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Moments Musicals (Musicaux?)

01/24/2010

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Last week was a musical week. On Saturday (17th) I participated in a Renaissance Masque. I play the recorder. A group of recorder-players joined viols, singers, dancers and a Loud Band--Cornets and Crumhorns--for an afternoon rehearsing, followed by a potluck supper and a very amateur performance for a small paying audience. Had to be a small audience as we just about filled up the space. Here's a pic of the same event last year.
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Note yours truly at extreme left
On Thursday I went to the Eugene Symphony concert, one I'd been looking forward to for ages. This season they're doing all the Beethoven piano concertos, under our new music director, Danail Rachev. They played the third this time, with Mihaela Ursulaesa as soloist. She was wonderful, especially in the slow movement, which I don't think I've ever heard better played. As if that wasn't attraction enough, they added Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, a marvellous supersensitive performance that brought out every nuance of emotion. If it weren't that I didn't want to snuffle, I would have been weeping. The more I hear of Rachev, the better I like his conducting.

Then on Saturday (23rd), when I should have been writing, was the regular monthly meeting of EARS (fortuitous and fortunate acronym for the Eugene American Recorder Society chapter. 8 or 9 of us turned up this month--it varies. Most of what we played was by everyone's favourite composer, Anon. The periods ranged from 15th to 20th century (the latter not Anon but I can't recall his name). It's always both exhausting and uplifting. Just wish I had more time and energy for practising.

Yours musically, tra-la,
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(Dis)Organization (Wo)Man

01/19/2010

 
Are you organised?  Are all your pre-digital photos neatly arranged in albums and labelled? Does every piece of paper that enters your house get read, dealt with, filed or recycled immediately? Or is your kitchen table, like mine, piled with newspaper supplements you really want to read--some day--and grocery store ads that should have been tossed days ago when the new one came out?

The last question doesn't apply if you have kids at home. Even I clear off the table before the grandkids arrive for a visit. That's why I have several cardboard boxes around the house full of cut-out articles and URLs of intriguing websites, and--well, to tell the truth, I never get around to sorting through them when the kids leave, so I'm not sure what's in there. Which is why I have several cardboard boxes...

If only my desk weren't in the same condition. The top layer is notes, maps, reference books, etc. for the book I'm working on, Anthem for Doomed Youth. The second layer is notes for the last book, A Colourful Death (coming out in June), though I did put the books and maps away. The third layer is notes for Sheer Folly. The fourth layer, I think, must be notes for Black Ship. Somewhere at that level is the plan I drew of Constable Circle, the street in Hampstead to which Daisy and Alec moved in that book. I needed it a couple of hours ago but--already 4 days overdue with the present book--I don't have time to hunt thoroughly.

If only I'd filed it! Since I started the second (Cornish mystery) series, I've been too rushed even to create a file folder for each book, as I did for the first 50. It's no good telling me it saves time in the end. I know that.

You'll doubtless be glad to hear I do pay bills and taxes and balance bank statements on time. I also have at least some of my old photos organised, though most of them are in a drawer in their original envelopes. Here's one from the distant past, and I even know who all the people in it are:
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My grandmother, my great-grandfather, Great-Uncle-Ernest-who-went-to-Australia, my great-grandmother, and Great-Aunt Eve.
 

Book covers

01/12/2010

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See my new blog post on book covers at http://theladykillers.typepad.com/the_lady_killers/2010/01/book-covers.html
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