Rachmaninov, Elgar, Ember Part II, Chekhov and Ibsen

Sunrise and sunset from my western-facing window last Saturday. No filters were used!

Last night the Utah Symphony played Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. I have a hard time believing that this was the first time I'd heard this piece live, but it certainly felt like it. I had a great seat to the left of the orchestra section, and the seat to my right and the four seats in front of my were empty, (people must have been scared away by the snowy mix falling).

The performance featured Jon Kimura Parker, who, in a Oscar-Peterson style encore, emphasized that Rachmaninov had been inspired not only by Paganini but by the jazz piano clubs of Beverly Hills. It was a grand performance.

In the second act, the massive symphony (two  harps!) played Symphony number 1 by Edward Elgar. Also, hadn't seen this, and also was blown away. Especially under the tight and exceptionally comfortable conductorship of Mark Wigglesworth (none of the instruments wiggled under his baton - everyone seemed to know exactly where to do what, and they did it). The end was explosive, and explode the audience did. The theater was almost full, which is impressive given the size of Abravanel Hall.

On the way to and from the concert, I continued to listen to Part II of the Ember in the Ashes Trilogy, which is called A Torch Against The Night. This one is... just as good as the last. In my last post I said I was going to wait until Thanksgiving break, but nay, it was not to be, because I tried three other audiobooks that left me feeling like I was drinking watered down iced tea on a cold winter day. It's probably not fair to name them after that comment, but I will:

Bad Boy, by Walter Dean Meyers

Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon

and worst of all, another fantasy book called The Young Elites by Marie Lu, which was poorly written, using words incorrectly and including phrases that made me grimace at their inaccuracy or clumsiness.

Even Salt to the Sea, a historical fiction book I had begun with gusto the week before, by Ruta Sepetys, turned to ash on my tongue this week, and I'll finish it simply for the sake of finishing it.

This morning I decided I'd better read something other than YA lit, and returned to the collection of Chekhov shorts that I read for book club last month. The meeting has come and gone, but I didn't read all the stories, and I am not exactly chomping at the bit to read Robinson Crusoe, the pick for December. The narrator has already put me off with his white arrogance in the preface where in a breath he says that in these pages his "story is told with modesty and seriousness," and declares that in publishing his life's tale he does the reader "a great service". I'm sure you do, my man. I'm just not prepared to listen to your account of dominating other cultures.

So I read the short story "The Darling" in which Chekhov continued to impress with his attention to the plight of women. Olenka is widowed twice and fears abandonment, for she has so little control over her life when not attached to a man. Well, also when she is attached to a man, come to think of it. The part that stuck out to me was the way people reacted to her when she was young. She was appealing and attractive and, it seems, charming and demur.

"Looking at her plump pink cheeks, at her soft white neck with its dark birthmark, at the kind, naive smile her face bore when she listened to something pleasant, men thought: "Yes, not bad at all..." and also smiled, and lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle of the conversation and saying, in a burst of pleasure: "You darling!"

Maybe it's only because I now have Robinson Crusoe on the mind, but is it not a sense of an easily controlled and conquered person that gives us that urge to grasp a hand and say "You darling!" When someone appears "naive" and domesticable, is it not some relief within us that this person would be an easy win? That they will pose to problems to our own sense of worth? That we can always feel faintly superior because we are not as naive as her, and her pleasant appearance can be a source of gratification for the eyes, without being so striking that it threatens our pride?

For the men, the sense of conquering is more straight forward and more expected, because it carries sexual undertones, but for the women, it's a stranger thing. We want to remain the more powerful female, and seizing someone else's hand in patronizing rapture is not so dissimilar from seizing hard capital from a group of people one wants to establish as inferior. If I can seize your hand, you cannot threaten me.

This short story reminded me of A Doll's House, which has also been on my mind this week as I consider what to read next with the 11/12 graders. Nora is certainly considered to be "Not bad at all" by Torvald, and she leans into this trope of demur woman to get her way from a man who will never see her as having or deserving agency. I'm sure her hand has been seized by many women in her day.

This week we spoke a great deal about music in class. Students listened to and read an excerpt from A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah in which he talks about his introduction to rap music. They then wrote about their own connections to music. As part of the brainstorming process, period four created this "Chalk Talk" mural which includes many translations of music-inspired terms into students' home languages.