The family that plays together....

Bob and Jeremy had the use of a lovely old Steinway from the 20's, and they treated me to Bach, Mendelssohn, Debussy, and some improvisation. Jeremy has been playing piano since his childhood, and Bob just started taking lessons three years ago.

Jeremy, talking to me about Bob while Bob was out birding, said one of the joys in their relationship is Bob's joy in learning, his courage in taking on anything that appeals to him, not censoring himself because he fears he can't be good enough.

Jeremy says, "We've done a little bit of duet work together, but I would love us to get to a place where we could do two-piano work, because you can work with a huge sound and an amazing mixture and a marriage of musical minds. When two musicians get into that zone where it's just music together and it's not one person and the other but both of you flowing with it, it's another kind of intimacy and joy."

Tonight they're having a pork stew with lemongrass, and I'm having curried squash soup, all made by Bob; and then a big salad for us all before we go see a production of Streetcar Named Desire. It's a play I know very well.  I know it's not going to be the production I'd like to see, because there's a woman playing Blanche. I think she is a substitute for Williams--her sensitivity to beauty, her sense of being unacceptable, that combination of fragility, desire, and longing--is Tennessee Williams in the world of the 1950s. I'd like to see it played by a man dressed androgynously as neither man nor woman--as a person in that liminal area between genders, isolated and alone because they have the courage to be who they are. That's the Streetcar I'd like to see. But I'll be glad to see what these people do with it.