On the First Anniversary of "Perspectives"

One of the qualities—and it happens to be rare—that mark Leigh Hunt's miscellaneous writing is his sense of fun [....] He enjoys larking about with a suject. There is a twinkle in the very first sentence [....] [His] fun is [...] gently domesticated, like the playfulness of an old friend at a family party [....] I first made the acquaintance of [his] more playful essays when I was a boy; they captured my imagination then, no doubt because they were so rich in concrete illustrations, exact humorous imagery; and when I turn to them now, they never fail to renew their charm.

 

There can be no doubt that Leigh Hunt wrote far too many short miscellaneous things. For some time, he actually attempted to write a daily paper by himself. Even some of his reprinted articles suggest a man who has nothing much to say but is only too well aware of the fact that he must say something. 

     So writes J. B. Priestley in his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of Leigh Hunt's Selected Essays.  I chanced to read Priestley's words yesterday, the one year anniversary of this blog. Though he clearly points out Hunt's inferiority as an essayist to his more gifted colleagues, Lamb and Hazlitt, Priestley concludes that Hunt's writings have ther own particular merit.
     I began this blog on 30 August, 2011 with the intention of honoring the art of the essay: once a week, I wanted to feature a piece from a master essayist, such as Hazlitt, Lamb, or Johnson, as well as pieces from "lesser" essayists such as Hunt, Morley, and "Alpha of the Plough." I wanted to use work from as many writers as I could; I would also, once a week, write a piece of my own, whenever possible using the same subject matter as the featured essay. Thus the title of my blog, A Spectrum of Perspectives.

     However, almost immediately after I started this blog, a few of my friends requested that I relate the story of my monastic vocation. I complied, but it took many more posts than I had anticipated to tell the whole story and explain it clearly to those who knew little or nothing of monastic life. When I finally exhausted my vocation story, another friend requested that I write about my musical beginnings and subsequent career. That took many posts, as well.

     In the midst of all that autobiographical writing, the original concept of this blog got lost. I suppose I could still feature a "guest" essayist once a week, but I don't seem to do very well with series—witness my "Musical Monday" and "Saturday at the Opera," both of which have been less than regular. But in the past year I've discovered that what's most important to me is that I write, and as often as I can. Like Leigh Hunt, I may have nothing much to say, but I must say something. Ever since I learned to put pencil to paper, I wanted to say something. Spoken conversation is not my strong point, but people who are quietest are usually those who find that the written word is a more congenial way to express themselves. It's certainly more lasting.

     The title A Spectrum of Perspectives has therefore changed in its essential meaning. All the perspectives written here are mine, but having lived so many lives in this one life (you'll forgive me quoting one of my own poems), I have acquired many lenses through which to view the world and the people in it. My perspectives may not be earth-shattering; they may sometimes be, like Hunt's, more on the "playful" and "domesticated" side; nevertheless, I feel and have always felt the need to share them. I thank my readers for permitting me to do so.

    

 

My Favorite Wildflower

     Many, many years ago—I think I must have been in middle school—I saw my first wild rain lily. It had finally rained hard one dry summer, and a couple of days after the storm I found a single white flower in our front yard, rising above the grass, straight and pristine as a ballerina en pointe. My first instinct was to pick it and put it in my room, but then I thought, it looks so right where it is. It was there for only a couple of days and I never saw another one in our yard since. I never forgot it, though, and later learned that it was a rain lily.

     Years later when I was in the monastery, I loved taking walks in the woods within the enclosure walls, and delighted in the various wildflowers that bloomed there, though I didn't know much about them. I had entered in the summer, a particularly dry one, and after the first heavy rainfall I noticed lilies had sprouted up—these, however, were not snowy white, but pale pinkish-purple, delicately striped. There was an old book in the novitiate library about Texas wildflowers, and I learned from it that this particular kind of rain lily grows in wooded areas. I also learned that the rain lily bulbs lie very deep in the ground, so deep that they sprout blooms only after a heavy enough rain breaks a long, long drought.

     Something about that fact moved me deeply. Maybe it was because I was going through so many difficulties, so many tests of patience and tolerance, during those first months as a postulant. Thinking of those flowers lying dormant for so long, patiently and confidently waiting for the rain from heaven to bring them forth from the dry earth, was a great help to me. I've loved rain lilies ever since. Now whenever I see them, standing tall and exultant after their deep sleep, I rejoice in God's sustaining grace and my belief in resurrection is renewed. We are, after all, more to God than the lilies of the field.

The Rain Lily

Beneath this crusted soil I shall await
the rain. Beneath the weight of withering roots
of weeds, I'll bide my time. It is the fate
allotted me. Inert yet resolute,

I have the shell of unremitting trust
in which to sleep, the pearl protection of
the waiting yet to rise, of those who must
depend upon the water from above

to fall and break the drought. For it must fall
someday, as surely as this ground is dry.
It is the compensation for us all.
The day will come when I shall see the sky.

["The Rain Lily" © Leticia Austria 2009. First published in The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry ]

Source



What Price Glory, Fame, and the Like

     I recently read this article in the New York Times about paid online reviews of books, and I was— how shall I put this delicately?—perturbed. Granted, thanks to the internet, there are more opportunities for writers to get their work out there, some of whom would find it difficult to get published in the traditional way. Granted, it looks like e-books are here to stay, like it or not, as they are an easier route for writers and convenient for readers. But, as always, ease and convenience come with negative baggage. I won't go into it all here, as the Times article is thorough.

     After reading it, I came away with the depressing thought that too many people would pay anything to gain recognition and readership in a field which history has proven to be of powerful influence: the field of the written word. I truly believe "we are what we read," that our opinions, views, philosophies, and in turn, our decisions, actions, and reactions, are all in large part formed by what we ingest through the written word, or the written word communicated through aural media. It doesn't matter if that word comes in the guise of fact or fiction, classic literature or today's equivalent of the dime novel; it is an indisputable factor in the shaping of our thought. Choosing what we read to nurture our minds should therefore be as discriminating a process as choosing what we eat to nurture our flesh. Paid reviews undermine that process. Not to mention the fact that they deprive the writers being reviewed of honest critical assessment of their work. How can they hope to grow and improve in their craft, if they're only told they're fabulous? Even the best writers need constructive criticism.

     Speaking for myself, I have never seriously considered self-publishing, either print or e-book. Call me a dinosaur, but I choose to submit my work the traditional way, enjoy seeing it in print when it's accepted, and be satisfied knowing someone, somewhere, has read it. I don't care about throngs; if only a handful of people are moved by my poetry, I'm grateful. When editors reject my work, I'm grateful for any honest, considered feedback they're willing to give. However, I do have several poet friends who have gone the self-publishing route. I support them in their decision and have even written brief cover reviews for those who have asked me—after, of course, having actually read their books, which some paid reviewers can't even claim.

     I guess what I'm really mourning is the demise of integrity—not only that of reviewers, but of writers as well. Self-publish if you want; more power to you. Ask your family and friends to write reviews on Amazon. But paying people to say your book is fabulous seems a cheap sort of acclaim.

The Power and Frailty of Concentration

     I recall a scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which Mary is trying to write a fast-breaking news bulletin and get it on the air in the two minutes left of air time; but her boss, Mr. Grant, is hovering over her shoulder, paralyzing her concentration. Of course, the story doesn't make it onto the news.

 

(Here is the entire episode; the scene to which I refer is near the start.)

 



     I know how Mary felt. Though I'm not a journalist, I did have to face a looming deadline once, when I was working at Houston Grand Opera. Someone, who shall remain nameless, was asked to write a piece in the program for Lucia di Lammermoor and, having put it off till the day of the deadline, he asked me to write it instead. I had about an hour before galleys went to the printer. We were in the middle of a staging rehearsal for which I was playing, but they excused me; so I locked myself away in the conference room and dashed off what was, I thought, a pretty decent piece about the ornamentation in Lucia, with special emphasis on the extended flute cadenza in the mad scene. It's amazing how adrenaline (or white-knuckled fear) can heighten one's powers of concentration. I don't know if I could have written a better piece, were I given more time.

     One would think that writing a blogpost is a more relaxed endeavor, since if there are deadlines they are only self-imposed, e. g., my "Music Monday" or "Saturday at the Opera" series; but even so, one may play fast and loose with them, even skip them, as I sometimes have. I have no boss hovering over my shoulder, no printer waiting (a human printer, that is). Yet, when inspiration sparks and the juices are flowing, my mother's call to dinner is an unwelcome interruption, and I'm afraid I tend to snap my response at her with the terseness of a Thomas Carlyle without the genius. My poor mother.

     Speaking of Carlyle -- Helene Hanff, in her delightful book Q's Legacy, says that he could write nowhere but in his "inner sanctum," built at the tippy-top of his house to his exacting specifications, which included soundproofing. Since Carlyle was Carlyle and I most certainly am not, I don't wonder that I'm able to write my little posts at the computer, which is situated smack-dab next to the living room television. At the moment, the TV is off, but if it were on it would make me no never mind. I have no critics to worry about, and my readership is somewhat (ahem) smaller than his. So I just clickety-clack away while Alex Trebek reads out one clue after another.

     In another of Hanff's books, can't remember which, she says that Bernard Shaw could write virtually anywhere -- in trains, cafés, etc. That's comforting to know, in the sense that brilliance -- or, in the case of us lesser mortals, competence -- need not always be coddled like a frail flower in order to bloom. Heck, I've written drafts of poems in coffee shops, doctor's waiting rooms, even McDonald's, some of my best poems, that eventually saw print. Just think of what gems I could produce in an environment like Carlyle's inner sanctum ....

     More than likely, I'd spend most of the day staring out the window and emerge at dinnertime not having written a thing. Concentration does not a genius make. But I'd settle for mere competence.

The Therapeutic Effect of Comedy, or What I've Learned from Niles Crane

I've always liked the notion of meeting the great figures of history. But then I think, what if it's like high school, and all the cool dead people don't want to hang out with me? Mozart will tell me he's busy, but then later, I'll see him out with Shakespeare and Lincoln. ~ Niles Crane, on the afterlife

      Those who know me, and even those who don't but who read this blog, know that I watch Frasier over and over again with the devotion of a soap opera addict. I laugh at the same jokes and cry at the same poignant moments at each repeated viewing as if I were hearing and watching them for the first time. So it is with the above speech, which occurs in season four, episode twelve, "Death and the Dog." This speech always makes me laugh, but beneath the laughter is rueful self-recognition. There is great truth in the saying that the best comedy is a mirror in which we see ourselves, including (perhaps especially) the parts we don't like to acknowledge or remember. Great comedy enables us to look at these uncomfortable aspects and laugh at them, which in turn can be very therapeutic. Thus, laughter is indeed the best medicine.

     One of the reasons I love Frasier so much, besides the ingenious writing and brilliant acting, is the character of Niles. Never mind my David Hyde Pierce Mega-Fan status; as a matter of fact, I took to Niles even before I took to the actor. I see so much of myself in him, it's revelatory, comforting, and discomfiting, all at once. He is a therapist, and in a strange way, he's my therapist, because watching and listening to him dredges up long-buried issues in myself; but seeing him evolve throughout the eleven seasons, seeing him grow stronger and more confident (after he divorces Maris), so that by the end of the last season he is an exemplary husband and father, compassionate, and much more tolerant than he is in the first season, provides me with a kind of triumphant underdog self-affirmation.

     To be sure, Niles shares many characteristics with his brother Frasier: they're both pretentious, highly intelligent, and they both have that particular competitiveness born of deep-rooted insecurity. But there is a crucial difference between them: this same insecurity manifests itself in Frasier in an over-blown ego that is often unbearable. In Niles, however, it manifests itself in a very different way, quite opposite from Frasier -- in a fundamental lack of confidence, which, perversely but predictably, makes Niles lovable; "needy" is so often appealing. True, Maris didn't help him with his insecurity, even exacerbated it, but it has its origin in Niles' childhood and came to full flower in high school.

     The speech above is funny, but also telling. In it, Niles unconsciously reveals the very reason he was ridiculed and marginalized in school, by identifying such lofty figures as Mozart, Shakespeare, and Lincoln as "the cool kids." His schoolmates would have instead named rock stars and athletes. On one level, Niles is aware that his tastes and intellect were indirectly responsible for his marginalization, but on another level, he knows these things were also his source of strength, and that his being marginalized served to make him stronger as well. Gifted people, precisely because of their gifts, often feel themselves to be isolated, different from others. Aging and maturing then act as nature's equalizers, and the gifted eventually learn to use their gifts in the service of others, as Niles did by becoming a psychiatrist, thereby doing great service to themselves by building their own self-esteem and confidence. The isolation turns outward, dissipating with the development and proper use of those gifts -- and also, in Niles' case, by finding true love, which he never would have found, had he not developed confidence in himself.

     I've learned a lot from Niles Crane. He's a wonderful psychiatrist.

The Eternal Teeny-Bopper

     It was always thus. I suppose psychologists would say that some possible causes of fawning celebrity worship are an essential loneliness, the lack of a romantic attachment, or the desire for an outlet for untapped affection. My hopeless/hopeful romantic nature rarely had a real-life person on which to indulge itself, so it turned to fantasies in the form of celebrities. All quite controlled and sane, mind you. I did not even ever save up my allowance to attend a David Cassidy concert, where I would have been one in an unruly, undignified mass of screaming teen mimis. No, I never saw David in person until I was a relatively sedate adult, in a performance of the musical Time, which played in London's West End in the late '80s.



David Cassidy in Time

     Before David Cassidy, there was Bobby Sherman, with whom I became enamored by watching him in the old TV series Here Come the Brides. Actually, he shared my 11-year-old heart with his costar, David Soul. Posters of them adorned my walls until Cassidy usurped them both.

L to R: Bobby Sherman, Robert Brown, David Soul as the Bolt brothers Jeremy, Jason, and Joshua

     It was Cassidy, however, that inspired the budding writer in me. In junior high, during the four-season run of The Partridge Family, I wrote several short stories – "fan fic," as it's now called – based on the character of Keith. I dreamed of sending them to the series' producers in hope they might make actual episodes of them. I dreamed big. At the time, I had no idea that this kind of writing was widespread, or would become a popular genre. Several of my Twitter friends today have blogs on which they post their own fan lit, mostly based on television characters. If one aspires to write, any and all writing serves to exercise the pen, but I think my juvenile attempts at fan lit should be left on my closet shelf.  

     We never lose the propensity to fawn over celebrites, however, no matter what age. I have a sister who in her 60s is every bit as avid a fan of David Cook as I was at 13 of David Cassidy. She is also even more fixated on Fred Astaire than I am on Cary Grant. And I have a friend, slightly younger than I, whose admiration for Michael Jackson led her to start a Facebook page devoted to him. Another Facebook friend, in her 30s, has a big thing for David Bowie and often posts videos of him. (My, there are a lot of Davids!) And how many grown women out there are obsessed with Elvis Presley? We are all, young, old, or middle-aged, susceptible.

     Um, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of David Hyde Pierce. But he adorns the wall of my computer, not my bedroom. Therein lies the difference that age makes.



How I Fell in Love with Bellini

     Sometime in the early '80s, when I was a voice and piano major in college, I watched a certain concert on PBS: it was from 1965, Maria Callas singing with L'Orchestre National de l'ORTF, conducted by Georges Prêtre. Though I was enthralled with the whole concert, it was specifically this performance of "Oh! se una volta sola ... Ah! non credea mirarti" from Bellini's opera La Sonnambula that made the greatest and most lasting impact on me. Till that point, I had never heard any Bellini whatsoever. I had been studying voice for about three years; I was a lyric coloratura scrounging around for arias that suited my voice type but that didn't make me want to gag from sugar overload. The recommendations made to me -- "The Bell Song" from Lakmé, "Je suis Titania" from Mignon -- just didn't appeal to my poetic (that's a euphimism for "dark") temperament. When I heard Bellini's sublime phrases spin forth from my television that afternoon, I found myself in tears. Never mind that Callas, at that point in her career, was past her glorious prime. Never mind the wayward wobble, the faulty intonation, and (I later realized) that she completely forgot the words during the cello cadenza. She transfixed  me. And she sold me forever on Bellini.

     Many people have likened Bellini to Chopin, and I would have to concur. If you appreciate and understand the one, you'll most probably appreciate and understand the other. This understanding goes beyond the instinct for spinning the long phrase, for finding the perfect amount of rubato, for shaping and pacing fioritura and ornament. It penetrates every note, not letting even the shortest slip by without its due expressivity. The long, arching melodies which are the hallmark of both Bellini and Chopin are not mere prettiness or swoony romanticism; they are imbued with human emotion and pathos, earthbound, complex. This understanding penetrates, too, the challenging Bellini accompagnato recitativo, and knows that it is the test of a true artist. In fact, I would go further and say that any sensitive and musical singer with good technique and breath control may successfully essay a Bellini cavatina -- but it is only a true artist that illuminates a Bellini recit and shows it to be the dramatic masterpiece it is. The same understanding penetrates the linear structure beneath the showy coloratura, knows instinctively that it is fundamentally different from the coloratura of Rossini and even Donizetti, that, for all its bravura, it is essentially melodic.

     All this, I heard and saw in that single performance by Maria Callas. If you have never seen this video (I remind you of the link above), you must, if only to hear how an accompagnato recitativo should be done. Of course, there is also Callas' magnetically expressive face, and the hauntingly hollow tone with which she manages to convey the fact that Amina, the character in the opera, is actually sleepwalking while singing this piece. I regret that the cabaletta, "Ah, non giunge" (after Amina wakes up) is not included in the video, but Callas' rendition of it can be found elsewhere.

     Oh -- I did wind up singing "Ah! non credea ... Ah, non giunge" many times in recitals and concerts, and also Amina's first aria, and the stunning "Qui la voce" from I Puritani. To assess myself honestly, my singing was pretty, musical, my coloratura fast and clean, trills ditto, and my diction excellent; but ultimately, it was nothing to write home about. Which is why I became a coach. I gained the reputation of being something of a bel canto and Baroque champion when I worked at HGO, and if I was, I'm proud and happy to have imparted my great love for these two styles to young singers. One of my biggest rewards was whenever a singer who had not hitherto felt any significant affinity for bel canto or Baroque, would say to me one day, "I love this stuff now!" Then I was satisfied that I had done my job.

     In the words of Richard Wagner, "Chi non ama Vincenzo Bellini non ama la musica (he who does not love Vincenzo Bellini does not love music)."

     Rock on, Vince.