The
only French Horn player I could identify by name, was The Who’s bass player,
John Entwistle. Think of his
triumphant blowing in Tommy’s “Underture.” My searchings of people who played with people has lead me
to a jazz French Horn player, who’s brand-spankin-new to me, Mr. Julius
Watkins. Born in Detroit in 1921,
he won the Downbeat critics poll in
1960 and 1961 for the category “miscellaneous instrument.” Two of the albums they have available
on Rdio are lovely but often interrupted by an extremely high falsetto;
operatic singing that reminds me unfavorably of the original Star Trek TV show
theme song’s conclusion.
There is a third album profiled there, that sounds beautiful
and must have been recorded in the late fifties in Sweden, or Denmark, as the
title is written as “I Sastanak u studiju.” Intriguingly, I am wrong. Google translate has “detected” Croatian and translated it
as “a meeting in a studio.” Was
Marshall Tito promoting jazz in Zagreb in 56’, following the Hungarian Uprising?
Sitting here now overlooking idyllic ochre cliffs of the Praia da Rocha from a lovely restaurant
perch. We, my older daughter and I
are sitting under a make shift, bamboo ceiling that largely protects us from
ferocious sun. Before me is an unobstructed view all the way to Brazil. The Caetano Veloso and Jorge Ben
soundtrack this place is playing help to pull the mind in that direction. If I turn my head to the right I can
see what must be Sagres Point, not far from where Bartolomeu Dias and his set
pushed out to stare down the boundaries of the known world heading ever further
south to confront Africa and the Indian Ocean.
To the right and the left are the obligatory giant Aloe Vera
plants that feel Mexican and probably are. They almost certainly are not native to Portugal and had to
be imported during the days of exploration. The surface below me is a sickly blue spackled concrete that
is supposed to evoke the islands of Greece, I suppose. The table cloths are blue and white,
the chairs and umbrellas, white, the trim on the house and the entire floor,
are a strong, navy blue. It’s
starting to get to me. My
daughter’s towel is blue. The man across from us is wearing blue sandals with
white stripes to match the blue and white stripes of his swimsuit. Hi tee shirt is white. His cap is blue. The sea is very blue and the sky, at
the horizon point behind the green hills, is also white. Santorini on the Atlantic.
A few black ant scouts are parading around beneath me on the
blue concrete, searching for scraps or something useful for their queen. Swifts dive bravely down the cliffs and
seagulls call and call with a sound that is forever synonymous with the
sea. Other than seashells and our
waiter, these are the only detectable life forms. The waiter is a dick. He
wasn’t keen to serve us. But we’re
warming to each other. The ants
are keeping their distance, and the wind is whipping through, blowing the tablecloths
up and almost off their mooring, again and again here at the edge of Eurasia.
My daughter is so happy, just now. The postcard view isn’t particularly relevant. The bottle of
water she is drinking isn’t complementing the view perfectly. She isn’t utterly content to see the
lonesome sailboat drive its way across the headwinds before us, on this perfect
day in July. Rather, she is
online. Her chums back in Beijing
ought to be in bed at what is for them 12:33PM but fortunately for her, they
aren’t. She can WE CHAT with them,
where she hasn’t for 48 hours or so. Her generation will have war stories about the days before
ubiquity.
I tune out at beaches.
That’s the idea, I suppose.
There’s the sand. There’s
the sun. The kids are happy. Oops, they got sunburned. I got sunburned. But I, for one am so much happier to be
exploring something new. Something
human. After a day or two of this and
I get restless. I'm already
starting to look over the medieval city of Evora to the north. It appears to have a remarkable
medieval cathedral, a highly recommended restaurant. Perhaps it will be the medieval building that connects with my girls . . .
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