The Long View

Here in Oxford for a three-day conference (Making Sense of Health, Illness and Disease) and to present a paper, “AIDS and the Paradigms of Dissent,” I began my visit by attending a concert in Exeter College chapel performed by Charivari Agréable and ended tonight with another concert by the same. The advantage of visiting a musical place (Oxford) in a land without air conditioning (England) is that music pours out of the open windows of chapels and recital halls: Handel’s Acis and Galatea as I walk by the Sheldonian Theater, a Beethoven piano recital on Holywell Street, the bells of colleges.The air is also fragrant with roses and honeysuckle and privet blossoms.