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San Francisco

SF with Joel, in 1997? I was living in Delaware, OH, working for Nationwide Insurance. The company was supposed to pay for my trip at a training session and I had asked Joel to come with me. It was cancelled at the last minute, so Joel and I decided to go anyway. We had a great time wandering about, exploring and taking photos. We stayed at a great little motel next to the tenderloin area.

We of course did the Beatnik tour, saw Allan Ginsberg’s apartment, as well as all of the old places: Grateful Dead apartment house, the Purple Onion, visited City Lights bookstore, and went across Jack Kerouac Alley to Vesuvio’s where we drank and ate.

The inscription on the wall reads: “when the shadow of the grasshopper falls across the trail of the field mouse on green and slimy grass as a red sun rises above the western horizon silhouetting a gaunt and tautly muscled indian warrior perched with bow and arrow cocked and aimed straight at you it’s time for another martini.”

This episode has resurfaced as I’m still cleaning and clearing which causes photos to reappear. If you look closely at the inside of the bar you will see a photo of James Joyce on the back wall.

  • City Lights
  • Inside Vesuvio’s
  • Vesuvio’s
  • Wall outside Vesuvio’s
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Musical Mumblings

Clara Schumann is rumored to have had an affair with Johannas Brahms, an idea pooh-poohed by many. Just look at the size and shape of that guy, yes? And yet, he—like many of the rest of us—looked quite different as a young man. He was said to be quite handsome and dashing as a younger. Ah yes, and a musician too. What better than the electricity of sexual attraction to someone who has everything going for him? Add to that that her husband, while a grand musician and composer, was a bit off the beam. Playing at A-flat, so to speak.

Robert Schumann did create many beautiful things, including some of my favorite piano pieces. Perhaps I’ve said this before, if so, apologies: When questioned about where the music or inspiration came from, he replied it was in his mind. He just had to write it down. The questioner said how marvelous that must be. Good God no! He replied. How would you like that *****###### in your head all the time. You can’t get rid of it!

Poor man, it did indeed drive him crazy. And then there’s the incident of the hand. Pianists like to have an octave-and-beyond reach for chords. The farther the better. Robert therefore bound his hand(s?) with his fingers stretched out while he slept in an attempt to improve his reach. In doing so he crippled them. Imagine the horror—a pianist who cannot use his hands to play properly—and at his own doing. Eventually Schumann died in a mental asylum, although he had—again, like more than one musician/composer—attempted suicide more than once.  

Rachmaninoff is reputed to have the largest hands measured with a span of a 12th… C – G’ in easy playing, not just stretching. That explains some of his chord progressions. He too, as with many musicians, went off the beam now and again, especially suffering from depression. To resume his career at one point he consulted a hypnotist who seems to have benefited his return to the concert stage.

I find it puzzling why many people ask creatives—writers, artists, composers, et.al.—where they get their ideas. Such an odd question, and one impossible to answer. Let it suffice to say it’s many things, not the least of which is craft—after the inspiration—work, work, work.

And no, not everyone who creates goes crazy or kills herself. The demons land where they must.

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Conductor Marta Gardolinska: Our jobs are similar to those of sports people’s high pressure and physical strength is needed…”

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Tiding

Just a note to tide us over. (What a funny idiom, by the way. I wonder how it originated, but it would take too much energy to look up.) I went to visit the kid last weekend and we went boating. Nothing untoward happened, but I did start feeling a bit scratchy on the way back. Ended up in an urgent care place after a couple of days, and am still battling something. Lungs, throat, head—that nasty business. *Sigh*

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A’s dog, the pitbull named Sullivan has cancer for which he is being treated. We wanted to give him and Tula some time together which was just great with both of them. Tula near exhausted herself with swimming again.

I just finished a rewatch of Justified. It is a great series. The second time around I was able to catch aspects of the show that I missed the first time—too busy being caught up in the plot. Great acting by the all of the cast, not just the main characters. Other characters too strong to be called secondary: Dewey, Dickie, Bob, (the constable) and Ty Walker—the quirky kid who comes in towards the end to support Avery Markham. And it is funny. There are many humorous scenes, especially with the screw-ups: Dewey, Dickie, and Bob. And many funny bits of dialogue. There are a couple of loose ends after the finish of the show, but not enough to keep from a high recommendation. And the ending is appropriate to the storyline. Thank god it doesn’t end it a fizzle as so many shows do, with just a throw-away to bring it to a close.

Jeff Goldblum plays a jazz piano and has a band that plays with him. They have recorded an album: Jeff Goldblum and The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra. He said he named it after a teacher he had; he just liked the name. Ha! The kid played with a group she called “The Glady Quizguards”; she just liked the name. Glady was a friend of my mother’s.

That’s it for now, folks. The tide has come in.

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Happy Labor Day

  • Posted by UAW

And in memory of the many sacrifices made by those who made it possible.

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Growing Up Catholic

Or, A Catholic Girl’s Education

  • All of the boys who lost their virginity to a knowing girl—and then lost the girl—wanted to become a priest. No matter how pathetically humorous this was, no one snickered behind their backs. We were too aghast that SEX must have happened. They walked humble and quietly through the halls, holiness oozing around them.
  • No one instructed us in the sexual adventure, least of all our parents. We learned behind closed doors—friend to friend. Or from an older student. Part of that which was verboten belonged to a crippled and faith-riddled logic: if you were interested in the knowledge, you were not interested in the act alone, but in partaking.
  • There was a surprising correlation made between knowledge and action. If you knew about it, you could or would do it. Ignorance and innocence were the blessed life to live. (Of course there were exceptions. Priests studied and learned, gained knowledge. This was in order to combat the ignorance and evil of sinners, as well as the doctrine of the Church.)
  • Grace was what enabled you to fight evil. That and naturally, remaining out of the clutches of the opposite sex: never be alone with a boy/girl, never go to a movie with a boy/girl, never dance closer than a spread-hand width between you. And never, ever, read a book or see a movie that was forbidden.
  • Grace was illustrated by a milk bottle drawn on a chalkboard and grace poured into it. Grace filled the bottle and then spilled over. I didn’t understand the illustration then, and I still don’t.
  • Girls wondered which hole to put a tampon in and which one would work for the boy’s insertion. If in the closest to the front, how would you pee?
  • The few girls who got preggers in high school went away to visit a previously-unknown aunt. When they came back, they always came back alone, but many would suddenly have a new baby brother or sister.
  • More than one of those girls said later they did not know they were having sexual intercourse. Maybe they weren’t we thought. They could have kissed too heavily and the boy then came in his pants. The pants rubbed against the girl and the cum touched her. Voilà! Pregnant! It was the kiss-cum-lately of Catholic childhood.
  • A good Catholic girl dressed so as to tempt no one: skirts just over the knee, blouses loose and buttoned up, no cardigans without a blouse underneath. Tennis shoes were okay, but no sandals. (I have no idea why—perhaps the erotic temptation of toes?) Legs together, bodies apart, a good rule of thumb.
  • The long and the short of it: No sex before marriage, and the husband always has a right to the wife’s body.

And there it was, the hierarchy of knowledge according to Father James:

Posted by Philosophy Matters

Aftermath—oops—Afternote

One might think that some or all of this has no consequence, after all. After all, who does it harm, this education of the soul? I might share this, only one of many experiences with the consequences of a Catholic education.

While working for the Department of Social Services in Wisconsin, we had a mother come to us with her baby. The baby was in the hospital, recovering from the sexual abuse by the father, husband to the woman.

The Father went to the Catholic Social Services Department for assistance and what he called his repentance. We were obliged to work with them. In my dreams I still hear the voice of the social worker I spoke with, that strong, firm, stuttering voice. “All that matters is that the mother and child come back. All that matters is the sanctity of the marriage. A Catholic marriage is a sacrament that cannot be broken. They must come home.”

The Mother and child went home.

And that my friends, is the way things are.