Happy Birthday, Whitford

Brad Whitford was born on this date in 1952.

"Seasons of Wither"...

Believe.

I believe in red meat. I've often said: red meat and gin.

Julia Child

Envelope.

... No, put that in an envelope.

Learn.

I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as "Oh, I don't know how to cook...," or "Poor little me...," or "This may taste awful...," it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, "Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!" Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed -- eh bien, tant pis! Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile -- and learn from her mistakes.

Julia Child

One.

Atget, Eclipse, Paris, 1911

What we want are unpractical people who see beyond the moment, and think beyond the day. Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob. It is through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways of the gods must be prepared.

Oscar Wilde

Truth.

CONNECT

Happy Birthday, Pepys

Hayls, Samuel Pepys, 1666

Samuel Pepys was born on this date in 1633.

But Lord! to see how much of my old folly and childishness hangs upon me still that I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what o'clock it is one hundred times; and am apt to think with myself, how could I be so long without one; though I remember since, I had one, and found it a trouble, and resolved to carry one no more about me while I lived.

Samuel Pepys, from Saturday, May 16, 1633

CONNECT

Unexpected.

The more I learned the more I realized how very much one has to know before one is in-the-know at all.  I discovered that when one follows the artist's eye one sees unexpected treasures in so many seemingly ordinary scenes.  

Julia Child

Happy Birthday, Handel

Hudson, Handel, 1748

George Frideric Handel was born on this date in 1685.

I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better.

George Frideric Handel

Suite #1 In F, HWV 348, from Water Music performed by Le Concert Spirituel, Herve  Niquet, conductor ...

Passion.

Curiously.

I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights – then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to done, not a background to thought.

Jeanette Winterson

Miracle.

On this date in 1980, the United States Olympic hockey team pulled off "The Miracle on Ice," defeating the Soviet Union, 4-3 ...



From Miracle, the all-time greatest sports movie ...

"Again."



"Think that'll get 'em goin'?"



"Great moments are born from great opportunity ..."

Gordon Lightfoot, "Hangdog Hotel Room"

Journey, "People & Places"

Perfect.

He had bought a large map representing the sea,⠀

Without the least vestige of land:⠀

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be⠀

A map they could all understand.⠀

“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,⠀

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?“⠀

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply⠀

“They are merely conventional signs!⠀

“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!⠀

But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:⠀

(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best–⠀

A perfect and absolute blank!"⠀

Lewis Carroll, from The Hunting of The Snark

Rollins Band, "Shine"

No such thing as spare time, 
No such thing as free time,
No such thing as down time,
All you got is life time... go! 

Religiousness.

Piazzetta, An Astronomer, 1749

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

Albert Einstein

Luke Combs, "1, 2 Many"

There's no stoppin' me once I get goin'
Put a can in my hand, man, I'm wide-ass open ...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, "Listen to Her Heart"

It's sandwich time.

Alter.

I have liv'd long enough for others, 

Like the Dog in the Wheel, 

And it is now the Season to begin for myself: 

I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, 

But I can alter its Posture and, 

As Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, 

So I will dazzle you all.

Peter Ackroyd, From Hawksmoor

Evolving.

A third generation stone carver and letterer, Nick Benson specializes in hand-carved gravestones and elegant architectural lettering for public buildings, memorials, and monuments across the country. He learned his craft at the age of 15 from his father John Benson, a renowned letter carver and calligrapher who left his mark on such national treasures as the John F. Kennedy Memorial, the FDR Memorial, and the National Gallery of Art. A master in his own right, Nick Benson designed and carved the inscriptions for the World War II Memorial and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. “My style is a combination of my father’s and my grandfather’s, and it’s constantly evolving. That development is what keeps the passion alive,” he says.

CONNECT

Nick Benson in his studio ...

Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178

The Largo performed by Salvador Mas and the Orchestra of the City of Granada, featuring Jose Antonio Masmano, English horn ...

Happy Birthday, Peale

Peale, Self-portrait, 1828

Rembrandt Peale was born on this date in 1778.

Happy Birthday, 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

Happy Birthday, Washington

Stuart, George Washington, 1795

George Washington was born on this date in 1732.

Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life.

George Washington

C-SPAN has Thomas Fleming talking about his book Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge.

Bruce Cockburn, "Sunrise on the Mississippi"

Cody Jinks, "I'm Not the Devil"

Whitey Morgan, "Waymore's Blues"

WOO-HOO!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Flint, Michigan's finest ...

The Cars, "Bye, Bye Love"

Schubert, Wanderer Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 (D. 760)

Alfred Brendel performs ...

Greta Van Fleet, "Highway Tune"

Solid.

Undissected.

It is precisely the colouring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Gordon Lightfoot, "Early Morning Rain"

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Happy Birthday, Stegner

Wallace Stegner was born on this date in 1909.

Some people, I am told, have memories like computers, nothing to do but punch the button and wait for the print-out. Mine is more like a Japanese library of the old style, without a card file or an indexing system or any systematic shelf plan. Nobody knows where anything is except the old geezer in felt slippers who has been shuffling up and down those stacks for sixty-nine years. When you hand him a problem he doesn't come back with a cart full and dump it before you, a jackpot of instant retrieval. He finds one thing, which reminds him of another, which leads him off to the annex, which directs him to the east wing, which sends him back two tiers from where he started. Bit by bit he finds you what you want, but like his boss who seems to be under pressure to examine his life, he takes his time.

Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner: A Writer's Life ...

Completely.

Stuart, The Athenaeum, 1796

Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.

George Washington, from Circular to the States, 8 June 1783

The Psychedelic Furs, "Sister Europe/Sleep Comes Down"

Become.

Everyone has their own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid, or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is. If you can get it down on paper, in words, notes, or color, so much the better. The great artists don’t even bother to put it down on paper: they live with it silently, they become it.

Henry Miller

Hidden.

BARN OWL

High in the chaffy, taffy-colored haze
of the hayloft, up under the starry
nail-hole twinkle of the old tin roof,
there in a nest of straw and bailing twine
I have hidden my valentine for you:
a white heart woven of snowy feathers
in which wide eyes of welcome open
to you as you climb the rickety ladder
into my love. Behind those eyes lies
a boudoir of intimate darkness, darling,
the silks of oblivion. And set like a jewel
dead center in the heart is a golden hook
the size of a finger ring, to hold you
always, plumpest sweetheart mouse of mine.

Ted Kooser

North.

Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier," and Bagatelles No. 2 in G minor: Allegro, and No. 3 in E flat major: Andante cantabile e grazioso

Alfred Brendel performs ...

Whistling.

Mondrian, Evening, 1906

WINTER EVENING

The crib stock fothered, horses suppered up,

And cows in sheds all littered down in straw,

The threshers gone, the owls are left to whoop,

The ducks go waddling with distended craw

Through little hole made in the hen-roost door,

And geese with idle gabble never o`er

Bait careless hog until he tumbles down,

Insult provoking spite to noise the more;

While fowl high-perched blink with contemptuous frown

On all the noise and bother heard below;

Over the stable-ridge in crowds,the crow,

With jackdaws intermixed, known by their noise,

To the warm woods behind the village go;

And whistling home for bed go weary boys.

John Clare

Premiered.

Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly premiered on this date in 1909.

Anna Netrebko performs Un Bel Di Vedremo ...

The entire Callas/von Karajan version is HERE.

Gordon Lightfoot, "Beautiful"

Happy Birthday, Medlocke.

Rickey Medlocke was born on this date in 1950.

Blackfoot, "Dust My Broom/Fly Away" ...

It's sandwich time.

Like.

So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts "fringe elements", people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. 

Anthony Bourdain

Working with kids is a humbling and satisfying privilege, but there isn't an hour in my day when I don't miss the old days.

Rest In Peace, English

Paul English has passed.

Willie Nelson, "Me & Paul" ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Happy Birthday, Corelli

Howard, Corelli, 1697

Arcangelo Corelli was born on this date in 1653.

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