A Felix and Fanny discovery, my personal nightmare, and Ted Lasso's spiritual heir
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
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Today’s post will be short-ish, because I am exhausted—not necessarily because anything big happened, but because I let a lot of self-inflicted panic and anxiety pile up like dry tinder and when my list of things to do grew just a tiny bit beyond what felt doable, it was like throwing a lit match on the pile.
I don’t know what to do with the frustrating knowledge that I get my best, most productive practicing when I completely disregard any work or tasks that aren’t practicing, and I do my best, most productive writing when I completely disregard any work or tasks that aren’t writing. Choosing one and having a really good work day for that thing means 1) the other thing doesn’t get done, and 2) the little errands and tasks that I need to do through the day to keep the rest of my life going—including feeding myself on time—don’t get done.
I guess this all means that I would have really thrived as one of those old-timey wealthy men who had housekeepers and cooks and a team of servants taking care of them so they could focus on making scientific discoveries and creating Great Art, but I feel like if your answer to “How do I get things done and not hate myself” is “Be a privileged colonizer who exploits the labor of others for their own convenience,” something is terribly wrong.
This is not a request for advice, or even a real complaint; I’m still figuring out how my silly little brain works, how to approach structuring my days when I can’t predict what said silly little brain is going to want to do each morning, and how to move forward when I feel temporarily overwhelmed. I am, like Ted Lasso, a work in progmess.
A Felix and Fanny discovery
In self-inflicted homework news, I am determined to write a thoughtful analytical blog post about Apple Music Classical, which, while imperfect, is the best answer I’ve yet found to the oft-bemoaned problem of streaming systems being wholly unsuitable for the entire classical genre.
In the meantime, I’ve been enthusiastically playing with the app, which gave me a good excuse to pull up old and new favorite works. Remembering how much I loved Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet when I first heard it played by the Takács Quartet in January, I put on a recording of the work while starting my day. I didn’t clock this when I heard it live, but while I was finishing up my skincare routine one morning earlier this week the opening of the last movement grabbed me.
Listen to the first 6 or so seconds of the 4th movement in Fanny’s piece:
And now listen to the first 6 seconds of the 3rd movement of Felix’s Fantasie in F# minor, Op. 28 (8:14-8:20 in the video):
While in totally different keys, these are nearly identical figurations, both kicking off perpetual-motion-type final movements.
Here’s the written score for Fanny’s piece (via IMSLP):
And the written score for Felix’s (via IMSLP):
If you were wondering, Felix’s Fantasie was composed in 1833, and Fanny’s String Quartet was composed one year later, in 1834, meaning these works were possibly being worked on at the same time, or at least in quick succession.
I feel so cool making discoveries like this! This striking similarity also fills me with such warm fuzzies; given that Felix and Fanny consulted each other on everything they wrote, and intentionally included little references to each other in their music, I think we can confidently rule out the possibility of this similarity being a coincidence. Spotting this connection reminded me that the music they wrote was full of love and little nods and jokes to each other—I am a sucker for sibling affection and this just gives their music so much more dimension and meaning.
Shot and chaser
It seems like it’s already been shared to death, but if you need one reason to read Joshua Kaplan’s “Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire” at ProPublica, that reason is that it sets up a fantastic shot-and-chaser combo. Start with the ProPublica investigation, which features this eyebrow-raising quote:
In Thomas’ public appearances over the years, he has presented himself as an everyman with modest tastes.
“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” Thomas said in a recent interview for a documentary about his life, which Crow helped finance.
“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”
…then read Alexandra Petri’s satirical response, “Every second on the yacht I wished I were in a Walmart parking lot” at the Washington Post. (Here’s a workaround link if you get paywalled—just click the “leave Facebook” button to make it work.)
Please keep in mind, my fellow Americans, that each moment I spent on the yacht was torment! That is why I did not disclose it. It was not my idea of a vacation. Every second I spent on those magnificent islands, in those bucolic retreats, eating meals cooked by private chefs, I was seething internally, wishing I were in a Walmart parking lot.
“Is everything to your liking?” numerous solicitous waitstaff aboard the yacht asked, and I sighed, dropping my cigar butt into the provided ashtray with a heavy heart. “No,” I said. “This — ” here I indicated the blue sky, the balmy sea breeze — “is not my idea of a good time, for I am a man of the people, with the tastes of the people, and I wish I were pursuing amusement as they do, by driving to Walmart on the weekend to make memories.”
A tear came to my eye as I spoke, for I could picture them so clearly, the happy weekenders, the salts of the earth who flocked to Walmart parking lots for their entertainment. Their children in the back seats, clamoring, “Walmart! Walmart! Walmart!” Their wrinkled elders, saving their pennies so that they could arrive at that cherished destination. Those parking lots are so full, always, and that is surely because they are a magnet for Americans who want to enjoy themselves.
My personal nightmare
I am a big fan of Yun Hai, not only because they’re a US-based source for Taiwanese food products (including fantastic dried fruit I keep forcibly gifting people like a pushy auntie, oh my god it’s already happening), but also because they have an excellent, thoughtful newsletter that is a joy to read every time.
So when President Tsai Ing-Wen visited Yun Hai’s little Brooklyn shop last week, my phone blew up with texts and news about the occasion, and then Yun Hai wrote a whole post about the visit! Their account is very sweet and heartfelt, but this little bit stopped me cold because it is, so relatably, a full blown nightmare scenario:
Thirty-six hours before the visit, we were informed that the entire event (including our five minute introductions) should be in Mandarin, so the legislators and national press in attendance would be able to follow along.
Fact: I require five days minimum of Mandarin immersion to get back to even a baseline level of comfort, so I was feeling less than confident. Though speaking to the President in Mandarin was next level intimidating, the first thought in my head was that my uncle was going to see it. Such is the power of uncle.
If I was told I had to speak to the president of Taiwan in Mandarin, in front of TV crews that would broadcast in Taiwan, I would simply perish on the spot. If I weren’t lucky enough to spontaneously combust, I would fake my own death and move to a remote island. The Yun Hai folks are, frankly, far braver than I ever could be.
Really came for the publishing industry’s throat here
It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that I read a lot of books by Asian and Asian-American writers, particularly Asian and Asian-American women, so when I read Elaine Hsieh Chou’s piece in McSweeney’s, “Acceptable Book Cover Subjects for Books Written by East Asian Women Authors,” I just internally screamed the entire time. Chou, who wrote the hilariously scathing novel Disorientation, just really went for the jugular.
Flowers. Just a shit ton of flowers. Preferably exotic-looking ones like orchids, not pedestrian flowers like daisies—that would be confusing.
[…]
3. Tigers. Ditto the above—tigers don’t actually need to be referenced in the book. There’s just something about tigers that screams “East Asian,” you know? Depending on the book’s content, you can substitute tigers with cranes and/or koi fish.
The latest season of Ted Lasso isn’t Ted Lasso, it’s this
I watched Shrinking on Apple TV+ and 1) enjoyed the first (and currently only) season and 2) feel very strongly that it’s basically spiritually the same show as Ted Lasso. (It’s got the same showrunner as Ted Lasso, and Brett Goldstein, aka Roy Kent, is a writer and producer on Shrinking.)
I mean, it’s a show featuring a father dealing with loss who tries to connect with people through unconventional means at his job while learning to process his own hurt, where there also happens to be a gruff coworker who growls a lot but is still lovable and secretly actually a big softie. Basically the same show! Just set in Pasadena! (My biggest criticism of the show: it makes life in Pasadena look so cool. Pasadena is not cool, stop trying to make Pasadena happen, it’s never going to happen.)
Just as Ted Lasso attempted to hook people with a dubious gimmick of a premise (it’s an American football coach applying his tactics to English soccer!), the trailer for Shrinking promises a gimmick (fed-up therapist tries a new approach of brutal honesty with his patients!) that is, thankfully, not what the show is really about. While Ted Lasso is, to me, a three-season manifesto on the different facets of healthy masculinity—complete with sub-theses on hurt, vulnerability and the difference between being nice and being kind—Shrinking feels to me like a meditation on grief and friendship in all its forms.
The absolute best part of the show is Harrison Ford (Harrison Ford! in a character-driven TV show!) who manages to take the simplest lines and render them absolutely hilarious with his deadpan gruff deliveries. He out-Roys Roy Kent here. The comic runner-up is Jason Segel and his ability to make his face the punchline of multiple jokes. Overall the single season of Shrinking feels more Ted Lasso-y than the actual current season of Ted Lasso, which I have to say didn’t seem to find its feet for the first couple of episodes.
Current jam
I have been putting the new Misterwives song, “Out of Your Mind,” on repeat and it’s a very satisfying banger.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and thanks for reading! 🎹