Skip to main content

Small Wins






Last night my daughter, marooned on the couch from her college studies by the pandemic, allowed as how, though she missed being on campus and missed her friends, that the food at home was probably better. She is not given to high praise. I will take this as a win.


     After a weekend of grief and political turmoil small wins may be all I’ve got. 


     I see that at long last there is a concert coming up at the Chrysalis this Saturday, September 26th.



It’s another winning collaboration between Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods and the Columbia Orchestra: a presentation of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. From the Columbia Orchestra website:


Join us for two live performances of Carnival of the Animals at the Chrysalis, presented in partnership with the Inner Arbor Trust! A small group of musicians and dancers from Dance Connections will perform Saint-Saën’s Carnival of the Animals and Aesop’s Fables by Richard Maltz at the Chrysalis for a small socially-distanced audience of 200 people. It may look a little different from our regular Young People’s Concerts, but your child is sure to enjoy this fun-filled introduction to the orchestra led by our entertaining Music Director Jason Love! (This event will last approximately 45 minutes.)


Rain date: Sunday September 27th


Tickets are ten dollars each, and there will be two performances: 10:30 am and 1:00 pm. Buy your tickets and learn more here.


One my readers expressed regret recently that there weren’t more outside, safely distanced events for the family right now. I’m happy to promote this one which can get us all out of the house and support these valuable local arts institutions.









 


 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...