Steve Winwood, "Dear Mr. Fantasy"

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Sing.

An Oyster Months anthem to learn and sing ...

Purcell, Welcome to All the Pleasures, Z. 339

Antonin Rondepierre performs "Here the Deities Approve" with theorbist Gabriel Rignol ...

Fun.

It is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.

Seneca, from On the Shortness of Life

Truer.

Anne Carson (from "Life is Not Fair") has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

That attention to details leads you somewhere truer than generalizing ...

Noticing.

When existence reveals itself as existentially intolerable, thinking collapses in on itself. In such situations—in the depths—it's noticing, not thinking, that does the trick.

Jordan B. Peterson, from 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

I would add that appreciation is required, as well.

That being said, thanks to Walker's Arms for the image and the respite.

Wonder.

ANOTHER POEM of the GIFTS

I want to give thanks to the divine

Labyrinth of causes and effects

For the diversity of beings

That form this singular universe,

For Reason, that will never give up its dream

Of a map of the labyrinth,

For Helen’s face and the perseverance of Ulysses,

For love, which lets us see others

As God sees them,

For the solid diamond and the flowing water,

For Algebra, a palace of exact crystals,

For the mystic coins of Angelus Silesius,

For Schopenhauer,

Who perhaps deciphered the universe,

For the blazing of fire,

That no man can look at without an ancient wonder,

For mahogany, cedar, and sandalwood,

For bread and salt,

For the mystery of the rose

That spends all its colour and can not see it,

For certain eves and days of 1955,

For the hard riders who, on the plains,

Drive on the cattle and the dawn,

For mornings in Montevideo,

For the art of friendship,

For Socrates’ last day,

For the words spoken one twilight

From one cross to another,

For that dream of Islam that embraced

A thousand nights and a night,

For that other dream of Hell,

Of the tower of cleansing fire

And of the celestial spheres,

For Swedenborg,

Who talked with the angels in London streets,

For the secret and immemorial rivers

That converge in me,

For the language that, centuries ago, I spoke in Northumberland,

For the sword and harp of the Saxons,

For the sea, which is a shining desert

And a secret code for things we do not know

And an epitaph for the Norsemen,

For the word music of England,

For the word music of Germany,

For gold, that shines in verses,

For epic winter,

For the title of a book I have not read: Gesta Dei per Francos,

For Verlaine, innocent as the birds,

For crystal prisms and bronze weights,

For the tiger’s stripes,

For the high towers of San Francisco and Manhattan Island,

For mornings in Texas,

For that Sevillian who composed the Moral Epistle

And whose name, as he would have wished, we do not know,

For Seneca and Lucan, both of Cordova,

Who, before there was Spanish, had written

All Spanish literature,

For gallant, noble, geometric chess,

For Zeno’s tortoise and Royce’s map,

For the medicinal smell of eucalyptus trees,

For speech, which can be taken for wisdom,

For forgetfulness, which annuls or modifies the past,

For habits,

Which repeat us and confirm us in our image like a mirror,

For morning, that gives us the illusion of a new beginning,

For night, its darkness and its astronomy,

For the bravery and happiness of others,

For my country, sensed in jasmine flowers

Or in an old sword,

For Whitman and Francis of Assisi, who already wrote this poem,

For the fact that the poem is inexhaustible

And becomes one with the sum of all created things

And will never reach its last verse

And varies according to its writers

For Frances Haslam, who begged her children’s pardon

For dying so slowly,

For the minutes that precede sleep,

For sleep and death,

Those two hidden treasures,

For the intimate gifts I do not mention,

For music, that mysterious form of time.

Jorge Luis Borges

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Bach, Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78

The Netherlands Bach Society performs featuring Maria Keohane, soprano, Tim Mead, alto, Daniel Johannsen, tenor, Matthew Brook, bass, conducted by Jos van Veldhoven ...

Happy Birthday, Frederic Remington

Remington, The Outlier, 1909

Frederic Remington was born on this day in 1861.

Holborne, The Night Watch

Valery Sauvage performs ...

Happy Birthday, Jean-François Millet

Millet, Autumn Landscape with a Flock of Turkeys, 1873

It is the treating of the commonplace with the feelings of the sublime that gives to art its true power.  Art will never come except from some small disregarded corner where an isolated and inspired man is studying the mysteries of nature. 

Jean-Francois Millet, born on this day in 1814

Released.

The Police released their best album, Zenyatta Mondatta, on this day in 1980.

"Man in a Suitcase"...

Happy Birthday, Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan was born on this day in 1954.

"The Things (That) I Used to Do"...

Thanksgiving.

Friberg, The Prayer at Valley Forge, 1975

On this day in 1789, George Washington proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day ... 

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and their transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Indian-Summer-Breathing.

Bradbury, The Halloween Tree, 1964

The pumpkins on the tree were not mere pumpkins. Each had a face sliced in it. Each face was different. Every eye was a stranger eye. Every nose was a weirder nose. Every mouth smiled hideously in some new way.

There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes.

And as the boys watched, a new thing happened.

The pumpkins began to come alive.

One by one, starting at the bottom of the tree and the nearest pumpkins, candles took fire within the raw interiors. This one then that one and this and then still another, and on up and around, three pumpkins here, seven pumpkins still higher, a dozen clustered beyond, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand pumpkins lit their candles, which is to say brightened up their faces, showed fire in their square or round or curiously slanted eyes. Sparks leaped out their ripe-cut ears.

And from somewhere two voices, three or maybe four voices whispered and chanted a kind of singsong or old sea shanty of the sky and time and the earth turning over into sleep. The rainspouts blew spiderdust:

"It’s big, it’s broad…"

A voice smoked from the rooftop chimney:

"It’s broad, it’s bright…

It fills the sky of All Hallows’ Night…"

From open windows somewhere, cobwebs drifted:

"The strangest sight you’ve ever seen.

The Monster Tree on Halloween."

The candles flickered and flared. The wind crooned in, the wind crooned out the pumpkin mouths, tuning the song:

"The leaves have burned to gold and red

The grass is brown, the old year dead,

But hang the harvest high, Oh see!

The candle constellations on the Halloween Tree."

Tom felt his mouth stir like a small mouse, wanting to sing:

"The stars they turn, the candles burn

And the mouse-leaves scurry on the cold wind bourne,

And a mob of smiles shine down on thee

From the gourds hung high on the Halloween Tree.

The smile of the Witch, and the smile of the Cat,

The smile of the Beast, and the smile of the Bat,

The smile of the Reaper taking his fee

All cut and glimmer on the Halloween Tree

Smoke seemed to sift from Tom’s mouth:

“Halloween Tree …”

All the boys whispered it:

“Halloween … Tree …”

And then there was silence.

And during the silence the last of the triples and quadruples of All Hallows’ Tree candles were lit in titanic constellations woven up through the black branches and peeking down through the twigs and crisp leaves.

And the Tree had now become one vast substantial Smile.

The last of the pumpkins now were lit. The air around the Tree was Indian-summer-breathing warm. The Tree exhaled sooty smoke and raw-pumpkin smell upon them."

Ray Bradbury, from The Halloween Tree

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

O'er.

OCTOBER 

My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,
  Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;
I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves,
  O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,
  The dreamy air is full, and overflows
With tender memories of the summer-tide,
  And mingled voices of the doves and crows. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Brotzeit.

Outdoor Deutscher-types relied on landjäger as trail snacks during seasonal migrations to high pastures, carrying it as a provision that endured long journeys and harsh conditions. Like jerky, it was easy to carry easy in pockets or packs, ideal for daily labor and prolonged herding practices in Germany.

Landjäger is a German smoked hunter's sausage typically made from a blend of pork and beef, mixed with pork fat, and heavily seasoned with garlic, caraway seed, coriander, and black pepper.  It's traditionally was paired with simple accompaniments such as rye bread, cheeses, and beer, enjoyed in taverns or, as I was introduced by Grandma, a break called brotzeit. 

I can remember weekends, all though out the year, while working at Grandma and Grandpa's house, mid-mornings and later in the afternoon, Grandma would pile a tray full of bread, cheese, pickles, sausage, nuts, pretzels, chocolate, and mugs (bottles of beer in her apron pockets -- I was allowed a sip of the foamy elixir for my efforts) and carry it out to us in the yard or the garage.  The landjäger was always the first thing I went for.

Those were heady days.

The best landjäger (and many other necessaries) on the planet can be procured from Kern's in Frankenmuth.

Few.

Volterra, Michelangelo, 1545

Painters are not in any way unsociable through pride, but either because they find few pursuits equal to painting, or in order not to corrupt themselves with the useless conversation of idle people, and debase the intellect from the lofty imaginations in which they are always absorbed.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, from the "First Dialogue" of Francisco de Holanda’s Da Pintura Antiga

Thank you, Kurt.

Read it and weep, blogosphere.

Happy Birthday, Samuel Adams

Copley, Samuel Adams, 1772

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

Samuel Adams, born on this day in 1722, submitted as "Candita" to the Boston Globe, 14 October 1771

Sings.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

Peace.

Happy Birthday, Glenn Gould

In the best of all possible worlds, art would be unnecessary. Its offer of restorative, placative therapy would go begging a patient. The audience would be the artist and their life would be art. I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.

Glenn Gould, born yesterday in 1932

Performing Bach's Contrapunctus I ...

'Tis Autumn.

Happy Birthday, T.S. Eliot

The ordinary reader, when warned against the obscurity of a poem, is apt to be thrown into a state of consternation very unfavourable to poetic receptivity. Instead of beginning, as he should, in a state of sensitivity, he obfuscates his senses by the desire to be clever and to look very hard for something, he doesn't know what-or else by the desire not to be taken ill. There is such a thing as stage fright, but what such readers have is pit or gallery fright. The more seasoned reader, he who has reached, in these matters, a state of greater purity, does not bother about understanding; not, at least, at first. I know that some of the poetry to which I am most devoted is poetry which I did not understand at first reading; some is poetry which I am not sure I understand yet.

T.S. Eliot, born on this day in 1888, from The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

Blanche being unordinary ...

Happy Birthday, Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry was born on this day in 1945.

"The Right Stuff"...

Released.

The Furs released Forever Now on this day in 1982.

"Run and Run"...

Happy Birthday, Francesco Borromini

Borromini, Dome of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienz, 1660

Francesco Borromini was born on this day in 1599.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Record.

Volkov, The Old Divide, n/d

SONG of the STONE WALL

Come walk with me, and I will tell

What I have read in this scroll of stone;

I will spell out this writing on hill and meadow.

This is New England's entablature of rock,

Leagues upon leagues of sealed history awaiting an interpreter.

It is a chronicle wrought by praying workmen,

The forefathers of our nation.

The walls have many things to tell me,

And the days are long. I come and listen;

My hand is upon the stones, and the tale I fain would hear

Is of the men who built the walls,

And of the God who made the stones and the workers.

With searching feet I walk beside the wall;

I plunge and stumble over the fallen stones;

I follow the windings of the wall

Over the heaving hill, down by the meadow-brook,

Beyond the scented fields, by the marsh where rushes grow.

On I trudge through pine woods fragrant and cool,

And emerge amid clustered pools and by rolling acres of rye.

The wall is built of field stones great and small,

Tumbled about by frost and storm,

Shaped and polished by ice and rain and sun;

Some flattened, grooved, and chiseled

By the inscrutable sculpture of the weather;

Some with clefts and rough edges harsh to the touch.

Gracious Time has glorified the wall

And covered the historian stones with a mantle of green;

The sunbeams flit and waver in the rifts,

Vanish and reappear, linger and sleep,

Conquer with radiance the obdurate angles,

Filter between the naked rents and wind-bleached jags.

I understand the triumph and the truth

Wrought into these walls of rugged stone.

They are a miracle of patient hands,

They are a victory of suffering, a paean of pain.

All pangs of death, all cries of birth,

Are in the mute, moss-covered stones;

They are eloquent to my hands.

O beautiful, blind stones, inarticulate and dumb!

In the deep gloom of their hearts there is a gleam

Of the primeval sun which looked upon them

When they were begotten.

So in the heart of man shines forever

A beam from the everlasting sun of God.

Unresponsive, rude are the stones;

Yet in them divine things lie concealed.

I hear their imprisoned chant:

"We are fragments of the universe,

Chips of the rock whereon God laid the foundation of the world;

Out of immemorial chaos He wrought us.

Out of the sun, out of the tempest, out of the travail of the earth, we grew.

We are wonderfully mingled of life and death;

We serve as crypts for innumerable, unnoticed, tiny forms.

We are manifestations of the Might

That rears the granite hills unto the clouds

And sows the tropic seas with coral isles.

We are shot through and through with hidden color;

A thousand hues are blended in our gray substance.

Sapphire, turquoise, ruby, opal,

Emerald, diamond, amethyst, are our sisters from the beginning;

And our brothers are iron, lead, zinc,

Copper, and silver, and gold.

We are the dust of continents past and to come,

We are a deathless frieze carved with man's destiny;

In us is the record sibylline of far events.

Helen Keller, from "Song of the Stone Wall"

Companionship.

Namuth, Rothko in His Studio, 1964

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same cause. It is therefore risky to work out into the world. It is often impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the careless.

Mark Rothko

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Happy Birthday, Mark Rothko

Rothko, Untitled (Green on Maroon), 1961

When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing; no galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet it was a golden time, for then we had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, and consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I will not venture to discuss. But I do know that many who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where they can root and grow. We must all hope that they find them.

Mark Rothko, born on this day in 1903, from his remarks upon accepting an honorary doctorate from Yale in 1969 (a reminder to the blogosphere)

Hang.

'Tis Autumn and the weekend begins now ...

"Hang care!" exclaimed he. "This is a delicious evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the house, and the song is more exciting and melodious under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where the sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian chant—let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin dance and rouse the night-owl with a catch! I am right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices—a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon."     

Charles Ollier, from "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington" 

For best results, listen to this: AC⚡DC, "Riff Raff"...

I ain't doin' nothin' wrong
I'm just havin' fun

The euphony transformed me and inundated my soul in a roguish countenance, the likes of which I had know well in younger days. Such impishness soon drove out the complaints of the day. 

Umberto Limongiello

Sonic.

'Tis the first Thursday night of Autumn and therefore preparations should be underway for the ancient and sacred rite ...

It was a crisp Saturday night in late-October. I was probably seven or eight. My brother and I were sitting on the couch watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” for the zillionth time.

And then we heard it.

To our stunned ears, it seemed as though my parents’ bay window, situated directly behind us, had shattered to pieces. But, mysteriously, it was still there, in tact.

Our tiny nervous systems were not prepared for this sonic assault, especially because it didn’t make sense. We stared in disbelief at the window for a minute, waiting for it to spill its shards. When we got enough courage to get up and peer out the front door, we saw the lanky silhouettes of teenagers running away into the dark of the trees. Piles of dried out corn kernels were scattered all over the porch like empty shells.  We had been corned.

CONNECT ... don't miss the sound file.  

That sound would would make laugh so hard that I couldn't run.

Read.

Thanks, Kurt.

Autumn.

Wyeth, James Browning, Night Visitors, 2003

‘Tis Autumn.

THE SCARECROW

All winter through I bow my head

beneath the driving rain;

the North Wind powders me with snow

and blows me black again;

at midnight 'neath a maze of stars

I flame with glittering rime,

and stand above the stubble, stiff

as mail at morning-prime.

But when that child called Spring, and all

his host of children come,

scattering their buds and dew upon

these acres of my home,

some rapture in my rags awakes;

I lift void eyes and scan

the sky for crows, those ravening foes,

of my strange master, Man.

I watch him striding lank behind

his clashing team, and know

soon will the wheat swish body high

where once lay a sterile snow;

soon I shall gaze across a sea

of sun-begotten grain,

which my unflinching watch hath sealed

for harvest once again.

Walter de la Mare

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

... to prioritize victory over rather than coexistence with the communist threat.

The Specials, "Stereotype"

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Different.

Thank you, Veerle.

Sound.

Sound man, Brendon ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Happy Birthday, William Golding

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.

William Golding, born on this day in 1911, from Free Fall

Real.

Chatham, River at Twilight, 1991

It would be easy to consider that the penciled sketch underneath, and the wash below, are the dream, blueprint, and path of a painting, but that is like saying a dry riverbed is a river. The water is the real river. The color is the painting. The palette is the real dream.  You can’t just do it for an hour a day, or on Saturday.  It’s not going to work.

Russell Chatham

Pocket.

The blue-backed notebooks, the two pencils and the pencil sharpener (a pocket knife was too wasteful), the marble topped tables, the smell of early morning, sweeping out and mopping, and luck were all you needed. For luck, you carried a horse chestnut and a rabbit's foot in your right pocket.

Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast

Catch.

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies!
Life's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies — alas! how soon he dies!

Samuel Johnson

Waken.

How we are moved by the bird’s call ...

Some single screech uniquely created.

Yet the children scream, as they play

Outdoors, beyond the need for screaming.

Screaming at random. Into this world-space,

Of cosmic space (into which the whole

Bird-call enters as people enter our dreams)

They drive their screams like wedges.

Oh, where are we? Ever more freely,

Like the loose dragon-kites we chase

At half-height, brimming with laughter,

Torn by the wind. God of song, so order

The screaming throng that, in rushing, they waken

A flowing current bearing the head and the lyre.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Happy Birthday, Samuel Johnson

Reynolds, Blinking Sam, 1775

I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success.

The distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.

Samuel Johnson, born on this day in 1709, from Rambler No. 180, Saturday, December 7, 1751