Now that the holidays are over I can finally take a deep breath and contemplate the tornado that has just swept through. In early December my former roommates Nate & Elf treated me to a Chicago Symphony performance of Schoenberg's Transfigured Night, truly one of the most beautiful pieces ever written. It was so good I had to see it again the next night! (You should know by now that I am not one to turn down free tickets, let alone free tickets to one of my favorite pieces played by America's best orchestra) A gorgeous late-romantic piece for strings, filled with enough drama and heartbreak to last a lifetime. Now I just need to see Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and I'll die a happy man.
The week after a group of us saw The Mikado by Gilbert & Sullivan, another fabulous work that's been flowing through my brain since as long as I can remember.
The second weekend of December brought the insane feat of saying goodbye to the house I grew up in. It was great, having a garage sale on our first floor, practically giving everything away to support Gabe's favorite charity Aid El Salvador. Once everything was gone (including my first guitar and my awesome collection of action figures) we had a wonderful potluck dinner with friends and neighbors and kids and anyone else who wanted some good food, drinks and company. Toasts were made, memories were shared, tears were shed, but it really was the perfect farewell. The weirdest part will be next time I'm back in Boston and not returning to 11 Robeson Street. Ah well, the nice thing is knowing that a new family will take our place and their kids will be running around where we used to. Hopefully on nicer floors and never in that terrifying basement.
Back in Chicago everything was leading up to the Christmas explosion! Like last year I decided to stay in town to make the big bucks, and it didn't disappoint. Luckily I had other friends who were hanging around so on Christmas Eve I was able to enjoy some excellent food and karaoke with Ross, his girlfriend Lindsey and her whole clan. And then on Christmas Day of course I celebrated like all should by enjoying some delicious sushi with my Jewish buddies.
Seriously though, I saw so many cats and dogs over the holidays that I barely had any time to think, and once things briefly calmed down we immediately had thousands of friends staying over for New Years. It was great having so many visitors, several Butlerites made the trek, and we surely didn't disappoint. And then there were the Three Musketeers: Gabe, Lauren and Jimbo. I took them to the Salvadoran restaurant a couple blocks away and they got to talking to the waitress, it was like I was back in that beautiful country, not comfortable enough with my Spanish to start a conversation but always ready to nod and laugh at the appropriate times. Everyone came for our New Years bash, which centered around my newest batch of beer (a Russian Imperial Stout which blew me away as well as the top of its bucket due to overheating) and a performance by some band called Bricklayers Foundation. Actually it was tons of fun, we played really well, and we received no noise complaints so I'd say it was a great success.
In terms of reading I enjoyed Alex Ross' Listen To This, a collection of articles about all sorts of music and musicians. Not quite as good as The Rest Is Noise but still fascinating. Next was The Given Day by Dennis Lehane, an epic story about Boston around 1918, dealing with everything from the flu to racism to corruption and the Police Strike. Gritty, exciting, historically fictional, I highly recommend it. I mean, bringing in Babe Ruth every now and again obviously sucked me in.
Lastly I read A Clockwork Orange, similar to American Psycho in its graphic description of violence and lack of any iota of morality. Great book, hard to get through the futuristic dialect but still top-notch stuff. I even got to read the 21st chapter which was cut out of American publications (and thus the Kubrick movie based off of it).
And if you have the chance, watch (Untitled), a brilliantly funny movie about modern art and music and all the nonsense that goes with it. My apologies for the lack of pictures, I promise I have some cute puppy pics but for some reason they're being difficult. Lastly, go Pats!
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