The not unexpected culmination for the worst year in human history during my adult lifetime. A lot of angry, uneducated and impoverished people unable to see the better side of globalism, as well as plenty of dumb f**s with a ten second attention span. Now - possible spoiler - let's hope the trajectory follows the final stages of Roth's The Plot Against America. I'm just not tuning in to the media for a while.
Meanwhile, here's sunrise last Sunday morning in Spetses, after the only good piece of news about our own beleaguered country reached us. The church bells summoned me early to our friends' terrace. Though I suppose the old saw about red sky in the morning might have applied in retrospect. This morning the weather in Blighty is miserably in tune.
One must cultivate the garden and not let the lemmings pull the other half of us over the cliff.
STOP PRESS (12.30pm) On the garden-cultivation front, there is some consolation. I just heard from my good friend Ben Baker, emailing on a flight (the last?!) out of America, that he's been awarded first prize in the Young Concert Artists auditions in New York (they've yet to update the website, but there's a jolly picture of him with the other finalists). What's more he's coming back to head up to Birmingham for our mutual friend - and Ben knows him shall we say a little better since they were fellow students at the Yehudi Menuhin School - Jonathan Bloxham's first major concert with the CBSO, where he's assistant conductor. Here they are (Ben on left) at a stunning Warehouse event I reported on earlier this year.
Jonathan was asked to step in a couple of weeks ago - his first official appearance is later in the season - and he's conducting the symphony which won him the approval of the CBSO players at his audition, Mozart's 38th ('Prague'). The great Piotr Anderszewski also directs two Mozart concertos from the keyboard. Wish I could be there, but it's the first night of Berg's Lulu at ENO tonight. Toitoi to Jonathan and details here if you're free.
Don't f**k it up ...
ReplyDeleteRuPaul's yell still echoing round the planet.
Grateful for small moment of solace from that sunrise picture.
And Wigglesworth on Monday, dv.
9 November 2016 at 10:30
Indeed, Dilys. Oddly appropriate this morning: the third act of Martinu's Juliette, a recording of which has just reached me from Czechia. Big black hole with a glimmer of hope at the end. See you Monday.
ReplyDeleteThank you David!! Hope to see you soon :) JB
ReplyDeleteIndeed - time for a Northern Chords pow-wow soon. Another personal reason why 2017, the Year of the Trump, won't be all bad...if he can just keep his finger off the button until the festival is done and dusted.
ReplyDeleteBravo to Ben Baker. News blackout is going to effect here at this moment, too.
ReplyDeleteOur heart and soul go out to you, our other American/America-based friends and all those who didn't want this catastrophe. I wish I could say it was half the country, but it turns out only to be a quarter, since in what to me is the most horrifying statistic of sll about the most important election of our lifetime, 46.9 per cent of the population eligible to vote didn't even bother.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the figures for 18-25 year olds give us hope for the future, if there is one after four years of Trump.