Category Archives: Uncategorized

RADIO AHEAD.

January 1, 2025Uncategorizedruth ann scanzillo

In 1986, life changed.

For a lot of people, I would discover.

(Did the Earth tip, maybe?)

That was the year I left the restaurant scene for public education. And, the 50s-60s oldies band for the Philharmonic. And, exchanged happiness for professional productivity.

But, as the music teacher, I would not realize until decades later that, due to my new life of constantly preoccupied motion, the car radio would go silent.

When you stop listening to pop, you lose something.

You become disconnected to the vehicle which encapsulates your emotional memories.

A couple days ago, somebody sent a flash mob through TikTok. This one was a group of random voices, singing in lush harmony, some of them still / others walking, in the basement of a Brooklyn building…..and, the song was CREEP, by Radiohead. (But, you, of course, know that.) Yes; released in 1992 — the year I met Paul, my intended if short lived husband.

Paul listened to the radio.

NPR, to be exact.

And, he – a former commissioned USArmy officer and gifted aural learner from New England, who played and sang and memorized entire libretti at the first hearing – preferred talk stations. We’d awaken not to the latest Top Ten single, but to Breaking World News.

My first hearing of CREEP was when Billie Eilish sang it at an awards show. I thought she’d written the thing, she with her brother, the two lyrical geniuses of our age.

I’d made a mental note to GET that song, along with everything else she’d been producing, fully aware of having been at least five years behind the whole Eilish phenomenon.

But, that flash mob.

This time, I really heard the lyrics.

And, I was astonished. Where had they come from, and why had I not realized there’d been a theme song for me in the wings, all along?

Today, I am a RADIOHEAD convert. Twenty years too late, you say.

Well, in terms of social and cultural awareness, for me that’s about right.

I’d been so busy teaching school students how to use their voices and play instruments, I’d stopped hearing music.

From the end of Disco through U2, and beyond, I’d missed everything – apart from Rufus, completely removed from pop culture.

So, let me sink, awash, into the music of this band. Laugh, in amazement, if you will. Everybody grows at their own pace. OK, Karma; it’s my turn, to play catch up to the rest of you.

12/8/24 Ruth Ann Scanzillo.

From Start To Finish.

December 1, 2024Uncategorizedruth ann scanzillo

So, I open my program at the Phil concert, and here is the bio of Eastman’s own, Rich Thompson. I check the program rep. And, then I look up at the stage, and I text him.

“Did they drag you all the way from Henrietta, to play snare, for BOLERO??”

Sure, enough – he texts right back! Brad will play Bolero, but Rich is actually in the concert. Haven’t seen him, in YEARS.

Then, I glance over at the trumpet section, and spy my former 5th grade trumpet student Jay, and he looks out and actually sees me and waves, just before the Concertmaster takes the stage.

The performance unfolds. I recognize Les Preludes, by Lizst. We’d played it, possibly twice, back in the day. I choke up, at the lush melodic interplay between celli and violi. I look around at all the instrumentalists filling the hall with music we’d all shared together, for three decades.

Then, the guest flute soloist with the same last name as the step father of my old boyfriend from Lake Ronkonkoma launches into THE most demanding flute solo ever written, and everybody roars to their feet, ending the first half.

Intermish.

When the Ellington sets up, I realize Rich will be right out on stage edge, at the kit, directly in my sight line. He plays like he always did – assuredly, forthrightly, and with dazzling style. I’m proud of my old friend.

Then, Jay plays a trumpet solo, and it’s absolutely perfect. During applause, I look at him and he sees me again and I give him two thumbs up. I’m so proud, again, of the boy who started in my brass class back at Grover Cleveland in, what, ’99? and then, in high school, competing with me at the keys on the Arutunian trumpet concerto.

Bolero is equally flawless. I’m so thrilled by every soloist, beginning with the intrepid, unflinching Brad Amidon, a man I will love always, and moving to flute, gorgeous oboe d’amore from Danna who introduced me to my one and only husband, bassoon from Fredonia’s darling, two very fine clarinetists, Allen Z on a wailing soprano sax, and then those trumpets, all of them, Gary and Jay and also Riley, for whom I’d played piano for his impeccable concerto decades before, and then the killer trombone solo, and the orgasm, and done.

Rich texts that, due to a suspension malfunction in his car he needs a ride, so Barb and I agree to pick him up at the French stage door and take him to his hotel. As the hall empties we speak briefly from the stage edge, solidifying our plans.

And then, up comes Jay, walking right directly to me, and I’m so honored to get to speak with him after his wondrous performance, and he reminds me that I DID set his embouchure and that he never did change it and THAT reminds me of Chris Dempsey, whose trombone embouchure I’d also set and who went on to win a solo award at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Two brothers having played trombone, plus Dad having been lead bugler in his army outfit and playing Reveille for us, when we were kids – yes; these were my first brass “teachers”. But, Jay is particularly attentive toward me, which warms my heart and makes it grow big and fill my whole body. I ask if his parents are here, and he tells me about his mum’s back problems so similar to my own, and then says his dad would rather sit at a bar and watch a game, and my heart pricks for Jay who plays so beautifully and who also knows the absence of those close to him. I want to stay a bit longer, talking with Jay, but we have our plans and we must attend to them.

Rich and Barb and I head to Oliver’s where we drink wine and I get to have my gluten free flatbread pizza with caramelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes and balsamic. And, we stay til almost midnight – me, my friend Barb, and my old friend Rich, the two of them making an instant connection over high end cars and the entire California coast.

I drop them both off, and head home to write this recap of an evening filled with nostalgia and affirmation, in the midst of heartbreak and isolation so many reminders that the old girl does have plenty about which to be both thankful and assured, newly convinced that, even if left with only sad stories to tell my life work has been of benefit to at least two boys, who grew to be young men at the peak of their professional performance.

The most mystifying part remains just how many times Rich has actually come to mind, over the past couple of days. And, now, here he’d been, riding in my car after the Phil concert tonight.

Taking a few moments to let my mind spin down and my heart find its center, I end the evening feeling gladness, grateful just to have been remembered.

littlebarefeetblog.com

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— with Ruth A Scanzillo.

The Wrong Thing.

November 30, 2024family history, Good Food, sociology, Uncategorizedruth ann scanzillo

Being single and solitary can provoke a state of bliss.

Nobody to answer to; any number of open choices, at any given time; no constraints, no deadlines; the essence of freedom.

Except on Thanksgiving.

It’s really about the math. I despised learning about ratios as a kid, primarily because they escaped my comprehension. Now, in chorus with every reviled math teacher, I can’t deny how they figure in my life.

The degree of extended family connection we experienced in the early years is directly proportional to the effect its absence has upon our level of comfort during “the holidays.” Add to that the impact of memory on our psyche and, depending on how visceral or visually vivid these are, you have the recipe for loneliness.

Mammy, our grandmother, had been second maid to a wealthy Jewish family (likely a brewer) in eastern PA. Responsible for the cleaning and cooking, she grew to become quite the master of “Pennsylvania Dutch” cuisine – pressure cooker prepared pot roast, steamed rutabega and fried parsnips, peas and carrots soaking in their own juices, boiled lettuce salad, and apple, cherry, and rhubarb pies. The table was a grand oak, and round, but with a leaf for the big dinners. The overflow sat at linen clothed card tables, in the livingroom and we kids (Timmy, Frannie, Bonnie, Paul, me and Kathy) at ours in the sewing room beyond the kitchen.

English, Danish and married into Irish were as noisy as a wake at a Baptist funeral. Take the aroma of roasts and pies and add constant talk and laughter until somebody said something, and your quotient was the classic American holiday.

Most of us lived across the street and a few doors down from our grandparents’ house. The rest came from Ohio, bringing their wide “o’s” and their board games (Risk; Probe; Battleship). As a child, I learned that watching the aunts, uncles and cousins was as entertaining and satisfying as any attempt at immersion. I would grow to become this writer, capturing as much of what I had grasped after during those years as could be retrieved. Even now, staring out the windows at the stillness of impending snow, not a soul in sight, if I sit quietly enough the voices filter back and fill the air, the occasional flitting bird moving aside just enough to allow them space and I feel in the center of me just behind my heart the ache of remembrance.

Last week, as a sort of personal therapy I determined to head all this off by baking a pie and gifting it to someone other than myself, family, or friend. The recipient was to be a former student and various work associates at a nearby grocer. That milieu, with its casual prattle and the inherently brief nature of each encounter had served to cheer me out of what had become a rather frightening crisis of confidence. I had found myself, for the first time in several decades, depressed enough to define the state and feel nearly frantic in its clutches.

To my mind, with its freeze framed fears of a future in isolation, choosing an act of kindness was supposed to yield the respite of comfort. Give, with no thought of taking. Hadn’t we been so carefully taught?

Predictably, the process itself – baking the pie – was the therapy. Packing it, still warm, freshening my face, choosing shoes and coat able to withstand November rain, I headed south to the store.

Timed as precisely as possible, my arrival was to be unobtrusive, during the final minutes of a shift, most customers fixed on grabbing that last minute lemon, jug of milk, or bag of ice, all sent by those in charge of the impending gathering at home. Surely, my act of the hour would be swift, yet meaningful and appreciated.

Herein lieth the lesson.

I’d worked many a holiday in the past, serving happy people in the American family restaurant. This was a different scene, entirely. The store was congested – traffic, like so many wireless beams. The staff, including the intended recipient(s) of my gift had been there nearly eight hours, withered by the fatigue of public demand. Where to put the pie was problem number one. More would follow.

Being single isn’t a problem. Missing the counsel of family, those one or two who have your back and appear right when you need a reality check, can be. I could have used my younger brother, touching my shoulder in the kitchen just as I’d been ready to pack the car, gently asking what I was doing and why. Mum would have had plenty to say, mostly with her ironic scoff in tow, embarrassed at her daughter’s bold transparency. Dad, seated napping on the couch, and smiling in his sleep, would have said nothing.

But, they weren’t there. I was alone, doing the wrong thing, yet again.

And so the sun had set, to rise on another annual day of celebration.

Making good out of hapless misstep was God’s job.

For that, I could be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

11/28/24. Ruth Ann Scanzillo. littlebarefeetblog.com Originally published on FACEBOOK, Thanksgiving Day.