Ah, Camden.


Camden is for the potheads, goth, freaks, tattoo and/or piercing-addicts, runaways, and foreigners trying to make a living. It is at times urban, at times fantastical, and always provocative. Camden stalls sell costumes, jewelry, bongs, vintage wear, leather goods, fake designer handbags, and thongs that resemble the British flag. Tourists visit Camden and bring home t-shirts that read, "Good girls go to Heaven; Bad girls go to London".

It is not posh. But it's electrifying, and I love it.


On another note, Andras Schiff came to the Academy to give a lecture-recital on Beethoven's last three piano sonatas, Op.109, 110, and 111. These three sonatas are considered some of the most sublime music written, ever. In the piano world, Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier are thought of as the Old Testament, and Beethoven's Piano Sonatas are the New Testament. Such music has been known to humble the proud, to temporarily make one a better human being.

So how can it be that musicians are some of the most arrogant, self-important people I know?

The answer, to me, is simple: Music, even in all its glory, is not God.




Pinar, Andras Schiff, myself.