Tradition

My clock radio is set to KJHK.  Since I have taught at KU, they have had the same program in the morning, "jazz in the morning," but now the DJs have been born approximately 23 years later than the first ones that I heard in 1996. This morning, I woke up and they were playing Herbie Hancock, then they had Nat King Cole, Count Basie, and Billie Holiday. Of course I recognized everything they played. What I like is the idea that nobody in the past five cohorts of student DJs or managers has successfully questioned the idea that jazz must be played in the morning. Every new person spinning records in the morning just steps into that format, taking it as a given.

The Death of Bloom

Bloom's death, coinciding with my own meditation practice, has freed me from my clinging to my dislike of certain irritating things about Bloom.  There are many. I could could list them too.

But this quote struck me because it was exactly the same for me:

 "Why is it you can have that extraordinary experience (preadolescent in my case, as in so many other cases) of falling violently in love with great poetry . . . where you are moved by its power before you comprehend it? "

More reactivity

Other things I could have reacted to yesterday...

There was a speaker, someone I had had a complicated relation to in the past. I could have been irritated by some of her talk, or else jealous of it, since it turned out to be a good one. I was also nervous about my personal relation to her. But as I monitored my own reactions I became aware of all of it as it came up.  I still felt these emotions, but they didn't have that kind of weight they might have had in the past for me.

My conversations with her afterwords were very normal, too. I asked a question that was not hostile or condescending, and we talked a bit.

Mindfulness doesn't kill the emotions, but just puts them in their proper place. Probably one of the most painful moments I had in the profession was when two of my colleagues decided to give an NEH seminar, in my own field, without including me. I just found out one day that it was happening and it felt like being punched in the gut. I still feel that this was not the best behavior on their part, and I still remember the emotion itself with a degree of vividness. The difference is that now I can also look at it with a degree of curiosity, examining my own reactions and learning something from them and not merely feeling the pain in all its rawness.

Reactive

Tonight we had a gala celebration of our department, "100 years of Hispanism." In meditation I am learning not to react as much to things. So tonight was a good test for me. I found myself irritated by one speaker who went on and on with no organization, and taking much more than the allotted time.  Another person made remarks that brought up painful memories. I had to wait a long time before my own intervention, a brief tribute to an emeritus colleague. In another case, someone I don't like very much gave a good talk, so I had to refrain myself from finding something wrong with it, when it was actually very fine. I was frustrated the the event lasted until after 10 p.m., when we had finished eating by 7:45.

It's not that I didn't have reactions, but I was able to become aware of them as they arose and greet them with more equanimity. Instead of it being a wholly unpleasant evening it became an occasion for curiosity about my own reactions. For example, impatience is a sign of not appreciating the present moment. Not wanting one's not favorite person to do well is an unnecessary thought that does one no good, in the end. Being frustrated at someone bad presentation is natural, but not really all that bad in the larger scheme. My own intervention was fine, and having to wait a bit more to give it was ok.  The painful memory is still painful, but not worth dwelling on now, etc...

Update

I took a trip to Lafayette LA to give a talk about Lorca at the University of Louisiana. It went well, though I wish I had been smoother in presenting the musical examples. I got interviewed on the radio by a very expert radio interviewer who made it easy for me to be (relatively) articulate. She was like a smarter version of Terri Gross. The talk itself was in a cool art museum space, and was attended by the dean and provost, who introduced me.

Presenting material to different audiences is always revealing. Each situation requires a different approach, a subtle (or sometimes not subtle) shift in rhetorical address. The radio interview actually taught me the most about how to frame things for a non-specialist audience.

***

I'm learning Beethoven's sonata 20 in G major. It has only two movements (unusually) and is relatively easy. I started with the minuet, memorized it, and now I am learning the first movement, an allegro ma non troppo.  I found a very good version of it by Alfred Brendel. The way he plays the minuet is exactly how I hear the piece in my mind, though I myself cannot execute what I hear.  I alternate between practicing this and improvising over "Bemsha Swing."

This particular Beethoven is in a very Mozartian style. The difficulty is its transparency: anything wrong or not tasteful stands out very starkly. Harmonically, most of it alternates between G and D major, with some incursions into other related keys. Most versions of the first movement I've heard are too fast. Brendel gets it right, unsurprisingly.

Impostor Syndrome

Impostor Syndrome

I buy drumsticks at the drum store

I don’t play drums though

I buy ink for a fountain pen

I will never use

I have a saddle but no horse

in fact I have no saddle either

I make reservations at a restaurant

but I have no digestive system 

I drive to the gas station to get gas 

but I have no car and have no place to go

Two Dreams

In one dream someone had given us the unwelcome gift of a pet rodent of some type. The same person had put the cage on the ground, moving it from a counter, and the rodent had been released. I called out to the giver of the gift to remedy the situation: "Hey, Scott...."  but he didn't return to the room. (I assume this was my cousin Scott, who I haven't seen in decades.) At one point the animal looked like a kitten rather than a hamster, or whatever it was supposed to be. I picked the animal up and tried to put it back in, but the cage was now a plastic bag barely bigger than the animal itself. I remember thinking to myself that I didn't like rodents. I awoke and was relieved that I didn't have to complete this task.

***

I was some kind of bartender at an outdoor event, but sitting down. My last drink I had to sell was a small, airplane size shot of tequila.  I gave it away since it did not seem to be filled to the top. Then I had to take down all my equipment, of various types, like small tables and umbrellas. I was unsure of what belonged to me and what I could just leave there. A Brazilian band was playing a Jobim number elsewhere on the grass, and I wanted to go listen to it, but I was also a bit disappointed that it was a kind of cliché song like "Girl from Ipanema." Once again, I was relieved of my task of cleaning up by waking up out of the dream. The problem had disappeared.