Your Boat's Lost at Sea

It’s been a while since I wrote an historical note, and today’s event isn’t so old as to be what is usually considered history. It did happen eight years ago, and there are people in the world for whom this is still a pivotal, life-altering event.

Today in 2000, John Morris Rankin swerved to miss a pile of road salt on Route 219 near Margaree Harbour, Cape Breton Island, NS. His SUV tumbled down the 25 meter embankment into the Atlantic Ocean. Three teenage boys, including his son Michael, escaped and climbed back up the cliff and were rescued by passersby. Rankin was found dead in the partially submerged vehicle, presumably from the impact of the crash.

One of 12 children born in the small Canadian province of Nova Scotia, Rankin was a songwriter, instrumentalist and a loving family man. His family group, the Rankins, was made up of some of his sisters and a brother. Although they never made much noise on the American music scene, they were absolutely huge in Canada, in both the folk-rock and traditional Celtic genres. After his death, John Morris Rankin’s daughter Molly joined the group for a reunion tour, taking her father’s place as fiddler on an emotional comeback in 2007.

I didn’t know him, just his beautiful songs and his recordings. I’m listening to the album Endless Seasons today. It’s a nice collection of nice people singing lovely songs. Here's a performance clip I think you'll like.

Baroque No More

I have to say I truly miss having Internet access at home. This hasn't happened yet due to a number of factors, prime among them is that I have been too lazy to research the various offers of Internet alone, cable TV plus Internet, land-line telephone plus Internet, land-line telephone plus Internet PLUS cable TV, ad inifitum, ad nauseum. The adage about not missing your water until the well runs dry is true. It just makes my head hurt to think about sorting through all of that information and making a decision.

So, my decision for now is not to think about it a little bit longer, and to continue to blog from wherever whenever I can.

Monday, whilst home in the morning due to a flaming flare up (imagine actual flames settling in the joints of your wrists, back, elbows, ankles and hips), I received a call from the local piano dealer telling me a tech was finally available to come and look at the damage to my beloved Acrosonic inflicted by the movers. Was I interested? You betcha.

An hour or so later, the noble Wes pulled his trusty Volvo into my driveway. Hauling out his bag of tools and putting on nice, fussy little shoe covers, he quickly dismantled the upper portion of my spinet and soon located the problem. It seems three octaves of keys had become dislocated from the capstans, causing them to be jammed in the keyboard. And yes, oh Mr. Snotty Adjustor from the Moving Company, this was directly attributable to the fact that the piano was turned ON ITS END to be moved. And just for the record, it's a very good thing your guys DIDN'T actually drop it during the move.

It took him about fifteen minutes to do the actual work. We also chatted a bit about rabbits (they were watching him avidly), music in general and the irony of being charged an extra fee for special handling of the piano, only to have it damaged in the actual handling.

Anyway, a half hour later my nice little piano was feeling much better

and I was definitely happier. I wrote him a modest check, took his card and promised to schedule a tuning sometime in the near future and did a wincing, hobbling happy dance in honor of my restored instrument. I played a few bars of a Handel sonata, despite the fire in my hands. It was so good to be able to play again, if only briefly.

Wes was also able to reference the serial number on my piano and determine when it was built. I knew it was used, but figured on it being about 30 years old. It turns out I have a war baby! My dear Acrosonic was built in 1942, which lends the imagination toward all kinds of nice stories. I wonder what hands played her, and what tunes she sang? Did she welcome home a loved one from overseas? A sweetheart sailor perhaps? Or was her cover solemly closed and draped in black, to acknowledge that some beloved someone wouldn't be coming home after all?

I love old furniture and old instruments. I loved my piano before knowing her vintage, but having a specific date and era gives me a new love and respect for her. What a rich and exciting time to be brought into the world.

At the end of the day, my piano was once again whole and hale. My hands felt better and I was even able to play a little. By bedtime, all was right with the world, and she held the lovely flowers sent by a friend. We're home at last.

America's Game

Here's a secret about me, folks. I actually like baseball. The real game of base ball, not the bloated, lethargic, scandal-ridden travesty that is MLB. What I like even better than baseball is movies about baseball. This time of year, I like to rent things like Eight Men Out, Major League (the first one, although in a pinch, I will watch the second one), The Babe, The Natural and of course, the immortal Bull Durham.

Remember in Bull Durham when Susan Sarandon's character, Annie Savoy, reads Walt Whitman? "I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us." He was right then, and his words still hold true today. Baseball represents much of what is good and wholesome and innocent about America. I identify strongly with the simple truths of baseball. Again, quoting from BD, it's a very simple game: you throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. All of life should be so easy, and what's not to love?

Unfortunately, MLB has turned this delightfully simple game into Massive Lurching Business, with the main objective no longer being a contest between 18 men armed with leather gloves and bats, but a high-stakes game of screw-your-neighbor in which organized gangs attempt to separate fans from their money by selling them $7 beers, $80 tickets, $120 replica jerseys. The proceeds of these go to pay the overinflated salaries of stellar "role models" such as Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Mark McGwire and the ilk. When these guys aren't making headlines for winning games, they're making them for testifying about drug use, or being busted for DUI, or for merely signing a new multi-million dollar contract for simply throwing, catching and hitting a ball.

Hey, nice work if you can get it.

But still, I like baseball. And I like going to games. Where I live, we have a rather good AAA team, and on a nice warm spring day, going out to see a game is a beautiful thing. We are also fortunate to have one of what is the most beautiful ballparks in minor-league baseball -- AutoZone Park. This green urban jewel smack in the downtown area shines with grace and dignity. It was built in harmony with the historic buildings surrounding it, and was designed with hard-core fans and casual family attendees in mind as well. There's plenty to do for groups with children, but just sitting in a row seat under the first deck, watching a young pitcher with a 91 mph fastball is truly a thing of beauty.

This was the first game we saw this season, and the impetus was actually the opening act. Another secret about me is that I'm an absolute patriot and a sucker for our National Anthem. I'm very happy and relieved to have been born in this wonderful country, and the Anthem brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it performed in public. Today was an extra-special rendition, because it was a choir of schoolchildren that just happened to include Dear Daughter.

Now, she was behind home plate in a group of about 30 children, so perhaps it was just my imagination that I could hear her sweet little voice ringing out on "the land of the free-eee!!!" but then again, maybe it wasn't. It was a great moment for both of us.

Best Friend of Dear Daughter went with us to the game. We stayed until just before the seventh inning, so we had to sing the stretch in the parking garage. It was a beautiful day in the sun with two of my favorite girls watching a game played by men still young enough and hungry enough to love it. It was--all in all--a beautiful thing.

A Hemidemisemiquaver in Time

Mstislav Rostropovich has died and the world goes on, although somewhat less than it was before. I’m trying to remember if he was one of the guest performers brought to town by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in my youth. I used to usher at the performance halls downtown, and thereby saw lots of wonderful concerts, opera shows, Broadway musicals and ballet performances for free. If I did see him, it was obviously lost on me at the time; in retrospect, I guess there's a lot of things I did then I wish remembered better.

Rostropovich played cello, which is, I’m pretty sure, the preferred instrument of heaven. I can’t get my head around the concept that mere humans could have created such a sublime instrument, and then gone on to compose music suitable for it. It just seems beyond our puny reach. I never learned a stringed instrument, and it’s one of the few real regrets I have about my life. I like to think I’m not too old to learn cello, but at the same time, how could I possibly be worthy?

Here is a rather good story about Rostropovich, along with some comments by Lynn Harrell, another master of the cello. He made me weep openly at a concert a few years back.

Are there young people coming up in the ranks of classical performing artist to replace those whom we are losing? Pablo Casals is long gone, and now Rostropovich. Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell are both 50-something. Who is to follow?