concert review: Winchester Orchestra

B. and I attended together a symphonic pops concert by this local community orchestra - the one she belonged to briefly before deciding a different one better met her needs - because it looked like fun. It was the Halloween concert, and the theme seemed to be music that told stories that might be heard at Halloween.

We had the fanfare from Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King", Berlioz's "March to the Scaffold", Saint-Saens's "Danse Bacchanale," and a whole movement, the finale, from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

Plus suites from three movie sequences: The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I think the last of these is the best as music, but unfortunately the visuals of this performance were spoiled by a guy dressed as Captain Jack running around through the audience and even the orchestra during the performance.

And yes, he was authorized, having even been introduced by the new conductor, James Beauton, who seemed to have a clear enough beat but whose appearance and style may be best described by saying he resembles a young Jerry Seinfeld.

This was in the same church they played in before, with the winds and brass on stage and totally drowning out the strings which were down in the pit below.

Anyway, it was fun, and not too long, and I appreciated getting a big chunk of Scheherazade.

work anniversary

Today marks 20 years since my first professional concert review was published - in phosphors, on the San Francisco Classical Voice website.

I'd been reading SFCV for some time already, and I had noted a news item there about Symphony Silicon Valley (since redubbed Symphony San Jose) moving to a new venue, the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. This was a 1927 film and stage theater that had fallen on hard times and had been renovated, and the premiere concert was going to be a vintage celebration.

I was going to be attending, and as I'd always been particularly interested in reviews of concerts I'd attended myself (to match my opinions against the reviewer's), I was looking forward to reading what they'd have to say. But when that week's batch of reviews came out, SSV wasn't in it.

So I wrote them and asked if they wanted a review. I had one already: I'd written one for LJ, having acquired the habit of reviewing all the concerts I attended. I rewrote it and beefed it up, and sent it in, and they published it. (I had to scarf this from the Wayback Machine because SFCV did not get its archiving system organized until several years later.)

And they paid me for it. And then they phoned me up a couple weeks later and asked if I could cover this string quartet concert that was coming up. And that's how I became a professional concert reviewer.

Of course, having been listening to classical music closely for over 30 years already at that point is part of what gave me the confidence to do this, as did the frequent experience of reading something noted in a review and thinking, yeah, I noticed that too. That convinced me I had the ears for the job. And I've been doing it ever since. Here's my most recent effort; I'm sure I've improved in judgment and authority, but there's a spontaneous lightness to my early reviews that I haven't always maintained.

a touch of Cajun food

On my way back from Ashland, I had to do some quick library research at UC Davis, so that also gave me time to stop at Pedrick Produce, a barn of a place by a rural freeway exit on the way back from Davis. I've been there before; besides produce they have lots of bagged bulk candy (chocolate-covered pretzels, that sort of thing) and nuts.

On a previous visit I'd discovered what I hadn't noticed before that, a wall of hot sauces, including mango sauces that are not paired with habanero, which drowns out the mango taste. And on this visit in a corner I found a case with cajun food, which really sparks my interest. I bought a couple packages of a brand of jambalaya rice mix I hadn't seen before, which has a really interesting recipe (don't use chicken broth; instead, make broth by boiling the chicken pieces that you'll later cut up and put in the mix, then add a can each of french onion soup and cream of celery soup). I bought a pound of andouille sausage - again, a brand I didn't know - to put in the jambalaya.

And they had boudin. I've only ever seen that on restaurant menus and fresh in meat shops in cajun country itself, never packaged and never so far from home. But I really like the stuff and was delighted to get some. I'll have to venture up to Pedrick's a lot more often.

Boudin is classed as a sausage, because it comes in a sausage casing, but it isn't really. It's a loose mixture of meat (usually pork, though I've had crawfish boudin) and rice, stuffed into the casing. When I've had it before, it's boiled or poached, and the casing is too tough to eat. You cut it open and scoop the filling out.

But a thorough discussion online of how to cook it offered me another method: pan-frying. Fry it at medium heat in a little olive oil until brown, and it's crisp. I found that 9 minutes got it brown and caused the ends of the casing to pop open and the filling to spill out a bit. I flipped it over and ran it 9 minutes on the other side, and not only was it fine, but the casing was crisp and edible. Ate it with a little of the leftover jambalaya I'd made from the mix. And very satisfied with my lunch was I.

Wikipedia says there are various forms of boudin, but in cajun country there is just the one kind, with only the meat variable. Wikipedia further suggests that it's akin to the British dishes of black pudding and white pudding, but the cajun variety certainly isn't; it's totally different, both in ingredients and how it's put together.

I don't know how to pronounce boudin. When I was in cajun country, what I heard the natives say was "boo-dan." But when I tried to say "boo-dan," they couldn't understand what I meant.

conversation piece

So I was sitting in the members' lounge at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, having a lively conversation with the young man tending the lounge and a woman of about my own age, who was wearing a nametag identifying her as Susan, a Festival volunteer.

We were talking about reading Shakespeare's plays as allegories, and whether it made a difference if Shakespeare intended it that way. I commented, "A famous author once drew a distinction between allegory, which lies in the control of the author, and applicability, which lies in the freedom of the reader."

"Oh, I like that," said Susan. "Let me write it down," and she pulled out an e-device to do so. "Who said that?" she asked.

"Tolkien," I said. "It's from the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings."

Both my hearers were impressed with the specificity of this offhand citation, and after I modestly admitted to a certain degree of expertise in Tolkien, Susan said, "You must really like fantasy literature."

"Actually, I hate fantasy," I said. "Pull down a fantasy novel at random from the bookstore shelf and I'll probably hate it. I only like a few good authors."

"Like who?"

Judging it best not to retreat to the real old masters, I named some newer authors who are only recently deceased. Ursula K. Le Guin, whom Susan had heard of. Diana Wynne Jones, whom she hadn't. Patricia McKillip.

Susan mentioned Octavia Butler. I agreed she's a great writer, but really more science fiction than fantasy.

"I've been reading a newer author whom I'm really enjoying," offered the young man. I asked who that was, and from his reaction he must have seen my face fall when he said it was Brandon Sanderson.

I explained: "I read his first novel, Elantris, and couldn't make head or tail of it. But don't let me get in the way. These books are written to be enjoyed, and if you enjoy them, they're serving their purpose."

if cats could read Tolkien

Maia has read The Lord of the Rings, but found the movies too scary. She preferred to hide under the bed.

Tybalt tried to read the book, but the only part that interested him was the cats of Queen Beruthiel. Most of the rest didn't stick in his memory.

not a music post

No, I don't have anything to say about DT's music playlist. Some of the songs on it are OK. Though I am puzzled by his fondness for "YMCA", one of many hits of that era with no discernible tune.

The campaign has been speckled with instances of pop musicians objecting to DT using their songs at his rallies, because they do not endorse his campaign. But I can't recall anyone responsible even being asked what they think of his use of "YMCA", which reinforces the impression that the Village People never actually existed but were only an A.I. construct.

Obama's inaugural, which hardly counts, aside, I think the last president who would admit to listening to classical music was JFK, and it wasn't he who invited the likes of Casals and Bernstein to play at the White House, it was Jackie.

vote for tweedle

Our state Assembly member is running for Congress (not in our district) and making something of a botch of it, so his Assembly seat is vacant. The two survivors of the jungle primary to succeed him, and thus the candidates in next month's election, are of different sexes and ethnicities, but are otherwise very much alike. Patrick Ahrens and Tara Sreekrishnan are both young, they're both Democrats, they're both natives of the area who experienced poverty and deprivation in childhood. They're both employed as legislative aides - Patrick is a staff director for the current Assembly member, though he's kind of coy about saying that on his web site - and they're both members of local school boards (he: community college board; she: county board of education).

They also have very similar positions on issues, and they've both received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood by agreeing with all the statements on PP's questionnaire. And therein lies the rub, because for whatever reason, Planned Parenthood has endorsed only Patrick. (It could have endorsed both. Our city's Democratic club did, and I presume so did our city council member, who's listed in the endorsement pages of both candidates.)

So Tara, making the best of the situation, has put her 100%-rating sticker on her website and mailers, only she's put it under the endorsements heading. Planned Parenthood cried foul: it makes it look as if they'd endorsed her. They've told Tara she can't use the 100%-rating sticker any more. But she's continuing to do so.

This sounds wilful and unethical, but I noticed something odd in the local newspaper's article on the subject. Planned Parenthood actually says that putting the sticker under endorsements is OK when other people do it.

Other non-endorsed candidates across Silicon Valley have put their 100% rating under the endorsements section on their website. But [Lauren] Babb [vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte] said that’s allowed because they don’t expect candidates to have a separate section of their website for the rating.

It's putting the sticker in the endorsement section on her paid mailers that is Tara's sin. I find the minuteness of the distinction here between 'perfectly OK' and 'absolutely forbidden' to be so bizarre, I can't fault Tara for ignoring PP's directive.

Meanwhile, Patrick is making his own hay while the sun shines by plastering "The ONLY Candidate Endorsed by PLANNED PARENTHOOD!!" [sic, exclamations and capitals and all] on his website.

But also, I've received an odd mailer, not from Patrick's campaign but from supporters of his, that accuses Tara of chronic absenteeism in her school board post. But the footnotes on the mailer supporting the claim identify the board as that for a local K to 8 district that Tara has never belonged to. Do they have her confused with someone else? Do they have the board confused with the one she does serve on? I have no idea. Apparently Patrick has not spoken up to disavow this strange thing. Here's an article about it.

The big local daily supports Patrick because it thinks he's more experienced and has a better grasp of issues, but I don't trust their recommendations in general. My friend Max, who belongs to the Democratic Club and follows local politics closely, supports Tara, partly because Patrick hasn't denounced that mailer, but also because, though he considers both competent, Tara is "more wonky."

I believe I know what I think, but I'll let it sit there.

the other half Shakespeare

When B. and I visited the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in June, we saw all the plays on my want-list except one, because it hadn't opened yet: a production of Coriolanus put on by the lower-cased upstart crow collective, a troupe of women and non-binary folk who were responsible for a fabulous King John last year. King John is a little-known standout among Shakespeare's plays, and so is Coriolanus, so I was expecting great things from this. For that reason I made another trip up this last weekend - the last weekend of the performance season, in hopes that summer weather would finally have calmed down by then, which in the nick of time it did.

Coriolanus had its excellences, and the bottom line is that I was very happy to have seen it, but it also had its difficulties. The main one is that, unlike other Shakespeare plays, it has a very large cast of characters. Having them all portrayed by only eight players didn't always work. One had to keep an eye on whether they had their coats buttoned or not, for instance: that indicated different characters. Some of the actors, notably Betsy Schwartz, were good at conveying in speech and action that they were playing different people; others not so much.

Jessika D. Williams portrayed Coriolanus as stolid, brusque, and lacking in emotion, to the point where his capitulation to his mother's entreaties felt weirdly out of character. It was very different from the sly and sardonic Philip the Bastard who Williams played in King John. It was also very different from the greatest previous Coriolanus I've seen, here at Ashland many years ago. Denis Arndt played him as a man convinced that everything he says is sweet reasonableness itself, and is surprised, hurt, and indignant that it isn't taken that way.

As long as I was there, I saw the closing or near-closing performances of two plays I'd seen much earlier in their runs. This production of Macbeth featured the eeriest, creepiest, strangest Weird Sisters ever seen, and I had to admire them again. One of them, Amy Lizardo, was at the post-performance talk, and I got to tell her how good they all were. Macbeth himself seemed to be acted better than he had been, and even Macduff was slightly less than inert.

Much Ado About Nothing was also somewhat better-acted, even though a comparison was difficult because both Benedick and Claudio were being played by different people than before. The play seemed less the glorious romp than it had been, though the outright funny parts were probably funnier. Rex Young as Dogberry in particular seemed to have caught a groove he was missing before.

I stayed at a maze-like hotel which had not caught on that it would be a good idea to add the lobby as an entry to the directional signs in the corridors. The first time I tried heading there from my room I had to stop at the housekeeping break room and ask them.

I took along The Last Dangerous Visions on this trip, and made some progress reading it.

concert review: The Reverberays

Why was I listening to a surf rock concert? I was there, I had the time, it was free and outdoors. Besides, I like some of that music. Of course they played the theme from “Hawaii Five-O”, without which no surf rock concert would be complete. They played an uptempo instrumental rock version of “The Sound of Silence”, which raised my eyebrows a little. And they played, and sang, “Secret Agent Man”. And a lot of stuff I didn’t know.

The band was lively and together. Standard four-piece: two guitars, one doubling trumpet; bass (the only woman, cf Talking Heads); drums. It was not too loud and I enjoyed it.

also without having read the whole thing yet

You didn't think I was going to inflict another 1100-word book review on you, did you? Instead, here's 600 words of statistical thoughts about The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien.