night-winds whistle
And moan all round the house;
The frosty ways like iron,
The branches plumed with snow, --
Alas! in Winter, dead and dark,
Where can poor Robin go?
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
And a crumb of bread for Robin,
His little heart to cheer.

From "Robin Redbreast"
William Allingham

Tillandsia

No, this isn't something that escaped from the zoo-- it's called a Tillandsia, or air plant. I bought one for myself and Amanda a few weeks ago at the West Seattle Nursery. The Tillandsia is just one of the 540 species in the bromeliad family. They are native to South America, Mexico and parts of the southern United States. All bromeliads are epiphytes, meaning they grow without soil by attaching to other plants. Moisture and nutrients are gathered from the air in the way of dust, decaying leaves and insect matter. We have plenty of dust in this house for it to eat, and the Air Plant City website has watering advice. I liked the look of it in this big glass container, but how about this:

It's a picture from Wiki Commons of an air plant "tower" someone created as a coffee table display. Quite the conversation piece when you have company over. Wine would help.

A murder of crows

A murder is a group of crows. Here's a fact: crows are more intelligent than they need to be to survive. How do they use that extra brain space? For starters, crows are always figuring things out. They mate for life and teach their young for up to five years (we know that takes mental effort.) Whether you love or hate them, crows are considered among the most intelligent creatures on earth and can even recognize individual faces.

Last fall PBS ran a Nature series called A Murder of Crows. It described an experiment at the University of Washington where researchers walked around the crow-infested campus wearing realistic Halloween masks. One was Dick Cheney! The "bad" man would approach the bird's nests and mess with the eggs, which drove the parents into fits. They never forgot that face and spread the word, so the person in the mask was dive-bombed everywhere. Not only that, after the babies hatched the parents taught them to hate the scary man.

We have a murder of crows in our neighborhood, but they like me. I don't look like Dick Cheney and I throw crusts of bread and stale crackers out the kitchen door. They're cautiously tame, and sit on the fence looking in the window when I'm cooking or eating a sandwich. Even if there's not a bird in sight, a crow will appear within 30 seconds if I throw something edible on the ground. It's fun to stand outside and time this. Our house is under constant crow surveillance.

Fashion at the World's Fair

If you were around in 1962, what were you wearing? A little girl would have felt pretty in a full skirt with a scratchy slip that made it stand out. Boys wore button front shirts to school with the tails tucked into belted pants. Jeans (dungarees) and t-shirts (undershirts) were just for play and chores around the house. No one wore sweatpants outside the gym, where women didn't go anyway. If a mother went shopping downtown with her daughter, they would have worn dresses, shoes with heels, gloves and probably hats. They may have had a treat at the Woolworth's lunch counter. It's hard to imagine a world without fast food, Starbucks, giant malls and Wal-Marts. When just about everything we wore and consumed was still made in America. Shopping for clothing was an important excursion to a department store or specialty shop.

The world was about to change drastically. But in the meantime, there was the 1962 Seattle World's Fair-- one last 1950's sort of party.

I just finished writing the finding aid for MOHAI's Seattle World's Fair Fashion Show collection. It was an enjoyable little break after that last long project. In 1962, the Fashion Group of Seattle donated the scripts and actual outfits worn during the shows. Four times a day, the models paraded down a stepping stone runway over a pool filled with Revlon perfume. Quite a sight, and a popular attraction. They weren't wearing foreign designer fashions, but mid-priced outfits from American companies like Ship n' Shore and Koret.

I didn't see the actual outfits, just the descriptions-- the clothing has been in off-site textile storage all this time. But this collection would make a great Museum exhibit for the Fair's 50th anniversary coming up in 2012.

Click here for a link to the finding aid on Northwest Digital Archives.

Beauty is only skin deep

Here's a picture of a perfect strawberry tart. But just like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, appearances can be deceiving. (Sorry, guys.) Expensive fresh fruit and homemade egg custard disguising a disaster of a tart. For some reason, the dang crust stuck to the bottom of the pan like it was glued on, and the soggy thing fell apart in a glop. Bad things sometimes happen to good cooks.

But the little lobster tails turned out great on Valentine's Day. These are tricky, but I found an Expert Village video with an easy-going chef who wasn't stressed about cooking his big, fancy Maine tails. He cut the shell right down the top with scissors, pulled it apart and gently separated all the meat from the shell with his fingers. The meat then lays daintily on top so it cooks evenly, plus the diner doesn't have to wrestle a flying shell at the table. It gives that nice restaurant "cauliflower" presentation.

It wasn't hard to do. Then you just season the tails lightly and drizzle with butter. Broil for about 10 minutes. Delicious! Especially with a piece of steak.

A classic surf n' turf dinner with strawberry "pudding" for dessert.

Snow angel

Just a few days ago I was gloating over our garden and early spring. Now comes the lesson in humility-- we'll have a messy mix of snow and rain in Seattle for the next few days. Over in eastern Washington there's no pretending it's spring yet. Here's a picture of Nova having fun in the snow last weekend.

Dust

There was a recent article in the NYT that said the amount of airborne dust has doubled in the 20th century. But how can that be? Isn't the amount of dirt in the world finite? Apparently, dust only "happens" when it gets stirred up. And there are plenty of people trampling around planet Earth these days. Not to mention droughts and wind storms.

I've been in a spring house cleaning fit this week, stirring up my share of dust going from room to room. When John gets home from work I'll demand, "Do you even notice how clean the bedroom is?" Well, probably not-- but to be diplomatic and make me change the subject he says "Yes, it looks great. And you rearranged my stuff."

Anyway, it's the unrewarding kind of housework. Washing and ironing dusty curtains, scrubbing tiles and banging the vacuum into corners and under beds-- that sort of thing. I don't care what the NYT says, this old house makes dirt. Two people could not possibly bring in as much as I take out. There's no other explanation for it.

Here's a link to the NYT article:
Speck by Speck, Dust Piles Up.

Early chores

Some of you are looking out at a brown and wintry landscape, but here in Seattle the garden chores are popping up like mushrooms on the lawn. It isn't warm or sunny, but the temperature is oh-so-slowly creeping toward 50 and finally the days are noticeably longer. Roses are budding and should be pruned now. All sorts of yard cleanup needs to be done after a soggy, mossy winter. February is a good month to think and poke around outside. Most people need warm weather to get motivated (who can blame them?) but it's a short window in spring for influencing Mother Nature, which will soon take her course.

The Goodwill always has interesting, cheap baskets for growing succulents. The shallow ones work best lined with coir fiber and a small amount of potting soil. Succulents aren't fussy but it's a picky job to divide them on a cold day. By summer whatever container you used will be filled out, and they look good on outdoor tables and tucked in flower beds. The baskets rot away in a year or two, but it doesn't matter since they need to be re-potted then anyway. It's a way to recycle and make something pretty for practically nothing.

Exotic birds and indoor pleasures

I wish I could send my little group of followers a cookie this morning, but a picture will have to do. I hope you have a sweet Valentine's day. It's raining and dreary in Seattle but who cares? John gave me bunches of roses, and tonight I'll make him mini lobster tails from Safeway. If they turn to rubber under the broiler, we can still wash them down with the excellent champagne my brother gives us each year for Christmas. Life is good...

It was an interesting Symphony program yesterday, starting with Ravel and Mozart then finishing with the big Brahms Symphony #4. We also heard a short piece seldom performed (at least in Seattle) called the Oiseaux Exotiques (Exotic Birds) for Piano and Small Orchestra. It was composed by Oliver Messiane in about 1956, and the guest soloist Peter Serkin played it along with a short rondo by Mozart.

Pianist Peter Serkin

Peter Serkin is a well-known pianist, and the son of the famous Rudolf Serkin, who was also his teacher. After a day of piano lessons, he said his dad would continue to expound on his son's various strengths and weaknesses. Peter commented that while many boys took lessons from his father, his continued on at the dinner table!

But back to the birds. Messiaen composed music for over 50 years, but he was also a serious ornithologist and nearly all of his compositions contain bird calls or bird symbolism. The work we heard supposedly has 40 different bird songs, but they were not birds of the French countryside. They were exotique birds from America, China, India, Malaysia. It sounded chaotic at times with lots of percussion and diabolically difficult piano playing for Serkin. The piece ends with the Indian White-crested Laughing Thrush-- a single note pounding the first and only regular rhythm. A little bird for such a big noise.

Nova would have said, "loud birdie up."

White-crested Laughing Thrush

It is probable that in the artistic hierarchy birds are the greatest musicians existing on our planet.
Oliver Messiaen

All good things...

Eventually come to an end, including games of peek-a-boo. But isn't it beautiful that babies will always be babies? We'll be missing that happy little laugh because Amanda is headed home back over the mountains today.

I'll be busy this weekend catching up on my housework and making Valentine's Day cookies for John's co-workers. (Well, I started the tradition so there's no going back now. Ladies will be looking for their heart cookies on Monday morning.)

Rain is on the way, and we have the Symphony to look forward to on Sunday. Bye-bye for now!

Old and new

"Back in the saddle again... out where a friend is a friend."

Thank you Jen, Dolly and all my new and old barn friends for the smiles and words of encouragement yesterday. "Spanky" was the perfect gentleman to ride after long, sad months away from horses. Everything felt familiar and new at the same time. It was a good first arena lesson, reminding me of what I know and how much there always is to learn. I walked. Then trotted. Finally loped big and small circles. And when the lesson was over, I rode the little trail around the perimeter of the ranch where I took Sizzle hundreds of times. It was a dazzling day with sun shining on the Snoqualmie River and Mt. Si.

And this morning, my body is reminding me in a not-so-nice way of what it hasn't had to do for the last 5 months. But, even that is a good sort of reminder :-)
Where's the Epsom salts?

No leavin's

You can make a frugal dinner with just a little left-over ham, and I finally used up the last of our Christmas ham that was squirreled away in the freezer. If you shop at Trader Joe's you'll recognize this package of egg pappardelle, but any kind of noodle works for a skillet casserole.

This dish is easy to make quickly without a real recipe.

Sauté some diced red pepper, garlic and the ham in olive oil, then add a handful of frozen peas. When the noodles are cooked and drained, mix everything together in the same pan, then stir in a cup or so of grated Romano cheese.

It makes a tasty and quick winter dinner with bread and salad.
And there won't be no leavin's.

A good poem

The Three Goals
by David Budbill

The first goal is to see the thing itself in and for itself,
to see it simply and clearly
for what it is.

No symbolism, please.
The second goal is to see each individual thing
as unified, as one, with all the other
ten-thousand things.

In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and second goals,
to see the universal and the particular,
simultaneously.

Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

From Good Poems.
Garrison Keillor's selected poetry as heard on The Writer's Almanac.

Birdies

Nova and I were sitting on the sofa yesterday looking at books, when suddenly it sounded like there was a jackhammer up on the roof. Out we went to take a look, and there was a big Northern Flicker pounding on the metal chimney. He flew off, but all afternoon Nova was talking about the "loud birdie up."

Here's an old goose who has been hanging around here for the last 30 years or so. I guess that says something about our crazy garden, but she was Amanda's once and I never had the heart to throw her away. And now Nova played with her the same way her mommy once did.

Even a plastic goose has a story to tell...

Busy week ahead

Amanda and Nova are in Seattle until Saturday, so I'll be serving up a week of Nova pictures. Nana will be busy babysitting while Amanda helps a friend in the mornings.

She makes a beeline for her toy box now.

And checks out what's new since the last visit...

Nova, PLEASE throw my ball!

A clean slate

Riding Sizzle at Rosebud River Ranch...

It seems incredible that Sizzle has been gone for almost 5 months. Time is funny, because sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday. In other ways, it's hard to believe I ever owned a horse. Did I really do those things once? Sadness is like living in a fog. Sure, you can stumble along -- but at some point you have to walk back into the light and try again. Our feelings (eventually) follow our actions, not the other way around. So they say.

Horses are honest teachers because they make us face our fears and weaknesses. I'm not an especially brave or patient person, but Sizzle challenged me to be calm and strong. Our bargain was simple: I was the leader and she would be as brave as I was. She knew instantly when I was faking, but when I had to trust her she never let me down. She had a wonderful intelligence and a big personality. And I'm still learning from Sizzle. Now the hard lesson is about loss and change and not giving up.

But where to start? Years ago, we spent happy times at Rosebud River Ranch. Owning Sizzle brought some wonderful friends into my life, and yesterday I was back out at the barn in Snoqualmie talking with some of them. Watching the horses and owners working and having fun in a familiar, rainy place. Just hanging around and making myself popular with a bag of apples. An old friend generously offered her sweet horse "Spanky" to me for a riding lesson, and next Thursday I'll be getting on a horse again for the first time in many months. Thank you, Dolly and Jen. Maybe the beginning is the best place to start over...

Cozy home

We try to visit Amanda and Tom in the Methow Vally several times a year. Of course we love spending time with them, but it's also fun watching the progress as they renovate their house, room by room. This picture is from our last trip, although you need to have seen the "before" to really appreciate the kitchen transformation. The beautiful cabinets are being painstakingly built by a local furniture maker. They're perfect for showing off Fiestaware.

Amanda's tidy kitchen pantry filled with home-canned produce.
Nova frolicking around the (well-guarded) wood stove...

And here's Tom after a long days' work!

The year of the rabbit

Red is good luck today. It's Chinese New Year, and people traditionally wear red clothes and decorate with red lanterns and write poems on red paper. There is a big red dragon dance to scare away evil stuff. Children are given red play money in envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which drives away bad luck. This is the year of the rabbit. According to legend, Buddha once asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year, and then he named a year after each one. People born in that year would have some of the animal's characteristics, and those born in rabbit years are compassionate, popular and sincere. In China, the New Year holiday is a time for family reunions and a large feast followed by fireworks to drive away bad spirits.

Noise and spirits. American church worship can be a hushed affair, but in other parts of world religion is exuberant and noisy. Back in the 90's we spend New Year's week at a spa resort in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The hotel was adjacent to a church, and a canon was fired off around the clock to mark everything from baptisms to weddings. And sometimes I think just for the fun of it, because people liked noise coming from their church. John's brother and sister-in-law spend their winters in the Mexican town of Bucerias, and they described a long January fiesta to celebrate the town's patron saint. There are daily pilgrimages at all hours to the church, complete with Roman candles and mariachi bands. Click here for a link to their blog with photographs.

Happy Lunar New Year! And I hope the rabbit is good to you.

The Oracle speaks

February

"Desolate winter is dazzling in this landscape. Snow blankets the countryside and chills a peasant bringing his wares to town with the aid of a donkey, while a farm family warms themselves in a wooden house."
About.com

For the past year, I've been posting medieval paintings to mark the start of each month. They come from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, considered the finest "Book of Hours" ever created. The purpose of a devotional calendar is to follow the months mindfully and prayerfully, again and again and again. That is, if you were among the few people rich and lucky enough to own an illuminated manuscript in 1413.

Now you can download them off the Web-- these little pictures are pubic domain. Someday I'd like to see the originals in the Paris Musee Conde since low-res photographs can't do justice to the color and detail. They come from a 8 x 11 inch leather book bound in the 18th century, and it's likely the original size of the pages was once larger, because in several places the binder cuts into the panels. Enough to give an medieval archivist a conniption fit.

So it's February. We woke up to 29 degrees this morning, and I forgot to bring the plants into the laundry room last night. Here's a deep winter poem by Sylvia Plath:

Sheep in Fog

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells--
All morning the
Morning has been blackening.

A flower left out
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

Sylvia Plath
1963