The Brass And Liz Taylor

Madeleine performs and I dash home from Eitan's swimming gala (Late!) then across town (Traffic! Madeleine fidgets) arriving in a nick of time (Sonnet worried look; music teacher irritated !). Once seated, the brass plays Miles and we are treated to "Kind of Blue" including a wonderful trumpet solo by Madeleine, which she nails. The large dedicated audience cheers the kids - there are five or six ensembles covering various different instruments - and we stay until the very end including a synthesizer "display." All in the name of art and love.

Liz Taylor passes at 79 - the last of the Hollywood Greats from a bygone era. The kids have no idea. I recall a sunny morning at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd and Burt Reynolds lounging in the pool talking to three young bikinied women who, when given Burt's name, are like: "who is Burt Reynolds?" For all of us who have seen "Deliverance," which in 2008 selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "Culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," this comes as a blow. Worse for the actor.