15 December 2009 Did you really want me to say that?

The day began foggy and drizzly. This view is about as clear as the sky has been all day. The smoke issuing from the chimney tells you that it is cool enough to want added heat in the house. It was 58°F at 0700 and is 46°F now, at 1630. It will probably drop to 20°F tonight.

The VA audiology appointment today went well. I was placed in a recliner in a sound-isolated room, hooked up to an EEG, and asked to watch a movie which had the audio track silenced and replaced by sub-titles. I was asked to avoid going to sleep. The sleep possibility was reduced somewhat by an earpiece placed in my right ear. The earpiece delivered as steady “beep-beep” or “Buzz-Buzz” along with varying levels of white noise – shortwave static limited as to pitch, during the whole movie experience. I hadn’t seen the movie. Even with limited sub-titles it held my interest well. I’d have liked to have seen the rest of it. If it shows up on cable I’ll watch it. After seeing only part of it, the primary plot was well-enough developed for me to realize that I’ve seen bits and pieces of the plot used in several television programs.

The second part of the study was quite different. Sound was again funneled into my right ear. A voice instructed me to “say the word ____.” While the woman’s voice was asking me to repeat her choice of words, there was background noise being piped in simultaneously. I could identify, or believe I could identify, restaurant chatter overlaid with many other voices at various volumes. The background made it very difficult to discern what word I was being asked to identify and repeat. This segment lasted somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes, with a new request about every 15 seconds. Then there were two more segments which were almost certainly the same fifty words requested over and then a third time, with background volumes decreasing with each test run.

I was told that I performed extremely well on the 1st hear and say run. I correctly heard and repeated 15 of the 50 test words. I’m happy that they find me a suitable test subject for this study. I’d hate to be the poor beggar who scores below 30% on that study. I can’t recall all the words I was asked to repeat. All of my responses were words that can be used in polite society. But I remember thinking that I would find it amusing to see what some of the more incorrect responses, mine and other study participants were. I can imagine that some people’s responses were less polite than mine.

I was paid $15 for my time this morning. In truth, I worked very hard to hear and repeat with all that background. The fact that I took away this morning is that the background levels I was challenged with are not at all uncommon background levels. I have a horrible time in a restaurant with a large table of people. Add in background music or, worse, televisions, and I’m pretty much isolated from the group by a wall of sound that I can’t penetrate.

Somehow, I can hear music somewhat better than conversation. Bad mixes, though, destroy any interest in that particular band or composition. Trying to dig lyrics or vocals out of a mix that focuses on bass and drums, accepts muddy or under-present vocals, is of no interest. Volume and power are not synonymous in music.

Brought home some more short ribs and some new cheeses today. Tonight we’ll have tuna sashimi and some spicy tuna sushi. Tomorrow we’ll have burgers. I have fresh ground chuck, avocado, tomatoes, onion, and whole wheat Kaiser rolls.

short nights, full waiting rooms, and bitten-back comments

I managed to squeeze an extra 15 minutes of sleep in this morning and still get to the dealership on time.


After handing over the car I headed for the customer waiting room, dreading the hours of “Fox News” or other programming that might be my fate.

There was only one other poor soul waiting and he had tuned the TV to the History Channel and was watching what was essentially a commercial for a Tom Cruise movie about assassination plots against Hitler. I settled in to read and managed to say nothing about the programming. The room filled up with older women who were producing frequent soupy-sounding productive coughs. No one was covering coughs; no one had any hand sanitizer. About every five minutes one of them received a phone call and none of them had the courtesy to leave the waiting area while conducting personal business.

After 0900 I did step out into the corridor in order to call ETSU and arrange a slot for myself in the CSI course. Before I could sit down, Gloria called to check in and I went back into the hall.

After most of the other customers had left to retrieve their cars and be on about their day, the most prolific of the coughing women found the remote and dialed in network daytime fluff and pseudo-news. I said nothing. I wasn’t about to handle that remote when she stepped outside and vanished for some reason.

By noon, the room had refilled with new customers. A news item about the Palin book featured a commentator down-checking her political chances to win the US presidency. The customers, however, all thought differently. I said nothing. I did not mention my working title for her ghost-written book, “Sarah’s Big Book of Big Lies.” I did not bring up her habit of quitting every job she’s had before completing them, her inability to form a complete sentence, or her willingness to incite lynch mobs, while excluding anyone but white evangelicals from the roles of US citizens. They were mostly old, and I could, most likely have escaped the room without being bludgeoned. But I chose not to excite or incite them.

I’m now registered for both my classes. I suppose I’ll go onto the campus tomorrow and get some clerical things done, student ID, parking permit, find out about e-mail accounts and campus alert programs.

That, in itself, may be fun as I have two ophthalmology appointments tomorrow and I’m sure they will dilate my eyes. Grocery shopping, filling out forms, being photographed with a flash, just driving home will be so much fun. But I’m sort of used to it and it won’t be nearly as bad as coming home to Palmetto from Bay Pines, crossing the Sunshine Skyway bridge at sunset with dilated eyes.

Soup and leftovers for dinner.

The trip into Greeneville was a pretty drive this morning. All the valleys were filled with fog. The sun was just beginning to illuminate the top of the fog layer as it crested the ridges to the east. Nearly every valley had a fog layer in it. Worth being up to see.

No “Democracy” coming to the USA

Other than that omission, an absolutely spectacular concert took place last night. Leonard Cohen rewarded a sold out house for their attendance by delivering slightly over three hours of high energy, tour-tested music and poetry to a crowd that came expecting much and left well satisfied.


We drove to Asheville, leaving the dog to guard the house and keep the free world safe from cats and the GOP. Pleasant drive over except for one stretch where the setting sun was blazing through a cloud layer and literally destroying all forward vision. Since I was wearing my glasses without sun clips – highly unusual – all I could do was to follow a truck slowly climbing the pass, using the truck body for as much shadow and road definition as possible. Once past that stretch, traffic flowed well and we arrived at the venue when planned. We found convenient garage parking and walked to the restaurant we had chosen. It was an easy walk, a bit chilly as the sun went down.

The restaurant didn’t look all that busy. We were seated and quickly decided what we would order. Gloria had trout filets crusted with falafel, served with saffron rice and a remoulade of vegetables. I had Kafta with the same rice dish and grilled vegetables. We both drank Lebanese mint tea. The plates arrived quickly and we fell to refueling. There was another couple seated next to us. Gloria struck up a conversation and we discovered they were also in town to see Cohen perform. Two more tables of people showed up while we were eating and they, too, were concert bound. We traded travel information, concert histories, and discussed many of the inconsequential things that make us fans of particular performers. I added a very nice baklava for dessert and we both ordered Turkish coffee, made for us without sugar. It was a very pleasant meal and we’d happily dine there again.

Back at the venue, we found our seats and settled into row B orchestra right. The more expensive rows AA & BB turned out to be stackable convention floor chairs with no arm rests and no padding, little better than folding chairs. Neither the venue or the ticket purveyors had made this plain to buyers and there were several very unhappy fans when they saw what their extra dollars brought them. Our row filled up, large people occupied the seats on both sides of us. The venue was poorly ventilated and overly warm. It remained that way throughout the evening. The speaker stacks were, unfortunately, arranged so that we had a partially obstructed view of the band.

Leonard Cohen took the stage, running onto it, precisely on time. As has been the practice for this tour, the opener was “Dance Me To The End Of Love” for the next three hours we were treated to song after song from the newer material and the older. With the exception of a 15 minute intermission Cohen and his excellent band of musicians and vocalists played and sang continually until 2315. There was no downtime between songs, no idle chatter. The performance began at a high energy level and never fell below that line. Every minute on stage was treated as valuable and every person on stage gave peak effort and attention to every note played or sang. There was no impression of a band bored by repeating a show many times. They played with the enthusiasm and promise of the first night of a tour. They laughed with the audience, nailed harmonies, improvised when the music wanted improvisation. Everyone on stage was offered ample time to solo and to demonstrate their particular expertise. They were treated like friends by Cohen rather than as “side men and back-up singers.” The result is a band or extremely tight and cohesive nature.

While our view was somewhat obstructed, we found the sound crew, part of the tour crew rather than local hires, to be experts in their field. Every note played or sung was recognized and treated as the thing of value to the overall performance that the musician or singer meant it to be.

Cohen did two full sets including The Future, Bird On a Wire, In My Secret Life, Waiting For The Miracle, Chelsea Hotel #2, Hallelujah, Boogie Street, Anthem, Who By Fire, Ain’t No Cure For Love, Everybody Knows, Gypsy Wife, Suzanne, Tower of Song, I’m Your Man, Take This Waltz, A Thousand Kisses Deep, Sisters of Mercy, and others I don’t recognize by name. We were treated to a new blues number that as yet has not been named on the fan sites. There were three encores which included a wonderful “If It Be Your Will, First We Take Manhattan, Closing Time, and the final “I Tried To Leave You, sung half in jest at the audience’s reluctance to allow the band to quit.

Gloria and I enjoyed many of the references to Jewish tradition and lyrics taken in part from our liturgy. These certainly increase our appreciation of his ability as a poet and lyricist, and in some cases deepen our own understanding of the liturgical and textual elements Cohen has used in his writing. We both agreed that we had just seen one of the best concerts we could recall. Given Gloria’s long history with the Washington Folk Festival and her access to great bands while living in the DC metro area that says quite a lot. I value my opinion as a musician but she has been able to see many more live performances by musicians that I know only by broadcast or by album work.

It’s hard to say which material we enjoyed most. The opening has tremendous meaning for us. Had we been more aware of this when we married we would have used it in our music for the day. Both of us discovered Cohen early but followed other tracks until we both rediscovered his work via a PBS program. For me, the instrumental lead in to “Who By Fire,” richly Sephardic in character, scored with incredible bass-driven harmonics at the low end of audibility where sound becomes more physical presence than hearing, was certainly a highlight. The words and melody echo the Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th century liturgical poem recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It’s a visceral response to the evocation of essential Judaism. There wasn’t a bad choice of material offered us. Cohen wisely rotates his material in frequency and placement while on tour. We hit a particularly good night. A new song in the repertoire is always interesting and sometime good. Last night’s unnamed offering was good, better than the Chicago reading I heard today.

The drive home went smoothly. We hit some patches of fog going up to Sam’s Pass and most of the way downhill to home had patchy to dense fog. The Pathfinder has good fog lamps and I know when and how to use them. We pulled into the driveway ca. 0115 after leaving the parking garage in Asheville at 2325. All in all a wonderful evening of music and food not to be soon repeated.

We’re hoping to recover enough to dance in Jonesborough Saturday evening. Time will tell.

 Cell phone photograph 1 November 2009 Thomas Wolf Auditorium Asheville NC

The day is occupied with those things that enable and enrich life. Bright blue sky, moderate temperatures, the loud music of the creek, laundry, meal planning, and the affection of a dog who forgave us for making her stand sentry duty alone, last night.

Gloria had hoped to hear “Democracy” last night, as had I. She was disappointed that it was not played.


“It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.”

She’s very correct in her hope – We could use a refresher course in our own system of government. Cohen has described the course we need to steer if we only can.