My mother emailed me a link to the above performance, and wrote:
My very first favorite classical piece of music was Stravinsky’s Petrushka [which I heard when just a child], living in Mexico City at our house, #5 Prado Sur, DF. I did not know the composition was for a ballet. The 78s were hard heavy records, each one in a paper sleeve, and I was allowed to play them to my heart’s content when my parents were out for the evening (often five times a week). I dropped the razor sharp record player’s needle as gently as possible…
I must have felt a sense of dance through Stravinsky’s music. After all, I was taking ballet lessons at the time and made my own very thrilling cameo ballet debut on stage at the Bellas Artes Theatre, Mexico… Several months, later, I was stricken with typhoid. My parents were anxious, and the portable record player was moved to my bedside.
Before this email, I was unaware that my mother had ever had typhoid, had danced ballet, and had lived in Mexico City before she lived in Berlin. The lives they led before us! As Paul Simon said, “That was your mother / that was your father / before you was born, dude / when life was great. You are the burden / of my generation / I sure do love you / but let’s get that straight.”
