Tuesday 03/28/2023
Tried to do the gym round this morning, but another resident was hogging the machines so I only got half done. I thought I had the right time to go down there but I don’t know.
I again hadn’t written anything for the writer’s meeting. The cue was “my last act, or how I want to be remembered,” and it produced some nice work from my colleagues in the group. I’ll put some excerpts at the end.
I spent some time polishing the body of the stingray, and helping a neighbor learn to use the Dashlane password manager.
At 6:30 I walked with a couple of others three blocks to the Methodist church for an organ concert. This was a big deal. The performer was Anna Lapwood who isn’t even 30 yet, but has a string of musical achievements as long as your arm. She’s a perky blond with the mannerisms of a schoolgirl but she ran a very large organ console like a boss. Here’s a terrible picture from my spot in the front right corner pew.
I had never been in the Methodist church although the outside of the building is a familiar landmark in Palo Alto, a huge 1960s neo-Gothic thing in pink cement. You can kind of get the idea of its style from this interior shot. It has not one but two large organs, and she was using them both, so she could play a riff on the big one in front and then echo it from the one in back. She played a couple of classical pieces, but she did several pieces of film music, including three segments from the sound track to Interstellar. I’m kind of sorry I never saw that film, now.
Here’s a poem by Nancy Flowers. She is riffing on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, the wise ones being those who make their lamp oil last until the bridegroom arrives.
A Wise Virgin
A knock. I open wide to greet: Death, quiet
On my doorstep, hand extended,“Now.”
Where can I run to? Homo fuge! Flight!
No. All my days were hedged against tonight,
Lamps trimmed to meet this bridegroom and know how
To give him yes with incandescent will.
Nice, huh? Here’s a very different one by Connie Crawford.
It is inevitable
The extra key
to the safe deposit box
is on a key ring
somebody has made gaudy
by china beads and sequins.
At the bank,
when her signature
has been duly inscribed
as Box Holder Number Two,
I give the key ring to my daughter.
Then we cheerfully
go out to lunch
at the Fish Market.
It is inevitable
that one day she’ll take
this jingling trinket
from her drawer,
and, in another mood,
whatever it may be,
she’ll remember me.
Codgerville 