Once Upon Three Quarter Time

Paisley Abbey 24

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.)

Paisley Abbey 07

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.

!

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.

Paisley Abbey 14

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.

Paisley Abbey 21

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.

Cranberry Cookies 1


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.)

Requiems

CGC1

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

Recess

Big Top Toys 2

This past summer while in D.C., T. became reacquainted with childhood. An early morning foray into the kitchen for the paper brought her to an abrupt halt, as in the middle of the kitchen floor our hostess and her sister were playing jacks. T. was dragooned into playing, only to discover that the adults in question have been playing jacks, non-stop, since childhood. T., whose mad social skills usually gave her plenty of time to sit alone and read at school during recess, actually had not much of an idea of how to play. She watched the game with the amused detatchment of those who are skill-free.

“Oh, it’s easy,” she was told. “Come play!”

Um, yeah. Right. She tried “onesies,” and never got any further. (Oh, the shame.)

So, fast forward seven months later. A rainy-day mosey past our favorite toy store (They have awesome mobiles on the ceiling, so we must ALWAYS go inside. They also have three dogs – two chocolate Labs and a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy that is just HUGE. At ten months old, it stands as tall as an adult Labrador. Already. Goofy+Huge=Amusing, destructive, and a maker of huge amounts of poo — and fortunately not our problem.) this past weekend netted us a couple of small packets of jacks. They’re probably meant for very small hands, beginner’s jacks, so to speak, thus the jacks are minuscule, and the rules are quite brief. Strangely, the described game is nothing like the game T. played on the kitchen floor in Virginia.

(We were informed later that our hostess plays with “the rules of her folk.” READ: C.T. makes up the rules and then changes them so she can win. ::cough::)

Jacks, dear people, are hard. Ridiculously hard.

T. sputtering: “What? You can’t just throw the ball up?”

D., solemnly reading the rules: Nope. Says here you’ve got to bounce it down once. And you’re supposed to start with them all in your hand and flip your hand over to catch them on the back of your hand.

T., throwing up her hands: “What?! You have to do that at the beginning of every single play? That’s ridiculous.”

D., shrugging: “Well, that’s what it says.”

T., crossly: “I’ve never seen that. We never did that at C’s house. I think the ball is warped. That’s why I can’t do this. Besides, these are just British rules. That means we can just make up our own.”

Lynedoch Crescent D 481

Somehow, we see now how this happens elsewhere. With other people. In Virginia. Who maybe, ::cough:: cheat…

The pre-game “catch on the back of your hands” sometimes morphs into a full-on contest. Jacks also spin very nicely, which is absorbing in and of itself. And, we throw the ball up, thank-you-very-much. It just doesn’t make sense to do otherwise.

We have two boxes of marbles, by the way. We just have to figure out somewhere to play inside where they won’t all end up under the futon…

Revisiting the culture of childhood, where if nobody likes the rules, it’s perfectly acceptable to the rules and go our own way.

Sounds like a decent life plan.

Weekends

Woodlands Road 93 HDR

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.

T's new Grandma Shoes

— 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.

Again with the cupcakes...

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.

View from Skypark 164

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

“Meat” Pies

With the cold coming, we’re in the mood for heartier fare. So, today we made some “meat pies,” using hot water crust pastry. In searching for a recipe, we happened upon this crust, and … well, it’s absolutely awesome! I doesn’t involve the fiddling about with cold butter of the other kind of crust, and it was just … well, fabulously easy to work with.

We varied things a bit from the recipe (of course), but only because we had far more broth than we planned on, so didn’t end up using any milk in the crust at all.

“Meat” pies:
Meat Pies 1.4

  • 12 oz imitation chicken
  • 1 large carrot, diced
  • 1 large potato, diced
  • 8 green onions, diced
  • A dozen mushrooms, quartered
  • 8 oz mature cheddar cheese, grated
  • 8 oz goat cheese, with rind removed
  • 8 oz soya beans
  • vegetarian broth
  • water
  1. Simmer your ingredients (except for the cheeses!) until tender (approximately 1 hour).
  2. Assemble your hot water crust, using the simmering liquid.
  3. Add cheeses to your vegetables & chicken, stirring well
  4. Form your crusts
  5. Fill, and top with dough, crimping the edges tightly closed
  6. Poke a few holes in the top, so that any gasses may escape
  7. Bake for 40 minutes, if doing small pies; bake for 55 minutes, if doing large pies

These are so tasty, and so easy, with most of the work being the chopping of vegetables. D. shall eat well at work this week!

-D & T

Serendipity Fruit

Man, we love cranberries. The first year we moved here, D. went into a fish market to buy a bottle of mae ploy (why they carry mae ploy sauce, we don’t know, but we’re happy) and saw, serendipitously, that they had bags of Ocean Spray cranberries. He impulsively bought them out figuring we’d use them, and we did. He wandered over and asked them when they’d have them in this year… and they ordered a few bags just for him. He bought all of them.

We love our cranberries.

Cranberry Orange Bread 1

We’re not sure why they don’t grow them here — you’d think if you could grow blueberries, you could grow cranberries — but other than the brandy-laced sauce we found in Tesco the one time, it doesn’t seem like cranberries ever caught on here. Maybe it’s because the British lack a Thanksgiving holiday — Christmas simply isn’t enough time to relish the puckery sour-bitter berry that’s so, so tasty. And we do prefer ours kind of sour. Ocean Spray makes a canned cranberry sauce which most Americans cherish, but we’ve been making our very own tart relish with orange peels and spices for as long as we’ve been together.

But sauce isn’t all you can do with cranberries — T. has been known to eat cranberries …raw. And we also like them baked in bread. Sometimes we bake them into a yeast-raised bread, and we’ve found several quick bread recipes pairing cranberries with dates or figs — which seems weird, but we might try it. For today, though, we fell back on our old standard of pairing cranberry with orange, and this year tried out a new recipe for cranberry-orange loaf. At D’s work, the office manager asked him very seriously if he planned to take orders on them for Christmas this year. The answer is still no — but D’s willing to share the recipe!

Cranberry-Orange Loaf

Makes 2 large loaves or 6 mini loaves or 18 muffins

  • 4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 4 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 4 tablespoons grated orange zest
  • 2 eggs, beaten or 1/4 c. ground flax seed plus 2 Tbsp. water
  • 3 cups (One 12 ounce bag) fresh cranberries
  • Cranberry Orange Bread 3

  • 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional. We opted not.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Simply sift together the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, then stir in the wet ingredients (including the combined flax seed and water, which sat and hydrated for three minutes, if you’re using an egg substitute). When your rather golden-yellow bread batter has combined, stir in the cranberries last of all.

This is a very, very, very sweet bread, and if you use orange juice that is sweetened, you will be making a sweet thing cloying. We juiced six oranges for our cup and a half of juice — which you may not want to do, as it is somewhat tedious. If you use orange juice from concentrate, consider cutting it with lemon juice, or water.

We topped this bread with two tablespoons of raw sugar, to give it a crunchy top. This is a really moist bread, so be prepared for a long, slow baking time. Full-sized loaves need 50-55 minutes to bake, small loaves 30-35 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean when they are done.

We had a tiny slice of bread right out of the oven, of course, and D. wasn’t impressed. He fussed abut the crumb, decided there were too many cranberries per slice, and was generally grumpy. T. advised him to wait until it had cooled all the way, and settled… and boy, were we glad we did. The moisture balanced out, the crumb was light, and the flavor was delicious. At the office, the boss once again refrained from getting his scone. The office manager took four pieces, and a coworker moved the tray to her desk, so she could “watch” it. Much more of a cake than a bread, this is flat out delicious, habit-forming, and provokes kind of frighteningly possessive reactions in people.

Good thing we’ve got five more bags of cranberries…

Cranberry Orange Bread 2

Charity? Really?

A friend of mine pointed me to The G.E. ecomagination photo project, which purports to be donating money to charity (at the rate of $1.67 per photo) should a Flickr user contribute a photo under the themes of “wind,” “water,” or “light.” “Wow,” I thought, “this sounds too good to be true!” Imagine my surprise when it turns out that the Flickr Group Rules state, among other things, that:

…you hereby irrevocably grant to GE the unlimited, non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, sublicensable, assignable, royalty free right to use, redact, republish, modify, crop, adapt, edit, copy, create derivative works of, perform, distribute or otherwise modify your Photograph including any intellectual property contained therein, together with your name, Flickr user name (if applicable), image, likeness and identity of your hometown, in advertising and/or promotional materials for GE, in any medium now known or hereinafter developed (collectively, “GE Advertising”) in perpetuity, without payment or compensation to you, and without seeking any further approval from you.

Not only too good to be true: we’ll pay you less than a stock photo company would! Way to go, General Electric!

To Largs 16

Perhaps I should bust out my credit card and donate to a charity – say, $33.40? Now I’ve done 20 times what you would have done, and I haven’t bilked anybody in the process!

P.S.: the image I’ve posted here? Let’s call it “light.” I believe that it’s shining down upon G.E. and asking that you let some enter the souls of your marketing and legal departments now. If they still have any souls left.

-D

Rational Discourse

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US Capitol Building

Election Day in the US comes tomorrow. It’s a bit strange, for us, because we voted months ago, so when we hear about such-and-such a ballot measure looking good in the polls, we have to think back to what we answered on our absentee ballots, do some research into the measure, and … well, think about it all over again. It’s also a bit nice, because we don’t have to actually participate in the discussion of the issues: we’ve already voted, so cannot be convinced of the rightness or wrongness of an issue any more, or not so that it “counts” for anything. Another strange thing about being so far removed from the US media is that we don’t have to hear the advertising. This has been quite nice, because it doesn’t look like any of the discussion taking place is … well, very nice.

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4th of July Parade, Virginia

I don’t know if you’ve been following along with the Rally to Restore Sanity and its meta-discussion about political discourse, but it’s worth having a look, and a think. The whole thing has gotten me to thinking a bit about political discourse and the role it plays in today’s world as compared to the way it used to be incorporated into the world* 30 years ago; that is, the world prior to Reagan’s policy of “deregulation,” which began the changes which were eventually incorporated into the Telecommunications Act of 1996, whose results are summarized quite nicely by Molly Ivins.

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US Embassy, Oakland, CA

The world of my childhood, as I remember it, contained quite a rich element of both discourse and debate. It was the world of the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, which usually included a round-table debate between 5 or 6 people who held different views; these were lively discussions between people who could actually discuss an issue without attacking each other, and their arguments served to bring out the nuances of the situation. It was also the world where every political candidate was guaranteed access to a certain amount of air-time on whichever news outlet was appropriate: if they were a national candidate, they were carried on a national news channel; a local candidate, they were carried on a local channel. The world is now a different place: the type of debate of today seems filled with vitriol and hatred, and politicians must buy their access to television.

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Vallejo Marina & Yacht Club, Vallejo, CA

These two differences, I think, have made the world a poorer place. The Rally to Restore Sanity is an effort to address the vitriol and hatred. However, it isn’t addressing the (perhaps far more important) issue of access to media; when access to media requires the outlay of huge sums, the messages presented will necessarily be shorter, and the politicians will necessarily be driven into being beholden to large donors. So, our politicians are not only not able to engage in the type of dialog which would encourage understanding, but they are selected for success by the wealthiest in the nation.

Perhaps the reason the discussion has degenerated is because that selection process has given us candidates which represent no section of society – perhaps we are frustrated and angry merely because of this fundamental change in the way the world works.

True, I am always willing to have a rational discussion. But, there again, I’ve stood somewhat outside of the political system, recognizing that all of the politicians presented were those who, on some level or other, were endebted to people whose aims and goals went opposite to my own: the ruling elite / the ultra-wealthy.

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Downtown St. Helena, CA

When I became old enough to think rationally about politics (my mid-20’s – being able to vote doesn’t imply being able to be rational about it), I realized that there were no politicians which embodied my own views. This allows me to step back a bit and have a meta-discussion on the way the system is constructed.

Perhaps those tens of thousands who attended the Rally have started something huge: a change to the fundamental political structure in the US. We can only hope, because the change that is needed is more than just a change in the way people speak, but in who has the ability to be heard.

-D

* Note: this article is about US politics, so let’s just agree that when I say “the world,” here, I’m talking about that context. I have no idea what goes into political discourse outside of that context, except within the very narrow confines of Scottish Academia and perhaps a bit about the political discourse of Germany as presented by Spiegel International (having read that for several years now).