day 7

It’s getting more and more surreal. Today is day 7 for Sepi’s and my self isolation. The order to shelter in place was effective Tuesday, three days ago. Nevertheless, the water main replacement work continues. Thankfully they are not in front of our house now, although it wouldn’t really matter since we aren’t going anywhere. People go by the house occasionally walking kids or dogs.

Or in groups . . . are you kidding me? Social distancing, people! If not your lives, then the lives of your loved ones or your neighbors depend on it.

When Sepi commented on a group she saw yesterday, I suggested that perhaps they were a family unit. She said, no, she knew them. They were just friends out for a walk, talking together, just like it’s a normal day.

Sepi read me part of a news story from yesterday, commenting on how San Franciscans don’t seem to be taking the orders seriously. People were shown on the Embarcadero walking and skating in groups. Grocery stores with crowds of people, if not stock. Are we blasé, resigned to our fates? Do we believe it’s all fake news?

OTOH, the news media loves to paint SF as a city full of lunatics. What’s LA like? Chicago? New York, where T was supposedly sending the Navy hospital ship. (Except the Navy said it was still undergoing maintenance and wasn’t ready.)

The thermostat and camera is supposed to get here today. We’ll see. That’s a little job I can do. I tried yesterday to get Sepi to go out just for a few minutes’ walk without success. She said she would go with me today. I know she’s terrified. I am too, but I can’t stay in the house for days on end. I’ve gone out for a couple of walks but stay far away from anyone else I see out there.

phone

We’re isolated but I’m not calling people (family, friends) on the phone. Why not? I’ve got the time. They probably do too. The phone is working. We’ve got power to recharge it. There is no emergency (requiring phone calls, anyway).

I’ve checked in on FaceBook probably twice a day since the lockdown. But I don’t pick up the phone. I’m sorry folks. I’ll keep trying.

shelter in place

Shelter in place. That phrase came up yesterday in the San Francisco Mayor’s order attempting to stem the tide of coronavirus infections in the Bay Area.

Technically, we are not under the authority of the SF Mayor here in San Mateo County but she got the health authorities of all the Bay Area counties to sign on. Kudos to Mayor London Breed for leading the charge.

I’ve been trying to remember the circumstances that I’ve heard that phrase before. People involved in mass shootings? People in the path of a tornado? A Tsunami?

Here in California we live under constant threat of earthquakes and wildfires. For some reason, ‘shelter in place’ doesn’t seem to apply to those. We prepare for an earthquake but when it happens, it’s over in a minute or so. Your shelter is either there or it isn’t. Similarly wildfires can be prepared for but when it happens there is no shelter.

But all of these things are relatively fast moving. The coronavirus infections are harder to see. There are numbers on the news, of course, and web sites with graphs to go to, but no wall of flame in the back yard, no 100 mile per hour wind banging on the front door. Metaphorically, of course, that is exactly what is happening. Hang on to your hats!

Well, we were staying home already anyway. We think we have plenty of food, although the order has exceptions allowing people to go out to the grocery store. The power is on, the phones are working, the Internet is on, we have gas in our cars. We have a generator, although the wiring to the house has not been completed. That might be a project in a week or so.

dystopias

When I went to put The Sheep Look Up back in the bookshelf, I saw a couple of other books there that might qualify as dystopias.

I need to say that I’ve been reading science fiction since I was about 12 years old. That’s more than 50 years, kids! I used to have a large collection but gave away many in my last couple of moves. In my opinion, the ones I have left are the best of the best. Certain authors are well represented: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert, Joe Haldeman from the 1950’s through 1970’s. Others have only one.

Alas, Babylon is the only book by Pat Frank in my collection. Actually, I can’t remember even reading anything else by him. It’s not really dystopian. It’s the story of a small community in Florida after a nuclear exchange. Just looking at the book spine today triggered a thought that that was similar to the Brunner stories.

The other one that seemed similar in my mind was the Larry Niven novel about a comet hitting the earth, Lucifer’s Hammer. That’s not really a dystopia either.

John Varley’s Titan trilogy would qualify as dystopian even though the bulk of the action takes place away from earth. In it, the madness of humans destroying their home planet drives the story.

Since the basic technique of science fiction is to imagine a future world and build a story around it, it shouldn’t be surprising that most are rather dark.

Younger authors that I like a lot have written about dystopias. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and the early William Gibson novels, beginning with Neuromancer, are clearly dystopian.

The more I write that word, the less I like it. Maybe I’ll do a list of the SF novels in my library – not that many, less than 50 – and do a quick description/review. Some are hopeful . . .

The Sheep Look Up

The Sheep Look Up is a title of a John Brunner novel from the early 1970’s. In my mind it always went along with his earlier novel Stand On Zanzibar in its dystopian view of the world. I read them when they came out and still have my original (paperback) copies. After the events of the last couple of weeks, I dug out my copy of The Sheep Look Up.

It’s pretty strident. Brunner’s anger shows through on every page. Reading it again made me think about what we all thought about pollution in those days and what we did about it.

Stand On Zanzibar had a relatively upbeat ending, though, whereas The Sheep Look Up does not. Air, sea and land are poisoned so thoroughly worldwide that human survival is in question.

The last chapter is simply a quote from the John Milton poem Lycidas:

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

social distance

. . . and self isolation.

Phrases that I didn’t expect to be using to describe myself until very recently. Two weeks ago I was buying travel supplies at the drugstore, getting a haircut, and getting serious about what clothes to take on the tour.

Then, just before the show on Friday the 6th came word that the SF Performing Arts complex was going to be closed to the public starting the next day. The Ballet had a show scheduled at the Opera House. Cancelled. The Symphony was scheduled to perform at UC Davis. That went on but our performances for the next week were not going to happen.

The original announcement only – now I say ‘only’! – was for a closure of two weeks, until the 20th. Tuesday morning the announcement was made to the orchestra that we weren’t going to Europe because several venues there had closed due to the virus. New York’s Carnegie Hall was still open, though, so we continued rehearsals. The ban on public assemblies in San Francisco was extended first one more week, then two more still.

Thursday morning’s rehearsal became an orchestra meeting. Everyone put away their instruments. The official word came: New York was closing too. We weren’t going anywhere. The entire Symphony administration was being told to work from home. Orchestra committees had hurried meetings with management about what to do. It was decided that we would all go on vacation for 4 weeks, until April 11. That’s when we would have come back from Europe. Rehearsals and performances were in the pipeline.

Vacation is not the right word for what we are doing now: social distancing, and self isolating. At first, I thought that Sepi and I could use the time to get in our car and drive to LA, or Colorado, or Washington where we could visit friends and family. After some reflection we realized what self isolation really meant: stay home!

I was all set (in my mind) to go down to Mom’s and hang with her for a couple of days but that was nixed. Mom’s in the most vulnerable group! We don’t know if we’ve been exposed!

In Seattle, the orchestra there is performing for an empty hall and streaming the music to the public. In San Francisco we can’t even do that because the ban is for assemblies of 100 or more. Maybe we could do Mozart . . .

And the ban is now extended to April 30th. We have no more ‘vacation’ left. Will we still get paid? Big conventions, which are the bread and butter for many of my Local 16 brothers and sisters, have disappeared. Those people have nothing. A few hundred dollars a week from unemployment.

I will try to write about more uplifting things in the days to come but that is the environment.

183

That’s been my pretty stable weight for a month or so now. Last fall beat me up. I was so busy at work, I often didn’t have time to eat properly and when I did, I often wasn’t hungry.

So, I lost weight. Normally that would be a good thing and in fact I feel better now. The stress has lessened a bit. It’s not the ideal way to get it done, but . . . it’s done. I hope I can keep it where it is.

I had my annual physical yesterday and my BP was good: 120/79. That’s more or less what it’s been for the past couple of years. The doctor’s weight numbers run a little high because I have clothes on but my records show that two years ago I came in at 210. Yesterday they showed me at 187. That’s a big win.

I didn’t get my blood work done before the doctor visit so that data is still to come.

2 months

I hate to write about how long it’s been since I’ve written, but that’s what coming out of my head right now. Life has been moving pretty fast the last few months. I got through the December madness: all the Holiday shows. I had a week off. Jeremy came to visit with Ashley and Rosalie. They stayed at my house. We did some nice things. We had Christmas at Mom’s with most of the California Woods.

When I got back to work, I promulgated a couple of new rules that has made my life a little easier. Not so much for the rules per se, but for the fact that I could feel ok about making rules. There are still some things in the works that I can’t talk about but developments there have been encouraging.

The last two weeks featured MTT conducting. One week included a new work by him. He can be amazing and annoying all in the same moment, it seems. He’s remarkable, there’s no doubt about that.

Starting today, we have three weeks of really simple orchestra setups which means I can look ahead without worrying too much about something immediate biting my ass.

The first thing to look ahead to is the Chinese New Year celebration. It seems to get bigger each year. There are lots of special events that need staffing and other planning.

After that is the tour. We’re leaving March 15th (or thereabouts) for just under a month in Europe. I’ve seen some itineraries but there are still many details to resolve. I did get approval to stay over for a few days and it turns out that Wilfried and Elisabeth will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary right after our last concert. I need to figure out how to get from Paris to some little town in the Schwarzwald that I’ve never heard of, then turn around and get to a major airport to fly home.

That’s enough for now.

changes

It feels like months since I’ve posted here. It turns out it’s only – only! – about 5 weeks. But it was 5 or 6 weeks since the one before that so in nearly three months only one post. Lame.

Yes, there has been a lot going on in my life. It’s mostly work related. My new job has been rather all consuming.

For reasons too complicated to go into today, I think I turned a corner this week. Running shows the last couple of days, I finally am feeling confident that I am not forgetting things. There are so many details and so many distractions.

The big push at the start of the season with MTT is now almost a month in the past. I had a week long vacation in which Sepi and I and Mom! drove up to Washington to visit Jeremy’s family. We also swung through Spokane for a quick visit with Dan and Nettie and Peter and Nanci. All went well. The shows after we got back were generally easy to stage. Last week the production team had a long meeting looking at the December shows and came up with some plans.

So, I’m breathing easier.

Meanwhile, the 4th anniversary of Zach’s death has been looming. For a long time, that number was more significant because it was the end of the statute of limitations for criminal charges. I held out hope for a long time, despite clear statements from the Baton Rouge DA’s office, that I could marshal enough evidence to revisit the actions of the drivers who killed Zach.

I say drivers because I believe that both drivers were negligent in that they were racing to be first out of the merge and did not watch the road as they should have. Zach was in the road and was hit by one of them.

The world moves on. Those of us who loved Zach have mostly come to terms with life without him. I haven’t had a big crying jag in a while but I think I may let go sometime this week. Especially in the last three months I’ve often wished I could consult with Zach over my work difficulties. He had the ability to step back emotionally that I envied.

Now I just muddle through.

end of the MTT run

Saturday was the last night of MTT’s fall time with the Symphony. He conducted the season opening gala, the Metallica concerts, a Mahler 6th, a new John Adams piece, and a bunch of other pieces that I can’ t think of right now. It’s been a blur of rehearsals and concerts for just over 4 weeks. Seemingly everything we did had massive percussion or huge orchestras – or both – so packing the musicians into the stage at Davies was a constant challenge.

There were a couple of hiccups but on the whole, the orchestra and MTT was forgiving of my foibles. There is a massive amount of detail to remember when putting the orchestra on stage. At one time I had it all under my fingers but working the house electric job for the past three years has overwritten some of it. My crew has been helpful in keeping me off the worst off the rocks.

One story. When performing programs of unusual music, MTT will often talk to the audience at the top of the show to give some personal insight into the music. Last week, we had three Stravinsky pieces on the program so MTT set the stage with some stories of his time as a teenager playing piano at Stravinsky’s house in LA. Of course, he uses a wireless microphone which I set on his stand ahead of time.

Except the last night, Saturday. I just forgot, plain and simple. Some things happened and I dealt with them and they pushed the microphone task out of my head.

Until about two seconds after I sent MTT and the two soloists out onto the stage to start the show. Then I remembered!

I tore off my headset and ran to the office where the microphone was stored, switched it on, and came back to the door to the stage and looked out. MTT was standing out there on the podium waiting for me! Gulp!

So, I went on out there with the microphone. MTT was smiling at me when I handed it to him. I apologized. He may have said something but I don’t remember. I do remember that he reached out to shake my hand before I turned and fled offstage. All I could think about was that I had to make sure that the sound system was properly turned on.

It was.

At the end of the evening, many people came backstage to talk to MTT. I waited a half hour or so for the crush to subside and went into his office. Mostly I wanted to thank him for putting up with me for the month but I also wanted to apologize again for forgetting the microphone. He smiled again when he saw me. He said, ‘Some people will do anything for a curtain call!’

He’ll be back in January.

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