I moved into the new Potsdam house in February. It was right on an estuary of the Raquette River. I had a canoe, a little pier and a rolling lawn which was covered in snow. The temperature was always below zero in winter. I'd been advised to shovel snow against the outside walls of the house for more insulation. The Chevy could be started remotely from inside the house. Sounds stupid, but it was very handy during especially biting cold weeks.
At some point I went a little nuts and went outside in the middle of the night and built a nice ski jump at the bottom of hill in the back yard. I was going to learn how to do a helicopter, or break my legs trying.
Rini was working in foreign lands quite a bit so on my days off I drove to Whiteface Mountain and skied.
During first semester I'd met Heather Wheeler, one of the piano teachers, in a staff meeting. Her husband Adam was involved in the university's outdoor activities. We quickly became friends and I would drop in on them uninvited, I was that guy, but they were fine with it. We are still in touch 20 years later. They were my favourite people in Potsdam and their group of friends was a different breed of people than the academics whom I was worried were going to be my only option for friends. Adam and Heather's bad bunch liked to drink, smoke and party and were very welcoming to me, perhaps sensing that I too was deranged.
I remember one halloween party and we had to cross dress. Apparently when one of the girls put on her boyfriend's camouflage their dog went crazy.
I had also become friendly with various locals. They all found it amusing that I didn't seem to take my academic role very seriously. I actually did, but not when I was out on the town. The bar closest to my house looked, on the surface, to be very rough. I remember one guy who wasn't allowed to drink hard liquor in the bar. I never asked why, because we all know that guy, don't we? I mistook his name for 'Dave' so everyone in the bar started calling him Dave.
One day I was four wheel driving in the forest and I came across Dave who had a rifle poking out the driver side window. He was hunting from his car. We pulled up alongside each other, and both smiled sheepishly at the total illegality of it. You can get away with stuff like that when there are not enough cops.
I went and did an 'advanced driving course' to shave off the points on my license from two speeding tickets. The course was really for the drunk divers, which was everyone but me. We watched the old videos then spent the rest of it sharing hilarious stories involving road kill and drunk fueled mishaps. One guy had hit a young deer and put the lifeless thing in the back seat. It came back to life and kicked all his windows out while he slowed down from 80mph. Another guy had left his truck next to the gas pump while he went in to pay, and his girlfriend had attempted to pull the truck forward so the next client had access. She tried to do it from the passenger side, using her hands on the accelerator. She put the whole truck through the gas station window. They were both drunk, so they both lost the licences among other penalties.
Pranks in the North Country were different. One afternoon we tied a friend's canoe on his truck, but sideways. Another guy woke up to a dead deer, frozen, in his backyard. Hard to get rid of. It was there for days.
The class I taught in second semester was violin for non-string players. To make it fun and to help relax them I had them play Suzuki book 1 tunes in country and western style, or bluegrass. I mean the song titles almost ask for it: "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" "The Happy Farmer" "Oh Come Little Children."
In June I auditioned for my own job, successfully. This time I didn't have to do the interviews, but I did have to play a short recital and teach. The good news was that the Dean gave me a raise.
Summer was no longer a time for learning or academies. This time we flew to Seattle, and took a car ferry to Guemes Island.
We played a bunch of chamber music concerts organized by Becky Rodman, and generally took it easy while a private chef cooked for us. Rini sang. We did the Brahms songs and some French songs with piano and viola. Rini and I were obviously a permanent item and it was about time to ask her to marry me.
During the American summer, I took Rini out to Australia (winter) with me and proposed to her on a secluded beach. I'd decided that it was best to let her choose her own engagement ring and used a giant plastic diamond ring that she wore for a few days until we had her tiny replacement diamond ring. Muttly's father-in-law Charles Parkin threw us a champagne brunch at their beautiful beach house in Sorrento.
Ring shopping in the city was easy. Mum had a friend who worked at a nice jewelry shop. Rini knew what she liked and we agreed on a budget that represented where we were financially at that moment.
We had a fantastic engagement party at a place Mum chose, called 'Chapel Off Chapel.' It was a venue that had a regular musical night once a week and we'd crashed that with over a hundred people. It was an 'open-piano and microphone' situation where you could ask to play. Rini and I did a few Gershwin numbers. A spectacular night with all the usual suspects in attendance.
Coming back to Potsdam after such a big summer was actually nice. I had temporary housing a little further away at Higley Flow until the old couple at the big house left.
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| Higley Flow |
Rini hung out with me until school officially started and we spent afternoons on the river, and wandered around exploring.
2004
I was surviving the perilous six hour drive, but I'd had several close calls with deer on the road, black ice and highway traffic. On one freezing morning I watched as several cars slipped sideways slowly down a descending road with a cliff on one side. Scary, indeed.
The professors before my time who had done this semi-commute thing had all come a cropper, rolling their cars, going off the road etc. It weighed on my mind. I was playing in several baroque groups, a Harp Trio, Raw Fish, and I was doing some late night driving after concerts to get back to Potsdam in time to teach.
The Dean had a stern chat with me about how some universities encouraged their faculties to continue their performance careers around the world, but that Potsdam was not one of those Universities. I assumed that the complaint had come from the cello professor and the violin professor. Jealous fuckers who nobody liked. So I went ahead and ignored that, continuing with a busy performance schedule.
Being reliably spiteful towards anybody who treats me badly, I also cut back entirely on my availability to their "Potsdam Piano Quartet" which had been a chore for me. The fun part was that my so-called colleagues thought that they had power over me because one of them was on the 'Tenure Committee.' I was basically untouchable because I had already decided that I would be leaving before the summer of 2005, my official reasons being that the distance was a danger —winter driving — and I wanted to travel with Rini instead of miss it all. The decision was easy for me. Sure, I would look at finding a better professorship, but it wasn't something about which I cared either way. Maybe I would even try my hand at something else.
For now, I focused on the wellbeing and advancement of my students and ignored any silly backbiting or weak politics, and instead spent my free time with the more robust people of the outdoor nature. I was having a great time and my students were excelling now that they'd completed their technical foundation work.
At the end of the academic year in May, I threw an afternoon party at my place for my viola studio. Against the advice of my friend the assistant Dean, I provided beer, without incident, on the condition that they wore lifejackets when they were out on the water. They were all over eighteen, but most were under twenty-one.
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| 2004 Viola Class End of Semester BBQ |
That summer, Rini and I got married twice.
At the end of May we flew to Israel where invitations had already gone out to extended family and close friends. Rini's big sister and I wrote the marriage vows that Rini would recite in Hebrew and I would say in English.
The wedding took place near the ancient city of Caesarea at sunset under a Chuppah — symbolizing the home that we would build together—. It was a beautiful ceremony. Everyone was quite emotional.
The reception was lovely. Hagai and I played some Mozart. Rini played piano and sang something together with me. I met her tight group of friends from school and we all danced.
We slept a couple of nights in the hotel up on the hill of Haifa. Rini's parent's place was filled with flowers, and we sat there on the couch writing thank you notes as the phone rang off the hook with guests calling to say how beautiful the whole thing had been.
Back in New York City, our 'E-vite' had gone out and we had 90 people coming to Felix's penthouse-duplex on a Saturday afternoon, the 5th of June, along with two waiters serving booze that I had bought from a wholesaler up town called PJs, and food was coming from an Egyptian lady organized by our neighbour and good friend Kamel Boutros. My little sister had flown in along with my old mates Muttly and Fleur.
Rebēl came and played for us. We had a marriage celebrant and a marriage certificate to sign, so this would be the official one. Rini arrived in a short dress. There was a little bit of speech making from Helen and Rini's mentor Mikael Eliason - who also gave her away.
It was a huge party and very 'us'.
One of Rini's friends, Tom, had gone off-book and bought us a miniDV video camera, which was to change my life, and in turn help Rini's career.
Glyndebourne Debut
Mrs Bucknell (ha ha), Rini was engaged to sing Carmen at Glyndebourne which was a very big deal. David McVicar's production and his intense manner of direction would help define how Rini integrated the title character into her 30+ year career and indeed into her life. She would go on to be one of the most prolific interpreters of Carmen in history.
A beautiful apartment in the town of Lewis with a grand piano. A charismatic, but alcoholic director. The London Philharmonic, and traditional costumes. What a great summer it would prove to be. Rini's parents and my mother all came for opening night. The opera company provided us with a picnic table on the balcony for dinner.
She was amazing and had fabulous reviews, except for the lone, unforgettably insulting 'whore from Haifa' article which had us all scratching our heads, but only for a minute.
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A Winter Semester Announcement
I made an appointment with the Dean at the beginning of the winter semester announcing my departure in a year's time. He was quick to ask if my reason was 'colleague related,' which, being honest, may have had something to do with it, but my official reason was that I was now married and wished to stay married. He accepted it and was thankful for the advanced notice.
It had come to my attention that some of the female faculty had been very impressed that I had stood up to the cello professor who unbeknownst to me, had a habit of bullying the ladies on staff. I already knew that he was a telltale as he had reported me for telling him off on the phone and hanging up on him. Interestingly, the chair of performance, who had been ordered to meet with me and to observe one of my masterclasses was so impressed by me that word went around.
Not long after that I was mysteriously elected a member of Pi Kappa Lambda. I think Dr. Sarah Hersh was behind that nice little act of thanks, but I'll never know for sure.
The unrelated but interesting news though was that I had just invested in a powerful Mac computer and had installed the Final Cut Pro editing suite. I had, for just a few months, been using the new video camera with an amateur editing program and the results had impressed our friend Kamel so much that he sat down with me at the Apple Mac Store website and forced me to upgrade to Pro. I spent my spare time alone learning the tools and began to read the three volume Finalcut manual. It wouldn't be long before I was earning a better living from video than I was from music.
At the end of 2004 I gave a full recital at the university. It was the first opportunity my students had to hear me really perform. My pianist, Kirk Severtson did a wonderful job and we played the program first in Cleveland for his final performance assessment at the his university.
We played Schumann's Märchenbilder, the F Minor Sonata of Brahms and the Enesco Concert Piece. I think it may have been about the pinnacle of my playing level.
Kirk suggested that it would be impressive if we played the Enesco in the staff showcase at the large auditorium at the beginning of 2005. Everybody always packed in to see the showcase. I agreed with him. It was a good idea, and it would also serve to piss off my string colleagues as they were only playing small easy stuff. It would put them to shame, which they absolutely deserved.
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As Christmas time approached, the Australian leg of our weddings parties, anything tour was being meticulously planned by my mum. She had the full list of invitees, the venue booked, a beautiful mansion in Stonnington, and she'd arranged to have her upright piano moved there so that the likes of Stephen McIntyre and Nehama Patkin could play along with Rini, myself and a surprise appearance of Hayden Chisholm. Dad threw in the cash for alcohol and invited a few of his mates.
Rini had picked up a waterborne bug and was sick as a dog in bed at mum's place. Hats off though she managed to get out of bed and do a little rehearsal with Stephen and me, and then it was back to bed.
Everybody we invited RSVP'd yes, and we had a roaring party. Hayden played a little improv with Nehama which was cool. I gave a short speech and the everybody wanted to say hi to Rini. Mum had outdone herself with this celebration.
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| Rini and Mum at home |