Not Just Another Concert at the Chan Centre

We waited a long time for a bus to UBC on Broadway, but fortunately, thanks to some running in the rain and having gotten tickets ahead of time, we made it in to the CBC Orchestra’s afternoon Concert at the Chan Centre just before the doors closed. This was important, since the concert was being taped for broadcasts (it will be aired on April 18th on In Performance, June 11th on OnStage, and Septermber 10th on Jazz Beat) and missing the first half would have been a major disappointment.

Pam and I were at the concert for a bunch of reasons. First of all, it was an interesting program: the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 (this is actually for Piano, Strings and Solo Trumpet), a premiere of a new work, and the Symphony No. 2 of Kurt Weill (of Three Penny Opera fame). The concert was billed as ‘Swing Soft-Play Hard’, about the Jazz influence/orientation of the second work on the program, the premiere. The second reason was that I’d never heard the CBC Orchestra before, and I was curious. They are, as it turns out, the only Radio Orchestra in North America. Thirdly, I knew the soloist personally. In fact, I knew the soloist when we were young – I’m thinking when we were around 15 or 16 years old. We took a typing class together at the Friend’s School in Baltimore. I still remember the three of us (my brother, my friend, and I) all typing ‘All Glad Lads Fall’ as the typing teacher called out the words. Hey, 2 books and probably 1,000 times that much typed later in total (including right this very moment!) and I’m glad I spent that summer getting it right from the start.

Oh, one more thing: when I knew the afternoon’s soloist, their name was David Buechner. Today, he’s a she. She’s Sara Davis Buechner, and a world-class pianist and faculty at UBC.

I’m happy to say that for me, the Shostakovich was absolutely brilliant. If you had a check-off sheet for everything that makes a great performance, it was there: tone, pacing, wit, ensemble, drama, sensitivity, you name it. I doubt if I’ve ever heard a better performance of any of Shostakovich’s music, and the CBC is one of the best orchestra’s I’ve ever heard. Add to that a fantastic conductor (who I’d never heard of until today: Yannick Nézet-Séguin), who is the artistic director of the Montreal Symphony, and only 31 – watch out for this guy; he’s going to be a major league talent, and I’ll bet he’ll be the director of an even bigger orchestra in a few years. Sara was terrific, and I hope I get to hear her again. We met her afterward backstage, and although she didn’t recognize me at first, I pointed out that we had both changed a lot in the intervening years. We all agreed to get together when the term is over (especially Piano Juries, which are very time consuming as I remember from my — and my parents’ – years in music schools).

I was a little anxious before meeting Sara. I’ve never knowingly met anyone who is a transexual (although in 1 or 2 cases, I’ve suspected that this was the case). Also, I only knew her personally before the change. At any rate, the unusual-ness of being backstage after a big concert probably overshadowed the unusual-ness of meeting up with a former childhood friend after a sex-change operation.

The rest of the concert included the first time I’d ever heard the Kurt Weill work live. It was a real treat, and had a lot of the charm, wit and gorgeous harmonic shifts that you hear in works like ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’. As for the new work (the one with the Jazz influence), well, all I can say is that I really didn’t like it, and will leave it at that. I’m still hoping that I’ll hear a premiere of a new Canadian work that will really knock my socks off, but it hasn’t happened yet.

An Absence at Work and Online Tryouts

It was a better week at work, largely because one of the people I work with had a back injury last week but was able to make it in this week for part of each day. In a large company like Fidelity Investments, where I used to work, if someone was out with a sickness or injury, you filled in with someone else, and projects didn’t usually suffer unless the individual was absolutely key and their absence was uncharacteristically ill-timed. Contrast that with a company of about a dozen people, where any single employee has key skills and knowledge, so take them out and things grind to a halt. Last week had really been a little crazy, as I had to try and fill in with all sorts of tasks that I’m clearly not trained to do. I muddled through somehow, often learning as I went.

Speaking of knowledge, I’m once again going to see if all this accumulated trivia I’ve collected in my gray matter over the years can pay off or not. The Jeopardy Game show has announced that for the first time, they’ll hold online tryouts. While this means that thousands of geeks will be hunched over their computers firing off answers (and they explicitly say ‘Not in the form of a question this time’) to various Potent Potables, Rhyme Times and State Capitols, I’ll see if I can make it this time. I had tried out in person in Boston some 15 years ago and came very close…but not quite.

In the off chance that I do make it to being a contestant, at that point after the first station break where Alex Trebeck tries to make some conversation with me based on some biographical tidbit on the card, I’m hoping it would be about music, or perhaps moving to Canada (I’m sure he’d like that, being a Canadian himself), and not the fact that as a student I had green hair and once protested Margaret Thatcher. Better not to share any of that, to be sure.

You Wanna Talk Money?

This in from the United Press yesterday:

WASHINGTON, March 16 — The Senate voted Thursday to increase the national debt limit to almost $9 trillion, the fourth hike since President George W. Bush took office.

The vote was 52-48, with three Republicans joining Senate Democrats in opposition, the New York Times reported.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, head of the Finance Committee, urged a vote for the bill, blaming the increase in federal spending on the Iraq war and national security.

Pam and I were talking about the fact that the US will soon be moving from trillions (1,000,000,000,000) to 10-trillions (10,000,000,000,000). Gee, if they keep this up, they can move from 10 to the 12th power to the next big number, 10 to the 15th power, or a quadrillion.

If these numbers don’t make any sense, maybe this will: The Share of the National Debt for every US citizen is now at about $27,729.20. According to my research, that’s just about the cost of a 2006 Toyota Prius. So in the U.S., every Man, Woman and Child owes the equivalent of a Prius.

I often say that we left the US for political reasons, but much of it comes from not wanting to be in the middle of the the coming fiscal meltdown. We won’t be entirely insulated from it here in Canada (far from it, in fact), but I like to think that we’ve moved ourselves slightly out of way.

It’s hard to believe that just before we left, I was talking about the decline of the US in these terms:

…It’s not only about hating (yes, I must admit it, I hate) the man who sits in the Oval Office, as well as the craven Vice President. It’s not only about how the country is clouded over with signs that read ‘Call 311 for suspicious activity’ and TV Networks that spew political propaganda that Pravda would have been happy to print or broadcast. It’s not only about more homeless on the street with no attention paid to their plight, or the fact that children no longer learn music or art in many public schools, or that people seem to think that a magnetic ribbon on their gasoline-gulping SUV constitutes support for the troops in a war that just goes on and on as far as the eye can see. It’s not only the growing cultivation of religious fanatics, both here (the Christians) and abroad (the Muslims). It’s not only the fact that atheists are not even considered citizens and scientists are seen once again as heretics for teaching the facts of evolution. As far as I look on the horizon, I see decline for the US, socially, politically, intellectually, economically, and philosophically…

Gee, not only was I depressing, but I wasn’t even close to how bad it could get. As Sarah Vowell (who I must admit, I sort of have an intellectual crush on) said on the Daily Show last month: “I talk about going to [President George W. Bush's] Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, ’cause I was so afraid he was going to ‘wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water’… the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.”

Wine and Cheese in Port Moody and Émigrés Compare Notes

This afternoon Pam and I took the Skytrain out to the Lougheed Town Mail station, where Matt picked us and ferried us up to a Wine and Cheese Party at Oanna’s house up the hill (about a 15 minute drive, and a great help). It was a bright, sunny day, and a little cool, but generally pleasant. We saw lots of patches of melted snow as the car climbed the small mountain where Oana’s house was.

We had a really nice time, meeting a lot of her friends and Oana was particularly helpful in giving many guests a proper introduction so we knew of where interests might intersect. Sometimes we also learned of other coincidences that only arise after a bit of conversation, like the fact that the small town of Waitsfield, Vermont was also frequented by one of the other party guests, who often visited there from Montreal(!). Oana had assembled a great variety of cheeses including Sage Derby, Aged Gouda, Wensleydale with Mango, Tiger Blue (which is a BC bleu cheese that is quite good). and several others, and Matt also contributed some fiery (and even more fiery!) salsas. We brought some Brillat Savarin, a little Salt Spring Island Chévre and some Mimolette, which were also munched on along with the rest of the ‘cheesy comestibles’, as the Monty Python sketch goes.

It all Depends on Your Point of View
We also met another couple of American émigrées. Cecily and Larry moved here from California at about the same time we did. They were retired from working in IT with a daughter in college, and are now living in Belcarra, an area on the east side of Indian Arm (a northern fjord of the Burrard Inlet), about an hour or so from downtown by car.

After each of us told the other our stories ? which were similar enough; We’re all escapees of Bush’s America, even though were were safely surrounded by friends and relatives who were in blue states ? we got to comparing the differences that we noticed between where we were now and what we remembered of the US.

Mass Transit: They felt that it wasn’t done right here, mainly because there weren’t parking lots near some of the key Skytrain hub stations, making a ‘park-and-ride’ strategy inconvenient or downright impossible. In addition, they said that they suspected that a lot of people didn’t pay the fare (it is on the honor system). I’d have to say that we didn’t experience this at all, since we don’t have a car, and I never gave a thought as to whether there was rampant cheating on the part of passengers (since we were so careful that we thought we’d be caught if we ever didn’t pay and never asked anybody).

Roads: They felt that Canadian roads were not maintained as well, nor were they as wide or fast as American freeways. Again, without a car, we had no way of knowing. In fact, when we have driven up to Vancouver from Seattle, we’ve noticed that the road appears to get better after you cross the border, but this is just one highway, and we just don’t have experience with the rest of the roadways.

Cost of Living: We both agreed that some things were much more expensive: our biggest complaint (no surprise) was wine. Coming from California, they particularly missed good, cheap wine. Here wine is neither good, nor cheap. Oddly enough, they felt that there was less variety of fruits and vegetables in the markets, where we, coming from Boston, had observed exactly the opposite. That’s not all that surprising. I was happy to learn that their experiences so far regarding medical care (they had gotten coverage the beginning of this month, just like us), was that it was just as good as what they had under the HMO back in California, and that the wait for a doctor here was, if anything, shorter than the one they had under the private medical system of the US.

How ‘Wired‘: Pam and I noticed that our Internet service here is far better than the best that we could get in Boston. Larry and Cecil were blessed with a phenomenal (and quite atypical) fiber-optic link directly to their household back in the states, which is something I know is way above the norm.

‘Canadian Demeanor‘: We both agreed that Canadians were far more polite and friendly than we found Americans to be. I was actually surprised to hear this, since I assumed that my perception was skewed by the fact that Boston is reputed to be the very rudest city in North America. Nevertheless, we both found ourselves surprised and pleased at the courteousness of our new neighbors. Larry was now a Freshman at the Emily Carr Institute, and found that he was quite popular and accepted by his classmates (many, I expect, who would have been his daughter’s age).

Movie theatres: Here we both shocked each other. I was impressed at how many there were and how nice they were. They felt that they couldn’t find any anywhere. I think this says that movie theatres here in BC are more clustered within the city, and the concept of a multiplex in a suburban mall is less common (although I’ve been to a pretty huge one at the Metrotown mall, but maybe that’s not far enough out to qualify as truly suburban).

Those were a few of the things we talked about. The biggest difference between us is probably our work situation (we’re not retired yet) and where we settled (after a brief period renting not too far from us on False Creek South, they moved out to rural Belcarra and we stayed in the city). They still drive everywhere and have a dog. We have no pets and no car. Do these things affect the experience of Canada vs. the US? Probably a bit. Cecily and I both noted that the News media in the US has become a drumbeat of violence and sensationalism, which is something you don’t get up here. This makes for a very different populace and a very different life, in the end. It was fun to compare and contrast, and I bet I’ll get the chance to do it again, perhaps with more Bush-dodging Americans.

One more bit of evidence of how small the world is: I also met Karen and Zhongxi, who both perform on the traditional Chinese mouth organ, the Sheng (I believe that’s the one). I also found out that by coincidence, Karen had studied piano at Oberlin Conservatory with none other than an old family friend of ours, Peter Takacs. Those coincidences just keep coming, don’t they?

Chicken Pot Pie

I had grown fond of the small pot pies served at À la Mode in Granville Market – they occupy a little corner in the market, and are perhaps a little hard to find. Some of the pies I’ve had are in little aluminum tins, and others in large porcelain mugs with a marvelous swath of pastry laid on top of them and warm filling in the mug, usually mushrooms and gravy or onion soup. The aluminum ones had tuna, crab, lamb, turkey, chicken and beef. But none of these prepared me for what I discovered tonight.

It’s a Friday, the end of a long week, for both Pam and me. This morning it snowed a bit, but by the time I was back the Island, it was clear, albeit still quite chilly, and the sun had not quite set yet. I was thinking about a pie for dinner, and noticed that they had some uncooked pies in a cooler on the side. The sign said to ask staff about them. I asked about chicken pot pie. The guy there told me he had to go and look to see if there were any left in the back. After several minutes of waiting, the phone of the other woman who worked there rang. She asked me if I was the fellow waiting to find out about the status of a large chicken pot pie and I said I was. Unfortunately, there were none of that kind left. I was a little disappointed, but then a second later she said “Tell you what, come back in 10 minutes. I’ll make you one.” I went about my other shopping, getting staples for the weekend (particularly breakfast): little red potatoes, onions, double-smoked bacon from the butcher, eggs and sliced bread. When I returned, the pie was ready, in a box, and wrapped up in a bag. I took it home and baked it in the oven for about an hour.

The results were sublime. A freshly-made, hot chicken pot pie straight from the oven is just about the best thing I can imagine on a cold Friday night. We polished off half of it, along with some salad. Dessert was some raisin and pecan bread with cream cheese and Chamomile tea. Bliss.