My commitment to annotating my reading list has waned primarily because enough note-taking, peripheral reading and studying, and discussion occurs in the assorted groups in which I am participating that I feel as if I’ve said what I need to say. Of course, I haven’t said it here, but music practice (1), band rehearsal (2), planning raised beds for pollinators, backyard birding (3), plus studying and reading have all conspired to keep me off the computer (except when I’m in Zoom meetings). We’ll see if I can remedy that.
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(1) My current solo piece is (still) Howard Ferguson’s Three Sketches for Flute and Piano. I’m also working on No. 15 of 18 Studies for Flute by Joachim Anderson, Op. 41, in Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 1, and Sonata No. V (Handel) in Selected Duets for Flute, Volume II (Advanced), as well as scales, rhythmical articulation, and music for the spring concert.
(2) Yes, we joined a band of adult amateurs, who range from late beginner to early-advanced. During the 1.25-hour commute there and back, we’ve been listening to The Great Courses (TGC) on Dante’s Divine Comedy, which I’m reading for 100 Days of Dante. We’ve also been sampling TGC lectures on the bible. Neither of us has read it, cover to cover, so to address this educational gap, we’re using a reading schedule we found online, (usually) doubling the daily commitment, so that we finish this summer.
(3) For the last week or so, we’ve had a tiny flock of Common Redpolls at our feeders, a first in the eleven years at the forever home. This article shed some light on what may be going on. (Is it too much to ask that some of the sandhill cranes we’ve espied in the neighborhood stopped in our yards?)
“The Bewitched Mill” (Franz Marc; 1913)Entertainer (Tomb figure; 6th Century)“Strange Worlds” (Todros Geller; 1928)“American Gothic” (Grant Wood; 1930)“The Rock” (Peter Blume; 1944-48)“The Artist Looks at Nature” (Charles Sheeler; 1943)
The above are my images of detail in several favorite works. Click to enlarge.
Earlier this month, we visited the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time since November 2019. In addition to the pleasures of returning to the old friends in this, one of our favorite places in the greatest city in the world, this introvert enjoyed the non-existent crowds on that warm, sunny Saturday.
It is not immediately apparent in this image, but the condensation looked like fine fur or feathers.
My feet possess divining rod qualities; they suss out every stray nut, garden rock, patch of ice, and unyielding stick on our neighborhood’s sidewalks. Once you’ve taken as many spills as I have, you know to keep one eye on the ground, which is how I found the unexpected arrangement featured in this post.
Since I’m a fan of moments of serendipity / synchronicity / synthesis, I’ll mention that it first struck me as door decor. The house was painted this past spring, and some of my favorite door hangings don’t work as well with the new color scheme as they did with the old. Finding something for the transitional period between the winter holidays and late March had been on my mind when I noticed the storm drain. And I had recently borrowed a number of books on Joseph Cornell’s art, so it’s no surprise that it also looked like a collage.
My book-buying binge has abated, now that I’ve exhausted my accumulated points, discounts, and account credits, etc., and only three or four titles remain on my wishlist (for now). Other news: After a day of nearly fifty degrees and abundant sunshine, we have returned to below-twenty on our walks. This is an observation, not a complaint, as I much prefer to run cold than run hot.
And yesterday I squandered nearly two hours on a film in which the leads had no chemistry, and the plot had more holes than the mesh bags in which I wash my favorite sweaters. It was a romantic comedy sans love and humor. But, gosh, isn’t Jennifer Lopez something? Still, the time could have been better spent watching any of the items on my watch list (e.g., Flee, The House, Season 4 of Ozark) — or, perhaps better still, practicing my music or reading.
Last Saturday was gray and bitterly cold, the perfect day for the zoo. Although the butterfly garden had not received a shipment in many weeks, the habitat was beautiful, and the three butterfly species present included the splendid Blue Morpho. I could have spent the entire visit there and in the free-flight aviary next door, “If this isn’t nice, then I don’t know what is,” running in an endless inward loop just behind my smiling lips. Had we not ventured out, though, I’d have missed so many other animals, including a wolverine, the primates, two of the happiest (seeming) wolves I’ve ever seen, and, of course, the rhino, among others.
■ Macbeth (William Shakespeare; 1606. Drama.) In advance of watching Joel Coen’s film. Related story/review here.
■ Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello (Trans. Edward Storer; 1921. Drama.) Cannot recall the precise path that led me to Scallydandling about the books, but I can say that I enjoy poking about in her video lists. Six Characters was her January drama selection.
■ Late Migrations: A Memoir of Love and Loss (Margaret Renkl; 2019. Non-fiction.) For the commonplace book:
p. 7 But the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s twin.
p.17 Holding a useless camera, I suddenly realize that something extraordinary is happening right before me, a great serpent slowly on the move and all the songbirds aware of its presence and calling to each other and telling each other to beware. The miracle isn’t happening in the sky at all. It’s happening in the damp weeds of an ordinary backyard, among last year’s moldering leaves and the fragrant soil turned up by moles.
p. 73 […B]ut the flip side of ignorance is astonishment, and I am good at astonishment.
p. 155 When I didn’t die, however, and then didn’t die some more, I came one day to understand: I wasn’t dying; I was grieving. I wasn’t dying. Not yet.
p. 186 Human beings are creatures made for joy. Against all evidence, we tell ourselves that grief and loneliness and despair are tragedies, unwelcome variations from the pleasure and calm and safety that in the right way of the world would form the firm ground of our being. In the fairy tale we tell ourselves, darkness holds nothing resembling a gift.
What we feel always contains its own truth, but it is not the only truth, and darkness almost always harbors some bit of goodness tucked out of sight, waiting for an unexpected light to shine, to reveal it in its deepest hiding place.
With the month closing and only nine books on my list, I’d say this year has begun at a far more leisurely pace than last year (twenty-five books). That said, I’m reading quite a bit. With 100 Days of Dante, I’ve nearly climbed Mount Purgatory. With book groups, I’m reading Anna Karenina, Moby-Dick, and Debt (see sidebar). I’ve just begun A Clockwork Orange, the February Cardiff BookTalk selection. And my husband and I have embarked on a read-the-bible-in-a-year schedule. (It pains me to confess that I haven’t read the complete bible. Do you have a recommendation for a “bible as literature” resource? We’ll take it.)
I began listening to State of Terror (Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton) on the drive to and from Michigan last week — not Chief Inspector Gamache but certainly entertaining. While away, I also tried to finish Noah Hawley’s latest novel, Anthem (review here), but no luck. Unlike S. Kirk Walsh, I’m finding it a bit… tedious.
Before heading out on my mini-vacation, I gave a Zoom* performance for an audience of one, playing the Rondeau, Polonaise, and Badinerie from Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067. Was it flawless? Nope. But while I was away, my teacher wrote, in part, “Really, really excellent work on the Bach! So pleased and proud that you put your all into it and did such a great job.” Yes, I’m still grinning. My new solo piece is Howard Ferguson’s Three Sketches for Flute and Piano. I’m also working on the ninth of 18 Studies for Flute by Joachim Anderson, Op. 41, in Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 1, and “From Duetto No. IV” (W.F. Bach) in Selected Duets for Flute, Volume II (Advanced). My practice schedule remains much as it was in the fall.
Our walking schedule, however, does not: The snow and ice (to say nothing of the extreme cold of days like yesterday) make early morning walks in the neighborhood untenable, so we’ve been using workouts on DVDs, after which, I hop on the exercise bike while my husband gets ready for work. We have the equipment needed to walk the conservation district paths, though, so we head there on the weekends during which the weather cooperates.
* Given the continuing uncertainty surrounding the virus, I requested that we return to the virtual format until at least February.
Nerdishly 