burbling

A sublime day, sunny and breezy. As you can see below, I rode my bike on the Don Valley trail this afternoon - with the Parkway closed, all you can hear down there are birds and crickets and a few small planes, buzzing aloft. I stopped and sat on a rock in the sun in a field of goldenrod, asters, Queen Anne's lace ... and the smell of autumn, of plants and ripe earth getting ready to power down and sleep. True happiness.

Earlier, I went to a Tafelmusik concert. Someone left a ticket on the bulletin board at the Y, with a note: "I can't go, please help yourself." So I did, with thanks. They played Lully, Corelli, and others with their usual extraordinary precision, but the Bach double violin concerto I thought was too fast. It rushed away with them - how can you hurry Bach? I have a great recording by David Oistrakh and his son Igor, that I'll listen to tonight.

Speaking of listening, at Doubletake today, I found a record I used to have in childhood - "A Child's Introduction to the Classics," put out by Childcraft Records in the late fifties. Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, The Sorcerer's Apprentice - I'll listen to those tonight too. Perhaps it's thanks to my early indoctrination, with records like these, that I enjoy classical music so much today.

But I enjoy riding through quiet woodland only five minutes from my front door even more.