The Far Away Fella

In and between the lines of this story are all the truths about what's good in human beings and, given the environment in which we currently find ourselves wandering around, the author likes to think everyone has these qualities in abundance. The older I become, the more I appreciate the gift of self-awareness, and the recognition that one's existence can always be improved, often by improving the existence of others.  Merry Christmas By Anthony Simone © 2009 It was 8:45 when I got there and I wasn’t sure if I’d have time enough to do it. See Santa, I mean. In Macy’s. Yeah, the one on 34th Street. From the movie (and not that lousy remake for TV, either). It was chilly, too, given that it was Santa’s first day for this year’s New York gig. Under-dressed for the weather but determined to see Santa, I hustled up the escalator (no elevators for me, bub) to the fourth floor where the old man was situated, not too far from the toaster ovens. Sure enough, he was there ...

We learned today that Mariss Jansons, a long-time music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony, and before that the Oslo Philharmonic, has died at the age of 76. For those of you who don't know who Jansons was (and remains, through his recordings and broadcasts), I can tell you that he was one of the finest conductors of the last 50 years, almost entirely in the concert hall, although he did make occasional forays into opera. Jansons came by conducting through heredity, having been the son of Arvid Jansons, himself an extraordinary maestro. Arvid was Mariss's first teacher and, unfortunately, also passed on to his son a bad heart, which was the cause of death for them both. Jansons was a Latvian, and grew up under the yoke of first the Nazis and then the Soviets, before deciding to become a musician. Jansons's first mentors were two giants of the podium, Yevgeny Mravinsky in (then) Leningrad and Herbert von Karajan in Berlin. He managed a successful synthesis of two ...