My father's 18th century stucco over fieldstone and clapboard mixture house has been on the market since mid-March with about 15 showings and no takers, even when the listing price was taken down from $220,000 to $200,000. Mind you, this house comes with extraordinarily crafted old stone walls and 3.5 acres of land, including a tarn (don't ask) an old barn, garage, and guesthouse, which back in 1960 has an outhouse which my brother and I delighted in, but which has since sunk into the surrounding woodland.
The old saying, "Location, location, location" was never more true than in this case. The house is located in a historic district full of lovely 18th century houses (some even older) in various states of disrepair, or remodeled with the modern kitchen and master bedroom suites which are de rigueur nowadays, at least if you believe the shows on HGTV. The problem is not so much that my father's kitchen and bathrooms have not been remodeled since 1967 (though the kitchen has a floor only a few years old) but that there is nothing to do in Mansfield. Not unless you are Emily Dickinson (I can hear my father laughing at that one) or perhaps an herb farmer or horse owner. The house is an 8 minute drive from the University of Connecticut, which was a selling point for my father when he got the teaching job at UConn. My mother was sold on the beautiful grounds, upon which she eventually created an herb garden, rose garden, perennial beds, and vegetable garden, all lovingly tended. If only a couple like them could materialize today. An unworldly faculty couple who don't notice if there are ants in the non-trendy kitchen, or the occasional mouse. People who regard the phrase "master bedroom suite" with scorn if not derision.
Writers, people whose lives are largely in their minds, as my father's was.
You wouldn't want it as a vacation home even though there is Echo Lake nearby where you can go sailing or boating (at least when I was a kid) and there wasn't a town beach then, though maybe there is now. No, it must be a year-round residence (unless you have a vacation home somewhere else, in which case you'd be rich enough to afford an upgraded house with all the demands of modern yuppie life) My brother wanted to hold on to the old homestead for our sons, but my guess is that neither of them would want to live there, nor would they want to be absentee landlords. And I would never want to put them through the sheer pain in the ass that selling this house has turned out to be.
Land, you say? "It's the only thing that lasts! Tara!" Well, not exactly. Land is almost worthless in Mansfield because of its lack of desirability as a residence--after all, the nearest mall is a couple of miles away, and it doesn't have Abercrombie & Fitch because the beautiful people don't shop there. For some reason, it galls me that my father's land is worthless. And it's not just any land. It's land that was lovingly cultivated for years, and then lay fallow after my mother's death 28 years ago. Old apple trees and evergreens. Lilacs taller than you. Boxwood hedges kept clipped as topiary, large round balls which look as though they belomg to a much grander house. (Not sure whose idea this was; someone probably suggested it to my father.) A hidden garden (or what used to be one) in the foundation of the original barn which blew or burned down in the hurricane of '38.
Tomorrow I am going to the house at 21 Browns Rd. I will be consolidating bank accounts and paying off the last $400 odd dollars that are owed on my father's loan. Tuesday at noon I meet with Paul Johnson, the landscaper who has worked for my father for eons and who wants to do some things that will give the house more "curb appeal."
There is a broken-down fence in back that should be taken away--I hope he can do that, because even if I could fit the wood into my Civic, the town of Mansfield makes you pay for the priviledge of dropping off your oversized trash at the dump.
Then there's the problem of the junk in the garage left there by a handyman friend of Dad's for a few years and which I hope he has taken out by now. If he hasn't, I will have to take legal action to get rid of it which will cost me another $1000+. And the old mattresses in the barn--I have to pay to get someone to cart them away. And the carpenter ant problem in the kitchen. And the leaky roof. This is my karma. I wonder what I did in a former life that was so terrible that I deserve this punishment in this life. I want to be paid a nuisance fee for having to be the executor and give my brother less than half the estate. But this will foment discord, which is more bad karma.
Someone will buy the place. Someone. But when?
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
The word from Bruno Heller
Well, it seems in the last Bruno Heller interview he says that Red John is "definitively" not
Patrick Jane.
That's a relief!
I was afraid the series (hitherto one of the best on TV for 5 seasons) was going to degenerate into a cheap imitation of Fight Club. Heller also says that Red John is one of the 7 suspects on the list. But which list? a fake one meant for Red John or Jane's real list, which exists only inside his head? Or is the list we saw in photo form and heard Lorelei read on the DVD THE REAL LIST?
I still think that of all the suspects, Brett Partridge fits the profile the best.
Honestly, I don't know why McAllister and Reede Smith are even on the list; they are such minor characters and each only appeared in one episode. Is this the "disappointment" of which Heller speaks? That some nobody will prove to be Red John? The banality of evil and all that?
I don't recall Smith at all, and my main memories of McAllister are
1) my mistaken belief (and intentionally misleading story line) that McAllister was the murderer of the red-headed women in the episode because he acts very suspiciously when Grace is acting as a decoy to entrap him. It turns out that the murders were committed by a nutjob chef and his wife who liked to watch.
2) McAllister loses at several rounds of rock, paper, scissors, with Jane. But then Jane always wins at poker and chess, so it's reasonable to surmise that no one beats him at a game. Which is why Red John loves the challenge and is sure he will win this time.
Hmmm, Gale Bertram could easily be the one: head of the CBI, on the inside in an important position, probably told Timothy Carter to meet Jane in the food court in the finale of Season 3, is involved in some shady plan with Kirkland that involves Lisbon ("can we trust her?") And he quotes William Blake's Tyger Tyger, which RJ recites when he talks to Jane who is bound up with tape. Later on, a dying RJ operative taunts Jane with "Tyger, Tyger." This is obviously some sort of secret word among RJ acolytes.
Kirkland? It seems more likely that he himself wants to catch RJ. Either that, or he stole the timeline from Jane to find out what Jane was thinking in order to mess with his mind.
Kirkland kills Lennon in the hospital for unclear reasons--Lennon worked at the women's shelter where Lorelei's sister Miranda stayed. He asked Lennon "do you recognize me?" and seemed to think he was doing Lennon a kind favor by dispatching him. The type of thing RJ might say--he is a showman about death, as though it were something to be staged in a play.
Ray Hafner? Certainly a suspicious character, trying to co-opt Lisbon into working for him and asking her pointedly if she stays on the job because of Jane (much as Lorelei tells Jane that she thinks he stays with the CBI because of Lisbon.) She discovers he's a member of Visualize, which was harboring the young RJ. So...he certainly is connected, if not the man himself.
Bret Stiles? Too old. Why is he on the list? He's a slimy bastard for sure, and he's got something to hide. He may be enjoying the RJ/Jane show and manipulating both of them--a puppetmaster of sorts. But RJ? No.
And why are there two guys with the name Bret? (tt)?
Getting back to Partridge: He makes an appearance on the season finale after not being on the show for a very long time. Jane hates him, calls him a ghoul, says he likes his work too much (works for CBI coroner and is a crime scene examiner) He also admires "great" killers. He says that Eileen's murder is a RJ copycat, and when Jane asks him if he's sure, he says he's just guessing, and Jane is the expert. He could just be a serial killer groupie like the zombies on "The Following," or he could be RJ himself. We don't know much about him.
To be continued...
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Mentalist Season Finale (Season 5) Red John: Psychic or Mentalist?
The following is the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
"This is the final chase," Heller says. "We will know who Red John is and we will catch him next season. Everything that has happened over the past five years will come to a head, and things will change drastically. This is the biggest finale in terms of game-changing and setting up for the last act of the Red John saga. This is as definitive and revolutionary as you can get." [from the Red Blog]___________________________________________________________________
__________________________
BUT THE REAL MYSTERY IS THIS:
It would seem that either
a) Red John IS psychic, otherwise how would he know not only Jane's exact final list of suspects which only Jane knows, but also Jane's memory of the girl Eileen whom RJ murders? also, that the memory was a treasured one, which he destroys on purpose by killing Eileen. (Note: Heller obviously wants us to believe along with Jane that there are no real psychics, only clever fakers, so I doubt that this is the answer.)
OR
b) Red John is Patrick Jane (how else would RJ know these things if there are no such things as psychics and only Jane knows them?)
OR
c) Red John is a mentalist like Jane and is using trickery to make it seem like he is really reading Jane's mind when actually he is just using info he got from carney people from Jane's youth, and his list of suspects matching Jane's is the result of theft...see explanation below.
If we are going on the assumption that there are no real psychics and Red John is NOT Patrick Jane (this would be horribly obvious and derivative--Fight Club already did this better than Heller would be able to do, and it would be a simplistic plot device not worthy of TM writers.) then we must find out how the hell could RJ have possibly known things known only to Jane himself.
At first glance, it seems that the only possibility here is that Jane told someone else about both the memory and the suspect list, but whom and when?*
It would have to be someone who either told RJ directly or someone RJ got this info out of by force or by bribe. For the Eileen memory, it might be someone from his past who observed that Patrick was happy at the scene we see when he was 12 years old. Or maybe just someone who knew the kind of memories Jane would treasure of someone RJ could kill. Possibly Sean Barlow, the creepy psychic who probably is a mentalist almost as good as Jane, gave RJ this info. Eileen was his niece, so he probably saw them playing together. He has already disowned her, so he doesn't care if she dies. He does want his grandchild, so RJ makes sure he has an accomplice kidnap the baby.
The list of suspects is trickier. The only way someone other than Jane could access it is someone who broke into his room and was able to find it. Jane is far too clever to leave the real suspect list where an intruder could find it, so he probably memorized it and left a fake written list. There was an earlier break-in in which Kirkland ends up with the RJ timeline collage (also almost certainly faked)
What might have happened is that Jane left a fake suspect list where an intruder found it and conveyed it to RJ. So only Jane knows the REAL suspect list but RJ got the fake list. (Jane's photo cards with the suspects' faces on them are also fakes--he actually has a whole different list in his head) So the list Lisbon sees is not the real list and Jane knows it. He also has managed to fool RJ. Jane undoubtedly prepared for the event that RJ gets hold of his suspect list by creating a fake one to throw him off the scent.
The appearance of Lorelei on the video reading RJ's letter was not a surprise to me; I have always thought that she faked her own death, that it was staged. The video could not have been made before her "death" because Jane did not have the final 7 suspect list yet. So we know that Lorelei is still alive. She says Red John will not make her suffer as much if she reads the letter to Jane, so RJ must be holding her hostage.
* actually, RJ makes no direct reference to the actual scene of the memory that we see. It was enough for him to make it seem like he knew the exact memory when in reality he only knew that it was a memory--any memory--of Eileen would be enough to hurt Jane. All he would need to find that out is someone who knew Jane and Eileen as kids and saw them playing together. This points to Sean Barlow for sure. He could have told RJ to stick it to Jane by killing Eileen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
"This is the final chase," Heller says. "We will know who Red John is and we will catch him next season. Everything that has happened over the past five years will come to a head, and things will change drastically. This is the biggest finale in terms of game-changing and setting up for the last act of the Red John saga. This is as definitive and revolutionary as you can get." [from the Red Blog]___________________________________________________________________
BUT THE REAL MYSTERY IS THIS:
It would seem that either
a) Red John IS psychic, otherwise how would he know not only Jane's exact final list of suspects which only Jane knows, but also Jane's memory of the girl Eileen whom RJ murders? also, that the memory was a treasured one, which he destroys on purpose by killing Eileen. (Note: Heller obviously wants us to believe along with Jane that there are no real psychics, only clever fakers, so I doubt that this is the answer.)
OR
b) Red John is Patrick Jane (how else would RJ know these things if there are no such things as psychics and only Jane knows them?)
OR
c) Red John is a mentalist like Jane and is using trickery to make it seem like he is really reading Jane's mind when actually he is just using info he got from carney people from Jane's youth, and his list of suspects matching Jane's is the result of theft...see explanation below.
If we are going on the assumption that there are no real psychics and Red John is NOT Patrick Jane (this would be horribly obvious and derivative--Fight Club already did this better than Heller would be able to do, and it would be a simplistic plot device not worthy of TM writers.) then we must find out how the hell could RJ have possibly known things known only to Jane himself.
At first glance, it seems that the only possibility here is that Jane told someone else about both the memory and the suspect list, but whom and when?*
It would have to be someone who either told RJ directly or someone RJ got this info out of by force or by bribe. For the Eileen memory, it might be someone from his past who observed that Patrick was happy at the scene we see when he was 12 years old. Or maybe just someone who knew the kind of memories Jane would treasure of someone RJ could kill. Possibly Sean Barlow, the creepy psychic who probably is a mentalist almost as good as Jane, gave RJ this info. Eileen was his niece, so he probably saw them playing together. He has already disowned her, so he doesn't care if she dies. He does want his grandchild, so RJ makes sure he has an accomplice kidnap the baby.
The list of suspects is trickier. The only way someone other than Jane could access it is someone who broke into his room and was able to find it. Jane is far too clever to leave the real suspect list where an intruder could find it, so he probably memorized it and left a fake written list. There was an earlier break-in in which Kirkland ends up with the RJ timeline collage (also almost certainly faked)
What might have happened is that Jane left a fake suspect list where an intruder found it and conveyed it to RJ. So only Jane knows the REAL suspect list but RJ got the fake list. (Jane's photo cards with the suspects' faces on them are also fakes--he actually has a whole different list in his head) So the list Lisbon sees is not the real list and Jane knows it. He also has managed to fool RJ. Jane undoubtedly prepared for the event that RJ gets hold of his suspect list by creating a fake one to throw him off the scent.
The appearance of Lorelei on the video reading RJ's letter was not a surprise to me; I have always thought that she faked her own death, that it was staged. The video could not have been made before her "death" because Jane did not have the final 7 suspect list yet. So we know that Lorelei is still alive. She says Red John will not make her suffer as much if she reads the letter to Jane, so RJ must be holding her hostage.
* actually, RJ makes no direct reference to the actual scene of the memory that we see. It was enough for him to make it seem like he knew the exact memory when in reality he only knew that it was a memory--any memory--of Eileen would be enough to hurt Jane. All he would need to find that out is someone who knew Jane and Eileen as kids and saw them playing together. This points to Sean Barlow for sure. He could have told RJ to stick it to Jane by killing Eileen.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Boston Marathon 2013 Tragedy
It's too soon after this horrific event for me to be articulate, so I will postpone my commentary until more information is available. My heart is broken for the parents of the 8 year old boy who was killed in the blast, and for the families of the others killed and terribly injured. I am sending healing Reiki and prayer and I am praying that the killer, who is still at large, will be captured.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Kata Kozma: My former student and genius
"Genius" is not a word I apply lightly. It's a rare thing, and I know it when I see it. Even as a Berklee professor teaching at a college where there is an abundant amount of extraordinary young creativity, I have only come across genius once among my many students.
I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee. We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano. What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill. She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.
I did not see Kata again for a couple of years. When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student. Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers. I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way
By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her. Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that. She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing. Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me. It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...
Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields. By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing. I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer. But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York. I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.
I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook. In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective. She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.
There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma. Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.
I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee. We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano. What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill. She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.
I did not see Kata again for a couple of years. When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student. Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers. I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way
By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her. Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that. She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing. Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me. It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...
Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields. By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing. I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer. But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York. I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.
I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook. In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective. She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.
There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma. Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
First post in 2013
It has been almost 6 months since my father's death in October. His demise was followed not long after by the decline and passing of my Uncle Buddy, beloved patriarch of a large family with 6 great-grandchildren, husband of 60-plus years to my Aunt Joan, who has suffered a crippling loss.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
Of course death has been on my mind these many months. And instead of becoming less depressed, I become more and more energyless and despondent. I have forced myself to deal with matters concerning Dad's estate: the minutiae are endless and they have robbed me of any creative spirit I might otherwise have had. A composition I began months ago sits on my desk with a note on it saying "Edit in Finale," but I don't have the energy to work on it. I'm not practicing much due to tendinitis in my right elbow which doesn't go away. I used to deal with this by practicing with my left hand only, but now it's easier just not to deal.
On weekends I lie abed late in the morning. This morning I awoke at 11, full of free-floating anxiety about what needs to be done, even though it's Saturday, not even a business day. My faithful cat is nestled beside me hoping I won't get out of bed. His mute empathy (or so it seems) is the one thing that comforts me, and I close my eyes and go back to imagining various final episode scenarios for The Mentalist until I fall asleep again briefly. I wake up again a few minutes later trying to think of a good reason to get out of bed. I'm not hungry, so it won't be necessary to cook breakfast. Curtiss, who never sleeps much, is already up and at his computer.
Finally I pull myself out of bed and go into the kitchen to confront the huge pile of bills and other paperwork that I have been avoiding. Not only must I pay my own bills, but there are my father's bills too--the cable/wireless, electric, and the $700/month oil bill that gets deducted from the new estate bank account I set up two weeks ago. The other day, the new credit card was rejected when the oil company ran it, and I had to run to the bank to activate the card by using the ATM. I expect things like this to happen. This morning I find an email from my father's accountant saying she still needs some more papers to file my father's return by April 15, which is looming. I have to wait until Monday to get any business done, and I already have several to-dos on my iCal for that day. I make a note of the phone calls I must make, then make a call and leave a text trying to track down a "handyman" who has been using my father's garage as a storage facility for two years. My father, in a weak moment, apparently agreed to allow him to do this. The man is said to be an alcoholic and utterly irresponsible. The good news is, he's apparently come to take away some of it. The house is being shown, and it doesn't help to have the garage stuffed floor to ceiling with junk.
Then there's the contractor I've been playing phone tag with. The hall light ceiling fixture in dad's house has filled with water and no longer works, and there is water leaking from the roof in another part of the house according to our house sitter, Tasha. I can only hope that the house doesn't need a whole new roof. As Dad's gambling habit grew worse, he neglected repairs to the house. The landscaper who mows the lawn and prunes the trees said that Dad had neglected the grounds for years because he didn't want to pay for the care that would have prevented the property from becoming overgrown.
There is about $6000 in the estate account. This has to be enough to pay for remaining expenses, or I will have to dip into my inheritance money which is supposed to be for our retirement in France or Ecuador, whichever will take us with the least problems. (To that end, I am reviewing my French and learning Spanish online, also reviewing my Italian since it's there--this has become a daily distraction from the bureaucratic black hole I have been sucked into.) Of course, the sale of Dad's house will enable us to pay any unpaid bills, but who knows when or if that will occur? There have been at least 3 showings but no offers. The beautiful old 18th century house with its barn, guest house, and garage on 3.5 acres of land enclosed by extraordinary stone walls, with ancient trees and my mother's perennial beds which still survive 28 years after her death. Selling for $220,000 asking price, which means we will be lucky to get $210,000. It's a travesty--the house was assessed at $350,000 just a few years back. But Connecticut is in a depression. The state is out of money, so the Town of Mansfield levies taxes on every possible thing, including the privilege of taking your bulky and large trash to the dump. The Holts' Georgian mansion, furnished with antiques, now a bed and breakfast, is still on the market, down to $800,000 from the original listing price of $1,000,000. Mrs. Holt is the heiress to the Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston publishing fortune, and if her mansion were in Newton, MA, it would be selling for 2.5 million.
I have come to believe that I am unlucky as far as money is concerned. It's not because I don't manage money well--I do--it's just that my father gambled away the money my grandfather meant my brother and me to have, and Dad just assumed we'd recoup the money when we sold his house. He also thought that when he hit the big jackpot at the casino his kids would be set for life. Instead, if he ever won any money, he just gambled with it again. And lost. He died without any winnings.
No one compelled me to become a musician. In my 20's, I thought with the arrogance of youth that I would make a lot of money some day. Instead, it meant a hand-to-mouth existence my entire adult life, always worrying that I would not have enough money to pay the rent or later, the mortgage. What I feared most was ending up on the street, a bag lady muttering to herself. While this has never even come close to happening, I have had to budget strictly. I have not bought a new car since 1999 and I paid cash so as not to have loan payments. Even then, I had to beg my father to give me the $12,000 I needed along with $3000 I borrowed from Barbara. My own condo needs repairs that we cannot afford. Curtiss, who generously gave me a lot of money (when he had it) to do repairs on the house, is now on disability. I am 60 years old and have no pension--I am part-time, paid by the hour, lucky to have health care thanks to the Berklee union. I have been functioning this way since 1995. I will probably not be able to retire--they say you need at least 1 million saved up. I work very hard, am always exhausted, and make very little money. I have a lot of company. The corporate culture has created this scenario for the majority of my generation. And now they are taking away our Social Security, which in any event will be a pittance and not enough to retire on.
I remind myself every day that there are things to be grateful for.
my eyesight: saved by Dr. Sang, one of the best retinal surgeons in the country
my son: doing well at his job in Ecuador, planning to go to grad school along with his girlfriend, whom I also love
Curtiss: one of the few people who always have my back, who is getting well slowly but surely, and talking about getting a job
Barbara: another of the few who always have my back, still my loyal friend after all these years
my other girl friends: Debbie, Fay, Jeri, Phyllis, Lori, Yanni. They keep me sane.
my little students: Gavi, Ella, Ally, Sarah, Ava, Pete, Aashini, and Pranati. Learning to play the piano, improving, getting ready for a recital in May! Their drawings have covered a wall behind my piano.
my cat Sparky: a lap cat, doglike, he follows me around trying to console me in that mute animal way
my Aunt Joan: who also has always had my back, now needs me to have hers. I have never seen her cry before until she lost Buddy. Like me, she is embarrassed to cry in front of others and usually manages not to. At 83, she is hanging onto her health, talking optimistically about coming to visit me in June or July and having me show her around Berklee. She still goes to work every day as a counselor. She is strong and courageous, but she has been crippled by this loss. Something of her energy may have been lost for good. She used to be relentlessly optimistic, cheering me on through my darkest hours; now her optimism is still there, but for the moment it is eclipsed by grief. We spent some time with her in NJ and Curtiss made a video of her talking to me. I am afraid of losing her, too, and if she dies this year I will be overcome with despair. But I have to face the possibility. Not be prepared, because no one can be prepared for the death of someone you love. Death will always drag your loved one to the unknown. No matter how hard you hold on, your grip will be broken and Death will win.
One day I will open my arms to life again and stop thinking about death. I must embrace life or I will never perform or write music again. Life is what gives us the ability to create. At the moment, I am just getting through each day. I sit in front of the TV night after night, anesthetizing myself as I multitask with Facebook, email, word games, language lessons, and various web sites so I don't have to feel the pain. I feel guilty about being a slug, so I forced myself to go to my personal trainer on Thursday and signed up for a once a week session for a month. I'm not exercising as much as usual, and eating sweets and other unhealthy carbs. It's not that I don't care anymore--I just have to muster the strength to care.
Friday, November 9, 2012
My father's students
I have been getting emails full of praise for my father from his former students. They are eloquent in their grief and in their recounting of the worlds of great literature that my father introduced them to. They were as deeply affected by his charm and kindness as by his erudition. It's good to know that he transmitted his excitement and enthusiasm for knowledge to so many people. We all have a wider influence than we know upon the lives of others.
As a teacher myself, I am acutely aware of the responsibility I have to nurture the gifts of my students and to mentor them. I have viewed their successes with satisfaction, knowing the important role I played in their development as artists. I remember my father's pride at being the advisor to such writers as Anne Beattie and Elaine Scarry. He must have felt a pang of envy at times, because the one thing he was unable to accomplish was writing a book. I believe that he was paralyzed by the inability to write a first draft--he was a perfectionist and wanted his work to spring fully formed from his mind like Athena from the head of Zeus.
After writing my first book, I realized that I had accomplished what my father failed to do.
Somehow, I overcame my fear of failure and worked doggedly at draft after draft, occasionally reluctant to include the suggestions of my editor. I spent every spare moment of 2011 writing. Whenever I am tempted by the idea of writing a second book on improvisation, I remind myself that the amount of work required would take me the better part of a year to complete. Though maybe the second book is easier, like giving birth to the second baby. Sometimes I want to quit performing entirely and devote myself to composition and writing about music.
Dad's work required a certain type of performance--some teachers (and I am not one of them) take the stage as they address their classes. They challenge, bait, provoke, pontificate. They are very much like the conductor of an orchestra. These are the born teachers. My father was one. I am not. I had teaching thrust upon me with no formal training in it. I had no advanced degrees. Fortunately, I had a long performing career by the time I applied to Berklee, which trumped my lack of formal academic credentials.
An impatient person by nature, I had to cultivate patience for years. It is my firm belief that no teaching can be effective without patience. And so I am loath to give up on any student, even one who does not practice and skips class. I have seen many students respond to my approach. The courses I teach are generally not inspirational--I have more success with teaching lessons one on one. My manner is not flamboyant, but I convey my love of music to each student.
I wonder if the ability to teach is inborn. Not everyone is a good teacher. I think I inherited some of my father's teaching genius, but I am not in his league. To this day, students from 30 years ago and more remember him and mourn his loss. This is a major achievement. He never boasted about it, and I suspect he did not value it. He once told me he felt fraudulent because he never wrote "the book" and because he got his PhD from Columbia without taking his oral exam (he did write a thesis, which I have been unable to find among his papers.) He was so nervous that he developed severe stomach trouble (ulcers?) and since he was so highly regarded by his professors he was excused from orals. But this hardly constitutes fraud. After all, it was they who made the decision.
He had to live in the shadow of Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun, his teachers. Even so, he was universally regarded as brilliant and as a star teacher. But like Leonard Bernstein, who did not value his greatest achievement, West Side Story, because it isn't "serious" music (and he wanted to be another Mahler) my father never realized that being a great teacher is just as great an achievement as writing a book.
My piano teacher, Charlie Banacos, was a brilliant jazz player and prodigy who gave up performing while still young and devoted his life entirely to teaching. He never wrote a book, but his many students became his disciples and used his teaching methods, keeping the tradition alive. He said he didn't have to "prove" anything to anyone, and refused every plea to perform in a concert or at a club. Charlie was a genius and he probably knew it, though he never acted conceited and certainly never boasted about his teaching.
I wish Dad had been more like Charlie--proud of his status as a great teacher.
I hope Dad didn't feel like a fraud when he died. The nature of his final decline was such that I was unable to discuss serious matters with him. I told him many times that not only wasn't he a fraud, he was an exceptional teacher whose students will never forget him.
As a teacher myself, I am acutely aware of the responsibility I have to nurture the gifts of my students and to mentor them. I have viewed their successes with satisfaction, knowing the important role I played in their development as artists. I remember my father's pride at being the advisor to such writers as Anne Beattie and Elaine Scarry. He must have felt a pang of envy at times, because the one thing he was unable to accomplish was writing a book. I believe that he was paralyzed by the inability to write a first draft--he was a perfectionist and wanted his work to spring fully formed from his mind like Athena from the head of Zeus.
After writing my first book, I realized that I had accomplished what my father failed to do.
Somehow, I overcame my fear of failure and worked doggedly at draft after draft, occasionally reluctant to include the suggestions of my editor. I spent every spare moment of 2011 writing. Whenever I am tempted by the idea of writing a second book on improvisation, I remind myself that the amount of work required would take me the better part of a year to complete. Though maybe the second book is easier, like giving birth to the second baby. Sometimes I want to quit performing entirely and devote myself to composition and writing about music.
Dad's work required a certain type of performance--some teachers (and I am not one of them) take the stage as they address their classes. They challenge, bait, provoke, pontificate. They are very much like the conductor of an orchestra. These are the born teachers. My father was one. I am not. I had teaching thrust upon me with no formal training in it. I had no advanced degrees. Fortunately, I had a long performing career by the time I applied to Berklee, which trumped my lack of formal academic credentials.
An impatient person by nature, I had to cultivate patience for years. It is my firm belief that no teaching can be effective without patience. And so I am loath to give up on any student, even one who does not practice and skips class. I have seen many students respond to my approach. The courses I teach are generally not inspirational--I have more success with teaching lessons one on one. My manner is not flamboyant, but I convey my love of music to each student.
I wonder if the ability to teach is inborn. Not everyone is a good teacher. I think I inherited some of my father's teaching genius, but I am not in his league. To this day, students from 30 years ago and more remember him and mourn his loss. This is a major achievement. He never boasted about it, and I suspect he did not value it. He once told me he felt fraudulent because he never wrote "the book" and because he got his PhD from Columbia without taking his oral exam (he did write a thesis, which I have been unable to find among his papers.) He was so nervous that he developed severe stomach trouble (ulcers?) and since he was so highly regarded by his professors he was excused from orals. But this hardly constitutes fraud. After all, it was they who made the decision.
He had to live in the shadow of Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun, his teachers. Even so, he was universally regarded as brilliant and as a star teacher. But like Leonard Bernstein, who did not value his greatest achievement, West Side Story, because it isn't "serious" music (and he wanted to be another Mahler) my father never realized that being a great teacher is just as great an achievement as writing a book.
My piano teacher, Charlie Banacos, was a brilliant jazz player and prodigy who gave up performing while still young and devoted his life entirely to teaching. He never wrote a book, but his many students became his disciples and used his teaching methods, keeping the tradition alive. He said he didn't have to "prove" anything to anyone, and refused every plea to perform in a concert or at a club. Charlie was a genius and he probably knew it, though he never acted conceited and certainly never boasted about his teaching.
I wish Dad had been more like Charlie--proud of his status as a great teacher.
I hope Dad didn't feel like a fraud when he died. The nature of his final decline was such that I was unable to discuss serious matters with him. I told him many times that not only wasn't he a fraud, he was an exceptional teacher whose students will never forget him.
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