[Above photo: A mallard couple in Blue Hill Bay at low tide.]
11 December 2022
A friend and I heard Janice Carissa give a recital yesterday at Hannaford Hall. The artistic director of the concert series announced that Janice had just been picked up by the best possible international booking agency. She played the same program 4 days ago at Carnegie Hall.
Janice is in her early 20’s. She grew up in Surabaya, Indonesia and began to learn piano from her mother, who was self-taught. She is in her last year at Julliard but has been on the performance circuit since 15yo when she debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She is a brilliant, powerful, and imaginative pianist. She’s been studying with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute since she was 15.
Her recital was one of those staggering performances that cause you to think differently about the world. For me, I’ve thought recently how much better for the Earth and its plants and animals if humans had never existed. After hearing, and seeing, her amazing performance, I take it back. Witnessing her display her gifts just adds another significant level of complexity to my assessment of our existential value.
I’m not quite sure why I was so awestruck. I’ve heard and seen many famous, remarkable, and gifted musicians, as well as others who have accomplished so much in other fields. I suppose to experience such a display from one at such a young age took my breath away. Oh, did I mention that she is beautiful, as well, and spoke warmly with members of the audience after the recital. Keep your eyes open for when she comes to town—a not-to-be-missed.
What evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows. [I realize this dates me to the golden era of radio drama. “Am I off? Am I off? That ought to hold the little bastards for awhile.”] In truth, we may all now have a pretty good idea of the evil, both home-grown and abroad. The sickening violence and corruption in ___________ is equaled only by the sickening violence and corruption in _________. I’m thinking of the Ukrainians freezing, the Somalis starving, and the Burmese being shot, bombed, and beheaded. Not to mention the Kurds, Ethiopians, Uighurs, Haitians, Nigerians, North Koreans, and _____________. As ineffectual as the United Nations is at peace-keeping, there is so much else that it does and needs to do. Research, health care, agronomy, family planning, economic development, governance, attempts to prosecute war criminals, mediation, feeding the starving, and on and on. Enough.
I stumbled across an article in the NY Times today on traditional Japanese cutting of fruits and vegetables. There are many styles of slicing, dicing, and chopping, all with specific names, which enhance the flavor of food, as well as its presentation. I didn’t realize when my former wife would correct my slicing and dicing that she was speaking from a position of authority backed by a long tradition. She was/is a superior cook, so I thought she was just being bossy. It turns out that, like so much of Japanese culture, there are right and wrong ways to cut vegetables. And pretty good reasons for their practice, as well.
I’m going to make kare (curry) rice. It apparently came from India with the British around the end of the 19th century. I used to order it at Norikonoko, a cute and wonderful restaurant in Berkeley where I’d lunch regularly. Noriko and her husband ran it. She was sweet and friendly. He was more reserved but still welcoming. They had a fire in the restaurant and just didn’t have the oomph to rebuild and start over, which I understand. But I do miss her smile and side dishes and his stoic good looks and kare rice and salmon or saba shioyaki.
I am devouring Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus which I find intimidatingly fine. Such control of the language. She assumes a lot of the reader, which increases the tension. I’m simultaneously reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s collection, Rogues. It is a compilation of investigative articles he has published, many (if not all) in the New Yorker. I just finished a thrilling one about the Libyan bombing of the Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 12, 1988. A brother of one of the victims, for everyone died, has spent the last 34 years travelling and sleuthing, trying to identify those behind it. The story concludes persuasively with the name of the bombmaker, whose whereabouts were unknown for many years. However, the latter has just been arrested and is being tried in the US; it is unclear if he was snatched out of Libya. Keefe’s tales don’t have the multilayered pull for me of good short stories but are wonderfully written and certainly gripping.
It is now cold, although lacking snow. 16F last night, 29F was the high today. Brisk walking is in order; I’ll start to wear the balaclava I bought at the end of last year, as my nose freezes. And you never know when you might want to rob a bank. I walked to the Eastern Prom today at dusk and then dropped down to the bike path along Casco Bay. The narrow gauge railroad train, pushed by a very cute little steam engine—think, The Little Engine That Could, another great read—passed me, heading in the opposite direction. The 5 cars were filled with parents and young children, noses pressed to the glass. It’s a lovely Christmas tradition and recalled The Polar Express.
Christmas in Yangon or Blantyre felt strange. Hot, out of whack. The hotel staff at the Taw Win Gardens where I stayed when I first alighted in Myanmar all had to wear—maybe they loved to, I don’t know—red Santa hats with white pompoms. Being mostly young, they looked cute but silly. It won’t be very merry in Myanmar this year, again.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 