Linda @60 (2004) and Other Expressions of Gratitude
Several Views of Linda Hoeschler On The Occasion Of Her Birthday
July 18, 2004
By Nick Nash
These remarks were not commissioned, and there is not much in the way of contemporary music in them, so you are perfectly free to wander about and talk, instead of praying for the notes to wither away in the afternoon air so that you can rush to the loo or the bar.
I am going to spare you all the jokes about ageing, the cards with toothless men and termagant women, especially the card I got on my birthday showing a man lying face down on a gurney with of toothpaste sticking out of. ah, see the nurse is saying to the doctor, "He said the instructions were to squeeze from the bottom." OK, so maybe I didn't spare you.
Roasting Linda Hoeschler is impossible there isn't enough there to roast. Maybe blanching would be sufficient, so here, in humble acknowledgement of her variety and complexity are several views of Linda:
The Swedish Perspective
A summer party, a barn, and symbols of Sweden what could be better? Well, air-conditioning, an endless supply of whisky, and a much younger group might be a start ......but I regress...
The Swedish entertainer, Sven-Bertil Taube, was celebrating his fiftieth birthday in Stockholm, and he said, very offhandedly, that the Swedes call the fiftieth birthday, "The Little Death." Great I thought those damn Swedes and their perpetual optimism.
He went on to say that at fifty you have lived two thirds of your life, and now you should take some time to reflect on how you want to spend the last third of your life. Not how others want you to spend it but how you want to spend it. '
I figure Linda’s getting close to fifty, so I hope she takes time from waking up the birds to think about these important issues......
My mentioning things Swedish reminds me of my favorite mealtime grace....
Tack for maten. Thanks for the food.
Det var god. It was good.
lngen spydde. Nobody threw up.
lngen dad. Nobody died.
The Google Perspective
Google is the best-known search engine on the web, and it can be daunting or depressing to Google yourself.
I googled Linda's name and page after page related to her came up... a lot of genealogical stuff and reference after reference to the American Composers Forum. I wearied after looking at five pages and don't know how much there might be about her early volunteer and corporate career.
But did you know that she and Jack monitored the Secchi disk on Gem Lake? Don't know what a Secchi disk is....ask them later....
The Russian Doll Perspective
We've all seen those nested Russian dolls, beginning with a large one and working down through six or eight or more to a very small doll. In the Linda series there she is as executive, environmentalist, genealogist, wife, daughter, mother, friend, volunteer, commissioner, traveler, educator, board member, and my favorite, Linda as the attractive, generous, and energetic pain in the butt which leads me to....
The Zeitgeist Perspective
Zeitgeist is the German word for "The Spirit Of The Age." Unlike many of us who are hobbling through the Zeitgeist, Linda always appears to be just ahead of it, on the front edge of the wave, staying in the mandatory stable, though slightly forward position This was particularly so in her remarkable term as Executive Director of The American Composers Forum, and it was remarkable.
Unfortunately, most of us stop caring about the Zeitgeist - or even how it's spelled- about sixty - or on the day you decide that watching a Lawrence Welk rerun on Channel 2 is the best thing to do on a Saturday night.
Linda is really tuned in, sometimes to things I know I'll never care about like… really big rocks in a garden. Why her Swedish ancestors would look at that and say, "Veil, yah, ve spent our lives tak.in the goddam rocks out of the ground so we can plant something, and now she's puttin' goddam boulders back... we should have stayed in Sweden, for God's sake… or bought stock in IKEA on the IPO."
It takes a good deal of energy to stay on the front edge of the zeitgeist wave, and the rest of us should never forget that, as we paddle blithely in calmer water, and both Jack and Linda have that energy.
The Yale Faculty Perspective
In its report of 1828, the Yale faculty declared that “the two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the discipline and the furniture of the mind "as though a brain is an empty room to be filled up with logical positivist chairs and sofas, an existential cassock, classicist bookcases, and a television set from the late satirist period.
Well, it's not just Linda's brain that's furnished - it's a bloody estate. Inside the main house, there is lovely furniture, a fully equipped vegan kitchen, an exercise facility, with speakers everywhere playing music of Stephen Paulus, Aaron Jay Kernis, Steve Heitzeg, Paul Schoenfield, among others, and Jack has a special quiet room which broadcasts absolutely nothing at all.
Outside, there is the aforementioned Boulder Garden, overlooking the Eastern and Roman Temples of Meditation and Reflection, and at the back of the property, the former stables have been converted to living quarters for composers in residence. In the morning they are encouraged to find inspiration and solace in the beautiful lawns and gardens, and in the afternoon, they write, with a nice tea served as they sit on boulders to finish their day.
Next to the stables is the Research Center where Linda pursues her genealogical interests, and part of this new facility, which was created out of remnants of the original Guthrie Theatre, is being used by scribes who are in the midst of creating an illuminated manuscript of particularly pungent Swedish texts.
Now in their third year, they are halfway through "Uff-dah." Debate continues as to what will be next on their list...
Age has nothing to do with years but everything to do with attitude. And Satchel Paige was right when he said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."
Well it's not Linda she's out there in front... where she likes to be and where we like her to be.
Happy Birthday, and thanks for being you.
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Suspending Probability for Linda on Her 60th Birthday
By Emilie and Henry Buchwald
Suppose that, in some Ray Bradbury scenario, there was not ONE Linda celebrating 60 years but 60 Lindas -- each a visitor on earth for one year. Imagine that for each of the past 60 years there had been a full-grown Linda applying her talents to the world:
Linda - ending WW II in 1945
Linda - inaugurating the Marshall Plan
Linda - getting the goods on Senator Joe McCarthy Linda -urging Rosa Parks to move to the front of the bus Linda-telling Elvis to lose weight
Linda - telling Ronald Reagan to smile less
Linda - working in the Chicago projects with Jack
Linda - fighting off Bill Clinton in his campaign van
Linda -- telling Ken Lay to get a new set of accountants
But let's go one step further-
On the sci-fi series, the 4400, the premise is that suddenly a spaceship materializes like a comet in the sky, lands, and then disappears, leaving 4400 people from all over the world, who were abducted and returned by aliens. What if the aliens had turned each one of those 4400 into - a Linda! Imagine -
Lindas running for every office and reinvigorating nonprofits across country
Lindas insisting on good behavior from Serbs and Croatians, Israelis and Palestinians,
A Linda as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare mandating that every American eat kale, fish, soy products, and drink plenty of water every day
A Linda demanding that every American take a daily swim
A Linda insisting on a piece of new music at every concert in America -
I wish there were 4400 Lindas; that would be terrific. I wish there were 60 Lindas -
But - short of that, I'm delighted with the one we have. The letters of her name spell out some of her unique characteristics:
(Actually, we need a "C" for charming, complex, and charismatic
L for lively and loving, not to mention limber!
I for independent, invigorating, and indomitable
N for nifty, numinous, and not-to-be trifled-with
D for decisive, determined, dependable
A for adventurous, appealing, articulate, and Absolutely herself
Put them all together they spell (what else?)
the One whose 60 years we celebrate!
