the cassandra pages

End of an Era

Over the past two weekends, we bade farewell to our beloved music director at Christ Church Cathedral, Patrick Wedd (far right,above) who is retiring after 22 years in this job, and 58 years in church music - he had his first job as an organist at the age of twelve. The previous weekend was a whirlwind of public events - a big Stravinsky concert with a wind ensemble on Saturday night, where our choir was joined by many former singers, then we sang the Stravinsky Mass again as part of the Sunday morning liturgy -- as the composer had intended. On Sunday afternoon we did a big, special Evensong, with music by Britten, Howells, and Jackson, followed by a reception for Patrick and his husband Rob, who has always sung with us, taken care of the music library, and even served as cathedral verger. It was a big deal, and a lot of work for those of us on the music committee who were in charge of all the events, fundraising, and publicity.

The poster for the Stravinsky concert, and the cover page from a folio of Patrick's music that we published as a gift for him. Patrick has been a prolific composer, and was a major contributor and advisor to the revised Canadian Anglican hymnal. We love singing the music Patrick has written for choir, and wanted to make more of it available to other groups.

Yesterday, though, was a quieter goodbye for our parish and the choir family. Instead of showy pieces,  Patrick had chosen some of his more reflective favorites: Healey Willan in the morning, and Orlando Gibbons in the afternoon. The Gibbons was a perfect choice because it was St-Jean-Baptiste Day here, the national day in Quebec, which meant we could sing some Advent hymns about John the Baptist ("A voice crying in the wilderness/Prepare the way of the Lord"), sing the magnificent Gibbons Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and end with one of his greatest verse anthems, "This is the Record of John" for solo alto or counter-tenor and choir. The anthem was written by request sometime between 1611-1621 for St John's College, Oxford -- which is dedicated to John the Baptist -- and has been sung by Anglican choirs ever since.

Getting ready for Evensong rehearsal in the Cathedral's "crossing:" the area behind the forward altar, in front of the choir stalls, between the two side chapels. Nathalie Gagnon-Joseph, in the black top, has sung with Patrick since she was a little girl in the treble choir - like all the other former trebles, receiving a broad musical education in the process.

A Gibbons verse anthem in rehearsal - various soloists are singing the verse sections, and the entire choir comes in for the "chorus" sections, marked "Full" in the score. The high altar is behind us. Our assistant organists are accompanying this particular piece on a portative organ, behind the choir. The soloists, standing, are Michel Duval (bass 2), Catherine Murray (alto 2), Christine Jay (soprano 2), Ana Lewton-Brain (alto 1), Phil Dutton (tenor 1,behind Anna) and Carole Therrien (soprano 1).

It was difficult to have so many "last things" happen: the last rehearsal with Patrick in the choir room, the last time seeing him robe outside his office, the last Agnus Dei and post-communion motet, the last Sunday morning postlude. But Evensong was even harder, since it feels so much more intimate, and is something that is mainly the choir's responsibility. During the rehearsal for one of the Gibbons pieces, I stepped aside and took a few photographs. And after the final recessional, instead of going down to the undercroft to disrobe and put away our music during the organ postlude, we all stayed in the side pews to listen, and then posed on the chancel steps for a final, formal portrait with Patrick that will hang on the wall of the choir room for posterity, along with photographs of former choirs from other eras.

We were all struggling, I think, to keep up a professional appearance and not make things harder for Patrick, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one to shed a few tears. We celebrated, though, with champagne and treats after Evensong. One thing this choir knows how to do, besides sing, is enjoy a party!

In the choir room before Evensong, looking at a commemorative photobook that we gave to Patrick last weekend, with photographs from his more-than-two decades in Montreal. Carole Therrien and Normand Richard, left, are professionals who have sung with Patrick for more than twenty years. Margery Knewstub, holding the book, sang with him in other churches before coming here - she's been with Patrick for thirty years. Emily Hush, at right, was a faithful member of the choir during her years at McGill and came back to sing with us for these weeks after graduating from Columbia Law School last month. Behind them are Bob King and Bob Gibson, both longtime parishioners and volunteer singers in our choir - Bob King and his wife, Janet, have been singing in the choir since long before Patrick became director.

Some of my own discomfort about this transition comes from the questions Patrick's retirement brings up about my own music-making. I've never wanted to be one of those old ladies in a choir who get whispered about: "Why is she still here? Doesn't she know?" While I don't think I'm at that point yet -- I hope I'm still contributing -- will I know when it's time? When you're a beloved professional like Patrick, and stop well short of being an embarrassment, as he did, everyone feels like it's too soon. There's no perfect answer, but it's certainly better to exit gracefully too early rather than too late. Still, when making music together with other people in this form has been such a major part of one's life -- I've been singing in choirs since I was seven -- to stop feels like cutting off one of your limbs.

Patrick in the organ loft.

At last Saturday's concert, three of us gave short speeches. Here's mine.

---

It's one of the great privileges and joys of my life that I've been able to sing with Patrick for the past decade, and to sit next to the organ in the loft, watching him play. He's a consummate musician - which is clear through all the tributes you will hear and read throughout this weekend.

But tonight, I want to say a few words about Patrick not just as a musician, but as a person.

Someone with his talent and dedication certainly could have taken other paths in music, but I don't think it's an accident that Patrick has dedicated his life to being a musician in the Church.  He rarely speaks about it, but those of us who know him well realize that his whole life is deeply informed by his beliefs, and the choices he has made about how to live and how to be. What we see is a profoundly good person, a cheerful person, a generous person, a kind person, a supportive and respectful person -- a true friend. The faithfulness and commitment of Patrick and Rob has also been an example to all of us.

As a leader, Patrick brings all of these qualities to our choir, and quietly influences how we behave toward each other. He often accepts blame for things that weren't really his fault, he never singles people out, he moves on after the inevitable mistakes and problems, and always looks forward with a positive attitude. He is almost never absent. Unlike many performing groups, this choir is not about Patrick or his ego: he encourages us to work as a team, to continually improve, and to care about each other. His approach is to build an atmosphere of mutual respect, offer a wide variety of the best material to work with, and then expect more of us than we think possible.  As a result, we often surprise ourselves, and do our best to rise to the challenge presented by Patrick and the music. And we are loyal because he is loyal. We keep showing up, week after week, year after year, because we love what we do -- and because we love him.

As a cathedral music director, Patrick looks inward, because presenting this much music, week after week, at a very high level, requires a cohesive and committed group of musicians. But he also looks outward. Liturgical music encompasses a tradition, stretching back to the time of the psalms and even before, of composers and poets who tried to make sense of what it means to be human and mortal. The music is rich and complex, rather than simple, because human lives have never been simple and neither has the world. In order to interpret this music well, you have to look into yourself and outward toward the lives of others, and grow as a person over time.

Patrick has made lasting contributions to the great tradition of liturgical music as an interpreter and performer, a conductor, a teacher, and a composer. But his primary job in this place, week after week, has been to present a broad spectrum of music to a wide and unknown variety of people. It is a serious responsibility. We never know who has walked through these doors, or what is in their hearts, or what they are looking for. Maybe they're here every week for the services, or maybe they've just come in for a few minutes, bringing whatever is going on in their lives. All we can do is to sing and play what has been handed down to us to the very best of our abilities, and trust in the power of music itself to uplift, comfort, heal, and transform, and to express the mystery of being spiritual beings on a human journey. Patrick has done this with grace and integrity for an entire lifetime -- and what a privilege it has been to do it with him.

We will miss his presence here, but I think you will agree with me that the qualities of the teachers and leaders who've inspired us never leave us -- they form important and lasting parts of our own selves that help us as we meet life's challenges -- or try to sing a complicated line of music! I know that Patrick will continue to make music, and that we won't be strangers in this wonderful city that we call home. Our promise to you, Patrick, is to guard your legacy in this place, and to keep on singing all our lives. Thank you from all of us.

Oil Pastels: Further Experiments, and a Temporary Refuge

View toward Palermo, from Segesta. Oil pastel on paper, 12" x 8.5".

This is a picture I started last week. Yesterday I worked on it quite a bit more, and am ready to call it finished. 

 

I'm finding oil pastel to be a strange medium and hard to get used to, but I rather like how it fits somewhere between painting and drawing. The technique is more like drawing, but the result more like painting. These details are a little larger than life-size, so you can see how the creamy, crayon-like pigment functions quite a lot like artist's oil paint. It sits up on the surface, can be applied quite thickly, but also blended with a finger or a rolled paper stomp. You can scratch through it to reveal lower layers, or rough it up with a contrasting color, applied quite lightly and dryly.

These days, I find the news has required concentration on something else, a different world of values, especially for us up in Canada. I must say, I'm not one for being very nationalistic (a common trait up here) but there's nothing like being insulted and threatened to bring us together. Listening to male bullies also makes me want to find refuge in something that's flexible, pliant, under my own control, and has a chance at being beautiful and reflective of a better world.

The Silencing of Thoughtfulness

Last night, I read an interview in El Pais with the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who is now almost 89. It's well worth reading. I don't read a lot of pure philosophy, and I don't know Habermas' work, but I was interested in what he was saying about journalism, writing, reading, and the media. "There's a cacophony that fills me with despair," he said. Yes. Me too.

Lest we get off on the wrong foot here, Habermas doesn't dismiss contemporary media, or specifically the internet and social media. He brings up and praises many aspects of new media that have helped humankind already, from the ability to organize from the grassroots to creating connections for support and research among people with rare diseases, saying that there are "many niches where trustworthy information and sounds opinions are exchanged." He's not a Luddite, and he doesn't seem to have a fear of technology or change. What he's concerned about is the same trend that concerns me.

He states the problem succinctly: "You can't have committed intellectuals if you don't have the readers to address the ideas to."

This is exactly what bothers me, as a thoughtful person who likes to write seriously about various topics. For about a decade, there were writers like me -- I wouldn't go so far as to call myself "a committed intellectual," but you know what I mean -- who used blogging for this purpose, and found a wide community of like-minded readers and other writers. Because our attention wasn't nearly as fragmented as it is now, we also had time to read newspapers and journals, and to read longer pieces on the web.  Because the world didn't seem as frightening or chaotic, I think we didn't feel the need to escape into superficiality as much, and substantive conversations were welcomed. I still find this among certain groups of friends, but I'm dismayed by "the cacophony" which seems to drown out most everything, and has pretty much destroyed what we used to call journalism.

Habemas describes this in his own words: at base, you need to have an infrastructure of "alert journalism, with newspapers of reference and mass media capable of directing the interest of the majority toward topics that are relevant to the formation of public opinion, and also the existence of a reading population that is interested in politics, educated, accustomed to the conflictive process of forming opinions, and which takes the time to read quality, independent press."

"That infrastructure is no longer intact in most places," he says -- and of course we all know this. What he calls "the splintering effect of internet" has changed the role of traditional media and "triggered the disintegration of the public sphere." However, what he's even more concerned about is "a much more insidious model of commercialization in which the goal is not explicitly the consumer's attention, but the economic exploitation of the user's private profile."

But it's not just the top-down manipulation that worries him, it's what's happening to us.

"From the time the printed page was invented, turning everyone into a potential reader, it took centuries until the entire population could read. The Internet is turning us all into potential authors and it's only a couple of decades old. Perhaps with time we will learn to manage the social networks in a civilized manner...I am too old to judge the cultural impulse that the new media is giving birth to. But it annoys me that it's the first media revolution in the history mankind to first and foremost serve economic rather than cultural ends."

He agreed with the interviewer that the internet is being used aggressively to encourage a new kind of illiteracy, especially by Trump, and especially in America. Hebemas goes on to talk about his own politics, Europe, the migration crisis and economics, compassion, government, religion. It's well worth reading.

But I'm mainly concerned about the silencing effect this overall trend has on thoughtful people: myself, and many of my friends. Who wants to shout into a whirlwind? For that matter, who wants to shout at all?

A Still Life with Pears

Even though the outdoors is becoming colorful up here at last, I'm still drawing and painting inside -- maybe because the time I tend to sit down to draw is after dinner, after the dishes have been done, when the sun has set. Last night I looked around for something to set up as a still life, and ended up with two pears (I moved one around to play two roles!), the leftovers of a bouquet, and some colorful Mexican Talavera ceramics.

It looked pretty mundane at this point. The question I have to ask, when deciding to add color, is what sort of colors will create a harmonious palette that also conveys a definite feeling, and also, what will be the relationship between the warm and cool colors if both are to be used? Here I decided to focus on the gold and yellows of the pears and the warm red of the flowers, using a golden tone for the table too as a background shape that unifies the picture. These warm colors were set off with blue in the shadows and the rectangular shape (it was actually a green placemat) behind the flowers. The greens also unify the picture, since they appear all over the page. I made the flowers much more orange than they actually were. This reddish-orange needed an echo in the bottom of the vase, and the bright colors of the salt shaker, or else it would have been orphaned at the top of the picture and created an imbalance, drawing the eye upward, when it needs to move around the shapes. And in terms of shapes, it is a picture about roundness and different kinds of curves. Obviously I had drawn the pear on the right incorrectly, and needed to fix that curve - but I knew that once the color went down, it wouldn't matter.

This detail is a little larger than life-size.

Here's a drawing from earlier in the week, when the bouquet of alstroemerias was at its most exuberant. Sometimes, as in this case, a drawing like this ends up leading to something else a few days later because the act of drawing makes me think about the different elements, which almost become "characters" in a play. Some end up getting written out, and others get a featured part. I don't pretend to understand it -- a lot of what happens is subliminal -- but that's part of the weird drama of still life painting and drawing.

And it doesn't need to stop there. A fast, loose, sketchy painting like this could become the basis for an oil or acrylic painting with flatter shapes, and a similar but more closely refined palette.

Drawing a Mexico City Interior

Because we liked the apartment where we were staying so much, I drew the interior more than I had expected to. The furniture, in heavy wood, glass, and leather, was so different from our northern interiors, as were the bright Mexican colors and bold shapes of the plants, vases, lamps and other objects. My eye is always energized by seeing something different, and my spirit too.

And when I'm seeing inspiring art every day, it makes me want to draw. Mexican art often encourages simplicity and the search for form, I find. Even the two-dimensional art feels quite "plastic", and I sense that sculpture, painting, and nature all inform each other, leading to bold, monumental shapes and a minimum of fussiness or elaboration for its own sake. For example, this detail from a fabulous, huge mosaic titled Rio Juchitan (1953-56) by Diego Rivera and assistants in his workshop, now at the Soumaya Museum:

Back at home, here's some fruit in a pedestal bowl:

The food we were buying at the market was inspiring in itself - we always had a bowl of mangoes, bananas, tomatoes and avocados on the counter. And our residency was also changing the space a little too, as we bought flowers and some embroidered textiles and ceramics, and settled into the places where we liked working. J. often worked at the dining table, while I sat on the couch with my knitting, computer, and drawing.

As I filled the pages of my own sketchbook, I was touched by this book in the anthropology museum - written and illustrated by some kindred spirit at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Most of all, I think drawing at the apartment provided a quiet time after the noise, busyness, overcrowded intensity of the metropolis: a way to re-center and come back to myself.

A studio still life, and some talk about buying paints and pastels

I was in the local art store the other day, buying pastel paper, and ended up also buying three oil pastel sticks - a dark blue-green, gold, and purple. It isn't a medium I've used much since I wore out my childhood set of Cray-Pas a very long time ago, but I've been seeing oil pastel work I liked and thought it would be a good experiment. This is the first attempt -- a fast, ten-minute drawing -- and I quite like the refusal of the thick stick to become pointed and fussy; the intense, rich color; the possibilities for thick dark application and for blending.

The same basic set of objects, drawn in pen-and-ink sometimes last year.

In art supplies as in most things we buy, there's a big difference in price and in quality between different brands. Usually the more expensive brands are worth the price, and that seems to be true in this case. The main stick I've used for the drawing here is Sennelier ($4-$5.50/stick, depending on vendor), while the gold is Van Gogh ($1.75-$2.50). The Sennelier is creamy, non granular, and luscious to draw with. The Van Gogh, much drier and more granular, is about the same as the Cray-Pas of my youth: I'd call them student grade. Other types -- and other colors -- may be stickier, or crumblier. A full set of Sennelier oil pastels lists at $539; I've seen discounted prices of $243 - but I'm not interested in a full set at this point, but in acquiring particular colors. I'll be buying more, slowly. They also come in very large sticks, at a commensurately larger price, but those are too big in diameter for what I want to do.

Beginning artists sometimes ask me whether to buy a set of colors of paint or pastels or other media - or to buy open stock. I usually suggest that they buy a set, but of the best quality they can afford. I think we all love sets of colors - there's something about opening a metal lid, or a lovely box, and seeing a whole range of colors nestled inside - maybe it reminds us of those big boxes of Crayola crayons. As a kid, I used to spend hours rearranging my crayons in different ways, which probably foretold more about my future than any Tarot deck. Six colors often isn't enough for someone without experience in color mixing, but a set of twelve colors is usually plenty for someone to get the feel of a medium and decide if they like it, without spending a fortune - because good art supplies are really quite expensive.

Inferior colors, while they may look brilliant and beautiful in the tube or box, are harder to handle and give unpredictable or low-quality results that can easily discourage even the most enthusiastic artist, who may blame herself but shouldn't. The choice isn't all black and white, though. In nearly all media, there's a middle range that is affordable, but not prohibitive. Art stores that cater to university classes are a good place to look, and there are many reviews of art supplies online. In this field, you really do tend to get what you pay for: the top-of-the-line brands are the best, using the finest-ground, best-quality, long-lasting pigments and the best binders and mediums, and sold by companies with long histories of research in the field. The beginner doesn't need to go right to this rarefied top level, but he does need to stay away from the bottom. (Drop me a line if you have a question, I'm always glad to try to help.)

This is my 90-color "landscape" set of Rembrandt dry pastels: I have two drawers full of different pastels, some inherited some bought in sets, some bought individually.

There are several problems with sets for the more advanced or professional artist. One is the need for a  greater range of colors, or a different range, from what is provided by the manufacturer in their sets, which may be general assortments, or color ranges specifically selected for landscape, portraits, or still life. Or we may find that we use up certain colors much more quickly than others, and need larger tubes or more sticks. Sometimes I start with a set that matches most closely what I think I'll use, and then augment it. In the case of pastels, that means buying new boxes for storing the ones I buy individually.

And storage of art supplies, in general, is a whole other issue, which I'll talk about sometime soon in another post.

I'm curious to hear from non-professional artists who've bought art supplies -- has it been a good experience? Confusing? Frustrating? Do you feel like you got your money's worth?

Patience

Rough surf at Block Island. Fountain pen, grey ink, 8.5" x 5.5" on beige toned paper. First stage.

I was curious whether it would be possible to render such a complicated scene in pen and ink, without washes or color. It's difficult! This was the first state of the drawing. Later I added some white and brown colored pencil to increase the tonal range, and take advantage of the toned paper used for the drawing; I think I like it better as a drawing without, but the white makes it easier to "read" the scene. I'm not sure if the Block Island scene will end up as a painting or print or series of drawings, but I'm glad I did this study.

Rough surf at Block Island. Fountain pen, grey ink, colored pencil. 8.5" x 5.5" on beige toned paper. Second stage.

The real challenge -- and absorbing pleasure -- is to start with a blank page and, an hour or two later, see a depiction of the scene. That's the magic of drawing; it's what attracted me as a child and why I've kept drawing all my life. You're creating something from nothing, only through the work of your eye and your hand. Drawing can be so many things, done in so many styles. Sometimes I like to make a careful detailed study in order to help myself see what's actually there, where the structure and form lie, and so I can later make decisions about what to emphasize or leave out. But there is also genuine pleasure in the act of drawing itself - watching the tool move across the paper, seeing the marks emerge under your hand, feeling the tooth of the paper or its smoothness, watching shapes and forms develop, the unconscious process of making decisions as you work. It makes me angry when I think how many teachers and critics have disparaged students' abilities and their innate love of drawing, often discouraging them forever, and both forced students into particular styles or taken talented students apart for drawing in their own way. (My friend, the illustrator Priya Sebastien has recently written about this in her own life.) Drawing should be about joy and discovery, concentration and pleasure. It should be personal. It's so elemental, too, so fundamentally human - as the earliest cave paintings show us. How can anyone be so arrogant as to say, "this is the right way to draw, this is wrong?" And what harm they do!

Jose Maria Velasco, View of Chiquihuite Hill, watercolor on paper.

I've been inspired recently by looking closely at the work of Jose Maria Velasco (1840-1912) the legendary 19th. C. Mexican landscape painter. His drawings, watercolors and paintings are all marked by careful observation, immaculate draftsmanship, and patience -- while never losing sight of the whole, and as I stood in the gallery, moving closer and further away, what struck me the most was the extraordinary patience it must have taken for him to get it right: not just the details in the drawing, but the tonality, the exact precision of the colors he mixed. Each time I go to Mexico City I visit the National Gallery in order to see these paintings again: they remain fresh, alive, vibrant, and beautiful - even though they are very much in the academic tradition.

Jose Maria Velasco, Mexican landscape and detail, oil.

So many of us have lost that ability to be patient, either with our eyes or with our tools, perhaps because of the premium that has been placed on spontaneity and originality in modern art, and on speed and output in modern life in general. What we forget is that even the great innovators, like Picasso, were also great draftsmen, and they didn't acquire the skill to innovate, play, invent, and adapt without learning to see, and to draw extremely well. Patient, careful observation is the foundation of the most memorable art, from the great masters to Lucien Freud. You have to see first, and drawing is a way to see fully. To do that, you have to settle down for a while, a good long while, and put in the time. Then you can let it go into abstraction, allow your emotional response to dominate -- whatever is right for you at that time, with that subject. But if you don't know what an eye, or a fish, or a particular rock looks like to begin with, how are you ever going to capture its essence, let alone distort it at will?

Jose Maria Velasco, Rocks, oil study.

I say this because patience has always been a problem for me, in art, in practicing the piano, in slowing down enough to read carefully. I absolutely refused to play scales or etudes on the piano or flute, and my technique has always been weak as a result. In other areas, calligraphy for instance, I was willing to write pages and pages of examples. Some of the problem is just my impatient nature, my tendency to get bored, and an innate ability to "get by" on less-than-full attention. Some of it is the preference for expressive brushwork or an energetic line -- or sight-reading a new piece of music. Some of it is restlessness: the internal desire to move on to the next thing when the first one isn't finished. At the same time, I'm capable of being very attentive and patient when I remember to be, or when I insist on it for myself. I'm always glad when I give myself an exercise in slowing down, because I always learn something valuable and notice things I'd otherwise miss. Drawing is the back-to-basics practice that is the foundation for everything else. My friends who are professional orchestra players still practice every day; I need to draw every day too.

Vincent Van Gogh, A Fishing Boat at Sea, pen and ink, 1888.

The sketchbooks of great draftsmen are always inspiring - I think of Turner, Whistler, Van Gogh, Sargent, Winslow Homer. Because they were working more quickly than in the studio, their drawings often contain an energy, embodied in the line or the brushstroke, that is as palpable as the wind. Yet, they had the skill, honed by years of practice, to use every minute well, through patient concentration, and I don't think they saw their studies as "lesser" works. Sargent, who made his living from society portraits, once said that his true legacy would be his watercolors, and that is proving to be the case. Van Gogh's drawings of landscapes, trees, and gardens are every bit as moving to me as his paintings. And when I stand in a museum in front of one of these drawings or watercolor studies, I also feel myself, and my connection with all the other artists who have also faced a scene and the next blank page.

J.M. Turner, Storm at Sea, watercolor without pencil underdrawing.

 

 

 

Aerie

The view southwest from the roof.

We rented an apartment in Mexico City, in the same general area (Condesa/Roma) we've stayed in recently, but a bit closer to Chapultepec Park, metro and metrobus stations, and the major streets of Paseo de la Reforma and Insugentes Sur. It turned out to be an excellent fit for us, with a well-equipped kitchen, good appliances, a comfortable bed and living room, lots of storage, a washing machine, a balcony, and 24-hour security.

Looking northwest from our balcony, toward Reforma.

But one of its best aspects was its height: we were on the 8th floor of a 14-story building, with access to the roof, good views to the west of the city and Chapultepec castle, the flight path of airplanes coming into Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, and the dramatic thunderstorms that moved eastward across the mountains into the city on a number of late afternoons. We spent way more time than we'd anticipated in this aerie, just watching and looking and listening, whether it was the life on the streets and rooftops below or helicopters landing on pads on top of the skyscrapers on Reforma.

Street vendors below a date palm.

Mexico City's official color is hot pink, and so are its taxis.

Nighttime on a beautiful, clear evening - usually the pollution got worse during the day and then sometimes cleared out at night.

It was interesting and disturbing to see the differences in pollution and atmospheric conditions each day -- sometimes we could see the mountains, but more often not. We only went up on the roof once, on the afternoon we arrived, which turned out to be one of the clearest days of the sixteen we were there. More often, it was like the photo below.

I sketched the urban landscapes from our windows: not my usual subject, but the view and its endless details compelled me to try. Here's a pen-and-ink version:

And one with added watercolor and gouache:

The first drawing engendered this exchange on Instagram:

Me: I had fun doing this but it's also kind of exhausting!
XB: I can imagine it, hard to keep chaos and balance all together.
Me: Yes, it's just a lot of stuff, and easy to get confused where you are, while trying to keep a general sense of balance through the whole scene. What to leave out, what to leave in. And, of course, perspective. I don't use lines but try to be fairly accurate by eye, and mistakes always happen!
XB: mistakes are... beautiful

Re-entry

Between singing at yesterday's services, I walked the quiet streets of my city. Queen Victoria stood coldly on her pedestal, the sun -- wan, but at least palpable -- shone on pale faces, but in the cafe where I finally stopped, a coach on the video screen was explaining hockey plays to little boys, still eagerly piling out onto the ice.

We'd been back from Mexico City for just two days. I felt disoriented, bereft. I missed the vast swarms of humanity at street crossings, the noise and exuberance, their luxurious black hair and relaxed faces; the riotous colors; the smells of frying meat, onions, chili, potatoes, corn, spices; the excessive surface decoration, the effortless mix of elegance with the popular street. We're so tame up here, I thought. So reservé, so diplomatique indeed.

In the cafe, I thought about how my choir would be singing Orlando Gibbons in a few minutes, with his tightly coiled but always-contained emotion. I love that music: it's part of my heritage, after all. But more and more, I find important parts of myself released in the warmth of Latin cultures, and it's hard both to leave that exuberance and largeness behind, and to preserve my discovered self in this much cooler and more private place.

--

Avenida Francisco I. Madero, in the historical center

It's always a shock to come back to Montreal from Mexico City, that maximum metropolis of 22 million people which fills the vast Valley of Mexico. After six trips, we've come to know it fairly well, and to feel comfortable there: we know where to go, how to get around, where to buy what we need, what to eat and what to avoid, where to get information, who to trust. There are favorite places we return to each time -- favorite paintings and artifacts, restaurants, public plazas, churches, markets, streets -- and there is always exploring and adventure. It's intense but no longer intimidating, so long as we don't take foolish risks, and accept the fact that unexpected things may happen. Over the years we've had bike accidents, and tripped on the uneven pavement; we've had phones stolen on crowded metro platforms; dealt with the altitude and pollution and figured out what to do in case of an earthquake; we've gotten sick and been helped and survived. What we've gained has vastly outweighed the problems. Some people probably wouldn't like that learning curve, or maybe they just want travel to be more comfortable, relaxing and easy, but they're missing one of the world's great cities and cultures, and they're missing interaction and relationship with Mexicans of the present, and their long, difficult, and proud history.

Chapultepec Park, Mexico City

Each year we've gone, there have been fewer white tourists, probably due to American politics and the spread of fear of violence by drug cartels. I often hear Canadians expressing a desire to go to Mexico's capital city, or telling us they've already been, but most Americans look horrified. There are large parts of the city where we would not go, for sure, but it's also true that Mexico City is not where most of the drug-related violence is taking place. Pickpockets operate in every big city: I had my wallet stolen in Rome; it also happens right here in Montreal. I feel sorry that so few people travel there. It certainly hurts the Mexican economy, and doesn't help dispel misconceptions and stereotypes. But I freely admit that it's not an easy place to visit or to become comfortable with. Someday, perhaps, we'll feel like it's too much for us, but I hope not, because it allows us to access a different side of ourselves, it offers challenges for both the body and mind, and gives us an opportunity to learn something about humanity in general that seems repressed in these colder, more formal, and privileged cultures further north.

Saturday salsa dancing, a regular event in the public park near the Ciudadela.

On a personal and even spiritual level, I find it encouraging to go there, because in spite of their terrible government, and the poverty and corruption, many of the people manage to live with a buoyancy and vibrancy, warmth and simplicity I seldom see in our own culture. There is a sense of pride that gets expressed in innumerable ways. Every single evening, the street vendors near our apartment scrubbed all their pans and stoves and then the pavement itself until it shone; people washed the windows of their shops and swept the street; the subways are extremely crowded but clean, with the floors made of glistening marble (beautiful stone is one resource the country has in abundance.) And there's constant music, noise, and color, and attention to design, in minute detail, everywhere, in spite of the hard lives so many people lead. Cultural attitudes, at least among the common people, seem less individualistic and more collective than ours; people look you directly in the eye, they smile, they say buenos dias and buenas tardes, and always return your greeting. Family is still extremely important, and positive, realistic attitudes toward aging, caring for the elderly, death and dying are deeply embedded in the culture. When people hear that we come every year, they smile with pride -- they love their city and their country, and are delighted that we do too. We got into a political discussion with a cab driver, who complained a lot about the candidates in the upcoming election and the general state of things, but then, after having exhausted the subject, he smiled and said, "Pero, yo soy Mexicano!!" "But, I am Mexican!" It spite of it all, he identifies himself as Mexican, not with a political party, or a current government or current problems: being Mexican is so much more than that.

Part of a huge mural by David Alfaro Siquerios about the Mexican revolution and workers' struggle, at the Castillo de Chapultepec

This is an attitude I've observed among other people -- Iranians, for instance, or Chinese -- with a long history who've seen governments, dynasties, dictators, emperors and kings come and go; they are united by language, place, culture and shared history, shared suffering. Mexican history goes back to the Olmecs, the first Meso-American civilization, dating from 1000 B.C., in the region near modern-day Veracruz. In America and Canada, we have nothing comparable: our national histories go back only a few hundred years, and the indigenous cultures were younger and less developed than in Latin America, and so decimated by genocide that few of us share that heritage, while in Mexico, a majority of the people are mixed-race. So here in the northern New World, we are left to piece our identities together from the fragmented histories of the places we, or our ancestors, came from. But it is never entirely satisfactory to understand oneself that way -- at least it hasn't been so for me.

Olmec sculptures, c. 1000-300 BCE, Museo Nacional de Antropologia

I'm interested not so much in nationalisms, but in what makes us human, and the shared qualities that give rise to civilizations. While these questions have been common to cultures for millennia, I find them harder and harder to grasp in the modern political landscape, which seems to me extremely destructive  -- perhaps even opposed -- to what we have historically called "human culture" and expressed in different and deeply valued ways. Perhaps that's why I appreciate the experience of going back, for a time, to live in an older society which hasn't yet been taken over by globalization, materialism and greed, and where people are still resistant to the whitewashing of their own culture. Yes, there are some franchises and global brands, American movies and tv, and people wearing t-shirts emblazoned with "Abercrombie & Fitch" and English slogans; there's wealth, multinational corporations, sleek skyscrapers, and a desire for modernization, but the reach of mass media has not yet destroyed the past, or altered people's innate sense of themselves as part of a whole complicated constellation of histories, meanings, and relationships that occurred in that particular place. "Yo soy Mexicano," says the taxi-driver, and he knows what he means.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it, and happy spring to everyone! The snow is finally retreating up here, and little green shoots are pushing out of the earth, making all of us a lot more cheerful. I've been back on my bike this week, and it feels like freedom.

If any of you would like to listen to our choir sing some glorious music for Easter Evensong, featuring the Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughn Williams (at about the halfway point of the hour-long broadcast), you can listen online, starting at 4:00 pm Eastern (daylight savings) Time today (that would be 9 pm in London) by following this link to Radio Ville-Marie, Montreal. It's our pleasure to sing for you, even if we can't see you!