Thinking about New Year's Resolutions

I’d been planning to write a little something about my own New Year’s resolutions when I came across a piece in this past Sunday’s New York Times Sunday Review section. John Tierney, the author of the article, “Be It Resolved”, wrote: “… you’re much more likely to make improvements than someone who hasn’t made a formal resolution.” I guess that means making an actual written list of the resolutions, not just thinking about it when I wake up in the middle of the night.

 The article starts out with people’s most common resolutions: to lose weight, to exercise more, to spend less money.

So far I had not made a list of my own 2012 resolutions, so I’ll do that here:

1)      Take off the 5 pounds I recently put on, after losing 12 last year. How did that happen?
2)      Work on Rosetta Stone Spanish at least an hour a day.
3)      Spend at least an hour a day playing the piano.
4)      Spend less time on Facebook so I’ll have more time for #3 and #4.
5)      Call, not just email, my grown-up children more often. They live all over the place.
6)      Get back to pursuing some genealogy.
7)      Scan slides of family activities. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
8)      Blog more often. It gets me writing, which I need to do.

Weight: Those pounds snuck up on me. I don’t think they have anything to do with holiday celebrations. I think I’m just back into my old eating habits. I exercise as much as I ever did, so I don’t think that’s a factor. I just need to be more careful about what I put in my mouth, both liquid and solid. Wish I didn’t like Scotch and brandy so much.

Spanish: I’ve recently taken classes in conversational Spanish. They  got me basically nowhere. I’ve stuck little labels all over the house: “el horno” on the oven, “la ventana” on a window. A little of it stays with me, but I still go into a “deer in the headlights” mode when I have to come up with a word or phrase. So I need to practice more if I ever expect to hold a conversation. I’m hoping that a greater commitment to Rosetta Stone will help.

Piano: We got a nice little spinet from our friend Lynn who had no further use for it. We’ve had it tuned several times to get it up to pitch. It sounds pretty good. Bob plays it off and on, and I do too, except that, for me, it’s mostly “off.”

Facebook: No explanation needed.

Phone contact: I really don’t like to use the phone. I can’t understand why I think I need an iPhone; I don’t think I’ll ever turn it on, but we’ll see. But I do like talking with my sons and daughters, grandkids, and sons and daughters-in-law. So I plan to get around the time zones and do more of that.

Genealogy: My daughters are asking questions about who came from where. That should motivate me. I have to get back to a somehow removed cousin to find out more about my father’s family. Mother’s data is much more difficult to access. I think I might have to travel to Prague, or at least the courthouse in Cleveland  to find out more.

Scanning slides: I just have to resolve to do it. A couple of years ago I scanned all the black and white photos (hundreds of them), copied them to my external hard drive, and sent CDs to all the kids. So now I have to attack the slides. I need to find out about slide scanners and buy a decent one.

So maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew (no reference to food). I’ll just have to see how it goes.

Looking Back on Some Memorable Readings, Movies, Plays, Operas, TV Shows

Books:
Maye’s Request, by Clifford Henderson
The Feast of the Goat, about the Trujillo regime, by Vargas Llosa
Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
La’s Orchestra, by Alexander McCall Smith
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James
The Right Attitude to Rain, Alexander McCall Smith
The Darkest Jungle, by Todd Balf, about finding a way through the Darien to the Pacific
Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez
The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
Innocent, by Scott Turow
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens,  for the 2011 Dickens Universe
Unbroken, by Lauren Hillenbrand
The Rest Is Noise, by Alex Ross
The Border Trilogy and The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot  
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
Frankenstein, by Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
Supposing Bleak House, by John Jordan, for the 2012 Dickens Universe
The Help, by Emma Donoghue
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez
Alma Rose, by Edith Forbes
Darwin’s Armada, by Iain McCalman
The Room, by Kathryn Stockett
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean
The Ape House, by  Sara Gruen
The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eumenides
A Good American, by Alex George
Code of the Woosters, by H.G. Wodehouse
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
Darwin and the Novelists, by George Levine
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak 
 Verdi’s Shakespeare, by Garry Wills
Catherine The Great, by Robert Massie
and, into 2012, Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eumenides.

Movies (in theaters and on TV):

True Grit with Jeff Bridges; Letter to Three Wives; The Siberian Express; Pollock; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest; The Bourne Ultimatum; Social Network (my favorite for the year, should’ve won the Oscar); Gaslight; The Graduate; Born Yesterday (with Judy Holliday); Not the Messiah;  Reduced Shakespeare; Charade with Audrey Hepburn; Annie Hall; Major League (an annual favorite); The Fighter; While You Were Sleeping; The King’s Speech; Easter Parade; Tell No One; The Wedding Planner; David Copperfield; The Best Years of Our Lives; Emma; Get Shorty; Bringing Up Baby; City Lights;  The Soloist; Great Expectations (David Lean); Harry Potter II; The Lincoln Lawyer; Midnight In Paris; The Big Year; Moonstruck (again); My Week with Marilyn; Hugo; The Front (Woody Allen); The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (American version); the new Muppet Movie.

Plays (at the Arden and Act II Playhouse):
Superior Donuts, Wanamaker’s Pursuit, Art, The Male Intellect, Sylvia, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Romeo and Juliet (Severna Park High School production)

Operas (all HDTV productions):
Iphegenie in Tauride, Nixon in China, Lucia di Lammermoor, Capriccio, Le Comte Ory, Die Walkure, Anna Bolena, Siegfried, Don Giovanni, Satyagraha.

Classical Music:
Philadelphia Orchestra, three concerts. Highlights: Brahms Requiem;  Higdon’s  Concerto for Orchestra, both conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin; Copland, Clarinet Concerto with Ricardo Morales, conducted by Marin Alsop.

Our Holiday Letter -- A Summary of the Year's Activities

Dear Friends and Family,                                         

We’ll best remember the winter of 2011 for the snow. It seemed as if we’d just finished shoveling the driveway and cleaning off the cars in time for another blizzard.

But, for more fun things, we started off 2011 with a visit to Biz and Tom and the boys in Severna Park for our traditional late holiday celebration. Soon after that we left for a couple of weeks in California to see Adrienne, Judah and Zoe in San Francisco; Cliff and Dixie in Santa Cruz; Kaaren and Steve in Morro Bay; and West and Dani in Winchester. We’ll do the trip again in January 2012.

In February we drove to Florida, stopping in Salisbury, NC to see Jerry Cochran, and in Decatur, GA to see Rafe and Ilze. We spent a couple of nights with Ann and Mac Scott in Sarasota, and three nights in Naples with Tom and Mary Cush. Then across the state to see Alvin, and the long drive home.

March brought our second trip to Panama. I had put the trip together, along with Hernan Arauz, our guide from our previous trip. All of the participants were good friends of ours. We visited several different parts of Panama, from the resort at Gamboa to a native Embara village where we stayed in an elevated hut. One highlight was a long, muddy hike to see the Harpy Eagle, a truly awesome bird. Hernan and his fiancé Rebecca visited us at Christmastime, and we took them to Longwood Gardens.

We drove to Boston in early April to attend Andy’s pre-graduation concert. He and classmates had composed several pieces, which were performed in a concert hall by professional musicians. As part of that trip we visited Linda Hoffman in Harvard, MA and Carol and Don Scott in Chatham.

In May we met friends Susan and Jack at Magee Marsh in Ohio to see migrating warblers. In late July we returned to Santa Cruz for the Dickens Universe and Great Expectations. Then to Katy, TX in early September for a few days’ visit with James and Sharesa. Back to Santa Cruz in mid September for our annual dog-sit on Monterey Bay.

Clifford and Dixie visited us in October, as part of their East Coast trip. We all went to NYC to meet friend Fred Huber at Penguin Publishing. We ate a memorable lunch at Ear Inn in the financial district. Later on that month we saw Sam perform in “Witches” in Annapolis.

In the midst of all that we managed to get to see several HDTV Met Operas, some PhilOrch concerts, a few plays at Act II Playhouse in Ambler, and went to PMA for some special art exhibits.

I continued as program chair of our local Audubon chapter, and went out birding with friends at least once a week. I also did some NY trips with Cheltenham Adult Education School. I post some ramblings at http://madameenaj.blogspot.com/ Bob continued with his golf and tennis. We had our kitchen updated, with new counters and a new floor. It looks nice.

We’ve been discouraged with the way financial markets continue to operate, and with the current political scene, but all in all, it’s been a good, busy year for us.

We wish you all the best in 2012.

Some Thoughts about Christmas Bird Counts

Some Thoughts about Christmas Bird Counts

Every year I participate in at least two Christmas Bird Counts, generally one close to home, and one farther afield. I go with birding friends, and it makes for a pleasant social as well as a scientifically worthwhile day.

Christmas Bird Counts have been around since 1900, when the first bird census takers came out on Christmas Day to present a pacifist alternative to the traditional killing binge in which Americans went into the woods on that day to shoot as many birds and small animals as they could.

Sponsored by the National Audubon Society, CBCs serve the purpose of annually monitoring non-migratory bird populations. Each team is assigned a “count circle” and is furnished with a checklist of birds that are likely to be found in that particular area. The CBC checklist is different from most other kinds of birding checklists in that numbers of individuals, as well as individual species are recorded. This is done so that bird populations can be assessed and studied. Hours spent in the field, as well as miles covered in a vehicle and on foot are also tabulated. Results are submitted to NAS, and are sent out to all participants later in the year.
It takes a certain level of commitment to do a CBC. For one thing, at Christmastime the weather can be nasty. We were lucky this year on both of the days I participated. Not too cold, and not snowing or raining, though we’ve had doses of both in the past.

On my first count, on Saturday, December 17, I went with two birding friends, Bill and Lynn, on the local count. We started out at a pond in Oreland, PA at 7:00 AM to survey geese and ducks before they headed out to feed. We counted hundreds of Canada Geese, as well as a few Mallards, three Hooded Mergansers, and a few American Coots. Bill was disappointed that the Ring-necked Ducks he had seen in the same place the day before did not make an appearance. That’s birding for you.

From there we drove to several local habitats including the two sections of Fort Washington State Park. We had all noticed, from monitoring our own bird feeders, that bird populations are down in our area this winter. So we were a bit pessimistic about what we would find.

For me, one surprise had to do with American Goldfinches. At our home feeders, Nyger seed, which goldfinches favor, has been pretty much untouched this fall. I’d been concerned about this. Were goldfinch numbers seriously declining? However, on our CBC, in one locale, we found big numbers of goldfinches eating seeds from the prickly balls on Sweet Gum trees. I’d never realized they’d go for those. Live and learn.

We were out until 2:30 PM, when we had finished covering our designated area. We finished up with 37 species and 2785 individuals. We covered 33 miles in the vehicle, and walked 7 miles.

The next day, Sunday December 18, Bert picked me up at 3:15 AM. We collected the rest of our group, Connie, Ann and Mike, at our regular meeting spot and headed for Bombay Hook NWR, Delaware. We arrived at the gates, which had been opened early for us, at 5:00 AM and drove straight to the owl barn. (We’d gotten advance permission to go there). Two Barn Owls flew out of the barn and a third perched on a cross beam to have his (?) picture taken. Awesome. Our next bird was a Barred Owl which came into our owl noises and perched on a branch. Another photo-op. We also counted four Great Horned and Eastern Screech Owls by call only. We’d peaked early. We knew it would be hard to beat those sightings, and we didn’t.

Then it was time for a brief rest at daybreak before we began birding our designated part of the refuge, Bear Swamp, for passerines, waterfowl and any other birds that might be around. We finished up just before noon, and handed in our tally. We’d found 51 bird species and a total of 916 individuals, not counting the thousands and thousands of Canada and Snow Geese. Some highlights were 11 species of waterfowl, a couple of Bald Eagles, some falcons and hawks, two sandpiper species, three species of woodpecker, both kinglets, chickadees, titmice, lots of Eastern Bluebirds, several sparrows including Fox Sparrow, and Eastern Meadowlark. We covered 25 miles in the vehicle, and ¾ mile on foot.

This type of birding activity has nothing to do with building a big list, or striving for a “Big Year” as portrayed in the recent movie. It has more to do with conservation; more to do with seeing the big picture. Every person who participates in a CBC has contributed something to foster the health of bird populations.

The Winter Solstice - December 22, 2011

Winter Solstice Meditations – December 21, 2011

Call me a pagan, but, to me, the Winter Solstice marks the most significant part of the holiday season. It has signified hope for the future for many cultures throughout the ages. It is no coincidence that winter religious holidays coincide, quite consistently, with the Solstice. This year, in our home, we’ll be celebrating tomorrow’s Solstice quietly with our little Christmas tree lights, window candles and Menorah all going at the same time to remind us that, finally, with the onset of winter, the sun is coming back.

To wax technical for a moment, the Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of the Earth’s polar hemisphere is farthest away from the Sun that it orbits. In other words, Winter Solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Several years running we had a Winter Solstice party here at our house. Everyone was assigned a culture’s rites and celebrations to describe for the rest of us. I always chose Druids and stories about mistletoe. I think that’s because Sir James G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough (aka mistletoe) has always drawn me in.

For many of us, equipped with electric lights, a good heating system (when the power stays on) and also a relatively new essential, the Internet, the changing of the seasons may have little significance beyond gratitude that the days are getting longer. How often have you heard, “I hate these short days!”

But in ancient times, the sun’s progress through the seasons was an important component of survival. Astronomical events controlled the mating of animals, sowing of crops and metering of winter reserves between harvests. So, at the Winter Solstice, when the days finally began to grow longer, people celebrated in many different ways. Various cultural mythologies and traditions have emerged around it. Many of these rites and customs have made their way through the ages to our own celebrations.

Of course, Christmas, with its religious services; music, both sacred and secular; elaborate decorations; and commercialism dominates our contemporary culture here in the United States. Now, in many places, it starts right after Halloween, skips right over Thanksgiving, and continues until the New Year.

But, along with Christmas, cultures around the world celebrate at the time of the Solstice in many different ways. Hanukkah, The Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd Century, BCE. The eight-day lighting of the Menorrah symbolizes this event. In ancient Greece and Rome the Solstice was celebrated with the Saturnalia, a time of revelry and feasting. In the Inca Empire they celebrated with the Inti Raymi, or Festival of the Sun. (In Machu Picchu there is still a large column of stone called an Intihuatana, or “hitching post of the sun.”)In the Persian calendar, Shab-e-chelleh is celebrated on the eve of the first day of winter, when family and friends get together. In Scandinavia, a girl dressed as St. Lucia, with a wreath of candles around her head, “brings the sun back.” The Druids celebrated the Celtic Midwinter with ceremonies involving rites with mistletoe. During the Viking Age, there were celebrations while the Yule logs burned, sometimes for 12 days (“The Twelve Days of Christmas”).

No matter how people observe the Winter Solstice, it marks a time of hope and celebration.

Thoughts About The Philadelphia Orchestra

My introduction to symphony orchestras came when I was a little girl and I got to go with my dad to the BSO (Boston Symphony Orchestra) when my mother didn’t go. My parents had had a subscription for years. We used to get a ride to the concert with Melvin Bryant, a second violinist with the orchestra and the husband of my piano teacher. They lived a few blocks from us in Belmont, Massachusetts (now famous as the home of Mitt Romney and the John Birch Society, but I digress). On the way to the concert, Mr. Bryant used to regale us with some “inside dope” about orchestra doings. For example, it seems that orchestra members did not care for it when Leonard Bernstein conducted from the piano. The conductor I remember best from that era was Serge Koussevitsky.

After I’d gotten married and moved to Philadelphia in 1954 my then husband, Lee, and I were invited by his uncle and aunt who lived in Ambler, PA to attend their Philadelphia Orchestra series with them. They’d arranged for their daughter Susan to baby-sit with our very young son West. As it turned out he howled the entire time we were gone. Poor Susan. But it was a nice chance for us to get away for a bit from household chores (me) and medical school studies (Lee) for a change. Lee and I continued to attend the orchestra for many years after that. Eugene Ormandy was conducting then.

More recently, twenty-five years ago or so, my present husband Bob and I again became orchestra subscribers, and experienced the move from the venerable Academy of Music to Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center. We had superb seats in the second tier at the Kimmel Center. We enjoyed the “new sound” even though the critics didn’t care for it so much. Evidently the adjustable doors on the sides of the hall never worked as they were designed to.

As time went on, though, certain things began to aggravate us. For one thing, we had begun traveling more, and it was difficult to exchange tickets for a more convenient night. For another, we’d been looking around at other US orchestras and found that our orchestra was beginning to seem stale – behind the times. The powers that be, behind the scenes, just didn’t seem to understand that times were changing. And then there were the programs. We found that, for our taste, there were too many abrasive, “modern” selections on the program. We understood that new composers need to be heard, but enough’s enough on any one program. So, reluctantly, we gave up our subscription. That was five years or more ago, when Christoph Eschenbach was the conductor in residence. To say that he had no charisma would be a gross understatement.

Evidently we were not the only people who’d become disenchanted with our orchestra. Where, in the past, someone would have to die before a subscription would become available, now there were empty seats. Just recently the orchestra went through bankruptcy proceedings. A very sad situation for such a venerable institution. For comparison, one looks to Los Angeles where Gustavo Dudamel is exciting the music public at Disney Hall. And to the New York Philharmonic where Alan Gilbert has brought enthusiasm and excitement to the audience.

So now to a more hopeful present for Philadelphia. In 2012 we’ll have a new conductor in residence, Yannick Nezet-Seguin from Canada. Bob and I had seen him conduct “Carmen” in a Met Opera HDTV production and were interested. Yannick is conducting a few concerts this year. (Charles Dutoit is still the current conductor in residence.) On a recent Friday afternoon I went downtown to see Yannick conduct Mozart’s Symphony #40 and Brahms’ German Requiem, with two soloists and the Westminster Choir. It was wonderful. I sat way up in the third tier, where the sound is terrific. I had my binoculars with me, and could see everything as well. It was spectacular. The hall was nearly full, and the audience was enthusiastic and excited.

So I think PhilOrch is back. And I think I’m back, too. It’s a good feeling.
Posted by Jane at 9:41 AM 0 comments
Labels: music

Met Opera HDTV Offerings for 2011-12 – A Banquet of Beautiful Sounds, Scenes and Stars

Met Opera HDTV Offerings for 2011-12 – A Banquet of Beautiful Sounds, Scenes and Stars

It’s HDTV Met Opera season again, and I’ve seen three of the ten offerings for 2011-12: “Anna Bolena”,” Siegfried” and “Don Giovanni”. They’ve all been terrific.

When I talk with other opera buffs, someone invariably says, “But it’s so much better in the opera house.” Yes, absolutely, it is. I used to go to the Met back in the 1980s. That was when a good seat in the orchestra cost $75. Now a good seat like that costs nearly $400. Way out of my range. We’ve gone to the Met a few times relatively recently. For a $100 ticket you get a seat that feels like it’s in the next county. Of course there’s Philly Opera too. It’s very good. The only problem is their schedule doesn’t ever seem to work for us. On the other hand, an HDTV Met Opera production makes me feel as if I’m there. I get a close look at the new stars, and some of them are really something. The camera work is generally excellent. The only quibble I have with it is when they’re showing a grand scene, like the second act of “La Boheme”. I’ve seen that one at the Met, and it’s fabulous, horse cart and all. It doesn’t come through in the same way on a DVD. But that’s a small objection.

Side benefits of attending the HDTV productions are the between the acts interviews with the performers, set designer, conductor, wardrobe mistress, as well as a tour behind the scenes. Opera stars, such as Renee Fleming and Deborah Voigt often conduct the interviews.

In "Anna Bolena", the beautiful, charismatic Anna Netrebko starred as the ill-fated queen, driven insane by her unfaithful king. It was quite a show. Donizetti’s music is wonderful, and the sets and costumes were spectacular. Others in the cast included Ekaterina Gubanova, terrific as Jane Seymour, Ildar Abdrazakov as Henry VIII, and Stephen Costello as Lord Richard Percy.

Next up: “Siegfried”, the third opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
I had seen the two previous Ring operas during the 2010-11 season. The first in the cycle, “Das Rheingold” was broadcast on October 9, 2010. The uniquely massive $40,000,000 set was unveiled for that one. The floor of the Met stage had been required to be reinforced to accommodate the weight of it. It involved huge moving parts, which made it possible for the Rhine Maidens to slide down a huge ramp, among other things. The costumes were awkward. Bryn Terfel, as Wotan, was dressed up like a Marvel Comics hero, with greasy-looking hair disguising his missing eye. For me, the outstanding performer was Eric Owens as the dwarf Alberich. Sometimes Alberich is portrayed as a one-dimensional evil character. Owens presented him as conflicted by what he is driven to do: steal the Rhine Maidens’ gold.

Then, on May 14, came “Die Walkure”. This is the opera in which the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, fall in love and eventually beget the hero, Siegmund. Deborah Voigt sang Brunnhilde, daughter of Wotan. This opera furthers the conflict between the humans and the gods. At the end of “Die Walkure”, Wotan sentences Brunnhilde to sleep on a rock, surrounded by a wall of fire that only the bravest hero can pierce. This hero turns out to be Siegfried, the child that Sieglinde bears.

“Siegfried” finally brought it all together. Tenor Jay Hunter Morris, from Paris, Texas, stepped in at the last minute to substitute for Gary Lehman, who was ill and unable to perform, in the role of Siegfried. Morris had recently performed the role at the San Francisco Opera. It is one of the most challenging in all of opera. He was terrific. He was full of energy and in good voice. Bryn Terfel again sang Wotan, appearing in disguise as the Wanderer. The unique sets were used to good advantage in this one, and the grand design gradually became apparent. Digital effects, including a flying bird, were effectively employed. In the last act, Deborah Voigt came through brilliantly as Brunnhilde, aroused by Siegfried, along with her horse, Grane, after a 17-year siesta. Earthly love ended her immortal life. And thus ended “Siegfried”. The final opera of the Ring, “Gotterdammerung”, will be aired in mid-January. I’m looking forward to it.

On a completely different note, the third HDTV Met Opera of the 2011-12 season, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” aired on October 29. I guess everyone knows the story of Don Giovanni, aka Don Juan. That was a great production as well. The music is gorgeous. “Don Giovanni has a charismatic lust for life, but he’s not just some serial seducer – he’s a dark, complex individual,” says Michael Grandage, director of this production. The don meets his comeuppance at the end. When he refuses to repent, he is consumed by flames. Mariusz Kwieken, as the Don, Ramon Vargas Mojca Erdman and Luca Pisaroni all delivered stellar performances.

The next operas, in order, will be: “Satyagraha” by Philip Glass, which explores the origins of Gandhi’s philosophy; “Rodelinda” by Handel and starring Renee Fleming; “The Enchanted Island”, a Baroque pastiche; “Gotterdamerung”, which completes the Ring Cycle; “Ernani” by Verdi, in which Elvira is courted by three men; “Manon” by Massanet, in which Anna Netrebko portrays the tragic courtesan. The HDTV season closes out with Verdi’s “La Traviata” with Natalie Dessay.