Essays: February 2007 Archives

Kent left for Washington, D. C. this morning. He will be gone until Wednesday evening. We got up early, spent some time together, then, on our way to the airport, stopped off at Charley’s Bagels where we always stop every single Friday morning. This morning, we had lox with cream cheese with tomato and onion, on a toasted sesame bagel, with coffee.

Then off to the airport we went. I dropped Kent off. On my way home, I was listening to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 -- a rather violent and depressing work, actually. It was released in 1953, the year before my birth, and the year of Stalin's death. For Shostakovich, this was the end of a repressive political climate, and resulted in the release of many new works, this symphony among them.

The symphony ends with a triumph, perhaps representing Shostakovich’s own relief from the repression of Joseph Stalin.

Shostakovich had many demons. He was a man of great complexity and conscience. He was fighting repression. One dictionary defines “repression” as, “the rejection from consciousness of painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses.” I’m left wondering if that is my issue.

It seems that I’ve come to a crossroads in my life. This is new to me. I have a need, perhaps a yearning, to play violin again. But why? Why now, after so long? Is it to immerse myself into something beautiful and wondrous, and lose myself in it? Can I regain my art? Should I try? Can my body do the things it used to do to create sound and art again? Kent feels that I should try. Otherwise, I will always wonder if I could do this. If I can’t, I can’t. But then it will be behind me. But it won’t be the same. I simply don’t have time to put eight hours a day into practicing, let alone giving it the kind of emotional involvement that I did years ago.

But the bigger question is, what am I hiding from? Is it repression? Is my reality of inequality any different from that of the repression that Dmitri Shostakovich suffered? He couldn’t express himself for fear of imprisonment or worse. In my reality, I realize that I’m but half a citizen with no way to gain full equality. He couldn’t express himself or be himself. What is the difference? Both of our souls have suffered. Why do I care so much about this, as I am here for such a short period of time? Yet, I anguish over this. People judge me who do not know me. Music does not do this.

I think I know how Shostakovich felt. Will there be a triumphant ending to the repression I feel, or will it outlive me? I suppose it’s futile and senseless to worry about such things. Many would say, “Enjoy life. Don’t worry about the fools.” It’s not that easy for me. Maybe that’s why music and art exists. We can place these displaced and painful feelings onto canvas or into performance, suffering along with it, and getting rid of it on that media, thereby dissipating the reality that it is all around, for some of us.

Now, onto Gershwin...

Life has been putting the screws to me of late. I seem to be going through some issues with depression AGAIN. What the hell is wrong with this year? Geeez. Well, I’m holding my own with it. I’m working like hell, and actually, despite it all, getting a lot done. I’m splitting my time up from working at home, and occasional meetings at warehouses (for the company I work for), to make certain operations more efficient.

Monday was the worse. It was hard to put two thoughts together and I had zero motivation. I believe it started from Kent being down about something. Then, being in a vulnerable place for the depression to take off, it did, big time. That was Sunday. By Sunday night I was not in a good place. I got tired of it, and popped two Xanax that I occasionally take for anxiety. But another thing Xanax will do is to turn off depression. It does nothing to treat the depression, but it turns off what fuels it - your brain. And before I knew it, I was in dream land in the most peaceful sleep.

Monday morning... depression is back in full swing. I try to work. I have to get out of the house. I go to the warehouse to work with other people on specific problems. I leave with a new knowledge of those problems and come home to work through them. By 2:00, I give up. I lie down to sleep. I’m so tired. Depression is very exhausting.

Tuesday morning... a bit better today. I’m working more on the problem and making much better progress, but still fighting to keep depression at bay. It’s there. I can feel it. It wants to blossom out and take over. I’m thinking that I have to go out to UCONN to a concert that Joshua Bell is giving at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. The “Jorgensen Auditorium” would be more accurate. I hate the place. It’s basically a big box, with chairs in it. It looks as if it used to be an auditorium for basketball, and they converted it to a “center for the performing arts”. It has the worst acoustics ever.

Beyond all of that, beyond venturing out in the cold weather, which you know I love with all my heart, the concert was nice. Joshua Bell is a fine artist. There are a few things with his technique that I don’t much care for, but I would lose most of you if I analyzed what they are, and, who really cares anyway about violin technique. But the whole experience gave me a renewed interest in playing again. So, I’m actively taking the first step; finding someone who has the credentials to work on a violin made in 1750 from the Cremona School. A bit about it and the violin in my possession, which is a Gagliano...

The Gagliano masters were one of the most famous Italian dynasties. In the period of 1640 to the early 20th century, 20 Gagliano masters created their violins. Alessandro Gagliano was the founder of the dynasty. He came from Naples. In Cremona, he joined the violin-making class of Nicolo Amati where Antonio Stradivari was studying at the time too. When he returned to his hometown thirty years later, he founded the Naples school whose violins are known for their perfect tone. Experts say that some Gagliano violins even outstrip those of Stradivari. (source)

I won’t give more specifics about the violin I own, except to say, it’s wonderful to be privileged to have been part of it’s life. I will die, and it will go on, if I entrust it to someone who is worthy. But before that happens, I think I would like a few more years to share myself with it and to see what music the two of us can make together.

Wednesday morning... Feeling much better today. I went to the warehouse and spent more time working through problems, and made some wonderful progress. I’m energized again. The depression is not gone, but I’m back in control. I got a lot done on Wednesday.

Today, things are decent. I’m looking at the next phase of enhancing productivity for operations at the warehouses around the state. I have one final thing to do, and then I’m going to let this issue rest a bit and give people involved a chance to get used to the changes I have made. I also will need a mental rest from it.

I haven’t done much with photography lately. I’m reading more about RAW image changes and learning a lot. But, I haven’t applied the techniques to my own photos. It takes time to learn technique. I know that from my violin studies. One has to be patient. It will come in time.

And this happened yesterday...

Two years after Connecticut approved civil unions for same-sex couples, two leading state lawmakers said Wednesday they will introduce a bill to allow gay marriage.

Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, and Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairmen of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said they will introduce the bill before a Feb. 14 deadline for new legislation.

The proposal would make Connecticut only the second state to allow same-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts began allowing gay marriages in 2004, while Connecticut and Vermont allow civil unions. A New Jersey law allowing civil unions takes effect Feb. 22.

A spokesman for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who signed the civil unions law, said Wednesday that she would veto a gay marriage bill. (source)

Yes, it seems that Connecticut is going to go for full marriage for people like Kent and myself, AGAIN. We’ve lived with “civil unions” for two years now. Well, not us. We didn’t get one. But the state has. And now, the same lawmakers who brought us “civil unions” feel that we should have full marriage.

I’ll help to every extent possible. I’ve already given money to the cause. But this probably will not pass this year. Actually, it was exactly the same way with the gay and lesbian civil rights law. We tried for years to get a law passed in Connecticut making it illegal to fire a person for being gay, and giving them equal access to public accommodations, etc.. It passed the legislature, only to be vetoed by the governor. Eventually, that governor left, and when the bill hit the new governor, Lowell Weicker, he signed it into law.

So, will we have to keep trying until Governor Rell leaves office? Possibly. The legislature could override her veto, but in the spirit of being politicians, they won’t do that. I’ll help as I can, but I can’t mentally afford to get too caught up with this issue. Basically, this nation is run by religious creeps who care very little about those of us they don’t like. But I’m not going to give them the satisfaction any longer of having much control over me. If the bill fails, I’ve lost nothing because we have no protections now. Nothing has changed.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Molly Ivins. I loved her writing. And, I admired her gift. She had the gift of looking at issues, some of which were really not very pleasant to talk about, and turning them on their head. You ended up laughing about her humor in it all. Later, you started to think about the points that she was making about the issue in a very serious way. Her gift, which I lack, was to look down upon it, without letting it become personal. I can’t seem to do that, and I envy her for that.

Molly Ivins, the liberal newspaper columnist who delighted in skewering politicians and interpreting, and mocking, her Texas culture, died yesterday in Austin. She was 62.

Ms. Ivins waged a public battle against breast cancer after her diagnosis in 1999. Betsy Moon, her personal assistant, confirmed her death last night. Ms. Ivins died at her home surrounded by family and friends.

In her syndicated column, which appeared in about 350 newspapers, Ms. Ivins cultivated the voice of a folksy populist who derided those who she thought acted too big for their britches. She was rowdy and profane, but she could filet her opponents with droll precision.

After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that the United States was engaged in a cultural war, she said his speech “probably sounded better in the original German.”

“There are two kinds of humor,” she told People magazine. One was the kind “that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity,” she said. “The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That’s what I do.” (source)

One of her writings deals with “activist judges”. I’m copying a bit of it. Molly, you were truly one of a kind.

Another bee-you-ti-ful example of the right-wing media getting it all wrong. Here they are having the nerve to mutter in public about “activist judges” because Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has pointed out that spying without a warrant is illegal in this country -- so warrantless telephone tapping is illegal in this country.

Improbably enough, the first complaint of many of these soi-disant legal scholars is that Taylor’s decision is not well written. No judicial masterpiece, they sneer. Nevertheless, warrantless spying is illegal.

Did it ever occur to these literary critics that Taylor has a lay-down hand? The National Security Agency program is flat unconstitutional, and for those who insist this means Osama bin Laden wins, it’s also ridiculously easy to fix so that it is constitutional. Conservatives in this country have been yipping in chorus for years about “activist judges,” and frankly, like fools, many of you bought into the phony political rhetoric about those terrible jurists.

Somehow, activist judges are held responsible for gay marriage, Roe v. Wade and everything else Americans disagree about, as though Americans would never disagree without their encouragement.

Conservatives have been mad at the Supreme Court since it decided to desegregate the schools in 1954 and seen fit to blame the federal bench for everything that has happened since then that they don’t like.

As any liberal could have told you, the conservatives didn’t want a right-wing shift on the nation’s courts because of “social issues” -- that’s just a handy political ploy.

Honestly, people, haven’t you figured out what this is all about yet? Money. The conservatives are in a snit about “liberal courts” because of money. (source)