WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
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Nice version of the Dylan. Thanks.
Was blessed to see the first concert above at the Highland Park United Methodist Church.
And met the conductor at our hotel. That night Dallas received it’s first tornado in many years and we spent 30+ minutes in the hotel stairwell – damage is still evident now driving by several months later.
We must still give thanks for all that we are given.
Thanks for the reminder in these” fake” dark days of all that is good.
The beauty of God will go on,as will we.
This darkness will pass and we will be stronger . Time.
Sleep well my friend.
An additional note: Before being corralled into the stair well, we stood outside, to see and hear the dramatic lightning and thunder storm (in the right temporal order) – against a darkening and cloudy Texas sky – truely a display of nature’s majesty.
Beautiful. Thanks.
Forgot to add Rosalind Russell was a real beauty.
Thanks for putting up, now of all times, that Rutter piece, so beautiful and transparent and so true.
Chris Tietze, the organist and music director, schedules that to be sung by his children’s choir several times a year. The kids sing the treble parts and 5 or 6 men sing the bass and tenor, in the cavern of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, seat of the Archbishop of San Francisco. It’s thrilling to a guy who cries at parades, I’ll tell you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! “The Weight” finally got Gal Gadot’s ”Imagine” out of my head.
I know it’s off topic, and I’ve said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Chuck Schumer is a heaping pile of cow excrement. Thanks for reminding us of the beauty of life Gerard.
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful will abide.
Keep the Faith
JWM
I’m already missing the March ritual of counting down to Opening Day. However, as spring is officially here according to the astronomers, here’s the Milwaukee Symphony’s version of the national anthem of the American pastime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkNugqGg9kk&ab_channel=MilwaukeeSymphonyOrchestra
More seriously, but still joyfully: in honor of Bach’s birthday tomorrow, here is a virtuoso’s rendition of BWV 577, the Fugue in G Major, also known as the Jig Fugue. Should get your feet a-tappin’ and a smile on your face; I imagine Bach enjoyed writing it as much as we enjoy hearing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOP_0YRHbZo&ab_channel=E.PowerBiggs-Topic
Great pix, Gerard!
Fender shreds, but Gibson c o n t r o l s.
I always seem to end up with dust in my eyes when I listen to these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=wWImXdnxznE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we8tzKNbfEQ
Most excellent. Thank you.