Eclecticism

In calling my blog Juxtapositions, I believe I'm onto something. The experience of constant randomness and of being in places where incongruous things are "rubbing together" as I quoted in yesterday's blog, really is a sign of the times.

I first remember hearing the word "eclectic" when we lived in Chapel Hill at the end of the 1980s and where a restaurant we used to go to had an "eclectic menu". I can't recall the name of the restaurant but it may well have been this one. Nowadays people tend to eat an eclectic diet all week every week, pizzas one day, chicken korma the next, our families and friends quite familiar with the concept of tacos, couscous, ratatouille. My parents wouldn't have had a clue what any of those dishes were when I was growing up, when lamb stews and rice puddings were the norm, or fish and chips with slices of (white) bread and butter and a pot of tea if we ate out.

Multiculturalism is no longer confined to a Museum of Mankind. It's all over the place. Among our city's festivals this year are the Greek Summer Festival, Lebanorama, an Italian Week and the Festival of Cultures (in general). So many of us here come from widely dispersed families with friends and co-workers from all over the world. And "The Internet is breaking down geographical barriers," as my husband keeps pointing out. He said it again this evening.

As we were driving home after a hike in the woods today we were transfixed by some music on a Radio 2 broadcast, Sunday Afternoon in Concert featuring a suite from a 21st century opera by Osvaldo Golijov (an East European Jew who grew up in Argentina and is now a Professor of Music at a Massachusetts institution called the College of the Holy Cross). The title of the opera was Ainadamar, Arabic for "Fountain of Tears". It came to an end and we should have switched the car radio off then, but the announcer was already telling us about the next item on the programme, a Finnish pianist playing some Mendelssohn. Following that was a selection of music by black American composers.

See what I mean? Much as we relish our varied diet, what makes people twitchy and restless in the modern world is chronic mental indigestion.