I Speak of Dreams

Asimbonanga

So I heard this, 

And I was moved; it was hair-raisingly beautiful, and the people of many races standing side-by-side in peace and also in sorrow....

It turns out it was arranged by Woolworths, South Africa (which has no real connection between the US Woolworths chain). As a tribute to Nelson Mandela, the performance above by the Soweto Gospel Choir was sponsored by Woolworths SA.

I believe the lyrics sung are:
Asimbonanga [we have not seen him]
Asimbonang’ uMandela thina [we have not seen Mandela]
Laph’ekhona [in the place where he is]
Laph’ehleli khona [in the place where he is kept]

Asimbonanga
Asimbonang ‘umfowethu thina [we have not seen our brother]
Laph’ekhona [in the place where he is]
Laph’wafela khona [in the place where he died]
Sithi: Hey, wena [We say: hey, you]
Hey, wena nawe [Hey, you and you]
Siyofika nini la’ siyakhona [when will we arrive at our destination]

Then I got curious about this song. It turns out it was written by Johnny Clegg, a UK-born South African of European ancestry, while Mandela was still in prison (1962-1990); the English lyrics include mention of Steve Biko (1946-1977), Victoria Mxenge (1942-1985), and Neil Aggett (1953-1983).

In 1999, at a concert in France, Johnny Clegg and his band sang Asimbonanga as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, who then appeared on stage. Mandela said,

It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world.
And at peace with myself.
But I do not see much movement up there [in the audience], you know?
I would like us to join, let us repeat it, [hands microphone to Johnny Clegg]
[Singing resumes, with Madiba dancing, with joy]

[and the clip ends, with Clegg and Madiba walking off stage, holding hands]

Passive-Aggressive Thanksgiving, 2013

Finslippy started it in 2010 but but it went on. And on. We should start it again...The twitter hashtag is  #passiveaggressivethanksgiving.

Feel free to recycle.

• RT @finslippy: Thanks for calling me, finally. I guess you don't call your mother on Thanksgiving Morning anymore? #passiveaggressivethanksgiving
• RT @finslippy The only way I know anything about you is through your blog. #passiveaggressivethanksgiving -- that's my dad
• RT @randonb: No, no, the food didn't make me sick; I was just throwing up to get the taste of the food out of my mouth. #passiveaggressivethanksgiving
• RT @SarahThyre: Welllll, it appears the turkey's not the only thing stewing in its own juices. #passiveaggressivethanksgiving
• RT @LadyKatieBond: "Do you want me to get this done or to listen to every little thing you say?" #passiveaggressivethanksgiving
• RT @JRehling: Does Thanksgiving feel special to people like you who eat this much every day? #PassiveAggressiveThanksgiving

CB Fisk Opus 91, from California to Indiana

Over 30 years ago, Jacques Littlefield met a kindred spirit, Charles Benton Fisk, over a mutual love of organs, and the science and engineering of music.   How did this happen?  Littlefield, a graduate of Stanford University, became involved in CB Fisk's Opus 85, and began to dream of a significant instrument -- not a house organ -- in a dedicated hall attached to his house.

First Jacques had to build the hall.  For that, he turned to another kindred spirit, Tad Cody, who he had met through a love of trains.   Tad designed the hall and the rooms and library connecting the hall to the original ranch-style house.  

In 1983, calamity could have struck the CB Fisk company.  Charlie Fisk died.  But Jacques had confidence in the company as a team, and Opus 91 was underway. The installation was completed in 1987, with additions made in 1989.  An important historic note about the usage of this organ was that the Stanford University graduate program in Organ Performance, interrupted by the effect of the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989, continued by the use of Opus 91 in the Littlefield hall, which was unaffected by the quake.

There is at least one recording made while Fisk Opus 91 was in Portola Valley, Kevin Buttle's Festival d'Orgue.

Time passes and things change.  Jacques Littlefield died in 2009, and his family decided that the best future for the organ was to find it a new home.  A team effort ensued to find the optimal setting.

After acquiring the instrument with collaboration from the Jacobs School of Music, the IMU and the office of the president of IU, Kazimir and C.B Fisk disassembled the organ in February 2012 and then placed it in storage in Bloomington until Alumni Hall was prepared for its official installation.

October 15, 2013 was the inaugural concert for Opus 91, now known (for its full formal name) as the Charles & Kendra Webb - Thomas & Ellen Ehrlich Great organ of Alumni Hall, Indiana University 

Performers and works:

• Bruce Neswick: Praeludium in C Major, Buxtehude
• Marilyn Keiser (organ), Esther Kim (violin), Joe Kaiser (cello): Suite, Opus 149, Rheinberger
• David Kazimir: Piece d'orgue, Bach
• Janette Fishell: Scene Pastorale, Lefébre-Wély
• Charles Webb: Toccata, Dubois
• Christopher Young: Petit Offertoire, Franck, and Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, Saint-Saens
• Offrande au Saint Sacrement, Messiaen

This concert kicked off the 2013 Jacobs School of Music's 2013 Fall Organ Conference.

A personal note:  Fisk Opus 91 was an important part of my relationship with Jacques in ways too many to mention.  Jacques' thinking about the instrument, and our relationships with the "Fiskies" who came to install and voice the instrument, opened a whole world to me.  The same is true for musicians who came to play the instrument over the years.  I trusted Fisk President Steven Dieck when he told me that Indiana University's acquisition of Fisk Opus 91 represented a great future for Jacques's dream and the instrument.

Having seen the installation and heard the instrument in its new home, I have to agree. I also think that the Webb-Ehrlich Great Organ's (as it now should be known) location on the campus of a great university gives an opportunity for the organ to be engaged in something else: an exploration of the impact of both engineering and design on the actual production of music.

This is something that Jacques embodied, and touched on through his friendships, and maybe there's a way for the Webb-Ehrlich Great Organ to bring this forward.

In writing up the site change for Opus 91, the CB Fisk Company wrote,

The members of the Fisk shop, especially those of us who knew Jacques Littlefield, are gratified that the organ has a new home at a leading university with such a distinguished organ faculty; we suspect that Jacques would also have approved.

As I leave Indiana, having seen and heard the organ again after some years, I find myself rather teary-eyed--not sad, just poignant. Jacques was nothing if not pragmatic. Yes, I think he would have thought this was a good "next career" for this instrument. I can even imagine him putting together some kind of symposium so the engineers and the organists would see into each other's disciplines.

Timelapse video of the organ being installed

Sources:

• CB Fisk Company, Opus 91
• Press release, IU http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/21762.html
• Indiana Daily Student http://www.idsnews.com/news/NewStoryPrint.aspx?id=91826
• Indiana Daily Student http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=94107
• Indiana Journal-Gazette http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20130806/NEWS07/308069951/1002/LOCAL

California Urban Wildlife: the Mourning Dove

When I first moved into this house, I thought there were no birds at all in the neighborhood.  I was wrong, because I wasn't listening at dawn and at dusk.   

That's what I heard last night, Zenaida macroura, the mourning dove.

(click to really, really embiggen -- image source: http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/birds/columbiformes/Zenaida%20macroura/Canon%205-28-06%20390.jpg)

Found! Land of Make Believe Map

Thank you, thank you BoingBoing! This beautiful map inspired me in childhood. I found and framed a copy for Jumper Girl's bedroom, and have been longing for two more, to give to each set of grandchildren. Now I know where to order it:

 

From the website for ordering the print from Rosen-Ducat Imaging, with my links added

This work of art was created by artist," Jaro Hess" while living in Grand Rapids Michigan around the turn of the last century.

Hess’s compilation of more the fifty nursery rhymes into a single work of art has many admirers. RDI released the series first reproductions of this work of art back in 2000. We regularly receive calls and emails, from adults who grew up with the "Land of Make Believe". When it was hard to fall asleep, children would trace the path that winds through out the print. Prints that were hanging in doctors offices had a calming affect on scared little ones. Where there was a "Land of Make Believe", children could relax and enjoy finding their favorite fairy tale characters.

The prints history is shrouded in mystery. The best that can be discerned is that, around the beginning of the great depression, Hess bartered the image for payment on a furniture purchase. Times were hard, it must have been extremely difficult for Jaro to part with his wonderful work. Hess, continued painting until his death. Hess's works seems to portray a lyrical child like facsination with fantasy based characters.

Throughout the last century children of all ages have embraced this map. We regurly receive stories describing the happiness this art work brought to children and adults from of all ages through the years.

The image is a compilation of many fairy tale stories and their characters, such as “Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, even,"the cow that jumped over the moon". A few of the story characters in the art work have lost their place in popular culture. Characters like the “Castle of Glass”, the “Castle of Bronze” and the good old “Moo Moo Bird”.

Buy your copy here.

Jeannik Méquet Littlefield, 1920-2013

Jun. 21, 1920 - May 24, 2013  Resident of San Mateo, CA

Jeannik Méquet Littlefield, prominent patron of the arts, has died in San Mateo, CA, at the age of 92.

Born in Paris and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, Mrs. Littlefield came to the United States as a foreign exchange student at Barnard College in 1939. She continued her education stateside, eventually earning a bachelor's degree in English from Wells College in Aurora, NY, and a master's degree in English from Mills College in Oakland, CA. Already fluent in French, German, Russian and English, she began studying towards a Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1943 she joined the war effort as a translator, and moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the French Air Mission. There she met Edmund Wattis Littlefield. The two married the following year.

After the war, the Littlefields moved to Burlingame, where Mr. Littlefield joined a family firm, Utah Construction Company, as Financial Vice President, soon becoming CEO of what became one of the largest mining and construction companies in the country. In 1976, the company (now Utah International, Inc.) merged with the General Electric Company in what was the largest merger in U.S. corporate history at the time. Mr. Littlefield stayed on at G.E. as a board member and served many other corporate boards over the course of his career.

As her husband's work increasingly involved extended stays abroad, Mrs. Littlefield joined him on business trips to South America, Australia and Japan, but she also became involved in her own community. She served as a board member of the San Francisco Opera from 1977 to 1992, and was also involved with the Symphony and the Ballet. Her support of the San Francisco Ballet's New Production Fund was instrumental in the 2004 world premiere of Mark Morris' Sylvia, the 2009 world premiere of Helgi Tomasson's Swan Lake, and the recent May 2013 US premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella. The Littlefield Foundation continues to be an ongoing supporter of a variety of arts and education.

Following her husband's death in 2001, Mrs. Littlefield moved to San Mateo, where she renewed her connection with Bay Area organizations, especially the San Francisco Opera, where she has sponsored productions since 2002. Her 2006 pledge of $35 million to the Opera was the largest donation from an individual to an American opera company at that time. Mrs. Littlefield was an ongoing supporter of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes both the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum. In addition to sponsoring the show Women Impressionists at the Legion of Honor, she was the Grand Patron of the recent exhibits at the de Young Museum of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay.

In addition to the arts, Mrs. Littlefield enjoyed golf, bridge, and skiing. She was a popular member of the Vintage Club and a frequent visitor to The Living Desert, a wildlife preserve in Indian Wells, CA where she had a winter home. She found a spiritual home late in life at St. Dominic's Catholic Church in San Francisco. She took great joy from in her support of education, including the French-American International School, Wells College and Mills College.

Mrs. Littlefield was the eldest daughter of Gustave Méquet, a translator for the League of Nations who spent much of World War I in a German prison camp, and his wife Jeanne, a college graduate with an abiding interest in music, chemistry and physics. Gustave and Jeanne had two other daughters, Jacqueline and Renée, both of whom are now deceased.

Mrs. Littlefield is survived by two children: a son, Edmund Wattis Littlefield, Jr. and his wife Laura of Arlington, Washington; and a daughter, Denise Sobel of New York City; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Mrs. Littlefield's second son, Jacques Méquet Littlefield, passed away in 2009.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, July 31st, at 11 am at St. Dominic's Catholic Church, 2390 Bush Street, San Francisco. In lieu of flowers, the family requests gifts to the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Food Bank, or a charity of your choice . 

(Click to enlarge images.  Opera image source http://bunnym.blog.sohu.com/99235080.html  Wedding image source http://library.weber.edu/asc/ucc/founders/images/edjeannik.jpg  Family image source http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/i/partypictures/10_14_08/320-Denise-Sobel,-Jeannik-L.jpg)

Samovar Tea Lounge

image source: artist Toby Koebel Fluek http://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/fluek/

On May 1 2013, I had the delight of roaming about San Francisco with my niece, Naomi Sobel, who was in town for a series of Astraea and family events.  It was a beautiful, balmy day, and as we ankled about, we spotted the Samovar Tea Lounge. 

As we were getting peckish,  we stopped in.  We shared an order of delicous squash dumplings.  Naomi ordered the Paleolithic Tea Service with Smoked Duck, but I forget the kind of tea she had.  It was brilliantly green, at any rate.  I had the Russian Service with Tolstoy’s Sip Black Tea.  Both were delicious.

Not for everyday, but a lovely afternoon of noshing  and talking.

 

Total Trivia: Lunching at the Cheesecake Factory

OK, total trivia.

I had lunch on April 27 with my darling oldest granddaughter, Drummer Girl #1, who is now EIGHT!! Eight, I tell you. It was her birthday, celebrated with her parents, her younger sister, her wee brother (who slept the whole time) her Tia (my Jumper Girl) & Wruee (JG's beloved), DG#1's Buie Janet and me, Buie Liz. Happy Birthday, darling girl

The trivia part is that we ate at The Cheesecake Factory. The first time I had ever, ever, darkened the door of that establishment.

I had never seen a menu that...extensive. Or a menu with advertisements for other enterprises.

Wruee, being a manly man, choked at ordering items from the SkinnyLicious® menu, but then he manned up.

JG & I shared a SkinnyLicious® Grilled Artichoke, which was about the best grilled artichoke I'd ever had, to my surprise. I wondered if they'd soaked it in a herb brine.

Then I had the Seared Tuna Tataki Salad -- again from the SkinnyLicious® (urk) menu, which was pretty darned good. The wasabi vinagrette gave me ideas for future salads.

I have to say, the service was excellent.  The only one to have dessert was the Birthday Girl, who was served a mini hot fudge sundae, with "Happy Birthday" written out on the service plate with hot fudge.  A nice touch. 

I Should Have Studied Latin

I don't like to swear on the internets.  But sometimes, you need to express yourself forcefully.

Now, thanks to Julian Frost leading me to Dr. Weevil, I have phrases to use!

 

...stercus, which is barnyard language but not obscene: 'dung' or 'manure'. ...For the verb, I gave him a choice of fit or accidit, leaning towards the latter....stercus fit would mean something more like "Shit exists, there is shit in the world", while stercus accidit could be loosely paraphrased "Into every life some shit must fall". (The basic meaning of accidit is "fall on" and therefore "befall, happen to" or just "occur".)....

Dr Weevil went on to write

....Stercus is neuter, so [holy shit] would be stercus sanctum....Stercus is third declension, so [shit head] would be caput stercoris....Romans tended to use adjectives rather than genitives with stercus, so B.S. would be stercus taurinum.

And that lead me to this handy page, Latin Swearing. Quando podeces te regi eorum fecerunt? has a nice ring to it.

Today would have been his 92nd birthday

Here's his obituary. I still miss him. I wish he had lived long enough to see at least some of his grandchildren stip onto life's stage. I know he would have taken intense delight.