Tagged by Trish

Trish of Liberal Chicks is asking me to say 6 things about myself. Rather honorably, she has already ventured into this task herself and acquitted herself well.

OK

1. Went to Andrew Litton's next to last concert at the Dallas Symphony Saturday evening. He did Copeland's Appalachian Spring and Elger's Enigma variations it is called I think. Two things were different for me in the Copeland. First the liner notes were really helpful and it wasn't 'fanfare for the common man.' I had felt Copeland was puffed up in his titles, his perspective. The piece was written as a ballet for Martha Graham in the 40's, who named it from a line in a poem by Crane. The discussion of the piece suggested thinking of your marriage, your first home; so various milestone firsts including these came to mind through it and it really brought me to tears. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is said to have improved in it's string's and there was a clarity and travel in the music I had never heard in a recording. Sitting in the second row from the stage, for $39, probably didn't hurt. I had heard Nimrod from the Enigma variations at a memorial for Stanley Marcus, which I and my 2 secretaries attended on a work day something never otherwise done, there at the Meyerson a few years ago. That was one reason I wanted to hear the program. The Enigma is Elger's decoding into music of 12 people he knows, sort of an elegant variation of the game Trish has proposed. Nimrod, # 9 I think, I learn is in E flat major which is Beethoven's' heroic key. This person portrayed is apparently his agent, who was German, in London. In part, he recalled his agent's impassioned thoughts, brought into their dialogue, about Beethoven's music. Nimrod is a mythological figure, if I have it right, which translates into Jaeger, or hunter, in German. The piece was written in 1898. I liked the piece but was overwhelmed again by the Nimrod, cried, in part, for all the dead German hunters.

2. A patient, coming off mania, came in today. I had treated his fraternal twin at the VA. Somehow, it came up partially as a joke that he had some of his brother in him. His episode of mania seemed triggered by his disappointment at his brother's circumstances. His brother, he said, 'was killing himself with smoking and eating and no exercise. That's all he does and sleep. He smokes like a chimney.' He says his brother 'still recalled his first sin, ..' From a common perspective, his brother is someone who if you met you would probably think was lucky to have, and perhaps bound up in, his entitlements, but my patient recalls him 'as a boy who threw a paper route. He was the artistic one. He could sit down and draw you the plans for a house. Played trumpet in the band, was serious at school.' He left school 2 weeks before graduation, joined the Navy where he fell apart and came to be where he is. Since I had known the other, it was a revelation I felt.

3. I had a dream a week ago in which I recall the first dream appearance of my grandson Miles. He was crying and mad. I assume like the baby suspicioning Beelzebub as discussed in a recent post. I assume the baby is me and Miles is my reassurance as I feel toward him in the dream. This mechanism is like for the chassid in the Reward.