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| Notre Dame, restored |
In April 2019 a fire destroyed much of Notre Dame de Paris, one of the monuments of Medieval civilization and the birthplace of polyphony. It is about to re-open, fully restored to as it was before the fire.
And a personal thanksgiving. Over the last few months, possibly years, I have been suffering a progressive hearing loss. In the last week it worsened to the point that half of my hearing was gone. Yesterday a visit to my doctor, who applied hydrogen peroxide and vigorous flushing, dislodged two large lumps of hardened earwax and today my hearing is fully restored! This happened to me once before, in my twenties. It is like being reborn. My world had slowly turned into purgatory or limbo, where sounds were half-heard, a ghostly existence. Now, the sound of my slippers on the floor is deafening! I have all those high frequency sounds back. Who knows, maybe I will be able to return to composing. Ah, sound!
A friend and I years ago exchanged lists of the things we hated the most. His list had all to do with places. Number one was having to move house because he has an enormous library. He pointed out that my list all had to do with sounds. One item would be if a student baritone saxophone player moved in next door. Agh!
So let's have a celebratory envoi. The Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 by J. S. Bach:
15 comments:
Wonderful news! Naturally I'm very gratified and thankful to see Notre-Dame repaired (I sent money for the purpose after the fire). I didn't know that you had been struggling with hearing loss, but how tremendously good to learn that the problem has been resolved, and in such a sudden way! Wishing you much joy.
Thanks so much, Craig. Yes, it is one of those things that creeps up on you, imperceptibly until one morning you wake up and realize that you can barely hear out of one ear! The bonus is that when you get your hearing back, it is just wonderful! Now I have to listen to all the Bruckner symphonies again!
Ah I sympathise -- the number of times I've had to have wax cleared! It's especially a pain as the waiting times have got ridiculous, especially as most surgeries now refuse to do it and instead refer you to a specialist...
The sound I hate the most is automated announcements on trains especially. You usually can't go more than a few minutes without hearing one: 'If you see anything suspicious...' 'See it. Say it. Sorted.' 'If you do not have a valid ticket...' The voice is patronising, well-spoken but robotic and rhythmically odd.
Your saxophone comment makes me think of the Jeeves story where Bertie Wooster took up the banjo, to the great annoyance of his neighbours. Such fun.
Steven, let me share my Mexican healthcare experience. When I got a chance (I've been busy lately) I texted my doctor and she gave me an appointment two days later. After confirming that yes, it was just a plug of earwax, she worked for an hour and a half to dislodge them, without success. She asked me to go home, put some olive oil in each ear and wait a couple of hours, then text her. Nothing came of that, so she send a nurse, one of her team, to my house in the evening and with some vigorous flushing, both my ears were cleared. The cost of this: $75 for the doctor's appointment (the standard fee) and the followup with the nurse was free.
One of the things I hated about living in British Columbia was the stentorian public announcements on the ferries. Fatuous, redundant and yes, weirdly artificial. All part of the unrelenting process of turning us from citizens into compliant servants.
Steven, our light rail system in the Puget Sound area has those bad points. The patronizing bot voice may be the international voice of rail. :)
Good news about earwax removal.
I can well imagine, Wenatchee. I remember going to Vienna and finding that the self-checkout machines in supermarkets used exactly the same voice as here!
Bryan, for contrast, at our surgery you waste much time trying to navigate an 'e-consult' form, which then usually results in an unscheduled telephone appointment (which inevitably you miss, because unscheduled), so then you push for an in-person appointment. Either you queue on the phone or in person first thing in the morning, often for quite a long time. Maybe you get an appointment in a couple of weeks. Then you get referred to an audiologist, and hopefully you get an appointment within a couple of months. You can actually do ear irrigation yourself at home quite safely, but it's not as efficient as the devices doctors use, in my experience. Thankfully, there are more places offering it privately now, reasonably affordably, so I'll probably do that next time...
I can well imagine, Wenatchee. I remember going to Vienna and finding that the self-checkout machines in supermarkets used exactly the same voice as here!
Bryan, for contrast, at our surgery you waste much time trying to navigate an 'e-consult' form, which then usually results in an unscheduled telephone appointment (which inevitably you miss, because unscheduled), so then you push for an in-person appointment. Either you queue on the phone or in person first thing in the morning, often for quite a long time. Maybe you get an appointment in a couple of weeks. Then you get referred to an audiologist, and hopefully you get an appointment within a couple of months. You can actually do ear irrigation yourself at home quite safely, but it's not as efficient as the devices doctors use, in my experience. Thankfully, there are more places offering it privately now, reasonably affordably, so I'll probably do that next time...
UGH! I'm afraid that the healthcare system in Canada is trending in the same direction.
I read a memoir written by one of my favorite New Testament scholars (Richard Bauckham) about how he had a macular condition that required medical care and how he navigated the British healthcare system. The chapters on his waiting for follow up appointments were legit terrifying reading. No wonder he broke down and got private treatment rather than wait for the months he was stuck waiting with the public system. A month or two with an eye condition makes the difference between any sight at all and total blindness. Sometimes mere DAYS make the difference.
Yes, well, there's a reason the UK has poor cancer outcomes. The level of incompetence can be astounding. I know two people who received letters from the NHS saying they had stage 4 cancer. Except neither did: the NHS had sent the letters to the wrong patients. I mean to read Bauckham's book on Jesus and eyewitnesses. Just looked up the memoir -- sounds very interesting!
Bryan, your restored hearing is great news, I'm glad you shared it. I needed some good news.
I actually decided to quit reading news when I saw the headlines the morning after the election here in the USA. Only twice have I peeked, one of the times was this morning just before arriving here at Music Salon. The terrible things I read in those tiny headlines reaffirmed my decision. But I have so many subscriptions. Definitely I'll quit all the dailies, but the weekly Economist and the fortnightly NYReview and the monthly Atlantic mag...they go deeper, give more context and coherent perspective, hit less brutally and without sensation or gory details of he moment.
But your hearing is just the news I needed. I know you'll use it well.
As far as Notre Dame goes, of course that restoration is also good news, but immediately my drifts to Ukraine, where I despair at the devastation of lives, of bodies and cities, of hopes and morals and of my sense of what I thought my own country was but frighteningly might not be.But I'm sorry for drifting into that. I've decided to pull back out of politics and news and go deeper into music, read books of science and history and biography, care about the people around me and focus on people and situations around me that I can actually affect, rather than screaming into an abyss.
The individual is so small and brief in the ongoing sociality of our species.
Thanks again, Will, for a gracious comment. Twenty-six years ago I made the decision to leave Canada and move to Mexico. This was not necessarily going to be permanent and for my now-divorced wife, it was not. She is back in Germany, though we are very close and FaceTime every Sunday and I see her and her family when I go to Salzburg.
I am quite happy that I moved here and though I have certainly had some missteps along the way, I think it was the best decision. Lots of people here are not happy with the new Mexican Presidenta, but my feeling is that I'm pretty ok with a Jewish woman president trained as a physicist. However, we will see. Certainly a better prospect than the current prime ministers of Canada and the UK who seem singularly incompetent. So the very nasty comments of the premier of Ontario, horrified at being compared to "shithole" Mexico were very ill-judged.
I think that there are many things that I have experienced living here that would have been impossible or unlikely in Canada. I love the healthcare system--I have a wonderful doctor and an excellent dentist and I don't have to wait months for anything. I am able to design and build my own new house at a very reasonable cost. I am partner in a Mexican real estate firm that is quite prosperous. Great climate, agreeable people and a truly fantastic supermarket. Plus I am not far away from one of the great cities of the world: Mexico City.
One of the things I am happy about is that I am quite well insulated from a lot of the bad stuff that is going on in the world.
I definitely understand how nice it is to get hearing back in full, and know that one isn't losing music forever. I recently got earwax removal done through the national health service in Poland. Total waiting time was a bit over two weeks. It made sense that I was referred to a specialist, because the specialist could also give me a hearing test with her specialist equipment just to ensure that the problem wasn't more serious than wax.
Funny, I was wondering just a few Minato how or why you ended up in Mexico, trying to remember what I might have read here about that in past years...and you just wrote about it! I love my country but admit I don't know much about other places except through reading. Only twice have I been out of the USA, 10 days in El Salvador and Guatemala in 1988 and 28 days in Hungary and Transylvania in 2000. Neither trip was tourism, they were deeply educational as intended. If I were untethered I would return to Transylvania to see if I could study there, buy my son is here and he needs me so I'm not going anywhere.
What initially drove me down here was a horrific Montreal winter with no power for eight days. But I found lots of reasons to stay. The only other places that would tempt me would be Spain, maybe Portugal, or Austria, but only for the summer months. Canada is a lovely place, as is the US, but the way it is governed is more and more problematic for me.
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