Alexandre Tharaud is a new star in the classical music sky. He shines brightly and with good reason - just close your eyes listen. And then look at his pictures - he is young and beautiful and sexy. Music publishers love that, he sells very well, but it's not fluff - he is for real.
These days the only thing that puts some order and calm in my thoughts is Bach music. No other can do what he does. He makes me dance.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Accomplishments
My friend Susan had her book launch party last night. Susan is a Canadian historian researching First Nations bands in the west coast. Here's the lovely cover to her book:
She read to us a few words from the introduction. I was impressed not only by her ability to read in low lighting without glasses - I can't do that anymore, but by the quality of her writing and the passion she obviously has for her subject.
Susan is not only a Renaissance Woman, but a dedicated customer of Renaissance Man. Her husband Jay was wearing a timeless Alexander McQueen jacket which he purchased here, and looked smashing.
She read to us a few words from the introduction. I was impressed not only by her ability to read in low lighting without glasses - I can't do that anymore, but by the quality of her writing and the passion she obviously has for her subject.
Susan is not only a Renaissance Woman, but a dedicated customer of Renaissance Man. Her husband Jay was wearing a timeless Alexander McQueen jacket which he purchased here, and looked smashing.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Sad Days
I think I'm expected to snap out of it, but it doesn't seem to happen just like that. Yes, sadness takes it's sweet time, it comes and goes, it overflows, it makes me feel crazy occasionally, but I don't think I am.
I'm allowing myself to stay connected to what is lost - having a father - and to learn to live with the permanency and factuality of something as banal yet incomprehensible as death. I don't quite know yet how to do it.
We tell each other that it really doesn't fit our father to be dead, it doesn't suit him. This must be where thoughts and theories of the after life come from: our inability to comprehend this sharp difference between being, and then not.
And for your listening pleasure: two fantastic songs by the great late Lhasa de Sella.
If you wish to read the translation to the lyrics of the second song (and I recommend you do) click here.
I'm allowing myself to stay connected to what is lost - having a father - and to learn to live with the permanency and factuality of something as banal yet incomprehensible as death. I don't quite know yet how to do it.
We tell each other that it really doesn't fit our father to be dead, it doesn't suit him. This must be where thoughts and theories of the after life come from: our inability to comprehend this sharp difference between being, and then not.
And for your listening pleasure: two fantastic songs by the great late Lhasa de Sella.
If you wish to read the translation to the lyrics of the second song (and I recommend you do) click here.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Third Time Lucky
I get this silliness straight into my inbox. Today I love it - to be compared to the Roadrunner, what could be better?
Rob Brezsny's Astrology
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the old Looney Tunes cartoons, Wile E. Coyote is constantly chasing after the Road Runner, a long-legged bird that prefers running to flying. Presumably, Coyote would eat the Road Runner if he ever caught him, but he never does; the bird's too fast and smart. In one recurring motif, the Road Runner dashes into the entrance of a cave that's cut into a wall of sheer rock. When Coyote tries to follow him, he smashes into the rock, and it's revealed that the cave entrance is just a very realistic painting. I suspect that you're going to have the Road Runner's power in the coming week: an ability to find and use doors that are inaccessible to other people.
Rob Brezsny's Astrology
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the old Looney Tunes cartoons, Wile E. Coyote is constantly chasing after the Road Runner, a long-legged bird that prefers running to flying. Presumably, Coyote would eat the Road Runner if he ever caught him, but he never does; the bird's too fast and smart. In one recurring motif, the Road Runner dashes into the entrance of a cave that's cut into a wall of sheer rock. When Coyote tries to follow him, he smashes into the rock, and it's revealed that the cave entrance is just a very realistic painting. I suspect that you're going to have the Road Runner's power in the coming week: an ability to find and use doors that are inaccessible to other people.
The Art of Perfect Writing
A random sentence from "The flight of The Maidens" by my still-top-rated Jane Gardam:
"Along the lane, beneath the trees. The table was bare today and sopped with dew. She wrote 'Hester Fallowes' in the dew. This table is getting at me, she thought. Some symbol of something, some metaphor, an algebraic meaning. Una should be here. Oh God, I wish Una was here! She walked regretfully, all around the table, thinking of Una, and then marched on. It's Alice in Wonderland here, she thought. In a minute there'll be a white rabbit.
There was not, but around the next bend in the lane someone was seated head-on to Hetty, on a big white horse."
I think this is simply sublime. I think when someone is able to write in such a way, they must be happy, but I'm afraid life's not that simple.
"Along the lane, beneath the trees. The table was bare today and sopped with dew. She wrote 'Hester Fallowes' in the dew. This table is getting at me, she thought. Some symbol of something, some metaphor, an algebraic meaning. Una should be here. Oh God, I wish Una was here! She walked regretfully, all around the table, thinking of Una, and then marched on. It's Alice in Wonderland here, she thought. In a minute there'll be a white rabbit.
There was not, but around the next bend in the lane someone was seated head-on to Hetty, on a big white horse."
I think this is simply sublime. I think when someone is able to write in such a way, they must be happy, but I'm afraid life's not that simple.
Inspiration
It's worth driving the kids to school in the morning - one gets to listen not only to their interesting thoughts, but to the radio as well, and discover some treasures: This Handel piece is played by one of the greatest - Kieth Jarrett, and as always, it is perfection.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
A Few More
As you can see I am in a poetic mood. I suppose mourning does that to a person.
This one I translated myself - I'm not sure it does justice to the original, but my take on translated poetry is this: if you can't read the original because you don't know the language, a translation is your only access. So here goes:
We, whose lives by Agi Mishe’ol
We, whose lives so dubious
Softly cradle on our way to the end.
We do not insist on returning to paradise
we do not look for signs
Of the divine spark.
We are collaborators:
We let wicked imagination
We let music
We let witchcraft –
We even use others to bewitch ourselves
We throw them all like a net and fall in love.
We are comfortable in this misty, embracing fog.
Our lives swallowed in the general conduct
Stirring in this little space we have
Turning here and there a bit
We sleep
Satisfied with the unraveled mystery
Of the world.
Our truth changes from minute to minute,
We fulfill human need
Without enlightened moments to blinds us
Or to arouse us.
We wake up hungry for bread.
We want coffee.
We fuck a little.
Still, we are not devoid of feeling
That God loves us
And from time to time angels gather their wings
To rest a while in our company.
This one I translated myself - I'm not sure it does justice to the original, but my take on translated poetry is this: if you can't read the original because you don't know the language, a translation is your only access. So here goes:
We, whose lives by Agi Mishe’ol
We, whose lives so dubious
Softly cradle on our way to the end.
We do not insist on returning to paradise
we do not look for signs
Of the divine spark.
We are collaborators:
We let wicked imagination
We let music
We let witchcraft –
We even use others to bewitch ourselves
We throw them all like a net and fall in love.
We are comfortable in this misty, embracing fog.
Our lives swallowed in the general conduct
Stirring in this little space we have
Turning here and there a bit
We sleep
Satisfied with the unraveled mystery
Of the world.
Our truth changes from minute to minute,
We fulfill human need
Without enlightened moments to blinds us
Or to arouse us.
We wake up hungry for bread.
We want coffee.
We fuck a little.
Still, we are not devoid of feeling
That God loves us
And from time to time angels gather their wings
To rest a while in our company.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
A Few Words on the Soul
I was sent this poem by a good friend who shares the love of well arranged words with me. It's good to be educated by friends in times when your own well gets dried up by circumstance.
A Few Words on the Soul by Wislawa Szymborska
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.
It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.
It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.
For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.
Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.
It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.
Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.
We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.
Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.
It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.
We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
A Few Words on the Soul by Wislawa Szymborska
translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
We have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.
It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.
It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.
For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.
Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.
It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.
Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.
We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.
Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.
It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.
We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
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