Going Backwards Through Life

There's a wonderful book about Uncle Lubin's Adventure's reprinted from the last century. Uncle Lubin is designated babysitter of Little Peter who drinks his babybrew out of a distillery bottle with a bent pipe. However, Uncle Lubin falls asleep while telling Little Peter tales and the BagBird swoops down from the tree to carry the screaming baby off to the far reaches of the universe.

The Adventures of Uncle Lubin
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879238844/104-0273809-6566326?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance
illustrated by Heath Robinson

Woodpeckers are like that. Each time you get your camera sighted on one perched at the top of the tree, he looks down and laughs at your futile attempt to catch him. So it was by luck that I caught the yeffler laughing at me out in the garden because he knows that I am going through life backwards.

For instance, not so long ago someone led me into a room where there were two Madame Steinways rather than a klanky Petrof or bad Kimball or rattling Kawasaki, and sat down and played for me. I felt like the bag-lady had gone dumpster-diving for clothes and come up with a prince. Since then, I've revised this opinion to think that Baba Yaga has taken a fall for the FrogPrince; but I can find no story in which Baba Yaga finds a frog as she is too busy eating little children for breakfast.

And I've reassured myself a thousand times that frogs are fond of hopping.

However, let us say that he works some magic on Frau Steinway and I am relatively enchanted by the musical web he spins. If I knew how to upload files, I'd put some up, but they will have to wait until Baba Yaga learns to sing again.


That only partially explains the backward momentum of my life. Once I did know how to sing, but after visiting a village called Vignola a few kilometers outside of Bologna, my Selbstbewusstsein is rather vernichtet... by a Baba Yaga called Mirella Freni.


So I will have to write this episode in retropective rather than in progressive motion. If you are a singer or wish to be a singer, save your pennies and euros and do not tread there. An ogre lives within the castle walls and you are better off hunting for the Janowitz or Fassbaender rather than the Baba Yaga of Northern Italy.

To put it succinctly-- it was a farce.

nearly all the singers at the audition were her own students. It was self-evident as they chatted each other up while waiting in the hall, and there was really no interest in us, the strangers.

Although we were promised two arias, we sang but one. If you have ever sat in a hall for three hours before an audition and listened to the wildcats howl off pitch on both side of your eardrums, then you know that the wisest thing is to sing the most secure, reliable piece first and then jump to your showpiece.

She had no interest at all, was rude and talked through the aria... worse than kids in a movie theater or the landlady's daughter who sits outside my door every morning and talks on her cellphone.

that bad...

and it was expensive-- say about 14,000 Czech crowns in transportation and accomodation... so because I am pissed, really pissed at this little farce, I will write about it becaue for me it took more than money to prepare for the sudden journey-- it took courage to break the silence of more than ten years in which I never sang and all the music was packed in boxes until the 28th October when the little frog appeared and led me into a room with two Steinways.

And truly nothing ever wins a singer's heart more than having the choice between two beautiful pianos situated in a concert hall and played by a--well, charming pianist.


And even if I could not sing, he could play which was inspiring and brought the voice out of its hiding place.

So if you don't mind, I will detail this little episode in retrospect...

and the pianist, well, he is very good; but his past needs to be forgotten so that he can have a future and fulfill his ambition as a concert pianist, so moment on I will not say who he is.