Slava and Me, Part I

The first time I met Mstislav Rostropovich, the great cellist and conductor who died last week, was in March or April of 1985. Studying at SUNY Stony Brook, I had traveled down to Washington, D.C., to audition for the National Symphony; Rostropovich was its music director.

I had taken a number of auditions before, and was getting used to both the cattle-call and lottery aspects of them. There’s nothing quite as unnatural as an orchestra audition. You go out and play snippets of music behind a screen, occasionally hearing an instruction or request from a disembodied voice somewhere out in the auditorium.

The backstage culture every orchestra for which I auditioned to that point had seemed less than happy. Polite, perhaps, but not particularly pleasant, and the way that the low-level members of each orchestra’s personnel staff dealt with those auditioning was impersonal.

At the NSO, it was different. The personnel manager and all the staff seemed, well, friendly. Even with all the nervous cellists around, it struck me as a pleasant atmosphere. I didn’t have a sense that I’d played particularly better in the first round than I had at any other audition, so I was relieved when I was informed that I had been passed on. To my delighted surprise, I was told that I’d received a high enough score that should there be a semi-final round, I was exempt, and would go straight to the finals.

The day of the finals came. I don’t remember how many of us there were—a very small handful, certainly, perhaps just two. There was an excellent pianist to play with, and ample time to rehearse. I was playing the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations for my concerto; the pianist explained that Rostropovich would listen to the theme and first two variations, then have me skip to the last two. (I was quite relieved that I had practiced the whole thing!)

And sure enough, that is what happened. After the second variation I heard that unique voice call out, “thank you . . . variations 7 and 8, please.” They went well, and then I played the various excerpts,. My audition was over. The pianist told me, and the assistant conductor, Andrew Litton, with whom I’d known when we were both students at Juilliard, concurred (either sincerely or politely, I’m not sure) that I had played the “best final variation” of anyone who had ever auditioned for the NSO with the Tchaikovsky.

After the deliberations came the news, delivered gently and kindly: I didn’t get the job. David Hardy, my former Peabody classmate and then the orchestra’s associate principal cellist, came out and shook my hand, and told me it had been a very difficult decision.

I took my cello down to the Kennedy Center parking lot and was getting ready to leave when the thought occurred to me that I had never met Rostropovich, long a hero, and that perhaps this could be my chance. The general vibe had been very nice, and Slava was well known for being a warm fellow. Maybe he’d be willing to at least shake my hand. So I went back up, and told one of the staff that Mr. Rostropovich had long been my hero, and I’d very much appreciate it if I could have the opportunity to meet him, just for a moment. A call was made, and within minutes I was sent to his office.

He came out and gave me a hug. “I congratulate you on being great cellist!” he exclaimed. (No one, except my mother, had ever said anything that unreservedly complimentary about my playing.) “Unfortunately for you, other guy was greater today!” (What a brilliant way to handle the situation, I now realize: he was boosting me up even as he let me know there would be no arguing the result.)

I laughed, and he asked me with whom I studied. I told him Bernard Greenhouse. “Oh, Bernie is wonderful, wonderful! His trio just make great success in Europe. Now, Eric, what piece you play in finals?” I told him the Tchaikovsky. And then he launched in to about a 10-minute, detail discussion of virtually every passage I had played. I kick myself now that I didn’t write it all down. What I remember clearly, though, is about the seventh variation. “Must have more imagination!” was the theme of his remarks.

“More imagination.” That was one of the keys of Rostropovich’s success as a teacher and, I’m sure, colleague and mentor. He didn’t tell me how to play. He didn’t tell me that this particular variation, of a piece he virtually owned in the collective minds of cellists everywhere, should go faster or slower or louder or softer or be more on the a string or on the d string or that I should sink in more with the bow or have a wider or narrower vibrato. No, the greatest-cellist-in-the-world gave me a hug, told me I was great, and exhorted me to make greater use of my imagination. In a sense, he was telling me to more fully be me.

And then he gave me another hug, some kisses, and sent me on my way.

It was more than a nice brush-off; I felt acknowledged, empowered, and inspired. It’s the only time I ever lost a competition or audition and left feeling I’d won.

Driving back, it seemed obvious to me then that it was Rostropovich’s warmth and friendliness that made the his staff so much warmer are positive than that of other orchestras I’d visited. How could one have him for a boss and not end up nicer as a result?

Winner of the best cello case website ever award

goes to www.kapsch.cc.

Johnny and Me

Well, I'm having a musical fling with (to my surprise) Johnny Cash. The other afternoon I was relaxing before a concert and HBO or Showtime had the biopic Walk the Line on. I've always found the occasional bits of Cash songs I've heard on the radio to be powerfully eloquent. But the classical-snob in me still had a grip on what allowed myself to listen to.

Steve Jobs and everyone else who designed Itunes really knew what they are doing. DePauw recently gave me a new Mac Powerbook to use for the next four years or so (one of the great things about working for a university with a $500+ million endowment is preks like that). So here I sit, checking my email, and Johnny Cash pops into my head. There's the little Itunes icon at the bottom of the screen--click on it, search for Johnny Cash, and before I know it I've downloaded two albums. I'm listening to Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. What amazing connection with an audience. Incredible.

Virginia Tech

The Virgina Tech shooting incident is horrifying. But I find myself strangely numb to it. Images of the thousands of American kids of the same age who've been killed in Iraq float to mind, and how few of us have a similar sense of tragedy about them. And then there are all the Iraqi civilians, including children, who have died in this horrible and horrifying war. The torture our own government has been allowing and encouraging and endorsing is sickening as well.

I do not mean to diminish the Virigina tragedy. The families of those who were killed will never get over the loss. But the fact that there is more outrage over this than thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths in Iraq, and the way in which the evil has gained a foothold as the United States has abandoned long-held principles as it has adopted a "the end justifies the means" approach leaves me puzzled and saddened.

Cleveland Orchestra

I'm taking my son and our Hong Kong exchange student to New York for some spiring break fun. We've stopped for a couple of nights in Cleveland, where one of the guys spent most of the day at a stamp show. Tonight the three of us went to hear the Cleveland Orchestra. The CO allows full-time students to buy two student-priced tickets for each student ID. So we were able to get three main-floor floor tickets for $45 (somewhat less than a rather expansive dinner for three at the Falafel House down the street).

Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements, which I'd never heard; the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, with the orchestra's principal clarinetist, Franklin Cohen (masterful); and the Dvorak Sixth Symphony, all conducted by the rising young American conductor Alan Gilbert. Both the Mozart and Dvorak received enthusiastic and deserved standing ovations. The Stravinsky was warmly applauded, and for me was the main event of the evening. What a fabulous piece!

I'd never before experienced the art-deco splendor of Severance Hall. Wow. There's a lot to be said for temples of music.

Delta Zeta, continued

We discussed the Delta Zeta incident a bit today in two of my classes (the Times article and growing publicity was on everyone's mind, except for one freshmen who had somehow remained oblivious to the entire incident) , somewhat more extensively in one than another. In one, we talked about families of choice, including those created at college. One student pointed out that the women who left Delta Zeta, while no longer living together, are closer than ever. The feeling of family, of pulling together, of mutual support, has been strengthened by adversity.

I'm very proud of the two excellently-written letters from DePauw students in today's Times; the other two, one from a parent, made important points as well.

CNN did a report on the situation (without acknowledging the Times piece, I believe) this evening on Paula Zahn's show. The piece itself was OK, especially the moving clips of some of the women discussing their situation. Paula Z was appropriately confrontational with Cindy Menges, the Delta Zeta national executive director, who continued the blame-the-victims spin approach Delta Zeta as taken. When Zahn asked if there are any minority students left at DePauw's Delta Zeta chapter, Menges absurdly claimed not to know (after all this barrage of publicity?).

Neither Zahn nor anyone on the panel (none of whom seemed to have thought through anything about the situation in advance) picked up on the assertion reported in the piece that the national office had encouraged the women in the chapter to do more drinking at fraternity parties, be more sexual in their interactions with fraternity men, and, by implication, sleep around more.

Menges kept claiming that the women ousted from the chapter had refused to agree to the "recruitment plan." Well, if the plan required dressing more suggestively, doing more drinking, and sleeping around more to "improve" the chapter's image, then no wonder these smart, academically-oriented women didn't buy in.

The reporter's piece was pretty good. Zahn and, especially, the panel (Dad called to tell me they all seemed like idiots) were poorly prepared, and no one showed any evidence of having carefully watched the piece or thought intelligently about it. It was a clear example of the low standards of much of the discussion on cable news channels.

The Bright Side of DePauw's Greek Life

The article on the Delta Zeta scandal here at DePauw (which I wrote about yesterday) is number one on the New York Times most-emailed list, as of 11:15 AM today. And, yes, it is a big topic of conversation on campus. DePauw's campus is overwhelmingly "Greek." About 70% or so of our students are members of a fraternity or sorority. (Only a small minority of music majors, though, are Greek; the vast majority are independent.)

The incident does not cast the Greek system, or its pervasiveness at DePauw (evidently the result of a time a hundred years or so ago when the university couldn't afford to build dorms and fraternities and sororities filled in the gap), in a positive light. It's the dark side of Greek life, but there is a very bright side as well.

I live next to a fraternity house. The guys there are among the nicest, smartest, and most responsible I have met at DePauw. They rarely have loud noisy parties, and if they are planning on one, they visit the neighbors and let them know, give us coupons for free pizza from the one really good pizza place in town, and then have a party that is usually rather anemic by fraternity-party standards, at least when it comes to noise. It's a bunch of nice, smart, nerdy (in a good sense) guys trying to misbehave but not having it in them to pull it off. A number of of the brothers have taken classes with me, and I know from them how much this home-away-from-home, and the mutual support means to them. And they readily accept out gay men.

Saturday night the Putnam County Museum had a fundraising roast/tribute for Dorothy Brown, a local resident who had an outstanding career as an educator: school teacher, principal, and education professor at DePauw. She was also the first African American teacher and principal in Greencastle, so her career is historically significant as well. And for since her retirement from DePauw 15 years ago, she's been the house mother for one of the fraternities on campus. At the roast, a number of current and former members of the fraternity spoke of her with great humor and love; they call her "Mom Brown," or just "Mom." Towards the end of the evening, about forty guys knelt around the platform and serenaded her with the same song they sing outside sororities during "flower ins" and similar events. It was a sweetly paradoxical moment; these very low, very masculine, gruff, and very out of tune voices singing with a tender love for someone who has made a great difference in their lives. The bonds of affection and the benefits of brotherhood were clearly evident.

It's rare to find a gay man my age who lived in a fraternity while in college. But many of us have had the experience of creating a second family, a family of choice, when we found ourselves not accepted by our families of origin. For a while after I got divorced I shared a house with three other gay men and the teenage daughter of one of them. It was wonderful in many ways. I used to call it my "gay fraternity." There was much mutual support; we felt like brothers. I came to feel more comfortable and open with them than I did with the men in the support group I was attending.

So I have some sort of sense, I think, of what a family of choice and a sense of brotherhood can mean to guys in a fraternity (and to sisters in a sorority). Unlike my experience, in which we were brought together by financial necessity, members of fraternities and sororities have chosen each other, and made explicit commitments to one another, commitments formalized by ritual and then solidified by the experience of living together and sharing each other's loves.

I was incredibly lonely and often isolated during my college years, and spent much of them living in an apartment. I often feel a pang of envy for the sense of belonging and acceptance that so many of my Greek students clearly experience. I know how much it can mean, I know how important and central those relationships can become on many levels, including the emotional and spiritual.

Reflecting on this makes me more appreciative for the good aspects of Greek life here at DePauw, and of the extraordinary hurt and emotional trauma experienced by the women of Delta Zeta here at DePauw.

The Captain Renault Award for Feigned Shock and Outrage

. . . goes to the national officers of Delta Zeta sorority.

My father called at 8:38 AM today. It was an unusually early call for a Sunday morning; when I saw the caller ID, I immediately worried something was wrong.

Well, something is wrong, but it isn't in my family.

Mom and Dad live in Tampa. Today's New York Times includes a front-page article, reprinted in both the St. Petersburg and Tampa papers, which let the rest of the world, including my parents, know that national office of Delta Zeta sorority told 23 of the 35 members of the DePauw chapter, just before finals, that they were being placed on "alumna" status and would need to find somewhere else to live. It's a mere coincidence, the national office would have us believe, that those 23 included the minority students and everyone who was overweight.

Dad wanted to make sure I knew about the article. I told him I had read it last night on the Times website. He gave me a synopsis anyway, as is his custom, evidently to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Later in the day I played a concert in Lafayette, Indiana. "Well, that's some pretty bad publicity for DePauw," was how one of the other musicians greeted me. On first read, I didn't think the university community or administration came off badly. It was clear it was an action by the national office; six of the twelve women who were allowed to stay in the sorority quit in protest. DePauw's president, Bob Bottoms, made his displeasure clear in the interview he gave to the Times reporter, and it was clear that the faculty and students had rallied in support of the ejected women.

It doesn't speak all that well for the overall climate on campus, though, that Delta Zeta had developed an unflattering reputation among many fraternity men, as the article elaborates. There was a hell of an uproar over this, though, and I know plenty of guys in fraternities who are appalled.

But why has the chapter been allowed to remain open on campus at all in light of this? I've been asked that several times today, and the more I think about it, the less I have an answer. It seems self-evident that this incident includes both racism and what is often called body fascism. On its website, however, Delta Zeta says it finds such suggestions "offensive." Who could be a more deserving recipient of the Captain Renault Award for Feigned Shock and Outrage ("I'm shocked, simply shocked, to find there is gambling going on here!")? How could anyone see a sorority order all the minority sisters in a chapter to move out and conclude that race was a factor?

Well, maybe that's the answer. The Delta Zeta national office has adopted a blame-the-victim strategy so far. All these women (including the chapter president) who didn't fit the thin, good-looking white-girl stereotype and were kicked out, midyear? They weren't "committed" enough to remain. It's their fault.

No one in even a quasi-right mind would admit they were doing something like this based on weight or race. Untenured faculty members avoid alienating their colleagues who make tenure decisions, not because they think someone is going to say, "I don't like him, don't give him tenure," but because they know that someone who has it in for you will devote himself to finding faults on which to build a legitimate-sounding case against you.

So it's very difficult to prove racism, or any other bias, even when it seems self-evident. Perhaps the Delta Zeta nationals are only monumentally insensitive and so extraordinarily myopic that they couldn't foresee how their actions would be perceived. That's the most benign way I can interpret it.

President Bottoms's email account (as well as those of the Delta Zeta national officers) will surely be inundated tomorrow. DePauw's website acknowledges the Times article and presents the university's response in a favorable light, and includes this .pdf of a "letter of reprimand" sent by Dr. Bottoms to the Delta Zeta national president. The letter's complaints focus on timing and insensitivity regarding communication. It also "recognize[s] the right of a national Greek organization to restructure," which of course they have. But there's no mention of the truly offensive message the national office has sent through its actions much louder than any words could have. I have never known any group of people more dedicated to racial equality, or more obsessed with bringing diversity to a small historically white school such as ours than Dr. Bottoms and his administrative colleagues. So I just don't get it. I can only assume that he believed it would be counterproductive to articulate the perceptions on campus (and now around the world).

When my mother was a sophomore or junior at Wayne State University in Detroit, she was the president of the campus chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, a music sorority. They pledged an African-American student, and all hell broke loose. She received numerous calls, including one from the national president, to inform her in no uncertain terms that SAI did not pledge "black girls." My mother is nothing if not stubborn and she stuck to her guns. The young woman was a wonderful musician and excellent student; there was no legitimate reason to deny her membership and every reason to accept her. Call the Dean of Students, Mom said, if you don't want her. And he'll tell you Wayne has a strict policy of nondiscrimination and that the chapter will be decertified if we exclude her.

So SAI gained its first African-American student. And that was probably close to 30 years before the DePauw chapter of Delta Zeta did the same. When I searched "Delta Zeta DePauw" on the Times site, the only other story was about a 1982 incident in which the all-white chapter declined to offer a pledge bid to an African American student whom many of the sisters liked. Delta Zeta had become quite diverse here, until the national officers stepped in. And maybe it is a coincidence that the three non-caucasians were among the many asked to leave; perhaps they just weren't conventionally pretty enough.

After the cleansing (ethnic or otherwise), only six remained after some invited to stay quit. And only three first-year students have become active pledges, according to the Times article. Dr. Bottoms's letter notes that the national office is considering closing the DePauw chapter at least temporarily, and that the university does not promise that they'd be allowed to reopen in the future.

It's not kicking them off campus, but it is a start. I'm sad about the bad publicity for this great university and for all the pain so many have experienced over this. And I'd prouder than ever of my mother, for taking a firm stand over 50 years ago.

Website redesign: who am I?

Stage 1 of my website redesign was to get the original site cleaned up and functional again. That's done.

Stage 2 is to develop a sense of the tone, style, and energy. Good musician websites really convey the personality and strengths of the performer, in the basic design, in colors, fonts, photos, etc. So I just wrote a large sample of friends and colleagues who know me as a musician and asked for the three or four adjectives that spring to mind when they think of me. I want the image I promote of myself to really be me.

If you are a friend or colleague and I didn't email you, don't take it personally--I didn't want to mail everyone I know. And even if you don't know me personally but have gained a sense of me from the blogs and video clips, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Scrotumphobia

Pendulums swing back and forth. There's a new era of prudery; hopefully things have swung as far in the conservative direction now as they had in the opposite direction in the sexual-revolution days, and we'll find some sort of common-sense middle ground regarding sex. Everyone, especially in academia, is so afraid of it these days, it seems.

The New York Times today reports a growing controversy over the use of the word "scrotum" in a Newberry-award winning book intended for 9 to 12-year-olds.

Scrotum?

It reminds me of a story my father tells from when I was in kindergarten. Walking to school one day, some other kids were talking about "wee-wees" and "dickies" and I, already exhibiting both by teaching and know-it-all instincts, informed them that what they were talking about is actually called a "penis."

That evening, my father got a call from a father of one of the other kids, complaining that I had taught his son a dirty word. My father explained that this was, after all, the correct and neutral word, and noted that as a lawyer, were he in court, he would not be allowed to say, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client's 'dickie' was permanently injured in the accident and he deserves fair compensation." The judge would not just allow but expect him to use the word "penis." I don't know how well that conversation ended, but Dad had a good point.

It is clear that so many teachers are afraid to death of even naming body parts for fear of being accused of using sexually-provocative language, and so The High Power of Lucky is getting banned by elementary-school libraries for transgressing moral standards by including the word "scrotum." I did not appreciate the sexual overtures I received from some of my teachers in my later high-school and college years. There were some unhealthy aspects to the sexual revolution. But the new Puritanism isn't much better.

My website--fully functional again

Back in January or December, before I went on my internet detox program, I noticed that the amount of server space and bandwidth I was alloted by my web host, Ipower, was much smaller than they were offering new customers for the same amount I pay. So I sent them an email, and they said they'd be happy to up my quotas, but they would have to move my site to a different machine. I could backup and reinstall my files on the new server myself, or pay them $50 to do it for me.

It really seemed to me that they should do it for free, but it wasn't a battle I felt like fighting. So I decided to do it myself. Well, of all the times to be conservative with my money, this was one of the worst. I hadn't organized the photos and sound files and video files, etc., in an intelligent way on my own hard drive, so they were a pain in the rear end to find. And I had built the site on the server using Frontpage, but I couldn't use Frontpage extensions on the new server until it was up and running, and blah, blah, blah. So a lot of the links got screwed up and other things always seemed more pressing.

Hell froze over last night. It have, because for the first time since I joined the faculty in 1988, DePauw University cancelled all classes because of winter weather. So with a snow day on my hands, and not feeling like going sledding, I got the site sorted out again.

It's neater and more streamlined than the last incarnation. As I said in my last post, I need a bunch of good pictures. But at least it's possible to download the video and audio files again.

And I managed to practice in the midst of all this, too!

Cellist Websites

I'm in the process of redesigning my website, which has prompted me to start scouring the web for cellist websites to steal, oops, borrow ideas from. With help from my friends in the Internet Cello Society Cello Chat forum, I've put together the following list:

www.celloman.com/
www.daviddarling.com
www.zuillbailey.com/
www.erichoskarhuetter.com/
www.matthewbarley.com/
www.peterwispelwey.com/home.html
www.shaunarolston.com/
www.daniel-mueller-schott.com/
www.albangerhardt.com/
www.stevenisserlis.com/
www.lipkind.info
www.yo-yoma.com
www.marcyrosen.com
www.trioceresio.com
www.charlesbrooks.info

These are listed in arbitrary order. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and I'll write some comments about each. One thing that has become clear is that I need to get bunch of current photos taken for my site. Right now there are no photos, and all the ones I have show me with a beard, which I no longer have.

It's interesting to see that there are few if any photos on any of these sites in which the artist is wearing highly formal attire.

Internet Detox

I'm on vacation this week, visiting my sister's family in Arizona. I'm taking as much of a break from web surfing and blogging as possible--an Internet detox, if you will. No question--I'm experiencing withdrawl symtoms.

Scottsdale is extraordinarily beautiful today, by the way, and it is true gift to be visitng a house which as a woncerful desert/mountain view.

Refraining from complaining

A bit more on refraining from complaining.

People volunteering to assist at est events agreed, among other things, to complain only to someone who could do something about it. Unhappy with how someone is handling something? Speak directly to him or her. It's a great way to approach life.

The Christ Church Unity folks I wrote about in the previous post call their project "A Complaint Free World." They'll give you bracelets and bumper stickers for free if you fill out their online order form (they'll welcome any donation you care to send in return, but they don't require it). They also sell t-shirts with this lovely Maya Angelou quote:

If you don't like something,
Change it.

If you can't change it,
Change your attitude.

Don't complain.

21 days without complaining?

Many years ago, I was at some est (the personal-transformation program developed by Werner Erhard) event or other, or listened to a tape of Erhard, in which he pointed out that many relationships are based on an area of common complaint. He had a real point; many friendships have complaint and gossip about bosses, coworkers, rivals, spouses, lovers, children, parents, etc. at their core.

Sometimes we need to vent, it's true. But I think if most of us could keep track of how much of our time we spend complaining and gossiping, we'd be shocked.

The members of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City have a started a program to enable themselves to do just that, and it's catching on fast around the country. It's a kind of group game, in which the goal is to go 21 days without complaining or gossiping. Put on a purple wristband, and when you catch yourself uttering a complaint or sharing gossip, snap the band, move it to the other wrist, and you're back to day one. 16 folks at the church have made it the full 21 days so far, and evidently its had a big impact on their church culture.

Whether you try this yourself or not, it's useful to look at our relationships and see if they are based on a common complaint or a common interest. As Erhard pointed out to me 25 years ago, life's more fun when hanging out with people working together on something positive. The Unity folks in Kansas City have discovered that simple truth themselves, and are doing a fantastic job of transforming their church's culture.

(I heard about this from the "Daily Gratitude" email newsletter.)

Moving Out on Their Own

The New Year's Eve parties were great. A lovely way to end a great year.

And in the fresh-start department, I'm reorganizing my blogging life. This blog seems to have three focuses: music/cello, politics and LGBTQ issues, and observations/musings on personal/family life, etc. My instinct is to give each area its own space, so that's what I'm doing.

This blog will focus on music. I've started a new blog on politics and LGBTQ issues. There's a link to it in the "about me" section to the right, as well as a feed with the titles of the 5 most recent posts a bit further down.

I'll set up the more personal one soon--once I've come up with a creative name and URL.

And happy new year!

A Fond Farewell to 2006

A quick note before I go off to a couple of New Year's Eve parties.

We often use January 1 as a time to make "resolutions," which most of us tend not to keep very long. I have made one resolution--to switch to a (primarily) vegan diet. I'm overweight and a prime candidate for diabetes, given my large belly and family history.

A long-ago friend recently got in touch with me and in the catching-up phase of our email exchange said he's had a great life since we last saw each other 28 years ago. I loved that--a "great life"! So much of the time I am focused on what's wrong with my life. So inspired by my friend, I thought I'd use tonight and tomorrow to celebrate the year that past.

• My teenagers are in great health, have wonderful friends, are doing great in school, are wonderful musicans and actors, and one dances and the other swims. Neither drinks nor smokes nor seems to have any built-up resentments against their mother or I. How did that happen!
• My parents are in good health, and my mother is starting to enjoy her retirement.
  
• My brother-in-law had a horrible stroke that we thought would kill him or leave him severely mentally and physically disabled. In a near-miracle, he's walking and conversing intelligently and continuing to make great strides in his recovery.
• I've made many new friends through my improvisation work, organized a successful summer chamber music series, and had one of the best musical years ever.
• I love teaching more than ever, too.

Oh, I just realized I've blogged one of those Christmas letters.

Life is good. Celebrate the joys in your own life, and Happy New Year!

Might as well lie back and enjoy it

My paternal grandfather, a brilliant man and shrewd business executive, spent his last ten years or so, after my grandmother died, doing basically just four things: grocery shopping, cooking, watching television (lots of television) and a small amount of reading. My father, a brilliant retired lawyer, does pretty much the same, to the chronic frustration of my mother, and the occasional judgmental comments of his children. What a waste it sometimes seems.

Today, I slept in late and then spent most of the day in bed, doing what? Watching television. It was a Smallville marathon on one of the cable networks. I've never seen that much of the series, but as a boy I was enthralled with Superman and Superboy comics, and so Supermanish things have an attraction for me. I might never have gotten out of bed had it not been for a private student coming for a lesson at 5:00 PM.

In the midst of all this, I had another of those horrifying mid-life realization: I am not just "turning into" my father, I have already become my father.

I was feeling bad about this (not bad enough to turn off the TV, though), when it hit me: I was quite enjoying this slothful afternoon of rest, in all its delicious, lowbrow irresponsibility. And my father is not unhappy. On the contrary, he seems to quite enjoy the balance of his life now. There is no denying that he did much good for many people during his career, and that he was a good provider and is a faithful husband and loving father. If he likes watching Jeopardy and reruns of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and All in The Family and Gunsmoke, so what? And my grandfather--he, too, seemed quite content in his later years.

So I'm a little less worried about the fact that I may spend much of my later years watching television, cooking, eating, and driving my children to frustration. If that's my destiny, well, I might as well relax and enjoy it.

Say, where did I put that remote?

Gerald Ford, RIP

I was just 16 when Gerald Ford became president. I had mixed feelings, and some suspicions, when he pardoned Richard Nixon.

I have no memory of the remarkable event I just watched on C-Span: Ford's October 1974 self-initiated, voluntary appearance, under oath, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee to explain his reasons for granting the pardon and to answer questions.

What a truly remarkable event in the history of government of, by, and for the people.

In my final years of high school I gave little thought to politics, and never developed much of an opinion about Ford; the media caricatures of him as a stumbling, not-too-bright guy had some effect on me. What I just saw, a sitting president testifying (intelligently, articulately, and and with an authentic air of principle, patriotism, and passion) to a Congressional committee at his own request to explain and defend a highly controversial decision, has given me the highest respect for this man. And what a remarkable contrast with the slick evasiveness and public lies of President Clinton (whom I greatly admire in other ways) and what appears to be the tragic disconnect with reality of President Bush (whose good intentions have paved the road to the hell of our Iraq debacle).

Surely President Ford realized that the pardon might cost him election in 1976, yet he firmly believed it was the best thing for the country, and did it despite the potential political cost. He was an honest, decent man who acted as a statesman at a time when we so needed it.

Every once in a while something reminds me of the greatness of this country. Watching Ford's stunning testimony was one of those moments. Thanks, Mr. President, and rest in peace.

Acts of kindness

I'm visiting my parents in Tampa, and have two nice chain-reaction kindness stories to share.

On the flight down, a mom and three kids (10, 5, and 3) were among the last to board our sold-out Southwest open-seating flight. I had a nice window seat, because I wanted to nap. The middle seat was empty. Be nice, my better self told me, and so I smiled and offered to move to a middle seat a couple of rows back, which would make at least a pair of seats available. That started a short chain reaction. The lady sitting on the aisle in my original row was sitting across from her husband. The middle seat beside him was open, so she did her good deed and moved to it. Voila! All three kids could sit together. The man in the aisle seat directly behind the kids moved to the middle so the mom could have easy access to the kids. Then the guy in the aisle seat across the aisle offered to switch to that seat, and now the mom and kids could see each other.

It was such a lovely energy; actually heart-warming. And we were all repaid when the three children spontaneously began singing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with such innocent happiness that everyone smiled that special smile that only comes when adults are around happy children doing something delightful.

Then, as the engines revved up as we were about to take off, one of the kids started a countdown: "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . . . . . BLAST OFF!" And not quite two hours later, when they saw water beneath the plane, came the shouted announcement, "WE'RE IN FLORIDA! WE'RE IN FLORIDA!"

Best flight I've ever been on.

This afternoon, my mother and I went to Barnes and Noble to do a bit of browsing and and have some coffee. The wife of the retired-age couple ahead of me in the Starbuck's line was delightfully friendly and chatty with the, oh, what do they call them, the barrista. Then a few minutes later she invited a man by himself, who was looking for a table without late afternoon sun glaring on the table, to join them. He declined, but I was happy to see someone so open and friendly that I went to their table and invited them to help themselves to the half-priced box of mini biscotti I had purchased for Mom and I to have with our coffee.

The friendly couple invited us to join them. I accepted; my mother gave me a look tinged with suspicion and irritation, but came over. We ended up having a wonderful time. The husband is a retired history professor. My mother is a recently retired music professor, and so there we were, three professors and the really fun one, the professor's wife. We must have chatted for two hours. The friendly couple and my mother exchanged numbers, and a new friendship may be developing.

Last night, my parents and I watched The Bishop's Wife on TCM. Cary Grant plays a very handsome angel sent to help an Episcopal bishop (David Niven) deal with a spiritual crisis as well as some marital problems with his wife (Loretta Young). At one point, Grant's character says, "I just wish human beings would act more . . . like human beings."

It's nice to be part of it when we do.