Music to Someone's Ears

A friend who lives on the other side of the U.S.-Canadian border urges me by email to write in protest to the CBC. It seems that the CBC2 program that he used to listen to while driving home, which played Mozart to calm his weary and presumably frazzled brain, has been replaced by a new CBC2 radio program which plays the music of the DHKS, which appears to be pronounced ‘ducks’ and which appears to be the name of a band out of Winnipeg. My friend is not happy.

Probably none of us old folks is happy about this, even if we are not regular 5 p.m. Mozart listeners. The CBC, which in many ways is one of the crown jewels of Canada—even more than U.S. public radio is a crown jewel of U.S. radio broadcasting—has come upon hard times. The CBC is adequately funded by the government. It is not always having to beg listeners to give them money.

What the CBC is facing up to is a generational challenge. People who listen to CBC radio are old people. And if only old people listen to it, then the old people will eventually depart the radio scene in their grand departure from all scenes, and then the younger people will no longer be interested in funding the CBC. So the CBC embarked about eight years ago on a project to make its programming more relevant to younger people (and, alas, less relevant, to its long time and older listeners).

I have never been a big listener to CBC2, which is the classical radio channel that my friend is so unhappy about, but I surely have noted how the programming on CBC1 and 2 has changed. I used to listen to CBC1 much of the day, even though I could just as easily listen to U.S. public radio. But no longer since the Big Change. Programs about books and reading are replaced by programs about bands from Winnepeg; interviews and conversations with people involved in serious issues are replaced with interviews and conversations with singers and bands from the world of rock and contemporary popular music and people who blather about 'human interest' matters. I don’t even know the right words to categorize the bands. They’re not my mother’s music, for sure, and not mine, either; maybe not even my children’s, but possibly my grandchildren’s. Even a program that plays some of the best music on the CBC and hosted by a young-ish classical/jazz pianist who is a wonder in his knowledge of music and his ability to talk about it is cluttered about 40% of its running time with mindless babble that reminds me of Valley Girl talk. This program, ‘The Key of Charles,’ is one of the most schizophrenic radio music programs I’ve ever heard. I listen now and then and am always charmed by the actual music and appalled by the conversation. Maybe it’s the CBC’s attempt to keep both audiences attending. It does make me cringe, even as i continue to listen.

I heard someone talking on the radio a few months ago about some study showing that most people’s musical tastes solidify by the time they’re 35, and after that, they rarely buy CD’s or otherwise choose to listen to any one they didn’t listen to before that time. I mentally checked my own purchases and preferences and was pleased to identify quickly at least a half a dozen new people in my listening repertoire who showed up long after my 35th year. However, upon reconsideration, I realized that almost all the new people were actually old people: performers who were recording before I was 35 and I just hadn’t gotten around to listening to them until well after then. Miles Davis and Bill Evans, for example. And the few who didn’t fit that category? Well, Kristen Chenoweth who would have been the brightest star on Broadway if only she’d gotten there 20 or 30 years sooner; The Ahn Trio, whom I first heard playing Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Rider in the Rain;’ and Eva Cassidy, who also is a singer of the 70’s who wasn’t born soon enough to have performed then. Madeleine Peyroux? Well, mostly she sounds like Billy Holladay, who was way before my thirties.

I guess the CBC is entitled, like the moving finger, to write and move on to the ‘DHKS.’ It’s just that us old ‘uns are stuck back at the beginning of the music.

Pie and Coffee from the Sky

With everything in the financial world going down, I thought I might spend the day hiding under the bed. On the other hand, perhaps a perfect day for going up. That was Ed’s thinking, so he went helicopter flying today. To fly the helicopter, he must cross two borders each way plus about 100 miles of driving each way. Unfortunately, Canada has no tradition of renting helicopters to licensed pilots. In Canada, if you want to fly a helicopter, you have to either own your own, fly one for your employer, or be a student. Not in any of those categories, Ed takes the long drive down to Skagit County, in Washington, to find an available helicopter. It’s about the size of a large dragonfly, but it holds two people, as long as his passenger doesn’t weigh more than 240 pounds.

He left early this morning with a long list of other things to do (Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, etc.) after the flight; during the flight, he was going to visit a friend up on the Washington border who actually does own a helicopter. But his friend’s helicopter has been in Los Angeles for about six months having itself rebuilt. This rebuild has to be done every 2200 hours and it is a very pricey activity; definitely enough to make you think very carefully about actually owning one of these machines. But apparently it is not a very rapid activity. Obviously, it doesn’t take six months, but I guess there are some people who get priority in the line to have one’s helicopter rebuilt and our friend is not one of those people.

When I realized that a futon bed frame actually doesn’t have enough room for me to hide under, I went to the quilt workshop to entertain myself, to detract myself, and to get something done—primarily making fabric portraits of financial titans of our time for a spring show (portrait 1 above). Around 2:00, there was a knock on the door. Almost nobody comes knocking on the door of my workshop except the quilting students and it wasn’t time for one of them. To my surprise upon opening the door, there was Ed--who had landed in our neighbor’s field--asking whether I’d like to join him in a cup of coffee. Not even Valentine’s Day, but a pretty lovely day when one’s spouse flies up to have a cup of coffee. Not really possible to land a helicopter in your neighbor’s yard in Los Angeles, unless you have a neighbor with a very impressive estate. But here in Point Roberts? Easy as pie. Also, it almost made up for that additional 500 point drop.

Art/Life/Art/Life

A Point Roberts real estate agent said to me once, ‘You never know what you are going to find when you knock on a door in Point Roberts.’ She was talking about the fact that although the outside of a house may be simple cottage, inside it may be startlingly sophisticated design. Other contrasts also happen, as today demonstrated.

Friends had invited us to visit the home of a local artist who did assemblage. Nobody was quite sure what this translated into in this particular case, but I was thinking something like Louise Nevelson. Instead, more something like Andy Goldsworthy by way of a really good thrift store, and both indoors and outdoors. And certainly not what I expected when we arrived at the house. It’s an ordinary looking house about 2 blocks from us, a house that I’ve walked by a thousand times, always admiring the peach trees that grow so vigorously behind the front fence. I spoke with the older, Canadian owners some years ago when I was out on a walk but they sold the house some three or four years ago and I had never run into the new owners.

We entered into a typically old-time kind of Point Roberts house, 4 or 5 small and crowded rooms and a yard also crowded with fruit trees and plants. But the rooms of the house--all the rooms--were filled not only with the required furnishings, but also with arranged pieces: dozens and dozens of them. Many small containers, often with their lids closed, all to be opened and investigated. A box filled with other boxes, each bearing one or two small pieces of old-fashioned jewelry, each with a story that the artist/gatherer could tell, but each reminding me of a similar piece I own or had once owned with a story that I could tell. A checker board with pieces that were never part of any checker game I’ve ever played, but clearly a game I could play if only someone would help me to find out the rules. Kitchen objects arranged carefully on a tray, drawing attention to qualities they share other than their practical purpose, although also including that. A small, old-fashioned travel case inhabited by a few, well-worn stuffed animals. I had a travel case like that 55 years ago when I went on a train trip, and beloved stuffed animals even longer ago. They would love to have lived in such an elegant home.

Outdoors, the yard was filled with many fruit trees, including a gorgeous pear whose fruit seemed as carefully arranged as the pieces in the house. In addition, every otherwise available area of the yard was filled with arrangements similar to those in the house, but here using rocks, shells, driftwood, metal, gravel, the objects of the earth, rather than the objects of human making. A small rock whose shape accommodated another and much smaller rock in only one precise location. Carefully arranged bird feathers gathered from the beach. Everywhere I looked, I saw the owner’s/artist’s hand at work, bringing together pieces/objects that had not previously met but that he imagined could benefit by the introduction. Such a great deal of thought and concern in this matchmaking. Too much to see in an hour or two, but the work easily conveys an attitude toward being on this earth that is genuinely inspired. We are here; other things are here; pay attention to them: see them as well as use them, respect them, enjoy them, take time for them.

No small surprise to find that the author of all this is a physician who lives here only part of the year and otherwise travels the world. He is, he says, an arranger of things. Right behind the doors of a perfectly ordinary little house. You can see his work here.

Fall Events

Even though summer is over and we’re finished with tourist events, Saturday was an at-least 2-event day here on Point Roberts. Probably more events than that, but at least two that all the people were invited to attend. First, at 1 p.m., was the Obama Rally at the Community Center. I needed to go pick up a book at the library and get an envelope in the Saturday mail, so went off to attend at noon, unfortunately, having confused the time. On my way, I saw leaf piles burning here and there, smoke drifting through the air, reminding us all that fall is here—which the recent warm weather has belied--and that others are not committed to saving their leaves for compost. Arriving at the Community Center at 12:15, I took note that no one was attending the rally.

By the time I realized that I was early (not late), I had run out of time and thus left before the rally started. I talked later to someone who said that it was thinly attended, but if a city the size of Salt Lake could drum up only 1,000 people for a rally, how many people would you get in Point Roberts where there are maybe 800 voters (of whom perhaps one-third will vote for Bob Barr)? About 1.3? There were, at least, more than that: another friend drove by at 3 p.m. and reported to me that there were 16 cars in the parking lot at that time, although some of them would be people going to the library. Bumper stickers were available, I was also told.

I don’t know; my idea of a rally is when you go out and yell, ‘Hell no, we won’t go!’ or ‘Down with the plutocrats!’ or something like that. My sense of rallies (too much sixties, I suppose) is that their purpose is to show opposition to someone/thing who seems to have a lot more power than you do and joining together gives you the (momentary) illusion that you just might be in charge of things. I don’t really think there’s a giant McCain majority out there, working to oppress us, given the massive opposition to the current administration and the lack of difference between it and the McCainites.

The second event was the Art Opening at the Blue Heron. The Blue Heron is a long-standing art and craft gallery, run by Kitty and Paul Doyle. Both residents and visitors shop there and many of the items are made by local artisans and artists. Each month, a different local artist is featured, and yesterday was the opening of a new show of fiber art. It’s a tiny little gallery, so work has to be fairly small to be shown, but each month something new and interesting is on display—painting, jewelry, glass work, photography, weaving, wall quilts, ceramics, etc.—and I go to celebrate its arrival. The quality of the work is very high. Also, in addition to the show, there are drinks and desserts. Nice way to wrap up a windy Saturday. Photos of the current exhibit (Artist: Joyce Wensley) are here.

Wild Life in Our Life

Word comes round that gunshots have been heard and that it may be people shooting coyotes in Point Roberts. Certainly possible; there are plenty of coyote around and doubtless people with guns, as well as people who don’t feel kindly toward coyotes. Coyotes are not considered game animals in Washington, but you do need a license to hunt or trap them, unless the coyote are causing damage to crops or domestic animals on your property . In the latter case, you can trap or exterminate them without a license.

When I lived in Los Angeles, we had a cat who was killed/eaten by coyote and it was not uncommon to hear and even see coyotes walking down the streets of West Los Angeles, coming down from the hills to the north. I hear them occasionally here on the Point and less frequently have seen them. Our neighbors have lost chickens to coyotes, but their chickens run around on the unfenced lawn, so that is not surprising, and several people I know have had cats disappear. The conclusion is that they met up with local coyote.

It’s a little hard to imagine people shooting coyote on local streets, in the same way that it would be difficult to imagine people shooting coyotes on the streets of Los Angeles. Not so densely populated here, but still, this is hardly hunting land. We have deer, too, but I don’t think anybody would think it was okay to shoot/hunt them here since when seen they are usually in someone’s backyard.

I don’t have small pets or small children or sheep or cattle or goats, so I’ve got nothing at stake in this dispute between people and wildlife, but it does seem to me that people tend to think that wildlife ought always to defer to people. It’s like, ‘Well now I want to live here, so you have to move someplace else.’ But exactly where are the coyotes on Pont Roberts to move to? Richmond? Vancouver?

Up on the Sunshine Coast, where we have a plentiful supply of bears as well as coyote and cougar (and deer), there is a steady public education program encouraging people to learn to live with the wildlife by NOT encouraging wildlife to get too friendly with people, too used to hanging around people. The same advice goes for coyote. They’re less likely to be a problem to people if people are not encouraging them to come around houses. According to the Washington wildlife people, don’t leave pet food outdoors (including food for feral cats), don’t feed the coyote, don’t leave small pets out at night, don’t leave fruit lying on the ground when it ripens because coyotes eat fruits and vegetables as well as meat prey. With bears, you can’t even leave fruit on the tree, but coyote happily are not capable of getting up in the tree as the bear can.

I grew up in a hunting household, but not in a ‘varmint’ hunting household so I can’t really understand the impulse to shoot coyotes just because you don’t like having them around. If they’re a problem, the wildlife people will come and trap them or deal with them otherwise. That would be my response. But it at least appears that others here may feel differently. Of course, when the coyote are gone, we can then rage about the way that rabbits, mice and other rodents are eating all of our whatevers. Coyote keep those populations in check, doing some excellent work for us. Think Aristotle, think moderation, think reasoned responses.

Time After Time

Still in crisis mode, Americans are needing to expand their vocabulary yet once more. The word for today is tick-tock. Obviously, the sound of a clock, but in the world of political journalism, a much bigger concept. While reading various blogs and reports here and there on the net on Wednesday, I ran into the word three times, and then on Thursday, Kevin Drum sent me to Joe Nocera’s tick-tock at the New York Times.

A tick-tock, it appears, is a minute by minute account of events. By analyzing the tick-tock, one can derive some greater meaning from or about the outcomes of those events. Now, it’s not entirely clear to me from jargon dictionary definitions whether the ‘tick-tock’ is the chronicling, the analysis, or the combination of the two, or whether anyone cares. It’s American journalism jargon, so those folks may have not carefully worked out a definition, but we can see how it works.

Thursday tick-tock.
7:45. My brain awakens and notes that a bird is calling, meaning that it is past 7:30, which is the time the computer randomly chooses a bird call to awaken me every morning. In theory, I would learn to identify the calls of birds from this, but ten years of experience has shown otherwise. I do not learn because the bird refuses to say its name.
8:00. My eyes open and see in the overhead skylight that the sky is gray and I consider changing my plans for the day not to include gardening because it is probably going to rain again.
8:15. I get to the computer to read the news headlines and the morning blogs, mostly political. I find myself reading the same analysis over and over, just written by different people.
9:00. With coffee, I settle down to read the most recent New Yorker. It is providing me with a long analysis of Lionel Trilling’s work by Louis Menand. I think about how, in 1960 when I was in graduate school, I read Trilling’s work and talked endlessly with my colleagues about the meaning of literary criticism, and now it is 48 years later and I am reading about it again, although I no longer have colleagues. Louis Menand is not my colleague.
9:45. I am finished with Lionel Trilling and move on to an article that questions the wisdom of pets inheriting millions of dollars. I think about how, also in the 1960’s, I audited many law school classes instead of writing my English Literature dissertation, and finally quit going to the law classes after I spent two hours listening to arguments about whether the law should allow people to leave millions of dollars in trust to their pet. In the particular case at hand, the pet was a turtle. And now, 45 years later, I am reading about it again.
10:30. Took a walk to the beach and found that the tide was in again. Very reliable, the tide.
12:00. Lunch, day after day.

Well, you get the idea. Reading the Thursday tick-tock suggests that the outcome of Thursday, for me, was largely influenced by repetitive events. Much like the failure of the financial system: deregulation leads to financial crisis; belief that there is a free lunch, leads to no lunch. I am reading about it again.

Tulips Not Forever

I am a believer in tulips and their everlasting quality. That is to say, I believe you plant them and then year in and year out, they come back as tulips. They are perennials in the same way that gladioli are perennials. In other gardens in other places, that was my experience. Which is to say, in Idaho that was my experience. Here in the northwest, not so much.

I have come, over the past 16 years, to understand that if I want five dozen tulips blooming in my spring garden, then in October I will have to plant five dozen tulip bulbs, regardless of how many I planted last year. And the same for daffodils. If I plant five dozen tulip bulbs and 2 dozen daffodil bulbs in October, the following spring will provide 5 ½ dozen tulips and 2 ½ dozen daffodils. Some of the bulbs give a second year; sometimes, even a third year. I have had two of eight species tulips show up for at least three years. Maybe next year will be a record fourth year for at least one of the two. But for the most part, the tulips and daffodils are all—regardless of the label that talks cheerily about their naturalizing qualities—annuals.

I have read about this problem and been told that it is necessary to feed them during their blooming season. Some gardeners say they are to be fed just after they bloom, others want me to do it while they are blooming. It doesn’t seem to make much difference. I have come to believe—and this is a belief, not a scientific or any other kind of fact, as far as I know—that the ground I put them in is just too wet too much of the year and they succumb to water before they get a second chance to bloom. I know I could get round this if I put them in large pots and all that, but that’s how you grow tulips in California: you spend about six weeks with your refrigerator crisper filled with tulip and daffodil bulbs and then you send the bulbs to school in large pots in dark places and then in light places and then outdoors and finally, Hosanna!, they are risen and blooming.

I get my bulbs from Skagit County, the home of The Tulip Festival. When we arrived back in Washington this week, the bulbs were sitting in a beautifully packed and ventilated box at the post office (and had been there for five days). When I order the bulbs, the company tells me that they will ship them sometime during a four week period when the weather is right for me to plant them. Tomorrow and many other tomorrows it is going to be raining, so today it was time to send the five dozen bulbs to bed, even if I had to do it in the near dark, which I did. Already, though, I'm imagining them up and providing another amazing show. Like Broadway, new shows every year.