Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Cloud.

The mist of a woody, grape-musty cloud on the tongue.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Robin Guthrie, "Monument"

Happy Birthday, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cameron, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1868

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch

Was glorious with the sun's returning march,

And woods were brightened, and soft gales

Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.

The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,

They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,

And, in their fading glory, shone

Like hosts in battle overthrown.

As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.

Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,

And rocking on the cliff was left

The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.

The veil of cloud was lifted, and below

Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow

Was darkened by the forest's shade,

Or glistened in the white cascade;

Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,

The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

Henry Wadworth Longfellow, born on this day in 1807, from Sunrise on the Hills

Happy Birthday, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir, The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes, 1914

They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on this date in 1841

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Released.

Led Zeppelin released their best album, Physical Graffiti, on this day in 1975.

"The Rover/Sick Again" ...

Please.

TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

 If sailor tales to sailor tunes,

 Storm and adventure, heat and cold,

 If schooners, islands, and maroons,

 And buccaneers, and buried gold,

 And all the old romance, retold

 Exactly in the ancient way,

 Can please, as me they pleased of old,

 The wiser youngsters of today:

 --So be it, and fall on! If not,

 If studious youth no longer crave,

 His ancient appetites forgot,

 Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,

 Or Cooper of the wood and wave:

 So be it, also! And may I

 And all my pirates share the grave

 Where these and their creations lie!

Robert Louis Stevenson, from Treasure Island

Caerphilly.

Deep summer.

Finishing the last of dinner's accompanying glass of milk, then run as fast as possible through the neighborhood to get into the pick-up baseball game.

That flavor of milk that's still on the tongue ... that's Caerphilly.

Treasures.

On the following morning, the sun darted his beams from over the hills through the low lattice window. I rose at an early hour, and looked out between the branches of eglantine which overhung the casement. To my surprise Scott was already up and forth, seated on a fragment of stone, and chatting with the workmen employed on the new building. I had supposed, after the time he had wasted upon me yesterday, he would be closely occupied this morning, but he appeared like a man of leisure, who had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine and amuse himself.

I soon dressed myself and joined him. He talked about his proposed plans of Abbotsford; happy would it have been for him could he have contented himself with his delightful little vine-covered cottage, and the simple, yet hearty and hospitable style, in which he lived at the time of my visit. The great pile of Abbotsford, with the huge expense it entailed upon him, of servants, retainers, guests, and baronial style, was a drain upon his purse, a tax upon his exertions, and a weight upon his mind, that finally crushed him.

As yet, however, all was in embryo and perspective, and Scott pleased himself with picturing out his future residence, as he would one of the fanciful creations of his own romances. "It was one of his air castles," he said, "which he was reducing to solid stone and mortar." About the place were strewed various morsels from the ruins of Melrose Abbey, which were to be incorporated in his mansion. He had already constructed out of similar materials a kind of Gothic shrine over a spring, and had surmounted it by a small stone cross.

Among the relics from the Abbey which lay scattered before us, was a most quaint and antique little lion, either of red stone, or painted red, which hit my fancy. I forgot whose cognizance it was; but I shall never forget the delightful observations concerning old Melrose to which it accidentally gave rise. The Abbey was evidently a pile that called up all Scott's poetic and romantic feelings; and one to which he was enthusiastically attached by the most fanciful and delightful of his early associations. He spoke of it, I may say, with affection. "There is no telling," said he, "what treasures are hid in that glorious old pile. It is a famous place for antiquarian plunder; there are such rich bits of old time sculpture for the architect, and old time story for the poet. There is as rare picking in it as a Stilton cheese, and in the same taste—the mouldier the better."

Washington Irving, from "Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey"

Thanks to Walker's Arms for the image.

Happy Birthday, Winslow Homer

Homer, Adirondack Lake, 1892

A painter who begins and finishes indoors, that which is outdoors, misses a hundred little facts, a hundred little accidental effects of sunshine and shadow that can be reproduced only in the immediate presence of Nature. This making of studies and then taking them home is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.

Winslow Homer, born on this day in 1836

Jimmy Buffett, "Quietly Making Noise"

Oscar Wilde died in bed 
Several floors above my head 
Living well beyond his means 
In that crazy Paris scene 

Rain falls down in sheets so clear 
No one ever calls me here 
Traveling by my self these days 
I'm into jazz and felt berets 

Far from the that old eastern shore 
Searching for strange metaphors ...

Happy Birthday, George Frideric Handel

Denner, Handel, 1727

George Frideric Handel was born on this day in 1685.

Leo Duarte performs the first Allegro from the Oboe Concerto No. 3 in G minor (HWV 287) with members of The Academy of Ancient Music ...

Wrath.

The wrath of nature is real.

Mouton, La Malassise

Klaudyna Żołnierek performs the Sarabande ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Ever.

Happy Birthday, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Rinhart, Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1922

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on this date in 1892.

AFTERNOON on a HILL

I will be the gladdest thing

    Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

    And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

    With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

    And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show

    Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

    And then start down!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

America.

A kid with a runny nose and milk money danced up to the tiger and spit in his eye.

Looking for sports heroes?  Teach your kids about Jack O'Callahan: blue-collar, unsung leader.

Miracles.

A bunch of college boys beat the Ruskies on this day in 1980.

Do you believe in miracles?

Released.

Bad Co. released Run With The Pack on this day in 1973.

The title track ...

Revelations.

Revelations, love when they happen

Wizards and lizards, I choose and I pick ...

Mukwa.

Bear (Mukwa) medicine ...

Introspective.

Intuitive.

Dreaming.

Still.

Meditative.

Seeking.

Loving.

Connecting.

... and eating.

Happy Birthday, Nicolaus Copernicus

Anonymous, Nicolaus Copernicus, The "Toruń Portrait", 1580

Nicolaus Copernicus was born this week in 1473 and his thoughts provided our Creative Writing class with some of the year's best discussion so far ...

To be intelligent is to be able to see the hidden connections between things.  To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge ... I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.

Eli, The Insightful, said, "Mr. Firchau, he said this a long time ago and people still haven't figured it out." 

A conversation about the importance of putting your name on your paper was had based on the painting's attribution.

Copernicus and His World ...

Empty.

Wyeth, Distant Thunder, 1961

The modern age knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.

Wallace Stegner, from The Angle of Repose

Answer? Harrison reminds us of the ancient and sacred rite of log-sitting ...

Marvel.

Wyeth, Crescent Moon, 1979

MOON SONG

A child saw in the morning skies

The dissipated-looking moon,

And opened wide her big blue eyes,

And cried: "Look, look, my lost balloon!"

And clapped her rosy hands with glee:

"Quick, mother! Bring it back to me."

A poet in a lilied pond

Espied the moon's reflected charms,

And ravished by that beauty blonde,

Leapt out to clasp her in his arms.

And as he'd never learnt to swim,

Poor fool! that was the end of him.

A rustic glimpsed amid the trees

The bluff moon caught as in a snare.

"They say it do be made of cheese,"

Said Giles, "and that a chap bides there. . . .

That Blue Boar ale be strong, I vow --

The lad's a-winkin' at me now."

Two lovers watched the new moon hold

The old moon in her bright embrace.

Said she: "There's mother, pale and old,

And drawing near her resting place."

Said he: "Be mine, and with me wed,"

Moon-high she stared . . . she shook her head.

A soldier saw with dying eyes

The bleared moon like a ball of blood,

And thought of how in other skies,

So pearly bright on leaf and bud

Like peace its soft white beams had lain;

Like Peace! . . . He closed his eyes again.

Child, lover, poet, soldier, clown,

Ah yes, old Moon, what things you've seen!

I marvel now, as you look down,

How can your face be so serene?

And tranquil still you'll make your round,

Old Moon, when we are underground.

Robert Service

Unfrequent.

We must not conclude merely upon a man’s haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves. It is not, I say, unfrequent to see such instances, though at the same time I esteem it a justice due to my country to say that it is not without shining examples of the contrary kind.

Samuel Adams

Haydn, String Quartet in D Major Op. 20 no. 4

Castalian String Quartet performing ...

Penetrate.

"Our only remaining hope and salvation,” Bacon wrote, “is to begin the whole labor of the mind again, not leaving it to itself but directing it perpetually from the very first.” A century later, William Herschel agreed. Herschel, the first man to understand that telescopes penetrate time as well as space, spent the long daylight hours polishing his lenses, listening to his sister read from Don Quixote and the Thousand and One Nights. When darkness fell, his lenses clear, he discovered a heretofore unknown planet.

Peter Turchi, from Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer

Non-Conformist.

Homer, The Woodsman, 1889

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. It is not without pre-established harmony, this sculpture in the memory.

The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny.

Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall!

Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Self-Reliance

Golden

Put the golden biscuit in the basket ...

Happy Birthday, Ansel Adams

Adams, Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite Valley National Park, 1937

We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through fabric of illusion. Many refuse to admit it: I feel a mystery exists. There are certain times, when, as on the whisper of the wind, there comes a clear and quiet realization that there is indeed a presence in the world, a nonhuman entity that is not necessarily inhuman.

How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world.  Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.  Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream?"

Ansel Adams, born on this day in 1902

Anchovy.

Bagna càuda, which translates to "hot bath" in Italian, is a warm omaggio (thanks, Anna) originating in the Piedmont of Italy, where it was a peasant meal among wine farmers and vineyard workers. It was often prepared and consumed outdoors during cold harvests or to celebrate the production of new vintages.

Its origins are tied to the salt trade routes from Provence through the Alps. In the Middle Ages, salt was heavily taxed, so traders reportedly hid it in barrels under layers of anchovies to evade duties.

Ingredients

• 3 heads fresh garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 jar Ortiz anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained, and chopped 
• ¾ cup high-quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• a shot of bold, dry red wine
• 3-finger pinch inch of red pepper flakes 
• black pepper to taste
• chunks of crusty sourdough, salami, pecorino, raw cabbage

Instructions

1. Combine the olive oil and garlic in a cold saucepan or skillet. Turn the heat to the lowest setting possible.
2. Cook gently for 10–12 minutes. The garlic should soften and become fragrant but must not brown or fry, which would make the sauce bitter.
3. Add the chopped anchovies. Using a wooden spoon, stir gently for 2-3 minutes until they completely melt into a paste.
4. Emulsify the butter one piece at a time until melted and the sauce looks creamy.
5. Transfer immediately to a warming dish to keep the sauce from congealing. 
6. Dunk bread, salami, cheese, veggies (raw cabbage is delicious) into the mélange and repeat as needed

Bagna càuda also does well tossed with spaghetti (look for Martelli in the bright yellow bag) finished with a heavy hand of Pecorino Romano (there is no substitute for the famous Locatelli brand).

Happy Birthday, Luigi Boccherini

Unknown, Luigi Boccherini, 1767

Luigi Boccherini was born on this day in 1743.

The Ritirata performs the Trio in C-Major, Op. 35, No. 5 (G 105) ...

Happy Birthday, Wallace Stegner

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.  We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.

Wallace Stegner, born on this day in 1909, from The Sound of Mountain Water

Moved.

Howard, Corelli with the Muse of Music, 1698

A [artist] cannot move others unless he too is moved; he must of necessity feel all of the affects he hopes to arouse in his audience.

Arcangelo Corelli

Big.

Today's a big day in our house ...

Excellent.

Excellent albums ...

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Happy Birthday, Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was born on this day in 1653.

Transverse flutist Anna Besson performs the Allegro from the Sonata in F major, op. 5 no. 4 with Louna Hosia, and Jean Rondeau ...

Beethoven, Sonata in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1

Erica Wise and some guy perform the Andante-Allegro vivace ...

Released.

The Church released Starfish on this day in 1988.

"North, South, East, and West"...

According.

Each one of us should make a surveyor's map of his lost fields and meadows.  In this way we cover the universe with drawings we have lived.  These drawing need not be exact, but they need to be written according to the shapes of our inner landscapes.

Gaston Bachelard

Björn Meyer, "Gravity"

Aufschnaiter, Dulcis fidium harmonia, Op.4

Gunar Letzbor and Ars Antiqua Austria perform a selection of Sonatas ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

The title track ...

Done.

Done and done.

Pond.

The Labatt Blue UP Pond Hockey Championship is in full swing.  Normally held on St. Ignace's Moran Bay, warmer temperatures have unfortunately forced the tournament into local indoor rinks.