Two and a Half Years On . . .

 

 

            The winter light casts a shadow of the tree against the wall.  The Lucky Duck looks on (left) at the living room's new feature: a clavichord.  Otherwise, it's unchanged.

            Highpoints during this period: sold a first novel.  Starting writing a second one.  Constructed, then repaired, a fairly close copy of a 1765 clavichord.  Spent several months in Cambodia--much of it, unexpectedly, working on edits and proofs of the first novel.  On my way there, I visited my old friends Peter and Noelle Higgins near Limerick, Ireland.    

            Furthered a relationship with Liliane (below), a physician originally from Montreal , who enriched my life in many ways (I hope I enriched hers slightly).  Spent several weeks at her home during the spring, summer and fall, becoming acquainted with the Idaho panhandle, and Olympia, Washington.  A life-enhancing woman, and relationship.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                     

 

 

 

 

In Olympia, Washington.

 

            Recently welcomed my old friends Brian and Sheila home from Phnom Penh, and retained my Tibetan friend and tenant longer than expected.  Briefly hosted Myra Davies, before her recent trip to Berlin to perform her latest collection of songs.  Along with Linda Johnson and Carol Holmes, attended Janie Dale's daughter's wedding--a lovely young woman.

With the help of my brother, Thomas, recently moved my mother out of hospital, back to her apartment in an assisted living facility.  Her end may be near, but it promises to be gentle, and with Thomas nearby.

 

A Quote, a Story to Remember, and Thanks

 

The Quote:

             In Phnom Penh I asked my hosts' Cambodian housemaid-cook--a 100% Cambodian Buddhist down to her fingertips, but not intellectual--how long it took, after death, until rebirth.  Her answer: " I don't know, the monks don't know, nobody knows."  I found this easy uncertainty, embedded in faith, of a detail unimportant to either the moral quality or spiritual truth of Buddhism, both refreshing and reassuring.

A Story to Remember:

            In 1943, two years after Virginia Woolf`s suicide, her husband Leonard, already 63, fell madly in love with Trekkie Parsons, a married artist 22 years his junior.  They maintained a love affair for the next 26 years.

            On April 11th, 1969, at the age of 89, Leonard was found sitting in a chair in an upstairs room in his house, unable to speak intelligibly.  He had had a stroke.  The next day he could speak, and he recognized everyone, but he was unable to put a name to a face.  When Trekkie asked him if he knew her name, he smiled, and quoted Swinburne:


"And the best and the worst of this is,
    That neither is most to blame
If you have forgotten my kisses
    And I have forgotten your name."

 

Thanks:

During this time I've been occupied, musically, with learning the 25th variation of Bach's Goldberg Variations,
and, since the clavichord was finished, learning Haydn`s F Minor Variations from 1793.  I would like to thank
Frau Professor Doctor Irmgard Merkt (right), at the University in Dortmund , for showing me, in Phnom Penh,
an interpretation of the last few measures of the 25th variation that is musically correct, authentic and profound,
and that also resonates strongly with my own personal interpretation of this piece.

 

 

 

 

Music Samples--Not Performed by Me!

 

Haydn: F Minor Variations,1793. Recorded in 1959 in Wanda Landowska`s home in Connecticut, shortly before her death that year. Although acclaimed as a harpsichordist, here she plays her piano.  This piece also works very well on a large, late clavichord--such as mine, above.  NOTE: this is a large file: 13.2MB.  I recorded it  directly from the 1971 RCA LP reissue, now absent from any catalog, and almost unobtainable.

Bach: 25th Variation, Goldberg Variations,1741. Recorded in 1933 in Paris by Wanda Landowska on her Pleyel harpsichord.  The first recording of the Goldberg.  A later, better audio quality recording made in 1945 is available from RCA.  

 

Videos

Two recent, low-quality videos from my cell phone, made to show the rigors of an Albertan winter, originally for Peter and Noelle, in Ireland:  the Bow River, December 15th, and  the river from Brian and Sheila's home, December 22nd (with a sudden, unexpected appearance by Sheryl Chantler).

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For those who wish to see the Christmas, 2004 webpage of John Lathrop and Mariann Befus, previously at this URL, please see: hanifa.net/2004.