Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Day of mystery

Zut alors! At 4 p.m. yesterday I remembered my vow to pay my taxes. How quickly you forget! Here I was writing and writing about it and then my mind turns back to Leonard Pennario and I step into this black hole and forget about everything.

Anyway, 4 p.m., business day almost over and City Hall probably closes earlier, so I was panicked. And then -- and then -- I check on the good old Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company site and -- double and triple Zut Alors! -- my paycheck is not there.

I could not believe it. I still do not know what happened. All I know is that according to my Latin missal, this is one of the Sins Crying To Heaven For Vengeance. I just happened to spot those sins on Sunday, on page 34, which proves their importance, as the book has 2,145 pages. There are four Sins Crying To Heaven For Vengeance. Here they are:

1.) Wilful murder.
2.) The sin of Sodom.
3.) Oppression of the poor.
4.) Defrauding labourers of their wages.

I did not get my wages which surely falls under Sin No. 4.

Well, maybe it doesn't. Howard is awake now and he is leaning over my shoulder drinking my coffee and telling me that with the financial crisis he has heard that certain banks in the Midwest, checks are held up. Held-up checks are different in the eyes of the Holy See. Those are merely Heinous Annoyances Crying To Heaven For Vengeance.

Result of yesterday's drama: I did the American thing and put my taxes on my credit card. That meant I was whacked with another $30 but who cares, it's over. Chapter closed.

New chapter open.

Robert Wagner, the actor, has written a book about his life called "Pieces of My Heart" and I hear he was on Charlie Rose lastnight talking about it. I got a note from Mike in San Diego telling me to check it out, that because "RJ," as we are privileged to call him, was a good friend of Pennario's, there might be stuff about Pennario in there.

I can't wait to do that. But I am not holding my breath. If this book has anything much about Pennario in there, it will be the first book in history to do so! (Mine not being out yet.)

It is amazing, the books I look into that I am SURE will have something about Pennario, but they do not. Books on people like conductors Fritz Reiner and Dimitri Mitropoulos, Otto Klemperer, Artur Rodzinski, Erich Leinsdorf, Andre Previn, all kinds of other people Pennario worked with and had a good perspective on. I look at them and think, didn't these authors make any phone calls? Well, maybe Pennario eluded them. Maybe he was on the beach when they called.

He is not on any video, either. These videos of these pianists keep coming out: Emil Gilels, Jorge Bolet, Benno Moiseiwitsch, any pianist you can think of. But no Pennario. Nowhere Pennario. And that is too bad because my boy is a heck of a lot more fun to look at than any of these other pianists, trust me on this.

Well, all this only makes the book more exciting.

Who doesn't love a mystery?

No comments: