Saturday Scrap Bag

     Writing:  When new poems, or even the desire to write them, aren't forthcoming, I usually revise. Revising is a creative act, after all, and a craft in itself. It's best done, I think, after a good amount of time has passed since you wrote the last draft of a poem, and since you last read it, even years after; then you can be truly objective. Sometimes it happens that, when you do finally read it again, a kind of horror fills you, and an involuntary "Yech!" escapes your lips. That's happened more times than I care to admit. But the horror is motivating. So I have been revising, as my previous post attests.

    

     Reading:  Since the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice  has just passed, I decided to reread it. It's been quite a long while since I last read it, so it's practically fresh to me, even though I've watched the BBC mini-series many times in the interim. On this reading, I find myself comparing Austen's dialogue to Andrew Davies' adaptation of it—the parts of speeches he chose to leave out, the parts he kept word for word—and also the bits of narrative that Davies converted into dialogue. I guess I'm fascinated with the whole adaptation process. What I find amusing, and not in a good way, is when screenwriters claim to want to preserve the "spirit" of a work but, with all their mucking about, trying to make it "fresh" for a modern audience, they actually manage to squash every bit of the spirit out of it, thus defeating their own purpose. They throw period vernacular out the window, and impose all sorts of social, political, and sexual innuendoes on the work that, more often than not, the author never implied. Davies, thankfully, is not one of those writers. He has indeed preserved the spirit of Pride and Prejudice, by respecting Austen's own words and staying as close as possible to them. He lets Austen speak for herself. This is one of the reasons his adaptation has become a true classic.

     Watching:  I never get tired of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Like the BBC Pride and Prejudice, the combination of great writing and fine ensemble acting keeps the show fresh. My mother absolutely loves it. Whenever we have a quiet afternoon, there's nothing she likes better than to watch three or four episodes (I have the whole series on DVD). I have almost every episode memorized, but that doesn't diminish my pleasure in the least. So The Mary Tyler Moore Show  will stay in my DVD library, alongside Frasier, as my "go to" TV series.

     Looking:  I've fallen in love with the Copenhagen Interior School of painting. Before I even knew about that school, or the artists belonging to it, I was drawn to the simplicity of composition, domesticity of subject, and muted palette, that characterize it and the artists' work. I particularly love the paintings of Carl Holsøe and Vilhelm Hammershøi.

"Woman in Interior" by Carl Holsøe

 

"The Poetry of Silence" by Vilhelm Hammershøi

 

     Wishing:  Apparently, Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow, so spring will soon be upon us. I was so wishing for a longer winter and more genuinely cold days, anything to postpone what I fear will be another insupportably hot and dry summer. But maybe (God willing) we'll get more rain!



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.