Category: Books

Here’s a clue from the Saturday USA Today crossword puzzle for you to noodle on: “Beethoven’s homage to Napoleon”.  I’ll give you a few minutes to ponder this one and then we’ll come back to it.

Some good news on the Nils Lofgren front.  I wrote last week that his guitars had been stolen prior to the show that we saw at the Kessler.  Fortunately Dallas Police were able to make an arrest and return the 4 stolen guitars to Nils:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/police-recover-nils-lofgrens-stolen-guitars-worth-over-2410k/ar-AAvnZrM

Tuesday took me back to cold, windy and rainy New York.  The main reason for the trip was a visit to the Microsoft office at Times Square and so I stayed in the Sanctuary hotel on 47th street that I enjoyed on my last visit to the area.  For Tuesday dinner I tried a small Belgian restaurant that my boss had recommended – BXL just off Times Square on 43rd street.  They specialize in moules frites with 12 different sauces.  I stuck with the classic mariniere sauce and could only finish about half of the 2lb serving.

After dinner I went for a walk down 6th Avenue to 34th street.  Misty rain was falling which provided me this eerie looking view of the Empire State building just visible above Bryant Park and another clearer view from just across the street.

On the walk back to the hotel I saw some potential piano upgrades (kidding – that would be a huge waste of money) and a store that made me chuckle.  One of the great features of New York is how easy it is to walk around and find interesting sights.

After work at the Microsoft office, I walked up to 62nd street to Lincoln Center to see the New York Philharmonic performing at David Geffen Hall.  The ballet, opera, and orchestra all have their own custom buildings on 3 sides of the plaza at Lincoln Center.

I had dinner in the “Kitchen” at Geffen Hall – a delicious scallop dish with roasted cauliflower, raisins, and nuts and then took my seat for the performance.

The first piece on the program was a world premiere of “Metacosmos” by Anna Thorvaldsdottir from Iceland.  The conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, did a brief interview with Anna about the commissioned piece which she described as “finding the beauty in chaos”.  In the 12 minutes I heard about 11 minutes of chaos and 1 minute of beauty.

Next was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 performed by the 25 year old English pianist Benjamin Grosvenor who first performed in a fish and chip shop by the seaside and won the BBC Young Musician competition at age 11.  I loved the precision of the string section in this piece – absolute unison from lead violin through double bass in the very quiet pizzicato sections.  Grosvenor shone brightest in the cadenza at the end of the first movement which I found very creative.  Here’s Glen Gould performing the same piece:

The final piece of the evening was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3.  Back to that crossword clue – did you figure it out?  The answer is “Eroica”, the name Beethoven ultimately gave to the symphony.  I take umbrage with the clue as the Playbill for the concert says that Beethoven says of Napoleon after he declared himself Emperor, “Is even he nothing but an ordinary man!  Now he will also trample upon human rights and become a slave to his own ambition; now he will set himself above all other men and become a tyrant”.  He went to the table, grabbed the top of the title page of the score and tore it in half.  The first page was rewritten and the symphony was given the name Sinfonia eroica.  The symphony was very familiar to me as I heard my Mum play it in our home many times growing up.

Thursday night was jazz night.  I took the subway down to the West Village and caught the early set at Small’s jazz club.  This is an aptly named tiny cellar club where the first few rows of seats are right on stage with the band.  The first show was a sextet with tenor and alto saxes, piano, guitar, drums and bass and fully occupied the small stage.  I appreciated the mirrors angled above the piano and drums that let you see exactly what the musicians were up to.

The menu at Bobo restaurant next to Small’s looked good and so I stopped in for dinner.  The food more than lived up to the promise of the menu and I enjoyed an absolutely delicious steak tartare with shoestring fries and a mushroom tart that was perfectly executed.

The admission ticket to Small’s also provides entry to the Mezzrow cellar jazz club across the street and so I decided to stop in for a short visit after dinner.  Monte Croft was performing on the vibraphone and is a real master.  The sound in Mezzrow is really great from such a small venue.  Here’s a short video of the vibraphone mastery:

 

Friday was another cold, windy and rainy day as I made my way to the airport to travel home.  The 80 degree temperature on arrival at DFW was a pleasant change.  Diana and I went to Keeper seafood restaurant for an early dinner as storms were forecast later in the evening and enjoyed their excellent calamari and lobster mac ‘n cheese.  We thought we left time to get home before the storm but were mistaken.  I navigated Penelope south from McKinney to avoid the tornado sirens, thunderstorms and potential hail.  We stopped for coffee and thought it was safe to head home.  Wrong – we drove right into a hail storm and had to make a quick U-turn to make sure Penelope didn’t get dented up – she took cover under an awning in front of a building and made it home unscathed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our workout and crossword on Saturday, we stopped into Starbucks to visit Alicia.  It’s good to see how pleasant she is to everyone (even Mom) when working the register.

Dinner on Saturday night was at the Wahbas.  We got to meet Patty’s sister and her family, enjoy amazing Brent smoked meats, and enjoy a variety of live performances in Brent’s music room – so much talent in the house that night.

My main book this week was “The Names” by Don DeLillo.  This was recommended by Suzy Hansen in her book that I finished last week as a good tour of expat life in Greece.  I read DeLillo’s most famous novel,”White Noise”, a few years ago and was disappointed but decided to give him another try with “The Names”.  Portions of the book were compelling and enjoyable but the deep discussion on the origins of alphabets and language were too involved for my taste.

Here’s the Wikipedia summary: “The work, set mostly in Greece, is primarily a series of character studies, interwoven with a plot about a mysterious “language cult” that is behind a number of unexplained murders. Among the many themes explored throughout the work is the intersection of language and culture, the perception of American culture from both within and outside its borders, and the impact that narration has on the facts of a story.”

I picked up “Every Note Played” by Lisa Genova (a Harvard PhD neuroscientist) during my walk around New York on Tuesday night and it proved to have some unexpected links to my week.  Genova is best known for writing “Still Alice” that became the basis for a popular movie about a lady suffering with Alzheimer’s.  “Every Note Played” is about a concert pianist who is stricken with ALS and quickly loses control of his arms.  In one early section the pianist talks about how much he enjoys the cadenza in Beethoven’s third piano concerto (the one I heard on Wednesday night) and in another section his ex-wife talks about regretting having given up her career as a jazz pianist and particularly playing at Small’s (the club I visited on Thursday night).  Strange coincidences.

I heard a song by The Gaddabouts on Spotify Discover Weekly and enjoyed it very much.  Turns out the Gaddabouts is Edie Brickell (of the New Bohemians and seen at the Oak Cliff Music Festival), Steve Gadd (superstar session drummer seen with James Taylor recently), Pino Palladino (one of my favourite jazzy bass players), and Andy Fairweather Low (seen with Eric Clapton at New Orleans jazzfest and a relative of my Mum).  I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the album this week.

 

 

Travel to Pacifica, CA was the main activity this week.  Spring has sprung there already.

Diana flew out on Tuesday to help her Mum with cataract surgery on Wednesday.  All went well and recovery seems to be on track.  Although I was alone for Valentine’s day, I did get a nice sign and bowl of treats.  Clorinda had “Pacifica Penguin” waiting as my Saint Valentine gift.

I joined McD in Pacifica on Friday afternoon and we had a very enjoyable dinner with Clorinda’s new neighbours (Andy and Jude) on Friday evening.  They live about 50 yards up Gypsy Hill from D’s Mum and their house has been beautifully remodeled with huge windows and views of the ocean.  The sunsets are amazing.  Andy and Jude first moved to California from England in 1989 and opened a record store in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco.  They are a very interesting and kind couple and have been great neighbours for Clorinda in the short time they’ve been there.

 

 

We met Finn in Los Gatos for Saturday lunch at a relatively new restaurant called Bywater.  It’s owned by David Kinch who has the 3 Michelin star restaurant, Manresa, in downtown Los Gatos.   He loves New Orleans and wanted to open a small, casual restaurant serving the local food.  Bywater is a gentrifying but still pretty funky neighborhood of New Orleans that does have some great restaurants.  I caught up with Finn over a yummy brunch and D sat at the bar and caught up with her friend Aimee who also lives in Los Gatos.  It was nice to see Finn free of back pain and feeling positive.

The interesting painting on the Bywater wall, “Society of St Anne Meeting Spot”, refers to a New Orleans marching krewe that parades each Mardi Gras.  Known for the very elaborate costumes of its members, the group gathers in the Bywater each Mardi Gras morning, with the Storyville Stompers brass band providing the music.  As they pass through the Faubourg Marigny and French Quarter, additional costumed marchers join the parade at various coffee shops and bars along the route.  The marchers continue to Canal Street to watch the Rex Parade and then return into the French Quarter.  Of course it made us think of our own favourite Anne from New Orleans.

After lunch we played bocce ball at Campo di Bocce across the street (a very Italian spot).  This was a lot of fun.  McD and Finn weren’t much of a match for Aimee and me and of course we were very gracious in victory.

The eating continued with a three course dinner at Kris and Cat’s home.  As usual, Cat provided several very entertaining stories – one from his childhood with a flaming Christmas tree being thrown out into a busy street below and another involving driving his new race car to get smog tested.  Dessert was advertised as pear flambee but the rum refused to catch fire – even when subjected to a welding torch.  We always come away with some great memories from a visit to their home.

Will and Christine were our lunch companions on Sunday.  We let Will pick the spot and he came up with NOLA in Palo Alto – unknowingly keeping the New Orleans theme going.  Lunch was great and then we made a visit to see the new apartment fully decorated and looking very cozy.  It’s great to see them so happy with a very nice place to call home and a much shorter commute for Will.

 

Not too much progress on my Turkish book this week and I did start a new book for light relief between Turkish lessons – “Uncommon People, The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars” by David Hepworth.  Each chapter focuses on the rise or fall of a particular rock star in each year from 1955 to 1995.  I very much enjoy Hepworth’s writing style and interesting stories.  Here’s one about Ringo Starr joining the Beatles in 1962 – “The strongest influence on his upbringing was his grandmother, a woman of nineteenth-century superstitions.  One was the belief that any child unfortunate enough to be born left-handed must be trained out of the habit.  She set herself the job of making sure young Richard wrote right-handed.  He subsequently played a right-handed drum kit with the inclinations of a left-hander.  It’s Ringo’s grandmother we have to thank for the characteristic lacunae that made so many of the Beatles’ drum parts impossible for other drummers to play.”  Diana’s Dad was similarly forced to write right-handed but performed surgery left-handed.  David Hepworth was the host on the British music program “The Old Grey Whistle Test” which I enjoyed very much – check out some of the episodes on Youtube – some great performances.

Not too much time for new music discovery this week but I did hear this great song from my favourite Govt Mule album, Dose.

 

 

Back to New York again this week – maybe the last trip for a few weeks.

I flew up on Tuesday and met up with some old teammates for dinner and drinks – always fun to reminisce about what seemed to be funner times but I’m sure came with just as many challenges.

On Wednesday I made my first visit to Fraunces tavern in the Financial District.  This is a Colonial tavern which has been operating since 1762 with over 200 whiskies and 130 beers.  There is a museum attached with some fascinating stories.  One of my favourites is that after British troops evacuated New York, the tavern hosted an elaborate “turtle feast” dinner for George Washington in the “Long Room” where he bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army.  We didn’t get to see the “Long Room” but I did have some great late night scotch eggs in “Lafayette’s Hideaway” bar.

As has become somewhat traditional, Thursday night was music night.  This time jazz at Dizzy’s Club in the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex.  My boss and I enjoyed dinner at Landmark in the Time Warner center at Columbus Circle and then headed next door to the jazz club.  Dizzy’s is unique in that the musicians perform in front of large floor to ceiling windows that provide a view out onto Columbus Circle and Central Park.  The sound is also the most pristine one can hear in any music club.

The music was by the Christian Sands trio who did a tribute to the music of Errol Garner.  Sands is a 28 year old pianist who is viewed as one of the best of the younger generation.  His technique and dynamics were both amazing.  Garner is known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad “Misty”, has become a jazz standard and was featured in the Clint Eastwood movie, “Play Misty for Me”.  He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A young singer, Michael Mayo, joined the band on a few songs – most notably Misty.  I don’t typically enjoy jazz singers but Mayo’s voice was beautiful and his dynamic control excellent.  The concert almost (not much at all really) made up for missing the Anderson East concert that Diana and I had looked forward to attending on Thursday in Dallas at the tiny club Trees.

We enjoyed watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday and particularly the performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with two doves becoming one.  The drones on the mountain were pretty amazing as well.

Since McD and I were not going to be together on Saint Valentine’s day, we celebrated early with a movie and dinner on Saturday night.  The movie was “The Darkest Hour” about Churchill’s challenges in May 1940 during Dunkirk.  We both thoroughly enjoyed Gary Oldman’s Churchill and learned a lot about those few weeks in history.  Many of the classic Churchill quotes were in the movie, along with my favourite, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”.

Options were limited since I had left it so late to make a dinner reservation and everywhere was busy with the pre-Valentine rush.  I chose Perry’s Steakhouse and our first visit there was a big success.  Great music from a lady singing and playing piano, steak tartare and escargot appetizers, tasty steaks, good wine, and lots of leftovers for Sunday.  We look forward to returning to try the signature pork chop.

The Churchill movie brought to mind one of my favourite Supertramp songs about the Dunkirk evacuation, Fool’s Overture.  This comes from an album with excellent cover art – wouldn’t it be fun to dust off the snow and play the piano with that view?

Here’s a couple of melancholy songs that have been on heavy rotation this week.  “Summer’s End” – the first new song in many years from the outstanding song writer John Prine, and “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today” from Randy Newman’s first album many years ago with the lyric, “Human Kindness is Overflowing” and the immediately identifiable Newman orchestral arrangement.  Why haven’t I heard this before?

My book this week was “Notes on a Foreign Country (An American Abroad in a Post American World)” by Suzy Hansen.  This is by a New York Times journalist who moves to Istanbul and quickly comes to realize that her views and opinions on American policy are quite different when observed through the local Turkish lens.  I’m enjoying the book quite a bit but think it’ll take several weeks to finish with some lighter material for breaks.

Here’s one final piece of music that I’ve been listened to several times this week – “Trust” by Roy Hargrove.  I love the flugelhorn sound on this one.  Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas and attended the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas.  It’s there that he was discovered by Wynton Marsalis on a visit to the school.  One of his big influences was David “Fathead” Newman who was a core member  of Ray Charles’ Band.  Interestingly Newman was the second concert that I saw in the United States – at a small club called The Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth while I was working in the oil business.  What was the first show I hear you asking – Delbert McClinton at the same excellent venue in downtown Fort Worth.

 

New York and the cold weather again?

On Monday I flew back to the freezing cold Big Apple.  These pictures I took from the plane on descent show the frozen conditions.  Those huge ice blocks broke up a little as they floated down the East river that we could see from our office conference rooms.

I chuckled at this sign in front of the entrance to my office.  Not sure what you’re supposed to do in response to the sign, look up?  Temperatures rose each day that I was there and as usual I tried to make the best of being in New York in the evenings.

 

 

 

On Tuesday night I experienced the best jazz concert that I’ve seen so far.  The Joshua Redman quartet at the Blue Note.  Redman seems to completely inhabit the tenor saxophone and has a unique combination of total technical mastery and enormous musicality.  The setlist was an excellent combination of gorgeous ballads, up tempo improvisations, and everything in between.  Redman was joined by Aaron Goldberg on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

You can see from the picture above that I had a great view of Aaron Goldberg’s hands on the piano.   What a treat that turned out to be.  He shares the same combination of technical dexterity and musicality that Redman exudes.   I’ve been listening to a few of his solo albums and enjoying them very much – a nice new discovery on a cold Tuesday evening.

Hutchinson’s drumming was a big part of my enjoyment of this show as well.  He moved from subtle brush work on ballads to explosive fills in the more up tempo ballads – playing the drums like a lead instrument on several occasions.

I sat at a table with a very interesting mother and son duo.  Sandy Evans is a well known saxophone player from Australia.  She and her son were spending some time in New York before heading to Cuba to perform in the international jazz festival.  They were friends with both Aaron and Joshua and so I got to have a nice chat with them as a result.  You might remember that I met Joshua once before at the Village Vanguard when McD shared her champagne with him.

 

Breakfast at the hotel is pretty expensive for the quality and so I stopped at Bailey’s for breakfast on Wednesday.  This breakfast bull was quite intimidating.

 

 

Work involved many long meetings with vendors, and it was easy to drift off into enjoying this excellent view of the Brooklyn Bridge and East river from the conference room.

 

 

I chose The Odeon in Tribeca for dinner on Wednesday night.  We’d been there once before with Mary and Chuck and I remembered enjoying the French brasserie feel.  A nice bracing mile walk helped me work up an appetite.

The restaurant is a typically loud and boisterous New York scene but the food is very good.  I started with a sazerac to warm up and then enjoyed some excellent steak tartare and a side of baby brussel sprouts with bacon.

It was back to McKinney on Thursday night and a relaxing Friday evening cooking Gorgonzola lamb chops and catching up on the episode of “This is Us” that we missed on Tuesday night.

After workout and coffee and crossword on Saturday, Diana got sucked into the puzzle that my Mum and Dad sent for Christmas.  We noticed that the title of this challenge is, “The puzzle that ruined Christmas”.  It’s similar to the Frenchy (New Orleans artist) puzzles in that it doesn’t have any edge pieces and the pieces are cut in interesting shapes.  The majority are Christmas trees and Diana had a small outburst saying that, “Ah geez, three pieces fit together to make another Christmas tree shape”.

We’re looking forward to dinner tonight with Patty and Brent at Meso Maya.  This is an authentic Mexican restaurant as compared to the usual Tex-Mex fare that Dallas is well known for.   I’ve been perusing the menu and having a hard time narrowing down my choices – which I think is a sign of a good menu.

“Never a Dull Moment, 1971 – the year that rock exploded” has kept me company on my travels this week.  Each chapter recounts stories and record releases from a particular 1971 month.  The writing by David Hepworth and the anecdotes are fantastic.  Describing the early days of the Soul Train television show, Hepworth writes, “These dance moves, which took the generic frugs and twitches of pop dance and reclassified them into an entirely new terpsichorean taxonomy, swept the nation”.  I’m amazed at the number of records released in 1971 that are still considered classics today.

“Encore”, the new album from Anderson East was released yesterday and is excellent.  East is based in Nashville and is playing at the small Deep Ellum club Trees in a couple of weeks.  He has what’s referred to as a “modern southern soul sound”.  Here’s a song from the new album that he wrote with Chris Stapleton.

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

10,9,8,7…..  2018 was officially rung in at Thom and Libby’s new compound in New Orleans.  Champagne, Alex and Laura, Denny and Anne, 2 crazy red hound dogs, and a gaggle of kids somewhere downstairs all helped with the celebration.

New Year’s Day was a very relaxing affair in the Ogans’ living room watching college football playoff games with a nice fire.  The girls got adventurous and worked on a jigsaw puzzle which Jack, Mason and Aidan finished off later.

Pascal’s Manale and happy hour oysters beckoned the ladies around 5pm.  Laura joined and Denny went along as the official chaperone.  He chuckled when a guy at the bar asked him if all three blondes were with him.  Girl time wasn’t finished and the ladies made an unchaperoned stop at the Kingpin.  They did make it home in time to rest up for the big 15^th birthday bash on Tuesday.

The 01/02/03 twins celebrated their birthday at Commander’s Palace, the classic New Orleans restaurant in the Garden District made famous by Ella Brennan.  There’s a great documentary on Netflix called “Ella Brennan, Commanding the Table” if you’d like to learn more about the history of the fantastic Brennan restaurant empire.

Our gift was bobble-heads of the boys which we think captured their personalities very well.  A highlight of a great meal was the bread pudding soufflé with whisky sauce.  Jack and Mason enjoyed being offered whisky on their birthday while wearing their celebratory chef toques.

After lunch it was off to the airport and into our respective huffs about having to leave New Orleans again after such a relaxing and enjoyable visit.

Wednesday was back to work for me and a rest day for McD.   On Thursday we reprised our annual get together with Judy and Scott who were in town to visit their new grandchild.  Wendy joined as well and we had a great laugh together and fun showing the wedding album.  We’re looking forward to the Dillings potentially moving to the DFW area.

The week finished up with some strong Team Robertson manual labor –  breaking down the Christmas tree and storing it and the rest of the decorations in the attic.  That followed by watching the Saints vs Panthers playoff game and catching sight of Denny and Anne in their fancy outfits.  The score is 24-12 in the Saints favor at the time of this posting.

I finished the book “A Kind of Freedom” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton this week.  This story is appropriately set in New Orleans and follows three generations of an African American family from the 1940s until today.  I enjoyed the read very much and gained a good insight into the class and racial struggles in the city through the years.

 

 

 

The music discovery this week is from Langhorne Slim, a singer songwriter from Nashville.