Izumi Tateno A pianist with the Left Hand

Izumi Tateno is an 88 years old pianist. I listened to him playing a piano quintet together with Iwamoto Mari string quartet, which I wrote about in a previous post. It was at a hall in Tokyo in early '70s.

He must be in his late '30s of age. He has confidently showed up on the stage. Maybe, it was not too long after he had started his career as a pianist. I must admit I could not recall of what composer's quintet he had played. Possibly, Sinding. I am not sure. The scene of the rendition is still clear in my memory. 

He might have achieved a fame as a pianist for Scandinavian composers. Having lived either Japan or Finland alternatively, he has done a great job. But in 2002, he has suddenly suffered from cerebral vascular accident which left him right paresis. It was an almost deadly trouble for a professional pianist. I heard of the news with deep sadness. 

He has revived as a left hand pianist not too far from that event. I have listened him playing the Concerto for the Left Hand by Ravel either on radio or TV. He seemed to have lost his Finnish wife recently. In a recent interview to him, losing his wife, he told he had been doing house chores by himself and was living by himself. He was telling that in a gentle smile. He was still practising piano for 3 hours everyday. It might be short for a professional pianist. But considering of his age, it's still amazing. He still carries on playing piano at various places, either in Japan or even in overseas.

In a concert cerebrating his 88th of birthday, he has played 4 pieces. Two of them were works composed by Northern European composers. The last two, one an arrangement of a nursery rhyme by Kohsaku Yamada, and the other Ave Maria by a baroque composer Caccini arranged for the left hand, are most impressive.

He said, in the end of the concert, his age might prevent him from visiting there again, far from his home. In a few seconds, he denied that and would visit there again in the future. In a big smile all through that statement.

What is making him so positive for the future? Despite of his handicap, or the event which looks like a handicap to us, and loss of his beloving one, he is still going ahead with that big smile. It seemed like a miracle to me.

  

Half a century since I listened to him in live! Wishing him good health and mellow performance activities. 

An unforgettable ham friend Bob W7AYN

As I told in the post regarding Jim K9JWV, I have always been thrilled and enjoyed to work with QRP stations. Especially, since I was equipped with standard or above standard set up. It might because that it brought me back to the beginner days when I struggled with the same kind of tiny and simple radio/antenna.

Bob W7AYN was one of such QRP operators. I have frequently seen him as NF7H in '80s through '90s. Later, he got his last call sign, W7AYN, which had been owned by his father. 

With stable and beautiful keying from a bug he has inherited also from his father, he always showed up on 40m early in morning in his time. We have talked a lot on trivial matters or family things. It was amazing his barefoot from a tiny Icom transciever shown in the photo with a wire barely above the roof was coming through and good enough for us to chat for a while. I have really appreciatd his keying from that old bug. I believed it was an art. 

He seemed to have had a lot of problems in his life. Regarding his family, his health and so forth. He never complained of those things but just simply told me as they were. He always remembered of what I had told him and asked about that later. It was not what I could expect from old timers.

In the last few years, he has moved to a new home near to his children. He could not put up an outdoor antenna but used a tiny loop in garage. We have often discussed with correspondence by e mail how to improve his antenna. But it was what he could afford those days. It was still tough for us then to chat like before.

He has had a lot of illnesses, I know. I remember whenever we met, he almost got a new health issue. As told above, he reported it only as a fact. He never complained of those things. In the end, he has suffered from heart attack. Our mutual friend, probably, WA7GIL, has let me know of his passing which arrived him all of sudden. It seemed like a fatal arrhythmia. It was 2017. I still miss this good friend of mine and would go after him. Before it gets too late, I should prepare a simple tiny station after him.     

Ambiguity in Bach's music

Whenever I listen to music by J.S. Bach, I notice ambiguous emotion in each melody of his most works. It could be called as a kind of polysemy in music. Whatever brilliant and pleasant music it might be, a kind of sorrow or sadness is on the background at the same time. I have reiterated about this double emotion in his music before. That characteristics makes his music sound serious and profound.

Professor Isoyama whom I also mentioned about a lot of times in this blog, a famous scholar on Bach used to say it was due to a couple of circumstances he had lived. First, it was soon after the Thirty Years' War, destructive and miserable to people all over in Germany. In the era of Bach, he must be influenced by the aftershock of that war. Second, Bach has lost his family early in his life. By age of 9 years, he has lost his parents and has had to live with his elder brother. Losing his parents, he must have felt he had to live helpless life. Lastly, Christianity of protestant by Luther taught him eschatological way of life, I believe. This might be the base of dual emotion in his music as well.

The final chorus of Matthew's Passion sounds a typical example of ambiguity to me. For a music of funeral, it sounds brilliantly radiant. The basso continuo still sounds full of sadness. What a great Aufhebung between opposite two emotions! I am always amazed at it when reaching to this final chorus. An irreplaceable comfort to me!

It will be his 7th anniversary on the 22nd of this month. He was lying on death bed around this time after having severly injured on the snowed street back home after serving as a referee at a chorus competition. It will be the 28th anniversary for Tohru Takemitsu as well. He has loved Matthew's Passion so much and has spent the last night on the earth listening to it as his wife used to tell. 

Tariff diplomacy? For what?

What is Trump's tariff diplomacy? In order to mess up the world economy? Or is he in a kind of memory dysfunction? So far, it serves only to make him look an idiot.

 

Probiotics would work when fiber rich food is taken together

Ultra prcessed food consumption may lead to higher all cause mortality, even if the degree of association is not high. 

 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38719536/

Natual fiber rich meal could redress certain species of intestinal microbiome and reverse the adverse effects of industrialized food. 

 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01477-6?fbclid=IwY2xjawIPQYFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTS52XB6KEbQD05wbP-urkIBqTrq6eg_3GggXNGcSOzzm38hEqCkkUyk9A_aem_9Bd9GYgEfs3FF53G4JfzRw

Reduction of chronic non communicable diseases may improve life expectancy since such chronic inflammatory conditions have been revealed to be one of the causes of aging.

Intake of only probiotics won't give us lasting beneficial effect. Such as ameriolating chronic inflammatory conditions including cardiovascular events and also cancer. We need taking fiber rich food in addition to them. 

Industrialization has made our lives convenient and easy going. But it could change our internal milieu, that is, intestinal microbiota into wrong way. 

Preference to sweets

Preference to sweets differs from one person to another. It may be related only with personal inherent preference but also with occurrence of type II diabetes mellitus and its control. When we try dieting, that could be the highest wall to overcome.

An article in recent Nature Microbiology reported that carbohydrate preference is regulated by the following mechanism. It is not confirmed by the other researchers yet and there could be other pathways of regulation. It is still an interesting finding.

Various long chain free fatty acids are contained in foods. Unsaturated free fatty acid may work as the starter of this pathway. At first, I thought long chain free fatty acid rich, that is, gourmet meal might upregulate the prefernce. But, in reality, it is the opposite. When we take the gourmet meal, it may down regulate appetite for sweets. 

The mechanism could be summarized as below;

A receptor for free fatty acid, FFAR4 reacts with long chain fatty acid on intestinal wall. >A bacterial flora in intestine, Phocaiecola vulgatus, proliferates. This is one of the intestinal microbiome. Breast milk feeding is believed to increase it. >Panthoteinic acid is produced by Phocaiecola vulgatus. >A gut hormone, GLP1, is secretd from intestinal secretary cell through panthoteinic acid. >A growth factor, FGF21, is produced in liver and circulates to brain by the function of GLP1. >At hypothalamus, carbohydrate preference is down regulated by FGF21.

Among the substances or hormone involved in this pathway, GLP1 or GLP1 agonist has drawn attention as a drug for type II diabetes mellitus and as a dieting drug. The researchers who have found this substance/function and its clinical use have recently been awarded for Laskar award in the US. It is an advantageous point as a drug for diabetes mellitus that GLP1 won't cause hypoglycemia on human in hunger. 

I was impressed at what elaborate pathway is present in living body. There could be other pathways as told before. With more amount of knowledge gained, we could control our health/disease. Intestinal microbiota has been believed to work as an internal milieu. It is believed to have immunological function on living body as well. With breast milk fed infants, intestinal normal flora may determine even preference of sweets. It's surprising a flora in intestine could work as a component of this cascade. 

When I was a med student, none of these findings were known. Nowadays, med students should understand and memorize them to be a doctor. Huge amount of new knowledge piled up. What a big task for them! 

An old logbook

 Before I started using a digitalized log, I had kept notebook logs in analogue since I started radio in 1963. Ordinary A4 sized notebooks with horizontal rule lines. Until I transfered from them to PC log in around 2010, when I realized my memory had got too rusty to remember even QSOs with old friends, I had kept almost 100 of the notebook log. 

One reason why I made so many log notebooks is that I have written down some key words in the conversation in the remarks. Some QSOs have taken a page or so to record them. That memo was quite imcomplete and sometimes difficult to recall of what I talked about with the partner. Still some are quite informative and make me recall vividly of the QSOs.

From the bookshelf, I took one of them dated from March to May in 1981. It is numbered Nr4. There were several I kept in '60s in addition to 90 plus after 1980. It made me chuckle at myself how long I have spent with ham radio those days. One note book for a couple of months. I was a senior resident by that time and was accoustomed with normal routine at work. That may be why. But how about the home chores? I have spent almost all my free time for ham radio.

A lot of old and fond call signs were there. W4BW, WA6IVN, W7KRU, VK2DO, 9V1UY, WB6BFR, K6TS and many more, whom I chatted with for a long time and each remarks space of over half a page or more was spent for a QSO. Most of the operators were older than me and have started ham radio in 1930s or even earlier. Real ham radio pioneers were still active those days. I was only in my early '30s of age. 

I was using only TS830 and a vertical on the roof those days. I could work with all over the world including the East Coast and Africa etc. It is amazing I often worked with Africans, mostly, southern part like ZS, ZE, 8Q, FB8 etc with that small set up. I still remember seeing Frank ZE1FN, ex G2DGJ. He was on the air, mainly, 20m when sun was sinking the horizon, that is, our mid night. Steve, WA0UIR, was active from Seattle, almost finishing his graduate school and starting his research career. There will be 3 decades of hiatus before we again meet often. He is now KW7Q retired in Colorado. In early spring, 20m was vigorously open to Europe. There are records of a lot of QSOs with Eu in a row on 20m. I stayed up early in the morning. Thar good conditions might have driven me crazy. Lireterally, crazy and hectic days. 

Again, I could not help asking myself if it was worth spending time and energy for this hobby that way. I could have done more with academic career or caring for family etc. Knowing that I got crazy for this hobby like in my teenage days, how much my parents have worried about me and my family! At least, I haven't ruined my life with it. But still that addiction in this hobby questions to me if it was good or not.

It was a good training for communication in English. I was reading professional papers in English. But, without ham radio, my ability in it won't stay as well as at present. I should admit knowledge in the colloquial English in ham radio was not so  practical in ordinary life.

Last but not least, friendships with those old friends and their memories have been indispensable for me. Living lives together, even apart each other, with someone away throuout our lives is an experience difficult to have for anyone. Throughout our lives in fact. Yes the relationship could be superficial in a sense. But through that life long relationship, we could know each other so well. This should be the best thing ham radio has brought to me.

So what to do with these 100 notebooks, worn and a bit dirty? I may preserve them until end of my life. My family may discard them then. Together with all my pleasure and dream since young days.