Popes and Lamas

My grandfather, from my dad's side, was a man of few words but when he spoke, every sentence carried weight. He wouldn't have done well in America with its meaningless small talk. I had tremendous respect for him and never addressed him in a familiar form, like the French "tu", although I had no trouble using it with other relatives and family friends of the same generation. He lived a few miles from our home in a house that he had built with his own hands for himself and my grandmother. Before the structure was completed she suddenly passed away after a short battle with cancer. I have only a vague recollection of her when she visited after learning about her terminal illness and I remember the tears and hugs which left a lasting impression on an almost 3-year-old. She spent the whole day with my sister and me, having previously not felt particularly close to my father's second family. After all, the responsibility of taking care of my half-brother fell upon her and my grandpa during the war, as my dad's first wife died a few days after giving birth and he was on the battle front. Perhaps grandma felt one child was enough for my father, as she herself only had two, my dad and a sister seven years younger.

Grandpa lived by himself for 15 years. I would see him two or three times a week. In the winter snow my father's car would often get stuck on the slippery hill by the house. I had to help him to drive it up early on as I was much better with the use of the clutch. My dad's instinct was just to press the gas pedal harder and naturally the car would get even more hopelessly stuck. Every Sunday grandpa would come over for lunch. We ate the big meal early in the afternoon on the weekends. For many years during the winter months my family would go over to his place for a sauna bath. During the summer we would of course enjoy the sauna at the summer home but during the cold season that wasn't a possibility. My grandpa was a masterful craftsman and was equally at home with wood and metal. Our home was full of furnishings he had created, for instance wrought iron ceiling fixtures and floor lamps with built-in little tables, his own design. Once I started to play the violin he made many exquisite cases for the instruments. I was in my upper teens and in Los Angeles when I got my first commercially produced Jaeger case.

Grandpa was an avid reader and since I treasured him so much, his favorite literature became mine as well. He was fond of Giovannino Guareschi's Don Camillo books, an interesting choice for a man who never went to church and certainly wasn't a Catholic. But the dialogues Don Camillo had with Christ in his little church must have made sense to my Vaari, and they made sense to me, too. The love-hate relationship between the town's priest and communist mayor, Peppone, could have taken place in postwar Finland. The very satirical book Comrade Don Camillo about the prelate's trip to the Soviet Union as a secret member of the communist delegation was published in time for my grandfather to enjoy it. We laughed so hard about the Russian-made tractor that wouldn't start until Don Camillo blessed it with his holy water he had smuggled from Italy. My grandfather passed away in 1967 and the author a year later.

So, in spite of never having set foot in a Catholic church until I was in Vienna and in Paris, I was well aware of many of the unique facets of the religion. Having read every word of Guareschi's books time and time again made me become interested in the topic. I was a great admirer of Pope John XXIII who managed to put a human face on the papacy. He has been often called "the most beloved Pope in history" and "renewer of the church", the latter term used even by Protestants. A very different Pope is about to visit the United States, Benedict XVI. It seems to me that Catholics in this country, at least in this corner of the country, and the present German Pope think unalike and perhaps their faith is based on a slightly different set of values. Many see him representing the past when we should look forward to the future and all the problems it seems to bring mankind. Nevertheless, the White House is planning on a grand reception, a more festive one than for any other head of state or religious leader ever before. I don't know what to think of all that pomp. Shouldn't the Pope be as humble a person as the other religious dignitary visiting here in Seattle, the Dalai Lama? "The Seeds of Compassion" event has taken place for a number of days now. Today 16,000 schoolchildren, our youngest daughter included, got to see the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. Based on the numerous interviews I have seen, I genuinely like this intelligent yet simple man with his infectious laughter.

So, Seattle has done its best to welcome the Lama, yet I must wonder if His Holiness is impressed by all the materialism most of his local hosts exhibit. They praise a man whose religion and views they can hardly begin to comprehend. After all, he is the leader for a very simple, oppressed group of people in the Himalayas. China has made his return impossible and with the Olympics coming up, political leaders have to weigh the importance of trade relations with China versus human rights of the people in Tibet. I can almost sense the relief of our president having a "real" religious leader to impress. Many local civic and other leaders here are equally uncomfortable: Seattle is after all one of the main ports for Chinese imports. Also, the kind of wisdom this Lama represents is very foreign to the way local bigwigs think and act. Perhaps the children today with their open minds are the best audiences for the Really Good Man. A friend told me that someone quite the opposite is in charge of some of the musical entertainment for the Lama. Perhaps the Not-So-Good Man has simply made a mistake and thinks that this is a Deli Lama from Manhattan and provides an opportunity to dine on that South American delicacy, barbecued llama, in addition to shrimp, clams and other treyf delicacies his family is so fond of.

I know I would be at total ease with His Holiness, but it is hard to imagine what those two polar opposites would talk about, were they placed face to face. Who knows: the Dalai Lama might have been able to reveal to the other one what kind of lifeform he would come back as in reincarnation. A Pacific Northwest giant clam, the geoduck, would be a good choice. At least life as that immobile bivalve mollusk life would be less destructive and Nirvana thus a bit closer, perhaps in just a hundred millenia or so.

Photo of Tuomo Talvi by Ilkka Talvi 1963
The Little World of Don Camillo: Baptism

Of Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism as a term is somewhat of an oxymoron, as it refers to hatred of the Jewish people and not the much larger group of other Semitic people. From ancient Assyrians to present-day Arabs, this Semitic population populates much of the Middle East. The term "antisemitish" was first coined in mid-1800s in Germany. Many continued to use a different expressions when speaking of Jews, such as "Palestinians living among us". The word "Semitic" simply indicates that a person is a descendant of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. Today, "Palestinian" has gained a new meaning, referring to the non-Jewish population of the area, although it wasn't until 1950 when the Palestine Post changed its name to Jerusalem Post.

We all know about the horrors of the Nazi death camps and usually blame the Germans for the death of millions of Jews in Europe. But throughout history since the Middle Ages the most intense Antisemitism has been in Eastern Europe, among the Slavic people. During the German occupation Poland was the only country where anyone (along with his/her family) caught helping a Jew was automatically subject to the death penalty. The Polish people did some murderous work of their own for which they later blamed the Germans, such as the Jedwabne pogrom on 1941. Even after the war was over, the remaining about 10% of the pre-war Jewish population, wanting to return home from the death camps in Poland, found their Polish and Lithuanians neighbors very hostile. Pogroms still took place, for example in Kraków (1945) and in Kielce (1946), the latter fourteen months after the war was over. One would have thought that people had learned their lesson about the terrible destruction hate brings. It is no wonder that most of the remaining Polish Jews rushed to leave, either to Palestine, soon to be called Israel, or to a Western country, such as the United States.

As the Polish and Lithuanian people were Roman Catholic, all this did not help the relations between the Jews and the Church. A question remains whether people committed their horrible deeds because of their religion and its old accusations of Jews being the killers of Jesus, or did the Church get a bad rap because these people happened to be Catholic. A truth is probably somewhere in between, although I have a hard time believing that a true Christian would have had anything to do with the rampant Antisemitism.

The Jews of Germanic Europe were often non-religious and wanted to blend in with the local population. Proper German was spoken by all, unlike the Yiddish of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Belorussia. It has been said that the German Jews were more German than the country's own inhabitants. Unfortunately many of them were also relatively well off during the time when Germany was struggling financially. It is easy to imagine an envious and even bitter mood spreading in Germany and Austria of this time of hardship and hyperinflation when the bankers, doctors and well-to-do shopkeepers happened to be Jewish. One can find some primitive reasoning behind the hatred of this part of population, just as Americans didn't like their "Hebrews", preventing them from entering many everyday activities, from enrolling in colleges to spending a night in a first-class hotel. In the 1930s this country had more of Hitler's admirers that probably any place outside of Germany itself. We joined WWII reluctantly after all. Some of that hesitancy to go to war would have been smart advice later on, even during this administration.

The Eastern European Jewry was hardly a target for envy. The people living in the Pale often barely eked out a living farming and those in the cities' ghettos didn't fare much better. It wouldn't have been easy to blame a starving Jew for one's own misery, unless a deep-rooted hate mechanism had existed from the childhood on. Perhaps Americans can understand this better than I do, as people in this country often grew up in such an atmosphere where the target of hate could have been a Black, Native American, Chinese, Italian, Hispanic, or a Jew. In every misery one seems to need a scapegoat. I wonder who it will be this time as our lives seem to go from bad to worse. At some point people's anger will be directed at those who seem to do increasingly well when others' suffering increases.

It would be interesting to study anti-Semitism in the United States by comparing it during the last 80 years or so in various cities. I would be surprised if New York or Los Angeles could keep up with the sentiments in Chicago and its large Polish population. Such a comparison might give insight to understanding the phenomena of hating another ethnic group. My home country, Finland, has had serious racial issues with its "Blacks", the Gypsies or the Roma. But at least the country has a clean record with their small population of Jews. Its constitution from 1919 specifies that Jews are to be treated as equals to other Finns in every respect. Yes, during the Continuation War 1941-44 Germany sent some troops to Finland to help it defend herself against Stalin's Red Army. It must have been somewhat of a shock for the German soldiers to find out that they were under the command of a Jewish officer.

The Western Washington University's Hillel, which my daughter Anna is the president of, is sponsoring their Holocaust Memorial Week this spring, as well as an "Israel @ 60" festival. Bellingham has two concentration camp survivors, one of whom, Noémi Ban, has made it her life's quest to educate younger people of the nightmare Europe lived through not so long ago and to make sure it won't be forgotten. She will be speaking and as usual, the lecture hall will be full as everyone loves the articulate and lovable old Hungarian lady. It is ironic how loosely the term "survivor" is used today. The reality show by that name doesn't help matters any. I remember seeing an advertisement for some kind of remembrance-related enterprise where a descendant of Viennese Jews was advertised as being one. Never mind that the person was born in the United States well after the war and had a worry-free East Coast childhood that hardly resembled life in Birkenau. Perhaps a couple months in such a camp would have made him a more humble individual and earned the right to call himself a survivor.

The picture above this blog entry is from the Peters Edition of a Prokofiev Sonata. It is amazing what a different spelling can do. Switch two letters and you end up with PORK OF JEW. Funny, I could swear I used to know a false friend by that name, but of course I can be mistaken.

Photo: Nazi supporters in Los Angeles give the Hitler salute
at a rally opposing the boycott of German goods. May 1934.
UPI/Corbis-Gettman, New York

Palm Springs

Yesterday's surprise unseasonal snow falling on cherry blossoms here in Seattle reminded me of Palm Springs. Not only is it possible to go up from the hot desert to a completely different climate in 15 minutes via the Aerial Tramway, the city itself had a rare snowstorm many years ago. If I remember correctly it happened during or around Christmas. This was much before today's digital cameras and roughly half of the films left for developing magically disappeared. As most of us remember, the companies only promised to replace a lost roll with a fresh one, never mind what treasures had been lost. Obviously many of the better pictures ended up as postcards or in publications in this case. It would have been next to impossible to prove that it was your masterpiece being reproduced. Even if your loved one was in the picture, it could have been taken by someone else than you.

Palm Springs was one of my favorite destinations during all the years I lived in Los Angeles. If I had a free day in the winter, I would leave for the desert early in the morning to make the first run of the Aerial Tramway in Chino Canyon to a winter heaven. There I would rent a pair of cross-country skis and spend a good part of the day under a dark blue sky (unless it was snowing). As the altitude was high and getting enough oxygen was a problem, I couldn't try to break any speed or distance records, but skiing even slowly in the middle of the woods in deep snow was truly exhilarating. It was always humorous to see tourists going up to the 20+ degree weather in their shorts. There they would be freezing in the covered upper terminal, shivering and eagerly awaiting for the next cable car to take them down. These days there are new rotating Swiss funicular cars replacing the trusty old ones I used to ride.

During the summer Palm Springs is a different story: I actually knew a person whose car was parked by the curb with windows closed and the driver's side plastic armrest melted from the heat. This probably wouldn't happen with today's materials but this was then. An air-conditioned shopping mall comes in handy in the 110-120 degree temperatures. I would hate to think what would happen there in case of a power outage during the hot season. For overnights Desert Hot Springs or some other outlying areas are much nicer, and were less expensive at least a couple decades ago. Unlike Palm Springs which has a microclimate of its own due to the pools and irrigated golf courses, the sky is clearer and at night one can see an incredible number of stars and feel one with nature.

That part of Southern California is beautiful and in addition to the Santa Barbara area still remains my favorite. Behind the 8,516 foot high Mountain Station stands the peak of Mt. San Jacinto at 10,834 feet and there is a vast wilderness area reaching Idyllwild, another pretty location. Another favorite drive of mine is from the Palm Springs area, past the Salton Sea, 220 feet below sea level, to San Diego via the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Much of the scenery is simply breathtaking and especially in higher altitudes it is difficult to remember one is so close to a hot desert as the landscape at times totally fools you.

One wouldn't expect to find much culture in a desert vacation destination and for a long time a local school auditorium offered the only venue for performing music. It was that location where I took a colleague in 1983 to hear the Helsinki Philharmonic play during their tour under the Community Concerts umbrella. The Finns were traveling by bus from either Arizona or Las Vegas, I can't remember. The buses were late and arrived an hour before the concert was to begin. The musicians must have been celebrating a bit too much. I can remember a fellow disembarking the bus with considerable difficulty and asking the audience members who were waiting outside, in Finnish yet, where he could buy beer and fast. I guess his hangover was quite severe. Once the orchestra got onto the stage and the show started, "Finlandia" was almost half way through before I recognized the composition. I was entertained watching a middle-aged female first violinist sitting on the outside who also must have had a busy night as she wouldn't tremolo with her bow. Instead she moved it back and forth like a lazy bass player. I felt somewhat embarrassed when the person I had brought with me asked if this indeed was the best my country had to offer.

A similar eyesore happened years later when I was playing in the new McCallum Theater for the Performing Arts with an orchestra. It had been brought there by a wealthy elderly board member. The conductor approached me at the intermission, asking what he should do as the host was unhappy seeing a younger woman not vibrating at all, and seemingly uninterested in trying her best. I told that there was nothing I could do: he had hired her and it was up to him to make sure she was doing what she was paid to do. Did she get into trouble? It was hardly the case; she was soon to be promoted. Testosterone is a powerful hormone and easily can overtake anything resembling logic and common sense.

The desert is a perfect place to learn first-hand the difference between Road Runner, the mighty Warner Brothers creation, and the humble little roadrunner, zooming across the road leading to the Tramway. As often is the case, matters such as people and their egos are easily portrayed larger than life, yet in reality they amount to nothing more than small critters.

photo © palmsprings.com

Wash My Brain, Please!

News media has been filled with stories of my native country’s “shockingly” successful school system. Here is a link to the story in the Wall Street Journal. Kids start school late, at 7, and usually don’t learn to read until then but become totally fluent within six months. There are no programs for the gifted, no “honor societies”. The youngsters listen to the same heavy metal and other headache-causing music and experiment with drugs as any typical Western student would. However, by middle school, they are light years ahead of most teenagers in other countries and nobody seems to understand this “miracle”. The Finns are more or less comfortable in many languages which in a small country with a highly unusual mother tongue is a must. Unlike here where the emphasis is on reading, and hopefully as a by-product, writing skills, plus rudimentary math, my countrymen as youngsters know their geography, biology, world history, chemistry, physics and even religion. The latter is taught in the individual’s own faith, or if preferred, as a course on philosophy that focuses on moral and ethical values. All the above is a no-brainer to me, and doesn’t speak so much about the country’s superior schooling as the inferior one in others, especially in America.

I am more and more convinced that population is kept ignorant on purpose. Masses are much easier to handle if they don’t ask too many questions and are easily brainwashed. To be sure of the success of the plan, just throw a fundamentalist religious element into the equation. All of a sudden there is no need for sciences. Knowledge of the Bible is enough. Those words have been translated from one language to another and back again, as in the case of Hebrew and Greek, and can easily be taken out of context and twisted in any way to suit the purpose, whatever it might be. No wonder only a small percentage of the population gives any credit to evolution as a science. We won’t believe in the lies that our world and cosmos is millions and billions years old instead of 5768. The world is flat (we can all see that with our eyes) and the center of everything. We have never been to the moon, except in science fiction books and movies.

We were told enough times that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were connected to Saddam Hussein. Now, 4,000 military casualties of our own later, people are finally feeling like they have been cheated, even if they choose to ignore the number of Iraqi civilian casualties which probably well exceeds the number of dead after our nuclear attacks on Japanese non-military targets at the end of WWII. As a result of the invasion and the murder of Saddam and his family, we were supposed to acquire an endless supply of cheap oil from Iraq. Well, the crude is approaching $110 a barrel and a visit to the gas station is always a shock these days. This, with the increase in food prices, is the real reason of the unhappiness of the masses.

Repeating a false fact often enough makes people believe in it, even those who don’t quite take the “if the President says so, it must be true” for real. In the art world a Benihana Veriyaki auditorium becomes a splendid creation in people’s minds, at least in a town that has become the retirement and nursing home for musicians and various directors alike. A new library is an architectural masterpiece even if people don’t like to visit it because they have trouble finding their way out. I look with sadness at pictures of this city’s old library that was torn down many decades ago. It reminds me of the similar institutions in New York City and Boston. Granted, it was probably getting too crowded and small, but surely there would have been a way to extend or enlarge it. At a time when anything old was undesirable, it was torn down to make space for an awful Lego-like structure which had to be demolished rather soon. Of course today we would designate the original place as a historical landmark, but it obviously is too late in this case.

Yesterday was Easter which for Christians is (or should be) the most important event of the year. Unlike Christmas which has a set day, Easter and other events following it are based on the old lunar calendar that the Jews and Muslims still use. Easter, interestingly named in English after a pagan holiday honoring the goddess Eostre, should be celebrated at the same time as Passover and even last year that indeed was the case. This year the Jewish calendar added their Second Adar month, pushing the Holidays 29 days into the future. Easter is celebrated as a festival of death and life, commemorating the murder and resurrection of history’s first true known socialist or one might even say religious communist, Jesus Christ. Interestingly, although Jews don’t give Him the credit due, Israel’s famous kibbutzim were designed after principles that Jesus tried to teach his people. He wasn’t fond of money and possessions, and would feel sick today seeing a popular preacher pray that all of his congregation members and television viewers should get a new Mercedes or BMW as they “deserve” it. Even now the authorities would have problems with Jesus, as in many societies, democratic and dictatorial alike, Christ would probably end behind bars for his teachings. The “religious right” would hate Him for befriending gays, lesbians and addicts, as according to the four Gospels (and the unofficial ones as well) Jesus always took the side of the unwanted and untouchables and was in other words a true troublemaker and rebel.

There are rumors that in a toxic dough few Antichrists of various kinds are trying to rise, in honor of their own festival, the Yeaster. Like in a septic tank, we know what ends up on the top. I won’t name any names; those who see themselves in the description know who they are.

Image from ITT website

What is in a Name?

The tradition of celebrating Name Days, or namedays, started in Medieval Europe. Children were often named after Saints, so the Catholic Church helped spread the practice, although in some countries it was first thought to be more of a pagan tradition. Scandinavia has a rich history in this area and in my native Finland every day of the year, other than New Year's Day, the leap day of February 29^th and Christmas have a name or a few attached to it. There are actually three different official nameday calendars in my homeland, one for the Finnish Lutherans, one for the Swedish minority and yet a third for the Greek Orthodox Church.

Tomorrow will be Ilkka's nameday, and if I were working in Finland, like everyone sharing this name I would be expected to provide a fancy cake for my coworkers for the coffee break. They in turn would provide the refreshments and probably sing "Good Luck", using the tune of our "Happy Birthday to You". Present giving is not usually done, unless it is something little within the family. At least when I was young every classmate's day would be recognized. You could hide your birthday but everyone knew when the nameday was. Interestingly, I wasn't named after a Saint but rather a famous Finnish rebel leader (Jaakko Ilkka) who in 1596 was defending the rights of fellow farmers who at the time were suffering from poverty and famine. He was caught riding his horse by some too-eager early bureaucrat who hastily had him executed, just to learn the next day of orders to capture Ilkka alive and bring him to Turku, Finland's former capital. It came too late as the man was already dead, but a great legend was born. There is even an important daily newspaper by that name. Some Finns in this country celebrate St. Urho's Day on the same day, March 16^th, but this is not the case in Finland itself. The following day is St. Patrick's Day, another name day, although this year it was moved by the Catholic Church to today, in order not fall on Holy Monday which this year falls on 3-17.

Yesterday was the nameday of my beloved first and second grade teacher, Matilda. It is easy for me to remember because of the close proximity to my own day. In the middle was Risto, a Finnish form of Christian, a popular name in Scandinavia, and there always was some boy in the class by that name. Matilda, along with her husband Eino Varama, was one of the most important influences in my life. A small woman of incredible warmth and wisdom, she left a lasting impression on a small boy (we start school the year we turn 7). I realized that she was deeply religious when during the very first day of school, during lunch recess, I took out a pack of cards and started playing solitaire (Klondike, 3 at the time). She came by and didn't say anything negative but I felt like she connected card playing to gambling, or in any case it wasn't a virtue in her eyes. After school I rushed to my mother's clothing store and we marched together to the nearby book store and I bought a beautiful small light blue Bible with thin pages which were gilded on all sides. The next day I waited for the first recess to start, reached to my leather briefcase and pulled out the Book, explaining that I had this, too, not only a deck of cards. Her face lit up: I can still see the smile. I also learned what miracles faith can do: in second grade she was operated on for breast cancer which at that time usually meant a death sentence. For a couple months we had a substitute, but on Matilda's day she invited me and a few other classmates to her home for a small celebration and soon thereafter she returned to teaching. Ten years later she had another brush with death because of a burst brain aneurism. I was already studying with Heifetz in Los Angeles but her husband kept on writing to me. Nobody expected her to survive the almost two-month-long coma and temperature of over 104 degrees, but one day she woke up, wonderful as ever. The excess blood was removed from her brain, but unlike in most stroke victims, her emotional capabilities were not affected. If anything, she was sweeter and more loving than ever. When I graduated to third grade, Eino Varama became my woodwork teacher. He was also a gifted violin maker and during most lessons he just wanted me to sit in his "office", playing his instruments and offering my opinions. Then he would quickly do my work for me and gave me either a B+ or A- in my report card. A couple days a week I would visit their home right after classes, which was in a big building for teachers next to the school. Our friendship lasted until they both left this world; she first as she was 10 years older than her husband, and then he later, having lost sensation in his feet and hands and most of his eyesight. But both of them remained sharp as tacks to the end. I still think of them every day.

The Helsinki University is the official keeper and publisher of the Finnish Almanac. On their web site they have scans from the almanac pages dating back to the handwritten one from 1300s and printed ones from 1500s to present. The old almanacs had weather forecasts, information on diseases, horoscopes, in addition to data on solar and lunar eclipses and other important astronomical data, such as then-known planets lining up. I helped my father with his historical research since I was little and I don't have trouble reading the old script which to most of today's readers would present a problem. One finds interesting details in these old images. For instance "Gerardus" pops up in 1695 (Oct. 3), just to disappear eight years later, probably as unnecessary. An early name, "Narcissus", goes away but resurfaces in 1735 (Oct. 27) and lasts all the way until 1907 when many old Latin-based names disappear altogether, to make space for Finnish first names. "Ilkka" takes over "Herbert" on 3-16 in 1929.

There is a Finnish saying "Ei nimi miestä pahenna" which literally means "A man's name doesn't make him worse" but could also be understood as "Your name is your destiny". There was a fascinating article in the New York Times Science section just this past Tuesday. Titled "A Boy Named Sue, and a Theory of Names", it among other things ponders why parents give their children sometimes the oddest names. The Hogg sisters, Ima and Ura, were well know in Texas, and in spite of their names (or because of them?) managed to accomplish great things.

I like being named after a rebel leader; I just wouldn't want to be hastily hanged because of a small bureaucrat's orders. There are plenty of those around, as you know.

All the Lonely People

"Eleanor Rigby" has to be one of my all-time favorite songs. It is on a Beatles album in my Cadillac's CD-changer and I must have listened to it hundreds of times in the car alone. Not many pieces of music keep on growing with each listening but this one does. I have even forgotten it is a "pop" song. I can listen to Kreisler the next minute and feel equally at home. Even the lyrics are incredibly potent and their message hasn't grown old in all these decades I've listened to the song. I even feel like I know Father Mackenzie, or a person just like him. I also love the "Yellow Submarine" which I have as a DVD, and "Eleanor Rigby" is the first real song in it. Our society and politicians would be wise to listen to the opening verse of "All the lonely people, where do they come from?" Our country is full of people like Eleanor, pictured here as a statue that the city of Liverpool put up. The denizens of that city seem to know when they have something culturally valuable, and also have the bravery of getting rid of parasitic people threatening their unique culture.

The loneliness of people brings to mind my wife Marjorie's sister Karen. She chose to become sort of a hermit and take care of her adopted son who at times had been at odds with law and society. A life-long smoker, she had been in poor health with COPD for some time. In January, soon after I posted my "Finale" essay, her son found her dead on the floor upon returning home after midnight. Among other hardships, losing both parents and two out of three siblings in a short time span would be a lot to take even for the strongest of us. Against my advice, my wife went to work feeling obligated to fulfill her duty for the pit band, and played a wrong note in a solo while tears were still flowing from her eyes. A couple weeks later a registered letter arrived from the pit band's conductor, pointing out the wrong note and accusing her of various other things, such as playing every solo in the 2,500+ hall "too loudly" and her standards not being up to the level of his "excellent orchestra". Now, we are talking about the same conductor who also directs a community orchestra and sorely lacks an ability to fix intonation in the winds and brass. At times the pitch can be hair-raising, at least during the few occasions I have agreed to sub in the pit. Dying can be dangerous to your family's health indeed. Needless to say my wife, a violinist of renown, has decided to put an end to dealing with such donkey's orifices. More details will follow on my blog in June. As I can testify from my own experience, there is life with nice people out there, but perhaps not in the place you are working.

The mail just brought a recording of the Jules Conus Violin Concerto among other great performances by Jascha Heifetz. Officially the disc is nowhere to be found and someone was asking over $100 for it on the web, probably thinking of cashing in on a hard-to-find item. To my delight, the reproduction of the recording had been reauthorized to ArkivMusic.com and I had to pay only a tenth of the aforementioned greedy request. We do have the work on a LP vinyl, but I am not about to let a student borrow that. Interestingly, these also were two lonely people towards the end of their lives, both Conus and Heifetz. The composer couldn't hear his music performed in his native Soviet Union as he was Jewish and Stalin would have none of that; neither would many other Slavic anti-Semites, the Polish included. More on that will be discussed in a future entry. Heifetz was a victim of his own fame and also having the wrong kind of people around him. Like a lottery winner suddenly finding zillions of new friends, not to mention previously unknown relatives, the old master of the violin was also surrounded by people who wanted something out of the "friendship" for themselves. When Mr. Heifetz grew older and was no longer performing, or even teaching, there wasn't much anyone could benefit from. Those who stayed true to him did so because they cared and loved the man in spite of his less-than-perfect people skills.

I was up in the wee hours last night composing a letter to a dear student who is facing probably an imminent life-and-death issue in her family. I reminded her that her grandfather will be surrounded by a loving family and friends and that he will be remembered and cherished as long as these people live. Likewise, I know that if I were to die tomorrow, I have done well as a father and a husband, and that there even are numerous students that will remember me with kind and loving thoughts. It must be scary to be old and know that the Grim Reaper will soon call and have no one to turn to for comfort. That just might be the case for a Mr. Kerfuffle: he will drop dead kerplunk! Not even Kermit the Frog will take out his kerchief to wipe his non-existent amphibian tears.

Stool Sample

Recent emails and calls from my native country prompted me to think about the situation with performing artists with various degrees of physical difficulties in their profession. Most of these have to do with the ability to stand or walk, although there are occasions when someone has injured him/herself, usually resulting in a temporary problem or nuisance. I do remember a principal violist in the Bamberger Symphoniker (Bamberg Symphony, originally based on the pre-war German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague) who had lost his right thumb. Some genius had fitted his viola bow with four silver rings so that he could go on playing. As a young kid I was truly amazed to see him manage so well during the orchestra's visit for the Sibelius Week in Helsinki.

It turns my stomach when I see a soloist, often a female violinist, show up with a minor cut in a finger but a big white bandage, perhaps with a white bow tie, large enough to be seen by even the visually impaired. "How can she play?!" is the usual comment and an automatic standing ovation is a given, no matter how bad the performance. Some walk onto the stage with crutches, sit on a stool, and then exit in the same manner, often throwing the "needed" walking aids away as soon as the audience doesn't see them. And they don't need to be soloists either. I well remember, from decades past, an assistant concertmistress, whose husband, the concertmaster, would for months push her to her place in a wheelchair and then take his "bow movements". As soon as she was off the stage she would hop up, put her violin away and act normal. Yes, she had sprained an ankle or something at some point, but the charade was too good to give up. No business like show business. When I broke a joint in my left pinky three decades ago, I was hoping that nobody noticed, and continued working with just three fingers for many months, having taped the finger to the next with clear tape. I needed the money and managed even to play a solo or two by re-fingering the works.

Polio was, and unfortunately continues to be in parts of the world, a horrific disease. I was seven or eight before the mandatory vaccinations happened. An entire school class would march down to the health clinic and everyone would be given a shot. However, there were major epidemics when I was younger, and most kids were infected but only showed flu-like symptoms, so I easily could have been one of those. The unfortunate ones were paralyzed to a various degree, depending on how far in the spine the virus managed to wreak its havoc. Many lost their ability to walk and some even to breathe, ending up in "iron lungs". Today there are more portable alternatives for these unfortunate people. When there was a power outage near downtown some years ago in Seattle, one woman, unable to call for help, was shocked to find out she was able to breathe on her own.

Yes, there was Wilma Rudolph who was told as a child that she would never walk again, and yet she beat the odds and became the fastest female runner of her time. But most polio victims only regained some of the use of their legs, if any. The most awful part of the story is that polio's symptoms and pains tend to reappear after many decades. Some musicians have been victims of this disease and yet managed to achieve greatness. Everyone automatically thinks of Itzhak Perlman, the splendid Israeli violinist, but there is also James dePreist, a gifted conductor who came down with the illness a bit later in life. They both give a smile to the audience, yet I have seen expressions of great pain when they think no one is looking.

Although I am grateful for the permanent "handicapped" parking permit I have, for a person with disabilities, I would never dream of performing a solo sitting on a stool or chair, at least as long as I am somehow able to do without. Yes, it hurts to walk and to stand up, but I want the audiences to pay attention to my music making, sound and artistry, rather than wondering what is wrong with me. I work with people who limp and obviously are often in pain, yet these people do their work as a "normal" person would. If a conductor can do it, so can I.

This brings me to the communication from my homeland. It turns out that two people from this part of the world had shown up there to perform Wagner, among other loud stuff. As the conductor was using a stool, I was asked if he might be suffering from sciatica, or if American baton wielders often sit down, perhaps to cash in on the "pity factor". Most Finns have seen footage of the famed James Levine of the Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony and know that he uses the support of a stool. Also, James dePreist used to be the principal guest conductor of the Helsinki City Symphony, now known as the Philharmonic, until a critic with sharp writing skills and a mean personality (a dangerous combination) practically ate him alive with his reviews in Finland's leading daily. So, seeing American conductors sitting down in concerts is not a foreign concept. The Finns have a conductor of their own who is quite heavy and to my knowledge prefers (or needs) to balance himself on his tochas instead of feet. One email asked if perhaps the wrong person was using the stool as it might have been meant for the Wagnerian singer. I did not comment on this but said that the conductor had supposedly suffered a bone-fracture, as a result of having too much fun for his age months ago. If Hashem sees it fit to send him pain, who am I to criticize that. We all should realize our limits which increase every day as we age.

Our Creator gave a toad-stool for the toad.

"A Rubberband Fiddle" © www.bobbiemelody.com

Under the Influence

The news this past week told about an Israeli scholar, Benny Shannon, who claims that Moses must have been under a hallucinogenic substance when he saw God in a burning bush and when he received the Ten Commandments. This, of course, is not a new theory, nor are many researchers even sure that the person of Moses ever existed. What makes this interesting is that the likely substance (ayahuasca) was named and that this all comes from the Holy Land itself. Local anthropologists in Israel have for a long time also claimed that events described in the Hebrew Bible could not have happened in the order they are presented. New towns and cities were built on top of old ruins, not the other way around. Had this all been published by Western scholars in Europe or especially in the United States, the religious right and Ultra-Orthodox Jews would have been crying blasphemy, reacting the same way Muslims have done to the Danish drawings depicting the image of Mohammed.

Many religious experiences and visions have long been linked to the use of psychedelic substances. Even in our country the Native People are allowed to use mescaline in their ceremonies. Spiritual leaders or shamans of people of Lapland and other Arctic areas have used mildly toxic fly mushrooms for ages. I remember having an Indo-Chinese mushroom dinner in Amsterdam the night before a recital at the Concertgebow and spending most of the night on the ceiling of the hotel room, looking down at my body. Unfortunately, that also made me physically ill and it was hard playing after throwing up all day. The concert still went fine. And remembering that this was Amsterdam, I shouldn't have been shocked.

Many now strictly illegal drugs were commonplace just a century ago, so it is hard to know how great a role they played not only in the world of heavenly visions, but also in artistic ones. Wine was often spiked with cocaine or Bayer Pharmaceutical's main product, heroin. Knowing how many artists, performing and creative alike, use these now forbidden substances and cannabis regularly, in the past it must have been much more widespread. There was no stigma attached to it then as there is none today to alcohol or nicotine, although drinking during the short-lived prohibition of course was a criminal activity. It also lead to the Mafia's rise to immense power in America. In Germany, Bayer had to decide whether to invest in Aspirin or Heroin, in both of which it held patents, and chose the latter as it showed more promise in relieving pain and suffering, not to mention women's "hysteria".

Musicians and other performing artists often self-medicate to counter the fear of being in front of other people, or to counter the terror a sadistic boss spreads around him. I know great instrumentalists and colleagues who reek of marijuana every time they play and the odor is still lingering in almost any workplace that isn't well ventilated, such as an orchestra pit. If it helps the artists do better, I don't have a problem with it, in spite of cannabis being labeled as a Schedule I illegal substance. Others take pills for their nerves, Valium or other such calmatives, or resort to a drink, an old and trusted method. Doing my "Arbeit Macht Frei" years I would often carry a flask and take a sip before a potentially unpleasant situation. The medical alternative of pills would make me too sleepy, and driving a car while the drugs were in my system would have been dangerous. The alcohol in a small drink of Finlandia would be out of my system well before the service was over, unlike Valium which would slow down my reflexes even eight hours later. Of course, there is such a thing as an alcoholic, but then we are talking about a serious illness. However, some of them have done well in the world of arts, as conductors or composers (my countryman Sibelius was supposedly capable of drinking anyone else under the table).

In a totally different category is a rather pit-iful conductor taking pills for another condition, perhaps in order to be able to please a girlfriend or a critic. Often I wonder if the "Maestro Viagra" or "Sir Cialis" is just trying to transform himself, in his own mind, from impotent to omnipotent.

"Burning Bush" © Ted Larson
"Sibelius Finlandia" © Ilkka Talvi

A Truly Wonderful Man

Early this morning I was sitting by the computer, reading a Finnish website. I didn't have my glasses on (I'm nearsighted with astigmatism) and I had to squint my eyes to see the large LCD screen more clearly. On the front page was this picture with no name, just a link. I looked at it and instantly felt warm and comfortable, as if this was a man who had done something great for humanity. The big head spoke of intelligence but there was also peace written on his face. After reading the morning's news, which was depressing as usual, I clicked on the link and almost fell of the chair. A reconstructed face of Johann Sebastian Bach! A German Bach museum had asked a Scottish forensic anthropologist, Caroline Wilkinson, to recreate the great composer's face, with the help of the best three-dimensional x-rays and every other available detail. There he was, staring at me as if he were alive and well. The picture bears uncanny resemblance to the only available painting of the master, although there are some other questionable ones and black-and-white drawings.

I made a print on 4x6 photo paper and my wife and I asked various students, young and old, who this gentleman might be. We did provide a hint: they all knew of him. Only the youngest of the crowd, a ten-year-old that had never studied any Bach, knew the answer instantly. I am going to find a high-resolution copy of the picture, use my 7-ink Epson to print it and frame it to hang on the wall of one of our two studios. If it made me feel good, certainly it would have the same effect on others as well. His music has been ringing in my ears since morning and I was especially enthusiastic teaching the first Partita to a gifted young lady.

Although he was forced to recycle some of his music due to shortage of time and insane composition requirements, in my book Johann Sebastian is a musical genius par excellence. Every time I listen to his music and especially when I play or teach it, I make new discoveries. His music is food for the brain, soothing yet challenging, and above all without a fault. It is hard to imagine that people long ago didn't recognize the genius in him as a composer and preferred the works of Buxtehude and the likes. True, listeners respected him as an organist, but clearly his greatest talent was in writing music. Although he was said to have admired Händel, at least to these ears music of the latter sounds often pompous and hollow. Yes, the German Anglophile wrote some great works and catchy tunes, and his sonatas for violin and keyboard are more accessible to the listener than Bach's similar works. But the Chaconne, most of the Cantatas, the Passions and other vocal/instrumental masterpieces! He truly was far ahead of his time. He is also the only composer I can think of whose music can be performed with an accordion or by a rock band and it still sounds majestic. What would cellists play if they didn't have the Suites?

Now we at least have a picture of him, true to detail and without the wig. Someone asked me why he wore one. I tried to explain that bathing in a cold climate was not an easy thing to do and thus not often done. Even Louis XIV built the magnificent palace of Versailles with only one room for bathing and that was soon sealed off as unnecessary. The short hair on Bach's head is likely a guess but probably very common at the time when everyone had lice and other parasites. After a month or two longer hair would have been a paradise for those bugs. I can only imagine how the fancy-looking clothing of the time smelled as it couldn't be washed during the winter months; drying would have taken forever. I remember my brother telling me of his trip to China for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, soon after the Cultural Revolution. It happened during the cold season and people simply never took off their clothes until the warmer season arrived. The stench in a packed hall was intolerable. At least the French tried to cover their odor with perfume.

Another wonderful man, my spiritual guide, sent me email which prompted me to read all the different interpretations of the Book of Job I could find: Christian, Jewish, and even Muslim. I also got reacquainted with the Testament of Job which is not in the "official" Bible but nevertheless considered a sacred text. Although not necessarily upbeat reading, the Book itself is beautifully written and offers many lessons for all of us. It is interesting how differently it can be interpreted. There are not many other instances in the Hebrew Bible where Satan works for God, although in his nasty ways, and the word is not a synonym for evil. Bulgakov must have been greatly influenced by the story, as in his famed "Master and Margarita" Satan is described in similar manner and Behemoth appears as one of the characters.

Yes, we learn that bad people can enjoy success and the good ones are not necessarily rewarded for their deeds. However, at the end Job gets everything back tenfold, after he stands firm in his faith and doesn't accept his friends' arguments that his terrible misery was caused by something awful he had done. None of the successful evil people will ever know true happiness and love; a Buddhist would perhaps argue that they will return to earth as cockroaches and worms, if they are even worthy of that.

Image Bachhaus Eisenech, Corbis

Controlling the Brain

The brain is a fascinating organ. It seems like the more we study it, the less we understand. In other words, the brain confuses us! Just yesterday the BBC had a news article on their health pages regarding depression. The doctors and hospitals participating in a large study rather convincingly claim that our modern pharmaceutical cash cows, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs don't work in a majority of people. A dummy pill or placebo was found almost equally effective. The drug manufacturers have made us believe that feeling sad or having the blues is an illness whereas in fact it is a very normal part of what and who we are. A century ago a woman's menstrual period was considered an illness, as was a wakeup time erection for younger males. I don't offhand remember what the suggested treatment was for the ladies but for the gentlemen a bagful of ice was recommended. This time we are made to believe that feeling good and happy at all times is normal. The people who were given sugar-coated dummy pills in the large study in the United Kingdom noticed often an immediate improvement in their moods simply because they felt their "problem" was being addressed. The ministry of health in that country now wants to invest in thousands of new talk therapists and get people to exercise, an almost guaranteed mood lifter. SSRIs cost the system billions, the therapy would be a fraction of it and a brisk walk outdoors is totally free. Knowing how powerful the drug companies are, I don't expect much coverage on this topic here.

As I have seen it in my family, major depression does exist and is a very serious disease, as is a true bipolar condition. However, the latter term is used too freely, like ADD in active children, and people are made to think that having ups and downs is abnormal. Our souls are like the weather: one day it is sunny, the other it rains (unless you live in a desert). People who have too much sunshine in the summertime welcome the beginning of the rainy season. We are like plants; we need both the light and the water to grow and to survive. We don't quite understand what causes the various form mental illness although through trial and error we have discovered ways to lessen the symptoms. Some older drugs such as tricyclics (amitriptyline, nortriptyline) and tetracyclics (mirtazapine, maprotiline) seem to work often for true depression, although they rather toxic and make one drowsy. Lithium, another toxic substance, is very valuable for manic-depressive illness. And what we used to think as a cruel treatment, electric shock therapy, can make a deeply depressed person feel better instantly. We have learned to administer the amount of electricity needed to short out the brain's own electrical connections and one no longer is in a danger of biting through his/her tongue. Usually this treatment is done under light anesthesia so the patient has no unpleasant association or memory.

The word "memory" brings me to one of the first topics on my blog which will have its third birthday next month, about two hundred entries later, most of them essays. Some early ones I had to remove because of a settlement, but I will probably repost them once I officially retire. I wrote about memorization in March of 2005 and have since observed and learned more on the topic. I also watched the New York Philharmonic play in North Korea and was somewhat disappointed that the conductor, Lorin Maazel, had to use a score for the rather simple but beautiful Korean folk tune "Arirang", beloved by both the North and South Koreans. Out of respect and as a sign of courtesy I would have expected the maestro to memorize the short piece. Well, he is up there in years and perhaps the music is remote to his heart, so I'll let go of that. The fact that he and the management of the NY Philharmonic were able and willing to go to Pyongyang was brave. It probably brought our two nations back to the time of Bill Clinton's second presidency when Madeline Albright was able to charm the North Korean leader with her wit and sincerity in 2000. Anyway, this reading in North Korea reminded me of an American conductor who for years needed a score to conduct our National Anthem.

Since my rather nasty concussion I still continue to have short term memory problems with names, words and, worst of all, music. I have had to think about how memorization works. I also have students who really fear playing from memory to the point it becomes next to impossible. Interestingly, many of these young adults were at ease with memorization when they were younger. My explanation is that back then they didn't analyze their skills or doubt their ability. A lot happens when a young person grows up. Most of the child prodigies disappear or come back as a shadow of their former self, such as was the case with Yehudi Menuhin, or some present ones whom I decline to name. The more sensitive, and thus artistic, a young musician is, the more likely he/she is to have self-doubts.

I have tried different methods with students. Usually fast virtuoso pieces are the least problematic as one doesn't have the time to think about the notes and one uses an automatic muscle memory. Slower works are another story, especially ones where a motive returns many times and is always slightly different. Some of the most difficult music for a violinist to memorize is certain solo Bach. The Fugues are tricky as is the Chaconne, but even the Allemande of the d minor Partita presents a challenge to many. As logical as Bach is, patterns could go many different ways. Even Pablo Casals, after spending decades of the cello suites, got stuck in a movement and managed to end up at the half way point repeatedly. According to my violin-maker-teacher who was present, the great cellist had to leave the stage and come back with the music, apologizing to the audience. Some violinists are aided by watching their fingers as they know what note each digit represents, similar to a pianist looking at the keyboard, yet others find this method confusing. Recently I noticed that a rather new student, who had to play a concerto movement from memory for a college audition, was staring at the wall and constantly getting lost. I asked if she had ever tried looking at her fingers or her bow. She replied that she used to do that, but then at some "master class" the know-it-all person had told her it was all wrong and that she ought to stare into nothingness! We have to be careful what we tell the young ones as often their mind is like a sponge and they remember things they shouldn't and forget others that are of value. This student's playing improved immediately and then I asked her to completely close her eyes and concentrate. What a difference that made! Not only did the memory issue disappear but also her sound and intonation improved like by magic. Others have also done well with their eyes closed. Performing this way they can inhabit their own private world while playing. As they cannot see the audience they are less likely to be frightened and ideally nothing should distract them.

Of course playing blind doesn't work for everyone. One needs to see the conductor or the pianist's fingers in a tricky piece. I have to visualize the music in my mind and read it, especially now after my head injury. This of course can be done in the "blind mode" and I would do so except that the neurological damage to the nerves of my feet make me very uncertain about my balance and I need a visual input to tell myself I'm properly upright. Although I do it differently from before, performing from memory is no longer an issue for me, but I need to know every note of the concerto or other composition intimately. I advise students to learn the music, not just memorize the markings. If they have a piano and are able to play it with enough ease, I encourage them to play the piece on the keyboard. Experimenting with completely different fingerings, reversing bowings, all that is helpful.

Now I have to remember to quit writing as this story is becoming too brainy. Do I need a pill to do that?

Image from Science and Consciousness

Back-stabbers

There seems to be a frog stuck in my throat, thus the illustration. The problem I want to write about is not unique to the arts and is surely present in every work environment. However, my personal experience relates to fellow musicians and violinists in particular.

Although I still believe that many if not most people are rather good people, all it takes is one rotten individual to make a work situation intolerable. Of course, two make it even worse. Cats are famous for being clean and completely odorless (other than occasional halitosis as is the case with my Seymour in the morning). Yet we wouldn't notice a thousand good-smelling cats if a skunk is present and decides to spray or is hit by a car. In the case of the skunk the smell is a defense mechanism. A fox, on the other hand, urinates its awful-smelling liquid on a little hedgehog, making the poor animal stick its head out gasping for air and ending up as a meal.

This story is not about Sir Fox as much as Thomas Poison-Toad, a fictional but all too true character sitting in any string section of an orchestra. He is an expert in back-stabbing, spending much of his free time looking for something, real or imagined, to complain to others about. A true psychopath, he doesn't have a conscience and nothing prevents him from advancing his own work career by the dirtiest means he can come up with. Perhaps he is "friends" with a music critic, a board member, the conductor, or most likely all of the above. In front of your face he pretends to be nice and complimentary, but at the earliest opportunity he rushes to show his toxicity to others. Usually a poor player himself, in his mind this behavior makes him delusional about his own greatness. Why wouldn't he be the best of them all as he never has to prove his musical skills? In my long life in music I have known a rather large number of these poison toads. Most often they have sat right behind me, or a few stands back, but also next to me. Typically they have come and congratulated me on my solo work when my playing hasn't been its best. When everything has gone perfectly, they naturally have been completely quiet.

There is an old story in Finland about a king who has promised his daughter and half of his kingdom to the man who has the whitest face. Quite a few hopeful candidates show up, all with soap and a bucket of warm water. Present is also a gipsy (a "black" in Finnish, nowadays a non-pc expression). People laugh and make fun of him. How could he, with his darker complexion, be whiter than the Nordic Finns? He also has a bucket and a brush but he doesn't use them on his face. When the others are finished cleaning up, the gipsy quickly dips the brush into the tar in his bucket and paints everyone's faces black. The king has no other choice but declare him the winner. There are different endings to the story: in none does the sneaky gipsy get the princess, sometimes the king awards him money but usually lands a big kick on his rear end ordering him to get lost.

Likewise, a Thomas Poison-Toad seldom fares as well as he had hoped. At some point others have realized that they could well be the next in the line of his victims. It is the same reason why men don't usually tie the knot with their married mistresses after divorce: if the woman was ready and willing to cheat on her previous husband, what would prevent her from doing the same to him? As usually is the case, at the end people get what they deserve. Life comes around in a full circle. Sometimes it can take decades, at other times much less. Take the Chilean dictator General Pinochet for example. He was filthy rich and had plenty of friends in high places, however the end of his life was most humiliating. Had he not been in such poor health, the grim reaper would have come for him behind bars where he should have been.

This frog will find himself croaking ever so loudly on his toad-stool without anybody paying the slightest attention. No beautiful princess will attempt to kiss him and turn him into a prince. That happens only in fairy-tales and even then there was a nice prince to start with, not an ogre.

Toad You So

On the great island of Madagascar, fossils of a gigantic amphibian were recently discovered. This was no ordinary cute froggy but a heavily armored, bowling ball sized toad with sharp teeth. Living at the age of the dinosaurs, it needed the protection from big predators, but probably was a mighty beast of its own, able to dine on young hatchlings of its big distant cousins. Scientists have given it a suitable name: Beelzebufo or ‘Devil’s Toad’. It the middle picture is an artist’s rendition of the creature, compared to its largest present day relative, the Malagazy Frog. The lack of any such specimen on the African continent questions some accepted theories about when the island separated from the mainland. So far it also seems that this monster toad is related to South American horned frogs.

On the right is a picture of a Giant or Cane Toad, recently caught in Australia and weighing over two pounds. The biggest known specimen reached 5.8 lbs! This very toxic ‘toadzilla’ was introduced to that continent in an experiment that didn’t end nicely. In 1935 the hundred and one Bufo Marinus toads took a liking to Queensland and in six months had multiplied to over 60,000. Initially they were supposed to help the local sugar industry get rid of two pests, both beetles. Soon the cure became the illness, however, and today the country’s wildlife officials have their hands full trying to control this outright dangerous amphibian from spreading any further. Even its tadpoles are highly poisonous and most of the species that dine on the harmless variety, end up dead after consuming these. Interestingly, one of the toxins the toad excretes, bufotenin, is classified as Schedule I drug in Australia, together with heroin and cocaine. Most of the other toxins don’t give a potential toad licker a desired high; instead the person might well end up in the morgue.

When I first looked at the pictures, I could have sworn there was something familiar about them and decided to complete the picture. Another type of ‘Cane Toad’, pictured on a postcard a friend and colleague sent me, is a fitting addition to the group. I call it the ‘conductor toad trinity’, a three-in-one. One frog-leg taps in one tempo, the cane or baton goes in another and the Beelzebufo’s tooth-filled mouth counts out loud the beats yet in another, none of those ever synchronized. What is the poor musician to do? Some try to lick the toad you-know-where. Perhaps it will give them a temporary high but sooner or later they all end up dead.

I toad you so.

"Beelzebufo" illustration by Luci Betti-Nash
AP Photo/ Dan Klores Communications

Excitement

A few weeks back I was taking my bright, beautiful and sweet 15-year-old to her small high school at the Seattle Center. Barack Obama was going to speak later that day in the nearby Key Arena and already early in the morning there were long lines in front of all the numerous entrances. Clearly something out-of-the-ordinary was taking place. It seemed to me that most of the people were young, an age group that has shown apathy in recent elections. The Center School decided to let as many students as possible to take part witnessing a democratic process in action and although they had to wait for hours to actually see and hear the candidate, it didn't in any way lessen the excitement. My little one was beaming after the day.

Mr. Obama handily won the Democratic primary here, and has since won state after state. Something is happening: people clearly want to see someone new and young offered a chance. The nightmare of the past seven years has taught people to mistrust people who have been corrupted by politics of our capital. Hillary Clinton is a very smart lady who would no doubt work hard to make the miracle of a national health insurance a reality, and I am by no means endorsing one Democratic candidate over the other. She unfortunately has a lot of baggage with her, at least in many people's eyes, mainly because she occupied the White House for eight years already. Elsewhere in the world where former presidents' wives have successfully run for the same office, results have been often disappointing. However, part of me would love to see a woman win the election, but if the winner ends up being a minority member, something unthinkable just a few years ago, I won't have a problem either.

As it was with John F Kennedy, youth creates excitement, especially among people who are close to that age group. Any person in a leadership position should not overstay his or her welcome, whether in politics, sports, arts, you name it. Thank goodness a president is only able to run twice for the office. The congress, however, is filled with old-timers who have made politics their profession. Some are doing a very good job, some others stink. Everybody is more or less predictable and therein lays the problem. There is little new to offer as the thinking goes its set ways, and all members of the Congress are all too eager to listen to special interests groups, as the financing for the next election depends on them to a great degree. Wouldn't it feel different if we set similar term limits to the Senators and House Representatives as to the Executive Branch? Perhaps we could give them an extra four-year term making it a total of three.

We all know how terrible it is when someone in a leadership position holds onto power too long. Our world is full of dictators who get 'elected' time after time. Constitutions are changed so that term limits are no longer an issue. Even in my native Finland which gives the President a maximum of twelve years, an exception was made for the Kremlin's favorite Urho Kekkonen. After his two terms were up, a new law was passed to make it possible for him to be elected a third time. What remains a mystery to me forever, after the third time the country's parliament decided that now he was a "new candidate" and thus successfully ran for a fourth term. All this happened in a country that prides itself as the least corrupt on the globe, twenty years later. Finally senility and dementia set it and as Kekkonen didn't have his Nancy Reagan to run the country, he had to resign. In Reagan's case (who many think was a great president), astrologists were contacted by Mrs. Reagan for advice while the old man hardly knew what was happening around him. After the Soviet Union collapsed and the archives were made public, people were shocked (or were they really?) to find out that Kekkonen had in fact been a high-ranking informant to the KGB.

The one area where a person's influence can remain productive is in teaching. Our neighborhood elementary school had a legendary teacher, Richard Kearns, who left incredibly lasting memories in students' minds. Our Anna was in his third grade class and that is when she opened up and decided to become something important herself. I have met Seattleites on international flights and, more than once, I have been asked if I knew Mr. Kearns. Of the school's teachers, he was the only one to stay in people's minds; a wonderful person who managed to turn many young lives around and make the kids become serious students. My daughter and her several classmates used to visit him at the school often, until he finally retired after many decades of making a difference in young people. Even in a university setting, the most a student will have to deal with a professor is a few years. A conductor of a youth orchestra will have new faces every year and the older ones graduate and move on. Of my many students who have chosen music as their field, I always insist that they leave the nest and move on. To my college students I am a fresh new face, with a different approach and after the four years they will be going elsewhere. That is how it should be. A podium or a position as a coach for a sports team should not be for retirement, unless it is in a university or other school were nobody will have to suffer past four years or so.

It will be an interesting and important year for Americans. Any change will be good as things cannot get much worse. An in-law, a retired professor of Economics from Rutgers University, says he has never seen things as bad as they are now. Although Seattle housing market isn't suffering like many others, there are properties in my very own neighborhood that have remained on the market for a long time. Of course, the uneducated masses don't really care about the war, exploding prison population, and in many cases about the lack of health insurance, as long as they are covered. It is the price of gasoline and food that will grab their attention, and I bet you anything these people are finally waking up and fast.

Finale

As my father slowly but surely keeps slipping away, I have been thinking a lot about death and those friends and relatives who have recently left this life. Dying is a natural event and all of us will experience it. Most of us would like to go quickly when the time comes, yet there are those who hold human life so sacred that they try to prolong it at all costs. In the system like ours, savings of a lifetime can be spent on a few weeks of additional time. Back home in Scandinavia medical care is essentially free and the cost is obviously not a worry. Indeed there are, even in my home town's main hospital, a number of very sick and/or old people hooked to machines that keep them alive. Most often this happens due to lack of a living will. Families are reluctant or afraid to make a sensible and humane decision, perhaps because they haven't had the courage to talk to the patient earlier to find out in time what his/her wish would be. I don't think anyone would like to go on living attached to artificial life support system, knowing there was no hope. Many of us have pets that are really dear to us. The sign of our ultimate love and compassion for these friends is to make sure they don't suffer unnecessarily. Why would we treat the dying humans differently? Wouldn't the quality and living free of pain matter more than an extra two weeks of suffering? Doctors are often afraid of writing prescriptions for potent opiates for fear of turning patients into addicts, or being singled out by the system for creating junkies. Clearly an oncologist, a surgeon or a pain specialist will have to dispense a lot more of these scripts than a family doctor, not to mention a dermatologist. Yet even in an advanced system like my native Finland has, my aunt was given a low dose tramadol regimen for her pain after she was diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. I was shaking my head as I was taking twice the amount for my own chronic pain. A former health care worker, she started self-medicating with large amounts of ibuprofen which gave her considerably better relief. It wasn't until she was taken to the hospital near the end of the four or five months when she finally was given morphine. I just hope that her final days were relatively comfortable.

For a long time I visited a Seattle-based pain specialist, Dr. Anders Sola. Initially I was sent to him by my rheumatologist as a couple months of physiotherapy couldn't help my frozen shoulders, a condition obviously caused or at least worsened by work environment. Dr. Sola was one of those rare individuals who had the ability to think outside the box. Although he had discovered during the Korean War that injecting saline solution worked better and gave longer relief than local anesthetics, the initial fame wore off and he became somewhat of an outcast in the medical society. Long before it became fashionable, he studied acupuncture and developed his own style of it. With these needles he was able to cure my shoulders completely in two weeks. Dr. Sola was among the first group of doctors that were allowed to visit China after the Cultural Revolution. We became friends and spent many hours discussing medicine, our lives, art, philosophy and other topics. His mother was a first cousin to the great painter Edvard Munch. After the artist's death nobody wanted to touch his paintings, as he had always been a black sheep in the deeply evangelical family. Often I could barely drag myself to the doctor's office, yet a little later I'd walk away feeling great. In time the needles were put aside and a small laser was introduced instead. Used on trigger points it worked as well, often causing me to sweat profusely which he considered a good sign. There was usually Hawaiian music playing in the background and the patients were an interesting group, many of whom the good doctor introduced me to. I especially remember a truly big Native chief from Alaska who came down for treatments every so often. As the medical building was about to be closed, to make space for a new part of Northgate shopping mall, Anders Sola decided it was time to retire. I'm sure all his patients were sad and kind of lost as to where to turn to help. I myself went to see a Chinese lady whom Dr. Sola had recommended. However, I never felt at ease at her practice nor got the same relief. I did talk to the dear doctor a number of times over the phone, but not in the last three years or so. Finally last week I started searching on the internet and found a news item in the Idaho Statesman, telling of the doctor's death in that state just this past August, three months after the passing of his wife. I had never asked him his age and was surprised that he had reached 88. His bright mind was that of a much younger person.

A little more than two weeks ago we received an email telling of the death of Virginia Katims, the widow of the renowned violist and conductor Milton Katims. We knew that she was in ill health and frail, and had visited her in a home where we played a small recital for her and other music-loving occupants. Although her openness irritated many, I found it refreshing and always greatly enjoyed her company. She had no trouble telling me that I had gained too much weight, although I didn't explain to her why. After I weaned myself off prednisone, those over 30 pounds were lost rather rapidly and she was pleased by what she saw. I much preferred her truthfulness to the phoniness many others exhibit. She probably alienated some donors years ago, but if she didn't like something, she would tell it to your face, instead of pretending and speaking ill of you behind your back. Milton and Virginia shared an amazingly long lifetime of music together. I will miss them both.

A personal shocker came in the form of a phone message not long after. One of my wife's sisters had just learned from a nephew that their father John Kransberg had died in Florida, four months ago in September. His widow hadn't thought it necessary to notify any of his children. After divorcing his wife of 37 years when they were to move to Los Angeles from Beverly, Massachusetts, in order for my wife to study with Heifetz, he rushed to marry his Swedish masseuse. Wife number two didn't encourage a close relationship with any of the four daughters, least of all the young one still living with her mother. My wife flew to see her father in the Florida Keys with our little firstborn, but the stepmother made the visit intolerable. I never met my father-in-law in person, only spoke to him over the phone once. He did call here after learning about the accident that took my mother-in-law's life three years ago and told Marjorie that he still loved her mother. Perhaps the call was overheard as the next attempt to talk was cut short. The eldest of the sisters lived not that far and managed to have a relationship. However, after she was diagnosed with cancer and was given only a couple months to live, the father cut off all communications with her and didn't even show up at her funeral. What a strange man he had become. My wife had said her good-byes to him over those many years, so although the news must have made her sad, it wasn't the kind of a loss it would have been under different circumstances. Our society encourages people to dissolve their marriages instead of working differences out, claiming it is for the children's best. At least I beg to differ. The individuals may get their lives in order again, but the children will suffer, even in the most ideal of situations.

May the souls of all these people rest in peace, my father-in-law included. At least he helped to produce a wonderful wife for me, for which I'm eternally grateful.

Discovery Park, Seattle
Photo by Talvi 1/2008