**To me, this little note as I get started is humorous and revealing. For about thirty years, I've been referring to the mighty English composer as Ralph Vaughn Williams. Today I noticed (after about thirty years!) that I've been spelling his middle name wrong. It's spelled Vaughan.
I can be so unbelievably out of it. . . .
1. Speaking of Ralph Vaughan Williams, my friend who is having a big dental procedure on Sept. 11th, wrote to me again to say that, on my recommendation, she listened to Vaughan Williams' unforgettable Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
She loved it. She's been writing a short story about the long trajectory of a relationship that turns romantic after twenty years of friendship and then ends altogether eighteen years later.
The Fantasia's sinks and swells, as she aptly called them, gave musical voice to the trajectory of the relationship her story explores and that makes perfect sense to me, given the way Vaughan Williams' composition rises and falls. She loved this.
So, when she has this dental work done (by her daughter), my friend will put on headphones, and she'll listen to a great album of Ralph Vaughan Williams' music played by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under the baton of Neville Marriner.
I love this album and had it on cd until it fell victim to a ruthless purge when we moved from Eugene to Greenbelt. Luckily, I can access it now online.
2. Ed, Jake, and I rendezvoused at Ed's house around 11 this morning and blasted up the North Fork of the CdA River to the Prichard Tavern for lunch.
As it turned out, we arrived an hour before the tavern opened, so we drove up to Murray and a ways beyond, retraced our route, and then took a spin on up the river a ways.
It was fun gawking at the beauty of the river and sobering to view the charred remains of a fire that struck up there a few years ago.
The yakkin' was great. Ed and Jake both have had a ton of experience in this area whether because of work or recreation and they had a lot of stories to tell, history to recall, and people to talk about. (I had nothing! Ha!)
Back at the Prichard Tavern, we enjoyed a delicious lunch, continued to gab, and had a relaxing trip back down the river to Kingston.
I think chances are very good that we'll get together for more of these lunch outings, whether upriver or over to Montana.
3. I hadn't slept very well Tuesday night on into Wednesday morning and when I returned home the adrenaline rush of the river drive and lunch wore off and I fell into a deep coma nap.
I woke up in time to listen to about 90 minutes of Colleen Wheelahan introducing and playing classical music tracks on Louisville Public Media's WUOL 90.5.
I decided, as I fixed myself a green salad and some goyza potstickers for a light dinner, that I'd change gears a bit and listen to SiriusXM's channel called Cinemagic. It's dedicated to music scores from movies -- not entire scores, but tasty bites from a vast array of movies.
What a great pleasure. I hadn't seen most of the movies whose scores were sampled this evening, but the variety of musical styles and instrumentation excited my imagination and made my evening very relaxing.
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