Play On and On

One of the things that friends in Los Angeles often ask me is whether I don’t miss all the wonderful cultural opportunities that a big city has to offer.  Mostly, I don’t, I’m afraid.  I guess that is partly because I spent many years of my life taking in such cultural opportunities that interested me and I don’t have any sense thus of being deprived.  I had my innings.  Also, both Ed and I are pretty much introverts so if the outer world doesn’t poke us, we can move along day to day being pretty oblivious to and of it.  And finally, problems with parking have always dimmed my interest in going to great events; that and the attendant crowds.

Of course, there is also the big city of Vancouver right next door which has plenty of cultural attractions, but in fact we rarely set foot in Vancouver.  The building in Vancouver I know best is the airport (and a fine airport it is), but that doesn’t speak well for my interest in Vancouver’s cultural bounty.  The truth is, I tend toward a view of the cultural world as being sort of limited to New York, London, Paris, and Los Angeles, and thus, with no justification whatsoever, don’t much even think of Vancouver.  One might reasonably say that I might apply the same standard to L.A., but I have seen some wonderful performances, concerts, general events in Los Angeles that make my heart, if not my brain, say otherwise.  

I like looking back on those events that seem more like yesterday than decades ago: the original A Little Night Music with Hermione Gingold and Glynnis Johns in NYC (and re-seen 25 years later in L.A., with Glynnis Johns now playing the Hermione Gingold role); Tony Perkins in Look Homeward, Angel, in NYC, in about 1956; a memorable Alan Bates in an unmemorable play in London in the 1980’s; the premiere of Steve Reich’s Desert Music, at UCLA; a touring company of Hair in 1968 in L.A.  And imagine this: I saw Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago in a musical version of Othello with Richie Havens in the title role.  What could beat that? And on.  I visit them; I don’t need more places to visit; they are enough.

And yet.  There is a Scottish fiddler named Alasdair Fraser whom Ed and I first saw perform on Robert Burns’ birthday maybe 20 years ago in some community hall in Newport Beach or someplace like that in southern California.  He was just amazing and we got ourselves on his email list at some point and, as a result, we’ve seen him play 4 or 5 times, here and there.  The last time was in a church hall in West Vancouver maybe 3 years ago.  He’s gotten older, but his music is as wondrous and energetic and inspiriting as ever.  Last month, I got an email with his current performance schedule and saw that, although he was not playing anywhere near me, he was playing near the 18-year-old granddaughter at UC Berkeley.  I thought about flying down to see him and taking her with me to that concert.  But then I thought again.

Instead, I wrote her with the information, told her to buy two tickets and take a friend, and let me know the costs.   A dutiful girl, she did what her grandmother told her to do.  I sent her a check for the tickets and something to drink afterwards, and she and a friend from her English class went to the concert and loved it, and also asked, ‘do you have his CD’s?’  (Yes, all of them.)  She reported, among other things, that she and her friend were the only people there under the age of 50.  And she still liked it. 

 Couldn’t have been better if we’d gone with her.  In fact, it’s probably better than if we had gone with her.  Send a young person to a concert that they’d never get to on their own.  Share your own memories and attachments.  There ought to be a foundation that promotes that kind of activity.