Mostly Music
terça-feira, julho 30
FINALLY!
Today something important happened: I signed the divorce papers. So now I am officially single. The experience was weird, as anything that one has to do in public offices in Brasil. The building itself, drab and dirty, all the people - including the judge - who look so sad and self-important, the whole feeling of failure that hangs around everything like a papaya from a tree.
It is also sad and weird to be in the same room with a man who was one's best friend for twenty years - a confidante, a lover - and treat him like a stranger, and be treated as an enemy. I guess that is what it means to grow old.
I will write more, I promise. But in a few minutes Tom and I have to be at a rehearsal (we are recording with the excellent group Calíope - a "Matinas" by a colonial composer from Minas). And I have a sore tooth which is just killing me! Arghhh!
domingo, julho 28
Flying down to Rio
Tom is in a plane right now, coming from JFK to Rio. He will be here in a few hours. We promise to let you in on more news, as soon as he gets some sleep and some lunch.
Today I spent a few hours doing what I like best: listening to music, while eating soup (yes, chicken soup!) with my friends: Rodrigo, Michael, D'Artagnan and Nando. Then we went to Alex (an ice-cream place in Ipanema) and bought delicious fresh ice-cream.Even with rain, cold, dark skies, Rio is beautiful, fun, interesting. I just love my town...
quinta-feira, julho 25
segunda-feira, julho 22
You are Carl Sandburg
You see the world in a different way than your peers and are able to find beauty in the most unusual places!
Take the Which Poet are You? Quiz - brought to you out of boredom and pretention!
Here is what I would write, if I were a poet (not bad, is it?)
Fog
Carl Sandburg
From: Chicago Poems (1916)
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Yesterday (yesternight?) I went to the movies with the girls, to watch "About a boy". Very funny, very cute and very moving. And Hugh Grant looks ... well, sorry Tom - just fabulous! An unpretentious little film, that makes one smile more often than one expects. Wonderful acting, good dialogues and some pretty incredible "objets de désir". I wouldn't mind having that CD player, or that Capuccino maker....
sexta-feira, julho 19
Today we had a friend over for dinner. Amador Perez, whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Too long, really. He is the kind of person who we could always see more of. A wonderful listener, and a fabulous conversationalist. Of course that it is impossible to prove someone's social skills on a blog. But he has another talent that anyone can see. The drawing above is only one of many beautiful works of art he has produced in the past years. Do you want to see more? Click here.
segunda-feira, julho 15
WHAT MY DOCTORATE FEELS LIKE...
If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it.
William Ornton
segunda-feira, julho 8
AN EXCELLENT BLOG
Every once in a while I go surfing to check who is dropping by Mostly Music. Sometimes I am agreeably surprised. Like today. I found out we were linked by Lynn.This is indeed a very interesting blog, visually clean, not cute, not full of nice little gif's. But full of thoughtful insights on music and other arts, and curious observations about the news of the world. Well worth the visit...
Here is a sample I just stole from there:
Saturday, June 29, 2002
Something Else Wrong With This Picture
You've probably heard about this already:
MIAMI, June 26 — A Muslim woman who says the state is violating her religious rights in demanding that she remove her veil for a driver's license photograph will be in court this week to try to regain her driving privileges.
I'm no expert on Muslim customs but going by everything I've always read on the subject, in those countries where women are required to cover their faces they are also not allowed to drive. Apparently this woman likes some religious beliefs more than others. I don't see what all the fuss is about anyway. Most drivers license photos are so bad no one could possibly recognize the person in them so all of us might as well be veiled when they're taken. I'm going to watch and see how this one comes out. If she wins I'm going to demand to be allowed to wear a veil when I have my driver's license photo taken. They have no right to discriminate against me based on my lack of religious beliefs.
A WINDOW TO THE SOUL
As everyone who reads this blog knows, Tom is the workaholic, I am the lazy bum. He is the one who practices, I am the one who watches TV. He is the one who reads.... I go to the movies!
Yesterday I went with D'Artagnan and Roberta to see "Janela da Alma", a Brazilian documentary film about people who have some kind of visual deficiency. Blind people, myopic people....or people who have been interested in the problems of vision, tout-court. From Saramago to Hermeto Paschoal, a varied group of celebrities. The idea is wonderful, the realization, less so. I liked particularly the interviews with Wim Wenders - stark, intelligent, articulate. And a few interesting points of view, as those of Oliver Sachs and the movie-animator from Finland. One of the most moving moments: the sweater scene filmed by Agnes Varda, featuring her husband Jacques Démy. It is rare to see such great passion - and expressed in such minimal details, with no dramatic gestures at all.
I missed the presence of visual artists (sculptors for example) and dancers. Artists who would talk about vision and concepts of space. I also missed the point of view of people, like me, who were born with poor eyesight,and started using glasses only later in life. I remember that the teacher, after writing something on the blackboard, would ask "Did everyone understand this?"- and I hadn't , but I was not going to say so. I did not realize that I did not see. I just felt inferior, stupid. I had no idea that people saw differently from me. I still remember the first time I went to the ophtalmologist: things had outlines! I could see details! It was an unforgetable experience.
But that feeling of inadequacy, of being stupid, of missing what others could easily perceive, still lives with me.
domingo, julho 7
PLASTIC SURGERY
Hi everyone! Did you notice something different? Of course you did! We look fancier, more beautiful, a lot classier. Even I, when I entered my page just now, thought I had made a mistake. We never looked this good! The person responsible for our new face is Dr. Meg. Dear fairy godmother, what a fabulous facelift! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now we are bound to write better....
To all our friends: please tell us what you think. That's what "comments" are for!
sábado, julho 6
STILL THE WORLD CUP
"...Try to be in front of your television by 7.30 am tomorrow to catch another of Brazil's great gifts to human happiness. With France gone, Brazil now possesses the best national anthem left in the 2002 World Cup.
First penned by Francisco da Silva in 1841, the Hino Nacional is arguably the jauntiest, cheeriest, most tuneful and most beguiling national anthem on the planet. It feels as if it comes ready composed from the opera house, and the influence of Rossini is hard to miss, though scholars now think Da Silva may have cribbed the tune from a religious work by his teacher, José Maurício Nunes Garcia. Admirers have included the Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who wrote a set of variations for piano and orchestra on it that are well worth hearing. In his book "Futebol: the Brazilian Way of Life", our South America correspondent, Alex Bellos, explains how the Englishman Charles Miller first brought football to Brazil. But by the time Miller arrived at Santos in 1894, the Hino Nacional had long expressed in song what Pelé and his successors later expressed so wonderfully on the field.
While the Marseillaise makes bellicose calls to arms, the Hino Nacional stirs national feelings by appeals to Brazil's "pure beauteous skies, " its sound of the sea and the flowers" of its "fair smiling fields". A natural setting for the beautiful game. When Rivaldo and Ronaldo put another two goals past Belgium on Monday, thus setting up tomorrow's quarter-final with England, the London Evening Standard led its later editions with a huge one-word headline. It said simply: BRAZIL! Quite a tribute.
It is hard to imagine any other country whose mere name could be used in such a way with such confidence, in the certainty that the readers would react with pleasure and excitement. Were England to be playing Argentina, Germany, France or Italy tomorrow, expectation would be mixed with fear. To play Brazil, on the other hand, is simply a delight and an honour."
"THE GUARDIAN" – London, June 20th, 2002.
quinta-feira, julho 4
ANOTHER DAY
Yesterday was a full day: I went to UNIRIO at 9, gave lessons all day long, had a meeting (to decide about the vestibular) left at 20:45, ran home with my assistant Ana Paula and her boyfriend Leandro, drank a cup of coffee, splashed some Shalimar on my hair (bless the French! What would we do without perfume, when there is no time to take a shower?), got a ride with D'Artagnan, picked up Michael on the way, and we all went to see a show by Saxophonia, a very cool saxophone quartet where the baritone is played by my student Suely. A curious contrast... It is funny to see such a delicate person playing that huge instrument. Besides, she is the only woman in the group, so you sort of expect her to play the soprano. The program was varied and very well performed: jazz, choro, a bit of bossa-nova.
Nice.
After that, we all went to Cervantes, to eat the traditional sanduiche-de-filé-com-queijo-e-abacaxi. Most delicious...
THEY FORGOT TO SAY "AND RATHER FAT"....
I took the test, thinking I would be a flute, of course. Here is the result!
The Band Quiz By Rahel
segunda-feira, julho 1
As I sit here and blog, I can hear Júlia strumming her guitar and singing. She finally found a teacher whom she likes. In fact, she loves him! She is practicing a lot, these days. It is very cute!
SUNDAY
The game was wonderful! Watching it with Ruth (my friend and colleague at UNIRIO, pianist Ruth Serrão) was, as always, a fun experience. She is that rare figure - an incurable optimist. So while everybody kept putting the team down, she kept saying "We are the best! We will win! Nobody can score with Marcos as goal-keeper" , etc.... Hermano was pale with nervousness. Jú chose to blog while the game was going on. And I had a typical Laura attitude: I started to compulsively clean the house! When I got to the vacuum-cleaner my friends began screaming at me: "No way, this thing is noisy! Just sit down and watch!". I obeyed, of course. That is what friends are for: to stop you when you are going insane!!!
It was great to watch Brazil win squarely, fairly, with an even team, no violence, some Brazilian ginga and tons of talent.
After the game, to celebrate, I bought a nice fillet-mignon, and cooked one of Júlia's favorite dishes (beef with sesame seeds and scallions). Not very Brazilian, but everybody ate heartily. We also served some Sangria, smartly prepared by Ruth, and forgot our diets when it was dessert time. Ice cream, chocolate syrup, all the works. Then we went to pick up Manoela, who had a watched the game at a friend's house, with her own friends.
It was nice to see the streets full of yellow-and-green shirts and flags, and smiles everywhere.
A perfect Sunday.
