Places I'm Visiting: Dallas

Two days visiting in Dallas/Fort Worth. I heard opinions only on the Fort Worth side, but it seems people from Dallas and from Fort Worth don’t think much of each other. I get the impression that, at the very least, Fort Worth natives think Dallas is sterile, cold, and citified, whereas Fort Worth, they will tell you, still has its cowboy soul. 

We visited Dallas mostly to go to the Dallas Museum of Art, but, as it opens relatively late, at 11:00AM, we went to the Book Depository Museum, which occupies the sixth and seventh floors of what was the Texas Book Depository in November 1964 when John F. Kennedy was shot from one of its sixth-floor windows. Like many people, I’ve seen photos of the building, photos of the stretch of Elm St. the president’s motorcade was passing when the shots were fired that killed Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connally, and I’ve seen photos of the “grassy knoll.” I have seen the Zapruder film, sequences isolated from the film, and stills from it. So, visiting Dealey Plaza in person, felt oddly familiar. 

The Museum mostly presents an extended series of explanatory panels. Some put Kennedy’s visit to Dallas into the context of the time. Others show what happened as the president was hit and right after. Still others look at how the world reacted to the assassination, at the investigations and re-enactments that followed, and at the forensic evidence for assigning the murder to Lee Harvey Oswald. A large model of Dealey Plaza used by the FBI and by later investigators is on display. Examples of cameras various journalists and amateur photographers used at the scene are on display.  Lee Harvey Oswald’s wedding ring is even on display.

Most moving, however, is simply being able to stand at almost exactly the spot on the sixth floor from which the sniper fired. From there, you can look down and to the right and see the X etched in the pavement on Elm St. showing the approximate point at which the fatal bullet struck. 

Having seen the path of the motorcade from the perspective of the sniper, one thing seemed odd to me. The motorcade made a right turn off Main St. onto Houston St., pointing right at the corner of the Book Depository Building from which Oswald fired. It then made a left turn onto Elm St., passing in front of the Book Depository Building, moving away from the sixth floor corner window, off to the shooter’s right. I don’t understand why he waited. He would appear to have had a closer, easier shot just as the motorcade slowed before making its left turn onto Elm St. We will never know what Oswald was thinking, but, had it been me, I would have fired at that – most vulnerable – moment rather than waiting for the car carrying the president to start moving away toward the triple underpass beyond the Grassy Knoll. 

After seeing the museum, we walked down to look at the X on Elm St. from the Grassy Knoll and at the place nearby Mr.  Zapruder was standing as he filmed the progress of the motorcade and, inadvertently, the assassination. Judging from the historical photographs, the place has changed very little since November 22, 1963, the day the president died. 

November 22, 1963 is the first day in my own life that I have a memory of. I was going on four years old. My mother and I were returning from grocery stopping. As we approached the short flight of steps up to the main doors of our Brooklyn apartment building, a neighbor came out and said something to my mother who then took me inside and rushed me down the hallway leading to our apartment door at the far end of the hallway. Inside the apartment, my mother kneeled down on the rug in front of the television, still holding a paper bag of groceries, and turned on the set – something she never did; my mother was largely indifferent to television; in later years, she didn’t even own a television. Having been a small child, I didn’t at the time understand what had happened, but I remember the day and the name Lee Harvey Oswald being spoken over and over again for days. Visiting the museum and the location of the assassination was a quintessentially touristy thing to do, but it was worth doing once.

Books I'm Reeading 21st Century Violinists and The Young T. E. Lawrence

Having recently read Violin Virtuosos a volume that followed 21st-Century Violinists (String Letter publishing, 1999), I received this book, the earlier of the two, as a thoughtful Christmas present. Like the later book, this one is a collection of interviews with prominent violinists that originally appeared in Strings Magazine. There also appears to be a 21st-Century Violinists Volume 2--which I haven't seen or read--presumably in the same format, a collection of interviews from the magazine (although I can't find this in a search; perhaps the book mentioned on the back of the first volume became Violin Virtuosos, the book I read first?).

This volume includes talks with Corey Cerovsek, Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank, Nigel Kennedy, Midori, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Elmar Oliveira, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Gil Shaham, Isaac Stern, and Maxim Vengerov. As before, some of these names are very familiar--Stern, Chang, Kennedy, Mutter, Midori, Salerno-Sonnenberg, Shaham, and Vengerov--all of which I've heard live except for Stern, Kennedy, and Vengerov. Cerovsek, Frank, and Oliveira were entirely new to me. I see that all three were in the news when this book was published and they were actively recording at the time, but they seem to have faded away.

Oliveira has recorded some obscure works that look interesting (I just ordered a used copy of his recording of Finnish Composer Einojuhani Rautavaara's Violin Concerto). Pamela Frank seems to have done a lot of chamber music with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Edgar Meyer, so I imagine she's good, but she's not been on my radar at all. Corey Cerovsek doesn't seem to be very active at the moment, judging from a search of recordings. Part of the fun of these books is reading the views of known performers when they were much younger, talking about performing and recording, but just as much fun is being introduced to new performers to explore. These books will be of interest to any serious classical music lover with a particular interest in the violin.

On this last day of the year, I see that I read 14 books in 2019. I finished 13 in 2018 and pledged to read more this year. So, I achieved that goal, barely. That said, I feel like I did quite well, considering that, having taken a full-time job on July 1 for the first time in 19 years, I had considerably less free time in 2019 than in 2018. Still, I'd like to do more reading in 2020 if I can manage it.

After writing the above, I realized that I missed one--so, I actually finished 15 books in 2019: I also read Anthony Sattin's The Young T. E. Lawrence (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), and I read it mostly in one sitting. 

The title is a trifle misleading. The book doesn't really deal with the young T. E. Lawrence. You might say it deals with the younger-than-we-usually-hear-about T. E. Lawrence. The book starts with a scene in 1914, when Lawrence was already 26, before jumping back to 1909 (when he was 21) and then briefly to the 1903-1908 period (15-20), but most of the book concerns the years from 1909 to 1914. That said, in very readable prose, Sattin paints a vivid picture of a younger Lawrence already exhibiting many of the character traits that led him to pursuits that prepared him for his later role in the Arab Revolt--traits that also brought him to the attention of people who facilitated early travels and archeological digs that likewise prepared him for his later, better known activities in the Middle East. The man Lowell Thomas sensationalized as Lawrence of Arabia is already clearly present here. A very enjoyable read. Highly recommended.