2012-02-25 ...FOLLOWUP / SEGUIMIENTO

Pensamientos sobre el SEGUIMIENTO … CaninO, musical, profesional

THOUGHTS ON FOLLOWUP ... CANINE, MUSICAL PROFESSIONAL

English below …

Pues eso siempre es lo más difícil y lo más aburrido, ¿verdad? El seguimiento.

Estrella sigue siguiendo. La mandaron a casa a comer y a recuperar y en efecto, esto es lo que está haciendo. Sigue comiendo y eliminando de manera normal, después de los primeros dos días en que, creo, todavía tenía sus tripas revueltas, la pobre. Así que en cierto sentido hay poco que contar: sigue recuperando, cada día está más fuerte. Es asombrosa como Azabacha parece entender que no hay que jugar con Estrella. Normalmente, en lo que yo llamo lucha libre canina, juegan bastante fuerte. Últimamente, nada de eso. Se nota que Azabacha lo extraña muchísimo y está un poco sacada de onda … pero comprende, y ni siquiera lo intenta.

Bueno, en cuanto a la OSUG. Anoche el programa fue una orquestación por Carlos Vidaurri de unas canciones (con letra en Náhuatl) de Salvador Moreno (1916-1999), pintor mexicano y -de acuerdo con las costumbres de anteriores épocas- también compositor: me gustó mucho la orquestación, es una faceta hasta la fecha desconocida (al menos por su servilleta) de Vidaurri. Lo que conozco de su música para la voz me ha gustado mucho. Sigo creyendo que quien puede componer bien para la voz puede con todo, una vez que puedas hacer eso lo después es sólo cuestión de interés y de técnica.

Luego la suite de El Amor brujo. ¿Qué decir, carajo? Es Manuel de Falla. No hay tiempo para abundar ahora … baste decir que en su plática preconcierto, Trigos comentó algo sobre la cuestión de la música folclórica y su incorporación en la música de concierto … habrá mucho más que hablar sobre ese asunto pero por lo pronto lo que dijo, y lo que después escuché, me puso en mente de algo que escribió Rodolfo Halffter acerca de Manuel de Falla (no localizo la fuente de esta cita en este momento pero proviene de una biografía de Halffter editada, si sirve la memoria, por conaculta): “Don Manuel había logrado la renovación del lenguaje al extraer e incorporar a su arte las esencias de nuestra música popular …”

Y después, la primera sinfonía de Sibelius. Arquitectura. Affekt. Fue muy claro que Trigos había pensado y repensado esta obra; que inclusive, quizá había pedido a la orquesta que lo hiciera. En el primer movimiento, el retorno al material original -la re-exposición- a mi oído fue maravillosamente bien concebido: un pianississimo (muy pero muy poco sonido) en la cuerda y emergiendo de ése, el clarinete algo así como lo habíamos escuchado al inicio, tan solito, tan líquido … pero (como siempre digo en mi explicación exprés de la forma Sonata) algo cambiado por lo que ha vivido mientras. ¡¡Muy bien!! En cuanto a arquitectura el movimiento Lento no es nada fácil. De haber un momento en que sentí que flaqueó un poco la arquitectura sería en el Lento. Pero bueno, no fue para tanto; y el Scherzo (chido que Juan Trigos explicó en su charla que en italiano quiere decir broma) fue una delicia, y el Finale quasi una Fantasía sí, una Fantasía en que nos remontamos, de manera parafraseada, a motivos, ideas y Affekts de los otros movimientos. Fácil aquí también que se desmoronara; pero no: resultó coherente y contundente. Nos mostró porque Sibelius tiene tanto renombre como sinfonista; incluso me dio ganas de escuchar esta Sinfonía, en esta interpretación, otra vez. ¡¡BRAVO!!

Hace dos semanas, como aquí anoté, hubo ese concierto de veras milagroso, el primero con Juan Trigos, flamante titular de la OSUG. Vuelvo a repitir, es el titular –digo, no algún título inventado como Permanente Director Huésped y Asesor en Sadismo—. Lógicamente después de un concierto tal, uno se puede preguntar, A ver, ¿cómo vamos a seguir? Todavía es muy temprano, pero sí puedo decir que la OSUG, a mi oído, se escucha como si se escuchara a sí misma; que su sonido sigue siendo más redondo y cariñoso, más escuchado en el sentido de un músico que quiere escucharse a sí mismo porque tiene ganas de que salga muy bien. (Que también implica paciencia y fe … pero eso será otro blog … ) Quizá más que nada –y esto para mí es algo importantísimo- de repente la OSUG parece capaz, colectivamente, de producir algo que se acerca a un verdadero pianississimo .

De manera que en este concierto bueno, no fue exactamente seguimiento … más bien evolución. Y sigue siendo algo muy agradable. Repito, por lo pronto parece que será un enorme placer volver a asistir a estos conciertos.

En cuanto al seguimiento profesional … estuve pensando, esta semana, después de hacer varios telefonazos y correos de seguimiento … estuve pensando, digo, en lo que me dijo alguna vez una querida y respetada colega de Teatro: “Calculo que paso el 65% de mi tiempo con gestión.” Sip, yo también.

Y déjenme decirles, es una batalla campal entre la parte del coco que ocupo al piano y la parte que uso para decir “Muy buenas tardes, señorita Fulana, ¿no se encuentra Su Excelencia Mengano el director del Festival Tal?” Después de varios encuentros esta semana con el Festival Tal, pensé, Carajo, a esta amablísima señorita se le paga su tiempo haciéndose la Gorgona de su jefe, lo cual a mí me obliga a hacer innumerables llamadas telefónicas … y a mí, para el tiempo que gasto en esa tarea –de no mencionar la energía mental, que es cuestión infinitamente más cabrona— a mí nadie me paga absolutamente nada. Y fíjanse –lo digo como un dato, no en plan narcisista— que yo no soy una cualquiera.

Advertencia, desahogo en camino. Va: El hecho, señorita Gorgona, es que usted se formó –al menos eso me supongo— para hacer esta tarea: contestar amablemente el teléfono, tomar recados a veces complicados, cosas por el estilo. Y por lo tanto, a usted, señorita G, le pagan. O sea, usted lleva su quincena, puntualmente cada quince días. A mí, en cambio, nadie me paga por hacer este trabajo. Que no debe de sorprender a nadie, porque no hay nada en mi formación profesional que me preparó para hacer esto. El hecho de que lo hago, y con algo de éxito, no se debe a mi formación como promotora cultural porque no lo soy. Soy intérprete. Toco el piano. Hago que sonidos hermosos florezcan en el aire, misteriosamente materializando belleza de esas manchitas negras en la página. Que yo me llevo bien telefónica y epistolariamente con usted y con incontables otras Gorgonas y Gorgones, se debe únicamente a mi deseo de no incrementar la cantidad neta de energía negativa en el universo.

Se puede preguntar, Pues si es algo tan común, ¿porqué siquiera mencionarlo? Es una pregunta legítima. En el sentido de que uno no debe pasar más tiempo que lo estrictamente necesario con algo desagradable, y a sabiendas de que esta situación es completamente rutinaria para mucha de la comunidad artística de este país y muchos otros (y en México las cosas no son ni la mitad de lo difícil que en otros países, créenmelo colegas) … ¿porqué? Porque quisiera apuntar que no se vale. Cuando la señorita Gorgona nos da largas, pues que sepa, por favor, que en el transcurso de su trabajo remunerado está subiendo al 70 o 80% la parte de mi propia labor que no es remunerada. Y que además es una chupa-energías brutal de lo que es mi trabajo verdadero. He dicho.

Ni modo; seguimos, seguimos siguiéndole. Como Estrella con su tenaz deseo de vivir. Y vuelvo al piano y a mi verdadero trabajo; convivo con amigos y con mis seres queridos. ¡Porque de otra manera la vida sería de veras aburrida!

thoughts on Followup … canine, musical, professional

Well, that is always the hard part, the most boring, isn’t it? Followup.

Estrella keeps on keeping on. They sent her home to eat and to recuperate and in effect, that is what she’s doing. She’s still eating and eliminating normally, after those first couple of days when she had her guts in a total twist, poor thing. So in a sense there’s little to tell: she continues to recuperate, every day she’s stronger. It is astounding how Azabacha understands that she mustn’t play with Estrella. Normally they play very enthusiastically and sometimes they really rough-house: I call it canine wrestling which in English has none of the flavour of Spanish (lucha libre canina). None of that lately. You can tell that Azabacha really misses it but she doesn’t even try to get it started.

OK, now for the OSUG. Last night the program started with Carlos Vidaurri’s orchestration of four songs (on Náhuatl texts) of Salvador Moreno (1916-1999), Mexican painter and –in tune with the customs of earlier epochs- also a composer. I liked the orchestration a lot. It was a new facet of Vidaurri, at least for me. What I know of his music for voice I’ve liked a lot. I continue to believe that the composer who can write well for the voice can write well for any instrument: once you can do that it’s only a question of interest, and of technique.

Then the suite from El Amor Brujo (let someone more qualified translate that – Witch Love? Bitch Love? Magician Love? Agghh). What can you say, jiminy? It’s Manuel de Falla. No time to spread out here … suffice it to say that in his preconcert talk, Trigos commented briefly on the question of folk music and how it gets incorporated into concert music … lots to talk about here but for now I’ll just say that his remarks, and what I heard later, put me in mind of something Rodolfo Halffter wrote about Falla (I can’t find the source for this quote but if memory serves it is from a biography of Halffter which was published by conaculta): “Don Manuel achieved the renovation of the [musical] language through extracting and incorporating into his art the very essences of our popular music …”

And then, Sibelius’ First Symphony. Architecture. Affekt. It was very clear that Trigos had thought and re-thought this piece: that he might even have asked the orchestra to do that, what a concept. In the first movement, the return to the original material to my ear was marvellously well-conceived: a pianississimo (very, very soft) in the strings and then emerging from that, the clarinet something like what it was at the very beginning, so alone, so liquid … but (as I always say in my Express Explanation of Sonata Form) something changed by what it’s lived through meantime. SO good!! The architecture of the Lento is not easy. If I were to pick a moment in which I felt that the architecture flagged a tad it would be the Lento. But really, it was not such a big deal and anyway, no time to go into that now. And the Scherzo (so cool! Trigos mentioned in his talk that the word means JOKE in Italian!) was delicious, and the Finale quasi una Fantasia was indeed a Fantasia which took us back to fragments of material, motives, ideas and Affekts –paraphrased and rearranged-- from the earlier movements. It would have been easy for this to fall apart: but no, it was coherent and even compelling. This performance, I felt, showed us why Sibelius is renowned as a symphonist; it also made me want to listen again to this First Symphony, in this interpretation. ¡¡BRAVO!!

Two weeks back, as I noted here, there was that truly miraculous concert, the first with Juan Trigos, new conductor of the OSUG. I’ll say it again, he is the new conductor – not some manufactured title like Permanent Guest Conductor and Sadism Advisor. Logically, after a concert like that, you might ask yourself, OK, so now what? It’s early days yet, but I’m here to say that the OSUG, to my ear, sounds like it’s listening to itself; that its sound continues to be rounder and more affectionate, more listened-to in the sense of a musician who wants to listen to herself because she wants everything to come out really well. (Which also implies patience and faith … but that is definitely another blog …) Perhaps more than anything else –and this for me is really significant—suddenly the OSUG seems capable of producing something close to a real pianississimo.

So this concert was, well, not exactly followup … but rather something more like evolution. And it continues to be very agreeable indeed. I repeat, it looks as though it will be an enormous pleasure to again go to these concerts.

So now for the PROFESSIONAL variety of followup. I was thinking, this past week, after many phone calls and emails … I was thinking, as I say, about something a dear and respected colleague of Theatre said once: “ I figure I spend about 65% of my time promoting”. Yup, me too: booking concerts, doing PR in all sorts of ways including on FB, Twitter, composing (in two languages) bulletins to send out to friends and fans; I won’t go on.

And let me tell you, it’s a pitched battle sometimes between the part of my head which I use at the piano and the part which I must use to say, “Good afternoon, Ms So-and-So, is His Excellency Mr Smith (director-general of Festival “X”) in the office?” (I translate from the Spanish, where particularly in Mexico we are rather more formal.) After various encounters of this kind with one Festival in particular, I thought, Criminy, here’s this very amiable Ms So&So who gets paid to be her boss’ Gorgon, which obliges me to make countless long-distance telephone calls … and my time, not to mention the mental energy, which is way more of an energy-suck, is being paid by nobody. And –I say this as a fact, not narcissistically— I am not just anyone.

Warning, vent underway. Here goes: The fact is, Ms (or Mr) Gorgon, you were trained –I’m assuming— to do the job you do: to amiably answer the telephone, take messages, at times complicated ones, etc etc. And for that reason, Ms/Mr G, you get paid to do this. I mean, every payday, you take home your paycheck. In my case, no one is paying me to do this. Which should come as no surprise to anyone, because nothing in my schooling prepared me for this. The fact that I do this self-promotion, and with a modicum of success, is not due to my education as a cultural promoter because I’m not one; I just happen to have some talent for that. I am an interpreter. I play the piano and make sound flower in the air, mysteriously materializing beauty from those little black dots on the page. The fact that I get along nicely with you on the phone and via email is due strictly to my desire to not increase the net amount of negative energy in the universe.

So one might ask, Well if it’s something so normal, why even mention it? Legitimate question. In the sense that we oughtn’t to spend more time than strictly necessary with disagreeable things, and knowing that this situation is totally routine for most of the artistic community in Mexico and in many other places (and in México things are way better than they are in many other countries, dear colleagues, believe me) … why? Because, really, I just want to point out that it isn’t right. When Ms/Mr Gorgon gives us the runaround, on time that’s paid for, I want her/him to be aware that this is raising to 70 or 80% the part of my work that is TOTALLY GRATIS. And on top of that it’s a brutal energy-suck from what I really do, which is really the worst part.

Oh well. I keep on keeping on. Like Estrella with her tenacious will to live. And I go back to the piano to do the real work, and laugh and treasure my time with friends and other loved ones … because otherwise life would be really boring!

ESTRELLA Y LOS TRES MILAGROS … ESTRELLA AND THE THREE MIRACLES

English below ...
ESTRELLA Y LOS TRES MILAGROS … ESTRELLA AND THE THREE MIRACLES



La mañana del viernes 10 de febrero Estrella casi se murió. Estrella es mi perra rubia, la señorita sociabilidad, la que milagrosamente, y gracias a estos mismos extraordinarios veterinarios –son de la UNAM, ¿debo decir más?-- sobrevivió un espantoso accidente cuando -hace casi exactamente dos años- fue atropellada por un automóvil y su pendejo conductor, entiendan vds que hablo en términos de sumo cortesía.

La llamé para salir, un poco después de las 10:00h, y no vino. Siempre viene. La busqué por toda la casa y al final la encontré sobre las escaleras del anterior acceso, cabizbajo, lengua el color de la lengua de Azabacha (que la tiene morada profunda, siendo una parte Chow-chow). Apenas tuvo energía para subir las escaleras. Regresé corriendo para mi bolsa, hablé a la clínica veterinaria para decir que iba en camino y que Estrella se veía como si tuviera un problema respiratorio; hablé a un taxi; procuré ayudarla a subir las veinte-tantas escaleras hasta la puerta; y salí.

Hizo ademanes y sonidos como si quisiera vomitar pero nada salió.

Maru (María Eugenia, la Dra. de la increíble pareja de médicos veterinarios que tienen esta clínica) estaba haciendo una estética canina y se detuvo en seco. El estetoscopio le dijo que Estrella no estaba recibiendo nada de aire en el pulmón izquierdo: diagnóstico preliminar, pulmón colapsado, quién sabe cómo o porqué. Maru intuyó que algo había del estómago en todo esto pero no pudimos precisar cómo. En eso aprox, entró Miguel, el Dr. De la pareja. Intentamos sacar radiografías (la clínica ahora tiene su propia máquina de rayos-X, BRAVO); no nos fue bien: Estrella, ya aterrada por no recibir aire, no aguantó estar boca arriba; en su desesperación me mordió la mano (no pasó nada, está bien, un tanto sensible todavía pero no me afecta al piano).

Éste fue el primer milagro: que la encontré, que se me cayó el veinte de que algo estaba muy mal y que la llevé a la clínica.

A sabiendas del riesgo, dada la situación respiratoria, decidimos anestesiarla. Se metió una sonda en el estómago y otro en el pulmón izquierdo. La conectaron con una máquina que monitorea señales vitales y se conecta con el animal, de manera algo cómica, con una especie de pinza en la lengua.

Se puso inmediatamente en claro que no había ninguna obstrucción en el tráquea. Maru empezó a bombear aire en la sonda del pulmón, Miguel escuchando al corazón. Están ahí todos: además de los dos doctores Santos y Carlos que ayudan en la clínica. La lengua cada vez más amoratada. Iba a morir si no lográramos entregarla aire.

Llegó un momento en que dice Maru, No está respirando; y poco después, Miguel, No hay latido. Pese a mis mejores esfuerzos yo rompí a llorar, abrazando a Estrella, ese cuerpo esbelto con su exuberante pelaje color miel, color leona. (Tengo la impresión de que ellos también quisieran llorar, sólo que son doctores y no pueden permitirse ese emotividad, al menos en esos momentos.) Con una parte de mi mente preguntando, ¿Cuánto se tardará en enfriar su bello cuerpecito de 16K ahora que ese espíritu alegre se ha ido?

Pasó yo no sé cuánto tiempo --¿un minuto? ¿30 segundos?-- y dice Maru casi susurrando, Está respirando; y poco después Está respirando solita; y Miguel, Ya oigo el corazón.

Nos mirábamos. Estrella siguió respirando, tranquilamente como si nada. Campeona, dijimos. Empezaron a bombear el contenido del estómago: pura baba con pasto entero. (Creo que Estrella, sintiendo la presión del estómago sobre el pulmón, intentaba purgarse, hacerse vomitar.) Ella seguía respirando, solito. Nunca estuvo sola a partir de ese momento: siempre estuvo Santos, o yo, o las dos, asegurándonos que estuviera respirando. Bueno, en realidad nunca estuvo sola desde que la llevé a la clínica.

Ahora sí pudimos sacar buenas radiografías. Confirmaron el instinto de Maru que había un problema con el estómago: éste estuvo donde debe estar el pulmón izquierdo. Y más: el diafragma estaba roto. Había que operar: no había de otro. Me explicaron que sería una intervención arriesgada: a la hora de manipular el diafragma la presión negativa que posibilita que los pulmones bombeen aire desaparecería, por lo que sería necesario tener alguien allí continuamente bombeando aire, como la clínica no tiene una de esas máquinas.

Me ofrecí. No soy mala para esas cosas: no me desmayo al ver la sangre y a veces he pensado que en alguna otra vida podría haber sido una cirujano decente (solo que soy fatal en lo que se refiere a Química). Maru me dice, Sí que eres buena para esas cosas … pero se trata de TU PERRA. Mejor que Santos lo haga. Tú vete a casa a comer algo y a descansar. Muy cierto: desde el café matutino no había probado ni bocado salvo un juguito que compré, en algún momento, en el Oxxo de en frente. Ya fue casi las 15:00h: había estado en la clínica desde las 10:30. Cuando salí Miguel estaba revisando la cirugía en uno de esos tomos de medicina; Maru por fin estaba despachando la estética canina que abandonó cuando llegamos; y Carlos el asistente estaba rapando la panza de Estrella en preparación para la cirugía.

Me fui. Hice unas cosas que tuve que hacer y una vez en casa, me preparé una de esas comidas que comes porque sabes que necesitas las calorías y no por el sabor. Me fui al piano ... para reforzar la vida que me representa y porque me había comprometido a tocar El sueño ... el vuelo de Silvia Berg el lunes en el Juárez, como mi ofrenda en el homenaje a Tulio Dorado.

A las seis y media, como me habían dicho, hablé a la clínica. Estrella salió bien de la operación. Hablé con Miguel. Él es bastante seco y escueto: me dijo que sí, había una hernia del diafragma, que todos los demás órganos se habían subido a la cavidad torácica; que repararon el diafragma y regresaron los demás órganos a su lugar. Que Estrella está bien, descansando. Todavía no podemos cantar victoria, dice, pero hasta ahora bien, que sobrevivió la operación es buena señal; que él quedaría con ella allí en la clínica esa noche. ¡Bendito!

Hablé con Maru la mañana siguiente y ella es bastante más expresiva: dijo, Nunca en toda nuestra vida profesional hemos visto algo semejante, todo, TODO, vísceras, estómago, hígado, TODO, se había embutido en la cavidad torácica. Si alguien me había dicho de esto no lo habría creído, no lo hubiera creído de no haberlo visto con mis propios ojos. No sé cómo estuvo viva esa perra, y mucho menos cómo estuvo respirando. Bromeó que tuvieron que pasar lista de los órganos: ¿Higado? Palomita. ¿Vaso? Palomita. ¿Vísceras? Palomita.

Así que el segundo milagro fue cómo Estrella --literalmente-- se resuscitó.

De manera que fui, en el espíritu de celebrar la vida, al concierto de la OSUG esa noche en el Juárez, y ese concierto fue el tercer milagro. Desde el momento en que Juan Trigos –el nuevo titular, y titular, digo, no algún título inventado y de mierda como Permanente Director Huésped y Asesor en Sadismo— salió al escenario la sensación de expectativa y --me atrevo a decirlo, no se me ocurre otra manera-- de ESPERANZA del público fue palpable. Los BRAVOS irrumpieron al final de la Obertura al Festival Académico de Brahms, incontenibles. Fue un triunfo, ese concierto. Para mí dos señales: Primero, EL SONIDO DE LA ORQUESTA, que fue redondo, expresivo, casi puedo decir infundido de placer, ya no el sonido del TERROR; y segundo, que ví a muchos músicos SONRIENDO durante el concierto. No mientras tocaban, porque estaban muy concentrados; pero mientras tenían silencios y estaban escuchando a los demás, SONREÍAN. Saben que yo, después de un tiempo, fui a pocos conciertos del "B-grande" (a.k.a La Bestia) ... pero les garantizo que eso nunca se veía.

Supongo que hay un cuarto milagro, aunque todavía no podemos cantar victoria: el lunes 13, apenas tres días después de esta crisis loca, Estrella regresó a casa. El instinto de Miguel fue que en casa querría comer, lo cual no quiso hacer ahí; así que la dieron de alta, provisionalmente. Ni bien llegó a casa --tipo 13h-- comió como leona. Yo fui al Juárez para probar el piano -- hace mucho que toco en ese foro y con ese piano; regresé a casa; estudié un poco, comí algo rápido; y regresé al teatro para el homenaje. Después de mi participación en ese alegre y bello espectáculo volví a casa, di de comer a la manada y de nuevo, Estrella comió como leona, como la campeona que es. Como dijo Lirio, LA PERRA DE ACERO; como dijo Jenny, WONDER-DOG.

¡Un abrazo enorme, de todo corazón, a todos que han tenido una parte de sus espíritus conmigo y con Estrella en estos días!

Friday morning (10 Feb) Estrella almost died. Estrella is my blonde dog, Miss Sociabiility, the one who miraculously –and thanks to these same extraordinary vets –they are from the UNAM, need I say more?— survived being run over by a car and its asshole driver (you will understand that I speak here with the utmost courtesy) almost exactly two years ago.

I called her to go out, a little after 10am, and she didn't come. She always comes. I looked for her everywhere and found her on the old steps of the acceso, head down, tongue the color of Azabacha's. She had barely enough energy to get up the stairs. I dashed back down for my purse, called the vets to say I was coming and that she looked like there was a respiratory problem; called a taxi, got her up the stairs and left.

She was making motions and sounds as though she wanted to vomit but nothing was coming out.

Maru –the female half of the incredible couple of vets at this clínica— was doing a doggie beautification and stopped immediately. The stethoscope told her that Estrella was getting no air in the left lung: preliminary diagnosis, collapsed lung, who knows why or how. Maru had the intuition that somehow the stomach was involved but we had no idea how. At this point (approx) Miguel arrived. Tried to take X-rays (the clínica now has its own X-ray machine, BRAVO), not good: Estrella, already panicked by not getting air, wouldn't stand for being turned on her back; in her desperation she bit my hand (it's OK now, just a little tender, not affecting my playing).

This was the first miracle: that I was here, that I found her and realized something was badly wrong and got her to the clínica.

Fully aware of the risks, given the respiratory situation, we decide to anesthetize her. Maru put a tube into her stomach and another into the left lung. They connected her to a cool machine which monitors vital signs and is connected to the animal, somewhat comically, by a sort of clothespin which attaches to its tongue.

It was immediately clear that there was no obstruction in the trachea. Maru began to pump air into the lung, Miguel listening to her heart. Her tongue was more purple by the minute. She would die if we couldn’t get her air.

There came a moment when Maru said, She’s not breathing; and a moment later Miguel, No heartbeat. In spite of my best efforts I burst into tears, embracing Estrella, that slight valiant body with its luxuriant honey-coloured –lion-coloured- fur. (The vets looked as tho’ they would also burst into tears, except that they as doctors aren’t allowed that emotional outburst, at least not on the job.) With part of me asking, I wonder how long it will take for her beautiful 40-pound body to grow cold now that this happy spirit has departed?

I don’t know how much time passed –a minute? 30 seconds?—and Maru said almost whispering, She’s breathing; and a moment later, She’s breathing on her own; and Miguel, I’m getting a heartbeat.

We looked at each other. Estrella continued to breathe, as tranquilly as though nothing at all had happened. Champion, we all said, awestruck. They started to pump out her stomach, which turned out to be full of saliva and whole blades of grass (I think that she was trying to purge, sensing some sort of problem there). She continued to breathe on her own. She was never alone from that moment onward. Well really she was never alone from the moment I arrived at the clínica with her: Santos was always there, or I was, or both of us, being sure that she was breathing. We were her life-monitors I suppose.

Now we could take good X-rays. They confirmed Maru’s instinct that the stomach was involved: not only that, it was up occupying the space normally reserved for the left lung. And also: the diaphragm was broken. They would have to operate: no other alternative. They explained that it was a risky operation: the minute they started to work on the diaphragm the negative pressure it exerts which enables the lungs to pump air would disappear – so they would need someone to be there continually pumping air into Estrella’s lungs, since they don’t have one of those machines.

I offered to do it. I am pretty good with things like that: I don’t faint at the sight of blood and at times I’ve thought that in some other life I might have made a decent surgeon (except that I’m useless at chemistry). Maru said to me, Yes you ARE good at stuff like that … but this is YOUR dog. Better for Santos to do it. You go home and eat something and rest. Very true: I’d barely eaten anything all day and it was now almost 3pm: I’d been there since around 10:30 and only had a juice I bought at the convenience store across the way. When I left, Miguel was studying up on the procedure in a large medical tome; Maru finally finishing the much-postponed doggie beautification which she’d abandoned when we arrived; and Carlos the assistant was shaving Estrella’s belly in preparation for the surgery.

I left. Did a couple of things I had to do and, once home, made myself one of those meals that you eat because you need the calories, and not for the flavour. I went to the piano … to reinforce the life which for me it represents and because I’d committed to playing Silvia Berg’s El sueño ... el vuelo Monday in the Teatro Juárez, as my offering to the homage to Tulio Dorado.

At 6:30, as they’d told me to do, I called the clínica. I talked with Miguel. Estrella came out of the operation well. He is pretty dry and factual: he told me that yes, there was a hernia in her diaphragm, that pretty much all of her internal organs had drifted up into the thoracic cavity; that they repaired the diaphragm and put the other organs back where they belong. That Estrella was good, coming out of the anesthesia and resting. We’re still not out of the woods, he said, but so far so good, that she survived the operation is a good sign. And said that he would stay in the clínica with her that night. Bless him!

I talked with Maru the following morning and she was quite a lot more expressive, she said, Never in our entire professional lives have either of us seen anything like this. If someone had told me this I wouldn’t have believed him, I wouldn’t believe this unless I’d seen it with my own eyes. Everything, EVERYTHING, guts, stomach, liver, all of it was stuffed into the thoracic cavity. I don't know how on earth she was even alive, much less able to breathe. She joked that they had to call attendance on the organs to make sure they had them all: Liver? Check. Pancreas? Check. Intestines? Check.

So the second miracle was how Estrella literally resuscitated herself.

So, in a spirit of celebrating life, I went to the OSUG (Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad de Guanajuato) concert that night in the Teatro Juárez, and that concert was the third miracle. From the moment Juan Trigos –the new permanent conductor (or however you translate “titular”) , and permanent conductor, mind you, not some double-speak bullshit title like Permanent Guest Conductor and Sadism Advisor—stepped out on stage the sensation of expectiveness and –I dare to say it, I can’t think of any other way—of HOPE from the audience was palpable. The BRAVOS erupted at the end of the Brahms Academic Festival Overture, uncontainable. It was a triumph, that concert. For me there were two indicators: First, THE SOUND OF THE ORCHESTRA, which was round, expressive, you might almost say full of pleasure, this is no longer the sound of TERROR; and Second, that I saw a number of musicians SMILING during the concert. Not while they were playing, because they were concentrating like the dickens; but while they had rests and were listening to the rest of the orchestra play, THEY WERE SMILING. Some of you may know that I, after a while, stopped attending the OSUG concerts while “B-grande” (“Big B”, a.k.a. The Beast) was conducting … but I can guarantee you that such a sight was never seen when he was there.

I suppose there was a fourth miracle, although we still aren’t out of the woods: Monday 13 February, just three days after this insane crisis, Estrella came home. Miguel’s instinct was that at home she would want to eat, which she refused to do in her crate at the clínica; so they released her, provisionally. No sooner did she arrive here around 1pm than she ate two big bowls of veggie rice and cooked chicken. I went to the Juárez to try the piano –it’s been a good while since I’ve played there; came home, practiced a while, ate something quick; and returned to the theatre for Tulio’s homage. After that joyful and beautiful event I came home and fed the pack and again, Estrella ate like a little lioness, like the champion she is. As Lirio said, THE DOG OF STEEL; as Jenny said, WONDER-DOG.

An enormous hug and lots of love to all of you who've had a part of your spirit with me and with Estrella these past few days!

CONCIERTO EN EL MGB HOY / MGB CONCERT TODAY

2011-12-11

APARECE ABAJO EN ESPAÑOL ...
No profound thoughts here, just sharing my pleasure at the concert I gave today!
With thanks to Kristin Hanson ... "A [wo]man is a success if [s]he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between [s]he does what [s]he wants to do" ~Bob Dylan … Una mujer se puede contar un éxito si se levanta en la mañana y se va a la cama en la noche, y en ese lapso hace lo quiere hacer.

I posted this much-loved quote again in FB a few moments ago because this was indeed a day in which I got up in the morning, and in a while I will go to bed, and in between I did what I wanted to do: I got up and ran with my dogs in the morning and then in the afternoon, I played –with all due modesty- a quite wonderful recital in the Casa-Museo Gene Byron.

A couple of pix (it appears to be impossible to take them of me while I am playing, with any normal camera that is) …


Made a change in the program which was so last-minute that I decided on it in the shower before leaving for the hall. With the addition of Horacio Uribe’s exhilarating heart-throb of a piece –which I couldn’t resist playing— this program was going to be too long and too much to absorb. I changed the order slightly and deleted the Sonata of my beloved Domenico Scarlatti. Not to worry, it will show up in one of the many mixed programs in which I’ll incorporate these splendid Monarca pieces. I’m already thinking of another one, consisting of the Spanish and Mexican composers, with Lirio Garduño reading poems from her amazing Cuaderno de la Monarca (Monarca Notebook) – soon to be published, one by tantalizing one, on the Monarca website (friends and fans, ¡¡¡WATCH THIS SPACE!!).


So the order was:
CPE BACH Sonata
SILVIA BERG El sueño … el vuelo (The Dream … the Flight)
STEPHEN MCNEFF An Evening with doña Eduviges: a Fantasy (Una velada con doña Eduviges: una fantasia)
HORACIO URIBE El viaje nocturno de Quetzalpapálotl (The night voyage of Quetzalpapálotl)
Intermedio
JOELLE WALLACH Lágrimas y Locuras, Mapping the Mind of a Madwoman (cartografiando la mente de una loca): A Fantasy on La Llorona
SCHUBERT-LISZT Gute Nacht
SCHUMANN-LISZT Widmung (Dedicación)
PAUL BARKER La Malinche: Concert Aria
The piano was not in great shape; a good instrument that has, lamentably, not been well maintained (hammers badly need voicing, action needs regulating). I had to work SO hard to get it to speak as I wanted, and by my own standards I wasn’t always completely successful.

So in the end, yes it was wonderful. I suppose that coaxing the piano to sing as I wanted it to added an extra spice for me.

In any case the audience response was PHENOMENAL. I personally have never had a negative audience response to new music. I continue to believe that this is because I pick my repertoire with great care so that I can play it –as CPE said in his great wisdom— “from the heart, and not like a trained bird.”

And what, you may ask, about pieces written for you with which you simply are unable to bond? Ah, that is an important question to be answered at some other writing, which I hope will be soon. For now, I’ll share with you a comment made by my very dear friend M*** (the one with whom I have a special relationship around dance and who has mysterious and awesome instinct about me), who asked me after hearing these particular pieces at a recent house-concert, “Ana, do you think it’s possible that some of the composers who wrote for you in Rumor are now writing for you EVEN BETTER?” You know what? I think she is right.

Nada de pensamientos profundos aquí … ¡sólo quiero compartir mi placer por el recital que di hoy en la tarde!
With thanks to Kristin Hanson ... "A [wo]man is a success if [s]he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between [s]he does what [s]he wants to do" ~Bob Dylan … Una mujer se puede contar un éxito si se levanta en la mañana y se va a la cama en la noche, y en ese lapso hace lo quiere hacer.
Subí esta bienamada cita hace poco en FB porque hoy fue de veraa un día en que me levanté en la mañana, y al ratito iré a la cama, y en ese inter hice lo que yo quise hacer: me levanté y corrí con mis perras y luego en la tarde, interpreté –con toda la debida modestidad—un recital bastante maravilloso en la Casa-Museo Gene Byron.


Hice un cambio en el programa que fue tan del último momento que lo decidí mientras me bañaba antes de salir al foro. Con la adición de la hermosísima pieza de Horacio Uribe –que no pude resistir incluir—este programa iba a ser demasiado largo y demasiado que absorber. Con que cambié tantito el orden y suprimí la Sonata de mi querido Domenico Scarlatti. No os preocupéis, aparecerá en otro de estos programa mixtos en que incorporaré estas espléndidas piezas Monarca. Ya estoy ideando uno, de los compositores españoles y mexicanos, con Lirio Garduño leyendo poemas de su maravilloso Cuaderno de la Monarca – que pronto se editarán (uno por uno para mayor suspenso) en el nuevo portal Monarca. ¡¡¡Amigos y fans, estén al pendiente!!!
Con que el orden fue …
CPE BACH Sonata
SILVIA BERG El sueño … el vuelo (The Dream … the Flight)
STEPHEN MCNEFF An Evening with doña Eduviges: a Fantasy (Una velada con doña Eduviges: una fantasia)
HORACIO URIBE El viaje nocturno de Quetzalpapálotl (The night voyage of Quetzalpapálotl)
Intermedio
JOELLE WALLACH Lágrimas y Locuras, Mapping the Mind of a Madwoman (cartografiando la mente de una loca): A Fantasy on La Llorona
SCHUBERT-LISZT Gute Nacht
SCHUMANN-LISZT Widmung (Dedicación)
PAUL BARKER La Malinche: Concert Aria

El piano no está en maravillosas condiciones: un buen instrumento a que lamentablemente no se ha dado el mantenimiento necesario: martinetes urgidos de entonación, y la pulsación necesita regulación. Me costó MUCHO trabajo hacer que hablara como yo querría, y según mis criterios no siempre lo logré. Ni modo.
Pero total que sí, fue maravilloso. Supongo que el trabajo que costó sonsacar al piano a que cantara como yo querría agregó una pizca extra de sabor para mí.
En todo caso la respuesta del público fue fenomenal. Yo en lo personal nunca he tenido una respuesta negativa a música nueva. Sigo creyendo que esto es porque escojo mi repertorio con sumo cuidado precisamente para que yo pueda tocarlo –como dice CPE Bach en su gran sabiduría—“desde el corazón, y no como un pájaro bien entrenado”.
¿Y qué –bien se puede preguntar—de las obras que se han escrito para ti con que simplemente no te has podido acoplar? Ah, es una pregunta importante a que se responderá en un escrito en un futuro –ojalá—no muy lejano. Por lo pronto, comparto con uds el comentario de mi queridísima amiga M*** (la con quien tengo una relación especial en lo que concierne la danza, dotada de un misterioso y asombroso instinto en torno a mí), quien me preguntó después de un reciente concierto casero, “Ana, crees tú que es posible que algunos de los compositores que escribieron para ti para Rumor ahora están escribiendo para ti AÚN MEJOR?” ¿Saben qué?—creo que tiene toda la razón.

SOBRE DANIEL CATÁN

Tarde-tarde-tarde, para variar, pero aquí 'stá ...


2011-10-29

THOUGHTS … ON Daniel Catán’s El Cartero (Il Postino)

Voz auténtica. Brasil. La pregunta de Rodolfo Coelho. And now it’s come full circle, over the decades.

I’m writing more on what this has to do with my last Brazil trip, a year ago. Meanwhile, Daniel Catán… I went, the penultimate night of the Festival Internacional Cervantino, to hear his opera El Cartero (based on the film Il Postino) in the Teatro Juárez. In effect, Daniel’s last COMPLETE opera, the one in whose WP in the LA Opera Plácido Domingo sang Pablo Neruda. The one which was done to considerable acclaim in Paris a few months ago … after Dani died, quietly in his sleep, last Spring.

En eso estoy, escribiendo más sobre lo que esto tiene que ver con mi último viaje a Brasil hace un año. Mientras tanto, Daniel Catán … Fui, la penúltima noche del Festival Internacional Cervantino, a escuchar su ópera El Cartero (basada en la peli Il Postino) en el Teatro Juárez. En efecto, su última opera completa, la en cuyo estreno absoluto Plácido Domingo cantaba Neruda. La que se montó a considerable elogio en París, hace unos meses … después de que Dani falleció, tranquilamente mientras dormía, la primavera pasada.

Un caudal de memorias, para mí. Dani aún con sus veinte-tantos, pero ya sabiendo muy bien lo que quiso escribir. Cómo batallaba en Princeton, queriendo escribir la música que ya escuchaba en su oído interno, allá en ese mar hirviente de serialismo. Pero sí que logró salir con todo y pergamino del doctorado. Y lo que es más, con la voz intacta.

Claro, después la voz maduró, y considerablemente. Pero aún así la obra de su tesis fue digna de grabarse.

Parece que siempre tuvo que batallar para hacer lo que tenía que hacer.

Tradicional la voz, se puede decir, ¿y qué? A mi ver lo importante es que fue absolutamente suya –y, cabe mencionar, de no poca destreza y elocuencia. Y además, ¿cuántos compositores hay de ópera en español, en este hemisferio? Ibarra, Catán, son contadísimos.

Ay de mí, ¿porqué tantos tienen que morir antes de recibir su justo reconocimiento?

Fuertes ecos de Verdi en el sentido de lo político, a mi ver. Par mí fue muy claro que esta ópera hace su declaración en cuanto a la capacidad de la poesía –y, por extensión, el arte en general—de cambiar la vida individual y así el mundo. Por lento y penoso que sea el camino.

Cuando Dani Catán falleció, escribí, “In the end music enters us first through our pores, through our physical organism, maybe sometime later through intellect and all that. Hearing is the first sense to develop neonatally. In the end if music touches us in that way, if we want to listen to it again and again even if it wrenches our hearts, that is what is important, that's the acid test, it has little to do with good or bad. This is why people still listen to Puccini, why Puccini evokes in many listeners --this one included-- tears of joy and humility and pride to be human. So if Daniel's music sounded to these listeners like Puccini ... so much the better, so much more collective pride for all of us to be human. That we are able to be touched by such beauty is great humility and great pride. Carajo, I am so sad that he is gone.

"A la postre la música nos entra primero a través de nuestros poros, nuestro organismo físico, quizás tiempo después por el intelecto y todo aquello. El sentido auditivo es el primero en desarrollarse en el feto. A la postre si una obra nos toca de esa manera, si la quisiéramos escuchar una y otra vez aún si nos desgarra el corazón, eso es lo importante, eso es la prueba de fuego, que poco tiene que ver con bueno o malo. Por esto la gente todavía escucha a Bach, a Brahms, a Puccini, por esto Puccini evoca en tantos escuchas –incluída ésta—lágrimas de regocijo, de humildad y de orgullo por ser humano. Así que si la música de Daniel, para ciertos escuchas, sonaba a Puccini … pues mejor que mejor, que así sea, más orgullo colectivo para todos nosotros de ser humano. Que podemos ser conmovidos por tamaña hermosura es gran humildad y gran orgullo. Carajo, estoy tan triste que se ha ido.”

HAPPILY RANTING INSPIRED BY EJ DIONNE

2011-11-10 THOUGHTS ON US POLITICS


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-wings-shellacking/2011/11/09/gIQADgGq5M_story.html

My wonderful Cousin H**** sends me this really good essay by EJ Dionne in the WashPost (check it out!) and I responded. It turned into a rant so I post it here … with names disguised to protect the innocent of course, as always …

This is a wonderful piece, dear H***, and MANY thanks for sending it on. Jiminy, if these election results don't show it's long past time for politicians to stop running scared from these Tea Party people, I don't know what will. I like the quote from Jerry Lewis in Arizona, that this was a victory for "restoring a civil tone to politics.' One of the many things that's been missing for some decades now, I feel.

"This was a case of old-fashioned conservatism beating the Tea Party variety", says Dionne. I have to say that I’ve felt since the very beginning that the Tea Party has little or nothing to do with real conservatism. The best conservatives were people like Warren Rudman, the Senator from New Hampshire-- who were real strict-constructionists and with whom, I imagine, one could have a real discussion about substantive public-policy issues. Rudman at least, I feel quite sure, would fight to the death for my right to disagree with him, and I, in fact, for his to disagree with me.

The TP folks, on the other hand, out of their own mouths have the utmost contempt for government and for public policy. There are strong grounds to suspect that not one of those people has any idea what public policy even is. And much less about dying for my right to disagree with them, or they with me. For some time I have felt pretty sure that they don't even know --or if they do know, that they care-- about the Bill of Rights.

I feel it's justifiable, in fact, to call them cynical and opportunist. I've said it before and I feel everything that's happened in the last year justifies saying it again: What right do these people have to be in government when they openly profess nothing but complete unbelief in government? They want to take us back to way before the City-State, for heaven's sake. So they have no right to form part of the government, and much less to benefit from that participation. More than anything else, because they have collectively and individually offered not one single constructive proposal about ANY of the things which ail us as a country.

So they are just happily collecting their bennies --unlike the people who are out of work, for whom they have zero compassion!-- and railing on against the very government which has arranged for them to have said bennies. Cynical is a pretty good adjective, I say. And opportunist sticks pretty well too: at least pigs at the trough are just following their natural Pig Instincts.

Anyway, I am enormously happy that The People Have Spoken in these elections, and that they have been Speaking these last few weeks, in the various Occupied Places. Enormously happy that the unions have taken strength from the Occupy folks. I hope people will stop running scared from these Naked Tea-Party Emperors and laugh them out of the house they have have no right to rule. I'll stop ranting now ... ;=))

2011-10-20 THOUGHTS ON DANCE LEMI PONIFASIO “MAU: DANCE WITH SKYMIRRORS”

2011-10-20 THOUGHTS ON DANCE
LEMI PONIFASIO “MAU: DANCE WITH SKYMIRRORS”

Not perfect, this; not refined or well–edited … but no matter, I won’t fall prey, this night, to perfectionism, I want to get this out there.
Have always felt, for years now, that musicians are also dancers, or ought to be; just that the movement is sometimes so inside, so subtle … but as Lettvin said, the grace notes are the flick of the fingers, the subtle movement of the eyes … we are ALL dancers, we humans.

SO HERE IT IS …
How it begins: man rear stage L … or is it a man? I have the impression that he has the head of a beast, a lion or a bear, magnificently hirsute. All we really see is the beautifully-muscled torso, and the hands –which seem immense—placed on the fronts of his thighs. He scarcely moves. Just breathing, in and out.

Then the woman –front stage R—almost entirely naked, very pale body, high-heeled shoes, completely and pitilessly lit, a brusque contrast to the man’s mystery.
Her song, not lamenting or nostalgic or conventionally beautiful: no, it is a war-dance song. At the end --a jump-out-of-your-seat shock to many-- a raucous scream that sounds like the shriek of a bird of prey.

The geometry of the stage. All square but often asymmetrical. Never a circle.

The geometry of the space they define. At a certain point about halfway through I notice that not once have the arms been lifted above shoulder level. No lifting-up of torsos, no reaching to heaven. Someone says afterwards when we are talking about this, “Like birds”. But later still, I realise that’s not true: some birds at least –like raptors—DO lift their wings enormously as they plunge.

Somewhere about halfway through –and I continued to observe this as I assimilated and the piece progressed—I realized that no one ever touches anyone else, there is ZERO physical contact between or among the dancers.

Their own bodies, as the piece progresses, become percussion instruments. This is beautifully set up from the beginning with tiny hints of what is to come …

That rapid gliding through space. Feet so soundlessly GLIDING across the stage. Once you look carefully you realize it is the feet, but even so it looks like something a human could not do.

It all challenged me to think about my ideas of Dance.

At some climactic point about 2/3 of the way through, the image projected on the backlit screen behind the dancers, is of a bird half-drowned in oil, struggling to lift its wings and escape from the filth in which it’s mired. Repeatedly projected. The dance going on in front of this horrific image just goes on.

The music, at this point, intentionally and almost unbearably brutal, repetitive, violent. I say intentionally because it MUST be: the music before is so well done as a backdrop, an accompaniment to the other sound events and to the dance, and sometimes it takes more of a protagonist’s role.

It is after this, I think, that there’s a sequence with the six men, in which they all end up stage front, bent over on their knees (like yoga child’s pose), with arms bound behind them. Well, but they are NOT bound, they are only holding their hands together. But nevertheless they writhe and struggle as tho’ they were bound. Beautiful, beautiful back muscles, deltoids, biceps.

Is part of the idea that we SEE that they’re not really bound, that all they have to do is loose their own hands (bonds) and they will be free? An incredible tension generated by this feeling.

Anyway, they all draw back to the rear, disappearing into the shadows, still struggling on their knees. All except one, who manages to rise to his feet, hands still (self-)bound behind him, and stays stage front for a while, gradually drawing back. Still on his feet, I praying from guts and heart for his liberation, he arches his back –finally we see the torso fully open … but then after a very long time, what seems like an eternity, he too draws back into the shadows, vanquished.

So much. I tried to remember everything, EVERYTHING so as to tell my very dear friend M*** the Dancer, with whom I have a Special Bond About Dance. I’m not telling everything here because it’s late and it would take so much time. Every time I think about it I remember more, altho’ not always in the correct sequence.

I think at first I was dismayed because there seemed to be no opening up of the body, no leaps, that striving toward the heavens that I so love and which seems to me one of the particular gifts to us of dance, it was always the closest we could get to flying. The dream, and the doom, of Icarus: to defy gravity. But now, just as I am writing this, I realize that it’s that GLIDING across the floor that’s the defiance of gravity in this dance.

That rapid fluttering of the fingers, that we see almost from the beginning. I find out in the after-conversation, from Australian friends who know about such things, that this is an element in hakka (sp., correct I think, check it out on Google) a war-dance of the Maori. I knew something about hakka but no details. Fascinating. Is it modelled on birds and their movements, I wonder? Didn’t occur to me to ask them in the moment.

After that climactic and awful half-drowned bird moment (that goes on forever), a bird-man appears on stage, in the same place as the beast-man at the beginning: with the head of (I think) an albatross or frigate-bird. Extensively tattooed all around the waist. We’ve seen him before as one of the six male dancers, I remember the tattoos peeking out from his trousers or whatever. Now he is naked, except for the gigantic bird’s head, and a sort of codpiece affair which is half prick and half tail, because it extends to his knees and curls around looking almost, at that point, like a ram’s horn. Nothing even remotely sensual about it. He looks hieratic, and at the same time oddly innocent. His movements are not hieratic: when he turns slowly this way and that it is only the torso, and not completely somehow; I think that is where the innocence part comes in for me.

When he starts to move directionally, still to the rear and towards stage right, it is with the gait of a bird, or rather with the gait of a man become half-bird, the legs look unnaturally long, the relation of the thorax to the waist which is no longer exactly a waist … eery, terribly sad, because he walks off and we know he is gone forever, like the bird struggling to fly out of the oil. Maybe this is the human memory and incarnation of that bird. How we preserve it, keep it sacred.

So this piece, evoking the relationship of human with animal and bird in its most profound way, that is in how we as humans have sought to put ourselves INTO THEIR BODIES, their fur, their feathers; run with their joyful legs and soar with their tireless wings … says an awful –awe-full— lot about that magical relationship in all its mystery, without in any way trying to explain it, which would of course be fatal.

It was so dense, so complex. The impact took a while to take effect. I just wanted to be quiet and alone afterwards but then there is the talking which is also interesting. It wasn’t until I gave a goodnight hug and kiss to L***’s assistant Juan that I practically collapsed into his arms and burst into tears. Almost.

RANDOM RAMBLINGS: SOCIETY, RAIN, MUSIC & TIME

2011-10-11 RANDOM RAMBLINGS

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/10/beijing-chill.html ...

I read this brief piece by Alex Ross, and then the Nick Frisch NYT piece he cites, and am struck by several things:

1. What happened with Ay Wei Wei earlier this year, and the shameful silence about it on the part of a major USian museum, which was also about to embark, if memory serves, on some sort of collaboration with the People’s Republic. And speaking of Ay, the news has been rather silent on that score of late, I think.

2.The not-so-veiled implication in Frisch’s article that institutions (including arts ones) in the US are prepared to forgive China a great deal because they have a great deal of cash. Pretty yucky. Especially now that the Occupy Wall Street people’s movement seems to be catching on. As Paul Krugman and now a bunch of others have pointed out, the mere fact that the OWS folk are attracting the ire of the bankers, and the politicians they bankroll, is enough to tell us that what they’re saying hits home.

Had a lovely coffee today with dear friend T*** who is a very fine writer. We got to talking about something I’ve written about before: how in the US art and society in general have persistently failed to knit themselves together. He told me about some mutual friends, people really committed to the arts, just returned from a 6-month sabbatical based in Barcelona. While working and everything, they still managed to take some trips around Europe –I mean really, who wouldn’t? Both said that what they brought away from this experience was primordially how every European country they visited has incorporated the arts into its life AND its ECONOMY.
To many, this may sound like a “DUH” sort of situation, but I think it’s close to the heart of at least one of the significant fault-lines that I see opening up in the US.

Let historians and economists deal with the minutiae of this question: to me it is clear that to have a more humane country –with a lower infant-mortality rate and a far lower percentage of its people in prison, just to pick two salient examples– you MUST have a country in which people are engaged with dance, with theatre, with music, with poetry.

And not only that -- I mean engaged AS PARTICIPANTS. Why? Because when you are trying to make a poem on something you really care about, suddenly you have something to lose apart from the miserable paycheck you more than earn. If you make an enormous paycheck which you can’t even imagine how to earn, the experience will give you humility. When you yearn to play the fiddle or the guitar like one of your heroes, in order to see if you are progressing you must really listen to yourself. From this you can learn both critical thinking and listening, as well as compassion. And, when you accomplish part or all of what you strove for, you get to experience well-deserved pride.

When all this is part of a group or collective effort, as in chamber music, in a choir, or in something like the Venezuelan “El Sistema” youth orchestras, the critical thinking, the humility, the compassion, and the pride –most of all the love— are multiplied a thousand-fold … and you also learn the epiphany of collective effort. If you don’t know about “El Sistema”, google it. It should be part of everyone’s store of everyday knowledge.

I live in the state of Guanajuato, in México. This is far from being a mushy liberal tree-hugger sort of state. Nevertheless, in practically every town –even the tiniest and most remote— there is a “Casa de la Cultura” -- literally translated, a House of Culture. In FIFTY-FIVE of them there is a PIANO. There are many things that can be improved, but at the end of the day the fact that this exists signifies that there is some sort of awareness here. There is also, just by the way, the Seguro Popular, which is completely gratis and which is basically free health insurance for people who can’t afford anything else. And you know what? I believe you can enroll in it even if you are a foreigner.

***

Enough about society and justice and all, that was my rant for the day. Things that
are really beautiful here the last couple of days:

IT IS RAINING. We have been horribly short of rain this year. This is High Desert, geographically. Normally it rains –if one can talk about “normal” weather anymore, which I guess we can’t—starting in late May or early June. There is a gradual crescendo from a little afternoon shower during the first few weeks to a daily rainstorm in August; always in the afternoon to late evening. Then in September it starts to taper off, and there is a gradual decrescendo to late October. Then it Stops Raining –I mean Completely –until late May or early June of the following year. It’s not unusual that it starts raining late, but it always generates uneasiness.

This year, as in 2009, it started late and never really got into its rhythm. Now, suddenly in late September-early October, it is starting to act almost like August. A couple of sweet slow rains that go on for hours: just what we need to fill the presas, the reservoirs; and our souls.

WHAT TIME DOES TO MUSIC: TO LISZT, TO URIBE, TO CABRERA BERG. Nothing new here, just that every time it happens, it feels like an epiphany, a miracle. I work on these pieces really hard, with the utmost concentration; I perform them, I record them at home, I meditate on them and then play again. And then I let them rest, in this case just for a few days … and ¡¡EPIPHANY!! All that patient incremental work suddenly bears fruit and they take flight. It is indeed a miracle.
When that happens I think, Ay dios, let me just be in my cavern, holed up and listening, listening and playing, listening and meditating, playing and listening.

Why o why is it so hard to Protect my Time? But the truth is that, while I must as always work to protect my own time, I would also feel fundamentally incomplete if I didn’t participate in the artistic community of which I am a part, and even in the community of my barrio, my neighborhood, which had absolutely no idea of what I do, or appreciation of it, however much I said about it … until they saw me on TV a couple of months ago.

This DOES have to do with the voice of the interpreter, and centrally. I must write about this, it’s something about which I’ve thought so much. Rodolfo Coelho’s penetrating question a little over a year ago brought it to the forefront once again. What I wrote then got lost with Laptop Theft Number Four. A large part of the almost unmitigated rage I felt about that was the loss of some writing I’d done which was not recoverable. I guess I’m largely over that now, and so can start to re-stitch that particular lost thread. I’ll do it soon.

I leave you all with this quote from Arrau on the interpretation of Liszt, which Russell Sherman –another hero of mine— quotes in his amazing book “Piano Pieces,” jam-packed with wisdom, passion, and humor:

Claudio Arrau on Liszt: “Declamation. Uninhibited expression. One must not feel ashamed of playing this music. The idea that he can be ‘corrected’ by understatement is utterly wrong.
“Continuing: ‘In general, when actors in this country [speaking of the US] do Shakespeare, they almost always underplay. They act as if they are ashamed of their roles and lives. They think people will laugh at them. If they would go all out, all the way, they would find that people would not laugh but be riveted. They would weep. Certain performances must make you weep, either for the sheer beauty of it of for the depth of feeling.’ [From The Essential Piano Quarterly].”

I will go a step further, and say, One must not feel ashamed of playing ANY music. If you feel ashamed about it, or even NEUTRAL, you shouldn’t be playing it. Find a way to be utterly convinced and passionate about it, or find other repertoire.

CPE Bach: “Play from the heart, not like a well-trained bird.”