Remembering Earth-that-was
This is the first piece in “Introduction to the Performance of Bach”, by Rosalyn Tureck. I’ve worked on it for years — only blew one trill. After a decent short pause the recording transitions to “Cat on the Keyboard” improvisation, and continues for a couple more minutes.
I should note that there is a youtube video of Tureck playing this (just the Bach), to which you should by all means listen.
I have a little telescope:
As astronomical telescopes go, it’s pretty small: a Celestron NexStar 5 SE. If the seeing is extremely good, I can see the rings of Saturn with it. Unfortunately, where I live the seeing is almost never very good. I tried my best to get pictures of Jupiter and Saturn as they danced close to each other.
December 21 was the night of closest approach. Unfortunately the air wasn’t very clear; drifting clouds sometimes blocked the view entirely.
On December 22 I tried again:
In passing I sometimes tried to get pictures of the Andromeda Galaxy, but I had difficulty with the targeting:
2020-12-09. Wednesday. Christina’s Mom died this morning at 0310. There was a 100th birthday celebration for her a little while ago, on 2020-11-28. “Celebration” in quotes — socially distanced masked small groups from different family units took turns standing in front of the lobby window waving to her. She was in her wheelchair, eyes almost closed.
Two days ago she tested positive for COVID.
I didn’t get pictures of everyone — there were 30 some people all together.
I have a love/can’t-stand relationship with coffee. I bought a new bag of Peet’s “Major Dickason’s Blend” beans at my local Peet’s a few days ago that fell firmly into the can’t-stand bin. I’ve consumed many bags of the Major’s blend in the past, and generally considered it OK, so this is an unexplained change.
Do I have crypto-covid with the only symptom being deranged taste buds? No, that can’t be, because toast tastes the same. More likely, I think, is that Covid has affected the Peet’s delivery chain, and the beans that were supposedly roasted on 2020-11-02 were actually very old. In any case, the flavor was virtually identical to the year-old beans I wrote about yesterday. Eeew de old boot.
Today I am trying a bag of Peet’s ‘Espresso Blend’, which, while not great, at least isn’t foul…