Released.

Led Zeppelin released Houses of the Holy on this day in 1973.

"Over the Hills and Far Away"...

Bear.

ON A MARCH DAY

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind

That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,

Making a key-board of the earth to strike

From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Bear witness for me that I loved my life,

All things that hurt me and all things that healed,

And that I swore it this day in March,

Here at the edge of this new-broken field.

You only knew me, tell them I was glad

For every hour since my hour of birth,

And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,

The last complete reunion with the earth.

Sara Teasdale

Remembers.

van Gogh, Boats at Sea, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1888

He who hoists the Ambition & Co. sail and no other on his mast, sails through life on a straight course without accidents, without wavering until - until at last, at last, circumstances arise which make him think, I haven't enough sail. Then he says, I would give everything I possess for another square of sail, and I have not got it. He is in despair.

But now he remembers that he possesses another power which he can use; he thinks of the sail which he has despised until now, which he had put away with the ballast. And it is this sail that saves him. Love's sail must save him; without hoisting it, he cannot arrive.

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh, 12 November 1881

David Francey, "Redwing Blackbird"

Happy Birthday, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Illman & Sons, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1884

The BIRCHEN CANOE

In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep

My beautiful fabric was built;

Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,

And its sides with the sunbeams are gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,

A flexible sheathing provides;

And the fir’s thready roots drew the parts to agree,

And bound down its high swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used in the bark,

No art but the simplest degree;

But the structure was finished and trim to remark,

And as light as a sylph’s could be.

Its rim was with tender young roots woven round,

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;

And it pressed on the waves was as lightsome a bound,

As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in their brightness and glory below,

Were reflected quite plain to the view;

And it moved like a swan – with as graceful a show,

My beautiful birchen canoe.

The tree on the shore as I glided along.

Seemed rushing a contrary way;

And my voyagers lightened their toll with a song,

That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell

My bark raised a murmur aloud;

And it danced on the waves as they rose and they fell,

Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought as I pass’d o’er the liquid expanse,

With the landscape in smiling array;

How blest I should be, if my life should advance,

Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene, not a cloud was in sight,

Not an angry surge beat the shore,

And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,

Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh! long shall I think of those silver bright lakes,

And the scenes they expose to my view;

My friends – and the wishes I formed for their sakes

And my bright yellow birchen canoe.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, born on this day in 1793

Be.

WHAT I DO IS ME —FOR THAT I CAME

for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I do is me—for that I came.

What I do is me!

For that I came into the world!

So said Gerard;

So said that gentle Manley Hopkins.

In his poetry and prose he saw the Fates that chose

Him in genetics, then set him free to find his way

Among the sly electric printings in his blood.

God thumbprints thee! he said.

Within your hour of birth

He touches hand to brow, He whorls and softly stamps

The ridges and the symbols of His soul above your eyes!

But in that selfsame hour, full born and shouting

Shocked pronouncements of one's birth,

In mirrored gaze of midwife, mother, doctor

See that Thumbprint fade and fall away in flesh

So, lost, erased, you seek a lifetime's days for it

And dig deep to find the sweet instructions there.

Put by when God first circuited and printed thee to

life:

"Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!

This self is yours! Be it!"

And what is that?! you cry at hearthing breast,

Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.

And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell ear

Now fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the

world:

"Not mother, father, grandfather are you.

Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.

I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.

And, finding, be what no one else can be.

I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other's Fate,

For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despair

No country far enough to hide your loss.

I circumnavigate each cell in you

Your merest molecule is right and true.

Look there for destinies indelible and fine

And rare.

Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;

Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.

In merest wound on hand read replicas of what I

planned

and knew

Before your birth, then hid it in your heart.

No part of you that does not snug and hold and hide

The self that you will be if faith abide.

What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth.

Be that. So be the only you that's truly you on Earth."

Dear Hopkins. Gentle Manley. Rare Gerard. Fine

name.

What we do is us. Because of you. For that we came.

Ray Bradbury

Biber, Sonata Pastorella, C.106

Mr. and Mrs Ozaki perform ...

Excellent.

Excellent albums ...

Bruce Cockburn, "Child of the Wind"

Flourishes.

An organism native to Gubbeen Farm which flourishes on the rind of Gubbeen cheese, was identified by microbiologists in 2001 and named microbacterium gubbeenense after the farm and dairy.

Long.

People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience.

Flannery O'Connor, from "The Nature and Aim of Fiction"

7.

Keep your eye on 7 ...

Through.

van Gogh, Rain, 1889

What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest.

Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.

This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh on or about Friday, 21 July 1882

Happy Birthday, Robert Frost

Eisenstaedt, Robert Frost at His Desk, 1955

The SOUND of TREES

I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

Robert Frost, born on this day in 1874.

A Lover's Quarrel with the World ...

Technique.

van Gogh, Landscape at Saint-Rémy (detail),1889

Technique is the proof of your seriousness.

Wallace Stevens (thanks, Steve)

Pining.

van Gogh, Still Life with Bread, 1887

For one’s own work, thoughts and observation are not enough, we need the comfort and blessing and guidance of a higher power, and that is something anyone who is at all serious and who longs to lift up his soul to the light is sure to recognize and experience. Pining for God works like leaven on dough.

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo, May 19, 1887

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Happy Birthday, Flannery O'Connor

O'Connor, Self-Portrait, 1953

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.

Flannery O'Connor, born on this day in 1925

Produce.

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.

William Morris, born on this day in 1834

Service.

van Gogh, Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass, 1888

There is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh, July 1880

Happy Birthday, William Morris

Morris, The Forest (detail), 1887

If a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving tapestry, he had better shut up, he'll never do any good at all.

William Morris, from The Life of William Morris

Excellent.

An excellent album for Spring's first Sunday evening ...

Reverse.

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

J.D. Salinger, from "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction"

Sprang.

Uncle Thomas was the first to draw my attention to the possibilities of the old bureau.  He was pottering about the house one afternoon, having ordered me to keep at his heels for company—he was a man who hated to be left one minute alone,—when his eye fell on it. "H'm! Sheraton!" he remarked. (He had a smattering of most things, this uncle, especially the vocabularies.) Then he let down the flap, and examined the empty pigeon-holes and dusty paneling. "Fine bit of inlay," he went on: "good work, all of it. I know the sort. There's a secret drawer in there somewhere." Then as I breathlessly drew near, he suddenly exclaimed: "By Jove, I do want to smoke!" And, wheeling round, he abruptly fled for the garden, leaving me with the cup dashed from my lips. What a strange thing, I mused, was this smoking, that takes a man suddenly, be he in the court, the camp, or the grove, grips him like an Afreet, and whirls him off to do its imperious behests! Would it be even so with myself, I wondered, in those unknown grown-up years to come?

But I had no time to waste in vain speculations. My whole being was still vibrating to those magic syllables 'secret drawer'; and that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill responsive to such words as cave, trap-door, sliding-panel, bullion, ingots, or Spanish dollars. For, besides its own special bliss, who ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And O I did want money so badly! I mentally ran over the list of demands which were pressing me the most imperiously.

First, there was the pipe I wanted to give George Jannaway. George, who was Martha's young man, was a shepherd, and a great ally of mine; and the last fair he was at, when he bought his sweetheart fairings, as a right-minded shepherd should, he had purchased a lovely snake expressly for me; one of the wooden sort, with joints, waggling deliciously in the hand; with yellow spots on a green ground, sticky and strong-smelling, as a fresh-painted snake ought to be; and with a red-flannel tongue pasted cunningly into its jaws. I loved it much, and took it to bed with me every night, till what time its spinal cord was loosed and it fell apart, and went the way of all mortal joys. I thought it very nice of George to think of me at the fair, and that's why I wanted to give him a pipe. When the young year was chill and lambing-time was on, George inhabited a little wooden house on wheels, far out on the wintry downs, and saw no faces but such as were sheepish and woolly and mute; and when he and Martha were married, she was going to carry his dinner out to him every day, two miles; and after it, perhaps he would smoke my pipe. It seemed an idyllic sort of existence, for both the parties concerned; but a pipe of quality, a pipe fitted to be part of a life such as this, could not be procured (so Martha informed me) for a smaller sum than eighteenpence. And meantime——!

Then there was the fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad for his approaching birthday,—H.M.S. Majestic, now lying uselessly careened in the toyshop window, just when her country had such sore need of her. And then there was that boy in the village who had caught a young squirrel, and I had never yet possessed one, and he wanted a shilling for it, but I knew that for ninepence in cash—but what was the good of these sorry threadbare reflections? I had wants enough to exhaust any possible find of bullion, even if it amounted to half a sovereign. My only hope now lay in the magic drawer, and here I was, standing and letting the precious minutes slip by! Whether 'findings' of this sort could, morally speaking, be considered 'keepings,' was a point that did not occur to me.

The room was very still as I approached the bureau; possessed, it seemed to be, by a sort of hush of expectation. The faint odour of orris-root that floated forth as I let down the flap, seemed to identify itself with the yellows and browns of the old wood, till hue and scent were of one quality and interchangeable. Even so, ere this, the pot-pourri had mixed itself with the tints of the old brocade, and brocade and pot-pourri had long been one. With expectant fingers I explored the empty pigeon-holes and sounded the depths of the softly-sliding drawers. No books that I knew of gave any general recipe for a quest like this; but the glory, should I succeed unaided, would be all the greater.

To him who is destined to arrive, the fates never fail to afford, on the way, their small encouragements. In less than two minutes, I had come across a rusty button-hook. This was truly magnificent. In the nursery there existed, indeed, a general button-hook, common to either sex; but none of us possessed a private and special button-hook, to lend or to refuse as suited the high humour of the moment. I pocketed the treasure carefully, and proceeded. At the back of another drawer, three old foreign stamps told me I was surely on the highroad to fortune.

Following on these bracing incentives, came a dull blank period of unrewarded search. In vain I removed all the drawers and felt over every inch of the smooth surfaces, from front to back. Never a knob, spring or projection met the thrilling finger-tips; unyielding the old bureau stood, stoutly guarding its secret, if secret it really had. I began to grow weary and disheartened. This was not the first time that Uncle Thomas had proved shallow, uninformed, a guide into blind alleys where the echoes mocked you. Was it any good persisting longer? Was anything any good whatever? In my mind I began to review past disappointments, and life seemed one long record of failure and of non-arrival. Disillusioned and depressed, I left my work and went to the window. The light was ebbing from the room, and seemed outside to be collecting itself on the horizon for its concentrated effort of sunset. Far down the garden, Uncle Thomas was holding Edward in the air reversed, and smacking him. Edward, gurgling hysterically, was striking blind fists in the direction where he judged his uncle's stomach should rightly be; the contents of his pockets—a motley show—were strewing the lawn. Somehow, though I had been put through a similar performance myself an hour or two ago, it all seemed very far away and cut off from me.

Westwards the clouds were massing themselves in a low violet bank; below them, to north and south, as far round as eye could reach, a narrow streak of gold ran out and stretched away, straight along the horizon. Somewhere very far off, a horn was blowing, clear and thin; it sounded like the golden streak grown audible, while the gold seemed the visible sound. It pricked my ebbing courage, this blended strain of music and colour. I turned for a last effort; and Fortune thereupon, as if half-ashamed of the unworthy game she had been playing with me, relented, opening her clenched fist. Hardly had I put my hand once more to the obdurate wood, when with a sort of small sigh, almost a sob—as it were—of relief, the secret drawer sprang open.

Kenneth Grahame, from The Golden Age

Motivation.

No trepidation

My motivation

Is a standing ovation from a waggin' tail ...

Resonance.

Titian, Fête Champêtre, 1510

The Resonance of Spring: A Bacchanalia of Lute Tunes

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Palestrina's Lute

Venere Lute Quartet

The Art of Resonance: Archlute & Theorbo Music Of The Italian Seicento

Luca Pianca

Del suono come perla: 17th-Century Italian Music for Theorbo

Laura La Vecchia

Scarlatti & Zamboni: Italian Lute Music

Toyohiko Satoh and Michiel Niessen

Nobilissimo Istromento: Virtuoso Lute Music of the Italian Renaissance

Luca Pianca

... in vece d'arco o di faretra, chi tien leuto, e chi viola o cetra: 16th Century Italian Lute Music

Roberto Gallina

Alla Venetiana: Early 16th Century Venetian Lute Music

Paul O'Dette

Vieux Gaultier: Pièces de Luth

Hopkinson Smith

Jacques de Gallot: Pièces de Luth 

Hopkinson Smith

François Dufaut: Pièces de Luth en Manuscrits

Hopkinson Smith

Robert de Visée: Theorbo Solos

Jakob Lindberg 

Nicolas Vallet: Le Secret des Muses

Nigel North

Alessandro Piccinini: Intavolatura di Liuto et di Chitarrone, Libro Primo, Bologna M.DC.XXIII

Nigel North 

Capricci: Castaldi & Pellegrini

Albane Imbs and Rolf Lislevand

Dolcissima et Amorosa: The Lute Music of "Il Divino," Francesco Canova da Milano, Vol. 1

Nigel North

A Decoration of Silence: The Lute Music of "Il Divino," Francesco Canova da Milano, Vol. 2

Nigel North

Exists.

In times of great vexation

When one must choose between what's right and wrong

Freedom, so they say,

Amounts to the choices you have made

Through all the arbitrary rationale concerning liberty

Freedom, I must say,

Exists within unconditioned minds

Reason has come of age

Castaldi, Capricci a due stromenti cioè tiorba e tiorbino

Albane Imbs performs Sonata 13a ...

Transcendent.

I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what mythology does for you.

I mean a vocabulary in the form of not words but acts and adventures, which connotes something transcendent of the action here so that you always feel in accord with the universal being.

Joseph Campbell, from The Power of Myth

Work.

Steve points to timely wisdom ...

If education is the transmission of civilization, we are unquestionably progressing.  Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

Choosing.

Ari Weinzweig on the benefits of choosing the unordinary ...

The more I played with the idea of unordinary, the more it resonated. I began to see that, while the quality of our food may indeed be particularly special—extraordinary when we do it really well—most of what we do in our business practices, seen through my new lens of understanding, is definitely unordinary. They aren’t, I’m realizing, especially extraordinary at all. Anyone who wants to could do them. It takes neither a particularly special skill nor years of intensive formal training to learn to be kind. Kindness. Compassion. Dignity. Diversity. Humility. Empathy. Inclusion. Any eight-year-old could have their hand at them. Vision-writing. Extra-miling. Open-book management. Open meetings. Consensus. Also wonderful, but still, not really “extraordinary.” We have no special ingredient that makes us more able to do what we do than any other American organization.

All of those processes are really important to us, and I recommend them wholeheartedly to you too, but the truth is that anyone who decides to could do them. In that sense, I would now describe them as “unordinary.” Yes, uncommon, but not because of a rare ability that’s uniquely abundant in and around Ann Arbor. They’re hard to find because they’re not the norm—most people color within the same behavioral lines their colleagues do. They’re not the norm because, in current conditions, it may take a bit more attentiveness to take positive, dignity-based action. And, at the same time, they are absolutely unordinary.

Happy Birthday, David Lindley

David Lindley was born on this day in 1944.

"Her Mind is Gone," with Bill Frisell ...

Happy Birthday, Spaceman

Roger Hodgson was born on this day in 1950.

"Take the Long Way Home"...

Everything.

Firchau, Uncle Fred, Pop, and Sarge, Higgins Lake, 1971

Sandy two-tracks

Blue jay cries

Up early

Colossal white pine

Sand dust between toes

"Jump The Dump"

Imperceptibly wobbling at dinner from being on the water all day

Pipe smoke

Minnow bucket

Centerboard vibrating on the Sunfish

The easy-listening sounds of WGER in the background ... beautiful music with personality

Wet swim trunks

"Don't run on the dock!"

Black squirrels

The smell of two-cycle exhaust

The halyard on the flag pole ... WIND!

Vernor's and Faygo red pop in the bottomless cooler

Oxidized-copper-green decking on the dock

Paper birch

Salami on rye

Wave-rippled sand underwater in the morning

The cedar smell of the bedrooms upstairs

Wood smoke

Hearing the pull tab rattle at the bottom of a can while having a sip of beer

Perch-scented hands

Yeasty, powder-sugar donuts from the carryout

Two-cycle outboard exhaust

Coppertone

Planters peanuts

"Trunk slammers"

Chicken on the grill ... skin

Sitting and listening to everything that Dad and Uncle Fred were talking about

Above, a familiar scene: frying bluegill in cast-iron on the Weber.  As they say, "Technique is the proof of your seriousness."