Decisions.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes -- within the limits of endowment and environment-- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions not on conditions.

Viktor Frankl

John Prine, "Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)"

Emptied.

It went many years, 
But at last came a knock, 
And I thought of the door 
With no lock to lock. 

I blew out the light, 
I tip-toed the floor, 
And raised both hands 
In prayer to the door. 

But the knock came again 
My window was wide; 
I climbed on the sill 
And descended outside. 

Back over the sill 
I bade a "Come in" 
To whoever the knock 
At the door may have been. 

So at a knock 
I emptied my cage 
To hide in the world 
And alter with age.

Robert Frost

Wander.

Exquisite.

O darling room, my heart's delight,

Dear room, the apple of my sight,

With thy two couches soft and white,

There is no room so exquisite,

No little room so warm and bright,

Wherein to read, wherein to write.

For I the Nonnenwerth have seen,

And Oberwinter's vineyards green,

Musical Lurlei; and between

The hills to Bingen have I been,

Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene

Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene.

Yet never did there meet my sight,

In any town, to left or right,

A little room so exquisite,

With two such couches soft and white;

Not any room so warm and bright,

Wherein to read, wherein to write.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ray Stevens, "Everything is Beautiful"

Happy birthday, Stegner.

Wallace Stegner was born on this day in 1909.

It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it's persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any.  Wisdom is knowing what you have to accept.

Wallace Stegner

David Gilmour, "The Blue"

Fleming.

An argument for the Interditch if there ever was one ... three hours of BookTV's In-Depth with historian Thomas Fleming ... HERE.

The best untold story of the Revolution is Anthony Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794. I – and others – consider this the last battle of the Revolution. It put an end to the British plot to arm the Indians and drive the Americans east of the Appalachians. When Washington asked Congress to pass a resolution congratulating Mad Anthony, the Jeffersonian-dominated solons said they did not think it was proper for the august Congress to praise a general of the American regular army. It’s a marvelous glimpse of Jeffersonian hostility to a standing army – and the kind of problems Washington confronted as president. He calmly replied that he was unbothered by Congress’s decision. The President of the United States would thank General Wayne, on his own.

Thomas Fleming

Prussian-style.

Earl, Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus, Baron von Steuben, 1786

“Baron Steuben has arrived at camp,” Washington wrote soon after. “He appears to be much of a gentleman, and as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, a man of military knowledge and acquainted with the world.” Washington’s confidence in von Steuben grew quickly. Within two weeks, he made the baron acting inspector general and asked him to examine the Continental Army’s condition.

“What [Steuben] discovered was nothing less than appalling,” wrote Fleming in Washington’s Secret War. “He was confronting a wrecked army. A less courageous (or less bankrupt) man would have quit on the spot.” Unlike the American forces in New York, who had beaten the British at Saratoga in fall 1777, the army in Pennsylvania had suffered a series of defeats. When they lost the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, the British had seized Philadelphia. Now—following common military practice of the era—they had camped for the winter. But Valley Forge, their winter quarters, was nearly as punishing as battle: hastily built huts, cruel temperatures, scarce food.

The baron found soldiers without uniforms, rusted muskets without bayonets, companies with men missing and unaccounted for. Short enlistments meant constant turnover and little order. Regiment sizes varied wildly. Different officers used different military drill manuals, leading to chaos when their units tried to work together. If the army had to fight on short notice, von Steuben warned Washington, he might find himself commanding one-third of the men he thought he had. The army had to get into better shape before fighting resumed in the spring.

So, von Steuben put the entire army through Prussian-style drills, starting with a model company of 100 men. He taught them how to reload their muskets quickly after firing, charge with a bayonet and march in compact columns instead of miles-long lines. Meanwhile, he wrote detailed lists of officers’ duties, giving them more responsibility than in English systems.

Soldiers gaped at the sight of a German nobleman, in a French-style black beaver hat, drilling poorly clothed troops. Though von Steuben raged and cursed in a garbled mixture of French, English, and German, his instructions and presence began to build morale. “If anything, the curses contributed to Steuben’s reputation as an exotic character who was good for a laugh now and then,” wrote Fleming.

CONNECT

Breaking down The Baron's Blue Book, HERE.

"Building the Continental Army," HERE.

Technique.

Technique is the proof of your seriousness.

Wallace Stevens

Hang.

CONNECT

Work.

Grant.

No guru.  No method.  No teacher.

No laptop.  No cellphone.  No Alexa.  

Getting mind-work done.

Thanks, Kurt.

John Prine, "I Ain't Hurtin' Nobody"

Perfectly crafted popular hit songs never use the wrong rhyme
You'd think that waitress could get my order right the first time

Chet Baker, "Bye, Bye Blackbird"

Utopia, "Libertine"

The legacy continues ...

Happy birthday, Corelli.

Howard, Corelli, 1697

Jordi Savall conducts Les Concerts des Nations, featuring the masterful Enrico Onorfi, fiddle, performing Сoncerto Grosso Op.6, No.4, in D major ...

Sanctum.

The hard routine is primarily an exercise in mental toughness. As such, it is vital to grasp the component of psychology that permeates the hard routine. In any rigorous endeavor, the bedrock for success lies in the mindset of the individual. I am reminded of the story popular in the business world about burning boats. Alexander the Great, when he sailed into Asia, disembarked his infantry and then set his entire navy ablaze in the harbor. The only way home meant a march across land and through the enemy: victory or death. Total commitment. A potent psychological shift occurs when the possibility of giving up disintegrates into ashes. The hard routine grants the willing participant entry into a hard sanctum located in a lucid place of the mind, free of the “soft” psychological distractions and habits that can hinder sustained changes in action. In short, it boils down to denial of self-indulgence.

The principles of setting up a hard routine are simple. Following them is too, but it takes total commitment. 

1. Recognize that there is a benefit to not getting everything you want. 
2. Understand that mental toughness is born of adversity; that it will atrophy if not consistently engaged; and that it carries over to everything you do. 
3. Objectively scrutinize one or a handful of things in your life that you think you need but could actually do without. 
4. Deny yourself those things for a specified period of time.

CONNECT

Long.

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

Sara Teasdale

Whitey Morgan, "Just Got Paid"

WOO-HOO!  HAPPY FRIDAY!

Shining.

SIX SIGNIFICANT LANDSCAPES

I
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.

II
The night is of the colour
Of a woman’s arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.

III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.

IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.

V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses–
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon–
Rationalists would wear sombreros.

Wallace Stevens

Humbling.

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.

Paul Johnson

Thank you, Kurt.

Happy birthday, Praetorius.

Michale Praetorius was born on this day in 1571.

I Cavalieri del Cornetto performs "Le Ballet des Coqs" ...

Bless.

Paradise.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

Jorge Luis Borges

Blest.

To HIS MISTRESS GOING to BED

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, 

Until I labour, I in labour lie. 

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, 

Is tir’d with standing though he never fight. 

Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering, 

But a far fairer world encompassing. 

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, 

That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there. 

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime, 

Tells me from you, that now it is bed time. 

Off with that happy busk, which I envy, 

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh. 

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals, 

As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals. 

Off with that wiry Coronet and shew 

The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow: 

Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread 

In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed. 

In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be 

Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee 

A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though 

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know, 

By this these Angels from an evil sprite, 

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright. 

    Licence my roving hands, and let them go, 

Before, behind, between, above, below. 

O my America! my new-found-land, 

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d, 

My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie, 

How blest am I in this discovering thee! 

To enter in these bonds, is to be free; 

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. 

    Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, 

As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be, 

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use 

Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views, 

That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem, 

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them. 

Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made 

For lay-men, are all women thus array’d; 

Themselves are mystic books, which only we 

(Whom their imputed grace will dignify) 

Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know; 

As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew 

Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence, 

There is no penance due to innocence. 

    To teach thee, I am naked first; why then 

What needst thou have more covering than a man.

John Donne

Wash.

Well-tuned.

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Thomas Campion

Beethoven, Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe performs, under Nikolaus Harnoncourt ...

Happy birthday, Lincoln.

Gardner, Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Abraham Lincoln was born on this day in 1809.

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have perfomed the same feat as the two drunken men.

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.

One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism.

We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Henry L. Pierce et al., 1859

CONNECT

Thanks to Kurt for finding the wonderful photograph.

Worshiped.

The dusk rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of the fire and the wash of little waves along the rocky lake shore were the only sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that vast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the woodland gods, who are to be worshiped in silence and loneliness, might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees.

Algernon Blackwood, from The Wendigo

Respecting.

Mr. Rotten on respecting musical lineage and the danger of diluting the lessons of history ...

Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening to a song at a time via 7-inch single is enjoying the sublime state of solitude.

Henry Rollins

Gotta.

Happy birthday, Edison.

Thomas Edison was born on this day in 1847.

Tom's Mom's Rules ...

1. Read, read, read … everything not just what you like. Appreciate all literature.
2. Do not be afraid to fail-learn from it. Keep trying.
3. Not everything that is valuable comes from books-experience the world.
4. Never stop learning!

CONNECT

Remember.

Watch.

No place worth knowing yields itself at sight, and those the least inviting on first view may leave the most haunting pictures upon the walls of memory. Adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for them; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of the great curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between them and the world of causes behind.

Algernon Blackwood

Byrd, Ave Verum Corpus

The Tallis Scholars perform ...

Happy birthday, Lamb.

Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, 1804

Charles Lamb was born on this day in 1775.

To operas and balls my cousins take me,
And fond of plays my new-made friend would make me.
In summer season, when the days are fair,
In my godmother's coach I take the air.
My uncle has a stately pleasure barge,
Gilded and gay, adorned with wondrous charge;
The mast is polished, and the sails are fine,
The awnings of white silk like silver shine;
The seats of crimson satin, where the rowers
Keep time to music with their painted oars;
In this on holidays we oft resort
To Richmond, Twickenham, or to Hampton Court.
By turns we play, we sing-one baits the hook,
Another angles-some more idle look
At the small fry that sport beneath the tides,
Or at the swan that on the surface glides.
My married sister says there is no feast
Equal to sight of foreign bird or beast.
With her in search of these I often roam:
My kinder parents make me blest at home.
Tired of excursions, visitings, and sights,
No joys are pleasing to these home delights. 

Charles Lamb

Dog.

Simple.

Homer, Camp Fire, 1880

Learn to like what doesn’t cost much. Learn to like reading, conversation, music. Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking. Learn to like fields, trees, brooks, hiking, rowing, climbing hills. Learn to like people, even though some of them may be different…different from you. Learn to like to work and enjoy the satisfaction doing your job as well as it can be done. Learn to like the song of birds, the companionship of dogs. Learn to like gardening, puttering around the house, and fixing things. Learn to like the sunrise and sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, and the gentle fall of snow on a winter day. Learn to keep your wants simple and refuse to be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others.

Lowell C. Bennion

Perfect.

I overheard some talk about perfect albums ...

Substance.

Thanks, Kurt.

Tim O'Brien, "Cornbread Nation"

George Strait, "Milk Cow Blues"

WOO-HOO!  HAPPY FRIDAY!

 

Happy birthday, Ruskin.

Ruskin, Sketch of St. Mark's After Rain, 1846

John Ruskin was born on this day in 1819.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

John Ruskin

Remember.

Happy birthday, Il Guercino.

Il Guercino, l'Aurora, 1623

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, "Il Guercino," was born on this day in 1591.

Thank you, Dr. Richardson.

Stillness.

Goldsworthy, Wall at Guard Hill Road, n/d

Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divinings, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Clash, "(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais"

... They ain't got no roots rock rebel.

Choose.

Luukanen, Chosen, 1984

I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!

Oscar Wilde