Back to school. Lantern festival has passed, the sweet yuanxiao have been eaten and Chinese New
Year holiday is over for my girls. We
did our best to get everyone in bed last night early. We’ve been checking out the Olympics on the
late side and I was told we had to kill it.
I was hoping on the off chance that CCTV might show T.J. Oshie’s
overtime shoot out against the Russian team.
No dice. We had the 1500 meter
female speed skating and after a few spirited dashes we called it a night.
Earlier in the day I’d read the article in the New York Times
about the U.S. hockey team victory over Russia and, like a fool, as I was to
learn, I went to Youtube to see a clip.
I got the girls around to check it out.
Enter a search for “Oshie, shootout, Olympics.” There’s the picture, cool. Sit through the obligatory 15 second dental
surgery commercial, and it’s . . . some kid in bad lighting discussing the
shoot out. Right. OK, there’s a Reuters posting. That’s got to be real. But it’s still photos and someone
talking. What about this one? Interviewing slavering Americans shouting
“U.S.A., U.S.A.” My daughters started to
groan and peel off and after a while, I gave up.
It dawned on me that some U.S. network had the U.S. rights to
all video for the ceremony and no one
else, seemingly, was allowed to post any footage on line. I looked on non-U.S. video sites but also
came up short. I didn’t think to take
the obvious step and find out precisely which U.S. network had the rights this
year and simply go to their website. I managed
that this morning and finally saw the drama.
Oshie’s amazing to watch as he just glides in so slowly and fakes so
effortlessly. His hand to eye
coordination must be stratospheric. What
is perhaps most seductive is, beside the sin
qua non, that he scores, is his boyish smile as he sets out each time.
So we tried to go bed early, my self, definitely
included. You can’t go back to the
5:00AM wake up routine, lightly. 2:00AM
I was startled awake by tears. Usually
that would be my little one, but my older one was thumping down the stairs,
balling. “What’s wrong?, What’s wrong?” “I can’t
go to sleep! I’ve got to get up in
four hours and I can’t go to bed.” All
but narcoleptic, 目不交接[1], is one problem I’ve rarely
experienced. I sat down with her and
tried to give her a meditation technique of forcing the calmness from her head,
slowly down to her toes on the exhale and to repeat it over and over. Clutching for straws really, but miraculously,
it worked.
I’d mentioned I was reading Camus’ “The Stranger” with my
older one. Detached, lifeless gent
moving through his absurd, Algerian world.
At the other end of the spectrum at the other end of the upstairs hall,
I was reading my little one “Treasure Island.”
I’d never read it and sixty pages or so in, we’re having a blast. So that’s where 98% of all pirate kitsch
comes from. Parrots on the shoulder,
patches on the eye, stumps for legs, “X
marks the spot.” "Fifteen men on
the dead man's chest--Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" As some readers know, we can get to feel
rather dry and landlocked here in dusty Beijing, without any waterways to speak
of in any sort of proximity. We’ve just
fitted out the boat in Bristol and been told of Long John Silver. I’m looking forward to a dose of brine before
bed for the foreseeable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island
There were of course “pirates” in Chinese history. I recall the half Japanese, half Chinese
pirate / military leader Koxinga (a.k.a. Zheng Cheng Gong) (1624-1662) who was
a Ming loyalist to resisted the Manchus, and ultimately expelled the Dutch East
India company from Taiwan, where he made his base. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga The Japanese were often dismissed as “dwarf pirates”
who harassed the Chinese coasts. Earlier
the Muslim, eunuch Admiral Zheng He, of course, sailed the high seas all the
way to Africa and the Middle East on multiple ocassions. But it’s not clear to me that, other than
perhaps these gents, Chinese kids learn much of anything about Chinese maritime
adventure. Decidedly continental, yellow
land power for so much of its history.
I just asked my wife, the default font of arbitration on
such matters, if she ever learned about any other Chinese maritime heroes. Dashing off for a coffee refill the oracle
replied: “I’ll think.”
One friend shared with me some quartets by Franz Schubert
yesterday, which was bright and clean while another old friend sent on some
Amon Tobin that was grey and electronic.
But when I want to work and listen I always seem to find my way back to
jazz, to hard bop mostly, myself. Ted
Curson is a Philadelphia born trumpeter who’s caressing the air just now. Another Mingus band alum, this album, “Tears
for Dolphy” from 1964 is majestic and has nicely reconnected me with Bill
Barron on tenor who was in residence at my alma
mater Wesleyan University for a spell.
This tune “East 6th St.” has me thinking about walking around
on the only one they could be referring to.
Mr. Curson was active all the way till the end, and regularly played out
in Finland of all places. He only passed
in 2012. Another reminder to catch these
old guardsmen before that generation has definitively passed.
No comments:
Post a Comment