Week 23: March 2

Early this week I went out and grabbed a virtual on Ferry Plaza. The air was damp, the sky low and the water restless.

Ship in the distance (can you see it?)

Getting closer

Really close

Gull 1

Gull 2

I found this funny. Reminds me of Chinglish.

We are learning about the Middle Ages in Western Civ class, so this week Dr Hohmann brought a real sword to class and dubbed Nick a knight with it. This was doubly fitting because Maddy's name for Nick is already "Nickith" and now it is "Sir Nickith". The most entertaining class all semester, even though according to another professor, we are much too young to be learning about middle ages.....Do any of you readers between the ages of 40 and 65 live in a castle??

This week my quartet also played in the chamber masterclass. There are twelve teachers at this class, members of both the string and piano faculty, and they take turns working with the groups, although none of them have any qualms about jumping right in when they have something to say. Often they will get into discussions and debates with each other, and they all have wonderful stories to tell about their experiences playing these pieces. I love the energy that comes from two or three or four passionate musicians working with you at once. Everyone seemed to like our quartet - in fact, after we played, one of the viola teachers said, "I can't believe I've never heard this piece before! It's great!" I like playing little-known pieces. It's refreshing for the audience and you can take more liberties as performers.

I was killing time in the school library the other day and found myself browsing through all sorts of interesting things. Some of them were so funny I had to come back the next day with my camera.

Unfortunate name

Some of the periodicals crack me up. The Lute Society???

Do we have a Canadian Viola Society?

There is a whole magazine devoted to this.

That's a lot of medical problems

This is the auto detailing place across the street from school. See if you can find the misspelled word. If you find it, email me for a prize. Bonus points if you find 2 misspelled words.

I was out looking for a brand-new cache in SOMA yesterday and found a little streetside poem.

Also yesterday I played in a composition student's grad recital. I was subbing for a classmate who had to drop out at the last minute. So I picked up the music yesterday morning, put in some fingerings and made mistakes in the dress rehearsal but not in the concert. The piece was called "Silence" which I found ironic. If it's music, isn't that by definition not silent? There were six movements to the piece:

The Silence of the Stars
The Silence of Defeat
The Silence of the Sick
The Silence of Age
The Silence between Father and Son
The Silence of Death

Cheerful, eh?? We were playing in the pit and there were dancers on stage, but I couldn't see what they were doing because I was too busy counting. Luckily there were not that many notes so it was okay. For some reason at the reception afterwards there were cases and cases of "Kombucha" or "hippie juice" as the others called it. It has live bacteria cultures in it and is supposed to be very good for you. I tried it but it tasted like vinegar.

This evening I went to a geo-event at Yerba Buena Gardens. I met some local cachers, a couple from Austria and the event host who was from Slovakia. Geo-events are extremely revealing as to the nature of the sport, and of the people who do it. You can show up to an event by yourself, without knowing a single person there, and spend hours chatting with the other cachers as if you've been friends for years. I picked up a few hints for puzzles I've been working on, heard some urban lore about prolific SF cachers, and was told about the "Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Challenge" which sounds like an absolutely fantastically glorious adventure.

Oh, how awesome the sky looks

The "Shaking Man" where we met

At this point I am not yet sure how many of these people are cachers

This one definitely is

So is this one

Shaking Man gone Geo

Geocachers tend to be down-to-earth, outdoor-loving, somewhat quirky, generally likable people with real appreciation for the little things in life. Being around them and talking about hikes and power trails and challenges reminds me of why I really do this. It's not just about getting on the train, finding a little container on a street corner, writing your name and going home; it's about adventure, it's about exploring wild spaces and trekking over hill and dale and getting into the Real World, the Interesting and Exciting and Amazing World.

There is something funny that I always see on the way to Yerba Buena Gardens and only now have I remembered to take a picture of it. There is a hamburger place just outside the gardens and their advertisement on the wall looks like this:

But since the word is painted over two doors, and that "G" is on the part of the wall that sticks out.....when you approach from the southwest (which is what I normally do) the advertisement looks like this:

BUT I DON'T WANNA GO TO THE BUGER JOINT!!!

Myself, I find this hysterically funny. Others may not find it so. My apologies.


Anyway, I wish I was already retired so that I could just go on awesome adventures and hikes and explorations and life-risking missions and glorious cache-finding sprees all the time.


- Antisocial Violinist

Week 22: February 23

This Friday I performed in a production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor". Our graduate student conductor had gotten together a little orchestra and some singers to perform the second act, and this week we had a couple of rehearsals and pulled off the show. It was a lot of fun and some great music, although I find the Italian gibberish highly amusing (opera characters really like to shout at each other).

Yesterday I went out to the Embarcadero with a friend, to introduce her to geocaching. The limpid late-afternoon light was lazily lapping the Bay......and the day was clear and bright.

Fully loaded

Then today I had the greatest adventure of the month so far. I woke up at 6am, went to 7:30 mass at St Patrick's, then met Nick and Maddy at the CalTrain station and went expeditioning down to San Jose for a competition. We had an awesome time studying the maps, hiking through the city and arguing over which way to go. The CalTrain is a LOT of fun to ride as it's a real train, with two levels.

AWESOME!!!

                                                

We sat on the top. There's a guy sleeping in the lower level

Luggage racks, just like an airplane

Explorers!!

Found this in the SJ station

Dorks on a train

"Zanker Road"

Coyote Creek!!

The competition atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, and there were only eighteen of us, and this afternoon I got an email informing me that I had tied for second place, and that Nick had gotten an honourable mention. So it was a good day for SFCM and for Ian's studio and for the Three Explorers and for my bank account.

- Antisocial Violinist

Week 21: February 16

Interesting Things I Did This Week:
- found out that the reason Ian snorts when he laughs is because his father's from New Jersey
- went sightseeing in the Byzantine Empire
- fought and defeated a frost giant
- watched a colleague's junior recital (many of you know this girl, originally from Armstrong BC)
- single-handedly knocked down a whole bridge, rebuilt it, knocked it down again and re-rebuilt it
- watched four great civilizations build themselves from scratch and then make violent war against each other


Uninteresting Things I Did This Week:

- attended Western Civilization classes
- chipped a whole lot of ice out of our freezer
- accidentally knocked my violin bridge over TWICE while trying to straighten it
- managed to put the bridge back in the same place (I think)
- was introduced to the online multiplayer game "Age of Empires" by Maddy, Nick, Paul and Oscar


If you look closely, you might be able to spot a few parallels between the two lists above. You may choose which you believe - for myself, the first list is unquestionably preferable.

Friday was Valentine's Day and while striking the orchestra after rehearsal I came across this on one of the stands.

My kind of valentine

Also I would like to (finally) introduce you to my humble little parish on Fell Street, of which I have grown quite fond. The community is small, close-knit and very friendly, and many of the parishioners have been attending here for their whole lives.

Little place squeezed between buildings....easy to miss

They have to gate it to discourage vandals

Ta-daa....the teeny temple

I usually sit up here in the balcony with the choir and organ. That's my music on the stand

View from the balcony. I think that dome with the cross looks like a scoop of ice cream

The parish hall, which ALWAYS has Christmas decorations up, no matter the season. Must be because it's "Church of the Nativity"

Things I can't read

More things I can't read

Here is something funny my mother sent me. If you are not a musician, my apologies. Please email me for an explanation of the joke.

- Antisocial Violinist

Week 20: February 9

This week something happened which has revolutionized my life here at SFCM. I have re-entered the company of the greatest of all musicians and have once again taken up my study of the most noble of all arts. Read: I........have.........a............Chamber Group!! Let me tell you the story. Last term, Maddy and Nick were in a string quartet with two other guys. This term one of the guys dropped the course and the other opted for a more advanced group (he's an upperclassman). As soon as I heard about this, I immediately volunteered myself as Oscar's replacement, and after a few days during which the coach hemmed and hawed and tested me out, I was approved, and we began intensive rehearsals.

Now wait a minute, you may be thinking. Didn't two guys drop out? Yes indeed, very observant you all are to be sure. Here's the explanation: The quartet our coach assigned us is Hindemith no. 1 op. 10 in f minor, one of Hindemith's earliest works, and he (our coach, Paul) has a personal connection to the piece because his father's quartet was the first group ever to record the work, in 1950 (it was written in 1918). Paul's father played viola, as does he, and he told us that he has been trying for thirty years to get a group together to play this piece (possibly a slight exaggeration), and now that he has people who want to do it, he's not going to miss the chance to play it himself. So, not only do I get to play with my two best friends in SF so far (who are both also wonderful musicians), but I get to play with a FACULTY member who usually only plays with graduate students in the Chamber Music program.

And that's the story of how I wormed my way into a super-fun, super-intensive chamber group without actually registering in the chamber course.

It has been raining pretty steadily for the past several days, so I cannot go on any gloriously indulgent expeditions and do not have any panoramic photos to share. I have, however, been making little sorties and side trips around my usual errands, getting a few caches here and there, and I did see one or two interesting things.

When my dad was in junior high, he had a friend who was a big fan of "Bibbo Baggins"

This place does not sell shrimp which I found extremely disappointing

Today was the feast day of St Blaise, which is apparently the biggest Croatian feast day next to Easter and Christmas. Have I ever mentioned that I go to a little Slavic church here? Well, I do, and the Croatian half of the community had organized a mini-festival in the church hall. There was lots of Croatian food, desserts, wine and entertainment - mostly singing folk songs and reciting poetry. I couldn't understand any of it, but the music was great, and there was one fellow who was quite a talented accordion player. There are a couple of other students who also go to church there, and we had a fine time mingling with the community and dancing to the polkas. I even won a raffle prize which had a bunch of teas and cookies in it and also a Trader Joe's gift card.

One of these days I should show you all my little church where I play violin. I think the only reason I haven't taken any pictures of it yet is because a camera is not exactly the first thing that springs to mind when gathering items for church.

Maddy went shopping in Japantown a few days ago and bought a bunch of weird food including quail eggs.

So TINY!!

 Not a lot of interesting pictures this week so here is something funny I found on the internet. I have become hyper-sensitive to Canadian stereotypes since moving here.

And last but not least, SHOUT OUT to the Most Marvelously Masterful Mary and her Cheery, Chipper Cello, winners of the Frank Simpson Concerto Competition 2014!!!

- Antisocial Violinist

Week 19: February 2

On Tuesday I went up to Bernal Hill to look for two mystery caches I solved recently. I didn’t find either one, which means I’ll have to go back and look again eventually, but that neighbourhood is so quirky and unique that I don’t mind at all. 

Fog pouring over Twin Peaks

The cherry trees are all in bloom, and so I picked up a branch that had fallen on the ground and stuck it into my backpack. 

My shadow with the cherry branch

I ride the subway almost every day, and I’m starting to get used to seeing these little guys sharing the space.

Hello there

Waiting for the train

On Saturday was the baroque concerto competition. I played Vivaldi “Il Grosso Mogul” (mogul being a reference to the Great Mughal Empire in India, and the second movement having a distinctly Indian/gypsy flavour). There were only four entries in the competition, and we are all going to get to play with the orchestra! I fell in love with this piece at first hearing, and I am super excited about performing it on a REAL baroque violin, with a REAL baroque orchestra. Here is the link, so you can see how cool it is.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sj82EhiU-Q

Last night was Nick’s freshman recital. Among other things, he played a rarely-performed Borodin sonata, which is based on the g minor fugue subject from the first Bach sonata for solo violin. It was really cool to hear what Borodin had done with this motif. Here is a link to that as well: if you know the Bach fugue, you’ll be delighted, and even if you don’t, it’s still a pretty neat piece. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVcRH5cVRF4

Today Maddy, Nick and I went to the Exploratorium because they were having a free day. This is a science-centre type place filled with really interesting exhibits demonstrating the various properties of electricity, magnetism, various forms of light, human perceptions, phenomenons of nature, physics and mechanical devices. We didn’t get to see nearly everything before closing time, but we still had a great time, and even found the “Currents Flow” cache next to the outdoor exhibit.

Didn't find out what this was for.

I found this very appropriate to geocaching.

This is, unfortunately, what happens to the swag in a lot of geocaches.

This is made of TOOTHPICKS.

Hey, the GGB!

 - Antisocial Violinist