Plenty of reasons to get depressed over the quarter century that humanity has now spent accelerating the destruction of our planet, and the outlook getting darker still, so here's to the small pleasures and tiny achievements attained on the sloping deck of a sinking ship.
My nascent pirate luthier workshop has been fairly busy this year. Essentially, I keep posting on Freegle that I aim to restore and rehome unloved violins that are essentially worthless because their value in good condition would be less than what a professional would charge to restore them. I also buy cheap violins when I find them on gumtree or fleamarkets for £ 30 or less. There have been 15 violins coming in this year (numbered 5-19 as there were 3 last year, and counting started with the one from my aunt in 2022), as well as a vintage guitar and a venerable old banjo. I managed to restore and give away eight violins this year, one returned to its family after restoration, another four play very nicely but still live under my roof, and four are still broken. The latest blog entry with a list of the violins restored is here. Funnily enough I just came across a short documentary on TV5monde about a woman who does a similar thing with umbrellas ...
In other string playing news, Cowley Orchestra's very own double bass, The Captain, also lives under my roof and has seen two exciting outings this year, each time accompanied by Jenny the cello who joined me in 2023. In April, both instruments (and me behind the cello) played in an orchestral workshop day culminating in a performance of Louise Farrenc's third symphony (op.36), organised by members of the Freeland Orchestra. In July, both instruments (without me) appeared in the international youth orchestra featuring musicians from Oxford's twin cities an performing Orff's Carmina Burana in Oxford Town Hall.
Me looking clueless at the orchestral playday preparing Louise Farrenc's third symphony.
Photo by the official photographer of the event, Phil Hargreaves.
New instrument acquisitions include two lovely bass recorders as well as a garklein, expanding my range to six recorder sizes. And by the end of the year I also found a bag to carry all six sizes at once. I also acquired two violas of different sizes. I like the sound of the bigger one better, as one would expect, but it is also more tiring to play, so I still haven't quite made up my mind about them.
Which means that I could now easily supply an entire string quartet with instruments. As it happens, some quartets have been played during the holidays when Cowley Orchestra was taking a break. There has been only one bandstand session due to weather and early closure times conspiring against us, but there were five indoors meetings in various constellations. Inspired by these, I have further expanded my music collection and recently reorganised the lists of quartets and trios.
I've paused my "Every picture" series after the 100th episode but revived my lost cities blog series about interesting places that pop up in my family tree. The series has also inspired my travels in Germany, using the flat-rate Deutschlandticket to get around practically for free from my base near the amazing new regional station Düsseldorf Bilk. This year, I have (re)visited Aachen, Bonn, Krefeld, Bad Nauheim, and Wuppertal. I am beginning to wonder if there is a travel memoir waiting to be written about these adventures - watch this space in the new year.
I've completed another year with a full set of 24 features in Current Biology, they are highlighted in this mastodon thread. That's always a very satisfying thought at the end of a given year. And the 24 features of 2023 are now all in the open archives.
One of my features was about the dodo and other extinct species. Only after sending it off I realised that I own a dodo hat.
Own photo
My latest book, Intertwined, has come out in October. I have yet to create a proper page for it on my crumbling old website, so in the meantime this blog entry will have to do.
Speaking of books, I have reviewed quite a few memoir-style books, hoping for inspiration for my musical family history memoir and similar endeavours. I've published chapter 1 of the musical memoir as 100 years of cellotude on this blog starting here.Chapters 1-3 in German are available here. All my reviews, including the scientific ones for C&I are tagged #bookreview.
What I didn't do. It just occurred to me after turning down a lift, that I haven't been inside a car of any kind (not even a taxi) since June 2023. Haven't been on a plane since flying to Bucharest in 2016.
Executive summary: ship still sinking, band still playing.
Previous year reviews (I don't always write one):
2022
2021
2018
2017
No comments:
Post a Comment