Who played a live set that included Beethoven, Gershwin, Scottish tunes, Show tunes, Game of Thrones, and Depeche Mode? This guy and gal right here:
Amelia and I played cello and viola duets for a charity fundraiser for the Yamhill Community Action Partnership (YCAP).
The cause was good, the musical camaraderie and conspiracy fun, and the audience appreciative.
So I’ve begun swimming again. It’d been 11 months since I last exercised, and long hours in front of the computer coupled with some serious viola practicing and performing left my back a hyper-extended slab of concrete.
I am not a good swimmer. A humiliating experience being the absolute, hands-down worst swimmer on the team when I was a freshman in high school calcified my dislike and active avoidance of swimming for nearly three decades (at the same time contributing to the likely calcification of my neck, shoulders, and back).
But my body demands I do more than treat the symptoms of non-activity. I don’t enjoy swimming and distract my mind during the laps counting strokes, memorizing my lap times, and measuring and remembering my peak and recovery heart rates.
What I do love is how I feel after I swim. My neck, shoulders, and back feel more limber and relaxed, and my body feels tired without the jarring and resulting stiffness, tightness, and pain other exercises can impart.
The pool is close – about a mile away, and is relatively inexpensive, so the convenience is great.
Hopefully the convenience and immediate relief I receive will keep me coming back.
I will be performing on viola with my friend, Amelia Bierly on cello for this event to raise money for the Yamhill Community Action Partnership (YCAP). Come for some good food and wine while benefiting the needy in our community.
When: Thursday, November 7, 6pm-9-m
Where: Chehalem Cultural Center, 415 E. Sheridan, Newberg, OR 97132
What: Food, Wine, and art benefit for YCAP
Tickets: $65 per person, or $520 per table of 8
http://yamhillcap.org/lightthefire
Here is a description of the event:
Returning after a brief hiatus, this year’s event will be brightening the evening of Thursday, November 7th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the luminous Chehalem Cultural Center in Newberg.
Chef Paul Losch and his friends will dazzle you with delicious cuisine while you enjoy brilliant entertainment and a resplendent wine bar filled with local favorites. An artistic silent auction and an illuminating raise the paddle will round out the evening in style.
The event kicks off the holiday giving season which helps lighten the hardships faced for many of those less fortunate in our community during the long winter months. If you join us for Light The Fire you will help ensure your neighbors have a place to stay, food to eat, heat to stay warm, and someone to give them a helping hand when they need it most.
The midterm elections have flipped Virginia’s state House and Senate from GOP to Democrat and Virginia now has a female Speaker of the House. This result is historic not only because it is the first time in over 25 years that Democrats controlled both chambers, but because it also means that Virginia is likely to pass the Equal Right Amendment (ERA). Virginia would be the last state needed to make the ERA part of the U.S. Constitution.
“Shikata Ga Nai” (しかた が ない) roughly translates to “it cannot be helped,” and is a phrase often associated with the discipline and determination exemplified by Japanese Americans who sacrificed and persevered through their persecution and unconstitutional incarceration during World War II. It is also the name of a documentary sent to me today by a coworker. This award-winning documentary was created by recent St. Mary’s Academy graduate, Lauren Yanase.
“Shikata Ga Nai: An Inconvenient American,” follows the story of her own family members as they were forced first to the Santa Anita Racetrack horse stalls, then to Heart Mountain, Wyoming – the latter being where my own family was incarcerated for two years.
The documentary is filled with excellent archival photos and video clips narrated by Yanase’s family members who experienced it first-hand.
The documentary took Yanase two years to complete and was awarded the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award.
It is 27 minutes long and excellent. You may view it here:
I have written and compiled a lot of links to short films, animations, photos, and video recordings of several talks my mother has given on the subject. You can find my list on my other blog:
https://tobyloftus.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/february-19-day-of-remembrance/
I highly recommend viewing “Shikata Ga Nai: An Inconvenient American” and am adding it to my blog listing.
We just turned our clocks back a couple days ago for Daylight Savings Time (DST). Some welcomed the extra hour of sleep and a little more light in the morning, while others bemoan the faster encroaching darkness in the evening. And there are all the clocks and timers that need manual resetting.
3 of the four states in the Pacific Time Zone have voted to abolish DST: Washington, Oregon, and Nevada have passed bills to end DST (Oregon and Nevada have areas in both Pacific and the Mountain time zone – their resolutions would only impact the Pacific Time Zone areas). The one remaining holdout state is California. A bill was introduced and passed in the California state assembly in 2018, but stalled in the state senate.
What are the arguments in favor of DST?
Road safety – some studies show that pedestrian fatalities may be reduced during dawn and dusk hours
Increased physical activity – the reasoning is longer daylight hours will motivate people to get out of the house for outdoor recreation
Tourism profits from longer, brighter evenings with people more likely to shop, go to restaurants, and attend events
Less artificial light/energy savings – if daylight hours coincide with people’s active lives, it is argued less artificial light may be needed, thus saving energy
What are the arguments against DST?
Doesn’t save energy – when it was introduced a century ago, there were significant energy savings because of less need for artificial light. Today, with so many modern technological devices, the energy saved by DST is insignificant. One study actually found that DST may increase energy use
Increased fatigue and illness – many people experience fatigue when forced to change their clocks one hour. The impact can be significant, however, leading to increased depression, auto accidents, workplace injuries, miscarriages, and suicides.
Increased costs – despite pro-tourism benefits, studies find decreased productivity associated with DST. NYC even invested $1.5 million in 2016 for a safety campaign for the DST change
To learn more about abolishing DST, check out End Daylight Savings Time.org
Was on my way to an appointment when I passed a sidewalk busker at Pioneer Place playing guitar and singing Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.”
Though I had little time, I couldn’t help but stop and sing harmony with him through a couple verses and choruses.
What a delightful impromptu and transient musical communion…
I just returned from a weekend in Newport full of music, laughter and friendship. What a great time!
The weather was beautiful. For November, it was delightfully clear and not cold.
I was in town to play viola in the Newport Symphony. Our program consisted of two marvelous works: Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso, and Schubert’s Great Symphony in C. I’d like to share some thoughts about the latter.
Franz Schubert is one of my favorites composers. He died at age 31, yet left us a prodigious amount of music, some of which was not discovered and appreciated until well after his death; Such was the case for the Symphony in C.
Consider this photograph of the last measures of the last page of the viola part:
Those who read music may notice the number of measures: 1154 in total! Considering several lengthy repeats in the work, performing it can take nearly an hour. Some sections (e.g. wind and brass) may enjoy lengthy periods where they don’t play – called “rests,” which is especially appropriate for and appreciated by musicians in this work – string players such as myself enjoyed very few. We were exhausted by the sheer magnitude of the work, but played it with joy because it is such a rapturous work.
Although there are pages of repeated ideas and phrases within a section, I don’t find the work as a whole repetitive or overly long from a listener’s perspective. That being said, some enthusiastic audience members told me afterwards that they were exhausted – so emotional and great was the lengthy musical journey.
What boggles my mind is the thought of writing this thing, by hand – over 1100 measures’ worth of music. Now multiply that by the number of individual parts: 5 string parts, 8 woodwind parts, 7 brass parts, and timpani – 21 parts in total. That amounts to over 24,000 measures. So first you write the score. Then you have to write out the individual parts (for which you need multiple copies). Today, using computer transcription software that will still be a Herculean task. Hearing all that music in one’s head and writing it down by hand – I cannot imagine it.
I cannot find a photo of Schubert’s manuscript for this work, but here’s an image from his Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”):
There is a dual tragedy of Schubert’s brief life.
First, he never got to hear this great work performed. He struggled in relative obscurity and suffered poor health and poverty most of his short life. Appreciation for his musical genius didn’t arrive until he was already gone. Ten years after his death, Schubert’s brother showed Robert Schumann a copy of the work, and Schumann took the copy back to Leipzig where it was performed by none other than Felix Mendelssohn. Just imagine how much music Schubert wrote that was lost forever.
Moreover, one can only imagine what wondrous more music Schubert would have composed had he lived another 5 or 10 years.
Several have tried to convince me to reconsider my departure from Facebook. It’s not an easy decision and I sometimes question myself. Then I am reminded of the corporate hypocrisy and darker side of social media:
We don’t tolerate bullying and harassment
– Facebook
She was called the n-word and given instructions to slit her wrists. What did Facebook do?
As a person of multi-racial heritage, I am particularly sensitive to and tired of whitewashing and yellowface in film. Whether it is Scarlett Johansson’s Major in “Ghost in the Shell,” Emma Stone’s Allison Ng in “Aloha,” Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul in “Batman Begins,” the cringe-worthy casting of John Wayne’s Genghis Kahn in “The Conqueror” and the truly despicable caricature of Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast of Tiffany’s,” this history is a long trail of racial ignorance and insensitivity.
One recent case of whitewashing was Tilda Swindon’s role as The Ancient One, a Tibetan monk who teaches and guides Dr. Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In the movies, The Ancient One is changed into a Celtic woman. Now, according to an article in CNET, that change may have been made to appease Chinese censors.
Read about how the lucrative Chinese movie market – second only to the North American market – exerts such pressure that Hollywood movies are being altered and censored to ensure access to that market:
Marvel is censoring films for China, and you probably didn’t even notice
– Jennifer Bisset for CNET, November 1, 2019
Blatant Calm 