1996 - 1997

Greetings!

My card-sending the past two years has been incomplete, owing to jaw surgery Christmas 1995 and ‘flu in December 1996. I tried to catch up with “generic letters” during vacation last July,but didn’t get the task finished then either. Now, as of December 17, as I was completing the final draft on this letter, the computer destroyed the whole thing while I was at lunch. WHY? And I’d carefully “saved” it, too. So much for technology. I’m just a low-tech person trying to cope with the high-tech world...sigh…

So this letter will be even later than I thought. I’ll recreate it from an earlier draft. It will just be highlights of 1996 and ‘97. I may never catch up with 1995!

BOTH YEARS:--Assorted museum and art exhibits, musical or lecture events, etc., and continuing researches (during short vacations) in old newspaper microfilms at the Carmel and Monterey libraries, looking for info about my father’s art career when he had lived there. I organized exhibits and teams of volunteers for the local Historical Society’s display at the October Harbor Festival, on a fishing pier! This October (‘97), when we were packing up the displays at the end, a fisherman came up and asked if we wanted to buy a whole albacore [this is the “solid white meat tuna” when it’s in cans] for $10.00. They were huge, and frozen, from the hold of the boat. I said “Why not?” So this creature lay in my fridge thawing for three days. It was like finding Moby Dick in there every time I opened the fridge. He was baked then, providing steaks, sandwiches, salads, etc. for me, and fabulous snacks for Whiskers the Cat.

1996: During the summer I heard a lecture and concert rather out of the ordinary at the 18th century Spanish mission church in San Luis Obispo--with both recordings and live performances of 18th century Spanish colonial church music. Spain used to send court composers out to create original music for the cathedrals and churches in its vast empire, of which California was part. The speaker had delved into some old long-lost compositions in a cathedral archive in Mexico. The music was lovely!

Since my high school days were spent two years each in two different classes, I went to another “class reunion” in 1996 (having been to the other one the year before). It is a shock to walk into a room thinking of the teenagers you remembered--and finding something altogether different at this stage! But it was fun to see them anyway, and find out how everyone’s lives had turned out.

The outstanding event of 1996, however, was a brief trip to PARIS on rather short notice during Thanksgiving week in November. This was precipitated by my interest in seeing film actor Alain Delon in his first stage play in many years (“Variations Enigmatiques”), plus my discovery of a cheap airline fare (via Frankfurt, thus affording a couple of hours of German ambiance each way). I also got to see another old favorite film actor Jean-Paul Belmondo on stage in a 19th century Feydeau farce (“La Puce à l’Oreille”). I visited two museums that had not existed when I was there 100 years ago, the d’Orsay and the Pompidou. And I made a little literary pilgrimage to the site of one of my favorite poems, “Pont Mirabeau”--riding the Métro to the other side of the river so I could walk back across the bridge, clutching plastic-encased poetry book under an umbrella in the pouring rain!--then going back down into the Métro on the other side to return to my base of operations.

I loved exploring my St. Germain quartier in the rain, with all its historic literary and artistic associations, bookshops, galleries, restaurants and boutiques. Walking across the pedestrian bridge at night in the rain was great too, with all those handsome buildings cleaned and lighted up on both sides of the river. And just staying in a 17th century hotel which Louis XIV’s architect (who established the Institute of Architecture) had built for his own home, was a treat in itself for an architecture buff!

I was pleased to see that a small street (one block long) was named after the poet referred to above, Apollinaire.

It was gratifying to find that all the years of French class and continuing to read a French magazine enabled me to cope reasonably well in the language, even though I haven’t had much oral practice lately. It was a short trip--but most satisfying.

Not long after returning home I caught a bad case of the ‘flu, so my winter was blah. No energy.

1997: But, energy or no, I had to stir myself northward for a few days, as I’d been asked to take some photos andmemorabilia of my father (A. Harold Knott) on New Year’s Day, to be displayed in the Carmel Library (Park Branch) foyer through the whole of 1997. This was to tie in with at alk I was scheduled to give about him in April. They arranged the materials handsomely in a glass display case: some 1920’s photos, a portable paint box for oils, a set of water colors, palette brushes, etc., and his folding stool, for use in painting out of doors, plus a small oil painting he had done of Point Lobos in the ‘20’s.

My talk was on April 28. In honor of the 70th anniversary of the Carmel Art Association, the former President of the Association spoke on its history, and I spoke about my father’s life and career, as one of its founding members [1927!]. Our theme was “Enduring Vision”--perfect for art, so I took that and ran with it, and it worked out very well. I showed several of my father’s paintings “live” along with the talk. We had to give our talks twice in the same day because there wasn’t enough seating to accommodate all the eager history buffs at once. We had fun doing this, and our “show” was warmly received.

In August I was back in Carmel, delivering some of my father’s paintings to the Carmel Art Association’s 70th Anniversary Exhibit. The space allocated for past members’ work was limited, but they hung two of my father’s water colors, plus a portrait photograph of him, so I was very pleased.

As for matters Wagnerian, I saw the David Hockney production of Tristan und Isolde in Los Angeles in February. In October, a UC Berkeley professor lectured to the Wagner Society on Tristan and Schopenhauer (!) It seems that we are so overwhelmed by the music and the love story in the opera that we scarcely realize that Wagner has used the text to reflect Schopenhauer's philosophy. Pretty heavy stuff!)

By way of a sideline, in Los Angeles I stumbled into another filmmaking situation while climbing up the hill to my hotel after breakfast. Found some women cowering under small sidewalk trees who told me to take shelter because a parachutist was about to come down upon us. I went on and asked a man who seemed to be part of the crew; he said yes, I should get into a doorway. I looked up and spotted someone floating around on an orange ‘chute, so I sheltered against a building for a few moments. He disappeared, so I assumed he’d landed elsewhere, and I started out to the sidewalk again. Applause from unseen hands broke out behind me; I looked around and saw that the parachutist had plopped into the street a few yards back. Now I wondered--is my longdelayed film career taking off at last? Will I be the unpaid costar in an Indonesian TV commercial? Or will I wind up on the traditional cutting-room floor?

In March the Wagner Society sponsored a concert in San Francisco by young singers (some of whom were recipients of grants from us towards their musical training). They were all good, and two extremely so, Pamela Hicks and Richard Liszt, who got a standing ovation for their Siegmund and Sieglinde scene.

For our Wagner Society’s annual “Cosima Birthday Party this year (which amounts to a Christmas party because Wagner’s wife was born on Christmas day), we were the guests of the German Consulate in San Francisco. (The Consul and his wife are members.) The event included a concert by a wonderful young Australian tenor who was with the SF Opera this season, Stuart Skelton. We predict a big future for him! A lovely party in gracious surroundings with magnificent views of the Bay. It’s some time since I swam in semi-diplomatic circles (long ago and far away in London...the U.S. Air Attaché’s Office of the American Embassy, to be precise)--fun to experience a bit of that again but on this side of the pond.

Afterwards I went on to a concert by an a capella male chorus (“Slavyanka”) of Russian and Slavic music. So it was quite an international evening.

Now for the most important part of my “annual” report: an update on the feline and amphibian members of my  household. Whiskers the Cat (aka “Furball’) is nows 11, “middle aged,” but he thinks young, and acts it too when he is feeling in good form and not half sick with seasonal allergies. He doesn’t seem to get up onto the gate lintels or the roof anymore, (neither do I) --but he can still spring from bathtub edge to window sill, or from floor to chair to kitchen counter-top (and I can’t). When he’s feeling wonderful he races around the house like a kitten, playing like mad, and practices his predator skills on me. I wear a lot of iodine and band-aids. (A suit of medieval armor might be a good thing.)

He has recently taken to attacking the wallpaper in the hallway, either to emphasize an ignored demand for attention, food, etc.--or to annoy/punish me for dereliction in this regard. (He succeeds; this wallpaper pattern can’t be replaced.) I hasten to add though, he’s a devotedly affectionate little cat.

Fred the Frog and/or his descendants and collateral relations still hang out from time to time inside the lid (kept ajar for them) of my plastic garbage can which holds rainwater. The original point of saving water was for plants because of our usual drought situation. But I feel responsible for keeping the frog species afloat, as it were, so I have to leave the barrel about ⅓ full for their sake. They register their gratitude by singing me an occasional solo. The weekend of John Denver’s funeral, a recording of one of his songs was being played over the radio in my kitchen. Suddenly Fred joined in to sing along with him. John Denver would have liked that.

Now with our respective musical and vocal greetings--(“MEOWWW!” Purr, purr…” “CROAK! Ribet, Ribet!” and “Compliments of the Season,”)-- we wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!