more than a concert review

Sunday evening I was seated in a large, high-vaulted Catholic church tucked away in a corner of downtown Pasadena. The entire surface was various shades of orange marble, and the decorative style vaguely Byzantine. I was there for a concert of various Bach and Telemann works for strings and continuo, performed by a small group (3-9 players per piece) called Kontrapunktus. They were very good, but the echoing reverberation in the hall was epic.

But Pasadena is down in southern Cal, 350 miles from where I live in the north. What was I doing there?

I had originally planned to come down and visit a couple of friends who'd asked for a reading of my Mythcon paper which they'd missed. But family medical emergencies caused the indefinite postponement of the plan. It was at this point that I discovered that my hotel reservation was on a special rate that couldn't be cancelled. So since I was paying for the room regardless, I decided to make the trip anyway.

The extra time gave me a chance to do a little research at the UCLA library that had been on my want list for years. I did that on Saturday morning. It's intersession, so nobody was around though the library was open. On the way back that afternoon I stopped at a used bookstore in Hollywood, but was persuaded not to buy anything by the sign announcing a 50% off sale the following day.

So I came back. Traffic was fine until I got to Hollywood, where something was going on. Streets were closed and the traffic was packed. It took me 15 minutes to travel five blocks. When I finally got out of there, I retreated back to my hotel room and napped all afternoon, deciding that the peaceful Baroque concert close to where I was staying would be a more pleasant way to spend the evening than any other possible outings.

Nor was that the only traffic difficulty I had or the stress I had in dealing with it. I'm glad I didn't attempt to go very far around the area when I was there. On Monday, instead of sticking around through lunch as I'd intended, I fetched out of that traffic hellhole of the LA basin as quickly as possible, over the Grapevine and down for lunch in Bakersfield, thence home.

I'll have to come back for the reading when that's rescheduled, but my ability to handle the local congestion seems on the decline.