Words

I like words. I collect words. I have a little book where I jot down the words that I like.
Some words I like for the sounds, such as
Circumambulate [ to walk around ]
others I like for their meaning, such as
Callipygous [ to have a beautiful behind ]
and then there are the words that express exactly what you are trying to say, as
Forsooth [ in truth indeed ] or finagle [ to trick or swindle ]
Every day I find another word I like, but even the best of the new words are competing with the tried and true, the essence of being human, words such as Peace, Happiness and Love.
But I still collect new words, because aside from peace and love, maybe happiness is variety.
I like words.

Apple Pie

I love apple pie
In the Old country, we have Aeblekage, which is the Danish version of 'something wonderful made with apples', only this is totally different.
And I make a great Tarte Tatin, if I say so myself. But be that as it may
I love American apple pie.
When I first toured with First Chamber Dance Company, we stopped at some out of the way diner in the middle of nowhere, and the waitress, when I asked for desert, said, as I understood her, that they had 'Apple Pie Alamo'.
I had visions of guns and scads of dying Mexicans and smoke and what-all, till I realized that she was telling me they had ' Apple Pie A La Mode' which I learned meant a great big dollop of ice cream on top of said apple pie.
I was sold.
No amount of whipped cream on the ' Aeblekage' will ever compare to the first taste of diner apple pie and runny ice cream.
I love apple pie.

Dreams

I dream all the time, but I don't always remember the dreams when I wake up.
And with the dogs waking me up many times a night, my dreams are often in multiples, like last night.
My first dream was me entering my father's barber shop ( my father has been dead these many years ), sitting down in one of the chairs and saying to him:
machine on the sides and easy on the top!
He was standing with his back to the window so I could not really tell how he looked, but I did wonder why I giving him the instructions in English.
The other part of the nightly dream was that somebody had given me an enormous bag of colored jelly beans, and it was imperative to me that I got all the colors separated and stashed in glass jars. One color per jar. The better part of the dream was this person sitting separating jelly beans.
Sometimes it is convenient when the dogs wake me up and save me from some incredibly boring dream.
But I dream all the time.

Conundrum

My conundrum is not to write or not to write; my conundrum is of what to write.
Could my daily problems with my ill-disciplined dogs really interest anybody.
And what about the unsavory neighbors, the Mad Queen and his entourage. Takers ?
Or my trips down the slippery memory lane to a time long, long ago, when men were men and women were chattels. Anybody ?
So maybe I should just write what comes to mind like
I like to take the bus
I do enjoy not having to drive to town once in a while, not to have to worry about finding parking, which has turned into a nightmare here in Vallarta, which was never meant to have automobile traffic in its narrow, winding streets.
And more than anything, I enjoy people watching in the bus.
The other day I was watching a young lad, maybe eighteen years old, sitting with a child on his lab. A child of about three. The joy was to watch the absolute devotion the lad had towards the kid who kept falling asleep, and the care he took to protect the wee one from banging his head against the seat. how he constantly tried to make the kid comfortable and when he had to wake him up for the end of the trip, the sheer delight in the little one's grumpiness.
l loved watching this little domestic happening. And they got off, the wee one complaining and the lad smiling and hoisting him up on his shoulders to walk home, and I went to my stop and walked up the hill to a collection of screaming, ill favored mutts.
To each his own.

Numbers/numeros/nummer.

So you may think that Spanish is difficult, but look at this.
Seventy in Spanish is sesenta. Not that different.
In Danish it is
Halfjerdsindstyve.
Let me break this down.......halfjerd/sinds/tyve.
Halfjerd is hal = half.....fjerd = four...= 31/2
sinds..= times
tyve..=twenty
So there you have it...3 1/2 times twenty......voila...70.
Simple no ? Of course not. It is so outdated and quaint and still used. And it was used by people like Tycho Brahe ( real name Tyge Ottesen Brahe ) 1546 -1607, the foremost astronomer of his day.
And by H.C. Oersted 1777-1851, a physicist and chemist who discovered electro magnetism and produced aluminum.
And by Niels Bohr 1885-1962, physicist who won the Nobel prize for atomic structure.
So if this was good enough for them, who am I to complain.
Besides, I still have a few years to go before I turn seventy, so I will worry about spelling it then.

Voice of the Future ?

On the radio that I listen to here in Vallarta, they keep playing a clip with an obviuosly American rock musician, addressing his, I asume, adoring fans.
I don't know man, he yells, I don't know, but I want my fun before this shithouse burns man,
ya dig !
And they scream
And I cringe
This is what it has come to.
After building the pyramids to discovering galaxies and finding that the earth is round and sending men to the moon, this is what we end up with.
A barely literate guitar playing mouth piece for hedonistic pleasures.
With access to thousands and maybe millions of young people.
This is our future ?
If this is it, I want to get off.

The End Of An Era

When I first moved to New York, I had a night job to make a little extra money.
My job was to help the wardrobe department of New York City Opera make funny little felt booties for the chorus of their new production of Faust.
Then I was hired as a dresser and I got to stand in the wing and see and listen to Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, and I was in love. That any human could produce the sound that Beverly could produce, bowled me over.
I remember gushing to Chuck about this incredible singer, this wonder, this lovely, lovely lady.
And I would hang out in the wings and watch her in Julius Caesar, watch her as she danced as Fata Morgana in Coque D'or, and of course in Faust.
Chuck caught the bug as well, and it was Chuck who took the time to write to her and thank her, it was Chuck who talked to her after I pointed her out in a super market in Vallarta, and it was Chuck who said, one afternoon as we were leaving our secret beach to head home for the states the next day, that for his funeral, he wanted this particular song by Beverly that we were playing in the car.
Now Beverly Sills is dead too, and Chuck never had a funeral, so I never got to play the song, but surely, wherever these kindred spirits are, Beverly will be singing to Chuck
Marietta's Lied from Die Tote Stadt by Korngold, and a wish will be fulfilled.
He certainly deserved it.

The day I saw Karen Blixen

I had ridden my bike to the movie theatre in the center of Copenhagen to look at the display pictures of the American movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
I must have been in my early teens and taken by the charms of Miss Monroe and in those days we still had movie palaces, in fact I think this particular cinema was named " The Palace ".
So there I was checking out the photos when I turned and saw, crossing the street, the aristocratic and wonderful writer, Karen Blixen.
Already in those days I was a voracious reader and had read many of her books and loved them, absolutely loved them, a feeling that has not dimmed in all these years.
There she was.
And to this day I can remember it as if I had taken a photo; she was rail thin and holding on to the arm of her secretary Clara Svendsen. She had on a black suit and a black hat with a large brim and, for a wonderful effect, a red fox collar around her neck. She looked at me and her pupils were so large that her enormous eyes appeared black.
I was awe struck, I was about to die. She looked at me, and to this day I swear
she looked at me and smiled.
That was the day I saw Karen Blixen and I will never forget.

In praise of the cheap chocolate bar

When I was a kid I promised myself that when I grew up and had my own money, whenever I felt like chocolate, I would buy some. Always.
And I have pretty much kept that promise and it was not until I started touring with First Chamber, I ran into minor problems.
We were part of a program called Community Concerts which gave smaller places a chance to see real live performances without having to travel hundreds of miles to a big city.
We,The Company, did the traveling.
And since these smaller places did not exactly have chocolate shops, I learned to get my fixes from dime stores and super markets, and found U-NO bars.
And I never looked back. They have been my favorite cheap chocolate bars since then, and I rue the day they may not make them anymore.
However, living in Mexico has curtailed my U-NO habit considerably except, once a year my Washington family brings me a supply.
And this is what made me write this.
Last night I ate my last bar, and now I have to wait to Christmas for a new supply.
But it is always worth the wait.