1. The Science/Nature book club at Auntie's meets the first Tuesday of each month, giving Debbie and me plenty of time to read the club's next book, Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. Through a study of the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato, Pollan's book will explore the evolution of these domesticated plants and their relationship to the human desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control.
I've read the book's introduction. I told Debbie what I thought the book was about and she reminded me of this question: Does a virtuoso violin player master the violin or does the violin master the player?
Likewise, do humans master these plants or do their inherent qualities of sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and pleasing taste master the gardener?
We'll see.
2. When we lived in Maryland, I discovered and became fascinated with a podcast from West Virginia Public Radio called Inside Appalachia. I know that the Silver Valley of North Idaho is not Appalachia, but as I listened to different episodes of this podcast and as I thought back on my many viewings of the documentary movie Harlan County, USA, I saw parallels.
Recently, Debbie read a book entitled What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia.
So, tonight, Debbie asked me to find an episode of Inside Appalachia and I did and we listened to it together.
The episode we listened to explored the question "What is Appalachia?" and over the next hour we learned (or were reminded) that the Appalachian Range extends from north Georgia to Maine and that the cultural, economic, and political variety in these regions between Maine and Georgia make the question of just what Appalachia is a complex one that reaches far beyond the stereotypes we might have.
This podcast episode featured interviews with people from Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere and included interviews with academic scholars and local historians about the history and the implications of this squishy word "Appalachia".
It was fascinating.
It did not, however, lead me to think about North Idaho as much as other episodes have.
I thought this episode locked in on uniquely Appalachian issues and realities.
3. Back on March 29th, Debbie and I heard the Spokane Symphony perform Felix Mendelssohn's energetic and captivating Italian Symphony. I had gone to Spokane on March 26th to hear the symphony's conductor, James Lowe, lecture on the program that included this symphony and Debbie and I listened to his pre-concert lecture on the 29th.
I thoroughly enjoyed Lowe's analysis of the Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and this evening I wondered if Debbie might like to hear another perspective on it. I knew that the podcast Sticky Notes, hosted by Joshua Weilerstein, who makes his living as a flourishing guest conductor around the world, did an episode on the Italian Symphony.
She didn't want to listen to this -- she wanted to listen to something on Appalachia.
So, when we finished listening to Inside Appalachia, I listened to Joshua Weilerstein's hour long take on this symphony. It was my bedtime story.
Musically, in terms of symphonic form, Lowe and Weilerstein had a similar understanding of this piece.
Their interpretations of what Mendelssohn was inviting his audience to experience, however, were not the same.
This fascinated me.
For Lowe, each movement represented Mendelssohn's impressions of and experience in four different Italian cities: Venice, Rome, Florence, and Naples.
For Weilerstein, the symphony was more pastoral, a way for Mendelssohn to express what he experienced in the Italian countryside, but not exclusively -- he, too, heard elements of urban life in the piece.
I thought their different ways of interpreting the symphony complimented each other. They also broadened my experience with this piece.
They definitely agreed on the most important point: it's a symphony that expresses how Italy energized Mendelssohn and inspired him to compose a symphony full of the joy of life and the vitality of beauty.
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