Northeast Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from (I ♥) Bill Cunningham:
http://nyti.ms/1j1yBHj

Makes me miss my homeland!

Tony Musante

RIP Tony Musante, previously featured on this blog for his role in the 1970 Italian movie about an oboist, Anonimo Veneziano.  We share Italian ancestry, a home-state, and some time at Northwestern University, according to his obituary. 

Pious Orgies

I must admit, my curiosity was piqued by the aria entitled "Pious Orgies."  I wonder, Handel, what you were thinking when you wrote it.

Cabotto Day

I came across the Oatmeal's "Bartolome Day" rant, shared by several facebook friends, and it has inspired my own rant-back.  While indeed Bartolome certainly holds the moral high ground over Christopher Columbus, he's kind of missing the original point of Columbus Day, which he glosses over briefly:  "Columbus Day was established in the 1930s by a male-only Catholic Organization known as the Knights of Columbus.  They wanted a male Catholic role model their kids could look up to, so they pressured Roosevelt into making it a federal holiday."  First of all, why does he say "male-only Catholic" like it's evil or something?  For one thing, the Knights of Columbus organization is just a group that tries to do good for its community, much like other male-only community clubs such as the Rotary Club or the Elks Lodge or the Lions Club.  Yes, it's Catholic.  Have a problem with that?  I can't tell you how tired I am that it's totally PC to bash Catholicism but pretty much no other religion.  Yeah, the Catholic Church has done some hideous things over the years.  But also some good things.  And pretty much every other religion has also done some shitty things. 

Also, in the 1930s, Catholicism was the religion of the unwashed masses of immigrants flooding in to America for the past hundred years or so, starting with that damn potato famine in the 1840s.  It was looked down upon by the establishment, hence why the Knights of Columbus wanted a positive role model for their kids to look up to (as far as being male, it was the 1930s, I don't think it would have occurred to anyone to find a famous female role model yet).  Finally, my most important point, the KoC wanted an ITALIAN role model for their children.  Because the Irish had already arrived a little sooner and spoke English, they were already pretty well established in the US.  They had also found their way into the political system and thus into power.  Plus they had St. Patrick's Day to celebrate!  The Italians were still struggling to find their place in American society, and they wanted their own celebration of their heritage, so they turned to Christopher Columbus.  Pardon their ignorance (Howard Zinn's People's History had yet to be written); they thought Columbus was a famous Italian with a connection to the New World, and a man the who could represent them well.  They were probably completely unaware of the baggage that went along with Columbus.  So they could have made a better choice.  While Bartolome sounds like a swell guy, he was Spanish, not Italian, so he wouldn't have fit the bill.  Which is why I propose:  John Cabot, aka, Giovanni Cabotto. 

Cabot sailed for England in 1497, so he wasn't the first. But he did land in North America, not South America (technically Canada, but that's closer than San Salvador), and he didn't enslave the native population.  Also, in sailing for England, he was probably more instrumental in the eventual development of the USofA from the British Colonies than Columbus was in sailing for Spain.  So, my proposal:  Cabotto Day. Rant in honor of:  Richard Castriotta and Orson Cook.

The Best Burger in New York / The Genius of Mozart's Gran Partita

So I made a pretty amazing discovery tonight (well, amazing in a completely nerdy but awesome way).  I've been watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix lately, especially when I'm working on reeds.  I was just finishing up some reeds, when I saw the following clip from the episode, "The Best Burger in New York:"

Something about the way Marshall says, "and then . . . a pickle," rang a bell in my mind.  It reminded me of that scene in Amadeus, the one where Salieri is describing the genius of Mozart, particularly in the Gran Partita:  "and then . . . an oboe." So I found it on YouTube:

 

Amazing, no?  Marshall's hamburger soliloquy is an homage to Salieri's in Amadeus!!!  If you listen very closely to the scene in HIMYM, you can even hear the Gran Partita in the background :)  I am pretty impressed with the creators of HIMYM that they were able to insert "high culture" into this scene in such a sly way!  And I love everything involved: the Gran Partita, hamburgers, the oboe, pickles, HIMYM, Amadeus, and of course, Mozart. 

Paris, Part 7

Saturday was my last day in Paris, but I had Dawn with me the whole day, which was nice.  We started our day with coffee and AMAZING pastries from the bakery at the base of Dawn's apartment building.  Armed with our delicious pastries, we revisited the Eiffel Tower in the daylight.  Unfortunately, the elevator to the top was closed for repairs, so we just saw the view from the ground. That view wasn't too shabby, either:

I can't remember for sure, but I think we did some more wandering, just enjoying a beautiful fall day in Paris. We visited the lovely Tuileries Gardens (which I still associate most strongly with Pictures at an Exhibition).  Here are a few photos from our wanderings.

Riverboat on the Seine, with graffiti. 

Love locks on a bridge.

Tree sculpture in the Tuileries. 

 

 Flowers in the Tuileries.

Finally came another highlight of my trip: learning to make eclairs from Dawn's friend Yann.  This process was highly enjoyable and delicious.  I left it to Dawn to actually remember the details of how to make them, I'll have to bug her about it next time I see her.  But here is the general process:

1.   Have awesome kitchen utensils from IKEA. 

(well we didn't actually use these, but still).  

2. Have your French host show you how to perfectly squeeze out the eclair dough he has graciously already prepared for you.  Fail miserably in your own attempts.

3. Also make chouquettes and cover them with this awesome sugar. Bake the eclair shells.

4.  Help add flavor (lime and caramel) to the eclair fillings your host has also graciously made for you.  

5. Clumsily follow your French host's example in filling the eclairs with the flavored center, then top with glaze. 

6.  Enjoy the fruits of your labor. 

Yum!

After that, we had grand plans to have dinner and then do a boat tour on the Seine.  But in typical Parisian fashion, by the time we finished dinner (no trip to Paris would be complete without a rude waiter), it was too late to do a boat tour.  So we wandered around Paris in the evening.  It was lovely.

 

 

And so my time in Paris came to an end.  I left early to the next morning to return home to Los Angeles, inspired and energized to begin the busy season ahead.   Many thanks to Dawn, Michelle, and Yann, who were such wonderful hosts.  You are always welcome in sunny Los Angeles! 

Paris, Part 6

On Friday morning, I headed over to the Loree oboe office!  I was slightly disappointed that the main office is in a different place than the factory, and the factory is outside of Paris, so I couldn't watch the oboes being made.  But the De Gordon family still runs the place, and they make the finishing touches at the main office, so I was able to meet them and play a few instruments.  I wasn't really in the market, so I felt a little bad, but it was still fun to meet the people who made my beloved instruments.

After visiting Loree, I headed over to the Montmartre area and Sacre Coeur.  I have to admit, I was also excited to visit this neighborhood because I saw on the map that there was a Rue Gabrielle, and hey, there aren't too many streets with my name on it, so I was anxious to see it!  It was a very nice little street; I was not disappointed.

I even had my own bus stop:

The Montmartre area was really pretty.  It was fun to imagine famous artists struggling to make a name for themselves here over the past couple hundred years. It might be a little touristy, but it was so pretty I didn't care.  The Sacre Coeur church is also really gorgeous, inside and out.  When I went into the church, there was a mass going on, and nuns were singing beautiful music.  I wish churches in America still sang old masses.

View from the steps of Sacre Coeur

Front of Sacre Coeur

Belltower of Sacre Coeur

Beautiful little park nearby

Church doors in Montmartre

Parisian street with a view of the roof of Sacre Coeur

Dawn met up with me at the steps of Sacre Coeur once she finished work, and we wandered around Montmartre a bit more, into some cute little shops and around the streets.  Even the water fountains in Paris are pretty:

After a little while we headed back over to toward the center of Paris, to L'Art Brut, a nice little bar where we were meeting up with my Asto Wamah friend Michelle and some of her friends.  We had a great time--we got tipsy a bit faster than anticipated because there was some confusion about the kind of food that we ordered and we ended up not having enough to eat in comparison to drink.  It was a fun night!