al...most..... there

My Lenten abstention from sports has continued to pass by with surprising ease - I find I've taken a sort of perverse pleasure in knowing absolutely nothing about what's going in the world of sports. (I don't mean to make too light of the spiritual discipline involved here, but I consider that to be a personal matter.) I guess missing out on the NCAA tournament has been the hardest, but there's something oddly satisfying about knowing I've managed to know nothing about it. I have no idea who's in the Final Four and I'm totally fine with that. In a normal year, I would've been glued to the TV for hours upon hours the past couple of weeks, and I would've read every feature story I could get my eyes on. I'm still trying to figure out what this means. If I were in a more philosophical frame of mind, I'd be tempted to muse about the human need to find meaning in 'safe' things like sports - things to care about and 'feel alive' about that happen to be completely nonthreatening because they really mean nothing. But that's a topic for another day.

Listening to Rachmaninoff on my last few commutes has put me in mind to watch The Seven-Year Itch, so we're going to take advantage of one of my few recent off-nights in awhile to watch that. I've been thinking a lot recently about comparing the lives/careers/legacies of Schoenberg and Rachmaninoff who were almost exact contemporaries. One so successful with the historians and academics, the other such a hit with audiences and performers. I think as a pair they make for a fascinating case study. For now, I'll just ask, "What movie might I have been in the mood for if I'd been listening to this (a piece I've actually performed a couple of times), instead of Rachy 2?