.....for my trip to Russia. I really, really, really don't like the fact that I am so anxious. Which is why, if I have talked about this before, please indulge me and listen again. The thing is, I am not really an anxious traveler. Really, why should I be anxious? My Visa works, and there are not too many problems that can't be fixed with money. Miss a plane? Get another ticket. They want to search you, or your luggage? Who cares? And there is going to be someone with my name on a sign when I get to the airport in Beijing - I've checked. So what is it? It just makes me feel old, like my life is starting to get circumscribed, and I don't feel ready for that yet.
Well, it's not too long now - 14 more sleeps - so we will all know soon. At least I hope I will be able to post along the way - I know I will be able to post in the hotels, I am not so sure about the train. And this new Notebook is fine for typing and Internet, but the jury is still out on picture editing. Again, we will see.
Meanwhile, the here and now. Since last we spoke, friend Jack and I went to a concert at the Chan Center. This is one of the newer music venues in town - although it is not so new any more, probably more than a decade old. When it was first built, I didn't like it very well; the acoustics have always been fabulous - and, of course, still are - but in the beginning, I wasn't fond of the concrete and glass decor, and the very awkward public space. It has grown on me, though (not that I have gone all that often), In any event, it was a lovely evening. We were in the very last row in the balcony center - not so great for the opera, but great for piano concert, specifically, Angela Hewitt (a Canada girl) playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. I think it may be the first time I have heard it live - and all the way through. It is a surprisingly - to me, anyway - engaging piece, and she is quite the pianist. My mother (some of you know, she was a concert pianist, before the Nazis decided she wasn't) would have approved - she didn't like flashy, Glen Gould-like playing, and this was just good, solid playing.
One interesting sociological note - our population in Vancouver is about 40% white, and the remainder about evenly divided between Asian and East Indian. There were any number of Asians in the audience (a lot with scores on their laps) but not one East Indian!!
The birthday celebrations continue. Former colleague Mickey wanted to take me out for lunch for my birthday. Luckily, I am cheap date - we went to our go-to Pho place...
.....here's our host..
(when we first started going, it was his father.....)
.....Mickey's always happy, and we do love catching up.........
Anyway, it was a great chin-wag. We never run out of things to talk about, and the only time we disagree is on an intellectual level. I don't know we only do it a few times a year.
That was Friday. Saturday, yet another birthday outing - friends Joyce and Jennifer wanted to take me out for my birthday, and, what with everyone's schedule, this is the closest we could come up with. This was a little fancier, though - dim sum at the Shanghai River. You have heard me talk about this restaurant before, but I have never done dim sum there. It is a little different - Shanghai style as opposed to the more common Cantonese (I remember a time when I didn't know what dim sum was, much less that there were different styles....)
...those are the infamous Shanghai dumplings, which you can see them making in an open kitchen. Yum! In short, for as often as I have had dim sum, we managed to order six dishes I have never had before. Another success!
I have been doing a lot of reading. Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty by Jacquiline Rose was one that I was anxious to read, given my fractious relationship with my step-mother. Turns out, it was a feminist screed - you can just imagine how much I liked that! I went from there to another Peter Robinson mystery - Children of the Revolution. He never disappoints.
Back to serious books, with Barbara Ehrenreich's Natural Causes. This was more up my alley; still a screed, but against the medical profession, and their over-diagnosing, over prescribing arrogance. Apparently I not the only patient who is "non-compliant", and who has stopped testing for things that I am not going to do anything about!
Back to the novel. I happened to catch Writers and Company with Barbara Wachtel the other day on CBC Radio. She was interviewing Julian Barnes, and I was intrigued. I had read Flaubert's Parrot, which he wrote a few decades ago, but nothing since. Off to the library I trotted, and came up with The Sense of an Ending. What a wonderful book. It is about remembering (how fragile, and how everyone remembers differently) and regret, and I highly recommend it. A few quotes:
....as the witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been...
History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation...
History is the lies of the victors and the self-delusions of the defeated..
Well, you get the drift. There will certainly be more Julian Barnes in my future. I've already started reading "Talking it Over" a book he wrote more than a decade ago, and I could barely put it down to write....
It has been dreadfully hot here, and it makes me feel loggy. And yes, I like the heat, but I like my heat served dry, with air conditioning and a swimming pool at hand.
I'll try to write once more before my trip....
Well, it's not too long now - 14 more sleeps - so we will all know soon. At least I hope I will be able to post along the way - I know I will be able to post in the hotels, I am not so sure about the train. And this new Notebook is fine for typing and Internet, but the jury is still out on picture editing. Again, we will see.
Meanwhile, the here and now. Since last we spoke, friend Jack and I went to a concert at the Chan Center. This is one of the newer music venues in town - although it is not so new any more, probably more than a decade old. When it was first built, I didn't like it very well; the acoustics have always been fabulous - and, of course, still are - but in the beginning, I wasn't fond of the concrete and glass decor, and the very awkward public space. It has grown on me, though (not that I have gone all that often), In any event, it was a lovely evening. We were in the very last row in the balcony center - not so great for the opera, but great for piano concert, specifically, Angela Hewitt (a Canada girl) playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. I think it may be the first time I have heard it live - and all the way through. It is a surprisingly - to me, anyway - engaging piece, and she is quite the pianist. My mother (some of you know, she was a concert pianist, before the Nazis decided she wasn't) would have approved - she didn't like flashy, Glen Gould-like playing, and this was just good, solid playing.
One interesting sociological note - our population in Vancouver is about 40% white, and the remainder about evenly divided between Asian and East Indian. There were any number of Asians in the audience (a lot with scores on their laps) but not one East Indian!!
The birthday celebrations continue. Former colleague Mickey wanted to take me out for lunch for my birthday. Luckily, I am cheap date - we went to our go-to Pho place...
.....here's our host..
(when we first started going, it was his father.....)
.....Mickey's always happy, and we do love catching up.........
Anyway, it was a great chin-wag. We never run out of things to talk about, and the only time we disagree is on an intellectual level. I don't know we only do it a few times a year.
That was Friday. Saturday, yet another birthday outing - friends Joyce and Jennifer wanted to take me out for my birthday, and, what with everyone's schedule, this is the closest we could come up with. This was a little fancier, though - dim sum at the Shanghai River. You have heard me talk about this restaurant before, but I have never done dim sum there. It is a little different - Shanghai style as opposed to the more common Cantonese (I remember a time when I didn't know what dim sum was, much less that there were different styles....)
...those are the infamous Shanghai dumplings, which you can see them making in an open kitchen. Yum! In short, for as often as I have had dim sum, we managed to order six dishes I have never had before. Another success!
I have been doing a lot of reading. Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty by Jacquiline Rose was one that I was anxious to read, given my fractious relationship with my step-mother. Turns out, it was a feminist screed - you can just imagine how much I liked that! I went from there to another Peter Robinson mystery - Children of the Revolution. He never disappoints.
Back to serious books, with Barbara Ehrenreich's Natural Causes. This was more up my alley; still a screed, but against the medical profession, and their over-diagnosing, over prescribing arrogance. Apparently I not the only patient who is "non-compliant", and who has stopped testing for things that I am not going to do anything about!
Back to the novel. I happened to catch Writers and Company with Barbara Wachtel the other day on CBC Radio. She was interviewing Julian Barnes, and I was intrigued. I had read Flaubert's Parrot, which he wrote a few decades ago, but nothing since. Off to the library I trotted, and came up with The Sense of an Ending. What a wonderful book. It is about remembering (how fragile, and how everyone remembers differently) and regret, and I highly recommend it. A few quotes:
....as the witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been...
History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation...
History is the lies of the victors and the self-delusions of the defeated..
Well, you get the drift. There will certainly be more Julian Barnes in my future. I've already started reading "Talking it Over" a book he wrote more than a decade ago, and I could barely put it down to write....
It has been dreadfully hot here, and it makes me feel loggy. And yes, I like the heat, but I like my heat served dry, with air conditioning and a swimming pool at hand.
I'll try to write once more before my trip....
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