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Saturday, July 27, 2002 About the legend above the lottery/betting shop doorway ("Lotería Primitiva"): one of my landlords confirms that in this case 'primitiva' translates to 'original,' referring to the original/numbers game. "Lotería Primitiva" -- how can you not love that? And as long as I'm flogging distinctive signs -- from el Paraíso del Jamón ("the Ham Paradise" -- it's paradise! and it's full of ham!): "Chorizo, jamón y cenicera: la mejor penicilina." Translation: 'Chorizo, ham and, er, whatever the hell cenicera is: the best penicillin.' El Paraíso del Jamón is a modest little joint on la Calle de Arenal near el Teatro Real in Madrid. Two counters -- one where customers stand and toss down café, beer, tapas, bocadillos, all dispensed by white shirted/white aproned gnomes; the other where meats and cheeses can be bought. The food and café are good and inexpensive, and the atmosphere leans toward the wonderfully, earnestly tacky. As in most shops of this kind, pigs' legs -- all waxed up to keep 'em fresh, complete with little cloven foot -- hang above the bar, lined up in perfect formation. The espresso is as good as what you'll drink in most of the nicer places along the street in the direction of El Teatro Real, la Plaza de Oriente and el Palacio Real, and the atmosphere, while not refined or genteel, is fun. At least for a weirdo like myself. Madrid: entertainment and good food/drink everywhere you look. rws 7:42 AM [+] |
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Wednesday, July 24, 2002 Marco, the Venezuelan, didn't show for class today. (Was it something we said?) Neither did two of the regulars, leaving me with Pietro, Nory and our profesora, Alicia, for a relaxed morning in which Alicia shoveled lots more subjunctive dreck in our direction. For the most part, I don't do too badly with that stuff, but there were two or three moments as we plowed through various exercises in which I felt like I was paddling as fast as I could but still not seeing something way obvious. Another long, active day, packed with thrills and wholesome entertainment. The highlight? A school trip. Mighty interesting. The group that went: 15 or 16 characters, mostly Americans. Mostly young Americans (lots of whom don't seem to want to speak Spanish, which raises the question of why they're there studying it, though that's probably none of my business -- could be they're on vacation and might not want to spend it as obsessively as, er, I am). Also a couple of nuns, one Japanese. Also Ángel, one -- along with his two brothers, Ramón and Chiqui (don't hold me to the spelling of Chiqui, I could easily be blinkered) -- of the school's owners, herding us along, doing all the talking in slow, carefully enunciated, carefully thought-out Spanish. Also another Spanish 40ish male I've never seen before who devoted a lot of attention to the more nubile teenage American females in the group. Ángel -- a genuinely nice person, as his brothers seem to be -- had a presentation put together for the whole do, commencing just before we descended into the Metro when he tried to take a moment and provide context for what we were going to be seeing. Pretty interesting context, too. The contrast between the Madrid of 2+ centuries ago and the current sprawling world-class version would be hard to make more dramatic than it already is. Our destination: la Panteón de Goya (Goya's Pantheon), a small church/museum with an interesting, quirky history/background, featuring sprawling expanses of frescos done by, er, Goya, not to mention his body moldering under a big slab of stone. Interesting though the place may be, I could easily bore the bejesus out of you if I tried to lay it all out here. Suffice it to say that Ángel supplied piles of information that helped me get more out of the place than I otherwise would have. One teensy bit of quirkiness: As with many churches, la Panteón is laid out in the shape of a cross. On the opposing walls that delineate the two ends of the crucifix's crosspiece, there are two vertical paintings by Goya, the only sections of wall to sport such images (all the rest are up above). Both paintings focus on figures representing saints, who in turn represent figures from the Spanish royalty of that time. The figure of a San Carlos Borromeo in one of the paintings, who represented the then-Spanish-king Carlos IV, is essentially -- and I am not making this up -- the spitting image of Data, from the Starship Enterprise, albeit with the hair style and burnoose outfit of a monk. But I mean the spitting image, from the nose and eyes to the white, white skin, etc. Raises some interesting questions about time travel and the Prime Directive. Took myself to a film from there, then home. I'd considered heading out to a play this evening, but let's get real. Plus, tomorrow in class, Alicia is going to beat the living daylights out of us with a general review of the thousands and thousands of uses and exceptions of the subjunctive verb form, meaning we'll be doing far too many exercises and feeling a bit dim if we don't know the answers. So I must go pretend to study for a while. Later. rws 5:02 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, July 23, 2002 Sometimes I find myself experiencing a state of mind that's difficult to describe -- a kind of happiness which may actually be illegal in certain localities within the contiguous United States. Take this evening, for example. I'd had a pretty good day, all things considered: up before 7:30 to get ready for class, a bit bleary after another late night. Class from 9 to 1. Came home, dumped off my stuff, went back out, had a satisfying lunch. (This being the warm season, gazpacho is available as the first course in most restaurants that offer a 'menú del día' midday meal. Meaning gazpacho-lovers like myself currently have many opportunities for gastronomic joy.) Did the gym thing. Came home, decided to take a walk, maybe get some tapas, before getting some work done. The summer evenings here are mighty seductive -– long, langorous hours of daylight, warm temperatures, narrow streets busy with people out enjoying the waning day or shopping before heading home for the night. Evening sunlight filled the east-west streets -- orange and gold, soft, expansive. I left my building, taking a moment to enjoy the current display of posters on the wall across the street, then turned the corner on la Calle de Pelayo and walked an easy block to a local tapas joint. A space at the bar awaited, I slipped into it, ordering a few items -– a caña (a small glass of beer), a perrito (a variation on a hot dog, made with salchichón, a spicy Spanish sausage, wrapped and baked in pastry dough), a crepe vegetal, a couple more items, including a delicate sweet that seemed to have been both fried and baked. I ate, the place began to fill up, people-watching opportunities abounded, especially female people-watching. The food came to 3.40 euros, I happily tossed money at the folks behind the bar and wandered out to find an ATM machine, which magically handed me more euros. From there, I took a route that would bring me through la Plaza de Chueca, the neighborhood focal point for entertainment and evening activity. The light, the air, the temperature all remained ideal, there were people to observe and shop windows to check out along the way (this being the summer sale season, shop windows are currently a major point of attention for just about everyone). By the time I turned into the wide cobblestone walkway that leads into the plaza, I'd slipped into a state I'd be hard-pressed to do justice to with the clumsy clusters of letters we call words. It was pretty fine, though, not filtered through worries or concerns or distracted thoughts. The thought that I might run into someone I knew drifted idly through my mind right about then, a few seconds later I heard my name being called, by a person who turned out to be the woman who ran a TEFL certification course I began then bailed on in September of 2000 not far from here. A nice woman with nice eyes. We talked a couple of minutes, she introduced me to the fellow sitting with her, in the course of the conversation I found myself saying that I thought I was happier here than I've ever been anywhere. I'm not sure why that makes me pause and think, but it does. Maybe 'cause it's quite a statement and I found myself inflicting it on two people I hardly know. That happened shortly before 9 o'clock. It's now 10:15, a bit of daylight lingers in the western sky. The sound of people out enjoying the evening swells and ebbs like the sound of surf. Class this morning turned out to be a genuine scene. To begin with, another person got tossed into the mix, a slightly heavyset Venezuelan –- one who's apparently been in Canada instead of Venezuela and needs to work on his Spanish grammar. That brought the group up to six of us. And then there's the fact that Alicia, our instructor for the morning session, seems to be getting far too much enjoyment out of inflicting an endless array of subjective verb forms, uses and exceptions on us. Far, far too much enjoyment. To the point that I've begun to suspect that the whole subjunctive verb hooha may be an elaborate scam, that the subjunctive verb form may not exist, that the Spaniards use normal, user-friendly verbs when they talk to each other and only trot out this murderous, brain-busting grammatical concept for foreign students who don't know any better and will pay for classes in which they study a fictional, ever-expanding verb form, forking out bales of cash and so keeping the ever-growing number of Spanish teachers -- a predatory bunch if I've ever seen one -- employed and, it must be said, hugely entertained at our expense. The daily subjunctive verb form torture got underway. Between our suffering and the endless laughing blabber of the group's two Italians, the morning session grew more and more free-form, more chaotically expressive, and in the middle of it all sat Marco, the Venezuelan -– stolid, expressionless, barely moving except for his eyes -– like an impassive, olive-skinned Buddha, drinking cherry Coke and wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into. Education. One big laugh riot. It's late. I must point myself toward the bedroom. rws 5:13 PM [+] |
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Monday, July 22, 2002 A classically spectacular July day –- brilliant sunlight, clear blue skies, temperature in the high 70s with a slight, delicious breeze. The kind of day it would be impossible to put a price tag on. This morning's class began with the group from last week intact -– me along with the three women students and Alicia, the instructor. [See entry for 16 July.] Until about halfway through the morning when Pietro, a 30ish Italian guy, got tossed into the mix. We are supposedly the school's highest-level class, but this guy's Spanish is markedly more advanced, to the point that he almost immediately began dominating the scene. Any time a new personality gets added to a closed group, the chemistry changes, but this threw the existing dynamic completely off its axis. Pietro: tall, thin, slightly mannered, nicely dressed in the international student style with modish glasses and hair so short his head is practically, though not quite, shaven. He likes to talk, began doing so pretty much as soon as his butt landed in a chair. None of this is to imply that he's anything other than a good person, 'cause I think he is. (A good person.) It's just that his Spanish is so much sturdier than ours and his personality aggressive enough that his energy pretty much elbowed its way into the center of things and took over. It's interesting to watch how energy/chemistry shifts in small groups, to watch individual personalities and what they bring to the mix, how the energy swirls and eddies in response to different factors: interactions, changes in mood, the quality of individual performance. It's interesting to watch the personality looking out through each pair of eyes, with all the intelligence and belief systems packed in there. And it's interesting to watch an individual observe and respond to whatever's going on, a process that can be so liquid and so finely detailed that I'm sometimes not sure how we get through our days without being astonished over and over again at the complexity of all the beings -- all those self-contained universes, crammed with potential and surprises and depths we can only guess at -– that share this world with us. During the morning class sessions, Alicia has been flaying us alive with the subjunctive verb forms (or as Jack Nicholson might put it, the GOD-DAMN subjective verb forms) with their infinite variety of uses and exceptions. We had a new instructor for the after-break session, an intelligent woman named Belén. Alicia apparently informed Belén that she'd been torturing us for quite some time now with the subjunctive, letting her know which particular use she'd flogged us with this morning. Belén bore all that in mind as we (mostly Pietro) talked during the second session, mentioning at the end of class that everyone (except Pietro) seemed to have a fear of the subjunctive since no one (except Pietro) used it at all, in any way, at any point. Why does all this seem so entertaining to me? Should I be worried about that? The name 'Belén,' it turns out, is Spanish for Bethlehem. She mentioned that to introduce the idea of Spain's ingrained religious leanings, using the results of a UNESCO poll to illustrate the way Spanish Catholicism has been morphing. For instance, according to these figures, 60.8% of the Spaniards polled support legalizing euthanasia, with only 12.7% against, though a whopping 23.1% abstained from taking a stand. (3.3% refused to answer at all.) 49.5% supported legalizing marriage for gays, 20.8% came out against it, a mighty substantial 26.5% abstained. (Again, 3.3% refused to answer at all.) 45.9% supported eliminating celibacy for Catholic priests, 11.7% were against, and once more, an extremely substantial 38.6% abstained from taking a stand. (3.8% refused to answer at all.) 46.9% supported allowing the ordination of female priests. Only 10.8% came out against this idea. 39% abstained from answering. (3.3% refused to answer at all.) When it came to expressing their religious preference, 6.3% professed to be 'fervent Catholics,' 27.6 professed to be 'lukewarm Catholics,' 38.5% identified themselves as 'baptized Catholic and not practicing,' which left 27.6% for the categories, 'indifferent,' 'non-believer,' 'Atheist,' 'Don't know,' and 'Bugger off.' Belén's point: during the time of Franco, Catholicism was the one and only permitted religion. The only possible way to get married? In the Church. Catholic education? A mandatory part of the school curriculum. Since the Generalisimo 'went to the other neighborhood,' as the Spanish euphemism for dying goes (fue al otro barrio), and liberty has taken root and flourished, there has been some movement in other directions. I draw no conclusions -– who knows how many people were polled to provide these statistics and how accurate the numbers actually are? I also think, like everything, the Catholic Church has its place in the big picture, and will wax and wane, will have its cycles and its lifetime. Spain's an interesting place, though. In 25 years, it's evolved from an isolated backwater to a sophisticated, high-profile 21st century nation, holding the current presidency of the EU. A lot of ground to cover in a quarter of a century. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have not been getting the kind of shuteye my body would love to be getting during my time here. Not that I'm sleeping poorly. I'm actually sleeping pretty well. I'm just getting to bed real damn late. This is not my fault. First of all, the Madrid sun goes down late enough that the sky remains light until after ten -- exactly the way it should be with summer in full swing and the weather perfect. Second, there's so much going on, so many people about, so many things to see, so many tiendas and cafés and restaurants beckoning every time one steps outside that it just doesn't make any sense to get to bed before midnight. It's almost as if my body simply doesn't realize that the night has worn on and I have to be up at a reasonably early hour to get showered, shaved, dressed, fed and out the door for to spend the morning suffering in class. It feels good being up, with all the energy in the air and the sound of all that life going on out in the street. It feels good until I'm sitting in class the next morning wishing I were asleep. Not that I'm complaining. These are great problems to have. rws 3:35 PM [+] |
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Saturday, July 20, 2002 Yesterday: me, eating lunch at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant –- a perfectly decent-looking joint with perfectly decent food that doesn't seem to do much business. Possibly as a result of that, the wait staff comes across as depressed, apathetic or resentful, depending on the day. (I've never eaten there at night. Could be a whole other situation when evening rolls around -- customers streaming in and out, employees feeling the joy of being alive.) So I'm there yesterday, me and a young, depressed waitress. She brings food, I ask for chopsticks -– no small feat when you can't remember the word and the wait person stares at you, doing nothing to help ("Sabes," you say stupidly, "las cosas de madeira -- largas, estrechas," making increasingly desperate hand gestures you hope will eventually get the idea across) until she finally says, "¿Palillos?" "¡Sí!" says I, "¡Palillos! ¡Ellos! ¡Por favor!" I'm finally shovelling down my ensalada China and a pretty respectable plate of pollo con almendras (chicken w/ almonds), at some point during the meal I notice the muzak playing softly above me. "Strangers In Paradise" -- a far-too-ubiquitous muzak classic. I'm trying to remember if the piece was featured in Forbidden Planet or if my teeny little brain is blending different B-films together, when I notice "Strangers" has mercifully come to an end, after which a toxically sweet orchestral version of "Hey Jude" begins oozing out of the unseen loudspeakers -- strategically hidden, maybe to lessen the likelihood of diners leaping up on the tables and ripping the buggers out of the acoustic ceiling tiles. I assumed it would only be a matter of minutes before "The Shadow of Your Smile" started up, and yes, by god, in no time at all there it was. After which something that I swear sounded like the Talking Heads song "Heaven" (from the CD 'Fear of Music') commenced, which just about sent me running out into the Madrid heat, screaming with horror. I remember wondering if "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would be coming along, an unsettling enough thought that I didn't linger over lunch to find out. This last Wednesday, I passed a couple of hours over a long, leisurely meal at a cheap (and good) lunch joint with two friends, Curtis, down from Pamplona for a few days, and David, married to a Spanish woman and living in one of Madrid's 'burbs to the southeast of the city center. Both Americans, both living here for a while -- David for a couple of years, Curtis a year or two longer than that. Curtis is essentially bilingual, David speaks strong Castellano. Making this a good opportunity, one might think, for me to get some conversational Spanish practice in. Which did not exactly turn out to be the case. I made the occasional foray into opening a line of talk in Spanish, but no one seemed to want to take the bait. David's wife, Maria, showed up 30 or 40 minutes into the festivities, I tried some Spanish on her, getting nowhere –- she's bilingual, the English continued unabated. I'm sitting there thinking Who do I have to sleep with to get conversation in Spanish around here? The following day Curtis joined me at a sidewalk café and, bless his heart, indulged me for a while. A pretty good while, until we reached my limits. Probably gets tiring for an individual fluent in the language to deal with someone putting their conversational skills together, unless it's an intercambio situation and they're working on their English with you. (Which effectively wipes out the possibilities for native English speakers.) My Spanish isn't bad. Really. Considering that I don't live with a Spanish-speaker, that most of my writing and e-mail is in English, and my stays here have been interrupted by substantial blocks of time back in the States, my Spanish is pretty good. I watch TV and get most of it. I read the papers and do fine. I get along pretty well with day-to-day exchanges. But I'd love to get lots better. We'll see. rws 4:45 PM [+] |
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Friday, July 19, 2002 Random entries from The Surrealist Compliment Generator, generated today: "If I were to combine your blood, toes, and hair, it might not be you, but it would be enough for my basic desires." "May you always be as vivid as your hallucinations." "Never pet your dog when it is on fire." "You wear your breasts to their full extent, like a man with an uncontrollable bulge in his apartment." "May bathtubs overflow upon your gardenias." "Cry for the stiffness of the earlobe. The turtles are fallen and the rain stands still. How long must I suffer with your undergarments?" rws 1:37 PM [+] |
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Thursday, July 18, 2002 Two nights ago, between 10:30 and 11, during one of the evening's phone calls, I became aware of strange sounds out in the street. Complicated, percussive, densely rhythmic. Noise that went on for a while before I noticed it with full awareness. Odd, propulsive sounds, reminiscent of flamenco's combination of hand clapping and staccato footwork, but not exactly that. Going on for a couple of minutes, followed by applause, starting up again for a minute or two, then more applause. Close by, not down the block in la Plaza de Chueca. When I got off the phone, I threw open a window, leaned out to see what was up. What I found: tap dancers. Eight in all -– six males, two females. All dressed in identical black pants and black short-sleeved shirts, holding black bowler hats. A squad of tap dancers just finishing a routine in the middle of the intersection of la Calle de Gravina and la Calle de Pelayo to applause from some bystanders. After which they headed up Gravina toward la Calle de Hortaleza and out of sight. Dancers out on tap patrol. Last night they struck again, shortly before midnight. Same m.o. -- couple of minutes of tap, applause, more tap, more applause -– only in the plaza this time, further away. I wondered what the residents of the apartment buildings that ring the plaza felt about the late-night tap demo. The banners that have been draped from the balcones for the last year are still there, the only difference being a slight intensification of the rhetoric on the largest of them, implicating the city government in the continuing noise assault that rises from the crowds in the plaza most nights of the week. [See journal entry for September 16, 2001, and numerous subsequent entries.] Most of the banners are small, one balcón affairs, reading "Zona Contaminada ... Por Ruido –- www.espaciovecinal.org." The big mother that spans three or four balcones -- hanging one floor up, looming stridently along one side of the plaza -- reads "PELIGRO: ZONE CONTAMINADA POR RUIDOS -– 'AYUNTAMIENTO RESPONSABLE' -– A.VV. Chueca." [DANGER: ZONE CONTAMINATED BY NOISE -– 'MUNICIPALITY RESPONSIBLE'..."]) I haven't investigated the behind-the-scenes details of this sitch and have no idea whether the tenants are getting anywhere with their ongoing protest. The banners have been part of the scenery long enough that they've become, well, part of the scenery, fading slightly into the overall details of life in the plaza. Meanwhile, when I left to go to class this morning, I found that the wall across the street from my building has already been completely reclaimed by the poster-pasters ("PRODIGY -– Baby's Got A Temper -– New Single A La Venta el 1 de Julio"; "Teatro Negro de Praga -– Aspectos de Alicia –- Adaptación de Alicia En El País De Las Maravillas –- Martes 30 de Julio Hasta Viernes 2 de Agosto A Las 23.00 h." [Black Theater of Prague -– Aspects of Alice -– Adaptation of Alice In Wonderland –- Tuesday, July 30 until Friday, August 2 at 11:00 p.m.]). I don't know how many of the poster people there are roaming around the area, but in one 24-hour span, a 4-block of a poster advertising a concert by Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings appeared, then disappeared under more posters, then appeared again in a new 4-poster block, then disappeared once more under a new crop of adverts. Like an intense, concentrated demonstration of the cycle of life, Darwin-style. Strange, colorful, entertaining, the teeniest bit unnerving. There's a lot happening here in this little life of mine. These last 3+ days have blown by at high velocity. I find myself wanting to spew substantially more about it all than I've had the time for and will have to settle for laying out as much of it as I can manage over the weekend when language classes don't occupy big chunks of the days. Later. rws 5:01 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, July 16, 2002 On arriving at my apartment building yesterday, I noticed that the wall across the street stood covered with the usual colorful, motley assortment of posters ("Hubo un tiempo en el que lo mejor de este país fue su música -- 1978-1990, La Edad de Oro del Pop Español -- 5 CD's a precio especial -- La recopilación definitiva con lo mejor del pop de toda una epoca -- Ya A La Venta" Translation: There was a time in which the best of this country was its music -- 1978-1990, The Golden Age of Spanish Pop -- 5 CD's at a special price -- The definitive compilation with the best pop of an entire epoch -- Now On Sale; "Desde Brasil y Holanda -- ZUCO 103 In Concert -- Jueves 25 de Julio, Sala Arena"; Red Hot Chili Peppers -- By The Way -- Nuevo Disco, Ya A La Venta"), indicating that the poster-pasters seem to have to have prevailed in their Darwinian struggle with the city cleaning crews. At least for now. [See journal entry for April 27, not to mention far too numerous entries from last autumn and winter.] The "post no bills -– posting businesses responsible" notices that the city stenciled on the wall a few months back have been smothered under posters. Which is fine with me. I'll take the cheery anarchy of the adverts over butt-ugly naked wall any day. I functioned pretty well yesterday, considering I'd gotten next to no sleep on the flights over, managing to unpack, go out for lunch, take myself to a movie (Spiderman -– I had to come to Madrid to see an American summer film), and watch an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (in Spanish) before falling out before 10 p.m. I was awake at 7 a.m. and out the door by 8:30 to grab a cup of espresso before starting intensive Spanish classes, which I'll be taking this week and next -- classes that came as a slight shock to the system, though a necessary one. My Spanish had slipped during the 2-1/2 months away, the jolting and prodding of the classroom will do me good. The group consists of three women -– Roberta from Italy, Saskia from Germany, Nori from Japan -– all bright and more or less at my level Spanish-wise. Roberta is the most advanced, and she seemed to leap to a judgment that my Spanish didn't measure up, though it is clearly no worse than Saskia's or Nori's. Big deal. The others are very nice, as are the teachers. The profesora for the day's first session, Alicia, is a slave driver and pushes relentlessly, focusing on grammar and the like. The instructor for the second session, Montse -- short, young, smart, pretty, a little bit chunky -- focuses on vocabulary, often bringing in newspaper or magazine articles which feature a challenging array of terms to plow through. Today's piece: "El 23% de los chicos de 14 a 18 años cree justificado que las mujeres cobren menos -- un estudio revela que uno de cada cuatro adolescentes tiene opinions discriminatorias" ("23% of boys from 14 to 18 years old believe it's justified that women earn less -- a study reveals that one out of every four adolescents have discriminatory opinions"). It's interesting to be the only male in the room for a discussion like that. I have a pile of homework and notes from previous classes to review to get myself a bit more up to speed. This life -- one big process. The weather in Madrid today: warm, breezy, sunny, no humidity at all. (Sigh of obnoxious contentment.) rws 1:06 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, July 09, 2002 For good, clean fun, go to http://www1.jawink.ne.jp/koji-y/java/jhanabie.htm and start clicking on the black box. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This morning: I found myself laying on a massage table, the massage person had classical music playing -- Albinoni's Adagio in G minor. Which got me thinking about a name from my past: Russ Kassoff. He was part of my musical life in high school (music, along with art, being the most dominant part of those years for me). An outrageously talented guy, multi-instrumental, with perfect pitch. I have a memory of him presiding over a rehearsal of Handel's Messiah, sitting at a battered upright piano hammering out an mighty respectable accompaniment to the choir, especially respectable considering he'd never looked at the score prior to that. He'd managed to worm his way into being the choir's student conductor (an extremely good choir with a national reputation), and was in charge of that rehearsal. Making him -- a gangling, slightly hawk-nosed 17 or 18-year-old -- the sole figure of authority over an 80+ person ensemble on this occasion, plowing through pages and pages of music, laughing a fair amount of the time because he was genuinely flying by the seat of his pants. And because he was hugely talented and knew it, and there it was, on sloppy, joyful, undeniable display for the rest of us. In March of my last year in high school, I drove up to the State University of New York at Binghamton to audition for the vocal department. Russ decided to try out for the music-instrumental department, we took off in my family's aqua-colored VW Bug, tooling in through N.Y.C., up the Thruway to Route 17, up through the Catskills, past Liberty, Monticello, Callicoon and Hortonville to Broome County and Binghamton. A lovely sunny day, mild for that time of the year. We entertained ourselves all the way up, meaning loud, excessive carrying-on. Russ at that time was teaching himself trumpet and had brought one along, playing it out the window whenever the impulse hit. Ten or twenty miles outside Binghamton, traffic backed up -- we found ourselves sitting in the middle of a captive audience, Russ rolled down his window and let go with some goofy Tijuana-Brass-style noodling, both of us hooting with laughter. At the University, I think we stayed in a friend's suite in Hinman College, though I have to confess I can't remember where we actually wound up sleeping. No humongo surprise, that lapse of memory, considering I spent the evening getting wildly stoned, running around the dorm laughing hysterically. The next morning, my vocal audition went underwhelmingly, but I'd had so much fun overall that I decided this was the school for me. I applied, they said sure, the State gave me a full Regents scholarship. And that was that. I never saw Russ again after graduation, though I heard occasional rumors about him working at hotels up in the Catskills, playing or directing music, less than ecstatic about it all. Contact with my old high school crowd dwindled, finally ceased altogether, and with that any news of Russ. Until today, when I went online and found out Russ has been busy working with people like Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Tony Bennett. Way to go, Russ! The note Russ scrawled in my 12th grade yearbook: "It's been a great year for the both of us even Rufus. Remember marching band and Jake and Binghamton and even Misterogers. Then there was donkey with boiled moth under glass. Keep up the Art-Janes and say when to pay cards. Good luck and best wishes. Russ Horns" rws 4:04 PM [+] |
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Saturday, July 06, 2002 July 6 -- chilly, gray, damp. Clouds began moving in today after noon, and between 2 and 2:30 it suddenly got dark. The temperature took a dive, intermittent rain started coming down. It looks and feels like the Cascades, east and north of Seattle -- same kind of country, same weather. Since then, the sky has shifted back and forth, light and dark, turning strange colors. It'll be deep, deep gray to the west and a strange dirty salmon color to the north. A short time later, the sky to the north will be a nasty, uncomfortable-looking shade of rose while off to the southeast it's vague yellows and greens. I'm not making this up. (This after Thursday's entry re: the sky turning green.) Late afternoon, fog moved in, bringing with it silence and little to no visibility. The upside of all this: yesterday I put a few tomato plants into the ground not far from the house. They'll get lots of moisture while they acclimate. Saturday, of the quietest 4th of July weekend I've ever experienced. And a whole different thing from what some folks are experiencing out west. rws 9:11 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, July 02, 2002 So I was doing my eye exercises for the day [see journal entry of June 23] and when I got to an exercise that employs a word chart, a line of type -- very small type up near the top of the chart -- that has until now been just beyond my ability to make out, became clear. With no difference in the physical details -- same distance from me, same lighting. Man, what a feeling. My vision is improving. ********************* It's been warm and humid all day. Not hot, really -- temperatures in the 80s -- but the kind of humidity that produces a heavy haze. The kind of humidity many find mighty oppressive. Between that and light overcast, the heat's felt pretty manageable to me. But the people I heard talking about it in Montpelier this morning seemed to find it brutal. Everything's relative, I guess. When you spend most of the year in cold temperatures, days of high humidity and mercury climbing to the mid-80s have an impact. Plus I'm out in the country. Could be that in town, in an apartment with less than wonderful ventilation, the situation might be less user-friendly. I have to say, though, compared to summers in Boston and New York, this seems positively benign. Three summers ago, I was in D.C. for the Fourth of July weekend. Compared with the hellacious combo of heat and humidity I experienced there, this comes off as gentle, benevolent. And then there's the summer heat in Madrid, which reaches seriously elevated levels. No humidity, though, so it generally feels manageable to me. At night, the mercury drops so that the wee hours usually feel cool, fresh, even in the heart of the city with concrete all around. One learns to stay to the shadows as much as possible when moving through the streets during the days, at night everyone goes out. A liveable mode of being. And of course, at the end of July half the population takes off until the end of August/beginning of September, leaving the city quieter, the traffic less crazed. A good time to be there. And I will be, two weeks from now, for the second half of July. Hot damn! rws 5:17 PM [+] |