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Friday, August 1st, 2008
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11:55 am - Scrabulous...
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| Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
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8:30 pm
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The concerts in the chamber music hall will go on as planned apparently!
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(comment on this)
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5:49 pm - hardly back to normal
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Our quartet met at 8:30 and started recording Debussy and Ravel this morning at 9:30, I've hardly ever been so exhausted as I am today! After a short break we continued with the Chausson with our guest artists, but had to cut it short when we were evacuated from the hall:
http://www.welt.de/berlin/article2015479/Feuerwehr_kmpft_noch_immer_gegen_Grobrand_.html
If you check the pictures, there's one of our David.
We had just been warned by the stage manager that a fire on the roof of the big hall had broken out - we were in the small hall - when we started to smell smoke, and didn't wait long for his next bulletin!!!!! The police met us on the stairs, on their way to get us out. The pictures are dramatic, and that's pretty much what it was like. I was surprised at how quickly my sensitive lungs started to register the smoke, I was having trouble breathing, even when we were outside. Luckily the police let me have my bike, and I got out of there as soon as I could. I met very concerned musicians who had left their instruments out on the big hall side, but the newspapers are saying that all the instruments, except pianos, have been rescued.
Who knows if our concert will take place as planned tomorrow night...
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 2nd, 2007
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12:49 pm - Gutenberg Tech support
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| Friday, January 26th, 2007
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11:29 pm
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| What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more. | | Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm | | | Literate Good Citizen | | | Book Snob | | | Fad Reader | | | Non-Reader | | What Kind of Reader Are You?
Create Your Own Quiz |
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
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2:16 pm - It's not just Independence day...
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| Thursday, June 15th, 2006
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11:46 pm
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I wasn't done whining, I pressed enter by mistake!
Upon returning from Baden-Baden a week ago I was hit with the full realisation that nearly ALL and I mean ALL of my plants had died this winter. The spring was so late that I still harboured hopes that things would develop during May, but now it's clear that everything died except for one lavender plant, a couple of sickly pine trees and my wild wine vines. To say this is devastating to me is not an understatement, since I've put a lot of heart and soul into my 'garden' over the years, my oldest plants are gone: 2 indestructable honeysuckles that I was very fond of and have had since I moved in, 4 rose plants, my enormous lavender bush, my wonderful climbing wine which turned red in the fall, all of my clematis, all of my wisteria, not to mention the hydrangeas and my mini cypress trees which smelled so good. Also the wild strawberries and everything else which was planted in front.
So. What to do? Gergoe was also appalled by the devastation, since he was watering while I was away. He insisted on taking me to buy new plants with his big station wagon. We went on Monday and filled the car full of plants. He was great, I was so depressed and dejected I could easily have seen myself leaving my garden a graveyard for the rest of the year out of grief and stubborness. But Gergoe just said: great! You get to buy new plants!! Come on, let's go!
That's what friends are for, right? I'm glad he's my friend.
Replanting my garden is a great symbol for something, whatever it is. Now that I'm finishing therapy, I don't have to analyze my every impulse anymore. I have 2 more sessions left and I feel pretty awful about that too. There's no point in going on, because I don't have much confidence in her judgement any more, so it's a sad kind of leaving. I had expected to leave with a more positive feeling, but I feel like she's let me down this year, and that I might as well have quit this time last year. She helped me a lot in the past, so I'm very glad I met her and had her help, I can feel it'll be hard to let go.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
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8:35 pm - from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) violachic's journal
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| Monday, February 13th, 2006
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9:21 pm - Ha Ha. From Violachic's journal
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| Saturday, January 14th, 2006
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11:26 pm
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| Monday, October 24th, 2005
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7:33 pm
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I just noticed that the times on my recent entries are all wrong, just changed today's, but am wondering why this happened all of a sudden?
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
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8:37 pm
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| Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
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10:06 pm - The Corporation
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Has anyone seen this movie? I stayed up till 3 last night watching it. It's Canadian, and not only that, very informative and interesting and entertaining - also terrifying.
The film compares corporations to psychopaths, and it's a comparison that holds up very well.
Something has got to change soon, and it's hard to see where to start, but this film is still inspiring. The filmmakers believe in the power of people to demand what is right and fair for the greater good. They cite an example of a town in Bolivia whose water was privatized, owned by an American company. Even the rainwater had to be bought, the townspeople were not allowed to collect their own! The cost of water went up to about a third of their daily expenditures, and the townspeople held demonstrations, demanding that the water be made a public service again. The government military aided the corporation and crushed the demonstrators, who, in the end did prevail, but not before a few people were killed. The point being, the people prevailed, they didn't allow their basic right to water to be priced out of their reach. Another frightening fact is that living things can now be patented, where will that lead to?
The points they bring up are very frightening, especially when one considers that for every corporation caught putting defective and harmful products on the market, or releasing carcinogens into the atmosphere, there are many more that aren't caught. There is no accountability for corporations that do wrong, just a slap on the wrist in the form of a laughable fine. They have the rights of a citizen but none of the responsibility or accountability. You can't put a corporation in jail, for example. Apparently the Wall Street Journal gave this movie a good review, saying it could have been a left wing diatribe, but was actually a balanced report. It's all the more powerful for not being as over the top as say, Michael Moore's work.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 8th, 2005
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11:28 pm - More about Katrina aftermath
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| Friday, September 2nd, 2005
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9:54 am - From interdictor's journal
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Thursday, September 1st, 2005
10:46 pm
The Real News
The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:
"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.
It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.
There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.
Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.
The buses never stop.
Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.
He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."
He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.
I have "Bigfoot"'s phone number and will gladly give it to any city or state official who would like to tell him how everything is under control.
Addendum: Bigfoot just called to report that "they" (the authorities) are cleaning up the dead bodies at the Convention Center right now.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 1st, 2005
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8:09 pm
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I've just spent the last half hour reading the journals I posted a link to in my last post. It's so upsetting. If you scroll down there's a transcript of a conversation interdictor had with a police officer who was seeking shelter in his building. I'm at a loss for words. How could things get to this state?
I honestly think this couldn't happen in Germany. And now I read that sentence and am doubly horrified.
But I do believe it couldn't happen in Germany today.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, August 6th, 2005
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4:17 pm
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| Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
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10:50 pm - Bugs which bug me
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I have an infestation of beetles, they're called Dickmaulruessler.
I HATE them, but I am also afraid of them, which makes it hard for me to go out at NIGHT (which is when they crawl out of the soil to decimate my plants) to collect them and murder them. But the idea of touching them even through gloves makes me shudddder, so I'll just have to let them get my plants this season and kill the larvae with some other microscopic bugs you mix with water in the fall and spring. I neglected to do the larva killing last year and this year, because I thought I had got them all, but NO.
Why am I afraid of a tiny little bug? I mean they're big for bugs, about a centimetre long with sort of horns, but I'm 100 times bigger!
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, July 4th, 2005
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8:02 pm - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...
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POBIG!! Hope you're having a good day!
I'll call later...
love from your sister Annie
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 29th, 2005
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7:16 pm - Myrna
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I have been meaning to write about a conversation I had recently with a woman in my orchestra. She has had cancer in the distant past, and I was aware that it had come back about 2 years ago, and that it had gotten really serious this year. But I was too involved with my life and worrying about Papa's illness to think about it. Anyway, recently a couple of different people, my physical therapist, and a woman I just met from the Philharmonic asked me about Myrna, and I honestly didn't know, and said I was afraid to ask during work, since I wasn't especially close to her. The other day I was talking to another woman, and asked her about Myrna, and she said that she's barely hanging on, but that I should definitely talk to Myrna, because she likes to talk about how she is, she doesn't like pretending there's nothing wrong.
So, the next chance I got - we had started talking about something completely different, she caught me in the dressing room on the tail end of a rant about our manager - I asked her how she was doing. And she told me. She's dying. There's nothing they can do to stop the cancer, it's everywhere now. They can only stave it off by doing periodic chemo treatments. She said she has her sick life, when she's doing the chemo, and her healthy life, when she's with us, playing music and loving every second of it. She says it's worth it, she's happy for every minute she has left to live.
Myrna's not in pain, and I told her I would pray that it would stay that way. She laughed and said: please DO, praying is always good!! So please join me in praying for Myrna Glanz de Nordstrom, wife and mother, fluent speaker of at least 5 languages - I never know which one I'll hear her speaking, it just depends on who she's talking to, German, French, Italian, Spanish, English - a Jewish woman orginally from Venezuela, violinist in the DSO.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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