Margotlog: Cats in Winter
Our three don't go out so we don't worry about frostbitten paws or frozen fur. It's been snowing so much lately, they would be wet if they braved the elements--little Julia the black and white, with a cute moustache and black goatee, next Maggie the square-faced, a calico like the oldest Tilly with motley shifts from orange to white to dark flecked with tan. Only Tilly suffers stiffness and lethargy when it's 20 below as it's been way too often this January. Five school closings in one month, surely a record, and most on Mondays.
Yet all three know winter from summer. No open doors and windows to sniff the breeze. No delighting in cool linoleum. Instead Maggie hunkers down by the dining room radiator, and Julia leaps atop a few radiators upstairs with blankets or towels draped over them. Tilly has discovered a new warm spot recently--the laundry basket beside the radiator in a bedroom. One night in the dark I reached down for a bathrobe and grabbed instead a snarling cat.
Especially Maggie's fur stands on end with static electricity, except just after someone's showered when the bathroom air is moist. They Julia begs to be cuddled--a piercing squeak, then once in arms, a half grunt, half purr and willingness to remain passive while her hair is patted backwards. I do the same to Tilly in early morning when I drink my coffee in bed and she comes to be stroked. Her hair is the longest and finest of all three felines, but her willingness to groom herself has waned. Mats form along her belly, under her arms and under her chin. My theory used to be that she slept too long on one side--thus the mats. But under her chin doesn't make any sense unless she rolls onto her neck to rest. Guess I don't know all there is to know about each cat.
We are so much part of a family it's eerie. This has been true ever since Fran and I acquired more than two cats, which come to think of it was when we got married. We blended cats and kids. His Fluffy and Bart, my nameless calico--well she had a name but lived only a short time. I no longer remember, though her ghost is hovering just beyond memory.
Winter is a quieter time. I listen to Frances Mayes' Every Day in Tuscany not only in the evening but also at noon when doing my stretches. When Julia sees me pull the floor towel off the rack, she squeaks with excitement. I swing it at her like a torreadore's cape, but she skitters away--this is NOT how things should go. Giving in, I lay it flat and she immediately take her position at one end. Frances Mayes amuses me as she pronounces Italian with a Georgia. twang, Not until listening to this book on disc have I realized how southern she is. Yet this light-hearted account of TWO houses in Cortona, a slew of friends who seem to do nothing but cook for each other and walk in the town's piazza, is a fine antidote to this beastly winter.
I tried quite a while ago to take partial possession of a small apartment in an Umbrian hill town, but after three months, understood I would never stay long enough to make the upkeep and mortgage worthwhile. I need my one and only yard, outside the upstairs bathroom picture window, the eight trees I've planted over the years on the property, the slant of Midwestern roofs now covered with snow, and the certainty that all that I cherish is in one place. We could never take three cats to Italy like artist and writer friends take their big dog. Our cats define home, along with books, art works, the slant of light, the friends we've known for years, and of course my husband. Mine is not an expansive personality, at last not as expansive as Frances Mayes'. Yet it's fun to hear about heat and swimming pools, and baby cingali or wild boars, tearing up a hilltop garden. I gave up growing vegetables long ago and plant only flowers and tend trees and cats.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Margotlog: Super-Beetle at Twenty Below
Margotlog: Super Beetle at Twenty Below
Supposed to be the worst winter here in flyover land since 1982-3. And what do I immediately recall from thirty years ago? Not where I lived, nor who I lived with, but the car. It was a VW Super Beetle, meaning it had heat. Now I'm laughing because there'd been an earlier Beetle in my life without heat. It drove my first hubbie and me from New York, via Atlanta, then Alabama, etc until we turned north. At one spot in rural Mississippi, we forded a stream. I kid you not, the road did not have a bridge. We drove through the stream. Cows and some people lifted their heads to watch. Should we wave and call "Hi"? Nope. Too dangerous with our New York license plates. This was the deep south in the late 1960s. (Yes, Emily, that is before you were born! and civil rights did not mean civility.)
By 1982, I'd left the first husband behind, yet hadn't found the second. I was in "living-with-limbo." Now I remember him, another poet-type like myself, but he imbibed more. I tried to keep up, but simply got sick or fell asleep. It was not a match made in heaven. Nor was the weather, that first year we shacked up together. The Super Beetle had heat which was a good thing since I was driving to outstate schools, maybe as far as Moorhead--next to Fargo, for those who only saw the movie.
The cold was intense, the snow depth gigantic, but the little Super Beetle chugged along. Which is not what I could say about myself. That was the period when I learnedly exquisitely about frostbite. I'd stagger in and sit on the radiator by the inside front door. (Yes, Emily, there were two front doors separated by a small anteroom to keep out the riffraff.)
My hands were so cold I could not feel the doorknob to turn it. Once inside and warming my hands on the radiator, they began to tingle, then throb, and finally to ache. It took me several decades before I learned two crucial things: to buy men's padded gloves and to wear under them thin plastic or rubber gloves. Men's gloves have strong thick padding which helps deter the cold, as does the looser fit. Women's winter gloves are worthless. Ditto women's winter boots. For years my toes also got frostbitten because even so-called "padded" women's boots had are lined with only a namby-pamby stretch of thin felt or foam. Men's boots are far thicker and sturdier, and they give me enough leeway to wear double pairs of socks. Now those socks are wool. But for the hands the extra layer of plastic or rubber allows for finer touch without nude fingers getting frozen to freezing metal.
Last weekend at the St. Paul Chamber Concert, a nicely dressed woman slid into her seat on the other side of us. Looking down at my men's boots with their hooks and eyes, their stiff rounded toes, and waffle-stomper treads, she said, "That's what I'm buying next time." I felt moderately vindicated. It's taken me decades, but I finally know how to dress for twenty below. The Super Beetle has gone the way of most flesh. It had heat, but its defroster was abysmal. My Prius does much better with defroster and heat, but there's no car on earth that can make the first twenty minutes of driving at twenty below a thing of beauty and joy forever. We're just luck if they start.
Supposed to be the worst winter here in flyover land since 1982-3. And what do I immediately recall from thirty years ago? Not where I lived, nor who I lived with, but the car. It was a VW Super Beetle, meaning it had heat. Now I'm laughing because there'd been an earlier Beetle in my life without heat. It drove my first hubbie and me from New York, via Atlanta, then Alabama, etc until we turned north. At one spot in rural Mississippi, we forded a stream. I kid you not, the road did not have a bridge. We drove through the stream. Cows and some people lifted their heads to watch. Should we wave and call "Hi"? Nope. Too dangerous with our New York license plates. This was the deep south in the late 1960s. (Yes, Emily, that is before you were born! and civil rights did not mean civility.)
By 1982, I'd left the first husband behind, yet hadn't found the second. I was in "living-with-limbo." Now I remember him, another poet-type like myself, but he imbibed more. I tried to keep up, but simply got sick or fell asleep. It was not a match made in heaven. Nor was the weather, that first year we shacked up together. The Super Beetle had heat which was a good thing since I was driving to outstate schools, maybe as far as Moorhead--next to Fargo, for those who only saw the movie.
The cold was intense, the snow depth gigantic, but the little Super Beetle chugged along. Which is not what I could say about myself. That was the period when I learnedly exquisitely about frostbite. I'd stagger in and sit on the radiator by the inside front door. (Yes, Emily, there were two front doors separated by a small anteroom to keep out the riffraff.)
My hands were so cold I could not feel the doorknob to turn it. Once inside and warming my hands on the radiator, they began to tingle, then throb, and finally to ache. It took me several decades before I learned two crucial things: to buy men's padded gloves and to wear under them thin plastic or rubber gloves. Men's gloves have strong thick padding which helps deter the cold, as does the looser fit. Women's winter gloves are worthless. Ditto women's winter boots. For years my toes also got frostbitten because even so-called "padded" women's boots had are lined with only a namby-pamby stretch of thin felt or foam. Men's boots are far thicker and sturdier, and they give me enough leeway to wear double pairs of socks. Now those socks are wool. But for the hands the extra layer of plastic or rubber allows for finer touch without nude fingers getting frozen to freezing metal.
Last weekend at the St. Paul Chamber Concert, a nicely dressed woman slid into her seat on the other side of us. Looking down at my men's boots with their hooks and eyes, their stiff rounded toes, and waffle-stomper treads, she said, "That's what I'm buying next time." I felt moderately vindicated. It's taken me decades, but I finally know how to dress for twenty below. The Super Beetle has gone the way of most flesh. It had heat, but its defroster was abysmal. My Prius does much better with defroster and heat, but there's no car on earth that can make the first twenty minutes of driving at twenty below a thing of beauty and joy forever. We're just luck if they start.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Margotlog: Jim Harrison's "English Major"
Margotlog: Jim Harrison's "English Major"
Too many years ago to count, I won the Loft's Mentor Series as a poet. Over the course of nine months, we were guided by perhaps six mentors, among them the poet and novelist Jim Harrison. I was recently divorced and gun-shy of men with aplomb and swagger. Not that Harrison was intimidating--far from it. He was friendly, with a gruff, pleasant voice, and seemed to enjoy our company. I remember walking down the street beside him, very aware of his physical presence. That was as close as we came. His subject matter--lakes and streams, critters, American men out of doors--was almost completely different than my focus on the visual arts and motherhood. He had nothing to teach me. Or so I thought.
One of our Christmas cards this year came from a fan of Harrison's, a fiction-writing poet like Harrison. Her card was a reproduction of a Harrison poem about a bear. Glued beside it appeared to be a bit of bear skin, with the fur/hair attached. Then, folded around the card was a letter explaining how she'd looked for bear, found an aged skin which fell apart when she tried to cut into it, and eventually settled for buffalo. Her appreciation for Harrison was palpable, and her story of settling for the critter she could make work, amused me so much that I called to tell her how one of our cats had appropriated the card and was batting it around the downstairs. We had a good chuckle.
This was the open door I evidently needed because the next group of audio books I borrowed from the library included Harrison's "The English Major." The reader had a gravelly male voice with a Western twang. It was the voice of the main character, Cliff, who had just been divorced by his Coke-swilling and powdered-donut eating wife, had his farm sold out from under him and lost his beloved dog. So untethered was he, that he set out on a quest to visit each of the contiguous U.S. states, with a jigsaw puzzle of the states to keep him company.
He took to the road in Michigan, crossed Wisconsin (rather familiar territory), then took a serious emotional detour in Minnesota when he hooked up with a former student who'd written him over the years as "my best instructor ever." Marybel was Lolita untethered. And Cliff? I had a lot to learn about how a bruised male ego digs in as if there is no tomorrow. I was, to put it mildly, out of my depth. Did male writers really indulge in such raunchy sex talk? How much of the story was going to go on like this?
Turns out there was a lot more to Cliff than a starving appetite. He was a bird watcher and fly fisherman and especially in Montana, his fly fishing attained the grace of a bull fight. Rocky and watery, enigmatic and satisfying, and the telling outperformed sex with Marybel by megawatts. By this time, I began to get a whiff of what my friend found to admire in Jim Harrison's fiction.
It's entertaining, I discovered, to view American women my age through the eyes of a sensitive but macho American guy. It was curious to hear him decide to rename the states from their early Native American inhabitants. It was a relief to find him eventually returned to a kind of farm, a sort of dog, , and a wife who didn't wound his psyche with every word. The story has a sort of happy ending. It also accumulates power and interest as it goes, which is almost all we writers can hope for--keeping them reading all the way to the end.
Too many years ago to count, I won the Loft's Mentor Series as a poet. Over the course of nine months, we were guided by perhaps six mentors, among them the poet and novelist Jim Harrison. I was recently divorced and gun-shy of men with aplomb and swagger. Not that Harrison was intimidating--far from it. He was friendly, with a gruff, pleasant voice, and seemed to enjoy our company. I remember walking down the street beside him, very aware of his physical presence. That was as close as we came. His subject matter--lakes and streams, critters, American men out of doors--was almost completely different than my focus on the visual arts and motherhood. He had nothing to teach me. Or so I thought.
One of our Christmas cards this year came from a fan of Harrison's, a fiction-writing poet like Harrison. Her card was a reproduction of a Harrison poem about a bear. Glued beside it appeared to be a bit of bear skin, with the fur/hair attached. Then, folded around the card was a letter explaining how she'd looked for bear, found an aged skin which fell apart when she tried to cut into it, and eventually settled for buffalo. Her appreciation for Harrison was palpable, and her story of settling for the critter she could make work, amused me so much that I called to tell her how one of our cats had appropriated the card and was batting it around the downstairs. We had a good chuckle.
This was the open door I evidently needed because the next group of audio books I borrowed from the library included Harrison's "The English Major." The reader had a gravelly male voice with a Western twang. It was the voice of the main character, Cliff, who had just been divorced by his Coke-swilling and powdered-donut eating wife, had his farm sold out from under him and lost his beloved dog. So untethered was he, that he set out on a quest to visit each of the contiguous U.S. states, with a jigsaw puzzle of the states to keep him company.
He took to the road in Michigan, crossed Wisconsin (rather familiar territory), then took a serious emotional detour in Minnesota when he hooked up with a former student who'd written him over the years as "my best instructor ever." Marybel was Lolita untethered. And Cliff? I had a lot to learn about how a bruised male ego digs in as if there is no tomorrow. I was, to put it mildly, out of my depth. Did male writers really indulge in such raunchy sex talk? How much of the story was going to go on like this?
Turns out there was a lot more to Cliff than a starving appetite. He was a bird watcher and fly fisherman and especially in Montana, his fly fishing attained the grace of a bull fight. Rocky and watery, enigmatic and satisfying, and the telling outperformed sex with Marybel by megawatts. By this time, I began to get a whiff of what my friend found to admire in Jim Harrison's fiction.
It's entertaining, I discovered, to view American women my age through the eyes of a sensitive but macho American guy. It was curious to hear him decide to rename the states from their early Native American inhabitants. It was a relief to find him eventually returned to a kind of farm, a sort of dog, , and a wife who didn't wound his psyche with every word. The story has a sort of happy ending. It also accumulates power and interest as it goes, which is almost all we writers can hope for--keeping them reading all the way to the end.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Margotlog: The Essence of Hawaii: Daughters of Fire by Tom Peek
Margotlog: The Essence of Hawaii: Daughters of Fire by Tom Peek
"Surely, Hawaii isn't really in the US?" I quip to my husband as our plane descends into the dark of Kauai. Even more so in the daylight, the island seems too remote from cold snowy Minnesota to be in the same family: no icy roads, no bedclothes like Nanook of the North, no winds that piece down coats. No snow crunches under my boots. In fact I'm not wearing boots, I suddenly realize. I'm walking around in sandals.
This should be familiar. I grew up in South Carolina where we learned how to sweat. Even Minnesotans know how to sweat. In fact the hottest I've ever been was 98 degrees in a Minnesota July. I left two inches of water in the bath tub and stepped in every few hours to splash cool. But in Hawaii, the temp rarely rises above 85, and the nights, well most need a blanket or two. Hawaii's stately, long-necked palms put Carolina's palmettos to shame: they never clatter, never look cold, only remote, closer to the sun. Yes it rains and squawls a bit (even two hurricanes since the mid-1980s) but mostly the place is more pacific than not, like its ocean, like the native people. Except for the volcanoes.
We've made maybe six visits to the Hawaiian Islands, trying out big hotels in Honolulu, and the Big Island's volcanoland of lava and huge mountains. We've returned again and again to Kauai because we like the small towns of Koloa and Hanalei, the remnants of ancient refuges, the many many gardens. In fact, I've come to believe that what Tom Peek portrays in his new novel about the Big Island is not just a state of mind, it is a culture bred out Hawaii's unique mix of peoples, tempered and shaped by a landscape isolated from most of the rest of the world.
Tom's Daughters of Fire is about several major elements of Hawaiian experience: the attempt to plant mega-pleasurelands in a delicate unstable environment and the people who fight against this, led by native Hawaiians, abetted by a crusty old WWII vet and a younger Aussie astronomer. Building a pleasureland rivaling Kubla Khan's ultimately arouses the fiery goddess Pele. We know by the middle of the book that the danger is extreme, but Peek does a wonderful job of nudging the eruption just this much further along the plot, drawing in the native underground (not exactly freedom fighters, but definitely undercover), along with a finely drawn native/Asian archaeologist who's been perhaps a bit too lax in giving developers permission.
She is a magnificent character, statuesque with a glorious mass of wild hair and charisma to match her intelligence. When she and the Aussie astronomer try to make sense of each other, we get a strong introduction to how fierce loyalty to native culture can perplex even a sympathetic outsider. Given the gentle "aloha" element of Hawaiian life, this determined refusal to submit comes as a shock, but also as a relief--there are many Hawaiians fighting against what could destroy the Islands' unique natural beauty and way of life. Not only have the Islands already lost many native birds and plants due to invasive species (read mosquitoes) but the unique quality of Island life is also constantly threatened by outsiders (and some insiders) who have no sense of limits.
Tom Peek's book is huge--nearly 500 pages. It contains a large cast of characters. It touches the mystical and the sleazy. Most of the time the extremes are tempered with humor,insight, sympathy. I like particularly the old codgers--one Hawaiian and the other the aged WWII vet. Their sage and ironic friendship nicely contrasts with the larger-than-life movers and shakers, the politicians and developers, the pussy women and aged seers. It's nice to have two characters who don't "stand" for something other than themselves. I will remember them, as well as the native archaeologist and Aussie astronomer's astonishing underground trek to outrun the volcanic eruption itself. We very much want them to make it. It's not at all clear that they will.
Footnotes: Tom Peek was born in Minnesota and grew up "on an island in the Mississippi opposite Fort Snelling." I heard him say this when he gave a reading in Minneapolis this autumn. Since then, I've been puzzled by this. Has anyone lived on an island in the Mississippi opposite Ft. Snelling since the Dakota warriors were hung in 1862?
Tom has also worked for a long time as a volcano ranger on the Big Island. His expertise and face-to-face experience with volcanic outbursts fill the pages of Daughters of Fire. After reading the book, I have no trouble believing this one.
"Surely, Hawaii isn't really in the US?" I quip to my husband as our plane descends into the dark of Kauai. Even more so in the daylight, the island seems too remote from cold snowy Minnesota to be in the same family: no icy roads, no bedclothes like Nanook of the North, no winds that piece down coats. No snow crunches under my boots. In fact I'm not wearing boots, I suddenly realize. I'm walking around in sandals.
This should be familiar. I grew up in South Carolina where we learned how to sweat. Even Minnesotans know how to sweat. In fact the hottest I've ever been was 98 degrees in a Minnesota July. I left two inches of water in the bath tub and stepped in every few hours to splash cool. But in Hawaii, the temp rarely rises above 85, and the nights, well most need a blanket or two. Hawaii's stately, long-necked palms put Carolina's palmettos to shame: they never clatter, never look cold, only remote, closer to the sun. Yes it rains and squawls a bit (even two hurricanes since the mid-1980s) but mostly the place is more pacific than not, like its ocean, like the native people. Except for the volcanoes.
We've made maybe six visits to the Hawaiian Islands, trying out big hotels in Honolulu, and the Big Island's volcanoland of lava and huge mountains. We've returned again and again to Kauai because we like the small towns of Koloa and Hanalei, the remnants of ancient refuges, the many many gardens. In fact, I've come to believe that what Tom Peek portrays in his new novel about the Big Island is not just a state of mind, it is a culture bred out Hawaii's unique mix of peoples, tempered and shaped by a landscape isolated from most of the rest of the world.
Tom's Daughters of Fire is about several major elements of Hawaiian experience: the attempt to plant mega-pleasurelands in a delicate unstable environment and the people who fight against this, led by native Hawaiians, abetted by a crusty old WWII vet and a younger Aussie astronomer. Building a pleasureland rivaling Kubla Khan's ultimately arouses the fiery goddess Pele. We know by the middle of the book that the danger is extreme, but Peek does a wonderful job of nudging the eruption just this much further along the plot, drawing in the native underground (not exactly freedom fighters, but definitely undercover), along with a finely drawn native/Asian archaeologist who's been perhaps a bit too lax in giving developers permission.
She is a magnificent character, statuesque with a glorious mass of wild hair and charisma to match her intelligence. When she and the Aussie astronomer try to make sense of each other, we get a strong introduction to how fierce loyalty to native culture can perplex even a sympathetic outsider. Given the gentle "aloha" element of Hawaiian life, this determined refusal to submit comes as a shock, but also as a relief--there are many Hawaiians fighting against what could destroy the Islands' unique natural beauty and way of life. Not only have the Islands already lost many native birds and plants due to invasive species (read mosquitoes) but the unique quality of Island life is also constantly threatened by outsiders (and some insiders) who have no sense of limits.
Tom Peek's book is huge--nearly 500 pages. It contains a large cast of characters. It touches the mystical and the sleazy. Most of the time the extremes are tempered with humor,insight, sympathy. I like particularly the old codgers--one Hawaiian and the other the aged WWII vet. Their sage and ironic friendship nicely contrasts with the larger-than-life movers and shakers, the politicians and developers, the pussy women and aged seers. It's nice to have two characters who don't "stand" for something other than themselves. I will remember them, as well as the native archaeologist and Aussie astronomer's astonishing underground trek to outrun the volcanic eruption itself. We very much want them to make it. It's not at all clear that they will.
Footnotes: Tom Peek was born in Minnesota and grew up "on an island in the Mississippi opposite Fort Snelling." I heard him say this when he gave a reading in Minneapolis this autumn. Since then, I've been puzzled by this. Has anyone lived on an island in the Mississippi opposite Ft. Snelling since the Dakota warriors were hung in 1862?
Tom has also worked for a long time as a volcano ranger on the Big Island. His expertise and face-to-face experience with volcanic outbursts fill the pages of Daughters of Fire. After reading the book, I have no trouble believing this one.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Margotlog: Cold as a Witch's Titty
Margotlog: Cold as a Witch's Titty
So my daughter used to say with a naughty smirk on her face. She was probably 8th grade, that age when children all of a sudden become aware of what makes adults laugh and then think better of it. Witches' titties: saggy and withered, can put a ruinous spell on you if they win the duel with winter sun.
Sitting in my second-floor study, feet in double socks stuck between the tines of an old-fashioned radiator, I'm spooning soup into my houth. Sun is pouring in, tirmomg the flat Christmas cactus translucent. Julia the cat enters. Orca black and white and sleek as a whale, this most pliant of cats is willing to stare with me across the backyard frozen waste, where bird feeders stand guard against the cold. Have all the birds frozen? Then we spy them, high in the white pine, chickadees and finches basking in sun, before darting down for a seed.
The last time it was this cold was 2007. My first winter in Minnesota, I wore my New York style, knee-high leather boots with silk linings. Smart enough for 5th Avenue, but dumb for standing an hour watching dog races in St. Paul. My feet turned cold, then numb, then brickish. Warmed in tepid water at home, they emerged glistening red, puffy, throbbing and painful. I was horrified. Frostbite, said the doctor. Buy mukluks with thick soles and padding and wear double socks. Hello Minnesota, goodbye wimpy New York.
Now I know how to dress for our fancy dress winter ball. I can cavort with wind-chill and glide gracefully across icy intersections. "I wouldn't recognize you two," say I to yoga pals as they gear up to hit the street, caps down to their eyes, scarves up to their noses. I, on the othr hand, wear a full-length red down coat, making me look like a cross between a extremely large hot dog and a bowling ball.
So my daughter used to say with a naughty smirk on her face. She was probably 8th grade, that age when children all of a sudden become aware of what makes adults laugh and then think better of it. Witches' titties: saggy and withered, can put a ruinous spell on you if they win the duel with winter sun.
Sitting in my second-floor study, feet in double socks stuck between the tines of an old-fashioned radiator, I'm spooning soup into my houth. Sun is pouring in, tirmomg the flat Christmas cactus translucent. Julia the cat enters. Orca black and white and sleek as a whale, this most pliant of cats is willing to stare with me across the backyard frozen waste, where bird feeders stand guard against the cold. Have all the birds frozen? Then we spy them, high in the white pine, chickadees and finches basking in sun, before darting down for a seed.
The last time it was this cold was 2007. My first winter in Minnesota, I wore my New York style, knee-high leather boots with silk linings. Smart enough for 5th Avenue, but dumb for standing an hour watching dog races in St. Paul. My feet turned cold, then numb, then brickish. Warmed in tepid water at home, they emerged glistening red, puffy, throbbing and painful. I was horrified. Frostbite, said the doctor. Buy mukluks with thick soles and padding and wear double socks. Hello Minnesota, goodbye wimpy New York.
Now I know how to dress for our fancy dress winter ball. I can cavort with wind-chill and glide gracefully across icy intersections. "I wouldn't recognize you two," say I to yoga pals as they gear up to hit the street, caps down to their eyes, scarves up to their noses. I, on the othr hand, wear a full-length red down coat, making me look like a cross between a extremely large hot dog and a bowling ball.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Margotlog: Jeremy Denk and the Sunset Maker
Margotlog: Jeremy Denk and the Sunset Maker
In case you haven't heard, Jeremy Denk recenly won a MacArthur genius grant. As did our very own Patricia Hampl, not recently, but well remembered. Ah, genius in relative youth! And I am thinking of Mozart, and his divine sonorities, bred by revolt and acquiescence toward dictator Papa, aka Leopold.
Not Bloom.
Jeremy Denk is a fine pianisto, and just maybe an even finer writer. So I am led to believe by hearing him speak, then play piano at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this Saturday. (He has been published in The New Yorker and his blog, "think Denk" has been selected by the Library of Congress to be part of its digital archive. When he speaks as he did Saturday night with SPCO chairman Bruce Coppick, he is witty, just enough humble, and insightful about the two works he would be playing: a Brahms piano quintet, and a Mozart concerto from the most productive ten years before the five opera years, before early death.
Brahms destroyed so many of his drafts we will never know his full oeuvre. He also rearranged the quintet from a work for two pianos (probably intending his dear friend Clara Schumann as one of the duo) and at her suggestion replaced one piano with a quartet of strings. Brahms has never been among my favorite composers--too dense, not sufficiently melodic--but Denk and the SPCO strings (including a wonderfully sonorous cello played by Peter Wiley) held my complete attention. Denk subdued the piano (which is after all a percussion instrument) to blend well, and the strings took excellent turns helping to stir up the depths.
Then came the Mozart with a much fuller orchestra, and the huge piano with its guts exposed, at which Denk sat with his back to the audience--"No slight intended," he told us. I assumed he would be signaling the orchestra at key moments.
When I took music lessons in Charleston, South Carolina, in the years before general air-conditioning, Mozart and Haydn were the best I could do. Meaning, I had the physical dexterity to run the notes fast and clear, and the guidance from my rather broken-down music teacher to make small, telling deviations from strict time, for emotional effect. But only over the years as a listener have I attained a sense of what constitutes a truly bravura performance. For my money Christian Zacharias, who often performs with the SPCO as both conductor and pianisto, offers just such performances.
One of our finest poets (and occasional prose writers), Donald Justice also took up the topic of music lessons. In his slim volume The Sunset Maker (1987) I find echoes of my own musical years in South Carolina. We both had teachers and ambitions that soared beyond the dry clack of palm fronds, beyond the department store magic of canisters carrying money into upper registers.
"Busts if the great composers glimmered in niches,
Pale stars. Poor Mrs. Snow, who could forget her,
Calling the time out in that hushed falsetto?" (Mrs. Snow)
---
"on the piano top,
a nest of souvenirs:
paper
Flowers, old programs, a broken fan" (Busted Dreams)
---
"--And sometimes she succumbed
To the passion of a nocturne,
The fury of the climax
Ascending through the folds
Of secret and abandoned flesh
Into those bitten finger-ends" (Those Tropic Afternoons)
Since then, I've developed a theory that the education of American musicians currently emphasizes precision at the expense of inclusive expressiveness (even if secret and decayed) . Jeremy Denk's Mozart did nicely when part of the orchestra, but when his piano was on its own, it became huge and out of sync. Remember, a piano is a percussion instrument. When played with percussive speed, all I could do was hold my breath to see if Denk would hit all the notes. His passages did not blend, They shouted: "I'm bigger, I'm best." When he tried connoting heart-stopping emotion, he lingered with such determined emphasis that emotion dissolved into flamboyance.
European-trained musicians like Christian Zacharias do not aim for such WOW, such rigorous, cliff-hanging, performances. Especially with a composer like Mozart whose own instrument, a pianoforte, had not the excessive force of steel. Instead, they tend to draw out musical lines in lyrical and nuanced ways until an entire ensemble, orchestra and soloist, become joined in a dream of musical possibility, which reaches out and wraps the audience in its embrace. Then, I sigh with completion, and thank the stars for a glimpse of beauty and generosity that includes us all.
In case you haven't heard, Jeremy Denk recenly won a MacArthur genius grant. As did our very own Patricia Hampl, not recently, but well remembered. Ah, genius in relative youth! And I am thinking of Mozart, and his divine sonorities, bred by revolt and acquiescence toward dictator Papa, aka Leopold.
Not Bloom.
Jeremy Denk is a fine pianisto, and just maybe an even finer writer. So I am led to believe by hearing him speak, then play piano at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra this Saturday. (He has been published in The New Yorker and his blog, "think Denk" has been selected by the Library of Congress to be part of its digital archive. When he speaks as he did Saturday night with SPCO chairman Bruce Coppick, he is witty, just enough humble, and insightful about the two works he would be playing: a Brahms piano quintet, and a Mozart concerto from the most productive ten years before the five opera years, before early death.
Brahms destroyed so many of his drafts we will never know his full oeuvre. He also rearranged the quintet from a work for two pianos (probably intending his dear friend Clara Schumann as one of the duo) and at her suggestion replaced one piano with a quartet of strings. Brahms has never been among my favorite composers--too dense, not sufficiently melodic--but Denk and the SPCO strings (including a wonderfully sonorous cello played by Peter Wiley) held my complete attention. Denk subdued the piano (which is after all a percussion instrument) to blend well, and the strings took excellent turns helping to stir up the depths.
Then came the Mozart with a much fuller orchestra, and the huge piano with its guts exposed, at which Denk sat with his back to the audience--"No slight intended," he told us. I assumed he would be signaling the orchestra at key moments.
When I took music lessons in Charleston, South Carolina, in the years before general air-conditioning, Mozart and Haydn were the best I could do. Meaning, I had the physical dexterity to run the notes fast and clear, and the guidance from my rather broken-down music teacher to make small, telling deviations from strict time, for emotional effect. But only over the years as a listener have I attained a sense of what constitutes a truly bravura performance. For my money Christian Zacharias, who often performs with the SPCO as both conductor and pianisto, offers just such performances.
One of our finest poets (and occasional prose writers), Donald Justice also took up the topic of music lessons. In his slim volume The Sunset Maker (1987) I find echoes of my own musical years in South Carolina. We both had teachers and ambitions that soared beyond the dry clack of palm fronds, beyond the department store magic of canisters carrying money into upper registers.
"Busts if the great composers glimmered in niches,
Pale stars. Poor Mrs. Snow, who could forget her,
Calling the time out in that hushed falsetto?" (Mrs. Snow)
---
"on the piano top,
a nest of souvenirs:
paper
Flowers, old programs, a broken fan" (Busted Dreams)
---
"--And sometimes she succumbed
To the passion of a nocturne,
The fury of the climax
Ascending through the folds
Of secret and abandoned flesh
Into those bitten finger-ends" (Those Tropic Afternoons)
Since then, I've developed a theory that the education of American musicians currently emphasizes precision at the expense of inclusive expressiveness (even if secret and decayed) . Jeremy Denk's Mozart did nicely when part of the orchestra, but when his piano was on its own, it became huge and out of sync. Remember, a piano is a percussion instrument. When played with percussive speed, all I could do was hold my breath to see if Denk would hit all the notes. His passages did not blend, They shouted: "I'm bigger, I'm best." When he tried connoting heart-stopping emotion, he lingered with such determined emphasis that emotion dissolved into flamboyance.
European-trained musicians like Christian Zacharias do not aim for such WOW, such rigorous, cliff-hanging, performances. Especially with a composer like Mozart whose own instrument, a pianoforte, had not the excessive force of steel. Instead, they tend to draw out musical lines in lyrical and nuanced ways until an entire ensemble, orchestra and soloist, become joined in a dream of musical possibility, which reaches out and wraps the audience in its embrace. Then, I sigh with completion, and thank the stars for a glimpse of beauty and generosity that includes us all.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Margotlog: Giving Thanks Today
Margotlog: Giving Thanks Today
For sadness because my oldest lovely is gone, yet looking through the trees out back, I see her face hovering in the pine branches...
Thankful that she, Eleonora, had such loving care in Delaware, even through a topsy-turvy break, six months before she died when she stopped taking her anti-depressants and because rough, loud, nuts, kookie!
Grateful that her dear friend Jo was with her at the very end, when she stopped eating for a week, and finally expired. That's the word--wind and life left her body.
Sad that so many I love are far away on coasts and across oceans. For instance, Diane and Clare who from their front step, glimpse a creek leading to a harbor and finally to an ocean. I worry sometimes that their coast may soon be under water. And I wonder, should we wish not to live to see it, or admit that ocean rise is happening faster and faster and we must adjust and change?
Across the miles, I salute Diane in her red coat, that's winter red, to match the berries on Carolina trees when all the leaves (except the live oaks and evergreens) are gone. And Clare with her jaunty smile.
Grateful for their friendship over the years, as they introduced me to Mepkin Abbey near Charleston, where I've spent several peaceful and demanding periods, writing, walking a garden labyrinth and trying to get used to being a lone woman among monks of all ages.
Grateful for Pope Francis, whose humble face and demeanor (I see him driving a little car through Roman traffic) bespeaks his care for multitudes of less fortunates who mean more to me because he is their champion. Strange twist. When we are led by selfish tyrants, we become self-centered, frightened and tyrannical!
Grateful for winter sun in the Christmas cactus lining my south window whose blossoms blare brighter than Christmas trees and provide hope for safe passage through another winter.
Grateful for the twelve "white-footed three, aka Julia, Tilly and Maggie," even when they wake me up at 4:30 a.m., especially Tilly of the soulful green eyes who walks on my body but will never sit in my lap.
Grateful, immensely, practically grateful that pulling up the new bathroom carpet (corn-based!) on which Tilly peed more times than I could count, and replacing it with linoleum (yes it looks like tile but it ain't), helped stop this outrage. Along with Felliway spray and diffusor. That was a siege I hope never to repeat.
Grateful for good neighbors and friends here and abroad, for work I care about and that ends each semester, and writing that continues when all else fails...
Grateful for relative good health and only occasional excesses (read chocolate, vino), for enough to keep and enough to give away, for signs that humans the world over are working to change behaviors that ruin soil, water, air, forests, that kills bees and ravages bird and mammal populations. For human action that says we are not alone here. And the longer we act as if we are, the more we ultimately damage ourselves.
Thank you friends and fellow sufferers. Happy Thanksgiving.
For sadness because my oldest lovely is gone, yet looking through the trees out back, I see her face hovering in the pine branches...
Thankful that she, Eleonora, had such loving care in Delaware, even through a topsy-turvy break, six months before she died when she stopped taking her anti-depressants and because rough, loud, nuts, kookie!
Grateful that her dear friend Jo was with her at the very end, when she stopped eating for a week, and finally expired. That's the word--wind and life left her body.
Sad that so many I love are far away on coasts and across oceans. For instance, Diane and Clare who from their front step, glimpse a creek leading to a harbor and finally to an ocean. I worry sometimes that their coast may soon be under water. And I wonder, should we wish not to live to see it, or admit that ocean rise is happening faster and faster and we must adjust and change?
Across the miles, I salute Diane in her red coat, that's winter red, to match the berries on Carolina trees when all the leaves (except the live oaks and evergreens) are gone. And Clare with her jaunty smile.
Grateful for their friendship over the years, as they introduced me to Mepkin Abbey near Charleston, where I've spent several peaceful and demanding periods, writing, walking a garden labyrinth and trying to get used to being a lone woman among monks of all ages.
Grateful for Pope Francis, whose humble face and demeanor (I see him driving a little car through Roman traffic) bespeaks his care for multitudes of less fortunates who mean more to me because he is their champion. Strange twist. When we are led by selfish tyrants, we become self-centered, frightened and tyrannical!
Grateful for winter sun in the Christmas cactus lining my south window whose blossoms blare brighter than Christmas trees and provide hope for safe passage through another winter.
Grateful for the twelve "white-footed three, aka Julia, Tilly and Maggie," even when they wake me up at 4:30 a.m., especially Tilly of the soulful green eyes who walks on my body but will never sit in my lap.
Grateful, immensely, practically grateful that pulling up the new bathroom carpet (corn-based!) on which Tilly peed more times than I could count, and replacing it with linoleum (yes it looks like tile but it ain't), helped stop this outrage. Along with Felliway spray and diffusor. That was a siege I hope never to repeat.
Grateful for good neighbors and friends here and abroad, for work I care about and that ends each semester, and writing that continues when all else fails...
Grateful for relative good health and only occasional excesses (read chocolate, vino), for enough to keep and enough to give away, for signs that humans the world over are working to change behaviors that ruin soil, water, air, forests, that kills bees and ravages bird and mammal populations. For human action that says we are not alone here. And the longer we act as if we are, the more we ultimately damage ourselves.
Thank you friends and fellow sufferers. Happy Thanksgiving.
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