My rear window

After having systematically forgotten to bring binoculars to theatre every time I went over the last five months, my field glasses finally saw the light again since the time they spotted a giant squirrel in a forest in Southern India in 2007: tonight they received their first New York premiere at the Carnegie Hall.

I was so proud of the fact that I remembered to take my binoculars that I didn’t mind we were going to a classical concert, not to the opera or theatre, and thus in theory there wasn’t that much to see. For those who wonder how one can possibly get excited about remembering to do something that he has or wants to do, please put things into perspective by considering the person's memory failure history, i.e. all the times you take your seat at the opera/theatre and go: “oh shit, I forgot the binoculars”. Repeat 10 times in 5 months. There you go.

What I observed through my binoculars gainsay the theory according to which there isn’t much to see in a classical concert, with all due respect to the giant squirrel. Here are my orchestrical-zoological observations:

• There is nothing more out of tune -pardon the pun- and disturbing than an obese violinist. A violin player has to be slender by definition, delicate like the instrument he or she plays. On the contrary, it was ok for the kettledrums/timpani player to be obese. I truly appreciated his keeping those four huge beasts under control.
• The rear players look much more committed than the front row guys. The xylophonists spent all their time during breaks and intermission discussing the score and rehearsing, whereas most of the violins were chit-chatting, legs stretched out, sipping margaritas and smoking Cuban cigars.
• The tam-tam or gong was very disappointing. At a certain point the tam-tam player gripped the mallet and angled his body around the instrument thus signalling -I naively thought- that he was ready to strike. In fact, he kept that posture for 4 long minutes during which I didn’t dare to move my binoculars away from him out of fear of missing the one-second show. In the end it turned out that the sound was nothing like… what a gong is supposed to sound like, I mean like the Addams family’s gong ("You rang?"). I have to admit that Stravinsky’s sense of rhythm is much more articulate than that of Gomez Addams and thus the gong sound was disappointingly weak, the strike almost imperceptible. In short, I’ve been staring at a gong-hugger for 4 minutes for nothing.
• Harpists: I wanna found out how they manage to take the instrument home. No wonder I never met a harpist in the subway after a concert.

I loved Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. It bears all the powerful and evocative elements of Russian culture.

“My music is best understood by children and animals.”

Igor Stravinsky

Seeing penguins in Koreatown

For Valentine’s day my husband gave me the perfect gift: we went to an exquisite luxury spa in Koreatown to each enjoy a pampering evening of rejuvenation. Aura Wellness Spa features what they call “Therapeutic Grottos for healing and relaxation”. In other words, three or four igloo shaped ovens at lobster boiling hot temperature, and an igloo shaped refrigerator at Arctic cold temperature.

Once we overcame the mirage effects and managed to stop discussing Kosovo’s independence with lions and penguins, we relaxed, feeling like jello and had fun, an indescribable jello-type of fun. We also met a guy and got some travel tips for Miami and Florida (who says new yorkers are rude? And I swear he was not part of the penguin gang). We ended up talking about Slovakia, his girlfriend's home country. I was tempted to utter that European joke that goes: “the most important thing to know about Slovakia is that it’s not Slovenia”, but I wasn’t sure he would have appreciated the inside humour. Even if I had told him that the joke works the other way around too, when speaking of Slovenia...

After a short while, we were brought to the area where an intense massage began. I'm no stranger to shiatsu massage but when I saw the Korean masseuse climbing on top of me I knew something was up. She could barely speak English. The only word she said was “TENSION” when she first squeezed my neck muscles. Next thing I know, I was no longer a spa client. I was her piece of meat. She made the utmost use of her masochist skills on my right shoulder, punching, spanking, smacking and elbowing all the knots in my muscles. At that point the flock of penguins was back.

I was glad to go home with my right shoulder. I am glad my Korean torturer did not keep it as a souvenir. The next day I walked around town like a zombie, true, but a healthy and relaxed one. After all, we hope this is going to become our monthly torture ritual.