Easter: another Sunday, & Dialogue Beer

It was a good day to get out of bed. I was going to a great concert of chamber music. Big crowd for this one. I stood in line for 15-20 minutes to get my Americano (two shots of espresso with hot water added). Barely into it when the concert started. Great and unusual, modern/contemporary music by Magnus Gustaf Adolf Lindberg, a Finnish composer. As usual there was a break for poetry (this time by Ebony Isis Booth – who has a depth that sneaks up on you), and then we were treated to Brahms. No, this was not a lullaby; this was Johannes Brahms’ Trio in A minor, Op. 114 for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, written on his 58th birthday. It had a fascinating power and, at the same time, loveliness to it. The musicians who play these Sunday morning concerts are highly skilled. It is such a treat to hear such music – often highly complex – performed so skillfully.

Now while the coffee is superb – the baristas rock! – there were fresh-baked goodies, like the biscotti, and also, as it was Easter: dark chocolate, jelly beans and M&Ms. But nearly everyone in the place went across the street afterwards to sample the beers at the new brewery there.  Really good stuff. For a $5 donation to the concert series, we got to sample five beers, of our choice. It was hard to narrow my choices down to only five, but I enjoyed them. There was a food truck parked by the curb, and some great choices there. I settled on some ramen deviled eggs, mostly because I was like: “RAMEN deviled eggs? What?” Delicious. The uncooked ramen noodles added a crunchiness to the eggs I never knew I was missing.

Of course, as usual during these concerts, my mind tends to wander a bit. I was thinking that some people compose music note by note, based on what they think is creative, and some of that so-called modern music can be mentally interesting, but it lacks beauty beyond the purely mathematical. To me, all music must exhibit passion, or the performer must make it so. Then is it music. Well, at least it is the kind of music I want to listen to. I have no restrictions on the types of music I like. But music must have passion. It can be orchestral, chamber music, or solo instruments. I enjoy classic rock (Stones, Black Sabbath, Airplane, Creedence), a little pop, some country (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson) that is not formulaic and repetitive, and electronic music done well (Morton Subotnick, Philip Glass). I also like the energy of passionate salsa, flamenco, and tango. The Beatles and Bob Dylan gave me much to think about, and the songs could often mesmerize. I like blues, and jazz, etc.

But hell, my day was but half over. I went home and tried to get my New Mexico taxes done, but I couldn’t log in; the state’s website wouldn’t recognize my password, and I couldn’t get a new one because my email has changed and it only sent my request to change my password to my old address which I can no longer log into. So much for that. Maybe tomorrow I can get some help with that. Of course, I also have to finish my federal taxes. I filed it already, but I gave them the wrong routing number for the new savings account I had set up last year to use to pay my taxes. According to their website, I may have to wait seven or more days after filing in order to correct that little error.

Sigh. I just love paying late fees, don’t you?

Well, later I got to go hang out with my movie companion. I rent Netflix discs and we watch them on her nice TV about once a week. Tonight we watched: The End of the Tour, about “Rolling Stone” reporter David Lipsky and author David Foster Wallace. I thought it might be boring, but it was not! Lipsky accompanied Wallace on a five-day promotional tour. Wallace wrote a 1,079-page novel, Infinite Jest,  and while it didn’t contain anything earth-shakingly profound, he had a huge impact on the people who read it, like Lipsky. It is a highly acclaimed, but famously difficult book of fiction, which really just shows people what it is to be human. I like fiction. I may read it. Life is very real sometimes, too real at times, and much more enjoyable as fiction anyway, as I see it.

Bought some more of those great-tasting faux Oreos from Walgreens on my way home. Ate a third of them, which required two full glasses of milk. Did you know milk clears your palate so every bite tastes like the first bite? It has something to do with binding oils and fats on your tongue to cleanse your palatte between bites. There is also a fascinating and delicious interplay between all the chemicals in milk and cookies: emulsifiers, casein, methylbutanol, and tryptophan and other amino acids. Turns out that to get the sleep-inducing effects of tryptophan, you need a dose of carbohydrates. Not sleepy? Have some milk and carbs.   

Well, that was my day.