Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
When I have fears that I may cease to be
"When I have fears I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink."
- John Keats
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Leda And the Swan
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
- William Butler Yeats
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
- William Butler Yeats
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
A take on bringing the kids to the ballet - but it's the Nutcracker!
It's the winter holidays. That means one thing - the annual trip with the kids to the ballet. It's a ritual, I tell you, a yearly round of tantrums, fist thumping and uncontrollable crying: 'Not again. Take somebody else to the stupid Nutcracker.' 'But it's so Christmassy.' 'So is hypothermia.' In the end I just have to agree to go, but on the strict understanding that I can sing 'Everyone's a Fruit and Nutcase' under my breath during the 'Dance of the Reed Pipers'.
Thing is, they are not even our kids. Haven't got any. Instead, we have a dog whose chief advantages are: 1) you can leave him at home while you go out to get drunk without returning to find Social Services on your doorstep; and 2) he never, ever wants to see The Nutcracker. So each year we borrow children from different branches of the family. And why? Because my beloved once heard somebody on Desert Island Discs whose childhood was transformed by a visit to the ballet, that's why. I never trust stories like that. When such people talk about being 'transported', I only ever think of convicts and Australia - for the thousand that went out, only a handful made it back. For every celeb who later talks dreamily of their youthful visits to the concert hall, how many countless others sat bored witless, silently vowing never to return?
What get me is not Tchaikovsky, nor even the audience packed with little girls. No, it's the parents. It feels like bulk lip-service to culture. Once a year they cart the offspring off to the Nutcracker and that is that box ticked for another 12 months. I suppose at least it has themes that are likely to resonate with young people. A lot of children's concerts I attend turn out not to be children concerts at all, but merely adult concerts at which children are present - the only differences seem to be that the hand dresses casual, Harry Potter is always in there somewhere and the thing is hosted by some slightly over-eager actor type who hasn't spent long enough on the script. I should know, I have done it myself a few times: from the stage, the mass of squirming forms reminded me of looking out onto farmyard.
Now, you are probably thinking I am a resentful, child-hating monster. Not a bit of it. On the contrary, as a professional entertainer I am writing to tell you that I am available for children's parties, and, strangely, my diary is empty over the festivities! Oh, all except for one date in December, of course, when I'll be at the ruddy ballet.
- Rainer Hersch is a British conductor.
Thing is, they are not even our kids. Haven't got any. Instead, we have a dog whose chief advantages are: 1) you can leave him at home while you go out to get drunk without returning to find Social Services on your doorstep; and 2) he never, ever wants to see The Nutcracker. So each year we borrow children from different branches of the family. And why? Because my beloved once heard somebody on Desert Island Discs whose childhood was transformed by a visit to the ballet, that's why. I never trust stories like that. When such people talk about being 'transported', I only ever think of convicts and Australia - for the thousand that went out, only a handful made it back. For every celeb who later talks dreamily of their youthful visits to the concert hall, how many countless others sat bored witless, silently vowing never to return?
What get me is not Tchaikovsky, nor even the audience packed with little girls. No, it's the parents. It feels like bulk lip-service to culture. Once a year they cart the offspring off to the Nutcracker and that is that box ticked for another 12 months. I suppose at least it has themes that are likely to resonate with young people. A lot of children's concerts I attend turn out not to be children concerts at all, but merely adult concerts at which children are present - the only differences seem to be that the hand dresses casual, Harry Potter is always in there somewhere and the thing is hosted by some slightly over-eager actor type who hasn't spent long enough on the script. I should know, I have done it myself a few times: from the stage, the mass of squirming forms reminded me of looking out onto farmyard.
Now, you are probably thinking I am a resentful, child-hating monster. Not a bit of it. On the contrary, as a professional entertainer I am writing to tell you that I am available for children's parties, and, strangely, my diary is empty over the festivities! Oh, all except for one date in December, of course, when I'll be at the ruddy ballet.
- Rainer Hersch is a British conductor.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
a thought, merely a thought
Even if you were going to live three thousand years, and even ten thousand times that, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. For the present is the same to all, through that which perishes is not the same; and so what is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can anyone take this from him? These two things then you must bear in mind: the one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man hall see the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that he who lives longest and he who will die soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose something he does not already possess.
- from Meditations by Emperor Marcus Aurelius
- from Meditations by Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Our Favorite Tumbrel Remark
Lady Diana Cooper was waiting under her umbrella outside the Dorchester hotel tapping her foot impatiently waiting for her Rolls Royce when a beggar approached her and announced that he had been without food for three days. Her response? "Foolish man that you are. You must try to eat. If need be, you must force yourself."
Monday, June 11, 2012
A list of my favorite brindisis (Opera drinking songs)
So let's raise our goblets and sing....
- "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" - from Verdi's La traviata. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWECvv4wcIQ
- "Viva, il vino spumeggiante" - from Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OlbwdEnrdc
- "Si colmi il calice" from Verdi's Macbeth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WRyz3P6_Xw
- "Inaffia l'ugola" from Verdi's Otello. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qKmAQ8klQ
- "Vin ou Bière" from Gounod's Faust. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXw8UQnRRo0
- "Il segreto per esser felici" from Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNssdwEAQl4
Thursday, April 5, 2012
The Hunter. A poem by Christopher Mavrikis
THE HUNTER
Dawn breaks over a frost covered fen
An Osprey glides above its prey
Emulating passions once defined by men
On a crisp lovely November day.
A lone hunter watches near
An idle dream or a quenchless desire
Cedar swamps harboring white-tailed deer
Blood forged iron tempered by fire.
Memories of a father's love
Sublime guidance a nutured past
Watching the hunter from above
Ka Boom goes the mightly muzzle blast
As the hunter cares for his provision loneliness makes him sad
He whispers to heaven a little prayer and says I love you dad.
- Christopher Mavrikis
Dawn breaks over a frost covered fen
An Osprey glides above its prey
Emulating passions once defined by men
On a crisp lovely November day.
A lone hunter watches near
An idle dream or a quenchless desire
Cedar swamps harboring white-tailed deer
Blood forged iron tempered by fire.
Memories of a father's love
Sublime guidance a nutured past
Watching the hunter from above
Ka Boom goes the mightly muzzle blast
As the hunter cares for his provision loneliness makes him sad
He whispers to heaven a little prayer and says I love you dad.
- Christopher Mavrikis
Friday, January 13, 2012
Must Read Books Detailing Vital Epochs in American History
Lincoln; by Gore Vidal - This amazing historical narrative gives readers a look into the inner workings of the Lincoln administration during the Civil War. Not only does it give the portrait of Lincoln a human touch but also shows us how fragile the Union was during the whole of that conflict.
1776; by David McCullough - Mr. McCullough takes his readers to the through the first two years of the American Revolution from the siege of Boston and the American response that usurped the British from that city to the battle for New York where Washington is forced to surrender the island of Manhattan. This book shows us how perilous our cause was during those first two years.
1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls; by Winston Groom - The Japanese empire was conquering China, Hong Kong, Singapore; capture McArthur's 140,000 man army in the Philippines. Pearl Harbor, the German war machine had complete dominion over continental Europe. This was the terrifying year that the world was on the precipice of global totalitarianism and how the American forces tiled the scales of destiny.
1776; by David McCullough - Mr. McCullough takes his readers to the through the first two years of the American Revolution from the siege of Boston and the American response that usurped the British from that city to the battle for New York where Washington is forced to surrender the island of Manhattan. This book shows us how perilous our cause was during those first two years.
1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls; by Winston Groom - The Japanese empire was conquering China, Hong Kong, Singapore; capture McArthur's 140,000 man army in the Philippines. Pearl Harbor, the German war machine had complete dominion over continental Europe. This was the terrifying year that the world was on the precipice of global totalitarianism and how the American forces tiled the scales of destiny.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Books that Will Change your View on Life and the World
The Selfish Gene - by Richard Dawkins;
Guns, Germs, and Steel - by Jared Diamond;
The Grand Design - by Stephen Hawkins;
god is not Great - by Christopher Hitchens;
The Stranger - by Albert Camus; and
A Theory of Justice - by John Rawls.
Guns, Germs, and Steel - by Jared Diamond;
The Grand Design - by Stephen Hawkins;
god is not Great - by Christopher Hitchens;
The Stranger - by Albert Camus; and
A Theory of Justice - by John Rawls.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
A short poem about totalitarian dictatorships
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips
W.H, Auden1968
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips
W.H, Auden1968
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Who were the "three dead men" Steinbeck was referring to in East of Eden
"[W]hen a man dies -- if he has had wealth and influence and power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man's property and his eminence and works and monuments -- the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? . . . Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: "Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?"
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great services to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead."
Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now? How can we go on without him?"
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great services to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead."
Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now? How can we go on without him?"
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Free Will
My favorite explanation of free will in literature is done through the words of John Steinbeck's Chinese character of Lee in the great classic East of Eden. In this soliloquyby Lee he explains to Samuel and Adam that in the old testament there are phrases such as 'Thou shalt' and 'Do thou' but the greatest is 'Thou mayest rule over sin'
"Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt'. Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice."
"Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt'. Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice."
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shap.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Philip Larken 1976
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shap.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Philip Larken 1976
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Einstein's view on Morality
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem - the most important of all human problems."
- Albert Einstein (1947)
- Albert Einstein (1947)
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Satan's vision to Theodor
"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago - centuries, ages, eons, ago! - for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane - like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prive their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angles painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell - mouths mercy and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crime, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...
The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain (1916).
The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain (1916).
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