July 26, 2014 Saturday "Emperor"

First Words

      …thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician

                    by Glenn Feole, M.D.

        "Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy 

        laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote

Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com

Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

July 26, 2014 Saturday

Impressions of the Met, p. 8 of 10

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

     “Rash on ear.  Constipated.” 

Interesting Name:

     Emperor

Anecdote:

     A new nurse had just started work at the office.  We stood in the waiting room as I explained to her that I loved being a solo pediatrician because of the special relationship with my patients and the sense of closeness we all had.  The early evening sunlight was drifting through the beautiful French doors as the leaves of the majestic trees gently waved in the breeze.  My family was in this same house and I was surrounded by my staff that I loved.  It was an idyllic moment for me.  

     I had just checked a five year old's throat and we had had a good time.  He strode ahead of his Mother through the waiting room, marched right by us, went out the front door, and then opened it back up a crack, stuck his head back through and with a grin on his face yelled, "See you later, suckers."

          Westport, Connecticut, 1990's

Poetry:

In My Craft or Sullen Art

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art. 

     Dylan Thomas

Coup d'essai:

    I grew up listening to Dylan Thomas' reading of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and was forever moved by the sensuousness of his images, words and voice.  Mysterious and deep…I suspected that life's deeper meanings were hidden, to be searched for in these haunting images ("the common wages of their most secret heart"…"the moon rages"…"sullen art exercised in the still of the night").

Favorite Musician/song:

Bob James, Angela (Theme from "Taxi")

     It gives me chills of nostalgia to hear this song, so reminiscent of my my Uncle Ray's (Ray Breault) piano playing.  Uncle Ray was a professional jazz musician in Texas and turned me on to Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans.
     Youtube has a rendition of this piece that is superb - the bass player, the incredible Asian jazz guitarist, the drummer.   Exquisite.  The song is beautiful and haunting.
     In Westport, I would finish seeing patients in my home office around 9 p.m. or later, only to drive 15 minutes to Norwalk Hospital to see any of the new babies that were born that day.  It was  mid-December night, icy and cold with snow on the ground and the wind howling.  I had just pulled up outside of the hospital, shivering and ready to make a run to the back door to the nursery…when "Angela" came on the jazz radio station I was listening to.  I was mesmerized for the next fifteen minutes as I listened to the beauty of this piece, all thoughts of the cold gone.

     Here is the youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2XXDKpofYk

Please let me know what you think.  Would love to hear your comments on this, dear readers…

Favorite Book/author:

Bauby, Jean-Dominique

    The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The film is also one of my favorites, both being delicate and sensitive mediations on life.  It also has one of the most sensuous eating scenes in any movie I have ever seen (reminiscent of the opening scene in "Eat Drink Man and Woman")

Favorite Movie/DVD:

     2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

     The music alone…and the cinematography.  Mysterious, unexplainable… and the source for the name of the "iPod" by Steve Jobs (famous quote by the computer, HAL).