musings
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Out of sorts
Do you every find yourself in a state of irritation that is wholly out of proportion to the irritant? Yesterday morning at the airport I was standing in a long baggage drop line, and after 15 minutes of waiting I was almost at the counter. An airline representative walking by told me that I’d need to go to the Special Services counter (I’ll spare you the long story involving an airline policy change I wasn’t aware of), and further that I’d need to go to the end of that (equally long) line. This information was offered to me with a dismissive “oh, there are only a few people ahead of…
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Independence Day Musings
I just watched a Fourth of July fireworks show from the window of my hotel room. It was at quite a distance, and the sky was a bit smoky already, but well, it was something. I guess. Sigh. For some reason today I’ve found it hard not to feel a little…grinchy…? I can’t think of a better way to express it. I felt annoyed at the people at the airport adorned in red white and blue garb, at the airline lounges serving barbeque and lemonade. I mean, fireworks are making me surly. So I’ve taken a step back to give myself the space to think it through. I end up…
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You can’t go home again
I just spent a week in my hometown of Honolulu helping my mom start the long and complicate process of downsizing. She currently lives in a house where I spent the majority of my childhood, a large property that’s becoming more than she can manage. This road is about a mile up the hill from said house, a street I’m utterly familiar with, every turn, every bump, every tree, every view. It’s a road I have run thousands of time since my early teens, and one that makes me feel like I’m truly home. It’s also unbelievably beautiful, and it’s not lost on me what a tremendous privilege it was…
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Please excuse my soapbox
I was sitting in my hotel room this afternoon and relaxing post-rehearsal, idly going through my newsfeed on my phone when I came across this headline: Michelle Williams Was ‘Paralyzed’ After Learning Costar Mark Wahlberg Was Paid More Than Her Yes, it’s from People magazine, and yes, I read Hollywood gossip because, frankly, I feel like it’s a fascinating insight into an industry that has quite a few parallels to the music industry. You can read the whole article here. In a nutshell, the story is this: Michelle Williams was paid less than $1,000 for reshoots in a movie co-starring Mark Wahlberg, who was paid $1.5 million, even though they…
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Tick Tock
I was in Dublin a few weeks back working with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra. An afternoon off afforded me a few hours to take in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Trinity College and a handful of other highlights. Although the major sights were nice, it was a chance encounter that ended up being the most meaningful visit of the day. Searching for a caffeine hit I turned down a promising road but instead of a coffee shop I found the National Library; a sign told me that it housed a free W.B Yeats exhibit. I love Yeats and I love free stuff, so I wandered in. It was a beautifully…
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A continent, a people
Apologies for the extended hiatus, I had an unusually busy end-of-summer season that was followed immediately with back to back mini-vacations. (A view from one of the countless switchbacks on a trail up the side of a peak in Yosemite. It. Was. Amazing.) Spending my time communing with nature means I haven’t been indulging in slightly more civilized pleasures like movie-going, which is really the only reason I have yet to see “Crazy Rich Asians”. For those of you who haven’t heard about this cinematic juggernaut-cum-cultural phenomenon, it’s based on Kevin Kwan’s 2013 bestseller by the same name. I read it – no, devoured it – over the course of…
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Taking ownership
Last week I made my debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. For those of you familiar with the orchestra scene, you’ll know that the Cleveland Orchestra, along with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra, are one of the Big Five – historically the largest and most prestigious ensembles in the country. They were, as expected, fantastic, and it was an immense pleasure working with them. During the break between dress rehearsal and concert at the Blossom Music Center I was chatting with one of the musicians about the variety of music which takes me all over the world, and he asked me, unironically, if I…
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Let Us Be Well, Part 2
I hadn’t intended on posting again on this topic so soon, but the universe has somehow conspired to bring this to the forefront of my mind in the last few weeks. Tuesday I read with a heavy heart about the suicide of designer Kate Spade; this came on the heels of the devastating news two weeks ago that the father of a dear friend here in San Francisco had taken his own life. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming nearly 45,000 lives annually (to put this into perspective, according to CDC reports, homicide deaths in 2016 were 19,362) and is the fourth leading cause…
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25 and Counting
I just returned from my 25th college reunion (yes, for those of you who recognize the large banner in the background, I did my undergrad at Harvard) and it was eye-opening. I can think of few other gatherings where everyone is basically of the same age and shares a powerful common experience. I had forgotten the sense of kinship and community this can create, and while we may have been clique-y during our college years, the passage of time and a certain maturity have softened the edges. Harvard puts on a great show for 25th reunions – 3 1/2 full days of barbecues, panels, cocktail parties, memorial services, fancy dinners…
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Thank you Winston
Not anything big today, just that I watched Darkest Hour last night (worth it for Gary Oldman’s tour de force performance alone) and was reminded how I’ve always appreciated not just Churchill’s exquisite mastery of the English language, but his pithy insights as well. My favorite: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Good words for all!