Tall, golden-blond, smiling almost endlessly, this gangling 15 year old sits at the piano surrounded by a least a hundred years of talent in violin, cello and viola – men of standing in the musical community. From the opening notes to the rollicking Hungarian Dance of the final movement – I am held in thrall by this “kid.” They are a “pick-up” quartet. They have never played together. The tall blond youngster has not even played Brahms, but there he is, sometimes leading, sometimes following in the Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor.
I have one serious reservation. Whenever I, and others, speak of Jan, it is almost always with reference to his age. I worry that so much of the lustre of his playing is misconstrued; that his performance is rated as outstanding, “especially for a 15 year old. “ Like many prodigies before him, it assumes almost the quality of a freak show, where the age of the player factors into the appreciation. I promise you, his stature is neither diminished nor enlarged by his youth.).
I have been blessed to sit in on a rehearsal. We will leave the Festival that morning but his mother invites us to sit in. I am blessed. We are transfixed. I am held like no other music has ever held me, by the virtuosity of 15 year old Jan Lisiecki Three vintage players, with their credentials too long to mention; three players who teach, and who have played with the very best chamber groups. It is the three of them, and the one – only one – of him.
Earlier in the week I saw another side: the unflappable Jan. The Festival staged a cruise on Georgian Bay with three different concerts. In one of them., Jan and his former teacher Glen Montgomery, played a series of Chopin Nocturnes. The piano was an electronic model, dredged up from some forgotten musical dungeon. It rocked back and forth. (I commented to Jan that is he had tried to play a Polonaise the piano would have fallen over.) There were several keys whose rendition of a musical note was closer to a traffic accident than a musical sound. The point is that Jan was, at least visibly) totally unfazed.. Inside he may have been seething, but there was not of the so-called “artiste” temperament about having to play under very trying circumstances. He played. And he bounced back the following day with a bravura performance of Chopin Etudes 1 to 12.
My wife and I have watched him since he was a very boyish 12 year old, close to a foot shorter than he is today. He appeared briefly at the Festival of The Sound, playing in a duet. It was a competent performance. Perhaps because the audience was so charmed, he was haled back for an encore. He stunned us with a bravura performance of an extremely demanding Chopin Etude. He stood shyly, still not quite sure how to bow to an audience, while that audience rose to its feet in spontaneous homage to a kid who, if he continued to grow, would be among the premier pianists of our age. In fact, in a short documentary Joe Schlesinger did for the CBC, violinist and conductor Pincus Zukermann said he was one of those talents that comes along only once is a couple of generations. He is proving it. I am privileged to have been there to see it.
Earlier in the Festival program I heard him accompany Dennis Brott in the Chopin Sonata for cello and piano. He displayed what I saw him display in the rehearsal of the quartet: an ability to “serve” the ensemble, setting aside any trace of individual showing-off virtuosity. He was there to serve the music and to serve his fellow players. That’s often a lesson many soloists never learn, perhaps never ever want to learn.
I am getting to know Jan, as he and his mother, who keeps him well grounded, are getting to know us. He can be just another playful 15 year old. Coming up behind me he will snap my suspenders for attention. Sitting at breakfast he likes to sneak up on me, making me jump as he administers a hug. He practices hard but he is always having fun. The lead violinist in the Brahms commented between movements about the shoes Jan was wearing. They seem be a kind of rubber, but the toes are articulated so that they look like a glove for the foot. I think he does it for the sheer fun of it. Jan loves to fly, and fly he does, all over the world. He told me a story about playing for Larry Ellison, perhaps the fourth richest man in the world, the head of Oracle. His big moment was to go up in the air in Ellison's plane with a stunt flyer and do loops and rolls.
He will finish high school this year, needing only to complete a course in calculus.
He is perhaps like no other prodigy I have ever met. He is “grounded.” Knows who he is. Makes friends easily. Is easy to talk to and enjoys repartee. He is, sometimes like all geniuses, a little bit obsessive. In fact, he loves to practice and will spend hours at the piano. But it does not remove him from the other joys of life. He finds them all. They find him.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect for me is that we are chronological opposites. My best days are well behind me and his are all ahead of him/. He will climb to heights I never did. He will reign in his field. He has already signed a contract to record with Deutsche Gramophone. And he takes is all without even the slightest note of smug self-satisfaction. He is without the tender and vulnerable ego possessed by so many artists. He simply plays. Like no one I have ever heard.
P.S. This was written on Monday July 26th. I forgot to post it. We were back in Parry Sound on the 29th and confirmed what I knew would happen: the performance of the Brahms Piano quartet got a foot-stomping standing-O
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
LETTER FROM PARRY SOUND
Roman Borys, cellist with the Grammy-winning Gryphon Trio was sitting at his laptop.
“Do you mind if I play.” I asked, pointing toward the upright piano in the room.
“”Go ahead,” he responded.
I am shameless about my piano playing. At best it is mediocre and I shouldn’t dare allow it to be heard by anyone, especially not by a truly great musician, but like I say…
I rattled off my version of the Ellington classic “Satin Doll.” I followed that with a slightly flawed rendition of “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and knocked off a bit of “When the World Was Young.” As I left I turned to Roman and asked: “Think I’m ready for a concert?”
“It was really soothing,” was his reply.
It was going to be a good day for me, doing what I love – talking to serious musicians about music. I snobbishly perhaps, use the word “serious” to indicate classical music.
It is July and I am having my annual musical feast at the Festival of The Sound. After my “recital” I adjourned to the concert hall for what night be the best concert I have ever attended. It was all cellos, plus a heart-stopping soprano voice and a fine accompanist at the piano.
It was a musical banquet for the man who above all other regrets, deplores his failure to be a good musician. That person is me. In the spirit of “Looking Ahead” I take piano lessons, one every week when I am in town. I practice daily, knowing that I will never go far musically, but relishing every new experience, every new chord voicing, and every new tune. I am making music and it is really just for me. (My virtuoso cellist was being kind and tolerant.)
I wonder sometimes if I go to Parry Sound every summer for the music. Do I go there because I can talk music to musicians? Maybe. To talk to Erica Goodman, one of the world’s great harpists is a treat. She remembers me from my radio days and expresses surprise that a guy from rock ‘n roll CHUM can actually know about classical music.
I tell her I remember her playing the Ravel Introduction and Allegro. She reminds me that he was a teenager when he wrote it, one of the seminal pieces for harp.
I exchange some French banter with Michel Strauss a cellist from Paris who brings a rare lyric quality to his playing. I congratulate Rolf Gjelsten, the cellist with the New Zealand String Quartet for his performance of “Song of Birds by Pablo Casals, accompanied by seven other cellos.
Most of all, I want to wrap my arms around the soprano, Desiree Till, who has just done an electrifying, standing-O performance of Villa Lobos” Bachianas Brasileiras #5.” Ordinarily I only tolerate singers. I am not enthralled by vocal music. But not last night. The Villa Lobos piece is for soprano and assembled cellos and was long the trademark of Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayao. But this performance surpassed anything I had ever heard. It is wordless in the beginning, then to a wonderful Fado-like “hymn” (I use the word because there is not another one to adequately describe the performance,) all in Portuguese. Then, she brings her voice down to an almost crooning pianissimo. You can hear a pin drop. My jaw drops. It is transformative.
I am watching the cellists, including Michel from Paris, and Coenrad Bloemendal who playing years ago with “Camarata,” where the Festival’s Artistic Director James Campbell, also played.
The next morning I feast on breakfast with some of those same musicians. I enjoy flutist Suzanne Shulman for her “take” on everything musical. Denis Brott sits down at our table and we have an earnest conversation about cellos and Villa Lobos and how every composer did and still does revere Bach. I was having more than breakfast. It was lunch, dinner and a late snack, a cornucopia of food for the soul – my soul at; least.
There was more and I was ready for it. Strauss and his cello with his wife Macha at the piano, and Moshe Hammer at the violin play a brilliant trio b y Ravel. I hear that cello played in the honeyed style of Tortelier and Fournier and many other great French cellists.
Perhaps most rewarding was the reaction of Tom, the grandson of my Paris friends Henri and Michele. He tends to be a little bit low-keyed and there is no “gee whiz” about him. But here, finally, he becomes aroused enough to set aside his reserve. I was reminded of the two weeks in Paris with Rachel, where I could exult in her wide-eyed response to all the sights of that City of Light. Tom gave me some of the same. His became, for him, enthusiastic. In fact, after the virtuosity of the Afiara String Quartet, four young and brilliant musicians, he shared my feeling that there was almost too much virtuosity. His moment came when James Campbell used his clarinet, playing the Brahms quintet with the rollicking Afiara quartet. His leadership slowed their headlong virtuosity and brought a calm but brilliant quality to the playing.
I know. This has been one of those self-indulgent pieces that was probably important for me to write, but far less important for you to read. I thank you, as I did Roman, for your patience.
“Do you mind if I play.” I asked, pointing toward the upright piano in the room.
“”Go ahead,” he responded.
I am shameless about my piano playing. At best it is mediocre and I shouldn’t dare allow it to be heard by anyone, especially not by a truly great musician, but like I say…
I rattled off my version of the Ellington classic “Satin Doll.” I followed that with a slightly flawed rendition of “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and knocked off a bit of “When the World Was Young.” As I left I turned to Roman and asked: “Think I’m ready for a concert?”
“It was really soothing,” was his reply.
It was going to be a good day for me, doing what I love – talking to serious musicians about music. I snobbishly perhaps, use the word “serious” to indicate classical music.
It is July and I am having my annual musical feast at the Festival of The Sound. After my “recital” I adjourned to the concert hall for what night be the best concert I have ever attended. It was all cellos, plus a heart-stopping soprano voice and a fine accompanist at the piano.
It was a musical banquet for the man who above all other regrets, deplores his failure to be a good musician. That person is me. In the spirit of “Looking Ahead” I take piano lessons, one every week when I am in town. I practice daily, knowing that I will never go far musically, but relishing every new experience, every new chord voicing, and every new tune. I am making music and it is really just for me. (My virtuoso cellist was being kind and tolerant.)
I wonder sometimes if I go to Parry Sound every summer for the music. Do I go there because I can talk music to musicians? Maybe. To talk to Erica Goodman, one of the world’s great harpists is a treat. She remembers me from my radio days and expresses surprise that a guy from rock ‘n roll CHUM can actually know about classical music.
I tell her I remember her playing the Ravel Introduction and Allegro. She reminds me that he was a teenager when he wrote it, one of the seminal pieces for harp.
I exchange some French banter with Michel Strauss a cellist from Paris who brings a rare lyric quality to his playing. I congratulate Rolf Gjelsten, the cellist with the New Zealand String Quartet for his performance of “Song of Birds by Pablo Casals, accompanied by seven other cellos.
Most of all, I want to wrap my arms around the soprano, Desiree Till, who has just done an electrifying, standing-O performance of Villa Lobos” Bachianas Brasileiras #5.” Ordinarily I only tolerate singers. I am not enthralled by vocal music. But not last night. The Villa Lobos piece is for soprano and assembled cellos and was long the trademark of Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayao. But this performance surpassed anything I had ever heard. It is wordless in the beginning, then to a wonderful Fado-like “hymn” (I use the word because there is not another one to adequately describe the performance,) all in Portuguese. Then, she brings her voice down to an almost crooning pianissimo. You can hear a pin drop. My jaw drops. It is transformative.
I am watching the cellists, including Michel from Paris, and Coenrad Bloemendal who playing years ago with “Camarata,” where the Festival’s Artistic Director James Campbell, also played.
The next morning I feast on breakfast with some of those same musicians. I enjoy flutist Suzanne Shulman for her “take” on everything musical. Denis Brott sits down at our table and we have an earnest conversation about cellos and Villa Lobos and how every composer did and still does revere Bach. I was having more than breakfast. It was lunch, dinner and a late snack, a cornucopia of food for the soul – my soul at; least.
There was more and I was ready for it. Strauss and his cello with his wife Macha at the piano, and Moshe Hammer at the violin play a brilliant trio b y Ravel. I hear that cello played in the honeyed style of Tortelier and Fournier and many other great French cellists.
Perhaps most rewarding was the reaction of Tom, the grandson of my Paris friends Henri and Michele. He tends to be a little bit low-keyed and there is no “gee whiz” about him. But here, finally, he becomes aroused enough to set aside his reserve. I was reminded of the two weeks in Paris with Rachel, where I could exult in her wide-eyed response to all the sights of that City of Light. Tom gave me some of the same. His became, for him, enthusiastic. In fact, after the virtuosity of the Afiara String Quartet, four young and brilliant musicians, he shared my feeling that there was almost too much virtuosity. His moment came when James Campbell used his clarinet, playing the Brahms quintet with the rollicking Afiara quartet. His leadership slowed their headlong virtuosity and brought a calm but brilliant quality to the playing.
I know. This has been one of those self-indulgent pieces that was probably important for me to write, but far less important for you to read. I thank you, as I did Roman, for your patience.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
DESPAIR
There is something both pathetic and disturbing about what I heard yesterday while sitting in the emergency room at a local hospital. The story is an old one. It has been written about many times. It has been at the heart of a continuing controversy over civil rights. It is one of our perhaps insoluble social problems. What do you do with the lost and fallen, the destitute and hopeless, the addicted and the forlorn? The city is full of the jetsam of society and we won’t or can’t do anything about it.
The emergency beds are separated by curtains to provide some privacy. But curtains are not soundproof. You are aware of almost everything. Sometimes it is not for the squeamish.
“Open your eyes. Do you know where you are?”
Groans and unintelligible response.
“You were found unconscious in a courtyard with your pants at your ankles.”
More groans.
“What did you take?”
Muffled response.
What we heard was a very patient nurse trying to quiet, comfort, and perhaps treat what sounded like a woman who had been beaten or raped or drugged or all three. It went on for the better part of half an hour, the nurse calling for security to help, I inferred from the yelling and struggling, and the woman shouting that she wanted to get up and leave, that the hospital had as much as it could handle. She was in no condition to leave.
In another cubicle a male voice, perhaps a doctor was heard: “Did you take your methadone?” The man was obviously a druggie and in urgent need of medical care. An exhausted-looking policewoman was sitting outside the cubicle. She had, I presume, brought the man into emergency.
Later I commented to a nurse: “All you can do is to treat them, get them back to some kind of normalcy, and then let them return to the street. That is what happens, unless the person was brought in by police which suggests that some crime had been committed. But even in those cases, the person is released into the public stream once the condition has been treated, and the jail term, if there is one, has been served.
The nurse responded with a kind of “I know I know” despair. But she said the hospital has a great social worker. That simply doesn’t go far enough, and their hands are tied by the double-barreled issues of civil liberty, and government failure. If a patient in emergency, someone who often has made similar visits, wants to leave, he/she is entitled to do so. Unless a crime has been committed or the patient is deemed to be a danger, she can not be apprehended. Such is the nature of civil liberty.
But there is a much larger issue here. It speaks to the problem of the homeless, the crisis of drug and alcohol abuse, the even more profound problem of mental illness. It reflects on our inability to contain these problems, both for the good of society and the needless pressure on the health system, and the overriding reality of the dregs of our society.
It has been many years since different jurisdictions began closing mental institutions, either because it was deemed a violation of civil rights to incarcerate the unwilling, or that the government decided that people would be better off in the community where they could be treated. For the latter we have, in Ontario, to thank the Harris government for their blindness. They claimed that the community services could treat these people. So mental institutions were closed but no community service was in place.
I understand that civil liberties groups oppose apprehension and detention of these people on the grounds that such action could be used to incarcerate anyone you didn’t like as long as a court or medical service, agreed that they constituted a danger. That is the thin edge of the wedge of dictatorship.
.
But what are we to do? I have enough trust in our court system and our medical people, to believe that the only way these chronic social problems can be dealt with, is to confine these people for their own good. By “confine” I don’t mean held behind bars. I simply mean that they should be treated as humanely and generously as possible, while at the same time removing them until such time as they can be put back into the mainstream. In many cases, there are virtually incurable people whose only hope is to be put into some kind of permanent care. Civil liberties be damned. We simply can’t have people curled up drunk on the sidewalk at noon, or found unconscious in a courtyard, and carted off to a hospital where upon recovery, are sent back out again. It simply makes no sense.
The emergency beds are separated by curtains to provide some privacy. But curtains are not soundproof. You are aware of almost everything. Sometimes it is not for the squeamish.
“Open your eyes. Do you know where you are?”
Groans and unintelligible response.
“You were found unconscious in a courtyard with your pants at your ankles.”
More groans.
“What did you take?”
Muffled response.
What we heard was a very patient nurse trying to quiet, comfort, and perhaps treat what sounded like a woman who had been beaten or raped or drugged or all three. It went on for the better part of half an hour, the nurse calling for security to help, I inferred from the yelling and struggling, and the woman shouting that she wanted to get up and leave, that the hospital had as much as it could handle. She was in no condition to leave.
In another cubicle a male voice, perhaps a doctor was heard: “Did you take your methadone?” The man was obviously a druggie and in urgent need of medical care. An exhausted-looking policewoman was sitting outside the cubicle. She had, I presume, brought the man into emergency.
Later I commented to a nurse: “All you can do is to treat them, get them back to some kind of normalcy, and then let them return to the street. That is what happens, unless the person was brought in by police which suggests that some crime had been committed. But even in those cases, the person is released into the public stream once the condition has been treated, and the jail term, if there is one, has been served.
The nurse responded with a kind of “I know I know” despair. But she said the hospital has a great social worker. That simply doesn’t go far enough, and their hands are tied by the double-barreled issues of civil liberty, and government failure. If a patient in emergency, someone who often has made similar visits, wants to leave, he/she is entitled to do so. Unless a crime has been committed or the patient is deemed to be a danger, she can not be apprehended. Such is the nature of civil liberty.
But there is a much larger issue here. It speaks to the problem of the homeless, the crisis of drug and alcohol abuse, the even more profound problem of mental illness. It reflects on our inability to contain these problems, both for the good of society and the needless pressure on the health system, and the overriding reality of the dregs of our society.
It has been many years since different jurisdictions began closing mental institutions, either because it was deemed a violation of civil rights to incarcerate the unwilling, or that the government decided that people would be better off in the community where they could be treated. For the latter we have, in Ontario, to thank the Harris government for their blindness. They claimed that the community services could treat these people. So mental institutions were closed but no community service was in place.
I understand that civil liberties groups oppose apprehension and detention of these people on the grounds that such action could be used to incarcerate anyone you didn’t like as long as a court or medical service, agreed that they constituted a danger. That is the thin edge of the wedge of dictatorship.
.
But what are we to do? I have enough trust in our court system and our medical people, to believe that the only way these chronic social problems can be dealt with, is to confine these people for their own good. By “confine” I don’t mean held behind bars. I simply mean that they should be treated as humanely and generously as possible, while at the same time removing them until such time as they can be put back into the mainstream. In many cases, there are virtually incurable people whose only hope is to be put into some kind of permanent care. Civil liberties be damned. We simply can’t have people curled up drunk on the sidewalk at noon, or found unconscious in a courtyard, and carted off to a hospital where upon recovery, are sent back out again. It simply makes no sense.
Monday, July 12, 2010
JUST THE HARD FACTS PLEASE
For the past three months I have been at peace. I have lived in another environment, met a different kind of person, and shared, as much as a visitor can, the culture and personal climate of another country. But that is all over and I’m back to the more familiar often controversial reality.
(If you stayed on my blog for the letters from Paris, but don’t want my characteristic rants, let me know and I’ll remove your name from my list. Which would mean that when the “letters” get published in book form, you will not receive a free copy.)
It is true that most of us seek out people who share a common cause with us. We look for an affirmation of our opinions and ideas. Most of us find it difficult to spend too much time with people who constantly disagree with us, unless you are some kind of sadist.
So for my political companionship I look to people like Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in Economics who writes OpEd for the New York Times. Before I read Krugman’s take on the G20 resolution about deficits, I had already formed an opinion. (Only my sojourn in Paris made me keep my mouth shut.)
I didn’t need Krugman to tell me that the orthodox point of view about deficits was useless and downright destructive. My first response to the G20 announcement was: “Here we go again. Using countries like Greece and Spain, who are in dire financial straits, the “orthodox” decide it’s because they have spent too much money on social safety nets and have impoverished their country. So we get to the same old same old: when times are tough we ask everyone to “tighten their belts.” We seldom ask the affluent to tighten up because that would mean taxing them to pay for social concerns, you know, silly stuff like health care, education, day care, an horror of horrors – welfare. The first to get it when the going gets rough are the ones least able to cope. (I will not get into the futile argument about lazy people and people who want a free ride. The huge bonusses to Wall street manipulators should end the argument)
I am, while not an economist, an old fashioned Keynesian. There is nothing wrong with deficits when the economy needs a boost. And when the times are prosperous, we should be putting money aside. We don’t of course. We hand it all back to the taxpayers, especially the people in the high tax brackets.
To digress: in every developed country there is some kind of national bank. In the U.S. it’s the Fed and here it’s the Bank of Canada. They can have more effect on policy than the government. They operate outside the political arena and can, in a small but effective way, accomplish a lot by manipulating interest rates and the money supply. Only one problem: lower interest rates have failed to encourage manufacturers to produce more because with a diminished consumer market they have fewer people to sell their goods to. I have no argument with that reality.
Obama, and many other leaders, have decided that it is time for the Free Market to take over. It is time to reduce unemployment by relying on the private sector to create those jobs. In the meantime, in spite of conflicting political pressures, the one who should be creating jobs should be the public sector. What ever happened to deficits in a good cause? What ever happened to the creation, not only of make-work projects, but to subsidize the enrichment of the infrastructure. Better transit, high speed rail, more and better schools? Meanwhile there is that “orthodox” hue and cry: “Our children’s children will be paying for our big spending. We are burdening the next generation with our mistakes.” How about: “We are right now burdening the population as a whole with the decline in employment and the reduction in social and community services.” I know, we blow our Canadian horn here because our unemployment rate is lower than the U.S. That reality is as much a matter of good luck as it is good management. Tell it to a guy who lives in St. Thomas where the car makers upped and left. Or in St. Jerome where they did the same, or in St. Catharines, where they have announced a new program but the new jobs won’t make up for the ones that were lost,
a sidebar to the argument: many of Obama's advisors are telling him that bigger deficits don't go down well with the public at election time. Surveys are showing that the American people are worried about deficits, thanks to the incessant pressure from highly-paid lobbyists. So the future of a country can be dictated by the pressing need to stay in power!
Finally, Krugman is right. We need a heavy dose of deficit financing. But this time let’s not make the same mistake by giving money away when the economy improves.
(If you stayed on my blog for the letters from Paris, but don’t want my characteristic rants, let me know and I’ll remove your name from my list. Which would mean that when the “letters” get published in book form, you will not receive a free copy.)
It is true that most of us seek out people who share a common cause with us. We look for an affirmation of our opinions and ideas. Most of us find it difficult to spend too much time with people who constantly disagree with us, unless you are some kind of sadist.
So for my political companionship I look to people like Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in Economics who writes OpEd for the New York Times. Before I read Krugman’s take on the G20 resolution about deficits, I had already formed an opinion. (Only my sojourn in Paris made me keep my mouth shut.)
I didn’t need Krugman to tell me that the orthodox point of view about deficits was useless and downright destructive. My first response to the G20 announcement was: “Here we go again. Using countries like Greece and Spain, who are in dire financial straits, the “orthodox” decide it’s because they have spent too much money on social safety nets and have impoverished their country. So we get to the same old same old: when times are tough we ask everyone to “tighten their belts.” We seldom ask the affluent to tighten up because that would mean taxing them to pay for social concerns, you know, silly stuff like health care, education, day care, an horror of horrors – welfare. The first to get it when the going gets rough are the ones least able to cope. (I will not get into the futile argument about lazy people and people who want a free ride. The huge bonusses to Wall street manipulators should end the argument)
I am, while not an economist, an old fashioned Keynesian. There is nothing wrong with deficits when the economy needs a boost. And when the times are prosperous, we should be putting money aside. We don’t of course. We hand it all back to the taxpayers, especially the people in the high tax brackets.
To digress: in every developed country there is some kind of national bank. In the U.S. it’s the Fed and here it’s the Bank of Canada. They can have more effect on policy than the government. They operate outside the political arena and can, in a small but effective way, accomplish a lot by manipulating interest rates and the money supply. Only one problem: lower interest rates have failed to encourage manufacturers to produce more because with a diminished consumer market they have fewer people to sell their goods to. I have no argument with that reality.
Obama, and many other leaders, have decided that it is time for the Free Market to take over. It is time to reduce unemployment by relying on the private sector to create those jobs. In the meantime, in spite of conflicting political pressures, the one who should be creating jobs should be the public sector. What ever happened to deficits in a good cause? What ever happened to the creation, not only of make-work projects, but to subsidize the enrichment of the infrastructure. Better transit, high speed rail, more and better schools? Meanwhile there is that “orthodox” hue and cry: “Our children’s children will be paying for our big spending. We are burdening the next generation with our mistakes.” How about: “We are right now burdening the population as a whole with the decline in employment and the reduction in social and community services.” I know, we blow our Canadian horn here because our unemployment rate is lower than the U.S. That reality is as much a matter of good luck as it is good management. Tell it to a guy who lives in St. Thomas where the car makers upped and left. Or in St. Jerome where they did the same, or in St. Catharines, where they have announced a new program but the new jobs won’t make up for the ones that were lost,
a sidebar to the argument: many of Obama's advisors are telling him that bigger deficits don't go down well with the public at election time. Surveys are showing that the American people are worried about deficits, thanks to the incessant pressure from highly-paid lobbyists. So the future of a country can be dictated by the pressing need to stay in power!
Finally, Krugman is right. We need a heavy dose of deficit financing. But this time let’s not make the same mistake by giving money away when the economy improves.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
LETTERS FROM PARIS #42 - A fitting end.
This is where we all began. The plaque on the stone gate all that is left of the original city wall – reads: “From here Samuel de Champlain went to Canada.”
We are in the final leg of our sojourn in this country: beautiful old port city of Honfleur. Today it has those 14th century bu8ildings, timbered in what we call Tudor style. It also has more restaurants per square foot than I have ever seen.
The city has about it an ineffable kind of welcoming feeling. Everyone seems to be glad to be there. Everyone working there is glad we are glad. I exult in all the tourists, commenting to Henri that everyone seems to be from France. There it is again: that stubborn sense that if it's French it must have value. Forgive me.
The next day, in our hotel, I hear English. Sure enough, because it is just across the channel (the Manche) there must be many visitors from England. They speak no French and express their admiration for what sounds (to them least) like unaccented fluency. Two couples tell me that they are heading to Canada next year, probably to Vancouver and the sight of the mountains. With apologies to everyone in our version of lotus-land, I tell them that if I had my choice, I’d see the East. There is more variety, more history, and the people – well – not at all like the smug Vancouverites who insist that they live where everyone else wants to. I tell them about Nova Scotia’s south shore; I tell then m about the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton, about the Gaspe, and above all, about the people and their special enjoyment of where they live. More history too I tell them – dating back to the earliest colonies in Canada.
Now, from being an almost relentless Francophile, I become a promoter of my own country. It feels good. Like looking at a plaque to Champlain feels good. My romance may be with France but my heart is still at home.
We finally made it to Normandy. Not to the D-Day beaches, but to Etratat where Seurat and Monet painted the famous stony beach with the memorable cliffs and the very special rock formation that arches from the cliff into the sea and invites you to look through the same hole than Monet painted. (But I figure if Monet had been Canadian he would have immortalized Nez Perce in the Gaspesie.)
To turn travel writer/agent for a moment: the best way to see Normandy, is to have a good friend who knows it and loves it and can’t wait to show it to you. Henri and Michele take us on the trip, first to Etretat where we marvel at the rocks and the enormous cliffs. They drive to the top of one where we could perhaps on a very clear day, see England. But Etretat is not enough. Henri loves driving quickly on narrow winding roads. We find ourselves in two more little seaside towns looking at the same stony beaches and the same dominating “Falaises.” Notwithstanding the distraction of the magnificent view, the French are out in force sunning themselves, frolicking in the water, and idling comfortably at the dozens of cafes, brasseries, and taverns that cover the waterfront.
He leads us then to Honfleur, the old city that sprawls forever upward along steeply angled hills. He makes sure we see all the art, because everyone seems to come to Normandy to paint. The high point is the Eugene Boudin museum. There are hundreds of paintings by 19th century painters, many of whom I have never heard of. The museum represents them all from the Barbizon school of Corot to the post impressionism of Dufy. There is even a Braque from his pre-cubist period. And Henri is everywhere, criticizing and complimenting, always the artist and always the critic. Again, it’s the good part of having someone you know lead you around.
We head back toward Paris, but first they have to show us the onetime playgounr of the aristocracy: Deauville. Still beautiful. Still with one of the best beaches because it is huge and unlike Etretat, all soft sand.
So perhaps there is more to France than Paris. Perhaps it is high time that I experienced the towering hills and cliffs of Normandy. If you want really to feel it – you have to do something French. And they do it. They enjoy their country as fully as they can.
But wait - don’t the people of Lunenburg feel the same way? Don’t the people of Vancouver, in spite of that smug self-congratulation, feel deeply about where they live? I meet people who enjoy living in Hamilton. There are those for whom Kingston is the only place to be. And we argue, often about the Montrealer’s devout belief that only that city knows how to make a bagel or smoked meat. I am sorry if I have omitted so many Canadians who could tell how they love being where they are, and what they are.
Me too.
We are in the final leg of our sojourn in this country: beautiful old port city of Honfleur. Today it has those 14th century bu8ildings, timbered in what we call Tudor style. It also has more restaurants per square foot than I have ever seen.
The city has about it an ineffable kind of welcoming feeling. Everyone seems to be glad to be there. Everyone working there is glad we are glad. I exult in all the tourists, commenting to Henri that everyone seems to be from France. There it is again: that stubborn sense that if it's French it must have value. Forgive me.
The next day, in our hotel, I hear English. Sure enough, because it is just across the channel (the Manche) there must be many visitors from England. They speak no French and express their admiration for what sounds (to them least) like unaccented fluency. Two couples tell me that they are heading to Canada next year, probably to Vancouver and the sight of the mountains. With apologies to everyone in our version of lotus-land, I tell them that if I had my choice, I’d see the East. There is more variety, more history, and the people – well – not at all like the smug Vancouverites who insist that they live where everyone else wants to. I tell them about Nova Scotia’s south shore; I tell then m about the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton, about the Gaspe, and above all, about the people and their special enjoyment of where they live. More history too I tell them – dating back to the earliest colonies in Canada.
Now, from being an almost relentless Francophile, I become a promoter of my own country. It feels good. Like looking at a plaque to Champlain feels good. My romance may be with France but my heart is still at home.
We finally made it to Normandy. Not to the D-Day beaches, but to Etratat where Seurat and Monet painted the famous stony beach with the memorable cliffs and the very special rock formation that arches from the cliff into the sea and invites you to look through the same hole than Monet painted. (But I figure if Monet had been Canadian he would have immortalized Nez Perce in the Gaspesie.)
To turn travel writer/agent for a moment: the best way to see Normandy, is to have a good friend who knows it and loves it and can’t wait to show it to you. Henri and Michele take us on the trip, first to Etretat where we marvel at the rocks and the enormous cliffs. They drive to the top of one where we could perhaps on a very clear day, see England. But Etretat is not enough. Henri loves driving quickly on narrow winding roads. We find ourselves in two more little seaside towns looking at the same stony beaches and the same dominating “Falaises.” Notwithstanding the distraction of the magnificent view, the French are out in force sunning themselves, frolicking in the water, and idling comfortably at the dozens of cafes, brasseries, and taverns that cover the waterfront.
He leads us then to Honfleur, the old city that sprawls forever upward along steeply angled hills. He makes sure we see all the art, because everyone seems to come to Normandy to paint. The high point is the Eugene Boudin museum. There are hundreds of paintings by 19th century painters, many of whom I have never heard of. The museum represents them all from the Barbizon school of Corot to the post impressionism of Dufy. There is even a Braque from his pre-cubist period. And Henri is everywhere, criticizing and complimenting, always the artist and always the critic. Again, it’s the good part of having someone you know lead you around.
We head back toward Paris, but first they have to show us the onetime playgounr of the aristocracy: Deauville. Still beautiful. Still with one of the best beaches because it is huge and unlike Etretat, all soft sand.
So perhaps there is more to France than Paris. Perhaps it is high time that I experienced the towering hills and cliffs of Normandy. If you want really to feel it – you have to do something French. And they do it. They enjoy their country as fully as they can.
But wait - don’t the people of Lunenburg feel the same way? Don’t the people of Vancouver, in spite of that smug self-congratulation, feel deeply about where they live? I meet people who enjoy living in Hamilton. There are those for whom Kingston is the only place to be. And we argue, often about the Montrealer’s devout belief that only that city knows how to make a bagel or smoked meat. I am sorry if I have omitted so many Canadians who could tell how they love being where they are, and what they are.
Me too.
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