it has taken a turn toward winter

Foggy, almost like San Francisco, but not so low.  And cold.  About as cold as the East Bay gets in winter.  Except here it's only cold outside.  Heeeeey.  Did laundry today, and put it out on the balcony hoping the sun would come out.  Heh.  Nope.

Hankerchiefs: a very important part of my existence in this cold, cold world.

Getting to know more of Basel, I've been walking to and from school because it seems too cold to ride my bike (weak!) and have found some nice things on my way.  Today I noticed this public flowerbed that I've passed a number of times and never seen, which astounds me, because it is full of some pretty epic chard and kale plants. 

 I took this picture of my glove on one of the chard leaves for scale.  

Basel is funny.  It always kind of weirds me out how small it is.  For instance: the other day I was in a shoe store buying these funny slippers for myself (10chf). 

I dawdled on my way up to the counter and a girl slipped in front of me to exchange a pair of shoes.  Zing.  Later that day, while on the bus, I saw the same girl (across town) riding her bike down the street.  Then, in the train station on my way to Zurich, I saw her again.  THEN, two nights ago, I was walking home from having dinner with some friends, they live in another part of town from me, and Who Was Going The Other Way?  Yes.  Same girl.  Weird.  I wonder if she notices me.  There are other people I've seen twice, but three+ times?  Crazy.

I've been a little stuck in a cooking rut lately.  Rice.  Vegetables.  Rice.  Salad.  Rice.  What else do I know how to make?  Besides cereal?  Yeah.  Well, anyway, I got up the gumption to make a pumpkin curry for a friend who came over for lunch, and decided to make the curry paste from scratch.  Amazing!  So good, so easy.  Onion, garlic, some kind of hot pepper (we don't have serrano or jalapeno peppers here), a bunch of cilantro, a little bit of water.  Grind up with food processor.  Put in a pot with coconut milk.  Add vegetables.  Cook until done.  Yes.

Since I've been walking instead of taking the tram, I rewarded myself with this plant.  Cost the same amount as tram fare.  Hello Viola.

I also finally have a key to the bass locker at school, and now can keep one of the whales there as needed.  Plus, it means I can practice at school.  It feels like I get a lot more done at school than at home.  Ah, look.  I appear to be doing work.  I wonder how long I can keep it up?  What a skeptic!

more excitement in one week

My friends back home made the comment, "You have more adventures in a week than I could handle in two or three months," and I can say that the same is practically true for me.  One long day of classes and traveling past Zürich for work and I am loathe to leave the house the next day.  Even for things I love to do.
I did, anyway, make my way to the farmer's market, and I got there just in time.  I managed to get some good bread (finally!), and really at the last minute; I was saying hello to the nice lady who sells hand made mustard and she asked if I wanted to buy some bread.  Yes, why not!  Anyhow.  On the way home I passed by a parked taxi with a copy of Gilgamesh in the front window.  What a literate working population.

Not much else happened this weekend.  I made a squash curry with coconut milk (Thai-style, yum!), played the smallest amount of bass possible to still call it practicing, and then brought some curry over to my friends' house.

Classes seem to be fine.  Baroque and Classical Theory, Notation, German for foreigners (Auslanders).  My Notation class is interesting.  The idea is to place the piece in a time and location, based on the physical clues you can look at.  Like Art History for musicians.  This includes looking at things like instrumentation, why and when different markings were used, how you can tell which country the music was written in and where it was printed, and, consequently, what technique was used to do the printing.  !!  The teacher is great, she's smart and funny and very enthusiastic about her subject.  She also wears a little watch on a chain around her neck so she can end the class on time (charming).  She explained a little in class about different printing techniques, but the students seemed generally confused about the concepts.  After class I asked her if she might be interested in having the class come over to Druckwerk so I can show them what copper plate etching, lithography, and letterpress printing actually are, and how they work, and she liked the idea.  So, we're setting something up for the end of the month!  How exciting.
Every student also has to do a presentation about one subject at the end of the year, topic of our choice, and she has approved further research on my part into how and where music was printed.  I plan to do a few physical experiments, too, of course.

I have homework for other classes, too.  Come up with 6 - 8 variations on La Follia.  Write a 4-bar minuet using a specific chord progression.  Look at this, I'm back in school.  Weird.  Well, in typical form (as far as I can remember) I am putting of my homework.  Hopefully not until the last minute.  That would be depressing.  I'm 30, after all.  One would hope I've learned not to procrastinate so much.  Ha.

little web of roots I found while cleaning up the balcony today



Meanwhile, fall is starting.  Pictures to follow. 

late night blog writing

It's nearly midnight here, but it's been a while (and could conceivably be a while longer) so I thought I'd try to get something down.  Just got back from Zurich, where I played a concert (with choir), Pergolesi Vespers, ends up being nearly 2 1/2 hours without a break.  Goodness me.  The church (Predigerkirche) was interesting, built 1308-1350, and all white on the inside, with an impressive teal-colored organ.  There is quite a lot of ornamentation along the walls, including these fatty cherub/baby faces with pink-colored lips and bulgy fatty baby eyes.  (I was trying to find a picture just now but I could not.  Sorry about that.)  Tomorrow I'm off somewhere else, I think it's called Frauenfeld, to play Haydn's good old Creation.  Busy, busy.  Plus, classes begin this week.  Now you see why I can't find the time to write some blog, yes?

School!  I know you are wondering.  At first it seemed Very, Very Complicated.  A bunch of pieces of paper on a wall, lists of classes, teachers, things you had to sign up for, things you didn't have to sign up for, things you could sign up for if you wanted to, and no clear way to differentiate between all of these.  Another wall, with a list of all of us (who's on top? I'm so easy to locate.) and one of the classes we'd been assigned.  I got Generalbass, which basically translates to figured bass, which refers to the little numbers you see under the bass line of Baroque music, telling the keyboard player which chords to play.  My class, though, is not so much about that, as far as I can tell.  In fact, it's a 30-minute-per-week private lesson with a very thoughtful, gentle, scattered-seeming man whom I watched sit on a harpsichord (what?!) and who spent a number of minutes with his forehead scrunched up trying to decide what he would teach me.  In the end, he asked me to play some chords (d minor, A major, d minor, C major, F major, C major, d minor, A major, these are the chord progression of La Folia (from Wikipedia: "La Folía [also spelled "Follia"] is one of the oldest remembered European musical themes, or primary material, generally melodic, of a composition, on record"), for which, in the next couple weeks until our next lesson, I am to devise 6 - 8 variations.  I think I can handle that.
I am also to take something called the Kompactkurs ("compact course"), from which I can choose one of three sections (Medieval and Renaissance notation and theory; 15th century - late 18th century; Baroque and Classical notation and theory) this year and one next year, preferably sections 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 although it's not clear which they'll let me into.  Anyway, there are a lot of other classes offered, and let me just say I was Very, Very Confused trying to sort it all out. 
Fortunately, there's a gentleman on the administrative side (who also teaches lute) named Jeremy Llewellyn, he's from Wales, and hey, he speaks English.  In the chat we had, he explained that technically all I *have* to take each semester are lessons, Generalbass, and the Kompactkurs; I will need to get some more credit points, which can be had by attending other classes and also by playing concerts (so, score, for every gig I play, I can submit the program at the end of the semester and get credit points for it!).  But really, it took this man telling me the information before I understood it, because the signage is extremely complicated.  Even people who speak German think so. 
I have found a couple people to be friends with.  Yes, you may all heave a sigh of relief; little Megan will not be sad and friendless this year.  One of them is another American, Lydia.  She's a singer, and I'm told she's very good.  Perhaps she does not yet know how rewarding it can be to work with a bass player, but it is my plan to show her.

Oh, I'm sorry, I just realized I haven't included any pictures yet.  I've been leaving the camera at home, but I did get a few nice pictures before the weather turned rainy and Cold.

So lovely!  I was walking home from school when I noticed this bug on my shirt.  So I took its picture.

Also on my walk home, I passed by my favorite fountain.  Have I already included a picture of it?  Perhaps.  Well, here it is again.  Little Goat!

OK, lots going on here.  I initially wanted to take this picture for the little post bird on the bow of the boat, but then I noticed some loud noises, and a commotion.  Then it became clear that the loud noises were actually people, fake fighting and singing opera, acting out the staging right there at the Schifflände (ship landing).  Wow!  Pretty neat.

I think there's tons I'm leaving out here.  Playing with me in Zurich was another bass player, Sofus, he's from Norway, and does mostly modern orchestra playing.  We had a long discussion today about work, and rehearsal length.  Turns out modern orchestras here adhere to very similar rules and regulations as those in the States: 2 1/2 hr rehearsal time, break no later than 1 1/2 hrs in, etc, etc.  Why are these things lacking from the Historical Instrument orchestra world?  Because we're amateurs?  I know that's not true.  Because we're so thrilled to have the chance to play this old music that we don't mind going for 4 hours?  Again, it seems absurd.  In a country that loves to follow the rules as much as Switzerland, I'm surprised there's not any kind of system in place for ensuring that we have professional workplace conditions.  (Speaking of rule-following, Sofus told me that at some point he put his trash out on the wrong day, or in the wrong place, and the police went through it, found his name on something, and came and talked to him.  He almost got in trouble with the police!  Wow.)  Well, anyway.  I am happy to be playing this music, even if I sometimes complain about the conditions.

Well heck, it's almost 1 in the morning.  I guess I'd better get myself to bed.  Remind me to tell you a funny story about my endpin.

Eva Trout, school, more pseudo-drizzle and poor German skills

"By habit, she looked round the room she sat in. Anything she could do to it had been done; what it could do to her seemed without limit."
One of the books I found at the thrift store is Eva Trout, the last book by Elizabeth Bowen. (That's her, holding court in the room full of serious girls, above.) I have never heard of either of them. She (either, both) is British, and has quite a tight and pointy sense of humor. The book is so different from anything I've read recently that I'm enjoying it highly. (Diane or Don, have you heard of or read her? Seems like something you might like. Of course, I'm only 3 chapters in.)
I've just been doing some reading about her, and she seems like a very interesting woman; she had a 32-year affair (mostly in letters) with a Canadian diplomat, most of which time she was married, and then the last part of which time he was (to his cousin). I know you don't come here for this but here's one more picture of her, and a link to a very interesting article in the Guardian in case you want to learn more.
Today I had a meeting with the director of the Schola Cantorum, which has been a while in coming. I was able to get my student identification card, so tomorrow I can start the process of receiving a Visa. It looks like getting a Masters degree will take 2.5 years to complete, which I knew; the Schola has created a course that runs throughout the normal two years and encompasses theory, ear training, and I think a bit of history, though it wasn't exactly clear. As the course has been specially designed, it isn't possible for me to begin this semester with classes. Therefore I will begin those in the fall. This semester, meanwhile, I will take lessons, and... well... it has been suggested that many students are doing their final recitals, and as the only other bass player at the school is among those preparing to graduate, I will (apparently) be in high demand. I'm not exactly sure how people are going to know that I'm here, though. There is no organized orchestra (I was told that it is impossible - for reasons not entirely understood - to schedule weekly rehearsals) or other school-run ensembles. I'll have to start hanging around school more, I guess. Skulking? Wearing some kind of sign? These options don't seem good. As soon as my lessons begin (next week?) I will feel more comfortable on the grounds of the school, and less like some kind of interloper.
The other thing I need for school is my original high school diploma. There was some confusion, in my own head at least, because in German-speaking countries university is called "Hochschule" - which translates to High School - and so I brought copies of my UCSB diploma. Unacceptable, apparently. Alas. Someone will have to go digging around in my Castro Valley storage unit... Dori?...


Also, I made the rounds today to the two printshops I've found out about; first, at the Papiermühle, I met the printer (Andreas) and gave him my information, with the hope of maybe giving tours in English, or doing some other kind of jobs around the place. It was great to be there during the week; it was populated entirely by jovial old men in aprons. Andreas is probably in his mid- or late 30s, and was the youngest by far. Everyone was making things, using the equipment. I was smart enough to bring close to nothing of my own work to Switzerland (the decision making process was not-not-random, in those last days before I came here; I'll remember that I was under duress) and so had nothing to leave behind. Any business cards would have the wrong number on them anyway. I should print new ones! If only I had a business card to show... good lord.

These pictures were taken last night out the glass doors that lead onto the balcony, overlooking the courtyard made up of mine and about 10 other buildings; there was this bat, flying solo, darting and zooming all over. It was there for longer than I could even stand to watch it, which was quite a while. (My arms got tired - several times - holding the camera up against the glass, trying to get a decent shot. The bat was going pretty damn fast.)
At some point, I noticed someone else watching the show:
Check that top-story balcony on the right. The owner has put up some netting, but do you think the cat would really try to leap from the 4th floor? Oh well, I understand feeling overprotective of our pets.
Meanwhile, inside, I was doing some gluing.