Thursday, April 28, 2011

Manfred Fink does it up right

This aria from Franz Lehar's 1929 operetta "Land of Smiles" sweeps me away every time I hear it.  I never grow tired of it.    There are few songs that combine plain, clear message with such breathtaking poetry.  I suppose it means I'm a completely hopeless romantic drawn in so easily by sappy texts.  Or it could mean that Lehar is on to something here, and that I might actually have decent taste in music.  I'll let you judge.  Recordings of the song are around in various incarnations performed by tenors of different nationalities.   For this post my first choice was Fritz Wunderlich, then tonight I found this performance by tenor Manfred Fink.  I adore the way Wunderlich sings this, but I really like how Fink's voice blossoms in the super high range.  If you're in love, your heart will melt.  If you're not, or if you're recently fallen out of love, the song might just make you bitter.  So caveat auditor.


Dein ist mein ganzes Herz!
Wo du nicht bist, kann ich nicht sein.
So, wie die Blume welkt,
wenn sie nicht küsst der Sonnenschein!
Dein ist mein schönstes Lied,
weil es allein aus der Liebe erblüht.
Sag mir noch einmal, mein einzig Lieb,
oh sag noch einmal mir:
Ich hab dich lieb!

Wohin ich immer gehe,
ich fühle deine Nähe.
Ich möchte deinen Atem trinken
und betend dir zu Füssen sinken,
dir, dir allein! Wie wunderbar
ist dein leuchtendes Haar!
Traumschön und sehnsuchtsbang
ist dein strahlender Blick.
Hör ich der Stimme Klang,
ist es so wie Musik.

Yours is my entire heart.  I can't be where you're not, like when a flower wilts if it's not kissed by the sunshine!  Yours is my most beautiful song, because it blossoms forth from love.  Just tell me once, my only love, just tell me once, I love you.  Wherever I go, I feel you're close.  I would like to drink your breath, and prayerfully fall to your feet, to you alone! How wonderful is your glowing hair!  Lovely as a dream and anxiously passionate is your beaming glance.  When I hear the sound of your voice, it's just like music.      

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Trad: Pat Conroy's Shrimp & Grits

I know what I'll be making this week. Matter of fact, I have some fresh shrimp in the frig at the moment. Note to self: procure bacon this evening.

The Trad: Pat Conroy's Shrimp & Grits

The humble Tea Kettle

They all have the same contents, and in fact they all almost always look the same.  Pastel baskets with plastic Easter grass, crammed full with chocolate footballs, malted dino eggs, and nondescript jelly beans.  If there's a gift to be given, my rule of thumb is this: make it unique.  Break the rules.  Conforming to convention is boring.  I did use a basket, yes, and I did pay hommage to the basket stereotype by including chocolate.  At Christmastime, I had searched out the proper container to deliver the news of our trip to the Myrtles -- a French Press coffee maker (I love reusable packaging).  Wondering why we hadn't yet used the French Press for Sunday morning java, I learned that no tea kettle was available.  Blaine isn't a tea drinker, so not having a proper kettle is excusable, and also a good thing, because it allowed me to extend the Christmas gift to another holiday and create a gift around the missing element.  I envisioned a basket with the kettle as the focal point, surrounded by an assortment of unlikely Easter sweets: a Toblerone bar, Ritter Sport Mini Squares, Lindt truffles, chocolate covered pretzels.  The sugar was rather easy to locate.  The kettle was the hard part. 

I don't know what it is about kettles.  Most everyone has a decent one, but shops don't always carry the ones you're looking for.  The utilitarian campfire kettles, the miniature ones, the decorative ones are ubiquitous.  Remember, I'm not in for the cliche.  I want something different, stylish, unusual. Regarding my own kettle, I had hit pay dirt at a department store Calphalon close out sale about a decade ago when I picked up a sleek, oval model with a slanted lid and handle for about 20 clams.  I've never seen another like that.  Department store kitchen departments can be hit and miss.  Back then, it was hit, but with Lafayette traffic, the season what it was, and my depleted stamina and patience for unruly crowds, a trip to the shopping mall would be tantamount to water boarding.  There is one kitchen shop in Lafayette.  Only one, and it's snooty.  I don't like snooty.  Snooty is tiresome.   Snooty is an attitude that can set in when a gal marries up, bids adieu to the Rustling Pines Mobile Home Court, gets the mullet restyled, and switches her chew from Bazooka to Dentine.  

I parked in front of the shop -- This was my second trip here, ever.  The first was for an offset spatula one Christmas when I had been called upon to produce two Sachertorts.  That time, I had to do everything short of drawing a picture of the thing for Ms. Bubble to understand what it was I needed.  The weird thing about this place is that they have everything, and usually a good selection of everything, but the employees obviously have no more knowledge about a kitchen other than it's where the help cook the grits. Gird your loins.  The place had expanded its floorspace since my last visit.   Two gum smackers were perched on stools behind a long counter.  "You need somethin?" one of them asked, breathless.  Her late afternoon gossip had been interrupted by a customer.  How annoying is that?  "Yes.  I need a tea kettle."  "A what?!" She wrinkled her face in seeming disbelief, as if I had just asked her for a gift-wrapped turd on a sterling platter.  Her mullet was showing (and so was her Walgreen's color).   She looked over to sisterwife and nodded in the direction of retail floor: "you going?"  Her friend rolled her eyes, slid off the stool, and schlepped herself around the counter.  I followed.  She may as well have been the ghost of Christmas future, hooded, boney finger.  She stopped in the center of the store, said absolutley nothing, lifted her arm, extended her index finger,  pointed to a cabinet, turned and resumed her perch behind the counter.  Good thing she had interpersonal skills.  I'd hate to know what she'd do if someone needed help finding something here.  

I dug around in the pile of tea kettles and found the one that was right: the Le Creuset Zen.  I took the box to the gum smackers.  What they had lacked in customer service, they well made up for in cash register usage. I was impressed.  I really should have asked the smacker with the boney finger how to use the kettle I had just purchased.  "You wanna bag?"        

Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter is actually....fun.

For the majority of my 40 something years, Easter Sundays at best have been gigantic flashes in the pan.  At  worst, they were high-stress dramas rivaling the interplay of Sue Ellen and JR at the Southfork trolley bar.  WASPy nightmares.   And all this came with detailed preparation: frenzied clothes shopping excursions, exotic grocery store visits in search of  some whacky ingredients you'll use once in a lifetime for that "extra special new side dish recipe", the hope of discovering that one place in town that carries the best lamb leg.  The late Saturday night horror that so-and-so only packed shorts and the ensuing sermonette entitled "You make this long trip, knowing where you're coming,  and you bring nothing for church?"   Long story short, there has always been simply too much commotion for a day you'll typically end up doing nothing more than eating, sleeping, and complaining about  kooky relatives.  It's Easter when you long for the crazy Texas aunt, 6 times married, to arrive with her 98 year old insurance victim #6 in tow to deflect all this loving Easter scorn (More about her in a later post).  Easter lunch chatter is typically spiced with profound musings regarding the spiritual plight of un-churched or semi-churched relatives, why some failed to send Easter greetings, or despite the importance placed upon learning Luther's Small Catechism and his having served his entire teenage years as an altar boy, his Easter card this year featured a rabbit instead of the risen Christ.   Is it time for my nap yet? This polemic as well as the potato-miso-fennel hotdish are weighing heavily on my stomach.    In the scheme of things Easter had always been much like George Washington's birthday, but with a gamey roast, plenty of sour grapes, and a mind-numbing scavenger hunt through retail hell for someone's daughter's perfect easter socks -- or worse, the Easter shoes -- 12 hours before the blasted bunny's visit and photo time by the flower bed.   No memories, really,  of fabulous Easters past.

I've lived in South Louisiana for 13 years, and typically carried on the drudgery of Easter year after year.  It's what one does.  Early last week, I wasn't anticipating a holiday.  But then Blaine was excited about Easter.  There seemed to be something he knew that I didn't about the paschal feast.  "Fun" just hadn't been a concept that paired naturally with mention of "Easter".   It was high time to break the old, loathesome chocolate bunny mold.  Easter as a holiday needed a good pressure washing.  Easter needed a serious overhaul.  And this was the year for it. 

We were invited to spend Easter Sunday afternoon/evening with friends.  I hadn't dyed eggs since I was 12.  Once the nieces had sleuthed out that the Easter Bunny was a hoax, dyed eggs were passe.   The process was deemed too messy, too time consuming, a pointless waste of food.  But this year, there would be eggs, and these eggs would be magnificent.  And no monochromatic primary colored eggs.  Blaine described a process involving pens, markers, crayons, and a daring approach to coloring them -- multicolored eggs attained by dipping sections into small portions of dye, allowing the dye to swirl around the shell to create intriguing color patterns and designs.  Draw on an egg? I liked the idea.  It was creative, fresh, and new.   Besides, the impending pacquer'ing competition made the task even more important.  There would be egg judging: most colorful, most, creative, most, most, most.  And most important: the most resilient when one end was pacquer'd against that of another to see which would crack.  Bragging rights. 

We boiled and decorated 2 dozen eggs plus some extras, should there be premature casualties.  The day for me began at Church, having been called upon to play and to add another bass voice to the Handel Hallelujah.  The afternoon was reserved for a most excellent Easter celebration with some really good friends.  Everyone brought their eggs, set them out to be admired.  They were all very beautiful and all quite unique.  Smiles and laughter amidst these fantastic creations.    This is the sort of Easter Day I had never had before, one on which everyone enjoys everyone else's company.   No bickering, things are laid back, easy-going, and just plain relaxing.  Blaine won "Most Creative Egg", I won "Most Colorful Egg": the eggs' brief claims to fame. In the end, all the eggs were destined for deviling on his holiest of feasts.  Pacquer'ing commenced.  Each of mine cracked.  A few of Blaine's stood the challenge, until they, too, succumbed.  Phyllis, however, armed with one of Hillary's tie-dyed eggs, knocked out one after the other, until finally, one of Blaine's compromised the shell of steel.  Phyllis, victory in sight, nonetheless won the accolade of "Most Reuthless Egg", having eliminated the majority of the day's combatants.   The remains of the day, cracked and damaged, were repacked in their cartons and carried to the kitchen for peeling.  As we stripped away the colorful shells, I discovered an egg in my carton still intact, unpacquer'd.  Jeanne was standing by and was challenged to dethrone Blaine's viking warrior egg that had vanquished the Most Reuthless.  Crack.  Jeanne victorious.   
What an amazing Easter Day this had been.  One well spent in great company.  Good friends, new traditions.  Now, I can add another fantastic holiday to the calendar, one whose arrival had formerly been dreaded, once garlanded with overrought familial drama, insipid boredom, and endless tedium was now liberated from the tomb, made to walk in the newness of life!         

Friday, April 22, 2011

Cleopatra lives!

Simone Kermes sings the Piangero from Haendel's Caesar.  We are forced to fall in love with her, hate her, and to have pity on her. The transition between the sections here is not easy, but Kermes does it with fire, as she hurls us along in a storm of sweeping, angry passion  One moment she's contemplative regarding what is to become of her, then she's raging in planned vindication, only to return to muse upon her uncertain future.  Kermes offers us a true glimpse inside the mind of the clever Nile Queen.       

Pacquer des Oeufs

Sunday morning there is something in store which I have heard of before, but never engaged in.  A competition involving Easter eggs. After doing a bit of digging, I discovered the practice (locally called "pocking" or with the French spelling "pacquing") is fairly widespread throughout Europe and even into the Middle East.  Here's how it goes: knock the pointed end of a hard boiled egg against that of one's opponent.  The one whose egg cracks is the loser.  Other names for this include the English "egg jarping" and in German Eierkippen or Eierticken.  The Cajun name for this seems to be a play on words.  With  the Anglophone spelling, pock, we have the implication of a smashed dimple in the shell, while the Francophone spelling, pacque, recalls the word for Easter: Paques. I rather like how the local French name transforms the noun into a verb: "to Easter", as it were.  The preparation and decoration of the eggs is only the first step.  Then, through their use in pocking, the eggs come into their fullness, having been duly Eastered.     

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The more things change...




Strange the things you think of when the memory is jogged while talking to a friend from the University days.  The study of language and history is the study of colorful life.  What human on earth isn't fascinated by the nutty things that others do?  I think it's in our nature to be curious about our confreres.  And when they do it in another language, their undertakings seem even more remote, mysterious, and secretive.  At the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, tucked along a back wall of one of the upper floors of the Mullins Library (this is all before the renovations.  I have no idea where to find these items now) was a bank of gigantic hardbound tomes.  Each was about 36"X24" or so.  Big.  And heavy.  This was the Mullins set of the CIL -- the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.  So priceless these things were to us classicists and historians, and of course they could only be consulted in the library.  For one, they're just too massive to tote back to the digs, and for two, if even one volume went missing, someone in the Latin philology brood would know, since that would be the one volume they'd need this Wednesday.  Now and then a professor would borrow a volume, someone might play a prank, or purposefully misplace one for private viewing.    "Ok, who hid Rome II in the French stacks?"  "I went up there and Pompeii was missing." "Stop hiding Germania.  Don't you know I'm writing on Tacitus?" The CIL contains printed editions of all known Latin inscriptions throughout the world: "The Body of Latin Inscriptions" it's called.  If you want to learn more about the in's and out's of the CIL, the German philologist and archaeologist Theodor Mommsen who started the compilations back in 1853, follow this link to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities:   


The CIL is something an interested party could loose himself in quite quickly.  And it's mostly because we all enjoy reading about the crazy messes people get themselves into.  One thing we learn from it, even if it's just because we have a few hours to kill on a Sunday afternoon: Desperate Housewives and Peyton Place are nothing more than modern re-tellings of the same crap humans have been embroiled in since an angel with a flaming sword was made to play the bad guy and expelled two fig-leafed protoparents from Paradise after they were told that sex was a sin and that discussing one's hoo-hoo publicly or someone else's is not polite. So what's in the CIL?  Everything.  You name it.  The standard official stuff: building inscriptions, landmarks, and such.  Tombstones, lots and lots of tombstones, and best of all graffiti and curse tablets.  The political messages on buildings is what the school boys read in Latin III.  Not until they hit the Hallowed Halls are most introduced to the good stuff.  The Moet, the Grey Goose.  These are the strange death grave markers, the "I hate you so much, that I wish for you..." curses, and best of all, the motherload: scribbles from the walls of perhaps the raciest of all Roman cities: Pompeii.  The old prudes who scramble around after church services handing off  the "white ribbons against porn" have no idea that all the stuff that the "men of today are engaging in" is really old hat for humans.  Homo Sapiens: been there, done that.   Human kinkiness came about perhaps around the same time that the first thong was sewn in Eden.  Some people suffered  weird deaths then like some folks do today: "Poor Claudius, decapitated by an ox cart.  No one really liked him anyway."  They cursed their neighbors: "If she so much as looks at my husband in that way again, may her hair fall out and may her tits shrivel to the size of grapes." And they warned about the floozies who offered good times at bargain prices: "Don't choose Scintilla.  You might be burning after."  No surprise that Scintilla means "spark".  Romans were literary too, even while they sinned.  


The CIL continues to grow.  There are some 20 or so volumes at the moment, and more and more material for the collection is found almost everyday.  Reading the CIL might seem a nerdy student's passion, but really, it appeals to something more than just that.  It's the discovery how we connect to other people.  That they aren't so much different from us.  The dude who took out a stylus in the first century and scraped a warning onto a brick wall about a sparky hooker who gave him crabs more than likely had no idea that his admonishment would become the focus of academics 2000 years later.  But, who hasn't overheard similar words in any number of social situations?  The CIL gives us a chance to eavesdrop on the ancients.  There's plenty of time to read about the big names and their scandals, but the ordinary, everyday folks are far more interesting (and their stories are found in the CIL).    Mainly because we can so easily relate to them.  "Tertullia's hair is so out of style.  That's what she gets for buying a slave from Gaul." Good stuff.  

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Dirty Grey Goose Martini Please, Three Olives

Peggy Lee sings Baubles, Bangles, and Beads from the musical Kismet.  Whenever a singer in the voice studio arrives with this number in her folder (as happened this afternoon), I simply can not wait for the final chords of the score.  They are the musical equivalent to a well mixed dirty Grey Goose martini. Delicious.  

Sirloin and Salmon, but pitch the casserole.

Dinner this evening was at our most frequented spot: O'Charley's.  Armed with advice from one of Blaine's clients, we ordered completely different entrees.  He took the Louisiana Sirloin, and I opted for the Cedar Planked Salmon.  The steak was masterfully seasoned (not in the South Louisiana sense.  Herbs here.  Not Cayenne).  We suspect an enchanted marinade  that imbued the entire cut with flavor.  Garlic butter topped the steak.  Regarding the fish, we theorized last weekend that the wood not only infused the fish with its smokey flavor, but also should draw out any hint of fishiness.  Correct on both counts.  The plate itself brought with it an amazingly tasty aroma.  The generous portion offered bold salmon flavor accented with a hint of lemon pepper.  One of the most delicious pieces of salmon! 

De rigueur: Caesars.  One can quite easily make a meal of salad alone at O'Charley's.  The dressing is extra creamy with plenty of anchovies, cheese shavings and croutons -- all tossed properly so that the final bites are just as tasty as the first. 

Blaine and I very often opt for identical sides without consulting each other first.  As our second, we chose the "Broccoli Cheese Casserole".  I was envisioning an individual serving in a ramekin of something similar to quiche.  Far from that.  What arrived was that pedestrian microwaved concoction typically served from a covered Pyrex dish that consists of sticky rice, Lipton cream of something, frozen broccoli crowns, and some sort of white cheese.  The result: a bland combination of lumpy wallpaper paste, tapioca, and shamrocks.  But chin up, casserole: if you continue to be a menu failure, at least your left-overs might be used to spackle fractures along the inner surfaces of fiber glass swimming pools.

We suggest: instead of the casserole, choose a potato or the asparagus, and, unless you're a loyal subject of Caesar, split the salad.  One is more than plenty to start.  Price?  $32 for two, including one glass of beer for each of us.  Amazingly good price point here, considering the quality of the entrees and size of the portions.             

Monday, April 18, 2011

In lieu of high church festivities for Holy Week...

...there are always large scale choral works such as the Bach St. Matthew Passion to help keep the observance of the Christian high holy days.  So much of the Holy Week liturgies is dependent upon music: anthems, canticles, versets and the like selected from the dawn of time to accompany the complex rituals of these days.  When one's ears are abused by the Via Dolorosas crooned into wireless Las Vegas lounge mics, there is some solace to be found in the bone chilling text and exquisite counterpoint of this Baroque masterpiece.             

Friday, April 15, 2011

Monkstrap Bliss

The "Rollins Bucklestrap" from Johnson & Murphey.  I've always loved monkstrap shoes, having owned several pairs over the past decades.  The shape of the toe has changed from round to pointed to squared off over the years, but the same basic design has never changed.  Shall I procure them?  I'm quite tempted.

Where's the fire, Fritz?

Here's a fascinating oddity from recording history: organist Fritz Heitmann at the Sauer organ of the Berlin Cathedral in 1940 playing the J.S. Bach Toccata in d-dorian.  This has been digitized from an old 78 recording.  What sticks out most about this performance is the break neck tempo Heitmann takes on the Dorian, especially within such a vast space as the Berlin Cathedral and at the reigns of such a massive instrument as the Sauer organ.  The Dorian is so complex, and at this speed, the intertwining texture of the voices is so muddied, much of the detail is lost, sadly, especially towards the end.  I would assume much of this is thanks to the recording quality of the 78. But musical critique aside, this is an intriguing historical recording.  Not many years after this performance, the voice of this giant instrument was silenced for decades after the cathedral suffered severe damage as allied bombs ripped through the dome in the nave.  Restoration work to the instrument begain in the 1980's and was completed after German reunification.   

Walk-On's Redeemed

A couple weeks back I recounted the failed attempt to dine at a relatively new eatery in Lafayette called "Walk-On's", a sports themed bistro(eaux) of sorts.  After my comments here, I read a facebook post written by a friend in Baton Rouge who marked her whereabouts at the Walk-On's branch in that city.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to relate (in few words) my experience here.  She was amazed, revealing that she actually enjoyed the joint, at least her local incarnation of it.  So, with that modicum of hope planted, Blaine suggested it as our lunch venue last Monday, convenient as it was to the spa.  This time, parking was hardly has chaotic.  The adjacent construction site was empty, no parallel parking, and several open slots in the actual parking area.  This time, no music and hubbub spilling through the opened garage doors of the semi-outdoor patio.  No waiting.  Friendly, smiling staff.  What a switch from the night I had attempted capturing a table.  If that night had been rugby, this afternoon was golf.  Placid, easy-going golf.   Our table was on the patio.  Lunch special: red beans and rice with a fried pork chop.  Score.  For starters, a bowl of waffle fries and mayonaise -- yes, let it be known that in my universe, the most excellent and superior dip for fried potatoes of any variety is mayonaise (pronounced "my-NEZ").  Blaine prefers mixing his mayo with ketchup, addinng hot sauce and a bit of pepper (this fine culinary sauce is formally known as "crawfish dip").  My dessert radar spotted a white chocolate bread pudding in the sweets department of the menu.  In no time, our friendly server brought the chops and beans.  Rugged ordinary food, but seasoned perfectly.  Not pasty, good rice consistency too.  And if there's bread pudding on the list, you've got to order it.  Connoisseurs of the South Louisiana delicacy can not (and shouldn't ever) pass up the chance.  I adore making bread pudding, but I don't, simply because I would eat the entire pan of it in the course of an evening.  Ording it from a restaurant is much safer.  Portion control, and once the dish is empty, there's no more.  But it's a tricky matter.  There is bread pudding, and then there's bread pudding.  Most of the time, you can predict the quality of the stuff just by looking at it, how it holds together, what color it has.  If it looks like mush, someone tripped with the milk, or miscounted on the eggs.  If it still looks like the loaf it came from, the baker's neighbor had no milk, and maybe only half an eggyoke.  The proper bread pudding, as written in the Gospel of Libellus, should jiggle slightly, be rather firm, hold its shape but be moist.  There should also be some sort of sauce accompanying it -- the best bread pudding sauces contain bourbon, and they're thick (proper carmelization is required for that).  In very general terms, a bread pudding sauce is not much more than a sugar roux prepared with butter and made into a syrupy sauce by adding a healthy dose of bourbon.  The perfect combination of sugar and liquor, certainly the only two real food groups in our part of the South.  The only problem with that is that bourbon so masterfully masks a host of culinary sins: "The bread pudding swam like oatmeal, but wasn't the sauce delicious!"  Etiquette dictates that the only proper response to that is a barely detectable movement of the eyebrows.  So our bread pudding arrived.  A thick, tall wedge cut from a spring form pan, covered in a white chocolate sauce and sprinkled with brownie crumbles.  Two spoons.  We shared this one.  It met all the critera, and received an A+ down to the crusty edge.  The benefit of making bread pudding in a spring form (why had I never thought of this?) is that each wedge has the coveted crusty edge.  I've been known to push down old ladies to the floor at a church basement buffet for a chance at a corner square -- not one, but two crusty edges.  Walk-On's was redeemed.  The good reports of others were true, but a very recent night-time drive by revealed yet again, that dinner is not the time to go for a relaxing, enjoyable, rather quiet meal.  If that's what you're looking for, go during the lunch hour or shortly thereafter. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Spa Day

The bamboo bowl wraped in celophane and tied up with teal and lime green ribbon contained a collection of various birthday artifacts for Blaine: a lavender coffee cup incribed with the word "passion", a bag of Starbucks breakfast blend, a couple Godiva bars, and a CD of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris.  Tucked away towards the back was an envelope which entitled both of us to an hour of sheer bliss and relaxation at Spa Mizan: a couple's massage.  Last Monday, I took a snow day.  One day a month I reserve an entire day on which I never appear at the shop.  I never announce these days in advance.  Of course my shop helper, Ethel, knows, but otherwise, it's a secret.  This method is more for my personal benefit -- it completes the idea that indeed I am ducking beneath the radar and somehow can transform myself into a tourist in my own town, at least for a day.  

Having had our pedicures at 11, the clear polish dried, we arrived at the spa.  This place is relaxation central.  Even the staff who welcome your arrival are calm.  Everything in time.  The ritual of the spa is so appealing, not only because it's so utterly enjoyable, but because it's so ancient.  Being shown through the spa labyrinth until finally, you are requested to recline on the table, face nested in the cradle, to be transported to another realm.  On a typical day, I sit at my place and focus on detailed stitching.  Result: stiff shoulders and neck.  As soon as she went to work, the stiffness began to wane, and my body took on the consistency of a jelly fish.   The quickest hour ever.   A perfect snow day.

.         

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Look past the thugish cover photo...

This weekend, I was introduced to this recent hit of Chris Medina.  It's uncanny how these sorts of things happen -- and for me, not surprisingly, it's usually through music -- how you are given little gifts at very unlikely times that really bring things into focus.  This song is one of those little gifts.  So seldom does a an entire song text speak directly to you like this.  The context may be different from that of the original artist, but the message is clear.  Despite its overuse, the cliche catch-phrase is true: "When God shuts a door, He opens a window".  Sitting with a group of friends at an outdoor restaurant last Saturday,  Phylis who sat next to me, shared this song that she said had almost immediately become her favorite.  There at that moment, surrounded by these wonderful people, the song came alive: I was where I was meant to be. 

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Mondnacht: Moonlit Night

Es war, als hätt' der Himmel,
Die Erde still geküßt,
Daß sie im Blütenschimmer
Von ihm nun träumen müßt.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,
Die Ähren wogten sacht,
Es rauschten leis die Wälder,
So sternklar war die Nacht.

Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Flügel aus,
Flog durch die stillen Lande,
Als flöge sie nach Haus.

It was as if heaven kissed the earth, that the earth must dream of heaven by the blossoms' glow. The breeze blew through the fields, and the sheaves swayed.  The forests rustled quietly.  The night was so star-clear. and my soul spread out its wings wide, soared through the silent country, as if it were flying home.
This Eichendorff poem is one of my favorites of the German Romantic epoch, and this stunningly beautiful setting of it by Robert Schumann from his Liederkreis cycle brings the text to life.  I've known the poem for years, but the first time I heard it as an artsong decades ago, I recall being utterly mesmerized as if suspended.  The music and text capture you under their hypnotic spell.  Schreier renders this artsong with perfection: not a quiver in his voice.  Smooth, simple, like the moon gliding across the horizon.  It's like a glassy pond: not a single ripple.  I love the final stanza the best.  I equate Eichendorff's words here to the feeling of complete trust and contentment while falling asleep beside the one you love. Complete surrender and rest.  

Thursday, April 7, 2011

This is Lutheran?


When I was a kid growing up Lutheran (Missouri Synod) I remember a reverence and other-worldliness about the church service.  We didn't have sanctus bells or incense, but we had everything else.  Then, I'd say around the time the last of the German speaking pastors retired, things really went to pot liturgically.  Things started getting a bit more laid back, casual.  Now, when I see videos from the same parish where I grew up, where my mother still attends, I'm shocked how unconcerned everyone is about reverence in church, respect for the space.  Altar servers wearing shorts and sneakers, ill-fitting albs.  The pastor's vestments look more like a burlap bag tied up with a bit of rope, a wide felt stole around his neck.  The liturgy looks cheap, the clergy and servers unprepared, untrained.  I ask my mom often what the hell happened to the Lutheran liturgy?  Things used to be so fabulous.  Holy day services were feasts for the eyes, the ears, and the soul.  Now, the Divine Liturgy of Easter Sunday is more like an easter egg hunt in a public park set to music.  

And so tonight, I find this video of a church in Tulsa that actually has reclaimed the liturgical heritage of Western Christianity.  Amazing!  This is the type of liturgy I remember as a kid.  Is this a trend within Lutheranism or just a flash in the pan?  The next best thing to this is a good Episcopalian Rite I service, or even a well executed Rite II with the full ceremonial .  There's still something about being home at a Lutheran church though.  I guess until there's a parish that's finally bold enough to reclaim the tradition like Grace Church in Tulsa, I'll remain somewhat in exile at Canterbury.  It's not terrible by any means.  But there's something to be said about one's own faith roots.  And for me, those run deep from the heart of the Reformation, firmly planted with the hammering of the Theses on October 31, 1517.  

Casual Lutheran liturgy, the "come as you are" mentality of worship is a really big turn off.  If we're that pedestrian about our attitude towards worship, what really should we care about the whole salvation thing in general?  That's the message I get from this recent Lutheran casualness.  Call me old fashioned, but I just wasn't raised that way.    If it's church then it needs to be Church.  I can be casual and laid back at home in my PJ's drinking coffee on a Sunday morning watching a decent choir and listening to a self-help sermon from the Chrystal Palace or whatever that mega church is called.  I don't need to get into my car and drive somewhere for that.     

Truly News Of The Weird

Generally when the name Walmart is evoked, the subsequent story is weird, bizarre, or just downright surreal.  And so it is.  I encountered this story this morning while reading through recent Facebook posts.  My music colleague Brian in Rhode Island had found this report.  Strange to the Walmart'th degree, the tale involves a bit of Walton porcelain, or rather the plastic seat atop said porcelain.  
http://www.examiner.com/strange-news-in-national/paramedics-called-to-free-man-super-glued-to-toilet-seat

Now for the elephant in the room. First, shame on the silly school boy who applied gorilla glue to the crapper seat -- but, as an Old Boy myself, I must offer the clever rogue the applicable kudos for not getting caught.  Second, who in his right mind, regardless how dire the situation, should ever have even the most remote scintilla of a fleeting notion actually to sit on a public toilet seat?  I anticipate seeing a version of this 911 call and the victim's delivery to a local emergy room on an upcoming episode of Grey's Anatomy. 

Longhorn: Home of the Thousand Island Caesar

Don't you hate it when you order a Caesar and mid-way through, after you've enjoyed the croutons and the cheesy bits, you discover a second stratum of Thousand Island dressing?  My favorite steak dinner is a moderately sized, rare New York strip, a good Caesar, and a loaded baked potato (or fries if I'm so inclined).  "Drinks?" the waiter asked.  "Do you have any drink specials?" "No." Quite a definitive responder, this guy.  We didn't venture to ask whether that's a final "no" or whether that "no" referred only to this particular night.  It was a hair-parting negatory.  Michelob Ultra on draft.  Low carb beer of course helps justify eating copious amounts of appetizer bread with the whipped buttery substance that accompanies it, although our waiter's first offering of bread was a wire basket containining a solitary heel.  That was a restaurant first.  I had never been presented the obvious remnants of someone else's bread basket before.    Blaine opted for the chopped steak dinner with mash.  My salad arrived without ceremony, actually without any words at all.  The 7' waiter brought out the little bowl, set it in front of me, and walked away.  I was wearing Lagerfeld Jacko that day.  Maybe he was allergic.  I didn't detect an accent, so there was no language barrier.  Did he know about the hidden Thousand Island treasure lurking beneath the surface of my almost anchovie-free salad bowl?  Poor pseudo-Caesar.  Only nominally Julio-Claudean.  The bowl was removed as silently as it was presented.  No questions asked. Yeah, he knew. He must have.   
The decor here was comfortable.  I'd say a cross between the Stanley Hotel and Southfork Ranch.  Texas skilodge meets the Shining.  Comfortable with a bit of an edge and a good dose of Frank Lloyd Wright.  
The menu itself was decent, priced on the high end of moderate.  Unfortunately however, at least on this night, price would not at all determine quality.  The plates arrived.  Blaine's could have been the meat entree from a church basement potluck from the look of things.  A simple Salisbury steak topped with a bit of canned mushroom soup and garnished with nothing less than Durkee Fried Onions.  No doubt there was a naked green bean cassarole shivering in some darkened corner of the kitchen.  Mash from a box, plated with a trowel.  Edible, but more credible on a cardboard tri-sectioned buffet plate.  My strip was nice, the potato was done up well.  Rare was rare.  But on top of the steak was a strange milky substance.  Logical choice: butter, but not really.  It tasted buttery, but wasn't the real McCoy.  Whipped butter substance.  I really didn't complain about it.  It didn't interfer with the taste of my steak.  The potluck plate across the table went well.  Salty, he said, but ok.  Mine: buttery, but ok.  
The silent giant cleared the plates and brought the checks.  I must confess, his tip from me was about as scant as his vocabulary.  And, lest you still be trying inwardly to digest the concept: yes, he actually did bring us a bread heel to start.