Sunday’s segment of the Mainly Mozart Festival took place at the Sanctuary of the Arts, across the street from Coral Gables City Hall. It was our first time in the hall, a high-ceilinged, quietly elegant white space that once served, or perhaps still does, as a Christian Science worship hall.
The program, titled “Boyd Meets Girl,” featured the cellist Laura Metcalf and her husband, the guitarist Rupert Boyd, who quickly informed us that there is very little music written for guitar and cello. But, undaunted, they had found pieces and arrangements that worked: two by Brazilian composers, one by a Norwegian, four by Bach, Ravel’s Pavane, two by Lennon & McCartney, and a reworking of Shenandoah by Caroline Shaw that was beautifully haunting, including the part for guitar. It made for a lovely hour or so of listening. The only negative was the fact that the audience, which didn’t fill the hall, was made up almost entirely of seniors. With tickets starting at $35, the concert was not out of the range of people closer in age to the musicians.
Recently we had lunch with a friend in Boca. A former high school English teacher, Don enjoys listening to music, reading books, swimming in the ocean, taking life-long learning courses at FAU, treating himself to the occasional expensive dinner. “I don’t want to be rich,” he explained to us. “I just want to live like I’m rich.”
Sunday we went to the European (aka Russian) Market in Hollywood. As the cashier started putting our few items in a plastic bag I said, “I have a bag,” and produced the small green bag with handles I always take to the store for small purchases.
“It’s OK,” she said, like a parent talking to a child who has just knocked over his glass of milk. Then she dutifully, begrudgingly, disapprovingly placed our groats and cold beet soup into our bag.
I was pulling for the Sabres - since my visit for Dyngus Day I have become a big fan of Buffalo - but at least now we'll still get to hear the Canadian anthem before playoff games.
George Clooney attended the European Political Community Summit in Yerevan, Armenia, last week and there is a clip of him on social media shaking hands with the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, his left hand firmly planted in his pants pocket. In Poland – in Europe generally, but perhaps especially in the Slavic countries – it is impolite, if not disrespectful, to greet someone with your hand in your pocket. Nabokov wrote critically of American delegations to Moscow standing with their Russian counterparts while benightedly keeping their hands in their pockets. My students in Warsaw would not dream of speaking to me, their teacher, with their hands in their pockets. I’m surprised Amal Clooney, who is British-Lebanese, didn’t teach her husband proper etiquette for these occasions.
A good friend had a hip replaced this week and before he went in for the surgery I told him that, if not for the circumstances, being pushed in a gurney would be the most pleasurable means of transportation.