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Born 5:14 pm, January 20, 2008, Room 24 on the twelfth floor of the Roosevelt Hospital in NYC, of which staff was so lackadaisical, under-managed and incompetent that not only my wife, but several others did not receive the requested epidural administration for pain relief. Thank God my wife is a soldier; I’m so proud of her. I thought maybe the thing to do for this post is to quote some lines of classy poetry, so maybe I was going to go with Larkin (”they fuck you up, your mum and dad”), but instead, these closing lines from “Midnight” from Spencer Reece in the hopes of a good life ahead for my daughter, Ella (happy birthday, darling) -

The rest of this panorama is immense, dark, impenetrable, unstructured.
But if you look closely in the left-hand corner,
I can just be distinguished from the blue blue brilliance of all this land,
a tiny figure, no bigger than a grass blade, a shadow hugged by shadows,
heading home after a long walk nowhere,
encircled by a halo of rocks, trees, crops, rivers, clouds -
by every blessed thing conspiring together to save my life.

My wife is delivering our second child this week (a daughter). So please excuse me as I can’t post as much as I’d like to. It’ll get more hectic with family flying in from California. And school’s starting again in a week! I will cardiac arrest right after all this is over. For some reason, I’m very nervous, although I’ve been through this process before. I’m freaking out, also, because I chose not to go to a refresher Lamaze class at the hospital, because I fell asleep my first time there. But I think I forgot most of the techniques, and we’ll have to resort to impromptu breathing patterns during labor. It is very likely that at my wife’s side, I’ll look like a third-base coach sending complex and frantic signals to a confused base runner. My wife, on the other hand, exudes a Siddhartan calm. Just an amazing woman.

Two nights ago, I took her out on a date. A last-chance respite, you know, before our incarceration. We went to the Radu Lupu recital at the Carnegie Hall. One of my favorite discs is Radu Lupu’s Late Brahms; when I die, I want to lose my final consciousness listening to his Opus 118 A-major intermezzo. Or Weird Al Yankovic, maybe, who knows.

Anyway, the first half of Lupu’s recital was devoted to Schubert’s D. 850 Sonata, and the second half, to the first book of Debussy’s Preludes. The hall was packed. Amazing, considering that there was no war-horse virtuoso piece nor an especially intriguing program. But I suspect all of them were there, just like me, to hear the sheer beauty of sound that Lupu can produce out of the piano. I don’t know of any other pianist who is capable of producing that kind of tone from the instrument. Maybe Krystian Zimerman or Murray Perahia.

Schubert’s D. 850 Sonata is called “Gasteiner” because it was composed in 1825, during Schubert’s visit to the spa town of Gastein. He would die in three years. His last symphony, the “Great” symphony in C-major, is also based on the sketches he made in Gastein in 1825. So the sonata, too, has a Beethovenian grandeur. I don’t know if Lupu was over-pedaling or if the Carnegie Hall’s acoustics were suspect, but the first movement came off a bit hazy. But the Con moto slow movement was perhaps the finest I’ve heard, either live or on record. And it was beyond my understanding how Lupu could make the mysterious hush of the ppp which ends the sonata linger in the hall’s air.

The Preludes were even finer. Became a suite of damn-near miraculous luminous sound in Lupu’s hands. As an encore, he played something from the second book of Debussy’s Preludes (I can’t remember the title, because Lupu didn’t announce his encores). Then for the second encore, he played the C sharp-minor from Schubert’s Moments Musicaux. In virtually all the renditions I’ve heard, the pianists invariably try to accentuate and over-emphasize the piece’s connection to Bach. But Lupu downplayed such a connection, and just… played. It sang as I’ve never heard it sing.

It should be obvious to you by now that this post isn’t much of an objective music review, because it was impossible for me not to love the moment. During the slow movement of the Schubert, I was holding my wife’s hand, my forearm nudged against her side. The entire hall was silent, straining to listen to the quiet music of Schubert, then I felt my baby squirm and move, grazing against my arm. I looked at my wife in wonder. I was so happy. She’s listening to this, I thought, the way the notes hang in the air before their decay.

(Image: by Shaun Tan)

I just woke up from a dream which I don’t want to talk about in much detail, except that the dream began with me looking at myself as a 3rd person, but by the end - when the dream had become traumatic, sad - I’d become so ensconced in my 1st personhood that it almost felt as though I had no body to refer to, but only a reeling… Geist, or something. The dream was terrible. It probably has to do with the fact that I watched 시간 (Time) before going to bed, a film by Kim Ki-duk, who had directed an excellent film called 빈집, which was released in the States as 3-Iron. This new film was not nearly as good as 3-Iron, despite some scenes of ludic brilliance. There’s an extended sequence involving a paper mask which is as disturbing and unnervingly funny as anything I’ve seen this year. The film, despite its many flaws, is a kind of a 21st century update of the ol’ identity-switcheroo game, and the various attendant metaphysical maladies which usually accompany such a game. A kind of a heavy-handed reworking, so to speak, of Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina Something like that, I guess. Although I’d have to say it’s more like a melodramatic, quasi-philosophical version of John Woo’s Face-off.

2007 has been a good year. I got to know my daughter better as she began to recognize the world and me, first of all. The year has been largely uneventful, which is more than I can ask for from life. I started this blog with no ambition in August, but met so many people, like you, who think and feel about the similar things. Thanks for reading. I’d thought that perhaps, with this pseudonymous identity that the blog affords me, I could write about crazy things, fuck-it-all But that hasn’t been the case, because I see myself better, more clearly here sometimes, than I’d otherwise be capable of seeing: the reverse of my nightmare which I just woke up from. This stanza from Eugenio Montale’s “Encounter” -

Maybe I’ll find a face again:
in the glancing light a movement leads me
to a sad bough craning from a jar
by a tavern door.
I reach for it, and feel
another life becoming mine, encumbered
with a form that was taken from me;
and it’s hair, not leaves, that winds
round my fingers like rings.

Do you do those New Year’s Resolution lists which you abide by until some drunken night(s) in February? I don’t. But I’m thinking that I’ll do a list this year. I’ll be kinder to people around me, for example. Love my darling wife better. Be a better dad. Stop procrastinating. Drink less. Exercise more… I’m tired already.

(Image, from Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia)

Slow blogging through the holidays, sorry. But I hope you’re all having a great time with your family and/or loved ones. Some short notes: Congrats to Ed, a new father. If you need advice on strollers, etc., I’m your man. Also, Erasing has a great post on Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (which he describes as La Jetee + M. C. Escher + Chris Van Allsburg + Codex Seraphinianus).

Because of school, I didn’t get nearly enough time to read/listen/watch much of anything, or at least not as much as I would have liked to. But for what it’s worth, the following items gave me much pleasure in 2007.

MUSIC

Alkan, Concerto for Solo Piano, etc.: Marc-Andre Hamelin (If I ever have to demonstrate to the martians the expressive and technical range of an instrument commonly known as piano, I’d pop in this disc. My second favorite Hamelin CD, only after his Charles Ives Concord Sonata disc.)

Radiohead, In Rainbows (I’ll shut up.)

Stockhausen, Stimmung: Paul Hillier and Theater of Voices (see here.)

Herbie Hancock, River, The Joni Letters (I enjoyed this disc so much better than the other Joni Mitchell tribute album which was more hyped. Wayne Shorter hasn’t sounded this good in years, either. Tina Turner in “Edith and the Kingpin” is wicked, and Hancock’s solo in the same song is too good. My favorite of the album Luciana Souza’s cover of “Amelia.”)

No Age, Weirdo Rippers (Wesssssssiiiiiiiide!)

LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver (my daughter’s favorite album of 2007.)

Carla Bruni, No Promises. (Sexy, sexy…)

Motian/Frisell/Lovano, Time and Time Again. (I am kicking myself for having missed their concert last month.)

Burial, Untrue (The music I listened to the most while writing this year, alongside Tallis Scholars’ Requiem CD.)

Sally Shapiro, Disco Romance (Makes me feel old and young at the same fucking time.)

Beethoven, Sonatas Op. 101 & Op. 106: Mitsuko Uchida (The Hammerklavier that pounds the head and stirs the soul.)

Brahms, String Sextets: Nash Ensemble.

Schumann & Schubert, Cello Works: Antonio Meneses (Great Arpeggione sonata, but even better Schumann. Lyrical, searching and intimate. One of those records that gets better with each listen, starts living inside you. I know I will listen to it over & over again, for years, i.e. Radu Lupu’s late Brahms.)

Glenn Gould, The Complete Original Jacket Collection (80 CDs. Immaculate packaging, with each CD encased in its own sleeve, which is a reproduction of the original LP cover. This is for the completist in you, if you’re a Gould fan. I am in love.)

BOOKS

Fred Wander, The Seventh Well (A remarkable novel by a holocaust survivor, tautly written and elegantly translated by Michael Hofmann, whose recent literary criticism, by the way, makes me believe he is very very angry at life. But as for Wander, see my post here.)

Felisberto Hernandez, Lands of Memory (This book is actually a reissue that will come out Spring ‘08, but you can find used copies online, I think. Writing that is at once enigmatic and utterly natural. No wonder why writers like Calvino, Cortazar and Garcia Marquez worshipped the man.)

C. P. Cavafy, The Canon (Yes!)

Gerhard Richter, The Atlas (An update of the artist’s “idea book.” You know how Wittgenstein, in his Preface to Philosophical Investigations, called his propositions “a picture of a landscape… a thought criss-cross… an album” The Atlas is exactly that.)

Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives (But look out for Nazi Literature in the Americas, due out soon. Crazy little book. It’s a personal preference, I guess, but I much prefer Bolano in shorter works. But I’ll save the ultimate judgment until the release of 2666.)

Shaun Tan, The Arrival (See here.)

David Malouf, The Complete Stories (I just can’t believe I haven’t read his writing until this year.)

Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise (Well worth the wait.)

David Peace, Tokyo Ground Zero (Thanks, Terry, for the recommendation.)

As can be seen on the left, Papelbon is having a joyful hernia moment not only because the Red Sox are the World Series victors, but because the series finished just before The Blue Noteboooks interview with Alex Ross tonight. The event is 8 pm, 501 Schermerhorn inside Columbia University’s main campus. I’m afraid if you’d like seats, you might have to come a bit early, as the seating is limited, and I’ve been getting a ton of emails & phone calls regarding the event. But hey: the event is free. Even if you end up sitting on the steps, leaning against the wall, the talk will invigorate and illuminate, shock and awe. Sorry for this gratuitous self-promotion. You can go back to whatever you were up to, now. But see you tonight at the event.

I’ll be conducting an interview with The New Yorker’s classical music critic, Alex Ross, to talk about his just-released history of 20th century music, The Rest Is Noise. The event will be next Monday, 10/29, at 8 pm. 501 Schermerhorn inside Columbia University on 116th and Broadway. If you are in NYC, please come. If you were too cheap to pony up the money for Alex’s event at The New Yorker festival (like me!), you should come, as the event is free and open to public. And please say hi and hang out with us after the event, as we’ll most likely be having a few drinks. (We’ll have a few copies of Alex’s book on hand for sale; you can help The Blue Notebooks, the interview series I started, by purchasing these books, so buy, buy, buy!)

The book is, by all measures, an impressive achievement. The anecdotal history that Alex relates in talking about music is consistently vibrant; my favorite is one of Arnold Schoenberg running into Marta Feuchtwanger at a supermarket in Los Angeles, yelling that he never had syphilis. Schoenberg was responding to Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, the protagonist of which (Adrian Leverkühn) was inspired by Schoenberg, via Adorno who had advised Mann in the writing of the novel.

Of course the writing in The Rest Is Noise about the music itself is incandescent; Alex Ross’s musical description is always illuminating and poetic. But if you are a reader of his reviews and articles at The New Yorker, that should come as no surprise. But my favorite aspect of the book is the dexterity with which Alex can juxtapose the cultural and intellectual history with the musical moment, grafting the import of the era onto the musical meaning. The limits of language which was addressed by Wittgenstein in Tractatus and by Hermann Broch in Death of Virgil is invoked in the discussion of Webern’s music. Verlaine and Turner in Debussy. Alex Ross achieves this kind of palimpsestic writing with remarkable compression and understatement; The Rest Is Noise may be the only 600-pp book of musical history which can be commended for its brevity - it reads fast. Here’s an example of the author’s inspired concision: in discussing the music of Richard Strauss, who strongly felt compelled to mine the quotidian, boring details of ordinary life for his musical subject, Alex Ross writes -

Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Representation, observed that music could find as much pathos in the disagreements of an ordinary household as in the agonies of the house of Agamemnon. There in one sentence was Strauss’s career from Domestica to Elektra.

Brilliant.

Some of you may know that I started a series of interviews called The Blue Notebooks at Columbia University. We invite different authors, artists and intellectuals and talk about their body of work. This Thursday at 8 pm, if you are in NYC, I hope you can come to our interview with writer Matthew Sharpe, whose latest novel, Jamestown, was recently released to great reviews. My good friend Bethany Rower will interview Matthew. I haven’t read Jamestown yet, but I liked The Sleeping Father very much. Both books will be discussed, in addition to his two earlier books. We’ll have some of Matthew’s books on hand for sale & autograph, at a considerable discount; it’s one way to support The Blue Notebooks.

Anyways, the event is this Thursday (9/27) at 8 pm, 501 Schermerhorn inside Columbia’s main campus. We usually end up taking our writers out for a couple drinks after, so if you can make it, please come out with us after the event, too, and say hi.

On a completely different note, I’m really happy to find out that the soprano Dawn Upshaw and writer Stuart Dybek have just been awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Grants. That name of the award makes me laugh (in my head, I always hear Dr. Evil’s voice pronouncing the name) but the prize money doesn’t. In any case, I’m really happy to see that Dybek won. His short story, “Hot Ice” from the collection The Coast of Chicago, is one of the stories that had inspired me to read and write more carefully, with a greater passion.

(Image, by Ryan Tozzi of The Blue Notebooks) 

I’m sure many of you read moistworks.com as I do. Then you’d be familiar with Megan Matthews’ intensely personal takes on music and life. I just clicked over to moistworks just now, and found out that she died this week, leaving behind her nine year-old daughter, Renee. I only know her through her posts on moistworks, but I feel incredibly heavy-hearted, especially after talking to my wife about it. Megan was only thirty-six; on the moistworks site, it says that she died of complications following a pulmonary embolism. Perhaps it’s completely inappropriate to mention this, but when I read the cause of her death, I thought of a character named Ireneo Funes in Borges’ story, “Funes, His Memory,” who felt and remembered every trivial detail in the world with an unbearable urgency of feeling and lucidity: Borges tells us in the last line of the story that Ireneo Funes died of pulmonary congestion.

There’s a donation button on the moistworks site which lets you contribute to the funds for Renee. I think this link works, too, here.

(Image of Megan and Renee, from moistworks)

I always find myself waiting for the new issue of Book Forum to come out once every few months. I’m sure this isn’t news to anyone, but I believe it’s one of the best review papers around. This Sep/Oct/Nov issue is a good one, too, with empathetic reviews of Junot Diaz, Andrea Barrett and Ha Jin’s new fiction. Another thing about Book Forum is that there is always one review or a feature that piques my interest in a new writer: in this issue, it’s a novelist named Terézia Mora, a German writer of Hungarian descent, whose first novel is translated by Michael Henry Heim. Read Donna Seaman’s review here.

The funniest opening lines of any review published this year Written by Richard B. Woodward, in reviewing Ben Ratliff’s biography of John Coltrane -

Never underestimate what a “tragic” death can do for an artist’s reputation… imagine a seventy-five year old Sylvia Plath on her third marriage, exhausted after leading thirty years of leading poetry workshops, reciting “Daddy” on Fresh Air.

Noah Isenberg reviews a couple of books about the Frankfurt School philosophers’ exile in LA. Jenny Davidson on two books that connect Proust with brain science. And the best reading of all might be Arthur Danto’s salty take on the last book of essays by the late Richard Rorty.

There’s also a survey of the private library of Alex Ross, the classical music critic for The New Yorker. If you are in NYC and at all interested, I’ll be interviewing him about The Rest Is Noise (Oct 07; FSG), a 600-pp book about the history of music in the 20th century. The event will be on October 29, at 8 pm; 501 Schermerhorn inside the main campus of Columbia University. More details will be forthcoming soon, through the website for The Blue Notebooks, which is currently being built.

FYI: I was not paid to write this post for Book Forum, although it strangely turned into a commercial for them. Not even pizza coupons. I don’t even know them folks.

There are many outstanding lit-blogs around, too many to count, through which you can read tart book reviews or catch the latest book-related news faster than an RSS-lightning. This site isn’t one of them. In fact, I’m pretty sure this site won’t be a lit-blog, so I don’t know why I even mentioned lit-blogs in the first place. I can only hope that, here and there, this site will catch a truthful picture of me: a reader in his corner. So don’t hold your breath; nothing mesmerizing here. But let’s also hope that you might feel what I can feel sometimes, through certain words and pictures. Maybe there’s something there. Thank you for visiting and please say hi.

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