green furniture

What a spectacular weekend. Roxie worked on her tan, Theo protected the estate from evildoers, and I got a lot of work done in the garden.

The big project involved some relatively simple rearranging. My grandmother Ruth always used to say, "Plants are like furniture. If you don't like where they are, move them." So there.

Over the last couple of years I've attempted to invest in more perennials (mainly to avoid spending a fortune on annuals every spring). Some of them grew better/worse/different than planned, so now was the perfect time to move things around.

Here's a "before" image (note Theo proudly performing his self-appointed guard duties).

And after several hours of digging, planting, changing my mind and re-planting (I don't have an eye for design by any means—It's one of the gay genes with which I was not blessed), and finally mulching, here's the result.

OK, so it doesn't look dramatically different right now. But it will . . .

There's a new addition, just visible in the lower left-hand corner above. Roses have never been a strong suit, but it's a new year, right? This Mister Lincoln is one of the most popular and hearty hybrid tea roses, and hopefully it will look something like this later this summer.


And the Pope John Paul II clematis, formerly in residence along the back fence, has a new home on the west side of the garage where I hope it will be happier. Here's what it will look like in a month or so.



Roxie didn't look much darker, but as far as I could tell no evildoers had invaded Theo's well-guarded territory.

Gardening sure is exhausting.

Diclavis enorma

On Monday evening, I did something I haven’t done in ages. I went to a senior recital. Tim, a piano performance major at Wheaton College, is the son of one of my sister’s former colleagues and a good friend of a couple of our interns (one former, one current). Yes, small world.

He started the program with two Bach arrangements: Busoni’s of the Wachet auf chorale followed by Rachmaninov’s of the prelude from the E major violin partita. Tim played both very well, but it was clear he was anxious to get on with the rest of the program.

The next piece had been written for the recital by David Gordon, a visiting professor at Wheaton and one of Tim’s instructors. It was called Diclavis enorma.

The work’s title is an invented combination of two obscure medieval Latin terms – “diclavis” which refers to a keyboard instrument that has a full complement of chromatic pitches, and “clavis enorma,” which designates a special quarter-tone key on a keyboard instrument . . .

It is scored for three keyboards – grand piano, two toy pianos, and a set of eleven microtonally tuned call bells (“the kind that you would find next to a ‘ring bell for service’ sign”) – and a sampled recording of the same three keyboards with the standard piano tuned with 24 pitches to the octave. The work is in three continuous movements that explore the possible relationships (“timbral, rhythmic, textural, and harmonic”) between the keyboards.

I have to admit my expectations weren't very high. But what followed was a delightful surprise – it's a wonderful piece, and Tim played the hell out of it. The rhythmic interplay between the keyboards (live and recorded) in the first movement (Motus perpetuus) was so animated, and after the first couple of minutes, the microtonality sounded (surprisingly) perfectly natural. The second movement (Musica ornata) was somewhat melodic and lyrical, and the third (Passacaglia) brought back motives from the first two through a series of variations (I think). A great performance of a darn good piece.

La valée des cloches (The valley of bells) from Ravel's Miroirs was next, and after the Gordon piece, it was an amazing contrast. So plaintive and evocative, it sounded like music from another planet.

Tim ended the concert with Brahms's huge F minor sonata. Yep, a masterpiece; yep, he played it well. Quite well . . . but I'm still not a big fan of Brahms.

After the recital, I asked Tim what he was planning to do next, and he said he was going to take a year off, "to read the books I want to read and study the music I want to study." I wish I would have been that bold. Good for him.

**********

On a completely different note, it's been quite a while since I've been on a rural college campus, and Wheaton College was wonderfully peaceful that night. It’s a lovely – almost bucolic – campus with brick-paved sidewalks and lots of trees. It was just getting dark as I made my way over to the recital hall and there were just a few students walking around. Exactly what you would expect.

But I couldn’t help but think of the events at Virginia Tech the day before. It was at the front of my mind because it had been everywhere in the media. Just listening to the radio, watching television, seeing the papers, reading the news online – it had been impossible to avoid.

And impossible not to be affected by it.

up the down staircase

The quest for home improvement continues.

Ever since I moved in, the stairs going down to the basement have made me a bit nervous. Of course, the dogs had absolutely no fear tearing up and down, but it was always a bit disconcerting to see the look of semi-terror on a guest's face as they clutched on to the rickety banister and stepped gingerly.

Well, no more. Hired a carpenter, cleared out on Saturday for a few hours, and now heading downstairs is a little less treacherous.

Could my home life get any more exciting?

Sharry Baby

So, I've officially entered a new phase of green-thumbed geekdom by joining Hausermann's orchid-of-the-month club!

I've had pretty good luck with a few phalaenopsis varieties (actually of the six I have right now, four are blooming -- but more on that later), but I've been wanting to expand my horizons.

Anyway, the first one arrived last week and has just started blooming! It's a Sharry Baby oncidium, and already about twenty blooms have opened. Too bad my digital photography skills can't do it justice.

Here's a closeup of a bloom (and no, I don't take credit for this photo). So tiny, but so spectacular.

Stay tuned, orchid fans . . .

can't we just get some sleep?

good Friday

Holy week makes me feel a bit melancholy – the services, the readings, and of course, the music. In fact, the music during the week – especially on Good Friday – is so wonderfully reflective that I feel that by the time we get to Easter Sunday and hear all this happy stuff in major keys, it is somewhat of a letdown.

My favorite Good Friday memory is from almost ten years ago. As usual, I had booked myself to capacity with gigs; and adding to the intensity of the week, my friend and AIDS Ride partner Todd had been in the hospital for about ten days and wasn’t doing all that well. Even though I had visited him nearly every day, I had not really been able to speak with him much due to his condition.

One of the gigs was a late service on Good Friday at Fourth Presbyterian where I was joining the choir to sing the small part of Pontius Pilate in Arvo Pärt’s setting of the Saint John Passion. Since I only had a couple of lines, there was plenty of time to sit back and absorb the piece. Like Bach’s setting, Pärt’s Passion has Jesus and Pilate as soloists and a chorus as the crowd who ultimately demand the crucifixion of Jesus; however the evangelist (who tells most of the story) is sung by a solo quartet (SATB) rather than a solo tenor in the Bach. There also is a small instrumental ensemble plus organ.

Pärt has the remarkable ability to create several different effects using an extremely simple harmonic language; in this work, all of the solo vocal parts are scored completely in C major. For example in the role of the evangelist, he uses different combinations of the voices, extremes of range, voices crossing each other, etc.; but even though the only notes heard are in the C major scale, you rarely hear an actual C major chord.

The most amazing section is near the end when Jesus is on the cross and has just said, "I thirst." The evangelist describes the soaking of the sponge in vinegar and Jesus drinking. Then Jesus sings his final words – "It is finished" – and descends to a low A, the lowest note he has yet sung. The solo quartet sings in unison for the first time, also on an A, "And he bowed his head, and gave up the Holy Ghost."

Then after a pause, the chorus enters on D major – and after over an hour in C major, it’s as if the lights have suddenly been turned on – and concludes the work singing the text "You, who have suffered for us, have mercy upon us, Amen." It’s such a simple idea, but so wonderfully dramatic in the context of the rest of the work.

**********

After the service, I was heading home and contemplated stopping by to see Todd. However, visiting hours were almost over, it had been a long day, and parking would be impossible; but what the hell, I swung by and found a rock star parking space right by the entrance. The duty nurses knew me by then, so even though it was late, they let me in.

Todd had been fading in and out of a morphine fog for more than a week, so I wasn’t really expecting to do more than just sit with him for a bit. I walked into his room and was completely taken aback – sitting up and looking out the window, he turned his head and said, "hey, Frank." We talked and talked, and I stayed until well after midnight.

That was a good Friday.

happy holy week

The beginning of holy week reminds me of one of Erik's favorite sayings:

"Dear God . . . if a carpenter already died for our sins, why did you have to take Karen?"






And borrowing an idea from fellow blogger Chris, here's a picture of one of my hellebores (also known as Lenten roses), almost ready to bloom right on schedule. I got them a couple of years ago after attending a little seminar at Gethsemane. And if I remember correctly, hellebores are supposed to have lots of medicinal uses and have also been used in witchcraft. Regardless, they grow really well in the shade in the backyard.

non-photogenic

It shouldn't be that difficult to get a good picture of the dogs. It's a never-ending quest . . .