Boston, "Feelin' Satisfied"

Everything.

A great leaf that God and you and I have covered with writing turns now, overhead, in strange hands.  We feel the sweep of it like a wind. We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Crusoe.

There is a charm in Solitude that cheers

A feeling that the world knows nothing of

A green delight the wounded mind endears

After the hustling world is broken off

Whose whole delight was crime at good to scoff

Green solitude his prison pleasure yields

The bitch fox heeds him not -- birds seem to laugh

He lives the Crusoe of his lonely fields

Which dark green oaks his noontide leisure shields.

John Clare

Sorting.

Have you ever wondered where the Sorting Hat would put you if you and the hat were in Middle Earth? If, instead of the Hogwarts Houses, the options were the Shire, Gondor, Rohan, and Isengard?

CONNECT

Thank you, Violet.

Spirit.

The American War for Independence began on this day in 1775.

CONCORD HYMN

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

  Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

  And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

  Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

  Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

  We set today a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

  When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

  To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

  The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Overthrow.

Thank you, Cultural Offering.

David Gilmour, "5 A.M."

Programming.

Computers incorrectly graded 5,300 state tests that high school students took this fall because of a programming error, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

CONNECT

Flood.

Happy birthday, Blixen.

Karen Blixen was born on this day in 1885.

Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.

Isak Dinesen, from Out of Africa

Notice.

Peter Rowan, "Bluegrass Boy"

Delighted.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.     

Aristotle

Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

Daniel Barenboim performs ...

Active.

Vasari, Self-portrait, 1567

No one ever became excellent in any exercise whatsoever without beginning from his childhood to endure heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and other discomforts; wherefore those men are entirely deceived who think to be able, at their ease and with all the comforts of the world, to attain an honorable rank. It is not by sleeping but by waking and studying continually that progress is made.  Inspiration demands the active cooperation of the intellect joined with enthusiasm, and it is under such conditions that marvelous conceptions, with all that is excellent and divine, come into being. I wish to be of service to the artists of our own day, by showing them how a small beginning leads to the highest elevation, and how from so noble a situation it is possible to fall to utmost ruin, and consequently, how these arts resemble nature as shown in our human bodies.

Giorgio Vasari

Roxy Music, "Tara"

Dvořák, "Song to the Moon"

Anna Netrebko performs ...

Barenboim & Ashkenazy: Double Concerto.

Documenting Vladimir Ashkenazy & Daniel Barenboim’s performance of Mozart's Concerto For Two Pianos In E Flat Major, K 365, with the English Chamber Orchestra, on Saturday March 12th, 1966 ...

Excellent.

Excellent books ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Beethoven, Leonore Overture No. 3 in C Major, Op. 72b

Leonard Bernstein directs the Bavarian Broadcast Symphony Orchestra ...

Bryan Ferry, "Don't Stop the Dance"

Round.

WATER

Before I was born I was water.

I thought of this sitting on a blue

chair surrounded by pink, red, white

hollyhocks in the yard in front

of my green studio. There are conclusions

to be drawn but I can’t do it anymore.

Born man, child man, singing man,

dancing man, loving man, old man,

dying man. This is a round river
and we are her fish who become water.

Jim Harrison

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op.64

Leonard Slatkin conducts the Detroit Symphony ...

Mozart, Concerto No. 7 in F for Three Pianos, K. 242

Daniel Barenboim, András Schiff, and Georg Solti perform with the English Chamber Orchestra ...

Wildest.

WIRES

The widest prairies have electric fences,

For though old cattle know they must not stray

Young steers are always scenting purer water

Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires

Leads them to blunder up against the wires

Whose muscles-shredding violence gives no quarter.

Young steers become old cattle from that day,

Electric limits to their widest senses.

Philip Larkin

Tea.

Unwilling.

Kramer, Summer Swells, n/d

The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.

Arthur Ransome

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Rhythm.

Monet, Morning on the Seine in the Rain, 1898

A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain.

Marcel Proust

Clouds.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

G.K. Chesterton

Traverse.

Chagall, Aleko and Zamphira by Moonlight, 1969

NOT to REMAIN ALTOGETHER SILENT

All the time I kept you out of my poems,

you found a way into my body instead.

Instead of your becoming another word

for dove or wrist bone, owl or stone,

you’ve become the impulse that has me

raise cairns to mark my way. You’re

what all verbs traverse, a fuse for the urge

to look at what I can’t see within what I can;

also the stillness inside me as wind-riven

leaves are driven over the roof shingles

into the night. Kindled by earth and sky,

you’re the touch of a tongue on my skin,

contingent and mortal; and the shy

reluctant love of faithfulness to what I feel

when at times I think there are no gods.

You are in me what is crucial and crucible

when the soul, in its root-fire, lasers and welds

each fissure and craze line of my loving elusive,

if pervasive, you. How stark it is to be alive–

and, although absence is the form you take
in what we call the world, how durable ...

Margaret Gibson

Happy birthday, Leonardo.

Leonardo, Leaf of Sage, Codex Atlanticus, 1499

Leonardo da Vinci was born on this day in 1452.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

Leonardo da Vinci

The BBC's, Leonardo da Vinci: The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything ...

Bach, 6 English Suites, BWV 806-811

András Schiff performs ...

Happy birthday, Peale.

Peale, Captain Joseph Brandt, 1797

Charles Willson Peale was born on this day in 1741.

The learner must be led always from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar, guided along, as it were, a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life.

Charles Willson Peale

Honey'd.

Homer, The Whittling Boy, 1873

ODE to INDOLENCE

"They toil not, neither do they spin."

One morn before me were three figures seen,

With bowèd necks, and joinèd hands, side-faced;

And one behind the other stepp’d serene,

In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;

    They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,

When shifted round to see the other side;

They came again; as when the urn once more

    Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;

And they were strange to me, as may betide

With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?

How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?

Was it a silent deep-disguisèd plot

To steal away, and leave without a task

    My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

The blissful cloud of summer-indolence

Benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;

    Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:

O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense

Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d

Each one the face a moment whiles to me;

Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d

And ached for wings, because I knew the three;

    The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;

The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,

And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;

    The last, whom I love more, the more of blame

Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—

I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:

O folly! What is Love? and where is it?

And for that poor Ambition! it springs

From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;

    For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—

At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,

And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;

    O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,

That I may never know how change the moons,

Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

And once more came they by:—alas! wherefore?

My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;

My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er

With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:

    The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,

Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;

The open casement press’d a new-leaved vine,

Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;

    O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!

Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise

My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;

For I would not be dieted with praise,

A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!

    Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;

Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

And for the day faint visions there is store;

Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,

Into the clouds, and never more return!

John Keats