This is the time of year when people like me are supposed to be compiling lists upon lists of things that've been notable in the past year. Top albums of 2011, favorite meals, oddest stories -- that kind of thing. No dice. Either I've lost my reflective gear or I'm just too busy with the present and unable to think about the rest of the year.
I'm fine at coming up with things you should look at today. Right now. Immediately. Search this site for "Five Things" and you'll see what I mean.
But when it comes to thinking back, I'm going to have to rely on some local events this weekend to knock me out of the here-and-now. Here's what's on the slate:
This week marks 70 years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, spurring national remembrance of World War II and the 1940s. Fitting, then, that Saturday from 6 p.m. until deep into the night -- 1 a.m., even -- you can doll yourself up '40s-style and enjoy the Big Band Christmas Ball . On the slate are '40s and '50s holiday fun with music from The Hot Tomatoes and from performers in the style of Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters, reenactments from popular old-timey Christmas movies and, possibly, maybe... enchantment. Tickets are $45 and, as of this writing, are still available.
My big-band-nerd sources say it's a good old time -- and photos from previous events organized by the same folks look really incredible. Period dress is strongly recommended.
Speaking of anniversaries, Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café , 1203 13th St., is celebrating one year of poetry and caffeine this Saturday. Know what'll be at the celebration? Poetry and caffeine -- and a 20 percent discount on all books, all day. There will also be live music at times throughout the day, and at night, the café hosts the Winter Art Gala with food from nearby Café Aion, a silent art auction, poetry readings and plenty more.
I asked proprietor Brian Buckley to send over a poem he thought was in some way representative of the year at Innisfree and he quickly emailed over Sylvia Plath's "Morning Song."
"Kate and I feel the store is our third child -- we have two daughters," wrote Buckley. "This poem reminds us of 'birthing' the store and the so many clear vowels we have seen rise in the store during our first year of weekly readings."
By the way? Off the top of my head? Top album: Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts. Favorite meal (excluding the week I got married, because that's not a fair fight): coffee and donuts outside at the Pinyon at sunset with my special lady friend. Oddest story: Gotta be the guy who was hiding in the portable toilet.
See? You can do anything if you convince yourself that you have to -- no matter how inane! Good luck getting your end-of-year stuff done and have fun this weekend.
2011年11月27日星期日
Dillon/Ferneyhough – review
The eye-catching UK premieres from Huddersfield's final weekend both came from British composers who now live and
work in the US. Brian Ferneyhough and James Dillon share the same publisher, and find their music routinely
consigned to the stylistic drawer labelled "new complexity". But as these performances reiterated, they really don't
have that much in common, apart from some surface similarities and a fondness for opaque programme notes.
Dillon's Sixth String Quartet ended a superb recital by the Quatuor Diotima, one of the three groups who introduced
it at the Donaueschingen festival last year. It's dedicated to the Scottish trade union leader Jimmy Reid, who died
just as Dillon was completing the score, but the music is in no sense elegiac. The taut single movement lasts around
13 minutes and forms a five-part arc, dominated by the teeming central section and with the last two revisiting the
musical territory of the beginning; it's a lucid structure, filled with bold, striking gestures and not a note
wasted.
The Ferneyhough work, brought by the French group Ensemble Linea, has taken longer to reach the UK: Chronos-Aion was
completed five years ago. Scored for 17 instrumentalists and lasting more than half an hour, it comes with a
typically impenetrable manifesto from the composer. But, as so often in Ferneyhough's music, what is introduced as
impossibly intellectualised turns out to be vividly direct and compelling in performance. The dense thickets of the
opening, connected by delicately coloured threads of sound, give way to explosive instrumental solos and finally to
isolated sound events separated by menacing silences, as the music's energy seems to ebb away.
work in the US. Brian Ferneyhough and James Dillon share the same publisher, and find their music routinely
consigned to the stylistic drawer labelled "new complexity". But as these performances reiterated, they really don't
have that much in common, apart from some surface similarities and a fondness for opaque programme notes.
Dillon's Sixth String Quartet ended a superb recital by the Quatuor Diotima, one of the three groups who introduced
it at the Donaueschingen festival last year. It's dedicated to the Scottish trade union leader Jimmy Reid, who died
just as Dillon was completing the score, but the music is in no sense elegiac. The taut single movement lasts around
13 minutes and forms a five-part arc, dominated by the teeming central section and with the last two revisiting the
musical territory of the beginning; it's a lucid structure, filled with bold, striking gestures and not a note
wasted.
The Ferneyhough work, brought by the French group Ensemble Linea, has taken longer to reach the UK: Chronos-Aion was
completed five years ago. Scored for 17 instrumentalists and lasting more than half an hour, it comes with a
typically impenetrable manifesto from the composer. But, as so often in Ferneyhough's music, what is introduced as
impossibly intellectualised turns out to be vividly direct and compelling in performance. The dense thickets of the
opening, connected by delicately coloured threads of sound, give way to explosive instrumental solos and finally to
isolated sound events separated by menacing silences, as the music's energy seems to ebb away.
2011年11月16日星期三
When the pregnancy goes between ...
I could be happy to less than a week of pregnancy (miscarriage came and stayed only a bad feeling and pain ....: (
I thought that a normal pregnancy, bleeding within the top then, but I was v??r?ss?.l??k?ri made ??it clear that I am not here anymore raskaana.on yes itketty? so as not to become tired of even itke?.otin for some reason, very heavily t?n matter.
I'm going to try to raskautumista uudelleen.onneksi my husband has been to support you in this asiassa.h?n said that yes, we get a second chance of course, you do not MPLIANCEWITH, but now it went.
whether other experiences miscarriage? how soon after it had come ootte raskautumista? whether there is any risk?
or believed the shot, but just a doctor who said that as soon as may be trying a new pregnancy when the miscarriage bleeding has decreased.
that may be how little I had time to rejoice in gestation: (blank olo.mik??n just does not seem any way, and I can not go to school and I do not do anything else ... So basically empty t?ynn?.oonko only having a miscarriage so heavily? maybe I do ... but somehow you do not feel 'm little .. alone.
forgive such pangs purkaus.on sometimes forced to say what he thinks ... I've already kyll?stytt?nyt best friends and my husband in this suremisella.toki they are saying that I grieve as much as I want .. I feel they should be plagued them.
I thought that a normal pregnancy, bleeding within the top then, but I was v??r?ss?.l??k?ri made ??it clear that I am not here anymore raskaana.on yes itketty? so as not to become tired of even itke?.otin for some reason, very heavily t?n matter.
I'm going to try to raskautumista uudelleen.onneksi my husband has been to support you in this asiassa.h?n said that yes, we get a second chance of course, you do not MPLIANCEWITH, but now it went.
whether other experiences miscarriage? how soon after it had come ootte raskautumista? whether there is any risk?
or believed the shot, but just a doctor who said that as soon as may be trying a new pregnancy when the miscarriage bleeding has decreased.
that may be how little I had time to rejoice in gestation: (blank olo.mik??n just does not seem any way, and I can not go to school and I do not do anything else ... So basically empty t?ynn?.oonko only having a miscarriage so heavily? maybe I do ... but somehow you do not feel 'm little .. alone.
forgive such pangs purkaus.on sometimes forced to say what he thinks ... I've already kyll?stytt?nyt best friends and my husband in this suremisella.toki they are saying that I grieve as much as I want .. I feel they should be plagued them.
2011年4月24日星期日
Desperate Stroke Patient Goes to China for Proper Care
At the age of 40 Devin Dearth's life changed forever. Devin, a vital and active loving husband, father, champion body builder and successful businessman suffered a massive hemmorhagic stroke at 5 a.m. while working out at his gym in a small midwestern town. The stroke damaged his brainstem so extensively that he was not expected to live. While medicine in America excels at high tech emergency medicine, it fails miserably at supporting recovery and the restoration of normal function and does almost nothing to sustain and nourish health over the long term. Devin had to go to China to get proper care. The care he needed was denied to him at home.
Devin has insurance. Great. Emergency services covered. Hospital care covered. Not so great, the rehabilitative care that Devin needed then and continues to need now is not covered by his insurance plan. His insurance company refused to pay for the helicopter that airlifted Devin from his very small town to a hospital in Lexington, Kentucky equipped to save his life. His family received a bill for $20,000 for the air ambulance. Without air transport, Devin would have died before ever getting to the hospital. You can't get approval at 5 a.m. in the morning for special services, but that is what is required. Welcome to health care in America.
After three weeks in intensive care, uncertain if he would survive, he could finally breathe on his own. This one time champion body builder then started rehabilitative care, for a limited amount of time only. He was approved for only 20 days of therapy after suffering a massive brain stem stroke He was making good progress and then the insurance coverage ran out. Devin, still debilitated, unable to walk, sit up, speak, feed or bathe himself was sent home. His family was now in charge. His wife and kids had to lift him from bed to wheelchair. His doctors and therapists knew he was progressing well and that he needed continued therapy. The insurance company said no. Coverage is no longer available. Go home.
9000 Needles: A Story of Hope, Courage and One Family's Unconventional Journey Towards Stroke Recovery is an award winning documentary film made by Devin's brother, David Dearth who refused to accept that his brother was going to go without the care he needed.
David searched worldwide and discovered a renowned Acupuncture Treatment Program for Stroke Rehabilitation at First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University in China under the direction of Dr. Shi Xuemin. Devin's family has now been to China twice for several months at a time, where Devin has received exceptional care, daily acupuncture and physical therapy that allowed him to make dramatic progress. Stroke patients with the financial means to do so come here from all over the world. We watch as after only one acupuncture treatment Devin began to move his previously immobile leg on his own for the first time. After only weeks, he no longer drooled out of the side of his mouth. After several months he could sit up and was beginning to walk and to talk again.
According to the 2010 China Connection Global Health Report stroke patients receiving care at the Tianjin Hospital Program have better outcomes than patients treated with standard post stroke treatment in the U.S.
85 percent are able to walk without assistance (Only 51 percent of U.S. patients completing rehabilitatioin in the U.S. walk without assistance.)
95 percent regain almost complete knee flexion compared with 50 percent in the U.S.
98 percent return to live in their homes instead of long term care facilities while only 68 percent of U.S. stroke patients are able to live in their own homes.
According to Dr. Lee Schwamm, Vice Chairman of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Chairman of the American Stroke Association Program
Devin has insurance. Great. Emergency services covered. Hospital care covered. Not so great, the rehabilitative care that Devin needed then and continues to need now is not covered by his insurance plan. His insurance company refused to pay for the helicopter that airlifted Devin from his very small town to a hospital in Lexington, Kentucky equipped to save his life. His family received a bill for $20,000 for the air ambulance. Without air transport, Devin would have died before ever getting to the hospital. You can't get approval at 5 a.m. in the morning for special services, but that is what is required. Welcome to health care in America.
After three weeks in intensive care, uncertain if he would survive, he could finally breathe on his own. This one time champion body builder then started rehabilitative care, for a limited amount of time only. He was approved for only 20 days of therapy after suffering a massive brain stem stroke He was making good progress and then the insurance coverage ran out. Devin, still debilitated, unable to walk, sit up, speak, feed or bathe himself was sent home. His family was now in charge. His wife and kids had to lift him from bed to wheelchair. His doctors and therapists knew he was progressing well and that he needed continued therapy. The insurance company said no. Coverage is no longer available. Go home.
9000 Needles: A Story of Hope, Courage and One Family's Unconventional Journey Towards Stroke Recovery is an award winning documentary film made by Devin's brother, David Dearth who refused to accept that his brother was going to go without the care he needed.
David searched worldwide and discovered a renowned Acupuncture Treatment Program for Stroke Rehabilitation at First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University in China under the direction of Dr. Shi Xuemin. Devin's family has now been to China twice for several months at a time, where Devin has received exceptional care, daily acupuncture and physical therapy that allowed him to make dramatic progress. Stroke patients with the financial means to do so come here from all over the world. We watch as after only one acupuncture treatment Devin began to move his previously immobile leg on his own for the first time. After only weeks, he no longer drooled out of the side of his mouth. After several months he could sit up and was beginning to walk and to talk again.
According to the 2010 China Connection Global Health Report stroke patients receiving care at the Tianjin Hospital Program have better outcomes than patients treated with standard post stroke treatment in the U.S.
85 percent are able to walk without assistance (Only 51 percent of U.S. patients completing rehabilitatioin in the U.S. walk without assistance.)
95 percent regain almost complete knee flexion compared with 50 percent in the U.S.
98 percent return to live in their homes instead of long term care facilities while only 68 percent of U.S. stroke patients are able to live in their own homes.
According to Dr. Lee Schwamm, Vice Chairman of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Chairman of the American Stroke Association Program
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