Message from the Editor Membership Letters. I had the perfect outing planned for my visit with Steven Isserlis when he came to Seattle to perform the Schumann Concerto. It was a warm, sunny day so any itinerary that involved being outside was pretty much a guaranteed winner. We would take a relaxing stroll in the Arboretum along the wood-chipped path that winds through a cattail bog, then we'd go to lunch, then we'd do an interview. It was going to be the perfect "date," or so I thought. The walk started out nicely but after a hundred or so feet it degenerated into hopping over puddles and repeated "uh-oh's" with each step as our feet sank deeper and deeper into a surprisingly well camouflaged organic, swamp ooze.
The path was being swallowed up by the bog. After another fifty feet, we simply had to turn back, but of course that meant forging again through the sludge that we had just tiptoed through. Any patch of clean that remained on our shoes would surely be enshrouded with algae saturated mud as we retraced our steps. After several zig-zag hops between micro islands of dry, and after a few long jumps, we emerged from the park and reached safe ground, our shoes now smeared with an aromatic muck.
I hope they weren't expensive We then drove over to the Madison Park district and had a quick sandwich. I was considering doing the interview in the deli, but Surfin' USA was blaring over the sound system. The shop was empty, so I asked if there was any chance the music could be turned down for a little while. The incredulous sandwich artist haughtily refused, saying, "Why would we do that?
This day was not going well. We then walked towards the park nearby and it occurred to me that we could sit on its shaded, grassy bank and enjoy a view of Lake Washington as we chatted. We could watch the boats and water-skiers zoom by and luxuriate in the cool, gentle breeze that wafted off the water.
It would be a picturesque and relaxing location for an interview. We crossed the street to the park and looked down the bank towards the beach below and before us was a teeming flock of bikinied maidens. As one might expect, we agreed with little to no discussion that this was indeed a satisfactory location for an interview. In retrospect, it probably wasn't ideal for our noble task, since questions and answers were occasionally half-heard, or sprinkled with unexpected caesuras, not to mention a general reduction in completed thoughts and sentences.
