Bad Books?

 I was idly skimming “The Writer’s Circle” on FB when I came across a post that started “What book was so bad that you couldn’t finish reading it?” There are all kinds of responses. Books that I agreed were not worth finishing, books that I love, and of course, books I am not familiar with. 

Quite a few people listed Moby Dick, which I have not read. I have heard that there are many pages about the technical aspects of whaling. Others listed books that I love, like Jane Austen novels. 

One year in high school English class we had to read “coming of age” novels. We were assigned one of three books: Huckleberry Finn, A Separate Peace, and Catcher in the Rye. I got A Separate Peace. I hated it. I wished I was reading Huckleberry Finn. (I did later read Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye.)

I had a cassette tape years ago of a storyteller that I liked. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name and I lost the cassette. She was local to the Chicago area. She told a hilarious story about reading a novel on her summer vacation. She was staying out in the country, by a lake. She had found a novel in her accommodations and went out to sit by the lake to read. The novel (she didn’t give the title or author for obvious reasons) was the tale of a woman who had sooo many adventures. She was shipwrecked, lost her memory, and was rescued by a man who ran a brothel, but did not make her work there. She was married multiple times in the course of the story and had a LOT of children. As I remember, going on 20 kiddos. 

As I listened I realized, “I read that book!” I don’t remember the title, but it was clear it was the same book. 

At the end of the novel, she meets, or re-meets, I don’t remember that detail, the love of her life. And the book concludes with their happily ever after, including that he will “give her children.” The storyteller (on the tape) says, “More children?! MORE children!!?” She starts ripping pages out of the book and finally throws it into the lake. She then says she feels better. 

I haven’t ever thrown a book into a lake, but I have hated some books. 

I wonder if everyone has novels they just couldn’t finish reading. Do you have one? Or more?

A Tiny Love Story

 The Sunday New York Times has a column titled “Modern Love” in which different writers relate a love-related story from their lives. It’s really nice. Included in the space is “Tiny Love Stories,” also by various writers, “regular people.” You get a total of 100 words to tell your story, making it an interesting writing challenge. I decided to give it a try. I submitted it, so we'll see! In any case, it was fun to write.

Meet Cute

It was 1976, summertime. A fellow French horn player was going on vacation and asked if I would sub for her in a summer band. At the first rehearsal, one of the tuba players approached me and asked, “What kind of horn (brand) do you play?” “It’s an Alexander,” I replied. “I play an Alex too!” he said. A couple months later I saw him again at a concert in Chicago. “Hey, I’m a band director. Would you like to teach my horn students?” he asked. A coffee date followed. We have been married for 46 years.

nytimes.com/tinylovestories

I played a Christmas concert on Sunday!

 I haven't played a Christmas concert in years. The community orchestra I play in, the Waukegan Symphony, gives a holiday concert every December, always featuring part of Handel's Messiah. This oratorio is a popular piece, though it is rarely presented in its entirety, with good reason. It's really long. In recent years "do-it-yourself" Messiahs have become popular. The audience gets to be the chorus. (I haven't played it until this year because it only calls for two (French) horns. This year neither of the regular players wanted to play.)

Everybody probably knows the final piece in the Messiah -- the Hallelujah chorus. The entire piece is really long and is in two parts, the first being about Christmas and the second about the Crucifixion and Resurrection. This being the Christmas season, our orchestra was playing part one plus the Hallelujah chorus. We (the orchestra) had a chorus on stage with us, and several soloists The audience was invited by our conductor to sing along on all the choruses. 

I didn't know exactly what to expect, but it was really fun! Everyone was upbeat (it is the Christmas season after all). Our conductor, Alexander Platt, has a warm personality and is great at talking to the audience at every concert, in addition to being a very fine conductor. The concert started with some light Christmas music -- the theme from Elf and a medley of holiday songs that the audience could also sing along to. That was followed by Part 1 of The Messiah. And we ended (of course) with the Hallelujah Chorus, orchestra, audience, and chorus all participating. 

Happy Holidays to all of my fellow bloggers!

Thanksgiving Prep

 Thanksgiving means family for many people. (I am talking about American Thanksgiving.) None of my original family lives in the same state as me, but I have plenty of family by marriage. We get along well though we don't see each other that often. My husband talks with his brother frequently though.

But on Thanksgiving we do get together. Like many families, everyone makes part of the meal. So we have mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, turkey and stuffing (of course!), and probably some other foods that I'm forgetting. We meet at my brother- and sister-in-law's house, which is about 45 minutes from us by car. They make the turkey and stuffing and several other dishes. I make three pies - pumpkin, apple, and pecan - and a jello mold.

This is not any old jello mold. Cranberry-Orange jello is perfect for Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law used to make it. You could buy Cranberry-Orange relish in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. Then they discontinued it! This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I stumbled across a recipe for Cranberry-Orange-Pecan Relish in a  Vegetarian Times magazine from 1996. (I clip recipes, whether I'm going to make them right away or at some later date.) Ta-da!

I told my sister-in-law I had found the recipe and she promptly handed over jello duty to me in perpetuity. I am also responsible for three pies - pumpkin, pecan, and apple. Yesterday was the quest for ingredients. It was a long list. My husband was a big help - the jello recipe needs thinned-skinned juice oranges because you use the entire orange, rind included. In our area we need to go to a grocery specializing in foods from other countries to get those. While I was at a regular sort of grocery store, he went to specialty store. He's a mensch.

It's two days to Thanksgiving, time to make pie crust. 

Encounter with a Bat (the flying mammal, not the sports equipment)

 My husband and I spent a wonderful week in Santa Fe, going to concerts, eating delicious food, and hanging out with two new friends. We flew back to Chicago on Sunday and almost immediately got a message from our son, who lives a few miles from us with his wife and preschooler son.

"A bat got into our apartment and we all had to get rabies shots. We feel awful. Can you buy us some food?"

No, none of them got bitten by the bat, thank God. Ben caught the bat in a towel and threw it outside. Animal Control then informed him that you are supposed to trap the bat and call animal control, who will come get the bat and test it for rabies (killing the bat in the process).

It was obviously too late for that, so all three of them had to get rabies shots. That was not fun. Our local hospital only had two shots in house and had to send for another from a different hospital. So, as is often the case, they spent several hours in the ER waiting for more shots to arrive. Really not fun with a three year old.

 Ben did save the bat's life, though, and when they aren't flying around in your apartment, they are a valuable part of nature, eating lots of mosquitos. 

A concert with food!

 Ravinia is one of Chicago's summer music venues. It's the summer home of the Chicago Symphony and also presents many concerts of other music genres - John Legend is coming, and Lenny Kravitz and Earth Wind and Fire, just to name a few. It's a beautiful outdoor venue, though the main concert area is a sheltered theater with the sides open to the park. 

It was somewhat primitive when I first moved to the Chicago area in 1975. It's now upgraded and expanded, with a more performance areas, upscale restaurants, and learning programs for promising young musicians and elementary school children. The current music director is Marin Alsop, who has been adventurous in programming. This summer she is leading the Breaking Barriers Festival this year focusing on women leaders in food and (classical) music. She has programmed music by women composers (who do not get nearly as much exposure as men) and has been really innovative with concerts this summer. 

On Tuesday, my husband and I attended "Chefs and Bites," at one of the smaller theaters at the park. Six women chefs were features. Each of them had created a "small bite," kind of like tapas. Before the concert everyone got a tray with six small compartments. We walked around to each of the chef stations and picked up a "bite." And a water bottle! The directions were to take our bites into the concert hall, listen to the chef introduction before each musical piece explaining the choice of music and flavors, and then eat the correct bites while listening to the music. (Did everyone follow these directions? No.)

It was such an interesting idea. The bites of food were interesting and tasty. There was a "most decadent brownie" with buckwheat, mascarpone, tahini, grape compote, and black sesame caramel, for example. as well as a gazpacho with heirloom tomatoes, and a jasmine and red bean rainbow brownie.

You can see the program below. Quiet City is a beautiful atmospheric piece for solo trumpet and english horn with strings. Syrinx is another beautiful, evocative piece, for solo flute, only flute, no accompaniment. La Bonne Cuisine was, I think, quite funny, but it would have really helped to have the words in the program. Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is another beautiful, impressionistic work (again featuring flute). Bridges was interesting and the Libertango was engaging and fun.

I had a very good time at this event, but while the food was tasty, I didn't feel any connection between the paired bites and compositions. Oh well. It was still fun and it's always great to hear the Chicago Symphony musicians.

Navigating a complicated novel

 Have you ever read a novel so complicated, with so many characters that you needed a flow chart to make it through the story? The first time this happened for me was years ago when I was in a book club in my neighborhood. I don't remember the title of the book, but it took place on one street and involved five or six families. I also don't remember the plot anymore, but I do remember that I finally made a map of the street, locating all the families involved. Another group member told me she had had to do the same.

I recently bought a book titled "Lost on a Page" because it sounded interesting. It's a fantasy novel and a novel within a novel; the author is David E. Sharp. The main character, Joe Slade, is a detective of the old-school, hard-boiled type. We alternate between Joe's world and adventures and correspondence between the (fictional) author and the editor of the books. I got to page 42 before I decided I needed a guide to navigate through the novel. So far I have three categories: "fictional characters," "real characters," and undetermined characters. "Real" meaning within this novel that exists in my real life in 2025. That includes the "author" and "editor" of Joe's books. Joe has a world that is real to him, where he solves crimes and mysteries. But he somehow finds himself in a book world, a library of sorts, where it looks like characters from different genres interact. 

I like unusual novels, as well as more normal novels, so I'm up for the challenge of navigating this story.