Yesterday we went to see Pink Floyd The Wall: A Rock Ballet presented by the Twin Cities Ballet Company. I am kind of a ballet snob so my expectations were not super high but I thought it might be interesting. The last time they performed this ballet they got some good reviews. The music was performed live by a local band as well (Momentary Lapse of Floyd).
The Fitzgerald Theater is a fairly small theater built in 1910 originally called the Sam S. Shubert Theater. It has gone through several iterations and was renamed in 1994, after native son F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The story of The Wall is kind of a sad one. The boy named Pink loses his father at a very young age and his mother becomes over protective, symbolized by bricks in a wall used to shelter him from the world. School is a bad experience with abusive teachers and it pushes him to drugs and it is down hill from there.
The musicians were on a raised platform at the back of the stage and the dancers performed between them and the audience. The only ‘set’ were a bunch of large styrofoam painted ‘bricks’ that the dancers carried around with them and built walls.
I would say overall it was interesting and there were some good dance moves. I noticed early on that the whole dance troupe was white and mostly tall blond white. Yes, we are in Minnesota, Dorothy. The band was way too loud for the venue and made it uncomfortable. I wished I had earplugs. Maybe I’m just old but I sat with my fingers over my ears most of the time. And we left at intermission.
We went home and put The Wall on YouTube and Don performed interpretive dance around the living room. Very entertaining.
Then we drove to Como Lake and took some pictures.
Zero degrees F this morning. But nice and sunny. Winter.
I’m still trying to get Medicare squared away. Two days left in January. Fingers crossed. Everybody you speak to tells you something different. Seems like that happens a lot these days.
I watched the The Banshees of Inisherin the other night. It is nominated for Best Picture this year. That doesn’t always mean it is all that great. But I liked it. It was a little strange and a little sad. Just sad. Not depressing. I visited the island a few years ago. The movie portrays life on the island as I had imagined it. Just a few people with not much to do. Isolated. My impression: “On the island we wandered around the ruins, the farmland, the town, the coast. It was beautiful in a kind of eerie way. I saw more farm animals than people.”
Martin O’Direain was an Irish poet from the Aran Islands. He moved to Galway when he was 18, and eventually ended up in Dublin.
The Late Spring by Máirtín Ó Direáin
A man cleaning the clay From the tread of a spade In the subtle quiet of the sultry days Melodious the sound In the late Spring
A man bearing A creel-basket on account of, The red seaweed Shining In the sun’s brightness On the stony beach Lustrous vista In the late Spring
Women in the lake In the lowest tide their coats drawn up reflections down below them peaceful restful vision In the late Spring
weak, hollow beating of the oars currach full of fish coming to the quay over the golden sea at the end of the day in the late Spring,
The book I’m reading this week is The Tin Man by Sarah Winman. It is about love, friendship and things that might have been. It jumps from past to present to past and is sparse on punctuation. It tells the story from two different perspectives. It is engaging.
This is the week of getting things done. Car oil change, taxes, dusting. Going to the gym. Re-booting myself. Going shopping. Buying art supplies. Getting paint to brighten up my kitchen cabinets. Sorting out my closet and bookcases. Projects projects project. Motivation!
My relatives.. This is actually a postcard dated 1912. Apparently it was all the rage at the time to make your photographs into postcards. It is addressed to my grandfather and just says “My Latest”.
We are back in the deep freeze. Seven new inches of snow and temperatures well below zero F. with strong winds. Blizzard conditions. But, hey, this is Minnesota. We trudge on.
It is the first of two holiday weekends. Family, Festivities, Fun, Food. I’m making a Hazelnut Torte to take to the Xmas eve get-together. Then I will take my father to a nice restaurant for Xmas day. And it will be cold. I lived in Mexico City growing up. Our tradition was to get up the day after Xmas and load up the car and drive to Acapulco for a week. Now, that was way more fun than any other Xmas stuff. My holidays were always related to travel. Either traveling home from boarding school or traveling to the beach or, one year, we traveled to Kenya and Tanzania to see the game parks. I might need to revive that traveling tradition.
I became interested in the show Yellowstone because a new prequel just came out with Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford called 1923. So, thinking the whole show was on Paramount Plus, I signed on. I then saw there was another prequel called 1883. I have been binge watching 1883. I figured I would start at the beginning. Then I discovered the actual show isn’t on Paramount Plus, they sold it to Peacock. So if I want to watch the actual show I have to sign up with them. This is getting to be very confusing. And expensive. Maybe I can find it at the library…
Anyway, 1883 is about the Dutton family’s trek from Fort Worth Texas to Montana by covered wagon. They are traveling with a group of Eastern European immigrants. Within the first few weeks, half the people died in one way or another. Disaster after disaster. The narrator is a teenage girl who goes from despair to elation about love and nature and god’s hand in nature and the beauty of the land and the cruelty of it as well.
It made me think about my family and their trek across the sea and then half way across America. They must have traveled the same way. Covered wagons, horses. On my father’s side my ancestor came from Ireland in 1811, and bought land in Pennsylvania. They didn’t stay long. His son was born in Ohio in 1818 and they later moved to Missouri. When he found he was on the wrong side slavery, he moved his farm and family north to Illinois. After he died in 1858, the family moved to western Iowa where they had kin. My grandfather was born in Iowa in 1880. He dug in a farm and stayed there.
On my grandmother’s side, her family sailed from England to Connecticut in 1641. The family stayed there until the mid 1700’s when their house was destroyed by fire.
The father and two elder sons went into the wilderness to clear some land and left the wife and baby in a white settlement. The father and eldest son were killed by Indians. The second son, Isaac, was fourteen when he was captured by the Genesee Indians. Several years later he managed to escape but it wasn’t until he was 70 years old when he found his baby brother who had been left behind with his mother. By that time he was living in Ulster County, New York. The family stayed in New York until about 1880, when they up and moved to western Iowa. My grandmother was born there in 1881.
You can see why 1883 draws me in.
I hope you have a super duper holiday weekend!
Hazelnut Torte
½ lb shelled hazelnuts 8 eggs, separated 1 ½ cups sugar ½ cup breadcrumbs Grated rind of 1 lemon Juice of ½ lemon 1 tsp vanilla extract ½ cup whipped cream 1 cup tart jelly (I like raspberry)
Grind the unblanched hazelnuts very fine. Put 2 tablespoons of the ground nuts aside for the outside of the cake.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar till very light. Add the breadcrumbs, lemon rind, lemon juice, vanilla and ground nuts. Fold in the egg whites whipped very stiff but not dry.
Bake in 2 layers, 30 minutes at 325 degree F. Cool in the pans.
Take out and put together with whipped cream and a little jelly spread between the layers. Whip the rest o f the jelly with a fork and spread it over the top and sides of the cake. Powder with unused 2 tablespoons of ground nuts. Decorate the top of the cake with a swirl of whipped cream. Chill before serving.
It’s another Friday. Down to my last month at work. Snow on the ground. Cold and windy.
Nothing earth shattering in the news. Death, hate, war, celebrities, rich people, poor people, homeless people, bad politics, lawsuits, repeat. My crisis of the week? Didn’t have one. Actually I haven’t been out of the house all week. I’m reading a book called Up Like Thunder by Colin T. Nelson. A VIP’s daughter goes missing in Burma (Myanmar) and this Private Investigator goes looking for her. It is kind of slow moving but interesting. Lots of color on Burma. I’m about half way through, will finish it this week.
St Paul is full of skyways connecting the buildings downtown. I use them all the time to get around out of the cold. They are all on the second floor of the buildings. From my window I can see one lone skyway way above the street that connects two buildings. It is thought to be the world’s first modern skyway, built in 1931. Merchants Bank and First National Bank merged and the buildings were next to each other. The floor heights were different so the skyway connects one building’s 16th floor with the other building’s 17th floor. It is a private skyway so, unless you work at the bank, you won’t be able to use it. It is the tallest skyway in the Twin Cities. And it is green.
I leave you with Poem VIII from Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions:
What is it that upsets the volcanoes that spit fire, cold and rage?
Why wasn’t Christopher Columbus able to discover Spain?
How many questions does a cat have?
Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?
Or are they invisible rivers that run toward sadness?
