Distractions

Annamaria on Monday

All we MIE bloggers, from time to time, run into situations when the available time is consumed with what we might call "real life. This is one of those times for me.  Distractions have consumed the time I would otherwise have devoted to sharing thoughts of a some more or less amusing or informative nature.  One of those distractions was completely wonderful.

Miriam Anderson Hall

Kimmel Center

Philadelphia

Thanks to an invitation from fellow music lovers in Philadelphia, I had an opportunity to attend a concert performance of the Verdi Requiem.  It is a brilliant, enormously powerful piece of music that I have long enoyed in recordings, but that i had never heard in its entirety in a live performance. Conducted by Ricardo Muti, it was splendid.  So much so that it took me a couple of hours into the night for me to fall asleep.

Here is a taste of the music, not by the great Philadelphia Orchestra, but one available on YouTube, by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

The other distraction was of a far less welcome nature.  It came to my attention the following morning, Sunday morning while listening to the news, that Mr. Trump would be holding a political rally at Madison Square Garden at 5PM.  Thing was, i was schedule to take a train home from Philly arriving at 7PM.  My train would be arriving into a the teeth of a maelstrom of ProTroump and Anti-Trump activists.  My friends and I altered our plans.  I would be robbed of a walk in the local arboretum with them and instead take an earlier train in the hopes of avoiding getting struck in the crowds.

As it turned out, as I exited Penn Station at 1:30 PM, 8th Avenue was at a complete halt, with bumper to bumper cars five abreast.  Every possible spot was chockablock with people and to the east, all ways were blocked  with barriers. The police lieutenant guarding one told me that the Secret Service had closed off the movement in that direction.

It's good to know the ropes.  I found my way around it all and arrived at home in time throw this report together.  A big regret is that I did not take more pictures. But readers, I am sure, know what a traffic jam looks like.

I really wish I had conservedf more energy to make this post more lively.