phil – Page 11

Lazy and Slow

Running from the Sheratonacross the river, down the steps to the riverwalk, and out to the lakefront. There’s a nicely paved bike path. I run past Buckingham fountain and I’m already tired. It’s not too hot, but definitely hotter than SF ever gets. I’m on the path between the lake and Lake Shore Drive. tons of bikers and walkers and people out enjoying the day.

I decide to run to Shedd Aquarium, which has a new expansion tacked onto the back of it.

There’s a gaggle of Segways… I think some sort of park tour. Strange. I run up to Shedd on a dirt path, back on the sidewalk as I approach. There’s the water taxi. And then run up the stairs to the door and tag it.

And then run around behind Shedd, and contemplate going out to the planetarium. But am too lazy. tomorrow I’ll go further (didnt wind up running on Sunday). Instead, run behind Shedd, and then into Grant park, through the viaduct under Lake Shore drive. I run for a bit, back to the Essex Hotel, and then start walking/jogging.

Across from the Orchestral Hall, I feel like running, it’a time for glory gear. And I run in high gear for a couple blocks. Then i’m done.

When I get to the art institute, I’m just walking, cooling down.

And then i’m off into Millenium Park.

Actual running time? 5:25pm to maybe 6:10pm. 3 miles, maybe.

Timpani and Beethoven

details:
Davis Symphony Hall
San Francisco Symphony
William Kraft, Concerto No. 2 for Timpani
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9
Michael Tilson Thomas, conducting.

So, the concert tonight was fabulous.

The orchestra opened with a commissioned Concerto for Timpani, and seeing the specially made rack with mini-timpani hanging from it, with the soloist in the middle, was pretty cool. The 9 small drums hung from the rack, above the 6 larger timpani below. I was interested in all the different sounds that the soloist, David Herbert, produced, twirling around, craning to watch the conducting, while pounding, slapping, and pedaling.

I’d have to evaluate the musicality of the concerto at another hearing. Too busy watching the show. The other percussionists also had lots of work to do in that concerto, bells and gongs going off all the time.

San Francisco Symphony always seems to program something really experimental in front of a Beethoven symphony. J. pointed out that it’s hard to get less experimental than a Beethoven symphony. True. Though his symphonies are amazing, and at their debut experimental, they are taken for granted now.

Still, Beethoven brings the crowds out. But it’s Michael Tilson Thomas’ conducting that brings the crowds to their feet.

Michael Tilson Thomas was amazing, conducting sometimes by shrugging his shoulders, hands by his side–then darting in with the baton to point up an accent. The score on the podium was closed the entire time. And his interpretation of the last movement…

The opening notes of the first movement, were carefully and delicately laid out, and I felt like I was listening to it for the first time. Instead of rushing to the main theme, the orchestra indulged Beethoven’s play with the pulsing chords in the first violins. The variations so whimsical and quick, and boom–there’s the main theme.

But it was the interpretation of the last movement, the famous Ode to Joy which was so vivid and fresh. I have _never_ been so pleased to hear that piece. Typically the chorus runs roughshod over these notes… screaming away. (Perhaps I’ve heard church choirs wind themselves up for an excerpt of this too often.) But to hear it in context, in the movement, after the orchestra whips up the melody sans voices… and then the baritone shakes off the darker theme, announcing the ode to joy with the recitive… that was symphony magic.

The section with the tenor and the chorus was so lighthearted and amusing. I couldn’t believe the orchestra… it sounded like a small swing band. The the tenor came in lightly and whimsically, the chorus to-, keeping it light and frothy. Vance George deserves no end of credit for his fine chorus.

It was great. Loud, loud applause. And a great way to end the season. Although I missed more concerts this year than ever, I did see a fair number. And this completed our 6th year of concerts… so, 66 all told, probably in the mid 50’s for me. That’s a lot of music.

Can’t wait till next year!

The Japan Journals

“The Japan Journals: 1947-2004” by Donald Richie.

How grateful I am for this remarkable record of a life. It is the gift of the long view, life as it will be in retrospect, how the sum of little observations and activities grows into a significance and weight, how friendships unreel across decades, and how it is possible to have always a clarity, a self-honesty, that survives all the changes around.

Donald Richie is someone who always floated on the periphery of my awareness. When I went to Japan for the first time, my first feelings and observations were already captured in Richie’s writings 40 years before. He recorded for the first time what we all fell for the first time. He was Gaijin Prime, the one who came, and stayed, and made a life.

I read his words and I relate so closely to his life lived as an outsider. When, after 55 years in Japan, he is told during an interview with a grad student, “You discovered the virtues of being an outsider. It was the benefits of stigma you discovered here.”–I read those words, and I nod, because I know of those benefits.

Leafing through this book, and encountering Richie’s acquaintances a couple hundred pages apart, as he experienced them a few decades apart, you get the benefit of this long view, the way experiences echo back and forth across the years. The value of writing down things you want to remember becomes oh so clear. Richie has had an extraordinarily rich life, but perhaps that is because he has taken time to pen his thoughts. He had a remarkable range of acquaintances, and the book is filled with mundane glimpses into the lives of fame and accomplishment. But more than those glimpses of celebrity, I love Richie’s eye for the changes and subtleties of daily life: the homeless, the protitutes, the policemen in the park, and the rude youth on their cell phones.

Perhaps we all enjoy similar riches, and would know it, if we stopped to capture them.

It takes some bravery to write about one’s personal life: and for that courage I am very grateful. There are passages where Richie considers the state of love and his marriage which are heartwrenching and true. Consider:

One of those days. I run off the track. I can see, when I look back, the plodding footprints in the desert behind me. Just where do I think I am going? Here I am a novelist who writes few novels, a critic who usually can’t even criticize himself, a husband who prefers sleeping with men. Yet, somehow all those unwritten novels were supposed to appear; my criticism was to strike every target; and marriage was to save me. But no, not at all–and marriage is killing me.

-page 138.

There is not enough of this. The discussions you have inside your head are yours alone, and one day you pick up a book and realize that someone else has that same type of urgent personal dialog. It is the type of personal dialog that does not find a public voice, unless it finds a pen, or a song.

A remarkable life, and a remarkable read.

Extremely sore

Yesterday, soccer was a well-matched 4-on-4.

White: Me, Josh, D., Roj.
Dark: Yoel, David, Scott, Jae.

I kept shooting, and hitting the defender right in front of me. Must have done that 4 times. Once, from the goal, I threw a ball out towards Josh that was low, and which Roj had to duck.

I had a couple nice shots. One I’m really happy with. Past the blue line, I trapped a quick pass. Stopped, aimed, shot. In, on the low left side.

I let plenty of goals in, but I stopped a shot from Yoel in a 1 on 1. He feinted a pass across the middle to another player, which is the way I dove. But as I went down, I pushed my legs out straight, and my feet caught his shot behind me.

Of course, he stopped 3-4 of my point blank shots at the other end.

Super sore today. I complained about it to the guy at the cafe this morning.

[updated: soreness was from soccer, but i also had a fever later today.]

Layer Cake

It’s a good thing I saw The Interpreter before I saw Layer Cake. This story of a successful drug dealer trying to get out of the business while he’s ahead is just great. It achieves this on the back of a great script and solid character acting.

I saw this at the Embarcadero theater while killing time waiting for a friend. S is here from Japan for WWDC, and he had a gift for me–a jar of AMAOU strawberry jam. Amaou is the trade name (like Sunkist) for a particularly lush juicy strain of strawberries. They are basically perfect, and once you’ve had them you can go back. S bought this jar at a famous boutique grocery (Meijiya), so you know it had to be pricy… I’m thinking at least 20 bucks. The jar has a serial number on it–they only make so many of them. Anyway, I had these incredible strawberries when I visited S. in Ikebukuro last March. So it was a great gift.

Anyway, Layer Cake was great. I walked out of the theater and had a brief chat with an old guy as we walked to the door. We were both shaking our heads, smiling, and not quite believing what we’d seen there, at the end.

Fun way to exit a movie.

4/4

Hitchhiker’s Guide & The Interpreter

Saturday had a late afternoon haircut. My stylist JB and I had a great chat whilst she sheared away my mop. I made the comment that though most Koreans go to church, I’m not like those Koreans. Her response: “You know what they call someone like you, who doesn’t fit in, in Korea? a North Korean spy.”

We had a good laugh about that.

Afterwards, I went to the Four Star for a double feature.

It’s not clear to me what the hitchhiker fans are moaning about. I mean, what did they expect a hhgttg movie to be? I think the big crime that the fans hold against it is that the movie is not what they thought it should be. Forget the fact that they don’t know what it should be. (I can hear M. retorting right now: “Funny.”)

It is not a great movie, but I enjoyed all the same because even a dim echo of Adams’ humor makes me chuckle. I liked the song of the dolphins, I liked the animations of the guide, and I liked the stop-motion animations of Ford, Arthur and Trill as they come out of Improbability Drive mode.

If you have never read the books, or heard the radio shows, go do that first before seeing the movie. 2/4 stars.

-/-

The Interpreter was a solid thriller, that had the hollywood polish on it. I don’t think it is going to stick with me though. There is something about that level of polish and constructed realism (of African geopolitics) that automatically makes me distrust it. The voice of the movie, too, is very even, with a minimum of flashy story telling devices. Appropriate for the movie, but it automatically makes me skeptical.

Still, I enjoyed it. Even though I anticipated some of the ending, the story had enough emotional punch to make the ending showdowns satisfying.

2.5/4

killer app

If you have a friend who is a complete luddite, and they ask you why they should use the internet, you should tell them ‘Video chat’. The fact that I can chat and see my friends all the way around the world is prettty freaking amazing.

I spent an hour or so last week doing a video chat with my friend in Japan–got to play peek-a-boo with his kid, talk to his mom and wife, and just hang out and catch up. It’s not as good as being there, but it’s pretty close.

doing an ichat

it’s pretty awesome. just like voice is the killer app for cell phones, i think voice/video communication on PCs is the killer app.

The Mellow Playlist

Recently at work I’ve been listening to a real hodgepodge of music, and I found that it was interfering with my productivity to be bouncing from pop to rock to dance and then classical.

I find that when I’m programming some seamlessly mixed dance tracks are the best way to be productive. But you can’t listen to trance all the time.

So at work this week I made a playlist called ‘Mellow’.

Leading off this playlist is a real find. The track is called The Matter (of our discussion) and the name of the group is Boom Bip. Album is “Blue Eyed in a Red Room”.

I’m hooked on this track, it’s slow sad haunting lyrics; painted against shimmering tinkling chords.

Download here.

Other artists on the mellow playlist:

Freezepop, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, The postal service, Sigur Ros, Andrew Bird, The Features, Buffalo Daughter, Julien Civange, akiko (jazz), Replicant, Nick Drake, Tony Garlif, Lambchop, Cibo Matto, Koop, Philip Glass, The Magnetic Fields.

Expanding awareness

Someone mentioned that they read a book about relating better to yourself and others. the author of this book posited that failures in how we treat others can be viewed as making choices with limited awareness.

For example, the driver who honks impatiently at the car ahead doesn’t see the pedestrian at the crosswalk.

For example, the parent that scolds the child for hitting didn’t hear the wprds exchanged beforehand.

For example, the man who can’t live with himself for heartbreak, doesn’t see that his pain is driving people away.

‘Expanding your awareness’ is one of those terms that is tainted by stereotypes of new age hippies and the drug culture. I am reluctant to embrace the term. Still I believe there is something to be said for its use.

Remembering that the same place looks different depending on where you are. Running is a great reminder of this. Each stretch of road or hill is different the closer to it you get. And depending on how you have eaten, slept, trained, or rested the run feels diffferent even doing the same path over and over.

Places have a psychological meaning as well. The furthest place I’ve run to. The diner for our first date. The place I go to study. Strange how we overlay meaning onto physical spaces–how it is possible for us to relate our minds and our bodies.

Maybe the same trick can be used with this awareness expanding. Physically moving to another location, driving a different route home, the same route but at a different time of day.

We often invoke the ‘need for a new perspective’ when we are unhappy or disappointed. But when we are happy? Do we stop expanding our awareness when we are enjoying life? Is there a line where we cross over into angst?

Modulating our awareness seems to be key. Manipulating it so that the frustrating becomes absurd, the annoying amusing, the dire shrinks to managebly problematic.

A late five on five

D. showed up late, so it was four-on-five for at least a half hour. But it was good soccer.

Roj is back, and he can still crank it in. I like playing with him.

M. is a tall and lean with greatI ran into M. a couple times too many. I gotta pull it together even when I’m tired and keep more control over my body.

I scored a few times, mostly on breakaways when we had the numerical advantage. I did have one hard shot that went in, when I was out past the blue line, that felt pretty good.

I’ll take pics next time of the place, just for posterity.

Afterwards, I BARTed home.. I made this ridiculous tuna pasta dish… a bit of macaroni and cheese, with tuna, pepper, and the leftover spicy salsa. Made way too much.