Daydreaming and Other Pastimes

While I wait for spring to come and the weather to mellow enough to allow me to use up some energy working outside, I often find myself drawn into fits of nostalgia and daydreaming. I have been an accomplished daydreamer all my life. I remember as a child overhearing my third grade teacher, Mrs. Geib, comment to another teacher that “Danny is always daydreaming.” It was said in a way that implied that it was not a desirable thing to do, but that didn’t stop me. Now, as an adult, I just tell myself it’s meditation, but it’s still really daydreaming. The professionals say that daydreaming serves several positive purposes, among them: future thinking, creative thinking, and relief from boredom. I am guilty, if there needs to be guilt attached, of all of those. This time of year most of my daydreams are of the future thinking sort. I look out at the snowy garden and daydream about what it will become when the snow is gone. In my mind’s eye I see myself planting, weeding, and walking among the flowers that will grow. I suppose there is a good amount of creative thinking involved in that too, because after a garden reverie, I often jot down ideas of what I want to do based on what I just imagined.

Me, the third grade daydreamer.

How things look right now.

My daydreams are often nostalgic. I’ve always been prone to nostalgia. A sentimental longing for the past has followed me throughout my life and it has grown stronger as I’ve grown older. I guess as we grow older there is more to be nostalgic about. I daydream about other times and other places, old friends and family that I miss. My daydreams often flow along in stream-of-consciousness fashion, one path leading to another, that end up in places very different from where they began. For instance, one day last week, it was on Tuesday morning when a foot of new snow had fallen and I was not in school, I sat thinking about my Grandma Rathfon. I had just commented to Stacey the night before that we didn’t have a photograph of her on our family history wall. So that morning I looked through some photos of her, trying to decide which one to frame and hang. That set off a flood of memories of the years when I was a child and Grandma and Grandad and my cousin Rick lived upstairs from us at our house on Bridge Street. That led to a new stream of memories about that house. In my mind, I mapped out the way the rooms were arranged. I remembered the living room and our old television set with its small black and white screen, large cabinet with vents on the side where you could look in at the mysterious tubes inside that glowed, and the smell it gave off of roasting dust. From there, I ran through a list of favorite cartoons that I watched on that TV set (we were cartoon afficionados) – Beany and Cecil, Deputy Dawg, Underdog, Johnny Quest, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Space Ghost, so many others. Then my brain focused in on one of them, Rocky and Bullwinkle, a cartoon show filled with satire, humor, and puns that I loved but didn’t fully understand until I was older – Boris Badenov a villain punned on Russian hero Borís Godunóv, the pun ridden “Fractured Fairy Tales” and “Peabody’s Improbable History,” and Dudley Do-right with his arch enemy Snidely Whiplash who always said “Curses, foiled again!” when Dudley defeated him.

The path of a daydream: Grandma, Bridge Street, TV, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Snidely Whiplash.

The name Dudley dislodged the memory of another Dudley I knew (really the only person named Dudley I’ve ever known that I know of), Dr. Dudley Foster. Back in the 1980's, I took a music history class at Los Angeles Mission College taught by Dr. Dudley Foster. We met in a re-purposed store in a strip mall in San Fernando. The class was amazing. I learned so much and Dr. Foster was a very entertaining teacher. I still remember his lecture on Dixie Cup Music vs. Crystal Goblet Music. And with Snidely Whiplash’s “Curses” line still running through my mind, I remembered learning about a curse from Dr. Foster – The Curse of the Ninth.

The Curse of the Ninth is a superstition that developed during the late Romantic period. Some people believed that composers were fated to die after writing their ninth symphony. On the surface, the Curse seems like it has some basis in fact – Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorák, and Vaughan Williams all died after completing their ninth symphonies, Anton Bruckner died while writing his ninth, and Gustav Mahler died while writing his tenth.

Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Dvorák, Mahler, Vaughan Williams.

Mahler was one of the first composers to believe in The Curse. The story goes that, in an effort to beat The Curse, Mahler came up with a plan. After completing his eighth symphony, he wrote a piece of music, Das Lied von der Erde, that was, in reality, a symphony and would have been his ninth, but he decided not to call it that, naming it an Orchestral Song Cycle instead. He then went on to write his ninth symphony and began working on his tenth – but then he contracted pneumonia and died, apparently proving the superstition correct.

There are some problems with Mahler’s obsession with The Curse because at the time he was writing, the only victims of the curse that he would have been aware of were Beethoven and Bruckner. He didn’t know about Schubert’s Ninth Symphony because what we now call Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 was known as his Symphony No. 7 in Mahler’s time. And Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony ‘From the New World’ wasn’t considered a ninth in Mahler’s time either. It was published as his Symphony No. 5, before four extra symphonies were found after Dvorák’s death. Even Anton Bruckner doesn’t fully qualify for the curse because he died before completing his Ninth Symphony – which brings his total completed symphonies to just eight. And lots of other composers up til then wrote more than nine symphonies – Mozart wrote forty-one and Haydn wrote one hundred and four!

So after all of that mental meandering, my daydreams brought me to my musical adventure for the week. I decided to listen to all of the symphonies associated with The Curse of the Ninth – Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorák, Bruckner, Mahler, and Vaughan Williams. I listened to them over several days in chronological order. There are some great performances of them on YouTube. I began with Beethoven’s Ninth, the ‘Choral’ symphony (1824). It is considered by most to be his greatest work, composed when he was completely deaf. The story goes that, at the premier in Vienna, Beethoven conducted and when the performance ended, the audience went crazy with applause, but Beethoven couldn’t hear it. The first chair violinist had to turn him toward the audience so he could see the thunderous ovation. Beethoven died three years later in 1827 at the age of 56. The Ninth Symphony is glorious, but oddly, I’ve never liked the parts where the soloists sing in the final movement. The orchestra and the choir are astounding, but the soloists make me cringe a little. I’m probably a Classical Music Heretic for admitting that.

Next I listened to Schubert’s Ninth (1826). Again, I might be a Classical Music Heretic, but I’ve never been fond of Schubert’s music. It’s okay, I guess, but coming so soon after the brilliance and drama of Beethoven, I find it a bit boring. Schubert died in 1828 at the age of 31.

Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony ‘From the New World’ (1893), is gorgeous. It is near the top of my Favorite Symphonies of All Time list. Most people recognize the second movement ‘Largo,’ which Dvorák based on the Negro Spiritual Going Home. Dvorák died in 1904 at the age of 62.

After Dvorák, I listened to Bruckner. It had been a long time since I last listened to any Bruckner and I’d forgotten how much I love his symphonies. I discovered Bruckner during a period in the 1980's when I was going through a ‘Fin de Siècle Vienna Craze’ where I devoured everything connected with Vienna during the years spanning from 1890 to 1914, when World War I changed everything political and cultural in Europe. I was mad for Art Nouveau and Gustav Klimt and the Hapsburgs. I think Bruckner is an underappreciated composer. His Ninth Symphony (1896) is long, over an hour, but it is mystical, melodic, moody, and I love it. Bruckner died at the age of 76 before completing his Ninth Symphony and it wasn’t performed until 1903.

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (1909) is another long one – an hour and a half. Again, I discovered Mahler during my ‘Fin de Siècle Vienna Craze’ and I’ve had a great fondness for his music ever since. I love all of his symphonies, especially No. 2 ‘Resurrection.’ No. 9 is a great rambling work. Mahler sensed that he was dying as he wrote it and he created a moving tribute to life and love. The end of the final movement is a tender farewell as it quietly fades into silence. He died in 1911 at the age of 51, without ever hearing this symphony performed.

Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of my favorite composers. Every so often I go on a Vaughan Williams binge and for days I indulge in his music. His Fifth Symphony is one of my most favorite pieces of Classical Music. Vaughan Williams wrote his Ninth Symphony in 1957 when he was 86 years old and it was first performed in November of that year, just a few months before I was born in February 1958. He died the next August, age 87. I like knowing that we were both on the planet at the same time, if only for a short while.

If I ever approach anything like a truly transcendent state, it is while I’m listening to great classical music. My mind does not wander and I do not daydream. My mind completely focuses on the music. I don’t usually listen to classical music as background music while I’m doing other things. I can’t focus on what I’m reading or writing or painting and listen at the same time. I want to listen and do nothing else. If I’m viewing a recorded live performance, I’m riveted to watching the conductor and the performers. Often I listen with my eyes shut and I let the music fill me up and carry me away. I’ve had experiences approaching something like nirvana when I do this.

After indulging in all that highbrow music, I spent some time watching episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends on YouTube. It was very nostalgic watching the adventures of Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle Moose from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, and their friends (or enemies), Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale, Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, Dudley Do-right, Nell, and Snidley Whiplash. The cartoon series ran from 1959 to 1964 and its themes are firmly set in a time of iconoclasm, the Cold War, and Space Exploration. Most of its references would be lost on later generations, but not on me. I sat and chuckled through a dozen episodes.

Two weeks ago we had to cancel a planned trip to the temple because of snow. We rescheduled for Friday evening last week. Once again we had to cancel because of snow. When I saw the forecast calling for six more inches of snow over Friday and Saturday, I said “Curses, foiled again!”

Digging out on Friday Morning.

Since we were home on Friday evening, we decided to have the Shilligs over for dinner. We don’t usually pay much attention to National Celebration Days. Most of them are silly, like National Pig Lover’s Day or National Nail Polish Day, but Friday was National Ranch Dressing Day and we have some serious Ranch Dressing enthusiasts in our house (Hannah and Miriam). To celebrate, Hannah made pizza, which the enthusiasts love to dip in Ranch Dressing. Julie brought her delicious homemade Ranch Dressing. Miriam made brownies with frosting that looked (but didn’t taste) like Ranch Dressing.

National Ranch Dressing Day Dinner.

Brownies with "Ranch" frosting.

Yesterday was National Funeral Director Appreciation Day. In honor of that, we invited our funeral director friend, Benj Olney, to dinner. The Shilligs joined us. Stacey made a lasagna, Julie brought her famous mosquito salad, and Miriam made focaccia. For dessert Miriam made a Tarte Piémontaise (hazelnut tart crust, hazelnut cream, topped with dark chocolate ganache and caramelized roasted hazelnuts) and Stacey made a lemon sponge pie. It was all so delicious.

Miriam's Tarte Piémontaise.

Sunrise this Sabbath morning.

We moved the clocks ahead an hour last night, so it was very dark when I woke up this morning. It will be a week or more before my body adjusts to the time change. But to make up for it, when the dawn finally arrived, we had a lovely sunrise, a great way to start the Sabbath. Today was our Branch Conference. Leaders from the stake came to our meetings. I was one of the speakers in sacrament meeting. After church we had a Linger Longer Dish-to-Pass (potluck). After that, the branch leaders met with the stake leaders. So we were in church for four hours instead of the usual two and it’s been a long day. It was time to do the chores as soon as we got home. I’m ready to take it easy for the rest of the day. Good Sabbath.