After an evening (granted, New Year’s Eve) of eating too many fried oysters, bowls of oyster stew, cheese, crackers, slices of beef summer sausage, shrimps and cocktail sauce, and glasses of Chardonnay wine, I awoke the next day (today, New Year’s Day) feeling awful.
“Of course you did,” I can hear you say. “For someone with acid reflux, that’s a prescription for trouble.”
Aye. And it was.
But it was New Year’s Eve. And oysters are a once-a-year tradition that stretches back decades.
“At least tell us you didn’t just sit at a table and shovel food into your mouth,” you retort.
Of course I didn’t. What kind of fool do you think I am?
Don’t answer that.
There was no “shoveling.” The evening began around 6pm and included a walk outside (despite the 16-degree temperature), chatting via Skype with a very wise man in Kansas City, and watching:
Die Hard (the greatest Christmas movie of all time)
Eleventh Hour, Series 1, Episode 1 (Patrick Stewart’s short-lived TV series)
Doctor Who Series 1, Episode 8 (“Father’s Day”)
Secret Diary of a Call Girl Season 1, Episode 1 (we were on a Billie Piper bender)
Ballykissangel Season 2, episode 2
In that order.
Frankly, we worship the ground BBC walks on. Maybe we should have been born in England. Or Wales (since many of these shows were filmed in Cardiff.) Or Ireland.
All I know is when we’re not watching Doc Martin or Sherlock, we’re watching Ballykissangel, Doctor Who, or Wallander (a TV series we nicknamed “Wallower” because the lead character – a detective named Kurt Wallender – does nothing but cry because of guilt, regret, world-weariness, violence, broken relationships, etc.).
So…
New Year’s Day, 2014.
Here I am (or, more precisely, here we are), at Panera Bread.
I’m listening to Haydn’s earliest string quartets. My wife is posting items to sell on Craigslist. (At least, that’s what she tells me she’s doing online. For all I know, she’s buying dresses from ModCloth.)
Today’s Haydn string quartets were just as captivating as yesterday’s.
Doubt me? Here they are, courtesy of someone on YouTube who likes posting Classical music:
Haydn String Quartet Op. 1 No. 0 in E Flat
Haydn String Quartet Op. 1 No. 6 in C
Haydn String Quartet Op. 2 No. 1 in A
For background on the above string quartets, please see yesterday’s post.
As I have in previous posts, I can’t forget to introduce the members of the Buchberger Quartet (their site is in German):
Hubert Buchberger violin
Julia Greve violin
Joachim Etzel viola
Helmut Sohler cello
The other players in the quartet do not have their own web sites, apparently. So, no link to them. Sorry.