One of the first things I did after moving into this neighborhood years ago was to check out if the Fort Myer bugle calls were live or recorded. The latter, turned out. With Army buglers running low, one understood.
But it was unexpected/fun recently to discover the U.S. Army Orchestra playing concerts at the fort and go to see one. I met up with Lori after work, and we hustled over the highway to join a decent neighborhood crowd, some old, some young, some very young. The orchestra played selections from Barber of Seville, Ralph Vaughan Williams' modern viola moods and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. The symphony debuted at a concert to benefit soldiers in 1813; the setting was right. "Passionate aural representations of the heights and depths of human emotion can be found in this compact masterwork," the program said. I looked for other summaries afterward, but I liked that idea the best, of the piece addressing emotion without forcing context. What came across in the ensemble was conversation — interaction, collected voices, in joy and sometimes anger — or lack thereof, an overwhelmed person's escape into a helpful lonely room. One section made me picture a child trying persuade a crowd of loud adults, maybe soldiers, to let him tag along.
The orchestra's concert hall, Brucker Hall, was comfortable and easy to reach, even with a full-car security check — open your trunk, hood and all the doors — on the way onto the grounds. You should go sometime.
Afterward, pizza at Pupatella, still my favorite Arlington pizza place, up there regionally with 2Amys, and a surprisingly in-depth discussion of John Denver. Beethoven worked on poems, prayers and promises too.
How do you cover a famous musician's Alzheimer's-affected final shows? No Depression does it beautifully with this recent piece.
A tingle shot through me. His delivery was perfect, if too low in the mix, and the sparkling Fender around his neck was an encouraging sign. But then, in the middle of the first song, it happened. He forgot a phrase, then looked hopelessly at the teleprompter trying desperately to recover, to find his place. He shook it off, spoke into the mic, "let me play one now" and proceeded to deliver a blistering, tasty, technically proficient and incredibly inventive guitar solo. All would be ok, but the realities of the reason for the farewell tour were evident. And they would stay in the room for the night. And we would only love him more for it.
Alzheimer's is a disease I have come to be far too intimately familiar with in recent years, and I live in fear of its coming for me eventually. It is worse than death because the person you know and love is gone, but their physical being remains, and often there is just enough flicker of familiarity inside their eyes to keep you from fully letting go. It is a lengthy, drawn out process and, while that allows for some acceptance to settle in before the inevitable, it is like watching someone you love die in slow motion. Or worse, it is like watching someone you love die twice.
Watching Glen Campbell forget the words to his most famous song right out of the gate was a harsh reminder that this disease is all too real and that this truly is farewell. Soon he won't remember the words to any of his songs, then he won't even recognize his songs, then he won't recognize songs, and then he will be gone.
NBC may be shelving the show for the winter, but I still love it. This line from last week's terrific episode (a line coming from near the end, so if you still plan to watch, go no further) was my favorite from TV recently.
Video excerpt:
Dean Pelton: "I thought you were a fly on the wall."
Abed: "Some flies are too awesome for the wall. Documentarians are supposed to be objective to avoid having any effect on the story, and yet we have more effect than anyone because we decide to tell it. And we decide how it ends. Will your story be yet another sad one of yet another man who just wanted to be happy? Or — will your story acknowledge the very nature of stories and embrace the fact that sharing the sad ones can sometimes make them happy?"
It was great to see Lindsay for lunch Sunday, discuss her near-death experiences, toast her aliveness, and eat lots of Hollandaise-drenched seafood. She related a story of monologist Mike Daisey's that may or may not have made my eyes well up. I wouldn't be so confident as to retell it now, but I did want to post a link she passed along recently.
In a note to saxophonist Steve Lacy a long time ago, Thelonious Monk related some advice. The quote Lindsay put in her subject was, "When you're swinging, swing some more!" The underlines were Monk's. You could pick a host of favorites. Like: "Just because you're not a drummer doesn't mean that you don't have to keep time." Later: "The inside of the tune (the bridge) is that part that makes the outside sound good."
After lunch, waiting for Lindsay's ride, we stopped down the street at Second Story Books, where this book turned up. Just remember, news reel Cameraman, the inside is the part that makes the outside good.
I've mentioned the Cover Lay Down blog here in the past. If you're still not yet reading, two recent posts compel me again to tell you to start.
One came Friday – brief, just one song. "I know we usually do single-song sets on Sundays, and I’d rather not bury last night’s feature post on Holly O’Reilly and other artists who have lost their voices to disease and damage," blogger Boyhowdy explained to us. "But I arrived home from work today to a warm fire and a family in smiles, and for the first time in weeks, there’s nothing on the docket: no rehearsals or dance classes, no choir or church, no dinner plans, just us."
The post went on from there. The cover song the post introduced was a tune you'd heard a thousands times but always took on new life.
The other came late Thursday, I think, and was the posting the Friday note mentioned. The blogger wrote beautifully about the lost voices. "I have nightmares in which I lose my voice forever, and these fears are not unfounded: it happens," he said of his own local singing. Sharing a similar fight, the voices the post collected took on even greater power.
Holly Figueroa O'Reilly's covers of One Headlight (linked in the post) and Wonderwall (off-site, here) especially deserve listens. Like the cover in the first post I mentioned, you've heard both songs many times. But different circumstances, for the singer and for yourself, can bring new experience. That's why the CLD blog exists and why you should listen.
Yes, one can have a favorite phrase origin of the month. It happens.
New Yorker on a top Charleston chef: "The setup seems to mirro the oldest divide in Southern culture: between slave cabin and big house, pot likker and plantation sideboard — between eating low on the hog (meaning pigs' feet) and high on the hog (meaning tenderloin)."
Hog phrases, my friends. Who knew? Not me.
The story on the whole made me want to run home and make cheese grits. I was riding the Metro to work at the time, so I waited. But at the day's end, there were cheese grits in my kitchen and so many of them.
Looking through DC Tech Week's schedule, there were two events I wanted to join. One was inventing super heroes at Dave Eggers' 826, but that event was just for kids. The other was a behind-the-scenes tour of the paleobiology lab at the Museum of Natural History. Fossils! Dinosaur bones! The tour was a contest, and they pulled 10 names.
My name was somehow one of them. Hearing the news in an email, I may have done a happy dance in my living room. I left work early on a Thursday and walked to the museum. We met at the gigantic Easter Island head in the lobby, and the others gathered were cool. The tour was the latest in a string of Smithsonian tweet-ups, with digital folks from Natural History, Air and Space, Smithsonian HQ, National Gallery of Art, and National Aquarium, as well as museum outsiders like me.
I took the following photos, about which I did not take the best notes. Blame my inexperience with my new iPhone and the focus demands of the listen-capture-write style of tweet-ups. The future may be difficult.
But! I had an amazing time, and I hope these pictures give the flavor.
Thrill No. 1: We went through this metal door.
Thrill No. 2: I wanted to be injured in a dinosaur-related accident.
I stopped counting the thrills as they came too fast. Our first stop was in "the acid lab" where chemicals ripped ancient muck off the fossils.
I claim other Patrick Coopers and their aspirations are responsible for my search-engine problems ("problems"). But we all realize it's really your fault, Internet people. You search for the other Patrick Coopers.
You google the mayoral campaigns. You want to find the jazz albums. It's partially my fault, I know. You know where to find me. The others, the Patrick Coopers who don't have patrickcooper.com locked up for decades, you have to hunt for them. And now we have some proof:
The cool Google "Insights for Search" beta tool offers the above chart, noting searches driving the data are "patrick cooper birmingham" and "patrick cooper mayor." Was testing the tool for work. Couldn't resist. Going forward, I will work harder to hide and to arouse your interest.
(Also, if this post makes you try Insights beta, my work here is done.)
A year and a half ago, when I still worked at USA Today, I received a Tasting Table email about a new Capitol Hill restaurant called Acqua Al 2. My favorite paragraph about the Italian spot began, "The assaggio di primi ($13) presents five different plates of the house-made pastas."
I bookmarked the page immediately.
Time passed. I jumped to NPR. Tasting Table started a to-do feature. I killed my bookmark and put Acqua on mine. The site's editor became a friend. Her boyfriend became a fellow gunslinger. Colleagues became friends and more, and many of them turned out to live on Capitol Hill.
This story leads to the fact that I've now finally been to Acqua Al 2. For 11/11/11, Lori, Becky, the no-longer-elusive Kyle, and I dressed up and went for dinner. We wound up sitting below the mystery plate above.
A couple bottles of Montepulciano around the table, sizable tastings of five different vegetarian pastas (a pumpkin bowtie and the risotto with parsley, basil and rosemary were my favorites, but honorable mention to a simple vodka-sauced penne that was perfectly cooked), and then a dessert platter where the tiramisu was good but a berry cheesecake had immense flavor and surprised everyone at the table. Good service, low, warm lights and conversation volume, even with the place packed.
Didn't realize until later: The pasta we ate was what Tasting Table had mentioned in that first, intriguing paragraph. Oh, the roads we travel…
Stops at the post-fire Tune Inn, the post-fire Argonaut, and the happily fire-free Smith Commons followed. Following taxi issues and bartender neighborhood fears, we celebrated 11:11 11/11/11 at the middle stop.
In the early morning hours, we saw the Sticky Rice police car. The sight made me happy. A year and a half ago, I had wanted something new.
