cough

Last night KaDe, Mrs. S, my parents, and I went to hear Gil Shaham and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. It was a great concert, but I got one of my traditional concert coughing fits during a quiet part of the Brahms violin concerto. Sigh. It must be a psychological thing - now is a very bad time to cough, therefore I will cough! and cough! and cough! It didn't help that the lady in front of me kept giving me the half-turn-around of concert hall disapprobation.

They also played Appalachian Spring, which my Japanese ladies had NEVER HEARD. How weird is that? KaDe is a piano teacher and a singer and all into music and stuff, and had never heard it. From which I learned the perhaps-obvious lesson that Aaron Copland is more popular in America than in Japan.