Home from the holidays

Surprisingly little happened over the holidays that was of direct concern to this blog, so I reverted to our page o' 07-08 links. But now it is time to scrape the windshield, de-ice the lock, turn the key, and start it all rumbling to life again. I begin with a less than exhaustive list of things I learned, saw, thought or tripped over while in holiday mode:

Oscar Peterson, RIP
Oscar Peterson, the jazz pianist (and Canadian) with the supersonic chops and the iconic reputation died. Mr. Peterson never graced our stage (as far as I have been able to determine) and so, by my own loosely constructed guidelines, any posts, comments etc. regarding  him will have to wait, and perhaps be left to others entirely. Mentioning him in this fashion and not adding anything is a gross injustice, but there it is.

My Friend Jim
'Tis the season when people show their concern for others - a fact brought delightfully to life for me over the holidays. Someone named Jim Connor (a person whom I've never-even-met!) is apparently very concerned that I may be spending too much on auto insurance. Amazing. To show his concern, Jim has sent me more than 35 messages in the last week, all with the heartfelt message: "Do you pay too much for Auto Insurance Jw?" Every time I looked up, my new friend was there. His heart is so big that I bet he's reached out to some of you this holiday season as well. Clearly, we're blessed.

 Lloyd liked it!
Lloyd Schwartz, classical music critic of The Boston Phoenix, picked our Berlin Philharmonic and Takacs Quartet performances, along with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (a concert we were in on, but was presented by NEC, drop me a line and I'll explain) as among the best classical music performances of 2007.

Six-pack abs

Absinthe is now legal.
The mysterious green fairy is out of the bottle and back in the States
after a ban of 95 years. It's a highly alcoholic distillate of sugar
beets, wormwood, anise seed, fennel, hyssop, cardamom - you get the
idea. My 4 year-old daughter learned an apt phrase over the break,
"Ewww, disgusting."

Jeremy's Faves
Boston Globe classical music critic Jeremy Eichler also found Berlin and Bolivar among the most sublime of our performances in 2007, but was apparently more taken with our recital by Finnish singer Karita Mattila than by the Takacs. All I can say is I would rather not have to make these choices.

And so it's on to the Golden Dragon Acrobats, Moiseyev Dance Company, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the rest of our stellar season.