March 2018 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – March 25, 2018

The week started out with a very unique experience and not one that I would have ever planned. Any guesses?

Don’t think you would ever guess correctly. After an all day work meeting, Mc D and I were invited to attend WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Monday Night Raw. I remember my Grampa watching wrestling on TV on the weekends and have briefly watched some WWE on TV but never imagined being one of the rowdy nuts that watches it in an arena. It honestly seemed even more fake live and there were long periods of downtime between bouts for the adverts on the live TV broadcast. That being said, it was good, silly Monday night entertainment. The highlight was John Cena making a speech about how disappointed he was that the Undertaker hadn’t answered his challenge for a fight at WrestleMania.

On Tuesday it was time to get packed up for another trip to New York. This time some extra packing was needed (hat, gloves, boots) as 12 to 18 inches of snow was forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday. Diana thought I was nuts for taking a flight when Nor’easter Toby was forecast.

Turns out I caught the last flight from DFW on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm. All remaining flights for the next couple of days were canceled. LaGuardia airport was like a ghost town on arrival since most departing flights had been canceled too. All of this made for a quick ride to the hotel.

Snow came down heavily all day on Wednesday but temperatures stayed above freezing and the snow was extremely wet and so there was minimal accumulation.

View from work office as the snow storm started

In front of the office about an hour after the storm started

My boss and I decided to be adventurous on Wednesday night and brave the snow for a show at the Blue Note jazz club. The subway was a great way to avoid too much snow and we made an initial navigation error, heading to Brooklyn instead of Greenwich village. A quick trip under the East river and back and we were on track. The show was Eric Krasno and friends with the special guest of the evening being the pedal steel guitar wizard, Robert Randolph. I’ve seen Randolph a few times before with Eric Clapton and Anders Osborne and so was looking forward to the show.

Eric Krasno is a guitar player best known for founding the bands Lettuce and Soulive. You might remember that I went to see Lettuce with Alicia and her friend last year. He has also won a couple of Grammy awards as a producer for the Tedeschi Trucks band (one of my very favourites). The show was very good with highlights being a cover of Blind Faith’s “In the Presence of the Lord” and the Grateful Dead’s “Sugaree”.

I felt sorry for the folks queuing up for the late show in the cold and snow outside the Blue Note. We hadn’t quite had enough music for the night and so headed around the corner to Bleeker Street and the Red Lion pub which has had good live music each time I’ve visited. There was a duo of guitar/singer and drummer playing classic rock songs very well that we enjoyed for a while. Things picked up when one of the bar tenders joined to cover a couple of Janis Joplin songs.

Flying home on Friday afforded me a 40 degree temperature change by leaving New York at 40 degrees and arriving to 80 degree plus in Dallas. You can see by this picture from the plane leaving New York that most of the snow had melted and it was a nice sunny day.

Saturday was another nice day and after workouts we sat out by the pool for most of the afternoon and got some extended reading time in.

I finished Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan and would give it a B+ rating. The first 100 or so pages were a solid A but I started to lose interest a bit in the middle. The beginning was enough to convince me to try another Egan book, “A Visit from the Goon Squad”. This held my attention much more effectively and I read the full book out by the pool on Saturday. The book is centered around the music business and the change in the economic and distribution methods over the last decade. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in music – the story telling is innovative, interesting and creative.

On Saturday night we watched “Lady Bird”, a movie that was nominated for several Oscars. The film is good and stars Saoirse Ronan as a high school senior in Sacramento trying to decide where to attend college. The interactions between her and her mother had me laughing because they reminded me so much of the conversations that I hear in my home.

If you’re a vinyl lover like me, you might enjoy “Why Vinyl Matters” by Jennifer Bickerdike. This is a coffee table style book that I received as a Christmas gift from Diana and has chapters from musicians and people involved in the music business relating why they love and appreciate vinyl records. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Nick Hornby who wrote “High Fidelity” that was the basis for the John Cusack film.

Speaking of vinyl, I revisited an album that I haven’t listened to in close to 20 years this week – “Toward the Within” by Dead Can Dance. This music gets very mixed reviews from people that I’ve shared it with – some really enjoy the unique Middle Eastern style instrumentation while others (most) can only stand a few minutes – which camp do you fall into?

Here’s something a bit less controversial from Professor Longhair – one of my favourites from his New Orleans style piano tunes. I’ve been practicing my scales and receiving commentary about how far I have to go to get back to reasonable speed and accuracy. It was interesting to discover that, similar to most measurements, there is a difference between the terms used to describe the length of musical notes between the United States and United Kingdom. What I know as a crotchet is a quarter note, a quaver an eighth note, a semi-quaver a sixteenth note and so on. This is all well and good but quickly falls apart when one moves away from 4/4 time and a crotchet is really a third note in a waltz etc.

Week in Review – March 18, 2017

The early part of this week was spent catching up on work and chores after Denny’s birthday weekend in San Miguel de Allende – piano tuner, car service, laundry (thanks McD) and the like.

On Friday I took the first of the piano lessons that Diana gave me for Christmas (thanks McD). Anthony has a music studio in a room of his bungalow in downtown McKinney and calls it the Piano Dojo. The lesson was very enjoyable as Anthony asked me to play scales and sight read (scales not so good after 40 years of neglect, sight reading not too bad). He also wants me to start learning basic drumming patterns so I’ve obtained drum sticks and a practice pad and might get started today. Apparently learning to drum teaches the brain to better manage right and left hand separation and is good for the type of blues/boogie piano that I’m hoping to learn. Anthony and I shared stories about jazz clubs in New York and musicians that we enjoy. I’m looking forward to getting my scales and drumming down so that I can schedule my next lesson.

We celebrated Patty’s birthday on Friday evening and started with a lovely dinner at Sachet in the very fancy Highland Park neighborhood just north of downtown Dallas. Sachet is a Mediterranean restaurant and was voted the best new restaurant of 2017 by the readers of D magazine. We started with several “meze” or small plates – the yellow beets, red beet hummus, oregano, labne dish was my favourite (tender and flavorful beets), followed by the spicy roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, garlic, tomato, and then the french Lentils, muhamarra, piquillo peppers, and walnuts. It’s always interesting how good fresh, well cooked vegetables can taste.

After the meze we enjoyed green fava falafel, radish salad, mint yogurt (my favourite dish of the evening with the best falafel I’ve tasted), charred octopus, Rancho Gordo beans, swiss chard, fennel, salmoriglio (not as good as the amazing grilled octopus in San Miguel de Allende), Casarecce, Turkish lamb ragu, pomegranate, labne (yummy lamb ragu), and finally squid ink spaghetti, lobster, tomato, white wine, and star anise.

Patty’s birthday was off to a great start but we had a surprise in store – John Oates at the Kessler theater (Dallas’ most redeeming quality). John Oates is one half of the best-selling duo of all time, Hall & Oates, as well as an accomplished solo artist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Oates embarked on his solo career in 1999. He has recorded six solo albums and his seventh project, “Arkansas”, was released in February. He featured 6 songs from this album to start his Kessler show.

In addition to his solo shows, Oates continues to tour with Daryl Hall, playing sold-out concerts around the world. You could tell he was relishing the very small venue as compared to the sports arenas he plays as part of Hall & Oates. At one point he mentioned an upcoming Hall & Oates show in Dallas in the summer and invited us to join 15,000 of our best friends to listen to it – quite different than the few hundred folks at the Kessler.

Mississippi John Hurt at a Library of Congress recording in 1964

“Arkansas” is mostly a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, an original bluesman who made his first recordings in the late 1920s, but also features some ragtime and Jimmie Rogers inspired pieces. Here’s a video of Oates performing “Make me a pallet on your floor” – the excellent Fender Telecaster work is by Guthrie Trapp. The video is followed by links to the original Mississippi John Hurt recording and the version from the “Arkansas” album.

Diana’s favorite song from the show was “Lose it in Louisiana”:

I’ve been enjoying “Manhattan Beach” by Jennifer Egan this week. The novel opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.

Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, and the reasons he might have vanished.

That’s as far as I’ve reached in the story so far and it’s setting up for an interesting second half. The quality of the writing and story telling are excellent and I’m looking forward to trying some of Egan’s other novels.

On the musical front, I read about a new recording by Mary Gauthier called “Rifles and Rosary Beads”. This is an interesting album in that Gauthier composed it in writing workshops with soldiers that were designed to provide therapy by allowing them to share their stories and feelings. The songs are very good although, as you can imagine, quite melancholy and poignant.

You might remember my commentary on Gauthier’s amazing “Mercy Now” song in the June 26, 2016 edition of this blog – well worth a listen.

The musical lagniappe this week is from the 70s group Big Star – I heard it on the closing credits of an episode of the HBO series, “I’m Dying up Here”.

Week in Review – March 11, 2018

Have you heard of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico?

We hadn’t either until Denny pushed hard for this to be the destination for his 50th birthday trip. We flew down on Thursday and were happy to find it took a short 2 hour flight and 1.5 hour drive to reach the lovely house that Denny had arranged for us.

San Miguel de Allende is situated at 6,200 feet and has a population of around 70,000. The mountainside location leads to plenty of uphill and downhill walking. Our house was about a 10 minute walk uphill from the main square and so our calves did get a reasonable workout. The weather was very pleasant during our stay with highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s.

We arrived around 3pm and Sean and Sheri weren’t due until later in the evening, so we set out to explore the center of town. The main square is dominated by La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, the current parish church of San Miguel, which is unique in Mexico and the emblem of the town. It has a Neo-gothic façade with two tall towers that can be seen from most parts of town. It is one of the most photographed churches in Mexico. The church was built in the 17th century with a traditional Mexican façade. The current Gothic façade was constructed in 1880 by Zeferino Gutierrez, who was an indigenous bricklayer and self-taught architect. It is said Gutierrez’s inspiration came from postcards and lithographs of Gothic churches in Europe, particularly the one in Cologne; however, the interpretation is his own and is more a work of imagination than a faithful reconstruction.

There is a plethora of rooftop restaurants to choose from and we chose Quince beside the church as our first stop. The food and views were excellent – we think it might be the best grilled octopus that we’ve tasted.

As we stopped at a wine shop to stock up for the weekend, a very interesting Mexican wedding celebration passed by. A procession through town led by a donkey carrying flowers and tequila, followed by very large human puppets of the bride and groom, a Mariachi band, and the wedding party. As the weekend progressed we realized that this is a very common occurrence with many weddings taking place on Saturday.

Sean and Sheri arrived safely on Thursday evening and we headed to another rooftop, SMA restaurant, just up the street from the house. We had a delicious dinner and several of the group sampled Casa Dragones Joven tequila (apparently a favourite of Oprah and Martha Stewart).

Friday began with a walking food tour. This took us to 6 restaurants around town and our tour guide, Pascal, provided a lot of cultural and historical information along the way. The town, so the story goes, owes its founding to a few over-heated dogs. These hounds were loved by a Franciscan friar, Juan de San Miguel, who started a mission in 1542 near an often-dry river 5km from the present town. One day the dogs wandered off from the mission; they were found reclining at the spring called El Chorro. The mission was moved to this superior site.

San Miguel’s favorite son, Ignacio Allende, was born here in 1779. He became a fervent believer in the need for Mexican independence and was a leader of a conspiracy that set December 8, 1810, as the date for an armed uprising. After initial successes Allende, Hidalgo and other rebel leaders were captured in 1811. Allende was executed, but on independence in 1821 he was recognized as a martyr and in 1826 the town was renamed San Miguel de Allende.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the town was in danger of becoming a ghost town after an influenza pandemic. Gradually, its Baroque/Neoclassical colonial structures were “discovered” by foreign artists who moved in and began art and cultural institutes. This gave the town a reputation, attracting artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, who taught painting.

This attracted foreign art students, especially former U.S. soldiers studying on the G.I. Bill after the Second World War. Since then, the town has attracted a significant number of foreign retirees, artists, writers and tourists, which has shifted the area’s economy from agriculture and industry to commerce catering to outside visitors and residents.

Now back to the food. Our first stop was La Parada, a Peruvian restaurant, where we enjoyed ceviche with leche de tigre (tiger’s milk) and excellent pisco sours. We liked this one so much that we returned for lunch later in the visit.

Next was Casa del Diezmo, a Yucatan Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed Pork Pibil Panuchos. This place was typical in that you wouldn’t know it existed from the street and on entry found a gorgeous courtyard with beautiful plants and flowers.

One of my favourite dishes from the tour, mole enchiladas, was next at La Cocina, Café del Viajero. There are many different recipes for mole sauce, typically including chocolate, chiles, sweet and sour ingredients, thickeners and spices. The sauce at our stop was absolutely delicious.

Although the portions at each stop were relatively small, we were starting to feel pretty full at this point. The last stop before desert was Don Taco Tequila, a vegan restaurant where we enjoyed mushroom tacos.

The tour finished with ice cream from a street cart and delicious churros with caramel sauce. This was a wonderful way to explore downtown, the food variety, and to learn some history – thanks Anne for organizing.

After the food tour, can you guess what we did? Yes – another rooftop at Pueblo Viejo and then dinner downstairs. In between, Diana, Denny and I relaxed at the bar at a fancy boutique hotel called Beelia.

On the walk home we enjoyed several Mariachi bands with the Amistad band being a highlight. They were certainly the loudest with lots of brass and a sousaphone – sounded a lot like a New Orleans brass band.

Saturday started with a delicious traditional breakfast prepared by the housekeeper, Mar, who was lovely and welcoming and entertained us by trying to communicate in Spanish with no desire to slow down and help us understand.

Jimmy Ray “Anado” McLaughlin in front of Kismet

The day continued with one of the more unique activities of our visit – a trip to Jimmy Ray McLaughlin’s art compound a few miles outside of town. This is the kind of special surprise only experienced when traveling with Denny and taking advantage of his prodigious research. Jimmy Ray has lived throughout the US and around the world and likes to go by Anado, a name he was given in India. Anado uses bottles, tiles, and other recycled material to create very colorful and detailed mosaic artwork. We enjoyed the tour of his art compound with several galleries, a large mosaic wall called “Kismet”, his house and studio, but mostly his colorful commentary on his art and life.

Saturday dinner was our one “fancy” dinner of the trip at, you guessed it, a rooftop restaurant. Zumo offered fantastic views of the city and a spectacular tasting menu and wine pairings. Everybody loved their meal. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves and just say that the foie gras mousse and the short ribs were the stand outs for me.

wild mushroom potage with white truffle foam

Mezcal marinated foie gras mousse — mescal marinated foie gras mousse

Back at the house after dinner began game night. Several rounds of heads up started the hilarity and were followed by Kahoot where I learned that I know nothing about current popular culture but quite a lot about classic rock.

Sunday brunch was at another Denny deep research find, Nicasio Comedor Mexicano. This was a small, simple restaurant with an open kitchen where we watched traditional Mexican breakfast fare prepared with great flair and attention to detail – tweezers used to place garnish and tiny jalapenos. The pet duck wasn’t in its bed in the restaurant but rather in the pond since it was starting to get hot.

After brunch we visited Fabrica La Aurora, an art market on the outskirts of town that is a converted textile mill and houses many individual art galleries. Denny and Anne tried hard to find some art for their redone living room but came away empty handed. Sean found a very unique poker chip holder and we found a fun gift for Patty’s birthday.

The afternoon ramble through town started with tapas and drinks at the Luna restaurant on top of the Rosewood hotel (the fancy hotel in town). This had amazing views all around.

Next on the ramble was a stop at a tapas restaurant where Denny heard interesting music. The music stopped right as we entered but was quickly replaced by Los Miguels, Miguel and his friend Miguel, who sang and played guitar beautifully. Miguel #1 tried very hard to explain the meaning of each Spanish song to us in English before he performed – and he did an admirable job. His passion for his music and for communicating really came through.

We briefly checked out the tapas restaurant rooftop but weren’t huge fans of the electronic music – a hard transition from Los Miguels.

Anne had been mentioning a visit to “La Sirena Gorda” (the fat mermaid)for a couple of days and so we finally made a visit there on our way to an evening snack at Quince (finishing the trip as we began).

A late night game of liars dice finished out our last full day in San Miguel de Allende.

Sean and Sheri had a very early departure (5am – ouch) back to the airport and the rest of us left a few hours later. You can tell Denny had a good trip from his snooze on the drive.

On the drive to the Leon airport I emailed David to ask him about the rumor I heard from my Mum and Dad of a new cousin in the family. He quickly replied with pictures of Penelope’s new cousin – a gorgeous red Porsche Cayman. I’m looking forward to meeting her in Scotland in the summer.

For the musical lagniappe this week I offer two great songs that I heard for the first time this week. “Good to Me As I Am to You” by Aretha Franklin featuring Eric Clapton on guitar and “Tennessee Blues” by Bobby Charles, who also wrote “Walking to New Orleans”.

Week in Review – March 4, 2018

Our friend Ron was in town on Wednesday night and came over for dinner. We always really enjoy Ron’s company and it was very nice to be able to spend the evening catching up, telling stories, and laughing. Oh, let me not forget that Diana (Deeawna Lasagna – phonetic pronunciation help for Ron) made a lovely dinner as well on short notice.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet as we enjoyed improving weather and Saturday was the first day this year where it’s been warm enough to sit outside and read.

Our pleasant weather was in stark contrast to the Scottish climate – variously described as “The Beast from the East” and the “Hysteria from Siberia” were blizzard type conditions in Glasgow and throughout much of Europe. My parents didn’t get it too bad in Stewarton but were still experiencing new snow when we talked to them on Sunday afternoon. They described the snow as like “polystyrene (Styrofoam) balls” and very dry making for very slick driving conditions. Here’s a picture from the New York Times of a pedestrian in blizzard conditions in Glasgow.

Our usual coffee and a crossword on Sunday morning generated some humour around the clue, “Foe of Montague”. Diana couldn’t believe I didn’t know the answer was “Capulet” from “Romeo and Juliet”. I replied that I bet my Dad didn’t know that answer either – but of course he got it correct straight away when asked. That generated a reminiscence about the BBC television quiz show that my Dad participated in when I was very young and my question, “How did you get inside the television Dad?”.

We’re working on completing our Oscar ballots for the awards show tonight. Here’s what I have so far:

With no travel this week, I had some extra time to browse around on YouTube. This “Tuba Virtuoso” performance had me laughing out loud. Having played this instrument for several years, this guy is exceptionally talented and brings a lot of humor to his show.

The other one I really enjoyed is with John Mayer and the Wynton Marsalis septet performing “I’m Gonna Find Another You”. Mayer really is one of my favorite guitar players – such a sweet and round sound that he gets.

We watched a documentary on Eric Claptop, “My Life in 12 Bars”, which was pretty good. The highlight by a long shot was this clip of Blind Faith (his band with Steve Winwood) in Hyde Park. Steve Winwood looks like he’s still in high school.

I discovered a new TV show from last year, “I’m Dying Up Here” on Showtime. It’s about stand up comics trying to make it at a club called Goldie’s in LA in 1974. The acting and writing are very good and I’m also really enjoying the music. I’m of the opinion that all the best rock music was created in 1973 and 1974 and this show certainly supports that. Episode One had both “Calvary Cross” by Richard and Linda Thompson (best guitar solo ever) and “Strawberry Letter 23” by Shuggie Otis – two of my all time favourites.

I continue to slog through my book about a New York Times journalist living in Turkey. I enjoyed this paragraph:

“Here’s the thing: no one ever tells Americans that when they move abroad, even if they are empathetic and sensitive human beings – even if they come clean about their genetic inability to learn languages, even if they consider themselves leftist critics of their own government – that they will inevitably, and unconsciously, spend those first months in a foreign country feeling superior to everyone around them and to the nation in which they now have the privilege to live.”

The musical lagniappe this week is “Baby Bluebird” by the Fruit Bats. I pulled this album out this week and didn’t remember enjoying this song as much when I first listened.