politics and society/ heath and education

I am not American. Coming from another country with different priorities of society and dissimilar political system, there are two topics that always gave me a feeling of unease. These two are Health and Education. I think a country that considers itself to be so great and offer everybody opportunities needs to make sure that all people can be healthy and be educated. I am happy that the health care bill passed, even though I am sure that it is just a first step and a compromise, but progress needs to start with little steps. In the past years, I have heard of so many people that were in terrible situations because they could not afford doctors and health care. What really got me though, were the millions of children without coverage, to me that is unthinkable. What kind of society leaves their children in such a situation?

Children are our future, they are going to be the ones at the rudder, steering forward when we are old, they deserve a good chance. That brings me to the second topic, education. In my view, it is fundamentally wrong that level of education rises and falls with the financial state of parents. Cheaper house, cheaper town and ergo, school district not as good. It is not equal opportunity, if rich children can either move to a great public school district or just go to a great private school and others are left behind. When I grew up, I thought the harder you worked and the more you learned and when you did everything right, you will be on top financially. I do not think that anymore, the amount of money people make, is not always related to amount of work, too many factors contribute to being well off and for sure is it not related to people being better persons than others. I see money as a great divider, people with money can send their kids to great schools and they can move into the same stratosphere. Of course there are always children that find their way anyway and their are others with the best starting position and they fail, but in general, money is a deciding factor. I despise that, because I think it should be based on merit and achievement. Wouldn't that ultimately be better for all of society?

I do worry about my children and their academic future, they will have to find a way to get scholarships or community college is calling. Maybe we just move to Germany and they can study anything they want - if they are good enough - for a nominal little fee. I am very happy that a new bill was signed yesterday, making student loans much easier to acquire and to pay off. Another step in the right direction. Sometimes, politics can move things forward or better them - at least until the tide changes in this two party system (another peculiar thing).

Then of course, I hear about nuclear power and offshore drilling and all my joy had been canceled out again. I think it is healthier for my mind to turn off NPR and listen to 400 years old music instead, but I find myself unable to. I feel a strange sense of duty to be an informed - well, I would love to write citizen, but I am not one of those - person. Good night and good luck!

Mandalas and Zentangles

I saw a very interesting time lapse video of a Buddhist monk and mandala master creating a Tibetan Sand Mandala in the Sackler pavilion (Smithsonian in D.C.). Mandalas are simultaneous art and meditation, sand mandalas in particular take a long time of concentrated and patient effort due to their intricate nature. A mandala like this represents a palace of Buddhist deities that exists in the mind of the monk. The one in the video took 8 days to make. After a mandala is completed, it gets swept away to remind us of the impermanence of existence. What a strong and powerful symbol. It reminds me a little bit of a big puzzle that takes so long to finish, just to take it apart and put it back in the box. I have always loved puzzles and their meditative nature. Even though finishing is the goal, it is not what is important about doing a puzzle. The journey is the real goal. Anyway, they don't let me embed this video of mandala master Venerable Ngawang Chojor, so here is the link.

When I checked on youtube, I found this interesting video though:



This reminds me that I have been meaning to do some zentangles. Zentangles is like drawing with patterns instead of colors, it is very meditative and free, a bit like doodling, and you never know what you will get. I used to do a lot of black ink drawings that consisted of nothing but tiniest little dots made with technical pens and I loved sitting at the desk and dotting away. It takes a lot of patience, but it is such a moment of creation, molding and shaping these dimensions on a two dimensional piece of paper.

Borromeo quartet at WGBH - Beethoven's Grosse Fuge

Admittedly I check my email too often, but it can be rewarding at times. I received an email from WGBH, inviting me to a Classical Guest Street session with the Borromeo String Quartet in their studios. I clicked on their link right away and got two of the last 20 tickets. Even more lucky that Fiddler from Rockhound Place was able to go with me. They had a reception and we got to walk around the new studios a bit, I had not seen them yet.

Violinist Nicholas Kitchen introduced the audience to Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge in a multimedia program, which was very interesting and entertaining. I just LOVE to take music apart for a deeper analysis and then listen to it all put together again - so very enlightening. The quartet ended with a performance of the entire opus 133.

Written in 1825/26 when Beethoven was completely deaf, it was originally composed as the last movement of string quartet Op. 130, but later published separate as Op.133. Almost 200 years old and is still very contemporary even today. The four voices, their themes and rhythms intertwine and cross in such a complexity and show the pure genius of Beethoven. It combines dissonance and fortissimo with quiet serenity and it surprises with dramatic interplay of silence and sudden bursts of musical expression. Cathy Fuller expressed it well: “Beethoven takes four voices, fully engaged and throbbing at high speeds, and drives them to the edge of a cliff before stopping them on a dime to listen to the vastness of silence.” [link]

The Borromeo Quartet has its home base in Boston and is the Quartet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory. It was formed in 1989 and the group plays more than 100 concerts a year. These brilliant musicians are very accomplished and they create a passionate synergy that transcends their performance and connects to the music and its meaning on a deeper level and is in all its serious glory plain fun. I have rarely seen such a range of emotional expressions as tonight. They perform every now and then at the Gardner and I hope I can enjoy them there sometime soon. As an interesting side note, they don't use traditional scores, but cool macbooks instead and advance through the music with a pedal.

Here is an interview with the Borromeo Quartet at WNYC:


And here is the Quartet performing the final movement of Beethoven's Opus 18 Number 3 at WNYC:


Here is an interesting article by Alex Ross, the music critic of the New Yorker:
Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, and an article in the Boston Globe: Borromeos zero in on late Beethoven

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'

Last summer I asked my choral director if we are ever going to sing Arvo Pärt and she said, well we are singing Whitacre next year. With my impending Europe trip, I did not jump at the computer and research this unknown to me composer. I wish I had though. When I finally had to part with the Duruflé requiem and welcome the music of Eric Whitacre into my life, I was amazed by such beautiful music that seems to float and move. He also seems to be a genuinely nice person and is quite in touch with musicians and singers, now that surprises me, because my experience with musicians is different (with the exception of the wonderful and humble John Cage).

So anyway, I don't want to delve deeper here but share this fantastic idea of Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Composer Eric Whitacre and producer Scott Haines called people to record their voice part of Lux Aurumque directed by Whitacre. Six scholarships were awarded. It was very exciting, because they were announced on different days and the chosen singers were just brilliant. So all in all, Haines mixed the 185 voices on 243 tracks with people from 12 countries and produced this wonderful music video. Haines did a superb job, because the sound for sure transcends little computer microphones. They must be wizards.



Beyond the wonderful music and the novel idea, this is a perfect example of the potential good of the internet. The power of music as the universally understood language married with the possibilities of modern technology bring together people from different backgrounds and beliefs, cultures and races and unites all in a moving piece of music. This is the second video of this kind, last year they also did Sleep with Virtual Choir. I hope this is not the last Virtual Choir project, I would love to attempt a part myself. For now though I am happy to sing five of Whitacre's pieces this spring with Sounds of Stow.

Spring is here, ignore the calendar

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
~ Zen proverb

How can one not feel better with the sun of spring permeating everything. The warmth and the light coaxing out new life all around and radiating deep into my soul, sprouting hope.

And this is where some photos should be posted, but Blogger does not let me do so at the moment, so I'll try later ... Blogger has been acting very peculiar as of late.

day 16 of brain mush

So somehow I caught something a few weeks ago and I got sick with the flu or at least something that has all those symptoms. Unlike John though, who bounced back quickly, mine had to turn into a double ear infection, sinusitis and bronchitis. So here I am, 16 days later and still feeling like my brain was sucked away by aliens and substituted with mush of mystery meat, peas and carrots. Why did I pick something this awful? Because I was fed this mush daily when I was in the hospital for four month in 1972. And this was the mildest on the list of offenses this hospital stood for. Yuck.

So I would like to write something meaningful, but with a head that feels like it is teetering on the verge of explosion, meaningful and thought-out are not easily achieved. It does not help that I thought it would be very beneficial for me to run around in the sun on a tennis court, 'get your lymph system going' as John called it. That thought was apparently not a good one either.... cough, cough and off to bed now with a good book. Gave up on Sense & Sensibility & Seamonsters and will be reading the Rockhound Place recommended Shiver instead.

Since I am still sick: another Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Squirrel in the old appletree

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Now really, this is an absolute awesome book title. I love the absurd and this sure sounded very much so. When I received it from the library, I was really put off by the title and have since talked to many people who did not even read it because of the title artwork. Personally, I think that is silly, since one should not judge a book by its cover.

Zombies add a hilarious notion to a piece of literature set in a period of stiffness and proper conduct. The books bizarre juxtaposition appealed to me on the comedic level as much as to me being a big fan of Austen. Pride & Prejudice is a satire and I do think that Austen herself would love the idea of this mash-up. Unfortunately though, this is where I think this book fails. It stays a good concept, but it delivers only a fraction of what it promises. It has its moments of hysterical and wicked fun married with the macabre, but the execution is overall inconsistent and weak. The first chapters make you laugh your head off and then it tapers into the background and comes with a big return towards the end when we get a Crouching Tiger meets Austen moment.

I am no fan of horror (too many horror movie matinees at the age of seventeen) and there is some horror in this book. I never really felt the “ultraviolent zombie mayhem” while reading, because it is being portrayed in a very matter of fact style and the characters fight according to the regency times with polite elegance and a nonchalance that makes you take that attitude as well. Therefore horror, blood and gore were not even in my field of vision while reading, the zombies did not materialize in my head. I did ignore the potty humor, as I think it neither funny nor shocking, but rather infantile and not very clever.

I am new to the genre of mash-up, but I thought it takes two aspects and by mashing them up transforms them into something different. I don’t think there is a transformation here, it does stay Pride & Prejudice. There is nothing very original about the addition that were made, they are mere sprinkles in the awesome work of Jane Austen. I kept wondering throughout if it would be more interesting with more twists like those regarding Charlotte and Collins, but I came to the conclusion that it would add so much more implausible plot, that it could become rather annoying. Or maybe that is exactly what would make this better and achieve a transformation?

Would I recommend it to friends? I love Pride & Prejudice and it was a fun way to spent some hours on a dreary winter afternoon, so I was entertained. On the other hand though, I was thoroughly bugged by inconsistencies in plot, geography and spelling that really puts this more on the level of online fanfic rather than being a book to shell out money for. With a better editor and stronger writing, this could have been something that Jane Austen herself would have enjoyed.

This might be a great way though to trick weary teenagers into reading Jane Austen. I give it three stars, not great, not bad.

200 years Chopin

Wszystkiego Najlepszego Fryderyk! I have no idea how to pronounce it, but it means 'Happy Birthday Frédéric' in Polish. Thanks to Fiddler at Rockhound Place to remind me of Chopin's birthday with her post, even though there is no absolute certainty if March first really was the day he was born. Last year we had Mendelssohn to celebrate and this year Chopin. There are celebrations all around the globe, but especially in Poland of course. Chopin's life and heritage is very interesting in the sense that he examplifies in one way how intertwined France and Poland are. Many people think Chopin is French and they are wrong but also a little right at the same time.

While reading about Chopin today, it occurred to me that I have never gone through a Chopin phase. I actually don't think I ever will. I have definite favorite pieces, the very well known Nocturne in E# minor and the Prelude in E minor for example. I would love to be able to play the Etude 25 Winter Wind, usually played very fast, though I prefer it very slow, as it becomes somewhat haunting. If I one were to look into my brain and look at the music section, they would discover a huge love for French composers, from early music to modern. Even though Chopin spent the second half of his life in France and his father had come to Poland from France, I cannot find in his music what I consider typically French. This is neither quantifiable nor educated, just based on my emotional experience.

Like many others though, I struggle at the piano with Chopin. Usually I give up relatively quickly. And then I saw this video on youtube (stick around for 0:25) and it makes me want to run to the piano and play, as much as it makes me want to sell it real fast and look for a different past time.



Robert Schumann on Chopin: "It was an unforgettable picture to see Chopin sitting at the piano like a clairvoyant, lost in his dreams; to see how his vision communicated itself through his playing, and how, at the end of each piece, he had the sad habit of running one finger over the length of the plaintive keyboard, as though to tear himself forcibly away from his dream."

Red velvet cupcakes

Red Velvet cake is one of those things I have always heard about, but did not taste before last fall at a bridal shower. I consider most cakes over here too sweet, but the one I tried was really good. The idea to make some red velvet cupcakes got stuck in my head and when we had a completely unexpected snow day this week, finally the day to make them had arrived. Now you have to understand how I go about something like this, extensive research and reading is required and one thing was blatantly obvious, everybody has their own personal way to do this cake, with the only common component being a ton of red food coloring being used. That was something I definitely wanted to avoid, food dye, especially red is like poison for kids with ADD. Some of the recipes have nothing to do with red velvet cake, outside of being red that is. Some people just make a red vanilla pound cake, atrocious!

Originally the cake got the red color due to a reaction between buttermilk, vinegar, baking soda and the alkaline dutch process cocoa. Cocoa has changed over the years though. I wonder how they colored this cake in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, where it was very popular in the Twenties. One recipe I found used red beets, but all the other ingredients seemed not as typical. I decided to go my typical route, an amalgamation of many different recipes, plucking a detail here and there which adhered to my sense of baking. The original frosting is a butter roux - a cooked flour frosting - and not cream cheese frosting - yeah, something new to learn :)


So here it goes, my red velvet cupcake recipe:

Roast a couple of red beets in the oven, peel them and puree them with tart cherry juice. This might also work with jarred beets, in which case you might not need the juice, but I have not tried this.

Mix 2 cups of the red beet puree
1 - 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
1 cup of buttermilk

Sift together:
1.5 cups organic whole grain pastry flour
1 cup regular organic flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup of dutch process cocoa

Cream
1 cup of butter
1.5 cups of sugar and then add
3 eggs, one at a time

and then add alternating from the flour mix and the beet mix until the dough is all mixed.

Combine
2 teaspons balsamic vinegar with
2 teaspoons baking soda
which will fizz like crazy and you feel like a weired scientist.
Mix into the dough

fill 24 cupcake liners and bake in a preheated oven of 350 F for about 20 minutes. Now I am not completely sure about the time, just test it with a wooden skewer.

While the cupcakes cool down, make the roux frosting.

While creaming together
3/4 cup of butter with
1/2 cup of sugar and
some vanilla extract

whisk, while heating on the stove
3/4 cup of milk
a pinch of salt
3 tablespoons of flour until thick.
Let the milk and flour paste cool and then mix it slowly into the creamed butter and sugar. Beat for quite a while until it is very creamy and smooth. Frost the cupcakes or if you make a cake instead, fill it. I had made some chocolate decorations (just pipe melted bitter chocolate on a baking mat and then cool) that I stuck into the frosting. I piped the frosting onto the cupcakes, as I think it just gives a nicer finish that applied with a blade. The frosting will firm up very nicely in the fridge.

Everybody really liked these cupcakes, they were moist, not too sweet and had a wonderful chocolate taste. They were not bright red, more like a red tinged devil's food cake, but they were just the right balance in taste and texture. I will definitely have to make them again, and if we make it to the Waldorf during the next holiday season, I will have to try their red velvet cake.

Defeated

As a friend reminded me last week, it has been close to a year that I have not blogged on this blog. My excuse so far has been that I wanted to finish the last days of my travel blog first and never seem to get around doing so. But that is really just an excuse, though not far fetched, as I am a skilled master of the art of standing in my own way.

But I think the reason I have not written lies much deeper and it struck me this week that the truth is, I feel defeated and I feel so down on me and my life that I feel like there is nothing to write. No, actually, there is a lot to write, but it is all negative and who wants to read that anyway. I advise you to stop reading any further and if you do so, you do at your own risk. But I don’t want to talk things up anymore and hide my feelings and pretend everything is marginally okay. I am being candid.

I have been reading a lot lately, the best diversion there is, escaping into the worlds painted by other people, some very skilled ones and some not so much. But I have not been able to even write a short review of anything I read. I have a graduate degree in literature for crying out loud and I cannot write a few sentences about a book? Quite baffling. I could write a brilliant thesis, but not some f...ing little review? Doubts are creeping in that maybe, possibly I might not be capable of any original thoughts at all? All my life I really just wanted to be a writer and yet I do not write. I am too afraid to fail, too afraid that the assessments of my teachers and professors regarding my talent in writing were somehow misguided.

So here I am not doing anything with my life. I gave up my chosen career of writing for the radio for my own misguided reasons and moved to this country and since then had nothing but great ideas and feeble attempts. I find myself having reached a midlife full of self loathing. I cannot stand living in this seemingly shallow and meaningless suburbia, where we pretend everything is fine when the world is really a catastrophe. Or maybe I really hate even more that my own life is devoid of meaning.

When my children were both denied services at school last spring - after all smart children with handicaps are not worthy of help, they can muddle through well enough and school is only accountable for getting the bottom kids up - it felt like a huge blow. I had to put all my books and papers and research away and just forget about it as much as possible. But somewhere inside me it festered and my anger and resentment cannot be forgotten. The moment of failure to get help for my children has strangely been a pivotal moment for me.

Since having children, my life has mostly consisted of keeping them healthy and functioning as much as possible. Most of my energy have been spent on this. I have read so many books and articles and posts, I have been to workshops and acquired quite some knowledge regarding anything in the direction of Asperger, ADD, Sensory Processing Dysfunction, mood disorders in kids, difficult children, spirited children, fussy children, negative children... you get the drift. I know special education law, I know how to survive a baby that does not stop screaming, a child that can go into respiratory distress any moment... I know I could have done a worse job, I am not sure if I could not have done a better one. For a decade I was a pretty good advocate for my children and the hope to get help and to make things better were enough motivation. Supporting my children and working so hard to make them function well enough brought us to the point that they were denied help. Oh the irony of fate. This little, tiny meeting was enough though to deflate hope and motivation. Since that day, I have not been the same, it is like something inside me broke. I cannot explain why this small detail brought down the whole house of cards. Maybe I was just tired of pushing and holding it up?

I think there is another dimension contributing to the feeling of defeat. My children get to do all the things I always wanted to do and never got to do. Should this not make me feel so happy? Should I not feel some kind of satisfaction? It does not, because my children are not me and when I watch them having these opportunities, it brings back the childhood desperation I felt when being denied exactly those opportunities. My children are not at fault, but their childhood is the catalyst in bringing back to mind mine. I had a lousy childhood, extremely lonely and filled with anxiety. I was a brilliant child with many talents, but without guidance and opportunities, it got all wasted.

And now I feel like I have wasted my life, the light bulb reached the end of its life and burned out. Apparently too late to develop my talents, midlife hormonal upheaval has now also robbed me of my superior intellect. I am scatterbrained and forgetful, seriously, it feels like there is a bad batch of mashed potatoes sludging around where my brain should be. My emotions are on a roller coaster, I can go between laughing hysterically to non-stop crying faster than a raccoon gets to our cat food. Despite my busy social life, I feel incredible lonely and lost. I don’t know what to do, where to turn and how to keep going. I feel defeated. Because isn’t that what defeat is, being devoid of hope and motivation?

I have no reason for self pity and I don't feel any, do not misread my lines, I am rather cross with myself actually. I know there are many people out there who have reason to bitch and moan and complain. Anyway: here it is, this is why I am not writing, because I am living a gray cloud of defeat and despair, trying every single day to pull myself out of the mud like Munchhausen and failing more with each attempt. So here I sit, on a cloudy February afternoon, staring at the button 'PUBLISH POST' I need to click to publish this and I am not sure whether I really want to invite people to share my view into the abyss of my dysfunctional self.

But what the heck, at least I wrote something.

We are in Germany!

We are in Germany for 8 weeks and will also visit fantastic places like Copenhagen, Prague and Salzburg. Follow us on our travel blog Geremania: http://geremania.blogspot.com/

Between concerts, excursions and talks, no time for blogging

I have been quite busy lately, as somebody noticed on Facebook "You've been off doing some pretty fun sounding stuff lately."

Two weeks ago I went to a Paul Winter solo concert at the Central Connecticut State University and it was quite wonderful and worth the long drive. They moved it to a smaller theater than planned and I was sitting right there in the front and listend not just to the wonderful music, but also his stories about making music in the pitch dark in some park out west or in the Grand Canyon. I was so fortunate to attend another concert a week later called ONE Earth featuring the Orchestra New England and the Paul Winter Consort in Woolsey Hall at Yale University. This was such a treat, the organist from St. John the devine was there playing that amazing organ and Paul Maccandles and Eugene Friesen (yeah :)!) were there as well. It was so neat to hear this music with a whole orchestra, how different and wonderful. I also got introduced to some music by Charles Ives, which I thought was very interesting. Of course we got to enjoy a lot of very lovely music at All Saints in Worcester, J had to sing a lot lately and she loves every moment of it (and so do we). My concert is coming up in just 2 weeks and I was finally able to pick up my voice lessons again.

But music has not been the only fun and interesting thing lately. We had two other meetings of Germans in Massachusetts and there are some really nice people in that group, I am happy I have met them. We are planning a picnic in May and maybe there is a slight chance some of us will meet in Germany this summer. A lot of them live in the northeast corner and so we seized the opportunity and spend a wonderful day at the beach in New Hampshire. Being at the beach makes all of us feel better and I wonder why we hardly ever go. When we moved here, I thought we would be making a run for the shore all the time. We are all looking forward to spend a whole week on the most beautiful island in the North Sea.

I have also been jumping into action with the process of getting help for the kids in school. It is a very difficult thing to have dual exceptions, meaning neurological problems while being gifted. It is hard for teachers to see that these children need help, they seem to do fine, but at to high a cost emotionally. I joined multiple organizations and online groups and I went to yet another whole day seminar on special education law and even though I went home with a head swimming in paragraphs and laws, I think I did learn a lot, espescially how to interpret test scores, which is not straightforward, but very important. Tonight I will attend a talk about Asperger Syndrome and the whole body, which is also a very important topic and just thinking about it reminded me how I need to put much more thought into S's sensory diet, which we have been neglected since we stopped occupational therapy. Almost everybody in this family is seeing some kind of therapist, so there are a lot of books to read, things to learn and new approaches to be tried. Sometimes it is hard for me to keep my sanity in all this, but I try.

The struggle to be happy has been with me all my life and that is not surprising if you know about my strange life. I hope to gain some insight this weekend, since I am going to see the Dalai Lama for two sessions at Foxborough. Yes a stadium is an awful spot for something so mentally important, but at least I got tickets right up front (not like the U2 concert in Septemer, which will be more a soaking up the atmosphere than really seeing the band itself). Work has always made me happy - go figure - and I have been working like crazy for our school TV show. If this would be paid, our 8 week Germany trip would be less scary, but it is not. Well, I am gaining more and more experience. We have been filming at school almost daily. I went on a fieldtrip this week to Concord/Lexington with the third graders and it was so much fun. Seeing children at my favorite spots while making it into a 30 minute stand alone show, how much fun. And we can put the stop motion stuff into this, because S will do some artwork and we will reenact Paul Revere's midnight ride with paper puppets!

I have also been working on a short film with fourth graders that will be shown at the fourth grade concert in May. Even though this was a tiny in the school production, it is still fun to shoot and edit and come up with a little fun 4 minute film. It seems that lately it has all been about photos and filming and editing and I still find no time at all to write my book. I am constantly working on it in the back of my head and I will have to put some time aside in the fall and winter. I should not even write this, I know that is so silly to write.

Can somebody just give me some more time please, pretty please?

post holiday paralysis and stop motion animation

Instead on writing about my connection to lent, I have been talking with a lot of people about it and have been way to busy to write something meaningful. Now I have this strange kind of after-the-holiday-paralysis, where I should be working on putting the house back in order, finish taxes and take care of things before this week crazy schedule takes off. Last week was nuts in regards to J's singing schedule and having 2 parties to prepare and this week will be equally nuts with me having to lug my cameras and tripods to school for 4 events, one being a real scripted little film I got myself involved in.

So how does this paralysis look like? I spend the better part of the morning hanging out with my visiting MIL talking about this and that and by the time she has to leave, it is past noon. Noon is my cut-off time, if I have not gotten anything accomplished by then, forget it, it ain't gonna happen. I blame this on the protestant work ethic that was hammered into me as a child. Also hammered into me was not to do anything on Sunday and I worked hard yesterday like any mom and hostess on a holiday - so I just consider this my day off, well half of it anyway.

Last night somebody posted a Playmobil stop motion animation on the Playmobil board. Even though the production was not that captivating, it got me interested in what equipment I would need to do this with the kids and so I got into researching it and finding all these cool little videos and since I have a Firewire DV camcorder, I might be all set outside of the software, which is quite cheap. We have so much Playmobil and the kids are very creative, I bet they would love a weekend project like that and I can teach thema bit about project planning, story boarding, camera angles, how film works etc... Maybe we can even work with blue screen (which is usually green nowadays).



This is somebody's first attempt and I think the motion is very well made.



So hopefully sometimes this year the G-Girls can make a fun little stop motion animation video using our plethora of Playmobil supplies. We just need to come up with a fun little story, I am convinced though that it will be something fantasy like.

Maundy Thursday

Sometimes a day just feels different than other days, like there is some significance to it, without being explicit. Today I had such a day. It is Maundy Thursday, the day of the last supper and J was singing at church. I am still wondering why I experienced lent so differently this year, actually experienced it at all. Maybe it is the music, or maybe it is because the full moon is shining while Passover and the holy week an Easter fall together. It feels as if my heart and soul are wide open.

I do not believe in god, I have tried, but I just don't, no matter how much I wish I would. I think it would be wonderful, there would be instant purpose and meaning and so much more hope. Instead I am a sort of existentialist, even if I do believe in more than the apparent world. Still though, going to the service tonight seemed so important and the words had so much meaning. I did not have the usual feeling of being an intruder, or an impostor, instead it felt right. The drama of tonight's service, the music, the movement, the stripping of the altar, the slamming of the cross while turning off all light, of course that all has an emotional impact. This was deepened by the choir singing Ave verum corpus by Mozart (KV618), which I sang in chorus as a teenager and it is very special to me.*

And while I was sitting there in church, listening so closely, it occurred to me why this felt so different. I might not believe in the divine, but I do believe in Jesus Christ, not necessarily as the son of god, but as a charismatic leader and reformer. It always has been strange, because I have always liked church, the rituals, the music, the meaning. I like the social structure it gives, the morals and ethics. I have met so many people who were believers, but wanted nothing to do with church, I also have met so many people that are deeply engrossed in the church and did not really live as very good Christians. For many years when this topic comes up, I have told people that I believe a person can be a good christian without actually believing in god and most people don't understand it. I suppose I see church from a sociological standpoint as a concept and as a way to build community. This probably stems from the way I grew up. I grew up in the parish, the church buildings were my home, the cantor and custodian people I saw daily. Since my mother worked for the church, our life was centered there, yet is was completely devoid of any religious deeper content or connotation. My whole family is as non religious as they get. As a young adult, I became very involved in another church (all Lutheran anyway) and found a wonderful community there, that I still miss. And when I left home for University, it was the university's church group that gave me the same 20 years ago.

When we became parents, we wanted to give our children the chance to find faith and decide on their own what they believe or not, but I got to a point where it did not seem to make much sense anymore. There was no presence of god in our lives, save for some prayers at mealtime and it felt truly wrong to me to participate in the communion and to say I believe in the trinity, which I know to be a man made concept from early church history. I cannot suspend disbelief and I had to stop going to church. There were a couple of other factors that contributed.

But tonight I did feel some sense of belonging, maybe it is because I spend so much time there bringing J to choir, maybe it is that it is not my church and they have no expectations or possibly it is because they welcome everybody with open arms. Whatever it might be, I think I have accepted to be without faith in god and I embrace the believes I do have. So therefore, it has been quite a meaningful day and of course, it was full of music :)

* My friends and me would sing it a lot when out and about - our other two favorites where the Marsaillaise and Ma na ma na from the Muppets and I admit it is a very eclectic mix.

Music and Lent part II: Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen

A few years back, right after Christmas, we were driving from Connecticut back to our home in Pennsylvania and crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge late at night. Our radio picked up these deep and ethereal vocal harmonies transitioning between gradual elevation, abrupt changes and returns into complete calm while staying in a consistent mood. There was a tonal quality almost like bells or organ pipes, so pure, not in the sense of innocent, but in it’s perfection. The music transitions between quiet and full, high voices against the dark voices resonating on the bottom. Listening to the powerful and stirring music was an experience of meditation.

I was introduced to the mesmerizing, beautiful and cathartic Kanon Pokajanen by the estonian composer Arvo Pärt, which was commissioned for the 750th anniversary celebration of the Cologne Cathedral in ‘98 and was recorded in Tallinn/Estonia in Niguliste Church by the outstanding Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. It took Pärt two years to write this very long piece that has tremendous meaning to him.

When the human voice transcends something higher, transforms into a pure instrument and the frequencies, the movement and synergy of the voices in a minimalist cacophony create an emotional state which spoke to something so deep within me, something no thoughts can reach. It was like an auditory epiphany. The music conveyed to me a point of connection between earth and heaven, between reality and spirituality, between dark and light and it touched me in a profound and unforgettable way.

Quite often I would listen to it, wallowing in the immense beauty and the feeling of it, but I never tried to analyze it. I had given the CDs to a friend who was interested and she returned them to me and since they were in the car, I started listening again and a lot (driving hours every day). It was as if the music allowed me to be inside it and at the same time was inside me, speaking from the composer’s to my innermost being and I recognized that this music symbolizes and expresses my feelings of repentance and lent. I decided to write about Kanon Pokajanen and started with reading the CD’s booklet, just to find out that the music had told me all along.

The text is based on the canon of repentance of the Russian Orthodox Church and is sung in the old Slavic language. The text was very important to Arvo Pärt, he said: “In this composition, as in many of my vocal works, I tried to use language as a point of departure. I wanted the word to be able to find its own sound, to draw its own melodic line. Somewhat to my surprise, the resulting music is entirely immersed in the particular character of Church Slavonic, a language used exclusively in ecclesiastical texts." What I consider amazing is the because the text is phonetically so foreign to me that I do not hear recognizable words which allows me to forgo my rationale and reach a spiritual depth that allows me to feel and understand the meaning without even attempting to make a connection to the text. When music can speak that universally, it is genial.

From the booklet notes by Marina Bobrik-Fromke: "It is a song of change and transformation. In the symbolism of the church, it invokes the border between day and night, Old and New Testament, old Adam and new Adam (Christ), prophecy and fulfillment, the here and the hereafter. Applied to a person, it recalls the border between human and divine, weakness and strength, suffering and salvation. In the canon of repentance, the text is devoted to the theme of personal transformation. Repentance appears as a necessary threshold, as a kind of purification on the way to salvation in paradise. The difficulty of following the way is shown by the inner tension between the respective eirmos and the following stanzas, that is, between the praise of the Lord and the lamentation of one's own weakness."

There is a very good editorial review by Evan Cater here.

Next: Why is lent so important for an agnostic like me?

Music and Lent part I: Music is my religion

A few posts back I mentioned the brush fire of thoughts regarding lent and music and so here we go with my little series. It became pretty clear to me that music - the highest achievement of humanity in my view - is my religion, since it is close to the only thing that reaches that very deep spiritual spot inside me. I am not sure how to describe this internal place. It is a place of complete harmony, where everything is connected and energy flows, where the physical world stops to exist and gives room to something much bigger. I had a few key experiences when music brought me to this spiritual place, in a way a feeling of total bliss and etheral existance in that moment alone, where everything else falls away.

If somebody would talk about my early childhood, they would probably mention that I seemed to sing and dance through every moment of the day, music was with me at all times. The first time I was deeply touched by a specific piece of music was as a six year old listening to Schubert’s 8th (the unfinished one). Actually my mother had this compilation record that she was playing over and over and introduced me to some fantastic music. It is absolutely ingrained in my brain. One or two years later we went to a concert in our church St. Johannis on Maundy Thursday where Claus Bantzer was playing the organ and I deeply felt the passion of Jesus, it was like a revelation to have experienced such a profound expression in the music and scary as well, because of the depth of the emotion that I had not felt that way before. I kind of grew up in that church, since we lived in the parish house and therefore had the luck that he played at our wedding in that church.

Another musical moment of perfection happened to me on a month long bike trip through Sweden with our youth group. We camped in the yards of the parish houses. In the church building in Sätila at the end of the Lyngern Fjord (the photo is from the Sätila kyrka website) south of Gothenburg stood this brand new wonderful Steinway grand that had been tuned to absolute perfection. I sat there forever and just played a note at a time, listening to it resound and fade and it’s reverberations. The sound was beyond striking the strings with a felted hammer, it was incredible and unforgettable. Later a member of our group - who was a brilliant player and an arrogant prick - could with his harmonies not get the same reaction as just one note had did for me. I am convinced that in order to experience these moments, we need to open our soul all the way to let this indescribable synergy of music in and touch us.

Many years later I threw myself into the youth ministry at one of our churches in the hope to somehow find some kind of faith. Some of my friends and I used to attend Taize* evenings and so I found myself one evening sitting in a circle and the burning light of the setting sun threw itself threw one of the stain glass windows into my face while I was chanting and I had this sudden epiphany, this certain feeling of the existence of something higher and bigger and something that just cannot be put into words, I would not define it as define per se though. I had just lost my god father and uncle and maybe I was just seeking solace, it is hard to say.

I once was on the road to pick up my husband (then boyfriend) and the radio was playing Antonin Dvorak’s 9th (New World) Symphony. I had listened to it many times, but at that moment, it reached much deeper. I had to pull over and stop the car. I sat there in our little red Peugeot in a complete trance and did not even have any thoughts, it was like a meditation, but at the end I was crying and could not stop. It was truely amazing. Isn’t it incredible how art can touch us in these ways?

One of the most influential musicians in my life has been Paul Winter and the first time I attended the solstice concert with the Paul Winter consort in the cathedral St. John the Devine in New York, it was to me like a religious experience. When he came out on the stage and started playing his soprano sax, it hit me. I sat right in front of the stage. What an amazing feeling, I am unbelievably grateful for that. Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen touched me in such a profound way, that I will give it a whole post by itself. And anyway, this post is already a bit too long for a blog entry.

* The Taizé Community is an ecumenical christian monastic order in Taizé in Burgundy/France. The music is chant like with repetitive and beautiful lines (often from psalms), sometimes sung in canon and bringing the singers to a different meditative state.

Second hand children's clothing is illegal

This morning I had the bright idea to stop at a thrift store and look for some high end used kid's clothing, since my muffins are growing so fast. Anybody who knows my children also knows that they always wear cool and funky clothing. I am a very thrifty shopper and can find good deals, but I also rely on second hand clothing through church sales, ebay, garage sales - you name it. This way you can get the best, already broken in and comfy, for a fraction. I am very persnickety about what my kids wear and it is so awesome to find a Ralph Lauren dress for $4, a Hanna Andersson outfit for $5 or a Patagonia jacket for $3.50 (the kids had that for 4 years!)

To my surprise, there was no clothing for children anywhere in the store and upon my asking why, I was told that there are no more thrift stores with children's clothing, because a new law is in effect. I was standing there completely dumbfounded. Not for a second did I question even that there is a law, after all, we need a law for everything, since we all are incapable of thinking for ourselves. For example pyjamas, because there is law that they need to be fire retardent, most sleepwear is made from artificial fiber and just for the fun of it, doused in flame retardent chemicals - I am sure that is great. When made out of cotton, they are made so snug fitting, that only children that are extremely skinny can actually fit in them. My children only sleep in organic cotton pj's that fit them just right and I have to spend a fortune on them. Most children though sleep in big, loose t-shirts anyway and they are all doomed to burn - even though more children die of carbon monoxide poisoning before the flames reach them anyway.

So now I cannot buy cool, used kid's clothing anymore and I also cannot sell huge pile waiting downstairs to be sold... I can also not donate it anymore - all children's clothing will end up in landfills, what a complete waste. This article in the L.A.Times explains it all. And here is a petition to revise or change the law. This law was put in effect because of lead in clothing, which now can only be sold if tested. This also effects small companies making clothing for kids that cannot afford the testing, or people who handcraft anything for children and sell it on etsy, at craft shows or the likes. I am all for removing toxins out of children's clothing, but this law seems to go about it the wrong way.

We live in tough economic times and it does not look very promising for the near future. A lot of families rely on thrift stores, I guess second hand Ralph Lauren pure cotton just won't be available anymore and has to be exchanged for low quality Walmart clothing, fresh from China and still outgasing... this is completely insane and I am really mad! I already wrote an email to Kerry, Kennedy and McGovern and also a real letter and in the meantime I will just buy from ebay in England and Germany then. I just hope that our episcopalian church has not found out about this and I can find plenty of clothing there at their annual sale, because they have this family with children that are just a bit older than mine and we buy all their donated Gap and L.L.Bean seonds.

Palm Sunday, Bach, Venice and Fish Poisoning...

This morning, as any other morning, my alarm clock dutifully woke me up. In contrast to other days though, Sundays are so much nicer, bad news are replaced by lovely music. And oh lovely it was today. Usually I just snooze a few times, but the beautiful music this morning, made me head straight for the computer to find out exactly which Bach piece (that was obvious) I was listening too.

It was the Bach Cantata BWV 182 "Himmelskönig, sei willkommen", which Bach wrote in 1714 for Palm Sunday. It was performed by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under direction of John Eliot Gardiner. The recording is magnificent and bright, just brilliant, unfortunately rather expensive though. I am contemplating if I should make my own Bach cantata of the month club and study a different one every month. I have always wanted to dive into the works of Bach for a deeper understanding and broader knowledge.


And of course, today was Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, which commemorates the triumphant return of Jesus to Jerusalem before his Passion. Last year on this day, I was in Venice with my mother. We had a little apartment around the corner from the church of Santa Maria Formosa and when we turned onto the church's square, we noticed everybody was preparing for the Palm Sunday Procession with music to the St. Mark's Basilica. Many young men were playing guitars and everybody was holding up palm tree branches and it all felt festive, jubilant, sacred and ritualistic at once. I wanted to watch the procession, rather than participate, so we kept taking parallel paths, which is actually not that easy in Venice and all of a sudden we lost them. But the moment we reached St. Mark's square, they arrived at a different corner and we got to see them all pass by again and make a big detour around the square to march directly into the beautiful Basilica. In a very strange way it felt special to us, because of all the churches in Venice, it was "our" church after all.

We spent some time at the Museum Correr in the Napoleonic Wing until our feet gave out and we proceeded to our highly anticipated visit of Cafe Florian, one of the oldest and probably most expensive cafes of the world and absolutely worth a visit. My tea sandwiches had caviar on them, which I do not care for, but ate anyway. This was rather unfortunate, since it gave me fish poisoning and a gut wrenching night, not quite as triumphant as the procession, just a good story to tell. (Hey, I went to the worlds most exquisite cafe and got poisoned - what are the odds?)

But back to the Bach cantata 182, listen to part V, the alto solo "Leget Euch dem Heiland unter", isn't it very interesting?