The measure of my powers

This morning it was cloudy (in Vancouver? How IS that possible?) . This is why I decided to will the sun to come out by staring out the window and playing the Hymn to the Sun from the opera Iris by Mascagni on repeat as I drank my coffee..... Here are the words:

"Son Io ! Son Io la Vita !Son la Belta infinita,La Luce ed il Calor.Amate, o Cose ! dico :Sono il Dio novo e antico,Son l'Amor!"

"I am the sun! It is I, life! I am infinite beauty, light and warmth! O loved one, speak! I am the ancient and new god. I am love!"

It worked. I mean, if you were the sun, how could you not respond to such unabashed flattery? Maybe if King Canute had played Debussy's La Mer when he was ordering the waves to retreat in 1016 things would have turned out differently. As it stands, his failing to control the sea marked the beginning of the end of absolute monarchy in England (unfortunately it is still dying). In fact, just before he died, Canute ordered his crown to be placed on his tomb to indicate that there is only one king in heaven, and that we mortals should know the limits of our powers. I, however, have alwas been keen on testing the boundariess of my powers, as has my friend Pablo who whenever faced with a problem asks his Tarot cards what to do. Like the other day when we made Paella and he was wondering if he should break his self imposed "no yeast diet" and eat some chocolate cake. The first tarot card was "the schizophrenic" which meant that he was caught between two extremes. The second card was the 10 of cups which to him meant that the solution was to act with intensity... So we had 2 pieces of cake each. Of course, Pablo said that you really shouldn't read your own tarot cards because it is hard to make decisions objectively. I told him that one can never be objective when it comes to chocolate, which he should know because he is from Mexico. Where chocolate comes from.

Perhaps this is why Mexicans seem so happy. They are the hobbits of the western hemisphere. When I was in high school I used to go over to my friend Vanessa's (she was half Mexican and Half Mennonite..oy vey... she referred to herself as an "M&M") ... Her mother would invite me over, put on music and we would eat and dance for two or three days. She would also try to set me up with Vanessa, but that's another story. What is even better about hanging out with Mexicans is that most of them are short like me, so I don't have to strain my neck while having a conversationn. Yesterday I went to ahouse-warming at Hugo's place, a friend of Pablo's. Of course, there are 4 people sharing a 1 bedroom apartment and they have no furniture, but this means that they have more room to dance and more money to spend on the important things like chipotle crusted shrimp and smoked salmon in endive leaves. Hugo also wears Armani and has 5 kinds of cologne. I guess it is all about priorities. Everyone was speaking Spanish, which I didn't understand, but I spoke back in Italian when I could and when I didn't we all resorted to the international language of "glance and gesture".... before this I went to my friend Wade's 50th birthday, which was nice, but his friends are mostly Wasps, and therefore mostly tall, and mostly angst ridden. But we had scintillating conversations about the Tony awards and Robert LePage. I am somewhere in the middle because I am Jewish: We are for the most part short (although this is changing because we don't live in Shtetls anymore and have access to protein on a regular basis) and love to eat, but are mostly angst ridden. Although this is changing too (because we don't live in shtetls anymore and have access to protein and all that that entails, on a regular basis) . And as for theTonys... well, is there anything more Jewish than that? We pretty much invented musical theatre, which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your proclivities. I am an opera singer, so I am again somewhere in the middle: I love outward displays of emotion, but they have to be tasteful and preferably in foreign languages. Which means, gentle reader, that I can enjoy the sentiment without the burden of comprehension.

Becuase once you begin to try to comprehend something, you can get lost and may never find your way. I think Oscar Wilde said that he who tries to scratch below the surface does so at his own peril. But it is important to try and understand, peril or no.....

although sometimes I think it is easier to impose your will on the sun.