Mahler's Fifth sweeps us out to sea

On Friday we went to Davies Hall for the SF Symphony's much anticipated performance of Mahler's Fifth. We (and probably most of San Francisco) have been looking forward to this one for weeks now and to say we were not disappointed would be an understatement.

The opening half -- or maybe I should say quarter, since the first two pieces were quite short -- of the program went to Carl Ruggles' "Angels" and Morton Feldman's "I Met Heine on the Rue Furstenberg." Unsurprisingly, many people chose to decline to meet Heine and they showed up after intermission. To be honest, knowing what I know now, I probably would have done the same.

But when we got back to our seats for the Mahler, everyone was ready to go, from the orchestra to the guy in front of us, who was holding his wife's hand and literally quivering with excitement.

Under MTT the Symphony's sound and control over dynamic range has been refined to near mythic levels. The first movement, with its stormy, viscous layers of harmony seems as vast as the sea, and yet, it's clear to the ear that every step has been carefully plotted for maximum effect. There's a sense of humanity confused of inexorable funereal marching, and yet, near the end of the second movement, when the brass sound an achingly beautiful theme the consonance is enough to make you cry.

The last time we heard the SFS play the Adagietto from the Mahler Fifth, I had the impression of a beautiful curtain of sound, which I didn't get at this performance. Nevertheless, the strings played brilliantly to the end, culminating in a single fading note that they carried out as if the whole section were a single organism.

People debate endlessly over the various recordings out there, some putting the 1947 Bruno Walter on top or the Boulez, or the Bernstein/ New York Philharmonic. It's all destined to change when this recording comes out, trust me.

SF Symphony Mahler appetizer

At the last minute we decided we would treat ourselves to a little date at the Symphony -- after all, with an orchestra this good in town it seems a crime not to take advantage of it.

The program was quite a mix - some bite sized Wagner excerpts, the Beethoven Piano Concerto and the adagio from Mahler's unfinished Tenth. Such an d experience, that Mahler Tenth. The symphony will be recording it and they'll play it again in April. It's quite the experience, with complicated and sometimes heart-wrenching passages. And you have to hand it to a guy who's willing to end the adage with all the violins nailing a fading harmonic note.

The ending of the program though -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries -- just made me giggle. There we are in a Symphony hall nad I feel like we ought to be in a movie theater chomping popcorn and watching Eisenstein.

What ---?? Part II

In the continuing story of how upside down the thinking was during the disaster:

PENSACOLA, Fla., Sept. 6 - Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews returned from New Orleans on Aug. 30 expecting to be greeted as lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 hurricane victims to safety.

Instead, their superiors chided the pilots, Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow, at a meeting the next morning for rescuing civilians when their assignment that day had been to deliver food and water to military installations along the Gulf Coast.

Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded - New York Times

What the ---??

I'm starting a new feature on this blog (since I have to put this someplace) that collects all the articles about the Hurricane Katrina disaster that have made me go, "What the ---?!?" Kind of a "What were they thinking?" "What do we pay them for?" "What kind of virus ate away the good sense God gave a goose?" series...

FEMA accused of flying evacuees to wrong Charleston
A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston. But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Condi Returns to D.C. After Bloggers and 'Post' Expose Vacation
All day Thursday, from the New York Post to several popular blogs, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice came under attack and ridicule for having fun in Manhattan while New Orleans sank and exploded in violence. By nightfall, she had cut short her vacation and returned to her post in Washington. The Post started it with an early morning Page Six item about Rice playing tennis with Monica Seles at a court near New York's Grand Central. Then Drudge revealed that she had attended a Broadway play -- "Spamalot," no less -- the night before.

He Held Their Lives in His Tiny Hands: 6-Year old found wandering the causeway with infant and five toddlers in his care.
"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

AP: FEMA Chief Waited Hours to Ask for Homeland Security Help
Brown's memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public."

Federal agency 'slow' to accept business help
Mary Landrieu, the Democratic US senator from Louisiana, accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of having "dragging its feet" when Amtrak offered trains to evacuate victims.

Why FEMA turned away help
Last night, one of my friends joined our regular Sunday chat. He had just come home from New Orleans with his group of volunteer firefighters from Houston, after they had waited outside New Orleans for since Tuesday for FEMA to let them help in New Orleans, or use them somewhere else in the stricken region.

After Failures, Government Officials Play Blame Game
When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

FEMA Turns away flotilla of citizen volunteers in boats
On Tuesday afternoon, August 30, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee asked for all citizens with boats to come to the aid of Jefferson Parish. A short time later Dwight Landreneau, the head of the La. Depart. of Wildlife and Fisheries, got on television and remarked that his agency had things under control and citizen help was not needed.

Navy ship nearby underused: Craft with food, water, doctors needed orders
But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship.

And from FEMA's OWN SITE:
First Responders Urged Not To Respond To Hurricane Impact Areas Unless Dispatched By State, Local Authorities
Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response and head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), today urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
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To give credit where credit is due, several of these I found originally here.

I have fuzzy animals...

Okay, so this isn't calendar-related, but I have to have my kitty-fix, so....

Here's the Fuzz Meister:


And for those who have never seen my shy little black poofball:

Cachao rocks the house at Bimbo's

What a hot show we saw last night at Bimbo's 365. The place was packed for a tribute to Israel Lopez "Cachao," the father of the mambo.

Playing with Andy Garcia's Cineson (the name of his production company also) the 86-year old bassist dominated the place from the start. Garcia has recorded several master sessions with Cachao and also produced and directed a documentary --Israel "Cachao" Lopez, Ahora Si! Andy Garcia Presents Cachao - CD & DVD Set-- bringing the man back to the forefront of attention for the many people who have listened over the years to bootlegs of his recordings, but never known who he was.

The band, which according to Eric included several local regulars who play with John Santos (Santos himself showed up with a bunch noisemakers in bag and sat in) was a crack team. The Japanese lead trumpet player blasted away from the start of the evening, causing us to wonder if he'd actually blow his face off.

If I mention that a ballerina from San Francisco Ballet was at the "Reserved for guests of Andy Garcia" table, it probably won't take more than one guess to figure out who it was. She also appearing in Garcia's latest movie , "The Lost City" which opens in a few weeks.

Duccio and the early Chinese Art at the Met

No visit to New York at Chrsitmas would be complete without a stop into the Metropolitan Museum to see the Neapolitan Christmas Creche. But there was an added holiday treat as the Mueum's recently acquired Duccio's "Madonna and Child" went on display.

It's small - maybe the size of a piece of paper, but beautifully delicate. While we were in the gallery I heard a man trying to explain to a friend why this painting was of any interest or any more important than the zillions of other Christmas card paintings the Met has hanging all over its galleries. He tried to put it in historical perspective, but I think the point that his friend never got was that changes in style and attitude even thematic shifts in art often happen so incrementally as to be almost unnoticeable. Who knows when the first Nativity Scene with snow was painted? But now, everyone see snow in Nativity scenes, even though Bethlehem was unlikely to have ever been dusted with more than rain.

But I digress, the Met's new Duccio is small -- not so grand as his Maesta Altarpiece, and maybe because it wasn't of enormous significance, Duccio felt he could take a bit of license with the usual idioms of Madonna and Child portrayal. Instead of looking godlike and lofty, the madonna has weight. Her child reaches for her veil, more like a normal baby, instead of sitting there with a hand raised in god-like blessing. Naturalism is somehow creeping into sacred pictures. Ordinary people are starting to have enough money to buy objections of personal devotion. Intimacy is a relatively new aspect of commune with God. And this painting in some way represents that enormous change in attitudes.

The exhibit "China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD," which spans the period from the collapse of the Han dynasty into the fabled Tang dynasty, was quite spectacular and comprehensive too. Featuring exquisitely crafted objects-- animals, figurines, pieces from Silk Road trade -- the exhibition traces a history of culture that I couldn't help but compare with the Hellenistic background covered so beautifully in the Alexander the Great exhibit at the Onassis Center.

It relieves me to think of the history of mankind not just including war but also enduring evidence of beautiful and refined things as well.