Because of these massive protests, not just here but throughout the world, the COVID pandemic has been shunted aside for the time being as far as the primary focus of the news is concerned, but of course it is still very much with us. I’ll say a bit about that later, but right now I have some personal things to tell you that will set the tone for the remainder of this blog, which will surely turn out to be some kind of a potpourri.
Many commentators and pundits have remarked that they believe that with these protests, the country has reached a turning point, and they are probably right. But for me, personally, as far as these blogs are concerned, I think I have reached a turning off point, and I’m quite sure I am right about that. As the French say, ça suffix. I am going to take a break from the blogging life for a while and devote myself to paring my fingernails, which have suffered from a malign neglect all these months. People are beginning to say that in that respect, if in no other, I am beginning to resemble Howard Hughes.
Actually, my fingernails notwithstanding, I have been doing other things with my fingers lately. For example, I find them quite helpful in reading books, so to distract myself from the world’s troubles as well as my own, I have employed them in returning to some of my favorite authors. May I take a few moments to share since I have already announced my departure, for now at least, from further commentary on the coronavirus? What I am about to tell you may turn out to be the only thing of value in this blog.
As some of you will now know, I am one of the vanishing breed of classical music lovers who are soon, I fear, likely to go the way of the dodo. I just wrote a blog about two very eccentric composers that some of you may have read and have others in my blog queue that will be inflicted on you over the next couple of months. But I’ve also been reading in this area, particularly about the astonishing relationship between one of the most remarkable women of the 19th century, the singer, Pauline Viardot, she of gypsy blood but a supreme artist, and her decades-long romance, while married, with the celebrated Russian writer, Ivan Turgenev, who was wild about her. If you have any interest in such cultural icons as these worthies, get ahold of a book called The Price of Genius by April Fitzlyon. It is absolutely riveting.
It comes with a warning, however, or perhaps I should say, with a friendly advisory. It’s very long. If you should want to read it, be prepared to tax your eyeballs for a while; it will probably take you about a half hour to get through it. Most of you won’t be interested or interested enough to bother. But if you should read it, you will see that my friend, Chris Bache, has some very complimentary things to say about me. Don’t you believe him. He must have been on LSD himself when he wrote those words….
Before I leave you for better things, I would like to add a few personal notes in addition to my book endorsements, musical enthusiasms and accounts of my wanderings in the exotic lands of LSD.
For the last three months, I have been hunkering down and have not gone anywhere other than down and back my local street doing my imitation of a mobile fig tree or, if you prefer, a tiny version of the leaning tower of Pisa. But as of this week I will finally be venturing out to see a round of doctors and my dentist, among other daring encounters. I may even have to go grocery shopping again, suitably attired with mask and other accouterments of our time. I am looking forward to my adventures in the outer world with some fair measure of dread, and hope I will manage to survive to tell the tale. Wish me luck!
Ah me, but why go on with this jeremiad? You have heard it all before from the many members of the political chattering class. Many of us of course, now that the election is drawing nigh, wonder, with fear and trembling, what drama awaits us come November?
I have a dear friend who, the night that Trump was elected in 2016, resolved to leave the country and did; she is still living in Mexico. If Trump remains President in 2020, a truly annus horribilis already, I think I will leave the planet, period.
Well, I told you this blog would be something of a potpourri. But I hate to leave you with such gloomy thoughts. Be assured – I am not really feeling gloomy myself. Despite everything, I am still happy, still grateful to be alive, still glad I can write and enjoy life – and to crack jokes. As we’ve seen during this pandemic, humor flourishes, and that’s a good thing. And, let’s not forget – good things are happening in our country, and if some of the current protests lead to the kind of long overdue structural changes that will bring about social and racial justice, we will be a better country in the end. Let us hope so. With all our hearts.
Meanwhile, my monthly blogs will continue until the end of the year. I just hope they won’t be posthumous ones! And eventually I may pop back with another blog or two in this coronavirus series. We’ll see. For now, however, I have a date with my fingernails that just can’t wait.
