Category: Life

D. helped organize his department’s conference which took place this past Wednesday and Thursday (This is why our Thanksgiving tales will come along a bit later). Running concurrent with the opening tea and first speakers was a scheduled and staged Glasgow University protest against increases in tuition. Through the quirkiness of a single idle comment from the student in charge who wanted to “check the conference room one last time,” D. and his fellow conference organizers were trapped inside the administration building while students conducted the most peaceful protest we’ve experienced. “We’ll let your people in,” the campus security told him earnestly. “Nae fear of that. But we canna let you oot.”

Soo. Whilst D. watched, trapped and a little grumpy at missing tea and breakfast, the students marched, carrying flags and banners, screaming and shouting. But: they had people in neon shirts to stop traffic for them; they only ever blocked one lane of the road; nothing was broken or damaged; and they did not even tread on the grass when coming or going from their protest!

The Glasgow Police Helicopter followed them along their whole route – from the main gates of Glasgow University, winding around through University Gardens, down University Avenue to Woodlands Road, through to George’s Square (and the city Chambers), and back to the University. It hovered over them, as if it could accomplish something other than spending the funds not spent upon funding education (helicopter time isn’t cheap, after all). The priorities are a bit skewed in this picture, we think.

Though the whole thing seemed to be sort of rehearsed, and campus security was even a little freaked out that D. photographed things — these students were not bent on destruction, unlike the students at the tuition protest in London last week, which apparently started out in the same orderly fashion, but ended with torched cars and mounted policemen riding into the crowd. We’re grateful G.U. opted out of that.

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In the evenings, when one can draw a full breath (it burns to take deep breaths — nose, throat and lungs burn, it is so frigid out), there’s the smell of smoke in the air. Peat fires and coal smoke and the more familiar scent of burning wood. Yes, indeed, there’s a bit of a nip in the air around here: the walks are icy, the streets sparkle with salt and a fur of frost, and the fountain in the park has a layer of ice on top, to the tune of about 1 inch of solid ice at the edges, and more than that in the middle. As you can see, great entertainment was found in breaking away the ice floes from the edge and flinging them into the middle, where they broke through and stood like a temporary and ragged Stonehenge. You will be proud to note that D. flung this particular icy missile himself. Ars brevis.

We’re expecting snow any time now, the heater is barely effective enough to combat our single-paned windows, and this isn’t even “proper” Winter yet. Our ice-cleats are ready, though, as we expect to need them at any point. We know that we’ll need our thermal underwear tomorrow, as we’re heading off to Edinburgh with the University’s International Families group. We’ll spend the morning in Edinburgh wandering through St. John’s Church (which has a gift shop and a coffee shop, so we’ll be warm after D. takes his pictures), and perhaps take a few exterior pictures of St. Giles Cathedral. We’ll then will make our way to Lauriston Castle in the afternoon. With plenty of warm-up stops along the way. And very short ambles through their gardens. Brrrr.

It’s an early trip, though — no one wants to get caught in shopper’s traffic, so we’re on our way at 8:30 and to Lauriston by 2:30. We might even get home by full dark, which is these days at ten to five, with the sun going down before four.

Hope that you are staying warm where you are, and eating well.

-D & T

Once upon a time in 1163, there was not much going on except for the Middle Ages, which meant a lot of farming and fleas and Lords and Ladies and possibly a bit of storytelling from Pliny the Elder. There was not much else but priests and popes (who were kind of war leaders and mafia heads instead of churchmen) and lots and lots of prayers as villeins and serfs strove to make sense of a world which was big and scary. And, there was a landowner who was in search of piety and decided to build an abbey on the site of a 6th century Celtic worship site. So, the landowner got his petition together. And soon, there were monks. The abbey lasted until the early 1500’s, when it started caving in after a minor earthquake.

Soonish after that was the Protestant reformation, when Martin Luther got tired of the “priests and popes” business. And then, there were Lutherans. And then, of course, they argued, so then there were Calvinists and Presbyterians. The abbey caved in the rest of the way, and nobody in Scotland had the courage to say they cared, else someone might have called them a Papist, and nobody wanted any of that kind of trouble. (Those Presbyterians were scary.)

Typically, as soon as the dust settled, people’s staunch beliefs about architecture and worship lurched toward preservation a few hundred years later. No priests and popes, since post-reformation Church of Scotland remains safely Presbyterian, but by 1890 much of the original abbey had been restored. Now there were pastors and, um, parishioners. Much better for everyone. Apparently.

Sadly, at that time of reformation and reform, no one thought to put in central heating, which would have greatly enlivened worship from that time to the present.

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Even with a full orchestra, a hundred and fifty plus choristers and about eight-hundred-and-fifty audience members (this is how many tickets were sold, anyway) a sandstone building in late autumn in Scotland is just freezing. Also, it’s a tough place to get ready for a concert. While we were given a lovely dressing room up an ancient spiral staircase (where one of the altos almost took a header, having caught her heel in the hem of her trousers), the abbey was not really prepared for a hundred and fifty people brushing up their look, for seventy or so women slithering into The Blouse of Hideous Purpleness (of which, you will note, you see no picture), of that many men trying to brush hair, tuck in black shirts, wash faces, and otherwise perk themselves up after a grueling three hour rehearsal. “The only place to get any electricity around here is if you unplug the organ,” one of the sopranos remarked dryly as she pulled her hair back in a serviceable bun. Not a lot of glitz or curls going on, except of the humidity-induced natural variety. Plain hair, plain faces, and a whole lot of long underwear and fervent wishes for gloves and scarves. Shivering singers.

And yet, it was somehow still a fairly decent concert.

It’s strange to plenty of people that anyone can derive such enjoyment from singing requiems. They’re a bygone form of music; it’s rare for composers to come up with new work in the requiem form. The prayers, which are prayers for the souls of the dead, are fairly standard in the Catholic tradition. Since churches are no longer mainly made up of the wealthy who have enough dough to make others pray their immortal souls in a northerly direction, requiems are kind of — excuse the pun — dead. Even with all of the wars we have most people only pay lip service to worrying about the souls of the departed (well, most people who are a.) a Protestant or b.) hold a full-time job which doesn’t entail wearing a long black dress with a blue or black and white scarf thingy on their head. And even nuns probably have more duties than prayer nowadays.), and depending on your theological bent – or lack of one – there’s the whole question of whether any of it even matters or not. So, why do people even sing requiems?

Wellll… it’s because once upon a time in this same world, people died. Frequently. Rich people, poor people, popes and priests – somehow, death managed to equalize everyone. And because the prayers for the ease of the souls of the dead were sung so frequently and heard by so many, tradition (and some of those priests, likely) dictated that the prayers for the soul must also include terrifying reference to the day of judgment, the threat of death and hell, and sweet, angelic reminders of paradise. In adding all of this, the entire service because musically challenging. Great composers put their best efforts toward these requiems — and created intensely dramatic, powerful, and thrilling works of music which are, even when one is not thinking about any specific departed person, beautiful and moving and comforting.

We may disbelieve the whole soul thing. We may debate the dogmatic aspects of singing a piece of music which tradition aligns with a Catholic theology, and we’re definitely not Catholic. But we never doubt the beauty and power of music, and we’re grateful for the solemn dignity of the prose, the musical celebration of a life, and a reminder to sing while we can.

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It’s tough to go from rehearsing in a large university classroom to performing in an acoustically live abbey — very tough. The bass line you relied on hearing, as it cued your part (without needing to pay attention to all of that pesky counting) can be utterly ruined, if the basses are confused by hearing echoes of the altoes and come in too early. The orchestra’s string-laden entrances seem vague when compared to the definite percussion of a piano keyboard. Rehearsing was tough — a bit acrimonious in parts. There was a lot of glaring between sections, snarky commentary from our choir master, and general panic. We very much wished we could have rehearsed with the orchestra a week earlier, but the fact is, they bill by the hour, and so most choirs only do a dress rehearsal with them (except for the symphony choir, perhaps). The aforementioned non-counting basses got a bit lost once, there were timid beginnings, and a few sour notes (for some reason, holding the key in a couple of spots was troublesome, though it had never been previously) which caused an almost imperceptible wince on the part of the choir master during the performance, but it was a powerful sound, and though the audience was mostly stern-faced (never a smiley group, these), they seem to have enjoyed themselves, and were enthusiastic in their applause.

And we had fun. Never mind the paying customers.

Not surprisingly, today we find ourselves a bit draggy. Standing still for five hours on a frigid cement floor — even in low heels or rubber-soled boots — is hard on the thighs and calves. Holding a score out in one’s hand — again, holding it mostly still — makes weird little twinges in one’s back and arms. Walking back to the train station provided opportunity to slither and slide on the salted cobblestones, which only added to the fun. Fortunately, all of Sunday’s plans are tied up in our monthly brunch out with C. — nothing other than maybe a bit of laundry followed by a long nap and a hot bath is planned for this bitterly cold Sunday.

Owing to the usual train kerfluffles, we arrived at rehearsal on the baton, which meant a silent wait until the director was distracted, and then a crazy scramble for our places instead of time to peruse the abbey and the Christmas lights in the town center. We plan to go back and take pictures when there is better light (and fewer spotlights on poles interfering with everything) and not the pressing need to escape the glares of the man with the “stick,” as he calls it. We have some bootleg recordings of the program, however! You can hear the Cherubini Requiem and the as well as an mp3 of the Fauré, recorded from behind the chorus. We are so loud in some parts we should have moved the recorders another twenty feet back – but still, we mainly wanted to give you an idea of what we sounded like.

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When you rehearse once a week for two and a half hours with a group of people, you become accustomed to their presence, even if you never exchange a word. We like our choral group, and decided to make them cookies. Much to our amusement, some other members of the chorus came up with the same idea — all of them in the second sopranos, where T. currently sings. We had, between us, five dozen cranberry orange iced cookies, an entire gingerbread cake, and two dozen double chocolate brownies with marshmallows and nuts.

We quickly decided that we’d better share the wealth with the rest of the chorus, who voted that we do this baking thing every week. T, who feels like she spent a large percentage of her life in recent days either drizzling icing on something or cleaning it off of the counter, muttered, “Right. Not bloomin’ likely.”

So, no weekly cookie lovefest. More music, though; next concert is the 12th of December, followed by the “big show” on the 19th! (Yikes.)

It’s funny: somehow, we’re not nervous about this concert. 3 hours from now we have a rehearsal – the first with the orchestra instead of a piano accompanist – and … well, we’re fine with that. This choir is radically different from the University choir, in that everybody treats performances as … well, just what we do. With 5 to 8 performances a year, the idea of performing isn’t something which looms large in everybody’s mind, and they just … well, sing. It’s a refreshing change, really.

We have two little recording devices that we’re going to use to try to get a decent recording (shh! don’t tell the musicians, who expect to be paid more if they’re recorded!). Hopefully at least one of them will be worth listening to, although since we’re singing in Paisley Abbey the recording might be a bit odd, acoustically. We’ll be going down early to take some photos of the abbey, too – after all, how often do you get the chance to sing in a building which was built in 1163!?

-D & T

A little fog, a little sun. We’ve entered the late autumn cycle. Interspersed with bouts of wind and rain and bitter cold, we have clear blue afternoons that begin to fade by 3 p.m. into dusk, colors leaching from the sky and all of the buildings.

We are in a season of extremes — brilliant bright sun against the dramatic backdrop of a pewter-gray sky. This is a city of extremes – this is the time of year where we find ourselves chuckling at the clothes we wear — holding on to our right to wear cardigans instead of coats, and nice shoes instead of waterproofed boots. The funniest thing is to see girls at the University defiantly striding out in Daisy Duke-style cut-offs, legs bare to the elements except for a thin layer of fishnet or lacy stocking. They tremor when they walk, so caught up in shivering.

While there is darkness and wind, there’s also a feeling of impending celebration. Between the early November Diwali celebration to Fireworks Night and the upcoming Christmas revels, the streets these days are filled — cars, traffic, people on foot heading for the city center, and the “maul,” as D. calls it (borrowing from author Terry Pratchett). While we struggle through the days, trying to simply get up as the early dusk and late dawn seem to rob us of coherent wakefulness, we wonder how the people who live here all of their lives fare. Are the numerous lights downtown working for them? Do the sodium-yellow streetlights actually make them feel like things have color? We are so glad that this is our last winter, and a little alarmed that it’s not really even begun yet, and we’re already to the point of dread.

— Dread, but functional dread, fortunately. We are dragging ourselves out of bed and to the gym with grim determination. We are not going to become sick this year, or give in to the sapping urge to hibernate at eat our own baking until we fall over in a stupor. (Although that sounds really fun at this point…) We plan to make it through our last winter with our sanity intact!

Every little thing helps, in that quest for sanity. Though T. tends to become more of a Hobbit than usual when it is dark and cold, D. managed to drag her out of the house this weekend. Having read the fine print in our chorus manual, T. realized she would be prohibited from wearing boots for our concert on the 20th. Since the tops of the boots won’t be visible under her regulation black pants, she couldn’t see what the problem was, but since D. needed some new things for work anyway, she was talked into going downtown. T. continued her quest to own shoes that are “so ugly they’re cute,” and bought what D. could only describe as organ shoes. D. picked some thicker trousers for work, having come home soaked to skin on Friday and not really excited about repeating that freezing experience. Fortunately, the wind drove us home and the rain didn’t start until we were climbing the last hill to the house. Loathe as we were to leave the house, it was actually invigorating being out and fighting the elements. It’s just hard to get out there.

While Glasgow’s not an expensive city, per se, it’s easy to spend too much if you indulge a whim for going out. We don’t often visit pubs or coffee shops anymore, having dispensed with coffee and the drams for which one visits the pub. We don’t even eat out much, simply because it’s often disappointing. There are hundreds of well-respected restaurants in Glasgow, but there aren’t a ton of vegetarian options that are included in a menu except as an afterthought, and honestly, there’s only so much eggplant or so many huge grilled Portabellos one can eat without figuring out that one could have stayed home. (Plus, when the real urge you have is for a burrito, well… the portabellos don’t really do it for you.) Occasionally, however, we go out — and this time visited the newish pub across the block from our house. We were excited, because The Drake had a fire in the little iron grate that was just being lit when we walked in.

We should have taken pictures, because it was a coal and peat fire — not that either one is all that exciting, but a.) we Yanks don’t really know what it looks like, and b.) the coal was smokeless and looked like black dinosaur eggs. (And yes, we can say that because we all know exactly what dinosaur eggs look like.) Peat is, of course, processed, decayed moss and stuff that’s ages and ages old, and it’s dug out of bogs and wetlands with special shovels and then set aside to dry and be burned. There’s a lot of discussion on the ecological issues in burning peat, but people burn it because it burns hot for a long time. This peat, rather than being hand-dug and in plain blackened brick slabs, was in a nifty shape with initials pressed into it, the coal used was supposed to be smokeless (although the proprietor winked and said he had some of “the good stuff” in back), and the smoke didn’t particularly want to go up the chimney. All in all, it was a strange but good breakfast.

It’s now 20 minutes to 4 p.m. and the sun is going down. We’re wishing for a peat fire of our own.

-D & T

I feel as if I’ve seen just about everything, on my wanders between the University and home, or between home and work. One thing I hadn’t expected, though, was that somebody would go to all of the trouble to damage the newly-renovated fountain in Kelvingrove Park.

Here’s a closer look at the poor cherub, who’s been like this for several weeks. I guess that it’s just a bit too heavy to get out by hand, which begs the question of how somebody lifted it off of its pins to begin with.

Perhaps they were objecting to the number of toes on the cherub? I believe this one has at least 8 toes.

Given, they’re not supposed to be human, but … well, it’s either that he’s got extra digits, or he’s had a truly horrible case of athlete’s foot. Somehow, I think disease is the less likely option, here.

-D