Catching up

So, this doesn't have much to do with the actual content of my actual post, but I saw it the other day while shopping and, if you're going to whip out your camera in the cheese section, you may as well share it with the world...


But, in a totally unplanned way, it also serves to celebrate that my friend's heart is not in the cheese aisle, as this might indicate, but rather with her newborn son and happy husband in warmer climes. Congratulations, kids! Or, kids and baby!

Further experiences of the past week have been a set of ups & downs -- no significant downs or set-backs at all, just what I am realizing now is a profound case of homesickness. Or people-sickness, since I'm not all about things American or bothered by the German-ness of Berlin. Just missing all my folks. It means, first and foremost, that my instinct in distress is either to cry, to clam up, or to call someone on my phone for help. And we're talking menial things. But, in self-diagnosis there is also self-treatment, and so I breathe, shake through, and figure things out.

But there has been some fun -- an adventure out last Saturday for Abendkasse (lit., evening box office, but meaning last-minute leftover tickets) which took me first to try to see the Dreigroschenoper at the Berliner Ensemble (where Brecht wrote!) and then, when the single ticket available was snatched up by the eager and more savvy dude in front of me, a trip to the Konzerthaus something-or-other in Gendarmenmarkt.

It ended up being an absolutely transporting evening, both because the hall was a restored Schinkel confection of gold and columns and because the music was amazing. It was themed around occident/orient, so, music inspired by the east over a long period of time. There was Mozart and, more importantly, there was the piano concerto that I loved and tried when I played piano. I have never heard it live, and didn't recognize the first movement, but when the part I knew began, I am not bashful to say that I literally wept for a few seconds. It was like a friendly hand through the cosmos or something (my sister would say, the universe giving me a gift).

Regardless, it just made the night amazing, and the pianist, Fazil Say, played one of his own pieces as an encore - it involved him holding down the strings through the top of the piano to change the tone of what keys he played. Oh, and the other piece that stood out was by a new Spanish composer, from 2000, that involved members of the orchestra whispering something, then making noises by literally knocking stones together, and others blowing across the tops of their instruments to make very weird noises. I thought of our friend who is a professional flautist, and wondered if orchestra folks relish the chance to do something funky with their instruments, or just sort of roll the eyes and want to get back to what their instruments were made for.

It also makes me want to play the piano again. It is sort of shameful to be able to hear recordings of things you could once play reasonably well, if not too well, and not really remember what your hands are supposed to do.

I'm going to try to get that lemur video uploaded somehow -- Kolz tells me of a friend who puts his videos on youtube and then links to his blog, which scares me in the wide-access-to-my-media sense, but makes me think that if everyone else can do it, I sure can.

Back soon...