I’m trying to get back into blogging…no, that’s not right. I’m occasionally thinking I should get back into blogging and then not doing it. Partly that’s because all the things that are on my mind at the moment are either quotidian–life is fine, family is fine, weather is fine–or terribly depressing, topics I don’t really want to dwell on and readers probably prefer to avoid as well. Also, I have well and truly conquered my previously-bemoaned inability to waste time, so completely that wasting time is most of what I do. Unlike during my pre-retirement life, I find doing nothing of importance for most of a day delightful; No Regrets.

My first day of time-wasting followed my last day of band class, May 21, so the thrill may wane as more wasteful days pour on, and of course I still have some volunteer obligations and many regular items on my social calendar. Today I am trying some light blogging, namely a review of the documentary American Symphony, which I loved.

This is one of those follow-someone-with-a-camera-then-edit documentaries, or rather follow two people married to each other, namely Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad. He’s a well-known, Grammy-winning musician, and she’s a slightly less famous but very accomplished author, musician, and artist. The film captures a critical point in their lives: He is composing his first symphony and preparing for its premier in Carnegie Hall, while her work is interrupted by the shocking return of leukemia at the age of 32, after ten years of remission.

The first thing he does when he finds out her disease is back it to ask her to marry him. Their intimate wedding is only one high point in a film with lots of extreme moments that never drags. These people are creative and thoughtful, a loving couple with a lot of genuine human connections as well as personal struggles, all of which they share honestly in front of the camera.

A couple of vignettes: During the actual symphony premier, the electricity fails unexpectedly, a problem for a work with multimedia components. Jon improvises an amazing piano interlude sounding like a storm on the ocean, after which power is restored; the audience suspects nothing.

The morning after the 2022 Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, at which Jon won five of the eleven awards for which he was nominated, including best album, we find him in the airport, where the documentary camera caught all sorts of folks politely congratulating him, two female tweens sneaking in a selfie while he gets his shoes shined, and the older Slavic shoe-shiner asking, Are you famous?, to which Jon replied, No, I’m just hanging out with this friend, but he happens to be a cameraman. That may sound patronizing but it was the opposite; it was Jon breaking down any walls that might separate him from a genuine encounter, however brief.

Later he spoke seriously about fame, how it gets in the way of your relationships and your work unless you carve it out and set it aside. So many famous people in our world could benefit from this approach, starting with all the Silicon Valley billionaire bros seeking to add Autocrat to their resumes.

The film includes many affecting scenes, such as one in which the young couple play a form of Simon Says while together wheeling Suleika’s infusion cart through hospital corridors. Their version is wordless and graceful, really a dance, filled with touches and joy. This is not a downer disease movie, not least because these are the last two people who will ever give in to a disease. We also see Suleika in her element, playing orchestral bass, writing, and exhibiting her paintings.

I was inspired to watch this documentary after reading an article about Suleika in The Atlantic. That same magazine also profiled Daniel Radcliffe, leading to another documentary watching event, which I will review tomorrow, if I manage two days of accomplishment in a row.