Some Things We've Done - 2025 Edition

Our around-town activities in 2025 were substantially curtailed by the fact that we were only "around town" for 7 months of 2025!  In early August, we headed off for our sailing semi-circumnavigation, the planning for which began several months earlier and took up loads of our time.  We did still manage a few things, but far less than usual.

2025

SLSO - the 2024-2025 season wrapped up in the spring, and had featured Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Violin Concerto in D Major, Prokofiev's Suite No. 2 from Romeo and Juliet, Mahler's Symphony No. 1, and Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor. 

Chicago - S and I took a quick weekend trip up to Chicago to do our Safety at Sea course at the Jackson Park Yacht Club.  I really like Chicago.  I frequently forget that, but every time I go - for any reason - I am reminded what a fun city it is.

OTSL - the 2025 season's shows were Die Fledermaus, This House, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Don Pasquale.  Because of the timing of the shows (K and E visited on different weekends), we were able to have a meal inspired by each show!  Some of the deliciousness included: 

Die Fledermaus: kasespaetzle, goulash, and sachertorte, with weisbier to drink 
This House: chicken and waffles, pizza, and New York cheesecake, with Manhattans to drink
A Midsummer Night's Dream: a charcuterie board and pastitsio, with wine to drink
Don Pasquale: Margherita pizza, cacio e pepe, and tiramisu, with Roman punch to drink

A year on, the show that is sticking with me is This House.  If you get a chance to see it, I would recommend jumping at it.  

Montana - our Christmas in July trip was to a ranch in Montana.  Though they nominally had other available activities, horseback riding was their big thing - but they were great at it!  The horses were well trained and clearly well looked after.  This ranch stuck to more of a schedule than some of the others that we had been to, but it was a family-run place with a relatively small staff, so that made some sense.  

K, J, S, and me had our usual pre-holiday holiday, which took us up to Calgary to see the Calgary Stampede!  It was an eating, drinking, rodeo adventure if ever there was one!

Sailing - in early August, we left St. Louis to start our sailing trip.  There's a whole separate blog about that, and all the crazy stuff we saw and did.  

And that brings us to the end of 2025. 

Some Things We've Done - 2024 Edition

By 2024, two things had happened: first, since I had long ago stopped blogging about my fun outings, I mostly stopped keeping the ticket stubs, Playbills, and other mementos that would allow me to recreate this information later.  Second, I did fewer fun things; work was a disaster, S and I were going out on the town less frequently, and there is just generally less to recollect.  Regardless, here we go ... 

2024

SLSO - The 2023-2024 season included classical music such as Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5, Brahms' Symphony No. 2, and Verdi's Requiem and Kyrie, plus popular shows like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Rhapsody in Blue.  One of my favorite shows of the season was called "Operatic Favorites," which included selections from L'Orfeo, The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, Manon Lescaut, Norma, La Gioconda, Mignon, Carmen, The Tales of Hoffman, and Orpheus in the Underworld.

Paintings by Jim Weidle - Mom came to visit in the spring of 2024, and we headed up to Fairfield, Iowa, for a show at the Icon. Mom has known Jim Weidle since college, and I have a lot of his work in my house (as does my whole family).  We saw his show, spent the day with him, toured around Fairfield, and generally had a good time.

And, I found a painting that I liked so much that I bought it when the show was over. The particular one I bought is no longer on his website, but it is in the "Bike" series.  It has a prominent spot in my living room and I still love it!

Wave: Ripple Effects - Also while Mom was in town, we went to the Matisse exhibit at SLAM, and it just so happened that they were hosting an art-inspired chamber music concert, which we also attended (along with P, of the Hamilton tickets). 

OTSL - the summer's opera season was a great one: Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Puccini's La Boheme, Handel's Julius Caesar, and Glass's Galileo Galilei. All good shows, but Galileo was the surprise hit! 

Our themed meals were for Barber and La Boheme.  For the former, we had spinach and chickpeas, salmorejo, and almond cake, plus Spanish wine.  For the latter, we had ratatouille, coq au vin (the all-around favorite!), and tarte tatin.  

Head of the Charles - C and I took our double to HOCR in Boston in October.  It was a really fun weekend - Boston in good weather is such a wonderful city! - even though our performance wasn't great.  I felt pretty good, but I think our fitness just wasn't where it needed to be, and we were heavily penalized for crossing the buoy line a couple of times.  Oh, well - we had a good time!

One of the non-regatta highlights was our brunch at the Boston Public Library.  Did you know they have a restaurant in there? (Two, actually!)  I didn't, but thankfully C did.  We four (C and his wife, plus S and me) ate at the Map Room Lounge.  The setting was fantastic, and the food was good too!  Definitely something to repeat. 

Ambassadors of Harmony - my sister-in-law and I, for our now-standard Christmas tradition, were treated by our mother-in-law to the AOH holiday show at UMSL.  This year's first-half theme was "Christmas in Space," plus we had the Vocal Spectrum halftime show, and the Christmas standards in the second half.  Lunch was at Maggiano's; I've been there a couple of times in the last couple of years, and each time I'm surprised by how good it is; better than your average Italian chain, for sure! 

Florida - S and I took an extended work-from-Florida holiday for Thanksgiving, which gave us lots of time with K, J, and mom.   

Cyprus - again finding ourselves nearing Christmas with no travel plans, S and I looked at a map, looked at flight prices, and decided to head to Cyprus for the holidays.  We didn't know much about it other than that it had Greek heritage and part of the island was taken over (and remains held) by Turkey, with the UN keeping the peace between the two.

Similar to our trip to Ireland in 2024, we rented a car and took ourselves on a driving tour.  We landed in Larnaca, then traveled to Pano Lefkara, Agros, Omodos, Paphos, Polis, Nicosia, Agia Napa, and back to Larnaca.  The Christmas markets were great fun (especially the one in Agros, where we rode on the tractor-pulled train through town - possibly slightly intoxicated, as it was meant for children), and the Christmas Eve dinner spread at the Elysium hotel was truly astonishing! 

As with Ireland, we both really loved Cyprus and this is definitely a trip worth repeating! 

Some Things We've Done - 2023 Edition

Three years into the after-times, and live had gotten pretty much back to normal.  Isn't is amazing how quickly that happened?  Here's what we did in....

2023

SLSO - another season wrapped up, and we had seen some great shows, including Holst's The Planets, Handel's Messiah, selections from Beethoven's Egmont, Jurassic Park, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, The Princess Bride, and the Indigo Girls!

Act Two Theater - I had never heard of the Act Two Theater until a friend's brother was helping produce a performance of Sandy Toes & Salty Kisses that was being performed there.  I'll take any excuse to get together with my friend E; seeing her parents and supporting her brother were just bonuses!

Caribbean - we were invited to go sailing with a guy we had met in St. Lucia in the spring.  He had his boat in St. John and wanted to get it down to Trinidad.  We wanted to put our new sailing skills to use, so we joined him as far as St. Lucia, where his girlfriend then swapped out with us to finish the trip to Trinidad. 

Wicked - I had never seen or read Wicked until 2023, when some friends - appalled to discover the hole in my pop cultural education - invited me to go with them to see it performed at the Fox Theater.  It was a good show.  Though I generally enjoy musical theater, I don't find it life-changing in the way some people do.  Regardless, I had a lovely time and would see it again if it were offered.

OTSL - the season's opera selections included Susannah, Tosca (which was the very first opera I ever went to see with Grandpa), Treemonisha, and Cosi Fan Tutte.  

England and Scotland - our beloved St. Louis Cardinals had two games against the Chicago Cubs scheduled in London.  Our stalwart travelin' buddies, K and J, packed up and went with us on a stupendous trip to my favorite city!  

K's trip planning was in perhaps its finest form (with a bit of an assist from S and me), and we jammed three weeks' worth of activities into about a third of that time in London.  

Idaho - for our second annual "Christmas in July" trip, we repeated the western ranch experience, this time in Idaho.  S and I flew rather than drove, so we didn't have the interesting stops along the way.  We headed to Boise a day or two early to meet up with K and J (as per usual), but due to flight cancellations for them, S and I ended up riding scooters all over town on our own. 

Beeperball - later that summer, the Beep Baseball World Series took place in St. Louis.  S had discovered that this was a thing a few years before but, as with everything, it had been disrupted by COVID. We only saw a couple of games, but it was brilliant to watch.  Also free.  Bring your own lawn chairs, snacks, and beer, and feel free to stay all day.

Hamilton - my longtime second mom P got us tickets to Hamilton at the Fox Theater!  She's been a long-time season ticket holder, so we snagged some great seats.  It was the first time either of us had seen it live, and I really did enjoy it!  It wasn't the life-changing experience that some people had, but it is a darn good show.  I am glad, though, that I had prepped for the outing by watching it ahead of time (twice!), or I know I would have missed a lot of the lyrics. 

DC and Baltimore - my cousin K was getting married in Washington, DC in the fall of 2023.  I hadn't been back there since I had lived there nearly 20 years before, so we took the opportunity to go, see some family, and see the city.  K and Mom were there too.  We went to the Air and Space Museum, visited the Washington Monument, the WWII, Korean (my personal favorite, and sad memorials go), and Vietnam memorials, the Lincoln Memorial, and passed by the White House (though only along the side to avoid the crowds).  After K and Mom left, S and I ventured to Silver Spring to see the National Museum of Health and Medicine. We also managed to squeeze in a dinner with my dear friend M and her husband T, who have lived there since they both were in college.

Since we were both still working primarily remotely, S and I opted to head up to Baltimore for the following week.  We worked during most of the day, but also saw the sights.  We took in an Orioles game at the iconic Camden Yards, toured the USS Constellation, USS Torsk, and USCG Cutter 37, celebrated S's birthday with dinner at the Thames Street Oyster House, and smelled the bread being baked daily at the H&S Bakery in Fells Point. 

By the time the weekend rolled around, we were ready for TrawlerFest, which was the reason we had opted to stick around.  Since we had gotten our captain's licenses the year prior, we had been thinking about how and when we could put them to use.  We were falling a little short on good ideas, given that we live here in the Midwest and a long way from an ocean.  S had happened onto the idea of the Great Loop, a trip around the eastern half of the United States typically done in power boats.  So we decided to see what we could learn about the Great Loop and boats in general at TrawlerFest.  

I am not, it turns out, particularly keen on trawlers as anything other than commercial fishing boats.  But there were a few tugboats there and, boy, didn't they just steal my heart!  The one in particular that was tucked in with all the other boat show boats was cherry red and it looked just like an oversized bath toy.  It doesn't get much cuter than that!  

Phoenix - we had another Phoenix adventure for basically the entire month of November that year.  We headed out early in the month, were there through Thanksgiving, and returned to St. Louis early in December.  It was another driving trip, so we had lots of great stops along the way: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, White Sands National Park, Saguaro National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and the Titan Missile Museum.  It was a bit of a bummer of a trip for me, from a work perspective, but overall it was great fun to be with T and L for so long. We also had the pleasure of seeing Dad and D for thanksgiving, since they were coming down to visit E and family.  It was great!

Ambassadors of Harmony - my mother-in-law took me and my sister-in-law to the annual Ambassadors of Harmony holiday show, which is always a fun time. This year's first-half gambit was "The Great Christmas Caper," which involved such goofy elves as Sloopy, Slurpy, and Slushy.  We had lunch beforehand at La Bonne Bouchee.  A good time was had by all. 

Ireland - our last trip of the year was a bit of a last-minute jaunt to Ireland.  S had never been, and we hadn't made any plans for the Christmas holidays, so in early December we took a look at where we could get reasonably-priced flights.   We rented a car and took ourselves on an absolutely fantastic driving tour through Dublin, Kilbeggan, Galway, Inishnee, Westport, Derry/Londonderry, Armagh, Belfast, and back to Dublin - stopping in used bookstores and pubs along the way.  Absolutely would do this whole trip again!

Some Things We've Done - 2022 Edition

The years roll on!  Before we know it, we're into...

2022 

Sea of Cortez - A & L, longtime friends and mentors, needed a couple of extra bodies for a sailing trip out of La Paz, Mexico.  We didn't have much else going on, so off we went to explore the Sea of Cortez with them for a week, along with their longtime friend M, and A's nephew and nephew's girlfriend.  It was a bit of a motley crew, but we had a wonderful time.  S got to ride a whale shark, and it was the last time I got to spend quality time with A before his death in 2025.

SLSO - a new symphony season began in the fall of 2021. We saw loads of shows, including Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, a symphonic performance of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sibelius' En saga, op. 9, and loads of other gems.

Colorado - our annual ski trip was its usual success. Dad and D had to scoot on another adventure when we had a night or two left, so we took ourselves out on a super-great date night to the Office Spiritorium that we still talk about!

Florida - it had been a long time since we had visited K and J in Florida.  We had a springtime visit, which included seeing Pippin - a show I had never seen before! - performed by the Indian River State College theater department. 

Turks & Caicos - we certainly hadn't planned to spend the year traveling the world, but when S's best friend found round-trip tickets to Turks & Caicos for $200 per person, how could we not? It was truly silly that it was so cheap!  So we spent a week there with Z and L, touring, beaching, and generally getting away from it all.

OTSL - the annual summer opera season was back to its regular old self.  Shows were Harvey Milk (which was better than I expected), Awakenings, Carmen (a classic), and The Magic Flute.

Germany and Azerbaijan - since Morocco didn't work out, it turned out that our first big post-COVID trip was to see the Formula 1 race in Baku, Azerbaijan.  S had gotten very into F1 several years prior, and we were watching all the races (when they weren't cancelled).  The Baku race goes, in part, through the old town area.  "That looks cool," we thought; "we should go there."  S's friend J, also a huge F1 fan, was totally into the idea and scoped out an epic apartment in Baku right on the race course.

We bought the necessary t-shirts and were planning the trip.  It turned out that most of our airfare options took us through Germany, a place neither of us had been.  So we decided to tour there as well!  We flew into and out of Frankfurt, and spent two days each in Heidelberg (including its stunning Church of the Holy Spirit and castle), Baden-Baden (which included a trip to the famous Friedrichsbad Spa and Casino), Freiberg (whose gorgeous church bells were right outside our hotel room window, and where the Black Forest mountain biking was quite the uphill-downhill adventure), and Frankfurt (highlights including the Communication Museum and the bar at our hotel overlooking the city in the evening).

I haven't yet mentioned that our luggage was lost by United/Lufthansa on our way to Germany.  It hadn't been found in the eight days we were there, so we spent an unfortunate amount of time in each city we visited shopping for a new socks or clean underwear.  By the time we got back to Frankfurt, I was feeling very much like a bag lady with no actual suitcase, and we shortly had to get onto an airplane on the way to Azerbaijan.  So we stopped in at a luggage store and I bought a large, aluminum, rolling suitcase to hold all our new purchases.  (S also picked up an unnecessary but to this day quite useful Deuter duffel bag - which he liked so much that he has since bought another!)

We loved Germany.  It was clean and felt safe and the trains were (apparently surprisingly!?) on time.

Azerbaijan was another world.  We liked it too, but it was something entirely different!  It was one of few places we have been where they truly do not cater to English speakers.  Some folks may speak English, but it's certainly not a guarantee.  It's a Muslim country but -- at least in Baku; we didn't go elsewhere -- you see everything from women in full hijab to those in miniskirts and tube tops.  We went to the Azerbaijani National Carpet Museum, Maiden Tower, and the Daniz shopping mall (where we lived out our own F1 race on their indoor karting track).  Despite three attempts, we never were able to catch the Museum of Miniature Books when it was open.  I'll have to go back just for that, if nothing else!

Wyoming - Dad's parents both passed away in 2021, and that year we began a family tradition of taking a summer trip together in lieu of Christmas gifts.  2022 was our first year.  We went to a lodge in Wyoming, which was preceded by a visit on the part of S, K, J, and me to Grand Teton National Park for a few days.  This has, in the years since, proved to be a wonderful annual tradition.  S and I drove our campervan out and back so we had a few additional stops along the way (the Crazy Horse Memorial where we saw a performance of traditional hoop dancing, scenic drives through Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Yellowstone, and others).  

Memphis - for S's birthday, we took a trip to Memphis for the weekend.  The weather was beautiful.  We visited the Fire Museum, saw the ducks at the Peabody, took in some live music, and got the still-frequently-used 1-gallon bucket from Silky O'Sullivan's on Beale Street.

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site - I've been in St. Louis for a long time to have never been to White Haven, the common name of the U.S. Grant National Historic Site.  So when the Campbell House Museum, where I had been a longtime member, had a "Farm Table to Gilded Table" event with food and drink served at both places, I simply couldn't resist.  It was a wonderful event and a wonderful date night!

SCUBA Diving - S had spent a lot of time SCUBA diving when he lived in Florida.  I had never done it.  So one weekend, we hopped in the car and drove to Panama City, where he did a refresher course and I got my Open Water certification!  I had done all the online work ahead of time, but that stuff really doesn't sink in for me.  Once we got in the pool, though, it really started to make more sense. 

St. Lucia - S had always harbored (pun intended) a secret interest in sailing.  When he decided he wanted to get his captain's license, I figured that I might as well do it too.  So off we went to St. Lucia, where we could get not only licenses which were good in the U.S., but also the necessary certification to charter a boat in the Mediterranean, should we want to go there. 

St. Lucia was a strange place.  There were little restaurants and tucked-away places that were fantastic, but as a whole the people seemed largely annoyed that we were there.  They were a bit rude and put off by the fact that we might need anything, even the hotel staff!  It was an odd attitude.

But we left with shiny new licenses, so it was a success! 

Some Things We've Done - 2021 Edition

The recap continues:

2021 

Colorado - as 2020 rolled into 2021, we weren't about to forego our annual ski trip.  We had planned a three-day drive from here to there, but an incoming storm headed towards one of the passes we needed to cross inspired us to keep going on the second day.  We needed to get over the pass that night; if not, we either would be stuck on the east side for a few days at least or would have to head way south to get to warmer weather and lower elevation. It was pretty sketchy, but we made it!  And had a nice ski trip, to boot. 

King Lear - St. Louis has a popular summer Shakespeare program, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.  It's always an outdoor production, so they were well-situated to handle the various COVID restrictions.  In 2021, the production was King Lear.

OTSL - After a cancelled season in 2020, OTSL returned in 2021 with outdoor performances.  Guests got a little gift bag which included a fan, a koozie, hand sanitizer, and bug spray.  K and E were here on the same weekend. It's been so long now, but my recollection is that they shortened the shows, so we saw both Gianni Schicchi and Highway 1, U.S.A. on the same night - but I could be wrong about this.  Regardless, we had a nice time and two show-inspired menus including ribollita, casseruola alla fiorentina, grits, and fried green tomatoes. 

California - for our first air travel in a long time, we headed out to the Central Valley for the wedding of my dear and long-time friend M.  It was an outdoor event at a local organic farm.  The celebration itself was lovely, and the food was fantastic!  A great time was had by all.

Lumberjack World Championships - the 2020 version of this, like everything else, had been cancelled.  But we had had so much fun in 2019 that we went back again once they reopened.  The beer was a little more expensive, but the show was every bit as fun.  There's also a great outdoor exhibitors' "hall" where you can learn all about the local area, buy axes, listen to the Pinery Boys, and stretch your legs a bit between events.

West Virginia - S organized an end-of-summer trip with a group of friends to the Gauley River National Recreation Area, were we were rafted the Gauley Marathon!  It was wild enough having white-water rafted a few times before, but there were a couple in our number who had never rafted before, and one who couldn't even swim!  Despite his initial astonishment, our guide was a good sport about it all and we had a wonderful time.  West Virginia, by the way, is beautiful.  Definitely a place I could spend some more time. 

Camping - for our anniversary in 2021, S and I went camping.  It was a short but wonderful trip to a relatively easy-to-get-to spot, but also a relatively unpopular spot, so I'm not going to say where.  WE had fantastic weather: pants and t-shirts during the day, crisp and cool at night.  We camped next to a babbling brook and slept like babies. 

On other weekends, but also in 2021, we took advantage of that post-COVID time when there was still a lot of working from home and flexibility to take long weekends.  We did a lot of fishing, took our canoe out a few times, and spent some good time outdoors. 

Colorado - Thanksgiving in 2021 was in Colorado, and it saw all three sisters and their spouses (and L!) in one place.  Plus E, her husband, and son were there as well.  Thanksgiving is, all in, probably the best holiday.  It's not my personal favorite, but I do love it, and I know other people love it too.  It seems to be the overall winner.  We took a day trip to Telluride to see what that had to offer, which included the gorgeous drive.  The autumn weather and leaves were a beautiful backdrop for some fun family photos, too!

Morocco Maine - We (mostly S) had planned an epic trip to Morocco for my birthday, a big hurrah now that everyone was traveling again.  It was going to be our first "big" trip in a long time, to somewhere that no one we knew had ever been.  So much to look forward to.  But just a couple of weeks before we were scheduled to leave, another round of COVID reared its ugly head, and Morocco shut its doors to travelers.  Americans who were there were flown home on planes chartered for just that purpose.  

So, since Morocco was off the table, we threw together a last-minute trip to Camden, Maine.  We booked every special they had that month at the Camden Harbour Inn, and stayed there with back-to-back Christmas and ski and New Year's and whatever-else-was-on-offer deals.  The food at their restaurant, Natalie's, was fantastic; the bartenders equally so.  Probably half the shops in town were closed for the off season, but the ones that were open were charming and made for a nice shopping experience.  Their local public library was having a big book sale when we were there, and I picked up a few good books - including one set in Morocco!  It was just barely below freezing; it was cold enough to snow on Christmas Day - something we really can't count on in St. Louis - but was warm enough that it was raining the day we went skiing at the Camden Snow Bowl.  But not so warm as to melt the ice which made our hike in Camden Hills State Park treacherous but fun!

It wasn't Morocco, but it was a great back-up vacation! 

The Song I'm Loving Today

Older (Ben Platt)

I don't remember where I heard this song, but I wrote down the singer and the title and set them aside.  As is often the case with little notes jotted down, I couldn't remember what exactly "Ben Platt Older" meant or why I had written it down.  Finally I decided to search the all-knowing internet and see what I could come up with.

The first result was a link to the YouTube video (also linked above):

I heard the first couple of lines and knew immediately why I had saved this little scrap of paper. 

Music's ability to evoke emotions is astonishing.  The idea of looking back on life as you age is certainly not a rare subject, but every now and then something just hits you in the right way -- perhaps because of how it's written or conveyed, perhaps because of where you are in your own life, perhaps just because you're having one of those days.  This song did that for me.

A selection:

"When you are younger, you'll wish you're older;
Then when you're older, you'll wish for time to turn around.
...
Have I killed my thoughts right before their prime?
Have I bit my tongue one too many times?
Have I said it all the way I really meant to?
If I wait 'til my tomorrow comes,
Is the waiting all I've ever done?"

Return to SLSO -- Part Two

I used to write about each symphony I went to.  It's been a while since I've done that -- partially I got busy with life, partially symphony performances were interrupted by the pandemic.  I saw several virtual shows, which was convenient but lacked the all-encompassing nature of an in-person performance.  The latter started up again last season, and have continued into this season.  Due to other conflicts, my attendance so far this season has been lighter than normal, but I have tried to swap out my tickets when I've had a conflict to go to a different show.

Such was the situation this past weekend.  I had swapped some other tickets for the Saturday morning coffee show.  I like it's "countries of the world" motif.  When we arrived, we discovered that a Wynton Marsalis violin concerto, which had been written with his wife, Scottish violist Nicola Benedetti (of Italian heritage, obviously) in mind, was being postponed.  The reason was that Ms. Benedetti herself was supposed to be the featured violinist, but she had taken ill.  After the programming changes, here's what we saw and heard:

Claude Debussy, March econssaise sur un theme populaire (Scottish March on a Popular Theme) - complete with opening bagpiper!
Ernest Chausson, Poeme, op. 25 - inspired by a Russian love story
Maurice Ravel, Tzigane - inspired by Hungarian gypsies
Claude Debussy, Iberia from Images - seven years in the making after the composer spent one afternoon in Spain.
Maurice Ravel, La Valse - the composer set out to compose a waltz as an homage to Johann Strauss, but ended up with something both bigger and darker.

Both S and I liked every piece, which doesn't happen often, so I thought I'd share.  Maybe you can take yourself on a musical journey around the world!

Quote of the Day

"They took all the trees, and put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

     -- Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell

Return to SLSO -- Part One

I don't need to rehash all the reasons that the last 20 months have been rough for live performance. We, like many people, didn't go to a single live performance in 2020, and only started going sort of reluctantly in the latter half of 2021.

Throughout the pandemic, SLSO was very good about providing digital content and surveying subscribers to find out what they were looking for, both through the thick of lockdowns and upon preparing for the return to in-person performances. They are requiring both masks and proof of vaccination to attend shows for the time being, and also have much more if a build-your-own philosophy rather than a set concert series, which I love. This means my concern series can include some classical selections, but also movies and popular music.

So far, we've been to three shows. We took a Friday off work and went to a lovely but sparsely attended 10:30 a.m. performance comprised of the following pieces:

- Caroline Shaw, Entr'acte

- Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question

- Christopher Rouse, Rapture

- Sergei Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3

This performance was conducted by Stephan Deneve, and I love going to his shows because he does a little intro where he explains why he selected the pieces he did, what they mean, etc. In the first half, my favorite piece was Entr'acte. Rachmaninoff, who took up the entire second half, obviously is a classic. 

For our second show, with Stephan again conducting, his pairing was inspired by a desire to highlight the "new" and remind the listeners that what we consider classics were, at one time, premieres. The pieces were:

- Carlos Simon, Fate Now Conquers

- Edvard Grieg, Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16

- Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67

The Beethoven was, of course, phenomenal. The Grieg concerto was done in three movements, some of which I enjoyed more than others.  The Simon piece really was new - 2020 - and was tolerable because it was short.

We finished out this year's symphonies with a Bach spectacular:

- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Sinfonia in C Major, H. 659, Wq. 182/3

- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Cello Concerto in A Major, H. 439, Wq. 172

- Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051

- Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV1046

It was a god show overall, but my favorite of the pieces was the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, which was chock full of viola duets that were so fun to witness.

Merry Christmas!

Here we are in our second Christmas of the pandemic, and though we are still masking and minding our germs, things are slightly more normal this year.

S and I had planned a trip to Morocco to celebrate the holidays and my birthday, but Morocco decided, just over a week before we were supposed to depart, that they were not interested in having foreigners flooding in, and they cancelled all international flights through the end of the year at least.  So, finding ourselves home for the holidays, we got and decorated a real live tree!  On the night we went shopping, it was exactly as cold as it should be when one is tree shopping, so S made me up a big travel mug of hot chocolate to keep me warm. And then, of course, there was the obligatory trip to Home Depot to get the necessary additional lights, since we had already decorated the house with the stash that we had.

Speaking of decorating the house, S got the biggest Frosty the Snowman yard ornament I have ever seen! He's about 10 feet tall, and comes with 3 little penguin friends hanging around too.

I got myself in the Christmas spirit by listening to my Christmas records.  I got a new record player last year for my birthday after my old one bit the dust, and I got a bunch of new Christmas carol collections this year when S's grandma cleaned out her stock of music.  Many thanks to S for his help turning/changing them every 4 or 5 songs!

One of S's complaints about Christmas carols is that they're just the same dozen or so of them recycled by new singers every year.  But Amanda Shires did put out a Christmas album, For Christmas, much of which is new stuff. They're not excellent, but the are new and often funny.  I appreciate that she's getting out there with new music, and there are a few old standbys, but even they often have new verses or changed lyrics.

And of course, the movies! There was Love Actually, which is an old standby.  Great every year.  S and I recently watched the new version of Little Women so I haven't returned to the 1994 classic, but might yet. 

There were a couple of dumb Hallmark-type movies too. Love at the Christmas Table has a surprising cast, including Dustin Milligan (whom you might recognize as Ted from Schitt's Creek), Danica McKellar (whom you might recognize as Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years).  Then there was A Castle for Christmas, starring a Brooke Shields who's had some not-very-successful work done, and Cary Elwes, who does a passable job converting his native British accent into a Scottish one.  As expected, it's corny as can be, but has a couple of great scenes with lots of good Scottish music and dancing.

There was one decent new one: Happiest Season.  I frequently hate both Aubrey Plaza (a minor role in this one) and Kristen Stewart (a big role), but in Happiest Season they were both okay.  Stewart plays the girlfriend of a woman who takes her home for the holidays, even though her family doesn't know she's a lesbian.  As S said, "well, it's good to know the heteronormative community doesn't have a monopoly on the Christmas stereotypes." But it was sweet and funny, with one of the sisters providing some excellent comic relief, and Daniel Levy playing his fabulous self.

As for venturing out into the (mostly unseasonably warm) weather in the Lou, the only thing we did was go with our friends the Hs to Garden Glow at Missouri Botanical Garden. It was preceded by a tasty outdoor seating at Sasha's, and then we took in the festive lights!

I have, so far, only made one kind of Christmas cookie this year.  It's just us, but there may be more cookies to come as these disappear!

The Song I'm Loving Today

Firewater (Amythyst Kiah)

I discovered this song while listening to the WNYC podcast series called Dolly Parton's America.  Near the end of the series, the producers included an episode called "Traveling Creatures," which featured two live performances.  Both of the featured songs are truly spectacular folk/Americana -- with beautiful, thoughtful, sorrowful lyrics and simple instrumentation -- and worth listening to.  Unfortunately, I can't find a good video for the other one (by a wise-beyond-her-years young banjo player from Brooklyn named Nora Brown), so you're only getting this one.  But you can certainly click the link above and listen to the podcast episode to hear them both. 

Melancholy always seemed to work for me,
Wistful and uncertain of dreams.
Stardust forms into shapes that never leave,
Strange and wary they all seem.
I'm a ghost in the hall, a haint in the room,
Everywhere I go, impending doom.

How many spirits does it take to lift the spirit?
I don't know, I don't know,
'Cause I've bought every spirit and I'm still laying here cryin' on the floor, on the floor.

So can you just leave me be?
Being drenched in firewater won't save me;
I'll forsake the path of filth.
Please, can you just leave me be?

Pensive stares are the only crowns I've ever gleaned,
So in the dark I find the answers that I need.
City lights are the only stars I ever see;
How many nights until I finally can breathe?

How many spirits does it take to lift the spirit?
I don't know, I don't know,
'Cause I've bought every spirit and I'm still laying here cryin' on the floor, on the floor.

So can you just leave me be?
Being drenched in firewater won't save me;
I'll forsake the path of filth.
Please, can you just leave, can you just leave, can you just leave me be?

Quarantine Christmas -- Part III

I was trying to find something good on Netflix while I was spinning one day, and I stumbled across Klaus.  I had never heard of it, which was hugely surprising -- it's a Christmas movie, it's a movie about the postal service, and it definitely seems like something that might have been a film festival flick.  Despite all of that, I had never heard of it.  But rest assured, it is 100% adorable and worth every minute.

K and J came up to St. Louis for the holiday, so we headed up -- for the third time this year! -- to the Shackteau to have a little cold-weather celebration.  While there, we made sugar cookies, Santa snacks, hot chocolate, eggnog cocktails, winter spice cocktails, and froze our tails off by the fire.

We also watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the beginning of A Very Murray Christmas, and that old Christmas classic, My Cousin Vinny.  Plus we opened some presents and ate lots of food.

Back at home on Christmas Day, S and I opened the rest of our presents, had lots of phone calls, and watched one of my all time Christmas faves, Little Women.  There was also a new treat for me this year -- OTSL has a bunch of digital content coming out due to the pandemic, including a holiday concert!

I have one last Christmas celebration I'd like to have prior to the conclusion of this Christmas weekend.  It's the SLSO holiday concert, which is also available online.  Oh, and let's not forget that I still have ingredients for a few more types of cookies which I have not gotten around to making yet!

Quarantine Christmas - Part II

How many years has it been since you last saw A Charlie Brown Christmas?  For me, probably 25 - at least.  We watched it again this year.  It's shorter than I remember, but otherwise exactly as sweet and silly as it always was.

I also made my first round of cookies.  S love my recipe for Molasses Crinkles, which normally are rolled into a ball, rolled in sugar, and baked.  They bake out into perfectly round disks, but this year I wanted to try doing a rolled version of them.  I did this without modifying the dough recipe at all, just shortened the cooking time to about 2/3 of the normal amount.  They worked out and tasted delicious, but if doing it again I might try a little less butter/sugar, or a little more flour, to help them hold their shape and not spread quite so much while baking.

S was kind enough to set up my Frosty the Snowman out front again, and even surprised me with a handcrafted outdoor Christmas tree!  Unfortunately our outdoor Christmas lights have all gone kaput, so we needed to get some more so the tree could be in its full glory.

Have you ever listened to the SLSO rebroadcasts on St. Louis Public Radio?  They happen on Saturdays at 8:00, and it is a wonderful way to experience the symphony.  It's free, you can do whatever you want to while you're listening -- read a book, cook, just sit and listen.  The most recent show was Handel's Messiah.  Despite actually being written for Easter, Messiah has come to be associated with Christmas.  I used the opportunity to do some necessary cleaning and organization around the house.  Great music and productivity in one!

S does not like It's a Wonderful Life.  He says he feels like Jimmy Stewart is just yelling at him the whole time.  I can see that perspective, but that doesn't change the fact that -- after many years of not seeing it, and a few more years of struggling with how dark it is -- I have very much come to like it.  It is now an annual standby.  So while S sat in the other room in a rare day lost to video games, I lost myself in Bedford Falls (okay, and the work I was doing at the same time).

Art and Music

We can't enjoy art or in public right now.  But I did get to take in a lot of it in the last several month which never made it onto my blog.  Here are a few wonderful things to reminisce about -- and look forward to next year!

SLSO
We had a wonderful symphony season.  We went to a hodgepodge of shows -- a collection we built for ourselves -- but it turned out that they were a really great collection.  Hope you can enjoy some of the title pieces as well!

Saint-Saens, Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78
Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
Tchaikovsky, The Sleeping Beauty Suite, Op. 66
Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19
Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
Ravel, Bolero

Our final show, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Art in Bloom
My favorite annual SLAM event is Art in Bloom, which happens late every winter, just when I'm completely ready for springtime and flowers.

It's funny how, over the years, you can see different trends in the flowers.  Like fashion, I guess.  This year, the designs tended towards more realistic representations, rather than some of the abstractions or color-matching of years past.  Here are a few of my favorites:

  

My big winner of the day was this:

It's hard to get more matchy-matchy than that!

Quote of the Day

"When a flower grows wild, it can always survive.  Wildflowers don't care where they grow."
  -- Dolly Parton, Wildflowers

Christmas Celebrations!

Everyone who knows me knows that I love Christmas.  In preparation for the holiday, S did a wonderful job decorating the house!

And that's not all the celebration we've been doing: we have been wearing our Santa hats regularly; I have made 4 batches of cookies so far -- two each of molasses crinkles and Santa snacks; I have rotated through all the Christmas music in my record collection; S discovered the Season of Good Dog playlist on Spotify (which is hilarious); cards have been mailed; and movies have been watched.

So far, I've seen Christmas with the Kranks (which was a new one on me, although I had read the John Grisham book it's based on, Skipping Christmas), Little Women (not the new one -- yet), and It's a Wonderful Life.

We also had an early Christmas dinner with a quarter of the extended family, because we knew we wouldn't be able to get together for the holiday itself, and of course S and Z had their annual photo with Santa taken at the mall!  (The wives spent the hour-long wait shopping at the bookstore; no one was surprised by what we each bought.)

More Christmas celebrations to come!

What I Watched -- A Star is Born

I was not that interested in seeing A Star is Born when it came out.  It seemed interesting enough, but movies in theaters are just not something that I make a lot of time for these days, so eventually my interest faded.

Then the movie soundtrack (really just "Shallow") hit the radio waves, which piqued my interest again.  But -- same story.  Just not enough time, and my interest faded again.

Recently, S and I were at the library perusing the DVD section, and there it was!  It was never going to be easier than this, so why not?

And I am so glad I picked it up!

I am hesitant to say too much about the film, other than the basic plot.  He's a famous star on the back end of his career; she's an up-and-comer just breaking into the industry.  They fall in love.  It's just two people who meet, over a shared interest, whose lives are on two separate trajectories.  The rest is the movie, and you should watch it without me spoiling it for you.

Also, though, the music!  I had listened to the entire soundtrack but wasn't terribly moved by it.  But then I saw the movie, and it gave so much more context to the songs that I want to go back and listen to them again.  It's certainly a codependent relationship -- without the music, the movie would have been just a boring story; without the movie, the music lacks depth.

Bottom line: I liked this way more than I expected to.  I hope you do, too.

The Coronation of Poppea

The last of the operas was The Coronation of Poppea, and as with Figaro, it poured down rain shortly beforehand.  Since it was a weekday and S and I were already at my office, we decided just to eat here rather than risk another rain storm.  Luckily dinner was all prepared and packed up in a cooler ready to be enjoyed!

Our dinner was a charcuterie, cheese, and fruit plate, with some bread and oil, ancient Rome style.  And also wine, also ancient Rome style.  That really is a great way to eat.

The show was quite racy!  Overall, it was not the greatest ensemble of voices, but there were a few real standouts (specifically, the character of Seneca).

The staging reminded me of some of the "Shakespeare in the Park" plays from the early 201xs -- a bit of an odd mashup between historical settings.  For this particular show, it was a mix of 1950s attire and Renaissance-style music.  For some reason, it worked.

It was a light-hearted show, with some not-very-likable characters, but a very likable date night with S!

Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Opera number three was Fire Shut Up in My Bones with K.  But first, the food!

Since the opera -- which is based on the autobiography of New York Times columnist Charles Blow -- is set in a small Louisiana town, we had some southern classics for dinner.  Our extremely fancy entree was cheddar and pimiento grilled cheese sandwiches, accompanied by chicken salad and potato salad.  There were also deviled eggs, although I forgot about them in the fridge until the following day.  Our drink was a 1930's New Orleans invention called the Cocktail a la Louisiane.  It required some work from S to perfect the recipe, because all I found was an ingredient list, without measures.  However, he undertook the task like a champ (albeit kind of a drunk one by the end of it).

We ate at home so S could participate, then headed down to the show.

Speaking of the show, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated I would.  First and most importantly, it was a collection of strong voices, singling well together.  Much to my surprise, though I do not generally consider myself to be a fan of jazz, I enjoyed the scoring, which was heavily jazz influenced.

The semi-permanent staging was simple but effective, made more so by the contrast between scenes of Charles's chaotic home life, which involved lots of furniture and other set pieces brought out for a few minutes, and scenes focusing on Charles's loneliness, which were spare and, well, lonely.  Speaking of that, there were a trio of characters played by one actress -- destiny, loneliness, and Charles's girlfriend Greta -- which was an inspired casting choice. 

For Charles himself, he was portrayed as a child and as an adult. There was a time warp happening in front of our eyes, with adult Charles shadowing young Charles through various significant moments in his life -- sometimes singing in duo, sometimes just observing, watching the beginning of the derailment of his childhood.

Some critics complained that the performances were melodramatic and that certain scenes were overly-long, but I did not find that.  Contrary to some of the classic operas, in my opinion this one told a much longer and more detailed story in the same time frame, giving it the feeling that it was moving along quite swiftly.  To my surprise and delight, I overheard an elderly audience member exclaim, "That was very good!"

Rigoletto

Just a few days after The Marriage of Figaro, it was time for my second opera.  Up next was Rigoletto, or as S liked to call it, Rigatoni.

Speaking of which, this was going to be our Italian-themed food night.  However, everything had been such a whirlwind that I really didn't have a chance to even go shopping for my menu, let along make it.  Instead, we had some good ol' Sauce on the Side (calzones are Italian!) before heading off to the opera in a torrential downpour.

It was not quite the comedic who-loves-who spectacle that Figaro was.  Somehow I think I have perhaps never seen Rigoletto before -- which seems astonishing to me.  But the story sure didn't sound familiar to me.  Boy, is it dark.

Rigoletto is the town jester.  The duke is a womanizer, who falls in lust with Rigoletto's overprotected daughter Gilda.  Through a series of machinations, Gilda believes she loves the duke as well.  Rigoletto is able to secret her away from the duke again, and thinks that he can convince her that she does not love the duke after all.  That does not quite work out the way he planned, and the curse he has been running from comes true in the end.