Homage to Ludwig

August -- and the summer -- draw to an end. A new school year. For me, too. In another two weeks I'll be back to my weekly schedule of piano lessons. Let me indulge myself by updating my last status report.

My work during the summer, supported by two lessons, continues to be limited to Beethoven's Pathétique sonata. The second movement, the easiest and the first that I tackled, now sounds pretty decent, at least some of the time. I play it at the proper tempo, hit most of the notes most of the time, and put a certain amount of expression into it. I'm hoping for additional hints from my instructor on the latter, although I realize that musicality or musical expression ultimately has to come from within myself.

I'm pleased with my progress on the third movement. I play the movement -- almost, but not entirely -- at an even tempo, and I've ironed out a large number of speed bumps that were bothering me for a long time. There are still two or three areas that give me some trouble, but I've been overcoming those difficulties as well. Also, the movement has a number of quick runs up and down the scale that need more practice.

Having said that, I have to admit that I'm still quite far from performance speed. The third movement is played at varying tempos by different performers whom I've watched on YouTube, but it's a fast allegro, and I clearly have a way to go to reach even the slowest of their tempos. I understand that speed comes automatically with practice, and I certainly have increased my own speed dramatically, even without making an effort to do so.

I also would like to memorize both movements. A friend of mine, who performed the sonata in recital as a teenager, assures me that I can never claim to have mastered any classical piece until I've memorized it.

The first movement -- the longest and most difficult -- is still a formidable work in progress. I haven't even tried playing the last half, and I'm still awkwardly picking my way through the first half. I was hoping to have made more progress on the movement over the summer, but it remains a major project for my upcoming year.

Finally, my instructor told me during my last visit that she wants me to find another -- perhaps easier -- piece to work on, together with the Beethoven. She's afraid I'll get sick of the Pathétique, if that's all I ever play. (I suspect she may just be sick of listening to it herself every week.) Anyway, I'm looking around for something appropriate, which is kind of fun.

If it isn't obvious, I'm very glad that I jumped back into piano biz last winter.

One lump or two?

A number of years ago, I worked with a very likeable attorney. He was friendly to everyone, tried to avoid hurting the feelings of colleagues and staff, and had a good -- if quirky -- sense of humor. He was memorable -- especially for a defense trial attorney -- because of his love of Italy in general and Italian opera in particular. When we moved into new offices, he saw to it that, instead of having conference rooms prosaically designated as A, B, and C, these rooms were instead labelled Aida, Boheme and Carmen.

I knew he was a Republican, and generally avoided arguing politics with him. On one occasion, however, we did have a good natured discussion about taxes. He, of course, wanted taxes to be low, the lower the better. I pointed out that lower taxes meant decreased services. Not just aid to the arts, to National Parks, to transportation -- but to the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, widows and orphans (yeah, I pulled out all the stops!). Many people in our society, I reminded him, through no obvious fault of their own, depend completely on public assistance. Cutting taxes means taking away the life jackets that just barely keep these folks' heads above water.

He looked at me, sort of blankly, and shrugged. "So what?" he asked.

You have to understand that this guy was not the office cynic. He was not a wise guy. He didn't go around joking about the misfortunes of others. He wasn't obviously racist. That's why I was stunned into silence by his "so what." It was a conversation stopper. I wandered out of his office, and tried to on about my normal business.

This guy would never deliberately harm a flea -- if he was dealing with the flea in person. But once the "flea" became an abstraction, just one of a mass of fleas out there in the outside world, he no longer had the ability or the interest to empathize with whatever oppression and suffering rendered that flea's existence miserable. If the story of civilization is the progressive redefinition of "family" from its original meaning to encompass, first, an extended family, then the tribe, then similar social and ethnic groups, then a geographic region, then the nation, and then all humanity -- my friend was still somewhat low on the level of civilization. And yet, to all appearances, he was the very epitome of a "civilized" man.

I remember all of this when I read about the Tea Party supporters who are now massing back in Washington. They are not deliberately evil men and women. They want lower taxes. Who doesn't? They want smaller government; and what government there is, they want to make more local. These are good objectives, in themselves, and worthy goals to keep in mind when contemplating and devising governmental programs. But I sense a collective shrug, a murmurred "so what?", when Tea Partiers are reminded that their taxes aren't just money thrown down the drain -- that in part those taxes allow persons less lucky than themselves -- those dealt a poor hand in terms of brains, social skills, good parenting, good schooling, inherited character traits, or just plain bad luck during their lifetimes -- to live a life surrounded by at least the bare minimum requirements of our society: food, housing, clothing, education for their children.

I understand the concerns of the Tea Party. But I also sense this total failure on their part to empathize significantly with others -- with those to whom they aren't related by blood, friendship, or similar ideology -- a failure so total that the very real hardships of others appear of little consequence compared with their obsession to shrink government and lower taxes.

As I was when I confronted my attorney friend, I'm left speechless. Not this time out of shock, however, but because I realize that argument is useless. The typical Tea Partiers have a different mindset, a different way at looking at life. Their philosophy is not alien to me, not incomprehensible -- but it doesn't represent the best this country has to offer. It's a more primitive way of thinking, one that we should all have been growing beyond by now, and I think, if pursued, one that will lead to enormous future problems. Not just problems for the so-called underprivileged, but for our country and our civilization. For all of us.

Through a glass darkly

A bright, warm, sunny day in Seattle. After a week or so of gray skies and cool days, summer finally returns -- temperatures in the 80's, birds chirping, voices of kids playing in the streets.

But, as that philosopher Buddy Holly once said, "it's raining, raining in my heart."

I'm afflicted with a summer cold. It came on gradually, tickle by tickle in the back of my throat. I ignored it. It would not be ignored; it insisted. By Sunday, I'd stopped doing anything productive. I sat and stared into space. I gazed at my unengaging Facebook screen. I picked at my piano keys. I went to YouTube for musical inspiration and fell asleep listening to Horowitz. I couldn't stay awake during the day; I couldn't stay asleep at night.

Yesterday was worse, today not much better.

Telling folks you have a cold earns you no respect, no sympathy. Why would it? When I was nine or ten, I had a cold most days of the year. So what? Life was to be lived. Now, I get a cold maybe twice a year, and the experience undoes me. Whenever it gets near me, the wuss-o-meter goes off the scale.

No matter how beautiful the day outside, no matter how moving the music I hear and attempt to play, no matter what exciting events I see beckoning in the future -- with a cold, everything's in black and white. Or, more accurately, gray. A cold leaves you alive to limp through daily life, but drains all of the joy and all of the beauty out of the experience. If love provides us intimations of immortality, a cold offers sober insights into the flat, cold world of clinical depression.

But, as many webpages have advised me over the past day or so, the worst symptoms of a cold generally are over within three days. I should be about there. Do I see a bit of color at the end of the tunnel? -- like viewing Oz from the gloomy depths of a Kansas tornado?

I'm not sure. Who cares? I'll get there when I get there.

One further observation: clinical depression (The Bell Jar notwithstanding) generally doesn't cause one to churn out gripping and memorable writing.

Neither does the common cold. And I guess that's all I got to say. So yeah.

Brotherhood in America

On page A14 of today's New York Times, there's a large photograph of five attractive teenaged boys and girls, sitting on a front porch (stoop, I suppose they call it) in Queens. They're laughing and joking together. They look like they might be your own kids, or maybe those of your neighbors next door.

The NYT hasn't pictured them because they've been accused of mugging someone; nor are they there because they're promising young rocket scientists. They are newsworthy only because they're all Muslims, and they're just killing time while somewhat hungry, waiting for sunset. They are observing Ramadan.

As one of the girls comments, discussing what fasting for Ramadan means to her:

It's all about being mad mellow. It's cool, too -- it lets you find out who you are, too. You have more time to look at yourself.

Pretty scary, huh?

I remark on this small story only because, in today's Seattle Times and in newspapers across the land, one finds the latest diatribe from columnist Charles Krauthammer. He continues to be aghast at the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

Krauthammer, to give credit where due, seems not to claim that Muslims have no legal right to build the mosque, only that to do so would be both "insensitive" and "provocative." The Japanese wouldn't "plant their flag" at Pearl Harbor, he conjectures, even though few Japanese alive today have any personal responsibility for the 1941 bombing. Why can't the Muslims be equally sensitive?

But the Japanese -- those who live under the Japanese flag -- are not Americans. The Japanese flag represents a foreign nation. A mosque does not represent a foreign people. Those five kids laughing in the photo are just as American as Mr. Krauthammer.

To say that Muslim symbols or places of worship are not welcome near Ground Zero, because the attack on the World Trade Center was the work of Muslim extremist fanatics, is like saying that Catholic churches should not be built in California because of the cruelties committed by Spanish conquistadores in the name of Catholicism.

I suspect that Krauthammer sees those five Muslin teenagers as young people entitled to the legal protections of citizenship, but I suspect also that he does not see them as "American" in the same sense as Dick, Jane and Baby Sally, who live next door to him in Happytown, USA. He can't believe that those kids are equally appalled by what happened on 9-11, that they may see little connection between the god to whom they pray and for whom they fast and the "god" that animated Osama bin Laden's hatred of America.

Whether a mosque is built in Lower Manhatten is symbolic. Krauthammer and I agree on that. Do we recognize the estimated 7 million Muslims who live in the United States as our fellow citizens? Do we accept them as every bit as "American" as Dick and Jane? Do we acknowledge that their religion is just one more thread in the complexly woven fabric of American religious life? Or do we hold them -- including those happy, devout youngsters in the photo -- at arms' length, acting polite, perhaps, but viewing them in our hearts as nothing more than local representatives of a small group of diabolical Middle East fanatics?

Dancing out of China

I'm depressed by a movie whose premise seems promising -- a premise that leads me to watch it despite mediocre reviews, suspecting that the reviewers either just didn't get it, or were overly focused on technical aspects that would appear less important to a cinematic layman like me -- but that so fails to live up to its promise that I leave the theater feeling cheated.

Last night I attended the Seattle opening of Mao's Last Dancer, a dramatization of the real-life story of Li Cunxin, a Chinese ballet dancer who defected to the West in 1981. Li's life is the very stuff of drama: born to and raised by a peasant family in provincial China; selected almost arbitrarily to study ballet in Beijing at the age of 11 (because Madame Mao decided she wanted a ballet company); forced to undergo strenous physical training for an alien art form that he didn't understand and didn't enjoy; transformed as a teenager from a hitherto lackluster dancer by his viewing of a videotaped performance by Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov; and, finally, his realization as one of the top performers at the Beijing Dance Academy, contrary to early expectations by his instructors. This rags to riches story alone would have made a fascinating movie.

But, wait, there's more. During a period of warming in Sino-American relations, Li's dance group was visited by officials of the Houston Ballet. The director was strongly impressed by Li's dancing, and invited him to spend three months with his company in Houston. Chinese officials were concerned with Li's "political readiness," but reluctantly agreed to the visit. In Houston, Li fell in love with another dancer, married her secretly, and decided to defect. He insisted on visiting the Chinese consulate to explain his decision. While there, he was seized, held captive, and was about to be flown back to China. Enormous adverse publicity, plus intense diplomatic discussions (then Vice President Bush was a patron of the Houston Ballet (who knew?)), led the Chinese to release Li, with the admonition that he'd never see China, or his family, again.

Years later, with liberalization in China, Li had become a hero -- although a politically unreliable one -- in China itself. His parents were secretly flown to the United States where they watched from the audience as Li danced an interpretation of Le Sacre du Printemps. They were brought up on stage to meet their astonished and emotionally overwhelmed son during curtain calls. ("Why are you dancing naked?" his father asks in Chinese. "Let's talk about it later," his son grins.)

All of this should have been great cinema. Somehow, however, it sounds a lot better on paper than it appears on film. The scenes shot in China are dramatic and seemingly authentic. The hardships suffered by all Chinese during the Cultural Revolution are touched on lightly, but convincingly. But the film's opening scene depicts Li's arrival in Houston, with subsequent flashbacks revealing his childhood and adolescence. These opening Houston scenes apparently were designed to contrast America, land of plenty and of freedom, with Maoist China, land of poverty and oppression. Li is shown bedazzled by the skycrapers and modernity of Houston (now eclipsed, of course, by the excesses of Shanghai), and marveling at the consumer goods heaped upon him by his host, the director of the Houston Ballet.

To me, the Houston scenes appeared pure, cheap Hollywood dreck. More footage was devoted to the director's leading Li around from store to store, buying him merchandise, and to showing him the wonders of Houston's disco scene, than was to the director's efforts to integrate him into his own ballet company. I confess to a strong distaste for Texas, at least to the media's routine portrayal of Texas, and most of all to Houston. The cultural elite looked and sounded like a bunch of moneyed snobs out of any one of a number of TV series set in that state. The entire Houston cast looked like a bunch of mediocre Hollywood actors. America in general came across as a country with too much wealth and far too much self-satisfaction.

Li's relationship with the woman he married was touching, at least in the early scenes, but by the time of his defection it was unclear whether he was staying in the U.S. for the sake of love, or for the sake of greater artistic freedom and much greater prosperity. Both, probably, but I couldn't help wondering if he wouldn't have made more of a contribution to ballet by returning home to his company in Beijing.

Li's marriage did not last -- according to the movie, because his wife's own dancing career could not be fulfilled in Houston. During his 18 years with the Houston Ballet, he remarried and finally moved to Australia, where he lives today and where he wrote the best-selling autobiography on which the movie was based. An interesting interview with Li appears on the first page of the Arts section in today's New York Times.

I wish I'd forgone the movie, and read the book.

P.S. -- But some of the ballet scenes, danced by a principal of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, are admittedly spectacular. Too bad the movie didn't present more ballet and less disco.

Hadrian's Wall

I returned late Wednesday night from my cross-England hike, following Hadrian's Wall from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. I can now say I've walked in the footsteps of Roman legionaires. Less preciously, perhaps, I can say that I've spent two weeks -- hiking, riding on trains, and staying at Bed and Breakfasts -- rubbing shoulders with the English people of today, an altogether pleasant and enjoyable experience in itself.

But we all know already that the English tend to be intelligent, quietly witty, endlessly patient, and more or less good-naturedly tolerant of us American buffoons. So I don't need to linger on that aspect of the trip.

My hike was arranged through a British provider -- the company reserved the B&B's at which I would stay each night, and arranged for a local company to move my luggage each day, while I was hiking, to my next destination. They also provided maps, a guide book, and detailed instructions on how to find my accommodations each evening. The trip was unguided. I had to hike (roughly 14 miles a day) and carry a daypack.

I have rarely worked with a travel vendor that was as quietly efficient or that did so precisely everything that it promised to do at the time I paid (quite inexpensively) for the package. I'd be happy to give the name of the vendor and further details to anyone who is interested in this hike (or one of the many others, all over Britain, provided by the company), together with my unqualified recommendation.

I arrived in London on July 28, spent a night trying to sleep despite disruption of my circadian rhythms, and took the train the next morning to Newcastle, a ride of about 3 ½ hours. A transfer onto one of Newcastle's excellent rapid transit trains and I arrived at Tynemouth, a beach town on a cliff overlooking the North Sea. I located the first of the B&B's that my provider had reserved for me -- on Tynemouth's main street, and a half block from the sea -- and knew immediately that I was going to enjoy the hike. The B&B was a small building, crowded in with other buildings on the street. I rang the bell, and was greeted by a kindly, elderly woman, a genteel lady who seemed to have stepped out of a 1940's British movie.¹ She had been expecting me, she said, and offered me tea, gave me a key to the front door, showed me to my room, and then tactfully disappeared.

I next saw my hostess in the morning in the small dining room where she served me, together with a few other guests, the amazing meal called an English breakfast -- eggs, ham, bacon (British style), mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast presented in that strange English rack designed to make sure the toast is cold by the time you eat it. This process, with some variation, was to be repeated every morning for the next eight days.

I finished my meal, more than adequately fueled up for my first day's walk, a walk that began at Segedunum Fort (which I toured) where Hadrian's Wall begins, continued along the Tyne riverfront through downtown Newcastle, and ended up at Newburn, a suburb just west of Newcastle. My first day's hike was eleven miles, just to warm me up, the next day was 14, and the days varied only slightly in distance from that day on.

The path for the first three days was fairly flat, often following the "Military Road" -- a road constructed along side, or actually on top of, the wall in the 1740's, as an emergency means of getting troops from Newcastle to rural areas where the Scottish forces favoring Bonnie Prince Charlie were making incursions. The wall was here visible only in isolated pieces, although the "vallum," a ditch just south of the wall, dug as part of the wall fortifications, was nearly always visible. By the fourth day, however, as the path climbed into the hilly central part of the country, the wall was gloriously intact (although at reduced height since Roman times) for long stretches. Roman milecastles also could be seen through much of this hilly area, as well as the foundations of Roman forts built into the wall.

I had arranged for a one-day layover near Twice Brewed, at the central point of the hike, an area that had some of the best stretches of the wall. I took advantage of this free day to hike to the ruins and archeological works at Vindolanda, a Roman fort pre-dating the wall and located about a mile or so south of it.

And the hike wasn't all about the wall. The scenery was magnificent. A geologic formation called the Whin Sill cuts across Northumberland and Cumbria in northern England, resulting in gradual uphill slopes from the south, falling sharply by rock cliffs to the north. The Romans took advantage of the Whin Sill in designing their defenses, building the wall along its ridge. The rocky crags, and the lakes that form at the base of the cliffs, add drama to the already beautiful green, rolling hills.

The dramatic portions of the hike end at the small city of Carlisle, and many wall hikers end their hikes at this point. I went ahead and hiked the final 16 miles to the actual termination of the wall at Bowness-on-Solway, a tiny town on the Solway Firth, an inlet of the Irish Sea. There are no surviving Roman ruins along this last 16 miles, but the very flat walk alongside the Firth is attractive -- although the day seemed very long by the time I reached Bowness!

All in all, an easy hike, compared with, say, the Himalayas. But the daily distances were greater than I'm used to, and my feet paid a price. Unfortunately, I had developed a hot spot on one foot before leaving home -- some problem with my shoes -- and this translated into blisters on the hike. I had plasters stuck over both heels and was hobbling somewhat painfully for several days. But the experience reminded me that low grade pain is something that you can push into the back of your mind if the experience is otherwise interesting and enjoyable enough. Character-building, as my parents' generation would have said. I do suggest well-broken-in boots or shoes, plus a supply of Second Skin, to anyone planning such a hike.

And the weather, that had greatly concerned me before departure?

At some point on your walk it will rain; if it doesn't, it's fair to say that you haven't really lived the full Hadrian's Wall experience properly.

--My (obviously British) guidebook

Despite all my forebodings (see prior blog posting) and despite threatening skies daily, the rain didn't really fall (a few drops, maybe) throughout most of my hike. I was beginning to fear that I therefore wasn't "properly" experiencing everything that Hadrian's Wall had to offer. Luckily, I was hit by a shower near the end of the final day, a shower strong enough to force me to dig my windbreaker out of my daypack.

I was less than two miles from my final destination. I just grinned as the heavens opened.

After sleeping at a delightful B&B with a view from my window of the ancient and rather spooky graveyard next door, I took a bus back to Carlisle, and the train to London, where I spent four nights recovering from my exertions. London is always fun, and I took in a couple of West End shows, as well as visits to the British Museum (greatly renovated inside since my last visit) and the National Gallery.

A truly interesting and relatively inexpensive two weeks, an experience I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys both history and the outdoors. (If you're anxious for more, I've posted photos of the hike on Facebook.) (For map of hike, see earlier post.)

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¹I learned on my return that my Tynemouth B&B has undefined "associations" with Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Lady Byron. I did sense that I felt literarily inspired while I slept.