GETTING IN THE SEASON

A busy weekend. Last night (Thursday), I was invited to a "soirée musicale" of English Music by Trish and Terry Edwards, a long-term British couple at the Language Centre. The husband is a Classical music buff and plays himself in all kinds of amateur groups here in Muscat. The wife is non-musical but "for the sake of her marriage" is an ardent supporter of the arts, so she says!

My ony price of admission was to bring something for the potluck (the evenings goes: drinks- music - dinner - music - dessert). Kind of a musical club sandwich. For some reason - the recent cooler weather? - I thought of beef stew and ended up making Boeuf Bourguignon, which requires an entire bottle of red wine to cook the beef chunks in. Since I still don't have a "liquor license" for Oman, I bought a bottle off a neighbor who does.

Trish and Terry have a beautiful two-story house not far from the sea. Not sure if the university rents it, or they arranged for it directly, but it's very nice and has a beautiful tiled patio outside, where Trish had put candles on tables for people to sit at. Inside, the 20-odd guests sat around the living room and listened to the musicians (two oboists, including Terry, and some string players - oh, and one pianist). I had heard of Handel and Benjamin Britten, but Gerald Finzi (20th century) was new to me. I looked him up on Wikipedia and discovered the totally trivial detail that he had died of complications from chicken pox!

Yesterday was also busy with rehearsals at the PCO (Protestant Church) in Ghala for the Carol Service this morning (Friday). I had had my arm twisted to play on a number of pieces (and not just out of a hymnbook, alas), so I worked feverishly for 3-4 hours practicing in order not to look like a total dummy in front of what turned out to be a very full house.

In the service, we had two choirs - the Muscat Singers and an Indian choir (Indian expats). The short sermon was given by the Rev. Duncan Hanson, the traveling Reformed Church rep for Mission. He extended his stay by a day to join us at the service. He was staying with Don and Eloise Bosch but hadn't heard of Mom (Oman 1950s). Not too surprising; she was here less than a year. He told me the Arabian Mission archives were kept in New Jersey at New Brunswick Theological Seminary for the RCA. "They keep every little detail, so watch out!" he cautioned. :-)

Last week I also got out for my first in-theater movie: "American Gangsters" with Russel Crowe and Denzel Washington. I wasn't expecting too much (I'm not a mafia or crime movie fan), but it was very well done. The theater is in a very up-market part of town. Most of the audience was Omanis, who seemed to think talking continually during a film and looking at the bright LCD panel of their cell phones was fine movie etiquette. The America they were exposed to was gritty and sordid inner city New York of the '70s - heroin junkies, dishonest cops, prostitutes and mafia thugs. I wonder what sense they made of it. Muscat seems like a quiet small town by comparison.