a good word for the baroque

So yesterday was the big Advent concert. We had been rehearsing for weeks, both at the Music School (converted from an older public school building, done very nicely, very busy with after-school classes) and at the chapel of the local Calvinist church. Five or so local voice groups joining in to do stuff by Buxtehude, Schutz, Gounod, Saint-Saens, and the like. All in Hungarian, except for one piece in Latin. I soldiered on gamefully, wrapping my tongue around unfamiliar (to me) consonant clusters, tried carefully do distinguish between á and a, beween ö and ő, e and é, i and í, u ú and ű, as well as ü. It got better with practice. I still didn't know exactly what i was singing, but it was all about god and prophet and straight the path, and messiah, and holy spirit with lots of rejoices and praises thrown in.

Kata invited me for lunch at noon. We started with soup, and I (silly me) thought that we were having just a light lunch before the concert. So I ate extra soup. Hah. then followed the main course, a kind of open face chicken cordon bleu. baked potatoes, and then dessert, which was baked apples stuffed with nuts and raisins and marmelade covered with a custard which had bits of meringue floating in it (hence the Hungarian name, madár tej? Bird Custard, because the white bits of meringue look like birds flying around).

The concert was a municipal Event, the mayor was there to wish all a merry etc, and then there were readings of poetry for the season, we sang a few pieces, then there was a children's choir, and then a brass quintet, and then a piece for recorder, then one for string ensemble with flute (they were quite good), and we finished up with five more pieces. It pulled together well, most of our pieces were better in performance than in rehearsal, except for the last number, which got started too slow and kind of dragged.

Big building, seating about 350 in present configuration, could hold 500 if seating were changed. VERY baroque, but restrained and still light for all the heaviness of decor. It helps that the building is tall, even though it does mess with the reverb in the space, probably 3 to 4 seconds of it. It doesn't help that the ceilings are decorated with 1970's stylized frescoes... bare bones grape wheat motivs that jar in a space as obviously historical as this one. For once I found myself wishing that a modernizing touch be removed.... plain white or cream ceiling would be much preferable.

The architect was in the employ of the Eszterhazys... he did a fair number of buildings around the local scene, and I am starting to appreciate him more and more. The high altar and the pulpit in this church seem integral, not just decorative add-ons.

I didn't get the frisson that usually happens for me in a big Anglican musical thingy. Possibly it is because the texts did not (could not) resonate for me, possibly because there is too much unfamiliarity for me in this setting so that I am constantly on guard and not able to let go psychologically and just let things sink in. Like much of this entire experience: It was work, it was good, I am glad I did it, the people were nice, but I was just simply not at home with it.

Advent is a time of darkness and death. I am very much aware of this now, stranger that I am in this strange land. It is grey and gloomy during the day; it gets dark very early, and the solstice is still nearly a month away. I know I have to wait for a new year. I hope I can get through this winter without a major disaster. If there is to be a disaster, I would rather it happen in the US. Just because.

what i am doing for christmas

Well , let's start with Thanksgiving. Nothing.

There is some small print in the deal thing that I have with the school that I am supposed to get two days off at Thanksgiving, but I just cannot see that. First, where would I go? Secondly, it would just be a burden for my colleagues, because they would have to cover my classes at school, which just piles things onto them and makes a horrendous wreck out of the schedule. Besides, I might get a chance to talk about Thanksgiving at school.

Christmas is the same story as Thanksgiving, ie nothing , except....

I am doing two things over the Christmas break. Well, only one thing, really, but on two different occasions. Last day of classes is Tuesday the 21st. And on the 23rd there is a performance of the Magic Flute in Budapest. So I went online and bought 30 tickets. There will be 29 students who will receive from me an envelope with a ticket to the performance, two tickets for the Budapest metro, and 1500 forint to cover their train/bus whatever ticket from home to Budapest.

Then a few days later i have some tickets to La Boheme, same drill. The Flute will be playing at the Vígszinház, which is sort of like the Ópera Comique in Paris, a venue mostly for lighter fare, but Boheme will be at the standard opera house. Assuming of course, that it actually turns out to be La Boheme. I won't be especially surprised if they substitute Rigoletto . Hey, they've done it before!

is this how hungary works?

I have two class sections for British Culture. We meet on alternate days, M/T W/H. So i teach one group material on Monday, try to cover the same stuff on Tuesday with group 2, and so on.

so a physics teacher is not in school. The two Brit Cult classes are combined for physics. Solution... Do not teach my regular class on Thursday, instead combine both classes during the physics hour.

When do i find this out? 15 minutes before class time.

How do I manage, not well. Because if i do what i intended to do with group 2, group 1 is going to be bored out of its skull. And with 30 people in class, 15 are going to start talking and muttering and any real teaching will be impossible or next to it

I went to the opera yesterday. Fidelio. Got the libretto online, printed it out, studied it, read it on the train on the way down, got to the opera, curtain goes up. Rigoletto, not fidelio. HUH. Oh, list minute change for "technical" reasons. Sorry bout that. I can get a refund. Right. 500 forint refund after I had paid 3000 in getting there by train and metro, plus the 3 hrs travel time.

Wasn't prepared for Rigoletto, dont know it that well, have never seen it performed before, only heard exerpts, so was hard pressed to follow the action exactly, getting some but not much help from the hungarian surtitles.

So we get to La donna e mobile, and the tenor screws up the high D at the end. OK, that's it, i just left and went home. Like that. Didnt bother anyone on the way out since I had decided to stand at the rear and watch, just in case I wanted to make an exit. Which I did.

The particularly bright kids at school, the ones who are constantly expanding their horizons on the internet and who complain that nearly all of their classes consist simply of memorizing lists of information, uniformly tell me that their aim is to get an education and leave Hungary.

There has to be as solution somewhere. I hope I am part of it, but maybe I am just contributing to the brain drain.

Show and tell

PUMPKIN PIE

This is similar to the custard filling of a traditional American pumpkin pie.

Ingredients:

Winter squash: peeled, boiled, mashed, and drained

(750 ml.. about 3 cups)

4 eggs

1 cup sugar (about 250 ml)

ground cinnamon (1 ½ teaspoons)

ground cloves (about ½ teaspoon)

grated nutmeg about ½ nut

Reduced fat cream, about 1 ½ cups 400 ml

Traditionally you also include ginger (I forgot it)

and you use low fat condensed milk (I couldn't find any at the

Spar).

Traditionally the dish does not include raisins. I happen to

like raisins. So much for tradition.

Usually the custard is baked in a pastry crust. The traditional crust

has quite a bit of fat, however, so I prefer to serve the dish

just as a custard.

Also, traditionally, the custard is baked at about 350 degrees F.

Instead I put the custard in a water bath: the container is set in

boiling water on top of the stove and is cooked until the mixture

becomes firm. You know it is done when you can insert a knife

into the middle of the custard and the knife comes out perfectly

clean.

Robert Lewis

a shot in the kneecap

well, it is all i am hoping for right now. 7:30 this morning, a shot into the right knee, Monovisc, at $300 a pop, not covered by health insurance in Hungary, thank you, but maybe by my ins in the US, have to send receipts and cross fingers.

Paul Anderson arrives today, this pm, so expect to spend the evening and tomorrow with him doing the sights of Tata, which include an annual Fish Festival,the tents already being set up around the southern edge of the lake, close to the Eszterhazy palace, so we will sample that, plus Barta and the Platán , and have Berci and Josi join us at some point.

The apartment is clean, Hajnalka, my finance manager buddy at the school, suggested i get a couple of cleaning ladies to do a good scrubbing, i was fine with the idea, had thought about it but didnt know how to begin to ask for suggestions, so am in fairly decent shape, guestwise.

Sunday we will head to Budapest, Paul has a hotel room just off the Oktagon, only one metro stop from the Opera, so we will go there first to park his bags, then head off to the coffeehouse.

Three students joining us, two young men from my 1st year class, and a young woman from the 4th yr. They live in different cities, so we will have a way to rendezvous on the train, plus a fallback plan in Budapest. It is the Marriage of Figaro, Paul and I will be content with the seats that do not have the sightlines for the supertitles, so the students should be ok.

School is a mixed bag, as always. The main issue that it boils down to... whether or not a student is willing to read. About half of them do not read at all, other than advertising slogans. But those that do read, it turns out, are not taken aback by my insistence that we tackle some real books. I am doing Uglies, by Scott Westerfield, a distopian setting in which people undergo radical plastic surgery at age 16 to ensure that all are equally hollywood pretty, with only minimal variation. This week a student asked me if I had volume 2 in the series... She has already finished the first book, 400 pages. I am so impressed. I plan on ordering a couple of copies and just giving her one.

have some pictures to download and some reports of a trip to austria,but that will come later.

WEAK KNEES

Really struggling with knee pain. Hard to walk, climb stairs, etc. Easier on bike. Seeing doctor on friday, maybe a simple fix, maybe not. I am apprehensive.

And it was still hot

So in the C.A.R.E. package sent to me by Petra I pull out not just three vacuum packs of genuine COLOMBIAN coffee, there is a copy of Sendak's Wild Things. We are undoing the package during class, with my 9th graders, and I spot the book. Wow, I think. And none of them has ever seen or read it. So then I read it to the class, very dramatically, showing the pictures, ROARING the terrible roars, and GNASHING the terrible teeth, and so on, making them stand up and do a wild rumpus, and then I get toward the end of the book, where Max is lonely, and wants to be where someone loves him best of all... and suddenly I am starting to choke up, it is getting to me very deep, and I don't understand it, I can't tell why...

A few hours later now, I think was is a combination of things...

remembering how I would read the book with Thomas and Meredith

perhaps grieving that that golden time now lies so far in the past

missing friends and family

having sailed, like Max, in and out of days and through weeks and almost over a year to a land where Wild Things are... well, if not Wild Things exactly, then people with whom it is hard to connect, not through any failure on anyone's part but just because of langauge and culture, mostly though because of language

and then reaching the end of the book, where from far across the world Max senses that there are still good things waiting for him back home, so he gives up his job as King and sails back home, where for him there is comfort and familiarity and warmth

he finds his supper waiting for him

AND IT WAS STILL HOT.

It is a tale of forgiveness, Max is a prodigal son, who sins against the parent (making mischief, saying I'll Eat You Up) and then runs off on his own, only to realize at the end that it isn't really what he wanted, so he heads home and is forgiven and welcomed and has a feast prepared for him even before he gets there.

Nearly every job I have had has worked like this: six months to figure things out, one year to do it, then it is stale and boring and I need to move on. Right now I feel I am getting things done, I am through with the learning curve, I can function, I have a fair amount of control, and things are happening.

But a year from now, I will be more than ready to give up being King of all the Wild Things and happy to return to the night of my very own room, where, God willing

there will be a supper waiting for me,

and it will be

still hot.