Since I mentioned the mystical powers of restoration held by food and music and art, I suppose I should fill you in on a couple of details. I will begin with my youth, when a day home from school on account of germ infestation was made tolerable by only two things: Mom’s serious talent for coddling, and the range of treats she willingly provided in order to speed the healing of an underage invalid. While I was swooning dramatically on the living room couch, bereft of sisters (they had the nerve to flounce off to school without a thought for keeping me company in my miserable state), I was given the choice between some prized medical treatments to speed my cure.

My selections were usually as follows: macaroni and cheese, preferably neon orange and from a royal blue box–this was long before I’d discovered the delights of Amy Sedaris-inspired artery-destroying deliciousness of the sort I make nowadays–accompanied or followed by Green Jello. Apparently, there is always room for it, because after ginger ale and soda crackers, that was the first thing I craved, and it had to be green, though I don’t know exactly why, even after my body was in a state of complete food rejection.

Meanwhile, there needed to be distractions to help me survive the long hours of my desertion and recuperation. The best possible, and this will date me among all of you tender readers who have to Google “LP” to know that it doesn’t only refer to Licensed Practitioners, was to listen to favorites from among my parents’ record collection. When I was well enough, it was a real delight to lie on the floor with my sisters in a darkened living room and listen to the recording of Basil Rathbone reading Edgar Allan Poe stories, but sans strength and sisters both, it would be music I chose.

High on the list would be David Oistrakh playing ‘The Swan of Tuonela‘ or perhaps Dvorak‘s evocative ‘New World Symphony’, maybe (if I had the energy to laugh along a little) Saint-Saens‘ ‘Carnival of the Animals‘. But probably my favorite was to get my catharsis from my good friend Modest Mussorgsky in the form of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition‘ and especially the wonderfully histrionic ‘Night on Bald Mountain‘. In fact, the first LP I remember buying when I got to college and didn’t have access anymore to my parents’ collection was an album with ‘Pictures’ on it.

Baba Yaga by moonlight, or in a darkened living room . . .

It’s obvious from the aforementioned, if it wasn’t in every way so before, that I’ve always had a fondness for the dramatic in music, whether it’s some fabulous ethnic dance-demanding stuff or my old friends the story-based symphonic pieces or Russian choral riches with the basses fine-tuned by some necessary quantity of good vodka (whether they drink it or I do doesn’t necessarily matter, I suppose). In any event, I was very pleased a couple of years ago when my good friend Alvin commissioned me to provide the “missing” illustrations for ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ when he was premiering his wonderful new arrangement of it with slides of the original set of artworks by Viktor Hartmann that had inspired the piece in the first place.

On this note, I suggest you make all haste to your nearest music collection, library, or other source of great storytelling and refresh yourself with a plunge into Mussorgsky, the tale of Baba Yaga, Edgar Allan Poe’s delectably dark yarns, a nice trip through Dvorak’s comforting cloudburst, or if you have other storytime favorites in music, art or written form, go to them and immerse yourself in their magnificence yet again.