The son I mentioned yesterday built this backyard waterfall for his wife. Their black labrador, being a water dog, likes it too. Perhaps a little too much. We are listening as Daniel Barenboim plays the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Israel Philharmonic on PBS. I love that theme the horn plays repeatedly in the Adagio movement. This is an exquisite performance, Great variation in volume and tempi, very beautiful. Just swell!
The New Year's hardly begun, and already I am behind in demonstrated achievements, but I did just finish putting together a rolling printer cart/file cabinet from Office Max by Sharper Image. I want to recommend that you think thrice before buying one. It took me hours of terrifying work. Dowels and glue, countless screws of four different kinds, cam locks, dreadful pressed wood which was difficult to screw. The cam screws were made of some kind of pot metal which failed after about four turns of the Phillips screwdriver and had to be competed with a wrench! Many of the pieces could have been easily shipped assembled. Absolutely nothing was put together except the guides were on the sides of the drawers, for which I suppose I should be VERY thankful.
I will quit now and pay attention to the concert which is very soft and beautiful at this moment just before the Allegro Non Troppo.
Now I'm back. The concert is over and at the end, an announcer told us that the first two movements of the Brahms were written out of Brahms' sadness over the death of his mentor, Robert Schumann. The work was felt at that time to be too dark, but I must say that now, it is just about right for me! The story of Brahms and his friendship with Clara and Robert Schumann is a beautiful one. The music of both of the Schumanns is among my most favored, as is that of Brahms. I like especially his German Requiem, along with this concerto.
Looking up something musical this evening I ran across the blog of Wendell Rider, who used to play so beautifully the horn solo in this concerto in concert with the late lamented San Jose Symphony. He has a blog, too, and is also a photographer. Good night!
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Cool water
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Trio 2
Happy New Year. Lately, quite a few people have been reading this blog; And I am feeling more and more silly about it. After all, as she said in her book Nobody Cares What You had for Lunch!, they really don't.
Right now, we are listening to the New Year's Concert From Vienna and watching the pretty horses and the pretty dancers. Pretty music, too, but perhaps not what we need to heal the world. Who can say?
After I fell and broke my hip, had it replaced and retired, I had to walk around the block on crutches every day for several weeks. It was October and the leaves were turning. I came back every day with a few carefully selected leaves. Because I was walking so slowly, I could look very carefully and pick only the leaves that spoke to me. I had a big pocket in my smock and carried them home in that, because my hands were on the crutches. Sometimes I plucked them from low-hanging trees, but more often I balanced slowly on my crutch and, following the instructions for not bending certain joints yet (now I can't remember precisely what it was I wasn't supposed to do) I would snag the chosen leaf.
I had just gotten a new scanner, and I tried scanning the leaves before the life was completely gone out of them. Perhaps this was something about my retirement also, but that didn't occur to me at the time. The size of the leaves in relation to the bed of the scanner soon suggested using several leaves in each scan. Almost immediately, I began to think of each leaf as a person and of the composition as demonstrating their relationship. The stems help, of course, and the size and shapes of the leaves. I usually arranged leaves of the same kind of tree together, as here. Every autumn, for the last eight years, I think I will make some more when the leaves are on. Sometimes, I even pick up a few leaves. But I never have done such a series again, even though I have had lots other ideas to incorporate and even though the equipment has improved, I still love these leaf people; here are three of them.
I found this quotation today on Linda's Manymuses Flickr site and I want to share it here. She found it in 365 Tao: Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao, a book I have never read, nor heard of. But now, or course, we will all look it up.
"Ask yourself each day, "What remains unexpressed within me?" Whatever it is, bring it out. But be judicious. The rantings of mad people do not yield greater freedom. Use expression to find greater understanding and so find liberation from ignorance and circumstance. All that is good and unique in you should be brought out. If you do not do this, you will be stunted. Never hold back, thinking that you will wait for a better time. The good in you is like the water in a well: The more you draw from it, the more fresh water will seep in. If you do not draw from it, the water will only become stagnant. What is dark, perhaps even evil, inside you must be expressed in a proper way too. Lust, hatred, cruelty, and resentment -- these must all be carefully taken out of yourself, like finding a bomb and taking it to be detonated harmlessly.
Ask yourself each day, "What remains unexpressed within me?"
Unless you can express it, you will not clarify your inner nature."
The future is unrolling itself before us. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Right now, we are listening to the New Year's Concert From Vienna and watching the pretty horses and the pretty dancers. Pretty music, too, but perhaps not what we need to heal the world. Who can say?
After I fell and broke my hip, had it replaced and retired, I had to walk around the block on crutches every day for several weeks. It was October and the leaves were turning. I came back every day with a few carefully selected leaves. Because I was walking so slowly, I could look very carefully and pick only the leaves that spoke to me. I had a big pocket in my smock and carried them home in that, because my hands were on the crutches. Sometimes I plucked them from low-hanging trees, but more often I balanced slowly on my crutch and, following the instructions for not bending certain joints yet (now I can't remember precisely what it was I wasn't supposed to do) I would snag the chosen leaf.
I had just gotten a new scanner, and I tried scanning the leaves before the life was completely gone out of them. Perhaps this was something about my retirement also, but that didn't occur to me at the time. The size of the leaves in relation to the bed of the scanner soon suggested using several leaves in each scan. Almost immediately, I began to think of each leaf as a person and of the composition as demonstrating their relationship. The stems help, of course, and the size and shapes of the leaves. I usually arranged leaves of the same kind of tree together, as here. Every autumn, for the last eight years, I think I will make some more when the leaves are on. Sometimes, I even pick up a few leaves. But I never have done such a series again, even though I have had lots other ideas to incorporate and even though the equipment has improved, I still love these leaf people; here are three of them.
I found this quotation today on Linda's Manymuses Flickr site and I want to share it here. She found it in 365 Tao: Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao, a book I have never read, nor heard of. But now, or course, we will all look it up.
"Ask yourself each day, "What remains unexpressed within me?" Whatever it is, bring it out. But be judicious. The rantings of mad people do not yield greater freedom. Use expression to find greater understanding and so find liberation from ignorance and circumstance. All that is good and unique in you should be brought out. If you do not do this, you will be stunted. Never hold back, thinking that you will wait for a better time. The good in you is like the water in a well: The more you draw from it, the more fresh water will seep in. If you do not draw from it, the water will only become stagnant. What is dark, perhaps even evil, inside you must be expressed in a proper way too. Lust, hatred, cruelty, and resentment -- these must all be carefully taken out of yourself, like finding a bomb and taking it to be detonated harmlessly.
Ask yourself each day, "What remains unexpressed within me?"
Unless you can express it, you will not clarify your inner nature."
The future is unrolling itself before us. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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