As a site for the Sunday afternoon recital, an elegant Cambridge home served memorably. The music room was high-ceilinged and spacious. It comfortably held two grand pianos, back to back, and, around the walls, seating for some twenty invited guests. The host, Ruth, at 96 years of age, received us with grace (and later with wine and cookies.)
Category Archives: Blog
Praying Visitor
For several days, we at 17 Howland Street have had as guest a real live praying mantis. This is the being that the French call “mante religieuse.” How he affixed himself to the wall on our front porch baffles us householders.
After some hours of residency, he moved slightly to another position on the wall. After he remained there for much of the first day, we thought he might be dead. But, no, he was alive enough to disappear for the night. Since it was cold, we thought it might be his last night in this world.
However, he came back again, ready for perhaps a longer stay than we imagined. Presumably he has preyed on other small creatures sufficiently to have prepared his stomach for extending his guest status. We feel honored at being favored as his home, especially since no other site on our street seems to have acted as a kind of motel for this never-before-seen-by-us creature.
Since we need all he prayers we can get, this mysterious creature is welcome to stay as long as he wants.
Unique Achievement
Yesterday, I entered the mythical Hall of Fame of my softball community. To achieve this distinction took a feat never before seen by veteran players of several decades’ experience. What I did was to hit into a triple play!
Runners were on second and first base. So when I hit a hard grounder that almost touched third base, the fielder quickly stepped on third for the force-out, threw to second for another, and in turn the second baseman threw to first in time to get me called out.
Two Parties
What more enjoyable evening for a music lover than a house concert? That event formed the heart of a dinner party to which I was invited one evening last weekend. To have heard four young women, students of our next-door neighbor Emily, sing the works of classical composers counted for me as a rare pleasure.
99th Birthday
“Don’t let go, old leaf.
Hang onto the withered branch
Till spring: then float down.”
These lines come from a small booklet called “Mortuary Airs,” written by my friend Dan Aaron. In its few pages, he takes a jaunty view of death but respects its prerogatives.
Today this friend reaches 99. Yes, he was born on this day in 1912.
Brief Appearance
Of Badlands, a film made by Terence Malik in 1973, the critic David Thomson has written: “may be the most assured first film by an American since Citizen Kane.” My interest in seeing it came about, not from its place in cinema history, but rather because of a personal discovery.
Skype
An evening’s international conversation over Skype has shown once again what a stupendous communications device this is.
To have detailed images of Tom and Maria, our friends in Montreal, filling my computer screen and those of my wife Susan and me filling theirs stirred in me feelings of awe. How can this free service provide such face-to-face contact so simply and without fail?
We had scope to review family news, as well as evaluation of Terrence Malik’s film “The Tree of Life” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.” We finished by exchanging details on our friends’ forthcoming visit.
Among the technology wonders of our age, Skype deserves much more than honorable mention,