How do you feel about Liszt?

Let's give a nod to Franz Liszt, on this, the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Now, I have to confess I'm warmish about him. My present perception is somewhat tainted by the last time I heard him performed by a solo pianist. This came across to me as all flash and thunder and sparklers, but in the end, fairly empty.

Thinking about this experience, I realized what's working in here. That is, my own writing. I'd say that I can do some clever things, but often can't reach or plumb the depths that I would like. Too much of the fluttering by, I suppose, and not enough quiet time in the chrysalis, or even further back, not enough time crawling along the ground and eating leaves!!

But that visiting pianist that I heard on a long-ago visit to my mother in South Africa, brought me a special karmic meeting. I was swimming in the lagoon late one afternoon when I was joined by an elderly couple. Considerably older than me, that was! We got chatting, and the woman told me they wouldn't linger because they were going up to town for a recital that evening.

So was I.

Turned out we had friends and other interests in common. I was invited for afternoon tea. That day, Daphne Wilson gave me a copy of a book she'd written that was pertinent to the research I needed for my spring 2012 novel, 'Cape Town'.

The world is truly a wonderful place.