"We've already bemoaned and lamented last year, so let's close the eyes on our rearward Janus face and look forward. Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills, when life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming!"
"Here's one music lover's personal journey: Last year I went to about fifteen concerts (most of them at Siletz Bay Music Festival) and a dozen or so recitals (all at Oregon Bach Festival Composer Symposium), and I kicked it all off with a lovely hometown symphony concert last spring, which I attended with an old college friend in the medium-small city in Northern California where we learned first-year music theory together (hi Travis!)"
"Weird thing about celebrating, or at least commemorating, the new year right in the middle of winter. It's not the solstice, it's not Christmas; neither do we celebrate the new year on or near the first day of spring, as the ancient Romans did (though it is also the Romans who give us Janus). It's like a lot of state borders. Some borders line up with where the big cities are, the Portland-Vancouver Greater Metro Area sprawling across the Oregon-Washington border in just such a way. But head on out to where Oregon meets up with the northwest corner of Nevada and the southwest corner of Idaho and you'll see what I mean: It's no man's land out there, a wilderness in the middle of nowhere. This "January 1" business is like that."
Celebrating the new year in midwinter feels misaligned with seasonal markers such as the solstice or the first day of spring, despite Janus as a symbolic two-faced god. January 1 is compared to arbitrary state borders: some align with metropolitan centers while remote tri-state junctions become no-man's land. The tone shifts from lament to forward-looking resolve with the refrain "Just keep swimming." A music lover reports attending about fifteen concerts and a dozen recitals last year, mostly at Siletz Bay Music Festival and Oregon Bach Festival events, a rebound from recent years but still below pre-pandemic peaks.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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