www.richardjespers.com
  • Home
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blog

November 27th, 2017

11/27/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.
​Gail Sheehy
​Born November 27, 1937
Picture
G. Sheehy

New Yorker Fiction 2017

​***—Excellent
**   —Above Average 
*      —Average ​​
**November 27, 2017, Will Mackin, “The Lost Troop,":The narrator unravels an episodic tale of American soldiers in Afghanistan, 2008, involving themselves in a series of very unwarlike events. Mackin’s collection, Bring Out the Dog, will come out in March 2018.

NEXT TIME: My Book World
0 Comments

Farewell to a Piano

11/24/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
A  WRITER'S WIT
Because homophobia is still largely driven by the church, it's legitimised. It's also tied to sexism, because those two are never far apart.
​Marlon James
Born November 24, 1970

Picture
M. James

A Personal Saga

PictureBlessed Fleckstone Piano in Background
​From the time I was six years old I knew I wanted to learn. Maybe it was seeing Liberace on TV, or maybe it was hearing Van Cliburn play a concert grand on the radio. My family would visit my grandparents on their farm near Norwich, Kansas, and I would pound on my grandmother’s prized upright, that weathered combination of black-and-white keys, trying to puzzle out how you could make real music. I begged my parents for lessons for another four years. They’d seen me take up one interest after another—chemistry sets, electric trains, toy tractors—so they were in no hurry to indulge me yet again.

But in the summer of 1958, when I was ten, they finally relented and enrolled me in class piano lessons at Wichita’s East High. The venture was probably an experiment. And it was probably cheap, if not free. The teachers had crammed eight or ten studio pianos into one large room, circled up like a wagon train, four little cheeks plastered to each piano bench. There I fell in love with that eighty-eight-key marvel.

Yes, at once I began to make sense of those keys, ebony and ivory. I learned the scale for the key of C with no flats or sharps. Each digit on each hand was assigned a number, the thumb being designated as one. Fingering patterns would become a part of the roadmap I would follow on each piece. Each additional scale, from one sharp or flat to seven had a special pattern four octaves up and back—not that I mastered them all. I had a slothful streak that’s never completely disappeared.

When the summer session was over, my parents, sufficiently convinced that I could learn to play, I guess, bought me, for $150, a reconditioned piano. The technician who rebuilt it—a junior high science teacher—had taken an old upright, sawed three sides off the top, and created a new front, leaving the strings intact against the soundboard. Then at the top he placed mirrors perpendicular to one another on three sides, giving the illusion that the piano was shorter than it really was. He then painted the surface a pinkish beige and cleverly applied those multi-colored flecks so aptly dubbed Fleckstone. That delicate instrument which may have weighed more than half a ton was later given to our church, and I know Mom was happy to reclaim the space in our wee living room. It was not a felicitous situation to have that heavy instrument weighing down the floor of a tiny house with a basement, yet I must say the thing never fell through!

I had to practice when no one was watching TV or needed the living room for something else, so I would grab time when I could. My parents used to tell me, many years later that I would nab thirty minutes here, thirty minutes there. And I always seemed to be prepared for my lessons as well as if I’d sat for two consecutive hours a day. I seemed to progress quickly, soaking up one piece after another. That’s what a learner, particularly, is after: to be able to play something that communicates to those who are in the audience.

I began to take lessons from our church organist who lived across the alley from the church six blocks away. Eleanor, who became a lifelong friend, had two pianos in her front room, and sometimes we would play duets. I advanced so quickly that I passed through two Michael Aaron books in one year. I took lessons for two more years from yet a different teacher and continued to study piano when I took up the organ at age thirteen. When I fell in love with that instrument, my heart turning somersaults, the piano fell by the wayside—in one way, at least. Learning to read music and playing an instrument had been like learning a foreign language, an international, universal language, really. And its gifts, I sensed, might remain with me for the rest of my life. At the time, they seemed to make my life.

​Yes, playing the piano saved me from much adolescent misery because I could be the focus of good attention, say, tinkling through a stack of show tunes for a wedding reception, accompanying a group of eighth-grade boys shouting out, “There is Nothing Like a Dame.” If it hadn’t been for the piano my social life would have been a bore. What am I saying? Playing the piano probably prevented me from becoming a criminal, at least one of those nameless delinquents camped out in the principal’s office. In high school I accompanied two groups that frequently left the building to perform for luncheons around the city of Wichita. I accompanied individuals in college including their senior recitals. But by then I also had adopted as my major instrument the organ, and that’s where I would focus the rest of my college career. I would play for various churches in communities where I lived until I gave it up at age thirty to pursue writing instead.
​
​Yet the practice of playing piano remained with me. When I taught elementary for seventeen years, I was often assigned to teach music to my grade level, standing behind a Baldwin studio model as I goaded every throat in the room to sing the same note (or three-parts, even more challenging). When I left Kansas for my life in Texas, my parents gave my Fleckstone piano to our church. I never saw or played it again, and I’m not sure I really cared. The right pedal would often malfunction, and I would have to open the bottom panel and secure the dowel that connected the pedal to whatever dampened the strings—it would become someone else’s problem.

Otherwise I had no access to a piano until 1990 when I had the opportunity to acquire a baby grand, the smallest at forty-eight inches. The Vose and Sons model, probably built in Boston, had spent, I was told by the piano technician who’d reconditioned it, more than forty years in the band room of a college in Plainview, up the Interstate about forty-five minutes from Lubbock. His father-in-law had refinished some of the larger surfaces, but a few nicks existed here and there. It was sort of like the speckled piano of my childhood; I ignored its flaws and accepted it into my life with joy as one would an adopted child. To shore up my decision, however, I had priced brand new ones at around $8,000. I reasoned at the time, that unless I could fill it with gas and drive it to work, the cost would be too dear.

I began to buy musical scores and attempt to teach myself pieces I might have learned when younger. As I had when I was a child, I would spend maybe thirty minutes to an hour practicing—after grading papers for a couple of hours. When I taught English at Lubbock High School for ten years, I decided to volunteer to play one of those pieces in a faculty talent show. When the principal who organized the event placed me at the top of the program, I realized the event was to be more of a comic revue, and he wanted my performance to have serious attention. When I released the last chord, the applause flooded my ears, and as I met my fifth-period (class of ’96) the next Monday, they too clapped for me as I waltzed through my door to take roll and perhaps address (who can recall?) the literary concerns of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It was a gas for my pupils to know that I had more than one dimension to my life, that the dude who was always harping on the passive voice could also memorize Chopin’s “Military” Polonaise, Opus 40, No. 1 and play it with one small error in front of 2,000 high school students.

This child of which I speak, my Vose and Sons, is probably well over sixty-five years old now, but an acoustical instrument can have a long life if it is cared for; its value can increase. That’s why I am at last passing along my piano to the Unitarian Church in Lubbock. I didn’t arrive at this decision with a lot of thought. The writing group to which I belong meets once a month in the church’s main room, and we gladly pay an annual fee for the privilege. More than once in ten years I’ve glanced over at the sad little spinet in the corner and rather cringed whenever someone would sit down to play. They need my piano, it finally occurred to me.

After four months of consideration, the church leadership accepted my offer. They engaged a piano technician to evaluate the instrument. Even though its innards had been replaced in 1990, after twenty-seven years, there was some wear and tear that had to be addressed. It had to be tuned!

On Thursday, November 17, a professional piano mover* transferred my Vose and Sons to the Unitarian Church less than a four-minute drive from our home. I will be able to see it each month, caress its keys if I wish, even play a bar or two. Or maybe I’ll merely wave. And if all goes well, in a short time, I will have acquired a new electronic piano that itself does some amazing things. Stay tuned.
*In case you are in need of a piano mover in the Lubbock area (he does all kinds of moving) call Mark Culver at 806-775-4983. Tell him I think he and his staff did a thoroughly professional job and that I highly recommend them.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
1 Comment

The Perfect Couple

11/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
Fiction is a report from the interior. 
​Deborah Eisenberg
Born November 20, 1945
Picture
D. Eisenberg

new yorker Fiction 2017

***—Excellent
**   —Above Average 
*      —Average ​​
**November 20, 2017, David Gilbert, “The Sightseers”: Robert and Paulette, residents of a newish high rise overlooking Central Park, prepare for and attend a party given by another couple in their social circle. Gilbert’s most recent novel is & Sons.

NEXT TIME: Farewell to a Piano
0 Comments

The Majesty That Is McGuane's

11/13/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
The most important political office is that of the private citizen. 
​Louis D. Brandeis
Born November 13, 1856
Picture
L. Brandeis

New Yorker Fiction

***—Excellent
**   —Above Average 
*      —Average ​​​
PictureBrian Merriam
***November 13, 2017, Thomas McGuane, “Riddle”: On a dark night, what does the architect narrator have in common with a crippled old man named Jack and his urchin buddy, an ER physician named Karen, and a felonious couple who rob the architect of his car? A Thomas McGuane short story, that’s what. A master of the genre, he weaves this rich, nuanced, and detailed narrative in a mere three pages, a distance the lesser writer might utilize for exposition. In the following passage behold McGuane’s magic as he deftly weaves these elements together:

“It was thus that I observed my car drive away, two little red tail-lights, and this threw me into a strange reflective state, in which my dissolute night at the Wrangler and my ensuing exhaustion, the cowboy and the boy, the two crooks who had just stolen my car, my remote house and its unconquered air of vacancy, all seemed to have equal value—that is, no value” (68).
One must sigh at his majesty. One must just sigh. McGuane’s upcoming book, Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories, will be out in March 2018.
 
Photograph by Brian Merriam
​NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
0 Comments

Which Way to Turn

11/6/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
At school, if I was ever bored in class, I would draw maps of islands or detailed interior of boats or lists of provisions and equipment I would need when I went camping in the summer.
​Michelle Magorian
Born November 6, 1947
Picture
M. Magorian

New Yorker Fiction 2017

***—Excellent
**   —Above Average 
*      —Average ​​​
**November 6, 2017, Anne Enright, “The Hotel”: A woman flies from Dublin to New York then to Milan and finally to a German-speaking nation she cannot identify. The author’s most recent book is The Green Road published in 2015.

NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2017
0 Comments
    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

    See my profile at Author Central:
    http://amazon.com/author/rjespers


    Richard Jespers's books on Goodreads
    My Long-Playing Records My Long-Playing Records
    ratings: 1 (avg rating 5.00)


    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011



    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Actors
    African American History
    Aging
    Alabama
    Alaska
    Aldo Leopold
    Andy Warhol
    Arizona
    Arkansas
    Art
    Atrial Fibrillation
    Authors
    Authors' Words
    Barcelona
    Biography
    Blogging About Books
    Blogs
    Books
    California
    Cancer
    Cars
    Catalonia
    Colorado
    Cooking
    Creative Nonfiction
    Culinary Arts
    Deleting Facebook
    Ecology
    Education
    Environment
    Epigraphs
    Essays
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Fifty States
    Film
    Florida
    Georgia
    Grammar
    Greece
    Gun Violence
    Hawaii
    Heart Health
    Historic Postcards
    History
    Humor
    Idaho
    Iowa
    Journalism
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Literary Biography
    Literary Journals
    Literary Topics
    Literature
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Memoir
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    M K Rawlings
    Musicians
    Nevada
    New Hampshire
    New Mexico
    New Yorker Stories
    Nonfiction
    North Carolina
    Novelist
    Ohio
    Pam Houston
    Parker Posey
    Photography
    Playwrights
    Poetry
    Politics
    Psychology
    Publishing
    Quotations
    Race
    Reading
    Recipes
    Seattle
    Short Story
    South Carolina
    Spain
    Susan Faludi
    Teaching
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Theater
    The Novel
    Travel
    Travel Photographs
    True Crime
    #TuesdayThoughts
    TV
    U.S.
    Vermont
    Voting
    War
    Washington
    Wisconsin
    World War II
    Writer's Wit
    Writing


    RSS Feed

    Blogroll

    alicefrench.wordpress.com
    kendixonartblog.com
    Valyakomkova.blogspot.com

    Websites

    Caprock Writers' Alliance
    kendixonart.com

    tedkincaid.com
    www.trackingwonder.com
    www.skans.edu
    www.ttu.edu
    www.newpages.com
    www.marianszczepanski.com
    William Campbell Contemporary Art, Inc.
    Barbara Brannon.com
    Artsy.net
WWW.RICHARDJESPERS.COM  ©2011-2025
                    BOOKS  PHOTOS  PODCASTS  JOURNALS  BLOG