Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Music soothes the savage Hippo

Posted by Hippobean at 10:30 PM 0 comments
There arent many classical pieces of music that I like but the ones I like, I like them with a passion. The accoustic in the symphony hall in SF isnt the best but hearing your passion played live is unmatchable. Years ago I heard my beloved Tchaikovsky's 2 concertos. Last month finally I got to listen to my other beloved, Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E Minor. While I was disappointed at both soloists who played Tchaikovsky's piano and violin concertos, Felix's concerto was played by the young Armenian Sergey Khachatryan whose absolute absorption into Felix's piece gave total justice to the creator. Felix's piece is something out of this world. What I like about it is the fact that it is not like any other concerto. It starts with an immediate entrance of the violin without any orchestral opening ritornello. It has an immediate urgency that demands your total devotion. Forget the rest of the concertos which open with confusing, often unrelated melodies that are never repeated. This one got an "urgent quality with an elegaic sentiment of surprising intensity" (The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, 2007). While Tchaikovsky's violin piece conjures up a desperate longing or a 'saudade' for distant shores, violently out of control but soothed by intermitten passivity and calm, Mendelssohn's is an urgent continuous crescendo that builds and builds, accumulating energy without interruption (The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, 2007). "The soloist seems to play twice as many notes as any pair of other instruments combined. This movement is structured in a 'question and answer' form, with the violin and orchestra trading lively ideas and challenges back and forth with ever-mounting glee until they finally marshal their forces to agree on an ending statement that leaves the audience clamoring for more" ( Geoff Kuenning, 1994). Ah, well said, it reflects my total sentiment for this piece.

felixsergey
Felix MendelssohnSergey Khachatryan

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I still itch

Posted by Hippobean at 7:28 PM 0 comments
So this is days later and I'm looking at my arm still with 2 bruises although the point of puncture is no longer visible (thanks to neosporin!). The bruises reminded me of the pain when the fat needle went in. It wasnt so much of the pain from the actual puncture but because the whole ordeal took so long. I could feel the blood draining from my arm. Six tubes! I must have looked like I was gonna faint as the nurse kept asking if I were OK. I did feel a bit lightheaded. So I decided to skip the freeway and went city roads, and drove nice and slow to work. I mean, I dont weight that much after all and being a tiny thing, how could the doctor order 6 tests at the same time? "I think it's just dry skin and the tests would come out negative, but just in case". 'Just in case' will cost me hundreds of dollars out of pocket. Last time I had these blood tests, the insurance only paid 13 cents per lab work. Yes, I have lousy insurance and worse yet, I have a lousy doctor. Doctors rush through your session after making you wait for an eternity for them to show up. And she seems to be getting old and acquiring lousy memory. She stepped out so I could undress and put on the gown. When she came back, she asked what she already performed. I came to see my doctor for the itch all over my body that never seemed to stop no matter what I did. My doctor listened to my heart, my back and checked my stomach (nice and soft, oh, yeah, she is getting fat). When she returned, she forgot what she had already checked. So now the test results were all negative, as expected, and now what? She didnt even suggest a lotion to sooth the dryness (if that's her conclusion) or recommend a dermatologist. After the time wasted, pain suffered and payments that will surely come very soon, I still itch. So there's nothing else left to do but buy a new hippo set.

 

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