Lock up your computers!

I fear I'm turning into a computer geek. This happens whenever it's time to upgrade and I start hanging out at computer forums, trying to figure out what the right machine is for me. But it's getting out of hand this time. I think I'm starting to understand too much about how a computer works. The geeks' guild may have to seek me out and either force me to become a full-fledged member (OK, apprenctice really) or kill me if I refuse. I may have to go into hiding.

Part of the reason I'm learning more than I want to about my computer is that bad things keep happening to it or its periferals. Last fall my hard drive crashed and I learned how frighteningly hard it is to replace one in my iBook (surely it's a symptom of encroaching geekhood that I post a link to this). Luckily, I found a professional to do this job, so obviously I'm not completely corrupt, but I found the process strangely fascinating, and the fact that my hard drive is now twice its original size is much more interesting to me than it should be were I not infested with some geekiness.

Then the other day, my wireless router died quite abrubtly (I am now glomming off the neighbours' open network; that I feel a certain thrill and absolutely no guilt at this is, I'm certain, another sign of my impending demise). I've spend too many hours today fiddling with wires and settings, trying to get it to work--to no avail, alas (a ray of hope, perhaps?!). So I have packed it up and will be sending it back to D-Link for a replacement under warantee.

I'm trying very hard to imagine that there's a poem in all of this (can you say "grasping at straws"?); if there is, it's surely a lullaby. Heck, I'm putting myself to sleep with this post.... zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Recuerdo también

That morning, we swam in turquoise and swore
it wasn’t cold, though soon scampered up the rocks
to sit in the sun and swat the ruthless flies.

I saved you from a rattlesnake:
scolded it gently into the bushes
then ushered you calmly past.

We rented a boat and roared out into the lake
you stood up front, a breathing bowsprit
wind blowing your animal scent sternward.

At noon, we paddled into the park and found
a private beach, ate cheese and olives and almonds
then swam again in shallow green.

We ate supper on a battle-scared picnic table,
listened to Edna’s wavering voice read “Recuerdo,”
drank cheap wine until the summer sun finally set.

We went inside and talked of crazy neighbours,
the inside-outness of our different sides,
of ghost trains passing before us.

A bear stopped by the dumpster in the night.
When we came out, its eyes glowed from across
the road, waiting for us to go back to sleep.

As if that were possible, giddy as we were
with wine and words and the wonder
of being together again at last.

After “Piano Lessons” by Billy Collins,

The piano stands in the darkened room,
hockey player grin daring you to bash it
in the face with Chopin or Liszt.

Instead, you tickle it with jazz
“It Might as Well Be Spring”
feel it tremble under your hand
giggling.

After “Le tombeau des rois” by Anne Hébert

This bird/cat, a falcon/panther,
flies/races out of the tomb
across the barren tundra/savannah
her eyes/ears instinctively
look/listen for something
they can no longer see/hear.

It swoops/dashes north/west toward the
pole/sea, another instinct takes over
leads it along lines of magnetism.

With every mile, the falcon/panther knows this way
is true, can feel the ancient forces guiding blindly.
She perches/sits in a crag above a ravine,
can see/hear the figure lying prone below,

hops/lopes down to the cadaver hanging desiccated
from the overturned car pecks/licks at the eyes,
which look like a cave in a cliff,
which beg her to peck/lick that she may see again.

I'm baaaaack

Sunday Snow

You walk among falling stars,
think of each one dying as it hits
earth's bulk, of all the wheres
this one might have buried itself, and marvel
that it chose this place and not some other to end the journey,
to ready itself, like a mayfly, for the day it will
emerge from the water to fly up and home again.

Autumn Leaves (happy solstice)

Tonight I just picked up the horn and stayed
out of the way, letting the chromosomes
sing their song for once.

They played Autumn Leaves,
a tune I would never
play on a snowy evening
though it's a nice tune in summer.

Why that song when the tree's flurry
lies under the sky's pale foliage?
Perhaps they feel the hand of winter
curling at their throat and harken
back to when death was just beginning.

Panettone recipe

Rebecca, Ludwig came through for me! Wow. I left the loaves on the fridge over night and they rose a reasonable amount. Baked them this morning and they're not half bad. Perhaps not quite as light and fluffy as panettone should be, but definitely moist and unmistakably panettone. I'm going to try again this week, making sure to let the butter cool to room temperature this time. Also, it occurs to me that I used salted butter. I know that salt is toxic to yeast, so maybe that was the problem.

Here's the recipe for anyone interested (from Breads by Sharon Tyler Herbst)

Panettone

3 packages yeast
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup warm water
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (use the real stuff)
2 tsp freshly grated orange zest
2 tsp anise seeds (I'm leaving them out next time, though it was still good with them in)
3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts or almonds (leaving these out next time too)
1/3 cup finely chopped citron (candied lemon peel)
1/3 cup dark rasins
1/3 cup golden rasins
eggwhite mixed w/ water for glaze

Disolve yeast and 1 tsp of the honey in the warm water, let stand till foamy. Add remaining honey, egg yolks, butter, salt, vanilla, orange zest, anise seeds, and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of the flour. Beat at medium speed w/ electric mixer 2 minutes (or beat 200 vigorous strokes by hand). Stir in nuts, citron, rasins and enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk (about 2 hours). Punch down dough, knead for 30 seconds, divide in half and shape into balls. Place in baking containers (Herbst stuggests 1 lb coffee cans or 1 qt souflé dishes, but I put the balls on a baking sheet and they seemed fine, though they won't have that tall columnar shape to them). Cover with damp cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour. Brush tops of loaves with egg-white glaze, Bake 35 to 40 mintues.

Buen appetito!

day off

and whats the first thing s. and i do... go skiing, of course. after that, we started making perhaps the worlds ultimate comfort food-- panettone. the problem is, the dough smells so good that ive had to ask s. to tie my hands behind my back so it makes it to the oven. and im typing this post with my nose, channeling e.e. cummings.

other than panettone, my life is a neverending litany of work, sleep--with visions of imacs dancing in my head--rehearsals, concerts, beer after concerts, and no time to write except now, waiting for the panettone to rise. where is the poetry in all this...

life will be more fulfilling with an imac, im sure of it...

The Birds of Florence

marble
white monolith waits
noontime glare
hammer and chisel
David waits
weaverfinches bathe in dust
Michelangelo waits

monolith
marble white murmurs
long sunset
David whispers
goldfinches gather in pine
Michelangelo listens

white
marble monolith wakes
David awaits
blackbirds sing to rising sun
Michelangelo awakens

Hustle

EDDIE: You look different ... More relaxed.
SARAH: It's the lights. And the scotch.
EDDIE: How come you didn't catch your bus?
SARAH: I wasn't waiting for a bus.
EDDIE: Then why go to the bus station?
SARAH: Same reason you went: at that hour of the morning you haven't much choice. Besides, I only live three blocks from there. Where do you live?
EDDIE: Around.
SARAH: I know where you live: in a locker, in a bus station. What's it like living in a locker?
EDDIE: Cramped. (she smiles) You always drink like this, so early in the morning?
SARAH: Do you always ask so many questions?
EDDIE: No, not always.
SARAH: Sometimes I wake up and I can't sleep, not without a drink. The bars don't open until eight. Mack over there has faith in me. When I'm broke, he trusts me. Don't you trust me, Mack?
BARTENDER: Check!
SARAH: When I'm not broke, I usually have a bottle in my room, in which case I sleep very well indeed.
EDDIE: You talk kind of funny, but I like it.
SARAH: I used to be an actress.
EDDIE: Yeah? What do you do now?
SARAH: I'm a college girl. Two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go to college.
EDDIE: You don't look like a college girl.
SARAH: I'm the emancipated type. Real emancipated.
EDDIE: No, I didn't mean that -- whatever that means. I mean, you just don't look young enough.
SARAH: I'm not.
EDDIE: So why go to college?
SARAH: I've got nothing else to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
EDDIE: What do you do on the other days?
SARAH: I drink.
EDDIE: (to the bartender) Hey!
SARAH: No. No more. I'm getting sleepy. (puts a scarf around her head) Thank you very much, Mr... ?
EDDIE: Eddie. The name is Eddie.
SARAH: (studies his face) The name should be Eddie. What should my name be?
EDDIE: I don't know. Whatever you like it to be.
SARAH: I like it to be what it is. It's Sarah. That's a biblical name. You want to know its meaning?
EDDIE: I could always get us a bottle.
SARAH: (a little alarmed) No.
EDDIE: Fifth of scotch?
SARAH: What do you want me to do, just step out in the alley? Is that it?
EDDIE: No. I'll take you home.
(There is a long pause as she tries to read his face.)
SARAH: All right.
(Eddie finishes his drink, rises, crosses to the bar, pays the bill, and returns to the booth. As they go out, Sarah stumbles, and he catches her by the arm.)
SARAH: It's all right. (smiling) I'm not drunk ... (serious) I'm lame.

marble
white monolith waits
noontime glare
hammer and chisel
David waits
weaverfinches bathe in dust
Michelangelo waits

Hope for the future

The Isaac concert last Wednesday was sublime. I still have trouble believing that students (mere babies, really) can sing that well. Doug was very pleased and says he wants to try to record it in the new year. It would be neat to find some way to distribute it, especially since this particular mass probably hasn't ever been recorded. I also hope someone has told these kids how lucky they are to sing in such an advanced group at school. And to think most of them are 1st years--freshmen and women indeed. The next four years should be fun.

I was considering posting my last Spanish composition here, but I don't want to drive away the few readers I have.

A great Canadian...

It's a measure of how fondly Pierre Berton was held in the hearts of Canadians that on the day of George W. Bush's first (!) official visit to Canada, the CBC evening news led not only with Berton's death, but opened with about 10 minutes of coverage and tributes. If you read only one book on the North, read The Arctic Grail--one of 50 books this incredibly prolific writer produced during his 84 years.

Music, music, music...

Wow, what a week. Tonight is the first night I have not had a rehearsal or a concert in the last 8 days. I feel like a professional musician again. Unfortunately, my translation clients haven't been very understanding: the contracts keep rolling in. I shouldn't complain; it's great to have money in the bank again. Hopefully I'll soon be able to buy the new computer I've been drooling over for the last few months.

A run down on the concerts past and future:

Last Saturday was a concert of various early Baroque masters (Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Schutz and company) with the Ottawa Bach Choir . Les Sonneurs, the group I play in, played well, but it was an odd evening...

Last night was an all Schutz concert with the McGill Baroque Orchestra and McGill Chamber Choir, directed by a wonderful young conductor named Julian Wachner. McGill is fortunate to have him on faculty. I was hired as a ringer because all McGill's trombone students were involved in some big trombone choir thing (shudder).

Wednesday night is McGill's Capella antiqua concert, directed by my good friend, Dr. Douglas Kirk. The concert is a recreation of a Festal mass by Heinrich Isaac, as it might have been celebrated at the Imperial Court of the Holy Roman Empire. The music is wonderful, and the capella is incredibly good for a student group.

And finally, in a week, I'm off to Toronto to perform with the Toronto Consort in a Praetorius Christmas Vespers, which we recorded last year (you can listen to a sample track, "Von Himmel hoch," here).

Oh, those EVIL translators

In the course of a discussion in a poetry forum I've been posting at recently, a few people were spouting the tired creed that goes something like "translations of poetry rarely, if ever, capture the "music" of the original; really good translations are almost impossible." To which I replied:

[testy defensive soapbox mode] Honestly, I wonder what the translators of the world (I'm one of them) ever did to deserve the wrath of so many. Do we revile Ravel because he had the audacity to arrange Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" for orchestra? Of course not. Many music lovers prefer Ravel's orchestral version to the original. In fact, I would wager that not only have most people never heard the original version, they don't even realize the piece was written for piano. So much for the "originality" of art.

Why is literary translation so sneered at? Maybe because there have been a lot of mediocre efforts. Maybe also because some "erudite" readers will  disagree with a translator's version, failing to realize that it is but one person's interpretation. No translation is ever more than an interpretation, a performance, if you will. But that doesn't mean that a translation is ipso facto worse than the almighty original. The fact is, great poetry transcends language and in the hands of a skilled translator, a translation can be just as good as the original. Not quite the same, of course. but worse? Hardly, and maybe even (gasp!) better.

So lay off the translators, people, please! You're doing a great disservice to a technique that has brought a lot of poetry to people whom it would be inaccessible to otherwise.  [/testy defensive soapbox mode]

Colour in Motion

Found the link to this fun site at Questo Mondo, through Wingtips. The movies are especially fun, and the music is great.

We are bubble buddies, you and I,
inhabiting crystal globes of free
will in a grey sea of determinism.

We have the idea of seeking other
bubbles to merge with ours until
we form a sphere so large we no longer
notice the infinity of fate all around us.

We cluster in the centre of our expanding
bright hole, sweeping the universe for specks
of awareness untill finally the cosmos is more
free will than fate, and god may finally sleep.

In the mail today...

...the latest issue of Maisonneuve , a cool magazine that I'm proud to say is published in Montreal. I'm trying to convince all my friends to subscribe, though I realize it's perhaps not the rag for everyone. It's edgy, irreverent, funny and original. In every issue, there's at least one article where you think "the author's making this up, it's just too wierd," but a quick google and lo and behold, the world rock-scissor-paper chapionships really did take place in some forgetable town in New Jersey. I'd love to send a gift subscription to my father, just to let him know what life is like here, but it sometimes publishes articles in which homosexuality is tacitly approved of, so I think I'll hold off.

Like all good "literary" mags, it publishes a few token poems, some excelent, some that leave me shaking my head. One that made me laugh but which I wonder, in honesty, how it made it to print is " If Paris Hilton Wrote Poetry". It's been among the top ten artilcles on the web site for months.

Lost in space

If, like me, you spent too many hours of your teenage years in video arcades, then you'll probably find celestia pretty darn cool. What amazes me is that this is free. I spent hours last night in orbit around Mars, chasing down the Mars Express orbiter. How geeky is that?

Continuum

The notes connect me to a human 

continuum that stretches back to the Awakening,

each melody dripping the blood of players past, 

every one in the audience, 

listening.



I feel their weight in my breath,

steady gazes challenging me 

to abandon math,

abandon myself to love…





…and they take wing like mayflies 

		emerging from a river 



swarm 

	condensing into movement 

		of lips and hands 

	of hips and magic wands



flutter about the room,

		     landing on tables, in hair, 

        clinging exhausted to clothes, 

	                         drunk on the euphoria of flight

 

fly into ears to lay eggs

	larvae growing into associations, 

			feeding on memories of cigarette smoke,

		weak beer, the colour of your eyes



spiral away

	               their small yellow songs, our oxygen 

	a flash of rapture 

		a nameless but beheld resurrection

Red pajamas and red wine

S. is dancing around the kitchen in the red flannel penguin pajamas and penguin socks I bought her in Calgary to make up for the fact that I left her alone for a week. And while she was impressed and thrilled that I had dared to buy her clothes (after almost 16 years, I'm starting to take chances) she still had to go back to La Sensa to exchange them. I was sure a medium would fit her but forgot to take into account how unbelievably silly women's fashion is. Who would have thought that pajama bottoms would be low-rise? (can you see me shaking my head?) So now they're comfortable in the waist but baggy everywhere else. Oh well, they are pajamas...

What is it about November that makes me want to cook with a glass of red wine in my hand. This never happens in the summer. Alas, no red wine is on hand, and a beer will have to do. Fortification for what's to come: S. is going to teach me what I missed in last week's salsa lesson (and how I got roped into dance classes, I'll never figure out). OK, I admit it, it's kind of fun, and the music is cool. Just don't ask me to dance with anyone else.