The Marketer’s Dilemma

Whenever I see a product like this, I sympathize with the business people who are under pressure to liven up a product category.

RiceKrispies

I grew up eating Rice Krispies — perhaps every day for years — and so the brand has deep resonance for me despite our household being mostly organic at this point. When I saw this crazy packaging recently I couldn’t believe it existed.

Can you imagine the meetings that led to this promotion? Starting with “How do we give people something new?” and continuing through “…which shades of green….?”

Barn + Baroque = Heaven

This weekend we had the pleasure of hearing Simone Dinnerstein perform a series of baroque music pieces for solo piano in a benefit put on the Berkshire Bach Society. It took place in a restored barn in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, which was an extraordinary location (apparently the barn was relocated from Chatham NY, restored and rebuilt beam by beam).

Beautiful Barn

Ms. Dinnerstein performed works by four different composers with no sheet music and no break, for more than an hour of continuous music.

Inside the barn

The program was an impressive series of pieces that the performer strung together as a result of their “rondo” forms in common. She played them without breaks in between, and of course straight through without a single sheet of music to look at.

S Dinnerstein May 2019 Recital

I found Shumann’s Arabesque to be particularly wonderful. Apparently he wrote it at a time of deep melancholy but also a time of passion for his wife-to-be Clara, and to me it sounded very “Up” and uplifting. Here is a discussion of his supposed state of mind at the age of 29, when he wrote it (link):

His relationship with Clara Wieck had reached a point of no return, as her father vehemently opposed anything that might interfere with his daughter’s career as a pianist and strongly disapproved of Schumann as a possible son-in-law. Geographically yet not emotionally detached from Clara, he was able to communicate with her only through letters and in his own music. This has been proposed as an explanation for this work, which alternates passages of wistful longing with more robust, declamatory episodes.

In today’s turbulent world, one can only wonder at the peace and High Culture that is an event like this. The deepest gratitude is the clear choice of responses.

Wood Pile in spring

We burned just about every piece of wood last winter (in our stove) and decided not to wait until the last minute to buy some more. Sitting at a desk all day screams out for outdoor activity and when the purveyor of the wood offers to stack it, we always say “no thanks, we’ll do it”.

Once it is done, it feels like a grand achievement, which is ridiculous, but also makes sense.

WoodPile in spring

StackedWood2019

There is also a satisfaction in knowing we have wood for next winter this far ahead of time (occasionally one surprises oneself).

First Pottery Wheel – Candle Holder!

My wife and I recently took our first pottery class (involving the wheel — we had made other sculptures many times before) and it was very difficult, to say the least.

The lump of clay on the wheel is spinning, and in order to make anything of any use (let alone beautiful) one must keep it centered on the wheel, which is to say perfectly centered, so that one’s hands can shape the clay into a bowl or vase or cup, or a candle holder.

I was practicing my “coning” (raising the clay up as it spins, and then squishing it down into a hockey-pick share as it spins) and had inadvertently left a fat middle. Seeing this, the instructor said “Looks like you have a candle holder going there…”, and I took her advice immediately (a very good idea when one is a beginner…).

I really liked the way it turned out — it’s the one on the right in the photo below — and tried to create a second one to match it. This image was obviously after applying the glaze and before firing the pieces.

Candle Holders.vinchesi

As you can see, my attempt to do a second one did not work out well: I couldn’t keep it centered on the wheel, and the result really showed the bad results when this happens.

The cool thing about pottery is that the glaze really makes it look good in ways you just can’t predict.

Here is the final piece, I’m very happy with it!

Candle holder.Vinchesi