Matthew & Jeremiah

These are two of my earliest poems, written when I was in the monastery and reading a lot of Christina Rossetti. I've always loved archaic language, and loved imitating older poetry -- until a priest who is also a published poet came to visit the monastery, read my poems, and told me no editor will publish poems in archaic language, unless it's used sparingly, for a specific effect, or to make a point. Consequently, I've never submitted my early poems anywhere, but neither will I hide them away. I wrote them in all sincerity; they are the fruits of much meditation, and indicative of my particular spirituality. I post them on this Pentecost Sunday in gratitude to the Holy Spirit, in whom I trust, move, and am.

Matthew 6:6

O take me to that room whose door
When shut behind admits no more;
But, op'ning ne'er again, keeps hid
What world and fleshly pleasures chid;
A solitude of soul wherein
The mysteries of life are seen
With eyes made clear by inner light,
Of Spirit born, the truest sight.

O give me of the empty deep
Where human tempests find their sleep,
Where sacred silence stills all thought
In mind with tangled musings frought:
'Tis there the soul keeps vigil sweet,
'Tis there she finds her joy complete,
'Tis there she quits the dinning throng
And hearkens to her Lover's song.


Jeremiah 29:12-14

Belovèd mine, where may I find Thee?
Wherefore art Thou hiding still?
Through misty dark my soul doth wander,
Shiv'ring in the friendless chill.

O speak, that I Thy voice may follow,
Speak, that I may find my trove!
Have pity, for my pray'rs are weary;
Day and night they ceaseless move.

Hast Thou a word for me, Belovèd?
Some faint hope wilt Thou impart?
If thou dost seek Me, thou shalt find Me;
Only look within thy heart.

30 Years of Brilliance

I just realized that today marks the 30th anniversary of David Hyde Pierce's professional debut -- and on Broadway, no less! It was Christopher Durang's play Beyond Therapy, starring John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, and the fresh-from-Yale David Pierce played the small but showy part of Andrew the waiter. The show only ran for two weeks after 11 previews, but it was still a Broadway debut, an auspicious beginning to any actor's career.

Twenty years later, a CD was made of the play, for which Durang asked David to play the lead role of Bruce. He's wonderful in it, and it's really a must-have for any DHP fan.

 

Thank you, David, for giving the world such joy these thirty years!

Kindred Spirits, Unlikely Friendships

     When I lived in Houston, one of my favorite places to go on my weekly day off was an antiquarian book shop called Detering Book Gallery. In those days it occupied an old two-story house on the corner of Bissonett and Greenbriar, and was the kind of cozy refuge, with its dark wood and worn oriental rugs, that provided just the right sort of comfort, whether on a cold rainy day or a searingly hot and humid one. I loved wandering through the various rooms on the ground floor, the children's section tucked underneath the back staircase, and the rare book room upstairs which was presided over by an affable, mustachioed gentleman named Oscar. I almost always came away from Detering with some hard-to-find treasure or other, usually a novel by one of the neglected British women authors for whom I have a predilection, or an old play whose film adaptation I loved.

     After a while, I began to notice that many of my purchases had something in common: the name "Mildred Robertson" on the flyleaf, or Mildred's bookplate on the front pastedown. This Mildred and I seemed to share the same taste in books; more particularly, a love for English women authors of the mid-twentieth century, as well as theater. The books themselves were of earlier printings, some first editions, all in wonderful condition. Best of all, dear Mildred had the delightfully meticulous habit of placing inside them clippings of pertinent articles and reviews from various newspapers and literary journals. Inside my copy of Elizabeth Bowen's A World of Love, for example, I found a wonderful review of the novel, along with a retrospective of Bowen's work from the London Times Literary Supplement. In my 1929 edition of Philip Barry's play Holiday are reviews of a 1987 West End production starring Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm Macdowell. Bless Mildred's archivist heart!

     One of the clerks at Detering told me they acquired Mildred's library after her death in Galveston, but he couldn't tell me anything more about her. I Googled her, but didn't find out much beyond her being a longtime resident of Galveston. No matter. I have a kinship with her through the books we both loved. I feel privileged to own a part of the library she had discriminatingly acquired over so many years. Her books still grace my shelves, and whenever I take one down to read again, I feel as if Mildred and I are settling down to hold our own private book club meeting for two, over a nice hot pot of tea and a plate of buttery scones—in Texas. We both know very well the power words have to transport one to places one longs to be. And I know that Mildred would thank, as do I, Detering Book Gallery and all those wonderful antiquarian bookstores—that sadly dying breed—for bringing about unlikely and enduring friendships such as ours.

Since posting this, my sister Celia found more information regarding Mildred Robertson and what became of her papers and correspondence. Thanks, Cel! 

The Reluctant Dinosaur

One of my fondest memories from youth is of lying on the rug in front of our old console stereo, listening to records. Our stereo was as long as a sofa, dark wood, modern Danish. It had a fabulously mellow, deep, multi-layered sound -- you could hear each and every instrument so clearly, you felt as if you were in the room while they were recording. The voices, too, resonated with incredibly life-like tone. There were no levers or gauges, or whatever they're called, to balance the sound -- there was no need for them; the sound was automatically and perfectly balanced. True, you sometimes heard a tick-tick-tick as the needle passed over a scratch in the disc, or that crinkly noise when you forgot to clean the disc or needle, but those were only small annoyances. Like someone softly coughing in the theater.

The tonal warmth you get from vinyl discs, of course, was a large factor in my listening pleasure; but the discs have to be played on the right machine. I play my vinyls now on a TEAC shelf system, and they sound shallower and defnitely tinnier they did on our old console. I'm no techno-geek, mind you; in fact, my ignorance in that area is astounding, but I am a musician with over four decades of live performances behind me, so I know true-to-life stereo sound when I hear it. And I ain't hearing it like I used to hear it. When I put on a CD, I hear it even less.

At the moment, I do not own an MP3 or iPod. I suppose owning one sometime down the line is inevitable (or will they, too, soon be obsolete?). However, I'm putting it off for as long as possible, just as I put off using a computer until we were required to do so at work (late '90s), and just as I put off using a cell phone till only a few short years ago (mine is still of the most basic kind). I am indeed a slow-moving and extremely reluctant dinosaur.

Well, this dinosaur has been ordering books and other things online for fifteen years now, joined Facebook in 2009, Twitter a year later, and started blogging just last autumn. So I guess I'll join the music-from-an-Altoid-tin crowd eventually. Meanwhile, I have my vinyls, my TEAC, complete with turntable, my big CD/radio/double-cassette-deck boombox (can ya believe it?), and, yes, my portable CD Walkman.

I also have an Underwood-Olivetti Lettera 22 manual typewriter. And I'll never give that up!

Three Lives

Three years ago, I was inspired by Christina Rossetti's sonnet "A Triad," which conveys the effects of love on three different women: a fallen woman, a love-starved spinster, and a wife.

     A Triad by Christina Rossetti

     Three sang of love together: one with lips
          Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
     Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
          And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
          Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
     And one was blue with famine after love,
          Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
     The burden of what those were singing of.
     One shamed herself in love; one temperately
          Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
     One famished died for love. Thus two of three
          Took death for love and won him after strife;
     One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
          All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

I took the "triad" concept and applied it, in a poem of my own, to one woman who passes through three distinct life phases. I guess it's pretty obvious that the woman in the poem is me.

I tried to make use of symbolism, some of which is repeated (ivory, silver, dancing, robe, flesh). This was intentional, in order to give a hint before the final stanza that the three women are actually one.

     Three Lives

     There was a woman long ago
     Whose soul was buried in the snow;
     Her heart was kept inside a box
     Of ivory, locked with silver locks;
     And since her modest robe was torn,
     She used her flesh to keep her warm.
She danced until the stars grew cold and pale,
Believing dance would serve where love might fail.

     Another, disillusioned, cast
     Aside the falseness of her past,
     And laid her soul upon the breast
     Of Him Who is our final rest;
     The whiteness of the robe she wore
     Absolved the crimson scars she bore.
Her steps were silent on the ancient stone;
She held the world inside and danced alone.

     And then a third, who found a soul
     To flame her own, who found the whole
     Of Heaven in a noble love
     That raised her mind to things above;
     A love that lived unrealized
     In touch, a fleshless sacrifice.
She kept her secret in an ivory box
Until her song unlocked the silver locks.

     Three lives -- of flesh, of soul, of heart --
     Three different women stood apart;
     Yet, bound by blood and bone, each knew
     The three were one: a woman who
     Was born but once, yet lived life thrice,
     As toy of man, then bride of Christ,
And then as troubadour placed out of time,
Who eased her heart's complaint with salving rhyme.           (May 2009)


["Three Lives" was first published in The Eclectic Muse.]

Blogging A to Z: "Z" is for Last Things

All right, I'm cheating a bit. Again. Instead of writing about a single "z" topic, I decided to do a list of "last things," a meme of sorts, since "z" is the last letter.

Last new book I finished that I liked: Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor. Her first novel, it takes its cue from Austen and Brontë -- the heroine's name is Cassandra Dashwood, and she is a governess employed in a gloomy house by a dysfunctional family. She falls in love with the widower. Entertaining stuff, well written, but only a pale indication of the brilliant Elizabeth Taylor we come to know in her later novels.

Last new book I finished that I'll never read again: Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson. At 500+ pages, it was infuriating finally to reach the end, only to have two characters commit suicide, and the character you liked least to get everything she wanted. Utterly depressing.

Last re-read: The Ghost and Mrs Muir by R. A. Dick. Swe-e-e-et novel; even better than the film, which is wonderful. Enough differences between the book and the film to justify owning both.

Last film seen in a theater: It's been so long, I'm having a hard time remembering! I think it was Beginners, with Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer. That was indeed some time ago. Last summer, was it?

Last trip by plane: Again, it's been a long time. August or September of 2010, when I went to visit Celia for eight days.

Last opera I saw live: The Elixir of Love at HGO, November 2009.

Last concert or recital I went to: I believe it was a guitar recital in Seattle; probably during my last visit to Celia, so that would be the fall of 2010.

Last opera production I worked on: The Barber of Seville, HGO 2004. Nice to go out with a comedy, even though I cried all the way through the final performance.

Last truly memorable restaurant meal: Il Sogno, in the Pearl Brewery complex in San Antonio, December 2010. (I don't eat at fancy restaurants much anymore.) Mostly northern Italian fare, exceptional cheeses. Since I can't drink alcohol, I make fine cheeses my substitute. However, because of my allergies, I can't eat bleu cheese of any kind, including gorgonzola, which I LOVE. Waaaah!

Last poem I wrote: Sadly, it was this past March -- and the last before that was December. It's been slow lately. . . .

Last poem to appear in a publication: "Pressed Leaves," last month, in Decanto.

Last poetry reading: March 13, at The Twig Bookstore

Last time I submitted poems to a publication: Can't remember. I guess that means I'd better get off my duff and send something out somewhere.

Last time I touched the piano: Yesterday, figuring out the chords to "Yesterday" for my last blogpost. Before that -- can't remember.

Blogging A to Z: "Y" is for Yesterday

The Beatles song, that is.

First of all, I have to admit that I don't listen to much of the popular music today. What I have heard has left me unimpressed -- the harmonic structures, on the whole, are boringly basic and unimaginative, hardly ever straying from I-IV-V; and the melodies are either simplistic and unsophisticated, or -- at the other end of the spectrum -- so highly embellished with the singers' riffs that they are impossible to imitate if one is an average "sing-along-er." As I said, I don't listen to much, so my conclusions, admittedly, are based on the little I have heard.

How can we account, then, for the underlying complexity and musical sophistication of many Beatles songs -- which, amazingly, were written by men who had no formal musical training? Quite simply, the Beatles were uniquely gifted. Lennon and McCartney were downright geniuses.

"Yesterday" is a prime example of such sophistication. Consider the chord progression in the first line alone:

          I                ii7            III                              vi            (bass 7)  IV
          Yesterday,    all my troubles seemed so far away

Already, we have a secondary dominant, III -- and not the most predictable one, at that. Skipping to the third line:

                  vi     II         IV  I
          Oh,  I believe in yesterday.

How many unschooled musicians would even think to use II? McCartney could have simply used the minor ii, which would have been perfectly acceptable, but he chose the major II, which, on the word "believe," is like a hopeful ray of light. Brilliant! And the succession of the raised third in that II chord by the naturalization of it in the following IV chord is astonishing to the ear.

Then there's the bridge, which starts off with a III(sus4), resolving to III, then a descending bass that moves in contrary motion to the ascending vocal line. . . .

A III(sus4)! Amazing!

Now that's complex. That's sophisticated musical writing, and in a pop song. It can be done, it has been done, and it should be done.

I realize I sound like a complete music geek, but that's what I am. Other music geeks will understand.

Blogging A to Z: "X" is for Xerxes

One of the most famous of Handel's near-countless works is this brief but glorious aria from his opera Xerxes, "Ombra mai fu," known also as simply the Largo from Xerxes. You might say this piece is one of Handel's greatest hits (remember that series of albums that came out a few decades back--Bach's Greatest Hits, Beethoven's Greatest Hits, etc.?) There are so many recordings of it, both vocal and instrumental. And there is even a (less than stellar) performance, given by the character of Mary Bennet, in the phenomenally popular 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice, which, I fear, remains in the mind's ear of anyone who watches that mini-series on a regular basis.

Therefore, to dispel Mary Bennet's performance from our minds, here is the piece as it should be heard, sung by the much-beloved and much-mourned Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson.

For those who read music, please disregard the sheet music shown on the video: it is a very outdated edition, and should not be considered accurate, musically or textually, by today's scholastic standards.

Blogging A to Z: "W" is for Waiting

Waiting

What happiness is this that, once passed,
     harrows the heart?
It turns the soil, then leaves the furrows
     empty and dry.

And so you came and prepared this ground:
     for whom? For what?

This plot of earth watches countless moons
     waning, waxing,
While I water it with woman's tears
     until life springs.                                   (August/07)


Another example of a syllabic poem, this piece alternates 9-syllable and 4-syllable lines, creating a subtle rhythm in lieu of actual meter. The alliterative h's in the first two lines, and the w's in the first three lines of the last stanza, convey sighing and weeping; the w's also convey the slow-moving days of waiting. The final spondee, "life springs", and the onomatpoeic nature of the word "springs" with its short vowel, offer a glimmer of hope at the end.

The Ever-Changing Music of Life

There is a well-known series of twelve novels by the British author Anthony Powell, called A Dance to the Music of Time. I've never read any of the books in that series, but the title intrigues me. Earthly time is a series of dances in which our lives are segments. Sometimes life is polyphonic, a complicated fugue in which some phrases stand out and some are less important, and there is a sort of relentless force driving all the voices forward together, disparate as they are. Other times, life is a homophonic 4/4, vertical, its harmonies and rhythms more aligned, ordered—one hesitates to say "predictable," but sometimes it is, whether the tempo is allegro or andante. And then sometimes we find ourselves dancing a slow dance, a sarabande, almost static, but not really—there is always an underlying meter, and we keep moving, even if it's only in a circle—the circular meter of three to the bar.



Sarabande

Nothing-time is a sober pace,
     A solemn sarabande;
Its days step with reluctant grace,
     Yet fear to stop or stand.

Nothing-time has a halting beat,
     As though it hoped to hear
That chord whose consonance so sweet
     Charms even Charon's ear.

Mark the meter, three to the bar,
     But then—there is the rest—
Just space enough to hang a star,
     A quaver, brief but blest.              (March 2008)

 

"Sarabande" © 2008 Leticia Austria. First published in The Eclectic Muse.

Blogging A to Z: "V" is for 3 Veras (and a P. S.)

VERA LYNN

Lovely English singer. I call her "The Nightingale of World War II." She entertained the troops and recorded one hit after another, including "The White Cliffs of Dover," "I'll Be Seeing You," "We'll Meet Again," and my personal favorite wartime song,"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square."

VERA-ELLEN

One of the best dancers ever to grace the silver screen. Who doesn't love her in films such as On the Town, White Christmas, and Three Little Words ? (So she didn't do her own singing -- so what?) I've always thought she was a Barbie doll in the flesh, with her blond pony tail and that incredibly tiny waist that I was always afraid would break mid-dance. In fact, I wondered where the heck she put her internal organs, she was so tiny.

VERA BRITTAIN

She was a British writer, feminist, and pacifist, best known for her three "testaments": Testament of Youth is a deeply affecting memoir of her experiences as a nurse in World War I; it has become a classic of WWI literature, and rightly so. Testament of Friendship is a tribute to and biography of her friend and fellow writer Winifred Holtby, who wrote South Riding and other acclaimed novels. Testament of Experience continues Vera's own story after WWI. She also wrote fine novels.

Photo ©The Vera Brittain Literary Estate, 1970/The Brittain Fonds, McMaster University Library

Here is a gorgeously written and moving excerpt from her diary, Chronicle of Youth, on which the more famous Testament of Youth was based. In this passage she writes of a meeting with her fiancé, Roland Leighton, who eventually died in the war:

Whatever the future may bring -- whether it be the sorrow I fear more than anything on earth, or the joy which now I scarce dare dream of, much less name -- as long as I have memory & thought, I shall not forget to-day & yesterday. My beloved one has been here and departed again, & now indeed I may see his dear face never any more. I cannot write about it much; it is not only useless but impossible to try to record in words anything I felt so poignantly & shall always remember so vividly. When I first came back here after saying goodbye to him -- or rather, it was "Au revoir" that I said, because my courage would not even contemplate a last  farewell, though I tried -- I simply could not take up my pen & write; I felt paralysed. Now he has gone I can scarcely bear to think of him, & yet I cannot think of anything else.

P. S.

Photo credit: geniusbeauty.com

Blogging A to Z: "U" is for Understanding

I've heard it said, or perhaps I read it somewhere, that if you can't explain a thing clearly to someone, then you don't really understand it yourself. I don't think that's at all true.

Understanding, in the spiritual sense, is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the others being wisdom, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, piety, and fear of the Lord (Is. 11:2-3; CCC 1831).* When I was in the monastery and learning in earnest the practice of lectio divina (sacred reading, mainly the prayerful reading of Scripture, one short passage, or even phrase, at a time), I was told by my elder sisters not to strive in my own way for understanding, but to clear my mind of any human method of analysis and simply be still, silent, and open to the Spirit. He will, in his own time and of his own choosing, give me any understanding he sees fit to give, be it large or small. He may not give it one day, he may not give it for days or weeks at a time, or even longer -- but when he does give it, my sisters told me, I'll know.

It's true; the Spirit doesn't always "speak," but when he does, the understanding he gives is not always in words. In fact, it is seldom in words. Because, just as "the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26), he communicates with us in the same way. True understanding comes like a deep inner light, a sudden warmth of conviction -- an illumination. With that illumination comes also a certain gratitude, spontaneous and profound. And the faith that is also given from God seems to expand within you.

Unfortunately, this light of understanding, these random sparks, are just that: random. We can pray for them; indeed, we should, every time we open the Scriptures. We know intellectually that we shouldn't be discouraged if the Spirit chooses to remain seemingly silent (I say "seemingly," because sometimes the silence is due to our own noisy and distracting thoughts, or, more likely, we may be trying too hard to understand). When his voice is "heard" within us, it is a precious grace. What he teaches us can't always be explained in words, which are a human invention and limitation, but we understand.

* These gifts are not to be confused with the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are stated in Gal. 5:22-23.

"CCC 1831": the Catechism of the Catholic Church, article 1831.

Blogging A to Z: "T" Movies

The reason I'm doing the movie title thing again is because a) I can't come up with a "T" topic that I really want to write about, b) I've been writing a letter for most of the afternoon, so my originality is shot for the day anyway, and c) I'm lazy. So here's what I found among my DVDs:


Talk of the Town  (1942) Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman  I love the name of Cary Grant's character in this: Leopold Dilg. Very funny romantic comedy in which Grant plays an escaped prisoner who hides out in Jean Arthur's house.

The Tangerine Bear  (2000) voiced by Tom Bosley, David Hyde Pierce, Howie Mandel, et al  I only bought this because of David Hyde Pierce, but I actually like it. Good children's Christmas film.

Tara Road  (2005) Olivia Williams, Andie MacDowell  Based on the book by Maeve Binchy. I'm a big fan of Olivia Williams (who played Jane Fairfax in the Kate Beckinsale Emma, and also Jane Austen in Miss Austen Regrets). I'm not a big fan of Andie MacDowell, however. I just don't think she's a very good actress. But I do like this film. Never read the book, so I can't say how true the film is to it. Similar in premise to The Holiday with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz (who I also don't think is a very good actress), the whole switching houses idea.

That Touch of Mink  (1962) Cary Grant, Doris Day  Doris makes the funniest faces in this movie! I just love her.

Then She Found Me  (2007) Helen Hunt, Colin Firth  I only keep this in my collection because of Colin Firth. It's just an okay film, nothing exceptional. I read the novel, by Elinor Lipman, years ago when it first came out, but don't remember it at all.

Theodora Goes Wild  (1936) Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas  Dunne is one of my very favorite actresses. She's great at both comedy and drama, and can sing, too. This is a very hard film to find, unfortunately. I had to buy it in a set along with three other lesser-known screwball comedies, but it was worth it.

Three Coins in a Fountain  (1954) Clifton Webb, Dorothy Maguire, Rossano Brazzi, et al  I just love light romantic comedies about Americans in Europe! The storyline with Brazzi is especially romantic.

Three Little Words  (1950) Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen  A musical biopic about the Tin Pan Alley songwriting team of  Kalmar and Ruby. Fun stuff, and some phenomenal dancing from Astaire and Vera-Ellen.

Three Men and a Baby  (1987) Tom Selleck, Ted Danson, Steve Gutenberg  Soooo '80s! But still entertaining, and Selleck was a hunk. I love their apartment.

The Three Musketeers  (1973) Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch  What is it about Oliver Reed? He's not handsome, he's overweight -- but somehow, he's very sexy in a sort of dangerous way. Michael York was very representative of typical male attractiveness in the '70s: slender and wiry. General tastes in that area now seem to lean toward the buff and brawny, but I'd still find him appealing today. Raquel Welch is quite funny in this as a comely klutz.

The Thrill of It All!  (1963) Doris Day, James Garner  One of my earliest movie-going memories was seeing this in Killeen at the Ft. Hood theater. Two things in this film have stayed with me since that first viewing: James Garner driving his car into a swimming pool, and Doris Day having her picture taken kissing a bar of Happy Soap.

To Catch a Thief  (1955) Cary Grant, Grace Kelly  I've yet to watch this one all the way through.

To Have and Have Not  (1944) Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall  Bacall's debut movie. She and Bogie fell in love while filming it, and of course, they later married. Their chemistry is still palpable!

To Sir, With Love  (1967) Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson  Classic teacher vs. students movie. This is so much a film of its time, though, and if the same story were filmed today it would probably be much darker and even violent. But I doubt it would be any more affecting. Plus which, this has fun '60s hairdos and clothes, not to mention Lulu (the Adele of the '60s) singing the hit title song.

Tootsie  (1982) Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr  Classic! Too bad Dustin didn't win an Oscar for this. Teri Garr should have won Best Supporting instead of Jessica Lange, but I think they gave it to Lange as consolation for losing Best Actress (for Frances) to Meryl Streep (for Sophie's Choice) in that same year.

Top Hat  (1935) Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers  Another film I've never seen all the way through. But I will!

A Touch of Class  (1973) Glenda Jackson, George Segal  I love this film! Glenda Jackson won her second Best Actress Oscar for this, and deservedly so. (Her first, won the year before this, was for Women in Love -- and no, it's not about lesbians!) The script is so smart and witty, and the whole cast is terrific. If you haven't seen it, you really should.

Treasure Planet  (2002) voiced by Emma Thompson, David Hyde Pierce, Joseph Gordon-Levitt  Another purchased solely for David Hyde Pierce. Haven't watched it yet.

The Trouble with Angels  (1966) Hayley Mills, Rosalind Russell  I sooo love this. Hayley plays a rebellious orphaned teenager whose wealthy, playboy uncle/guardian sends her to a convent school. She butts heads and wits with the marvelous Rosalind Russell, who plays the Mother Superior.

Truly Madly Deeply  (1990) Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman  One of my top ten favorite films of all time! A romantic ghost story that is more sophisticated than Ghost. It's the thinking person's Ghost. Juliet Stevenson is incredible in it (it was written for her, in fact), and Alan Rickman is his usual wonderful self. A must-see!

The Turning Point  (1977) Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft  Unfortunately, and inexplicably, this is no longer available on DVD. Fortunately, I have it! This film has the dubious distinction of being nominated for 11 Oscars and not winning a single one. MacLaine and Bancroft give great performances. Not to be confused with the more recent movie of the same name.

The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan  (1979) Lindsay Wagner, Marc Singer  This is one of my secret shames/pleasures. It was a made-for-TV movie, and is, admittedly, really cheesy. But I remember seeing it when it aired, then when it showed on HBO or Showtime, and I loved it then (remember, I was young and foolish). Now I watch it and cringe a little, but I still secretly love it.

Blogging A to Z: "S" is for Syllabics (Huh?)

First of all, some poetic terms for the non-poets out there:
        Formal verse: verse that has meter and usually, but not always, rhyme. Formalists today are the minority. I am of the minority.
        Free verse: verse that has neither meter nor rhyme. Most poetry written today is free verse.
        Blank verse: a type of formal verse, it is unrhymed iambic pentameter. One example is Tennyson's "Ulysses"; Frost's "Mending Wall" is another; also, Shakespeare's plays are mostly written in blank verse. Many of my own poems are blank verse.
        Scansion: the metrical or rhythmical analysis of a poem

Then there's syllabics. Quite simply, a syllabic poem contains the same number of syllables per line, or the same pattern of syllable count per line from stanza to stanza. Rhyme is certainly not required, but is sometimes used. Meter is not an issue, but the restriction of syllable count formalizes the poem to a certain extent, at least in appearance, and does give it an inherent, though not apparent, rhythm. So one could say that syllabics is a happy balance between free and formal verse, and may serve as a bridge for any poet wanting to transition from formal to free or vice-versa.

What exactly constitutes a syllable in poetry is a bit vague, and we can't always adhere to how the dictionary divides syllables. For instance, in the first poem below—the "u-a" in "rituals" and the "i-o" in "inviolate" may count poetically and musically either as one syllable or as two separate syllables; I consider both to be one syllable in this particular poem. Also, words like "jewels" (third stanza) may be considered to have either one or two syllables. As is so often evidenced in older poetry, there are such instances even between two words—e. g., "many a," where the "-y" of "many" and the word "a" may be counted together as one syllable. Furthermore, in Italian, words such as "mio" and "tuo," though they are pronounced with two distinct syllables when spoken or sung, are counted as having only one syllable in the scansion of a poem. (This may be why, in music, these words are often assigned only one note.) In any case, I feel that the musicality of a poem overrides strict rules of rhythm, and determining musicality is at its core a matter of subjective opinion.

The two poems below are examples of syllabics. The first, "Ours," is of the simpler kind, having the same number of syllables in every line; in this case, seven. The second poem, "Heartscape," is more complicated. It's an example of a poem having the same pattern of syllable count per line from stanza to stanza; in this case, the pattern is 4-8-7-6-5.  Also, unusually, "Heartscape" is metered; the meter, like the syllable count, changes from line to line, but the pattern of meters is exactly the same between the two stanzas.

All this said, I hope that, beyond the dry but necessary stuff of craft, the content of my poetry will appeal to the average reader, especially readers who generally avoid poetry because they find it difficult to understand or relate to. My personal goal with every poem I write is to move, to awaken a memory or experience similar to the one I've tried to convey. If I accomplish that, I'm satisfied.



Ours

Your ways are unknown to me,
Your rituals of night and day;
Not even to imagine
Ever granted, to witness
Ever given to my eye.

Your days and all that fills them,
Inviolate—too vast a sea
Of histories, circumstance,
Between my heart and that which
Sense would covet above all.

What I have is mine to hold;
Such precious jewels hid away
For this poor miserly self!
All the earth's riches to me;
To others, perhaps, fool's gold ...

No matter. For you and I
Share all we share forever,
Though it be merely hours,
Fleshless words on brittle page
Be our only testament.

Our legacy—the knowledge
That, in spirit, intertwined
These threads, gossamer yet strong,
Stronger far than sense, older
Than all days and ways of earth.        (April 2007)



Heartscape

Time stops for joy,
That only with the fnest strokes
We may preserve the moment;
Words, perhaps, may serve to prime,
But only love can seal.

Time runs unseen
Through days of color lusterless
That fade into the canvas;
Then a distant glimmer nears,
And time shall stop again.          (September 2007)

Blogging A to Z: "R" Movies

I'll bet some of my opera friends were expecting me to write about Rossini. Well, I'm not that predictable! Instead, I'm writing about "R" movies. No, no, not R-rated movies -- movies whose titles begin with "R." Looking through my DVDs, I have surprisingly few "R" movies, seven all totalled, and two of them I haven't seen enough times to have a relationship with. The other five are all films I watch again and again.

Return to Me     (2000) Minnie Driver, David Duchovny, Bonnie Hunt, Carroll O'Conner. This is the sweetest movie! An old-fashioned romantic comedy, with plenty of tear-jerker moments as well. And the dog just kills me. For those who don't know the premise: guy's wife dies in a car accident, her heart is given to a young woman who eventually meets the widower. They fall in love, neither knowing that she has his wife's heart.

Remains of the Day     (1993) Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson.  I've not seen Silence of the Lambs, nor will I ever, but Hopkins' performance in Remains of the Day has got to be one of the finest captured on film. Emma Thompson ain't half bad, either. A frustrating, even infuriating, story any way you look at it -- romantically, politically, socially -- but that's what it's all about. In the last part of the scene below, all you see of Hopkins is his right arm, and he's saying the most mundane things to the sobbing, distraught Miss Kenton, but Hopkins' voice is so telling of what his character is desperately trying not to reveal, or even feel ... pure genius.

Romancing the Stone     (1984) Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito. This film is just a rollicking good time, but the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, was pretty lame and silly in comparison, IMO. I love how Kathleen Turner tried to look plain for the first third of the movie!

Rome Adventure     (1962) Suzanne Pleshette, Troy Donahue, Rossano Brazzi, Angie Dickinson. The moral dilemmas Pleshette's character struggled with in this romantic travel adventure seem like teeny-tiny potatoes to us now, but in 1962, they were still dilemmas: spending the night with a man you weren't married to, going on a trip with him. For me, this "dated" view of such things makes the romance even more romantic. Besides beautiful-looking stars and a cinematic tour of Rome and northern Italy, this film also contains one of my favorite Italian pop songs of all time, "Al di là," sung here by Emilio Pericoli (ever so much better than the nasal Jerry Vale, whose recording of the song was a big hit in America).

Roman Holiday     (1953) Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert. Of course! What list of "R" movies wouldn't include this beloved classic, Audrey Hepburn's film debut, and one of the most memorable, bittersweet romances ever? Who better to play a princess than Hepburn? And I can count on only one hand the number of actors, living or deceased, who are/were handsomer than Gregory Peck. As handsome, quite a number, but not handsomer. If you've never seen this film -- FIE ON THEE!!!

I just found two other DVDs of "R" movies hiding in my room: Rebecca (1939), and A Room with a View (1985), both of which I love.

Blogging A to Z: "Q" is for Quirks

In a small café in Seattle, a slight, blond, impeccably groomed thirty-six-year-old man takes a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his double-breasted Armani jacket and meticulously wipes the seat of a chair, then wipes the curves of its intricately designed wrought iron back. He then offers the handkerchief to his equally well-dressed companion, who has been watching the younger man's actions with a mixture of barely-restrained exasperation and weary tolerance. The older man declines the handkerchief with a curt "No, thank you," and both sit down for cappuccino and conversation.

Fans of Frasier will recognize this particular bit of staging from the pilot episode, which is repeated, with variations, throughout the eleven-year run of the series. With that one obsessive-compulsive quirk, much of the character of Niles Crane is immediately revealed, and from it we come to expect similar mannerisms as we further our acquaintance with him. It doesn't surprise us, for instance, that he times his bedtime ablutions to precisely twenty minutes, or that he carries in his breast pocket at all times, besides the handkerchief, a small sewing kit and a silverware chamois; nor does it surprise us that he handles the books in his vast library with the fastidiousness of a surgeon. But despite all these odd little quirks, or I dare say, because of them, Niles Crane has become one of the most beloved characters in sitcom history.

I've been thinking today about the various quirks of my friends and relatives. One friend, for instance, eats her meals "compartmentally": she eats her protein all at once, then her starch all at once, then one vegetable, and finally, the other vegetable. Never does she take a bit of each, as most of us do, making a little tour round our plates to compose that perfectly balanced mouthful. She is the only friend I have who eats this particular way, and though I've known her for over two decades, I've never asked why she does so. From the beginning of our friendship, I simply accepted this quirk as part of who she is -- a kind, soft-spoken, generous, and talented person who happens to have a slightly peculiar way of eating. And though this quirk of hers continues to puzzle me, it in no way lessens my affection for her; if anything, I like her even more for it. It sets her apart from the rest of my menagerie of friends and acquaintances.

My father, God rest his soul, had many quirks. One was a result of being in the army, or so we've chosen to explain it: after we dressed to go out somewhere, he would pick lint off our clothing like a spider monkey grooming its mate. No matter how pristine we thought our appearance, he'd find at least a few microscopic bits of lint, and wouldn't let us out the door till he had removed them. As a child, I of course found this excessive and annoying; as I grew older, I brushed it off (pardon the pun) with, "It's the army in him." Indeed, the army was my father and he, the army. The two of them were inseparable, both in our minds and in reality.

Another longtime friend of mine once wrote a poem about me in which she mentions several of my quirks -- my predilection for black and grey clothing and Italian shoes, my way of ordering espresso ("very short, very dense" -- like a tiresome parrot) -- and she summed up her poetic view of me as someone "longing for a time before being eccentric was fashionable." I loved the poem, but was prompted after reading it to ask a number of people, "Am I eccentric?" Oddly, nobody answered this in words; they only gave me a long, sideways stare. Rather than take umbrage, I decided to take the attitude that we are the sum of our quirks, plus everything else, and those quirks only serve to distinguish us in the eyes of others. I am the woman who orders very short, very dense espresso. My friend is the woman who eats compartmentally. Niles Crane is the man who wipes off chairs before he sits in them. There's no mistaking any of us for someone else.

I will go further, and assert that our quirks are what makes us lovable, albeit in a roundabout, irritating-exasperating way. A little spice in the mix never hurts. It is, after all, what gives us our distinctive, individual flavor.

Blogging A to Z: "P" is for . . .

Purses   After 40+ years of using purses, I have yet to find the perfect one. I've had purses that met some or most of my requirements, but not one has met them all.
        I don't understand this recent reign of the short handle. If I carry the purse in the crook of my arm, the handle creates a furrow; plus which, if I lower my arm for any reason, the purse falls to the ground. If I hitch it onto my shoulder, I wind up walking around like Quasimodo in the constant effort to keep it from sliding off the shoulder and, again, onto the ground. If the purse has double handles (another feature I don't understand), the outside handle inevitably droops off the shoulder, leaving the purse to hang precariously from the second, which is kept on the shoulder by means of the aforementioned Quasimodo posture. When it comes time to open the purse, say, to fetch money or a credit card, one must remove the purse from the shoulder and find a place to set it down.
     No, I much prefer the now hard-to-find shoulder strap, long enough to wear "cross-body," which is far more secure and comfortable, and hopefully wide enough not to dig a furrow into the flesh. Thus, both arms are left free to dangle, the hands left free to do whatever hands need to do, and the posture remains straight. When it comes time to fetch cash or card, the purse may be left right where it is; no taking it off and perching it on the counter. Brilliant.
     Then, of course, there's the question of size. For me, it must be roomy enough to accommodate wallet (another item of which I've yet to find the perfect one), small notebook (which a poet is never without), and possibly a book and even my journal. However, I tend to steer clear of purses the size of tote bags, simply because I'm clumsy enough without having my purse knock over that carefully arranged display of perfumes in the middle of the aisle. 9 x 12 x 5 inches is about as large as I'll go.

Page Turners   They are a mixed blessing. Some pianists prefer not to have them. For me, they were necessary in the performance of chamber music or voice recitals, because I could never trust myself and I had enough to worry about just playing well. But, oooooooh, woe was me if my page turner was less than competent! In that scenario, I found myself worrying about him/her more than my playing. After a couple of near disasters due to a bad page turner, I made certain I either knew my turner well and trusted him, or if he was a stranger, I made certain to brief him beforehand on the technique of turning.
        This technique was taught me by James Dick, when I turned pages for him in a chamber music concert at Round Top. Depending on the tempo of the music, you must judge when is the proper time to stand up: too late, you scramble for the page and distract the pianist; too early, you hover like an ominous buzzard and distract the pianist. Once standing, you take the page by the upper right hand corner and turn it down slightly, in preparation for the turn. At the proper second, which is sometimes gauged by your own judgment, or sometimes by the pianist's nod, turn the page quickly. Quickly. I had a page turner once, a singer, who turned slowly until I told her, before the next piece, to turn fast. She told me afterwards, "I thought if I turned fast it would distract you." No, dear.
        Bottom line--a good page turner is one who doesn't distract the pianist.

Perfect Pitch   Another mixed blessing. Although. . .I've always wondered, how can pitch be "perfect" when the standard for tuning varies throughout the world? And what about Baroque pitch? A modern "a" at 440 is not the same as a Handel "a" at 415 or 410.
        When we did Dido and Aeneas at HGO, I was chorus master. The piece was done at a very low 392, which is almost a whole step lower than modern pitch. We had to use a synthesizer in chorus rehearsals, so that my pianist could turn the pitch down via the handy transposition gauge, rather than transpose the whole piece on the piano. I was driven nearly mad, looking at one key on the page and hearing another from the chorus and synthesizer. I wound up having to "transpose" the score in my mind as we rehearsed.
        When I first started playing organ at Mass, Sister Teresa, our cantor, asked if I could transpose some of the hymns down, as the average age of our congregation is about 75. I was in a conundrum: I can't transpose at sight, unless it's simply turning flats into sharps or sharps into flats; but I couldn't use the organ's transposition gauge, because it drove me crazy to play one key and hear another; I kept wanting to play in the key I was hearing! So Sr. Teresa and the poor congregants had to squawk and squeak on the high notes. As the years passed, however, I've found that using the transposition gauge is not nearly as problematic as it used to be. In fact, I now use it quite often.
        All of which got me thinking: is perfect pitch merely a result of conditioning and not, as I was told, something one is born with? If I had grown up with A=392, would I still have "perfect" pitch?
        If perfect pitch is a result of conditioning, is it then true, as I have read and heard, that one can lose one's perfect pitch? In my present life, i. e., post full-time professional musician, I no longer practice daily (I don't practice at all!), or indeed, listen to music daily. As a result, I've found that my pitch is not as "perfect" as it once was. I can no longer pick pitches out of the air with great accuracy, or hear keys in my mind's ear; I can't even always identify keys and pitches when listening to music I don't know. Consequently, and somewhat surprisingly, I'm generally much more relaxed. Of course, I can still tell when a singer is out of tune, and that makes me nuts to the point where I have to turn off the TV or radio. And I can sometimes tell if a recording is high; for instance, if I'm listening to Beethoven's C minor Concerto and the recording sounds like C-sharp minor. But I've learned not to let that bother me too much.

Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice   Pride and Prejudice was the Austen novel I learned to love first; Persuasion is the Austen novel I've since learned to love most. Logical, really. The former fairly sparkles with humor and youthful emotion; the first blush of romance colors its pages; and Elizabeth Bennet is the kind of girl you not only want to hang out with, she's the kind of girl you always wished you were. The tortuous progress of her relations with Darcy never fails to thrill, even after the hundredth reading.
        Persuasion, on the other hand, is autumnal in tone; while not lacking in wit and comic characters, it is generally more serious and introspective. It's a story for every sentimental spinster like me to sigh over. Anne Elliot is now my favorite Austen heroine because she is the one I identify with and understand most. Some readers favor heroines that possess qualities to which they themselves aspire; I tend to favor those with whom I have qualities in common, but who ultimately triumph over, or despite, them.
        Of course, I love all of Austen's novels, but Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice remain my top two favorites, followed by Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northanger Abbey, in that order.

Perspicacity vs. Perspicuity   Finally, a little lesson in vocabulary. "Perspicacity" is keenness of mind, understanding, and discernment. "Perspicuity" is clearness or lucidity, as in a statement. Class dismissed.