Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony (excerpt)

Just sit back, relax, and let Rachmaninov's sumptuous melodies wash over you. Romanticism at its most gorgeous. Suitable for purposes of meditation and reflection. Even seduction.

'And this is my beloved'

The third movement of String Quartet No. 2 by Aleksandr Borodin. Romantic, huh?

Shostakovich: Waltz from Jazz Suite #2

Here's some easy listening from Shostakovich, played by the Banda Sinfónica Universitaria de La Laguna of Tenerife, Canary Islands, conducted by Felipe Neri Gil Marrero.

Nautical Words and Phrases

Here's a link to a glossary of some everyday words and expressions which have their origins in seafaring. You'll find them interesting, I'm sure, as I did.

http://www.fortogden.com/nauticalterms.html

Layers of Light

More late afternoon images.

Millbrae 5:30PM

Took a little walk along a back alley in the suburban town of Millbrae this afternoon, and got a few compositions in yellow ochre and blue.

'Signore, ascolta'

This is one of my favorite arias from Puccini's "Turandot" -- 'Signore, ascolta' sung by Barbara Frittoli.

Hygiene - Personal

There are many things around the house that we tend to take for granted. In the past I had posted a few on this blog, and here I'm adding a couple more.

One is the familiar nail clipper, which I think is one of the cleverest of tools man has ever devised. Just think about it – before these came on the scene, how did we manage to trim our nails? Scissors? Pocket knife? Neither is as efficient and effective as the nail clipper.

The other item is perhaps less familiar. It is an earwax remover. It is purpose-made, so that we no longer have to bend paper-clips or hairpins for the job. Speaking from experience, I will say that it is a pleasure to use, and easy to clean.

Both of these items were manufactured in Germany. The clipper bears the J.A.Henckels name; the earwax remover is unnamed. I got them on our first trip to Europe in the 70's, and they have stood the test of time.

"Don Juan"

Here's the first part of "Don Juan" by Richard Strauss, performed by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, conducted by Philippe Jordan. One of Strauss's lushly beautiful tone poems, energetically played by talented young people.

Wisteria

It's the small things, I always say, that eat up so much of our time. The little chores and distractions which, when added together, will consume the better part of an hour, an afternoon, or a day.

Take for instance, what happened yesterday. I was out on the deck. Over the deck is the trellis, or arbor, which had been erected some years ago to provide shade on hot afternoons such as this one, of which we do not have many, at least not in this part of northern California, blessed as it is by cooling breezes that come over the coastal range from the Pacific Ocean. But I digress.

Two wisteria bushes have grown up along this trellis and the supporting posts, and their tough tendrils and vines have taken over most of the structure. Though the pretty blue flowers are pleasant to look at when they come out in the spring, they soon give way to a proliferation of rather unpleasant looking pods that hang like pendants from the vines. The pods look like large green pea pods, and often are heavy enough that when they fall, as they do from time to time on an unsuspecting neck or shoulder, the impact can be alarming.

Despite the heat of the day, I decided to remove as many of the pods as my enervated state could withstand, by plucking them down one or two at a time. I had gone through forty or fifty pluckings when I felt a sharp sting in the palm of my hand.

On close examination I found that a tiny splinter, no larger than a fourth of the size of this hyphen - had penetrated the tough (or what I had hitherto regarded as tough) skin of my palm, right there in the Plain of Mars, midway between the Heart Line and the Fate Line.

The splinter evidently came from the protective covering of the wisteria pod, and my mistake was to have grasped the pods without wearing gloves. Miraculously, for all my efforts at denuding the wisteria of its pods, I was pierced only once. In spite of its tiny size, and perhaps because it entered my flesh in a sensitive spot, this tiny splinter is very painful.

I went indoors, found one of my wife's tweezers, and tried to pluck out the offending splinter. It was not an easy job, because I am right-handed, and that was the hand in which the invader was embedded. In the course of several attempts at withdrawing the splinter, I succeeded in breaking it into two parts, and ravaging the skin around the point of entry, to the degree that blood was drawn, and what should have been a minor operation turned out to be more than that. In the end, only about half of the splinter was extracted. Afterwards I applied salve and found a large flesh-colored and rubbery-textured Band-Aid to cover the hideous gash.

The other splinter half is lodged in the palm, where it is likely to remain after the skin heals over it.

The whole point of this story is that an afternoon was wasted by good intentions, acting on an impulse, being sidetracked by an accident, and botching a repair job.

Street Scenes

Here are some photos taken today in and around The Castro in San Francisco. How about those gas prices, huh?

The above were taken where Market and Castro Streets meet.

An interesting bit of architecture (right) on Church Street,
and a Victorian triplex a few doors down (below).

Storyboard

A beautiful young widow. A scraping chair leg. A crafty relative. A cup of tea. A cigarette. A tearful scene. A rainy afternoon. A conspiracy. A sinister look. A satin cap. A stained bed sheet. A sly smile. A jade pendant. An alabaster elephant. A bamboo grove. A river scene. A pigtail. A sandalwood fan. A signed document. An opium pipe. A dark cloud. A bird's shrill call. A woman's guile. A paper kite. A careless remark. A flash of anger. A man's beard. A tearful outburst. A sense of failure. A public outcry. A baby's sniffles. A hot stove. A blue canopy. A cup of wine. A memorial plaque. A barefoot boy. A farmhouse. A favorite toy. A carved stone tablet. A secret meeting. A faithless servant. A shrewd lawyer. A sudden urge. A four-poster bed. A harsh reprimand. A furtive visitor. A black coach. A long journey. A distant city. A gathering storm.A foolhardy challenge. A younger brother. A flushed cheek. A stolen kiss. A hushed conversation. A hidden weapon. A light in a window. A cresting wave. A brass gong. An anguished scream. A drawn curtain. A thread of smoke. A dragonfly. A long wait. A second letter. A mosquito net. A stiff wind. A gray dawn.

Barenboim and Elgar's "Nimrod"

Here is Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Edward Elgar's "Nimrod" from his "Enigma Variations".

Summertine in The City

A visit to San Francisco's North Beach-Chinatown
neighborhood netted some shots
on a particularly glorious afternoon. I'm uploading the photos
-- which are clickable to enlarge -- to this blog to give you a sense
of what a very attractive part of The City looks like
on a cloudless and fogless summer day.
The shot above was taken on Stockton Street
looking eastward to the Bay.
You can see part of the Bay Bridge and beyond,
the Oakland container terminal with its massive cranes.

Shoppers on Stockton Street in Chinatown,
not quite as busy as earlier in the day;

most of the shops are getting ready to close.

So now they've renamed Green Street to Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard,
for the benefit of tourists who may be heading for this
'very San Francisco' revue in North Beach.

An impressive mural painted on the Stockton Street side
of the Chinese community hospital
(or at least that's what I think the building is).

And here the Transamerica pyramid, as much a symbol
of The City as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris,
sticking up over an apartment building next to the hospital.

Another shopper carrying the purchases
she has made for tonight's dinner.

A large billboard which is long past the time it should

have its tattered message replaced by another one.

A late afternoon look down Broadway
from Stockton Street.

Montgomery Street, the heart of the financial district: not much different
than that of many another North American city.

I love red cars.

Corner of Washington and Grant Streets. Bay Bridge in the distance.

Just a composition that caught my eye. I guess the light and
dark was what made me take a second look.

A man looks for his dog at the edge of
Washington Square Park on Columbus Avenue.

Bricks and mortar, drain pipes and
shadows shaped like pelicans.

Loungers in the Park, with a zero-emission trolley bus in back.

One way to enjoy a warm afternoon,

if chatting or reading is not your cup of tea.

They call this VW a cabriolet

Here on Columbus Avenue, the last rays of the sun 'strike
the Sultan's turret with a shaft of light'.

One Birthday, Two Museums

Our younger granddaughter celebrated her eighteenth birthday yesterday. We took her and her sister to visit two museums in San Francisco, the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, and the De Young in Golden Gate Park.

At the Legion of Honor here the big attraction is, and will be until September 21, 2008, the paintings of Women Impressionists -- Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, and Marie Bracquemond. It is a fabulous show, and definitely worth seeing.

The De Young here is featuring until September 28, 2008, the brilliant glass works of Dale Chihuly. Another worthwhile visit.

Shows such as these only come around once in a great while, and we must take them in while we have the opportunity.

Later there was a fine birthday dinner at a Peninsula restaurant, followed by a delicious Princess birthday cake at home afterwards.

Concours d'Elegance

A display of cars, classic as well as current, in a Palo Alto meadow near the Stanford University provided an opportunity for me to do some videotaping. I was testing my new high-definition camcorder, a Canon HV20, and the results have just been uploaded to YouTube.

(The hi-def version of the clip can be viewed here. Just click on 'Watch in high quality'.)

Deposit

With an air of utter boredom the clerk at the window accepts the deposit. He does not look up at the depositor. He licks his right forefinger and reaches for a slip of paper from one of two stacks in a nearby tray. He places this receipt form, along with the deposit ticket, into a slot in a small machine the size of a stick of margarine. The machine makes a noise. The clerk takes out both pieces of paper and arranges them side-by-side on the green blotter in front of him. With his left hand he picks up a rubber stamp, taps it a couple of times on the inkpad, and stamps both slips of paper. With his right hand he picks up a stubby pencil, licks it, and makes a mark on the deposit receipt.

It is only when he pushes the receipt across his blotter towards the customer that he looks up.

"Have a nice day," he says, and leans his head to one side to look around the customer for the next one in line.

In Trutina

Charlotte Church sings this beautiful piece from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

Recycle

No, really. It's not that. Not laziness, or procrastination. Those links toYouTube of musical items? Well, they were simply put here to fill a gap while I had to attend to other matters away from the computer. I'm back, even though I have to limit my time sitting in front of this monitor. There are still a few kinks to be ironed out in the joints, but hey, none of us is getting any younger, y'know?

* * *

I feel pretty good after having spent a morning driving back and forth to deliver our old computers and monitors to the green recycling service set up by our community.

You should see the stuff that was out there. The items, some looking like they were still pretty new, lay on wooden pallets waiting to be forklifted onto trucks to be taken Heaven knows where, probably some container terminal, to be shipped as scrap plastic or metal over to China or Korea, to be returned ultimately to the U.S. as new computers and flat screen tv's and MP3 players and iPhones for re-consumption by a public hungry for newer and ever faster items with more gigabytes and gigaherz and whatever but are smaller and lighter and, in the end, more numerous than the ones they replaced.

And so the world turns.

September of My Years - by Frank Sinatra

One day you turn around, and it's summer
Next day you turn around, and it's fall
And the springs and the winters of a lifetime
Whatever happened to them all

As a man, who has always had the wandering ways
now I'm reaching back for yesterday
'til a long forgotten love appears

And I find that I'm sighing softly as I near
September, the warm September of my years

As a man, who has never paused at wishing wells
Now I'm watching children's carousels
And their laughter's music to my ears

And I find, that I'm smiling gently as I near
September, the warm September of my years
- the golden warm September of my years