Something Wonderful: The 5 Secrets
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
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.
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
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I just love that one.
Cancel culture is coming for Beethoven on the grounds that “Beethoven’s [Fifth] Symphony was transformed from a symbol of triumph and freedom into a symbol of exclusion, elitism, and gatekeeping.” Wonderful article by Daniel Lelchuk, a professional cellist, in Quillette on the ridiculousness of this charge of colonialism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism (which was made by two white males, go figure).
https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/then-they-came-for-beethoven/
Even if you don’t have time to read the entire article (it’s not that long), scroll down to the end for the clip of the Afghan Women’s Orchestra performing the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Proof that Beethoven’s appeal is timeless and universal.
I saw these guys perform in a small theater pre-COVID and it was quite a show. PA Cat is right about the cancel culture. The fabulous orchestra at our daughter’s college was disbanded after her second year there. She played viola and was on a musical scholarship. Why was it dissolved? They were told that westernized music was inherently misogynistic and racist. Students were offered a chance to take ethnomusicology courses, one of which involved listening to tribal drums and playing wood blocks and triangles—like little kindergartners. Gone was the experience of the students playing wonderful music, gone was the experience of locals from 75 miles around of attending performances in a beautiful brand new performing arts center which was always packed for their performances, and also hurt were the children from poor families in area schools who no longer were given free lessons by the college students along with musical instruments—a program aligned with the famous conductor, Dudamel’s, program for lifting children out of poverty through music that was started in Brazil. All of this destruction to erase the work of “old white men”. This is happening all over our country at universities.
I feel The Piano Guy’s Youtube notes on this performance are well worth posting here:
“Story behind the song:
The American Heritage Lyceum Philharmonic (Youth Orchestra) and its director, Kayson Brown, approached us with this idea. We loved it. It combined two of the things we are working to accomplish — inviting people to classical music and inspiring young musicians. Steven Sharp Nelson had soloed with the orchestra the previous year and loved the spirit and the talent that the orchestra showed at such young ages (ages 13-18!) Together we developed the concept of “Beethoven’s 5 Secrets,” combining OneRepublic’s tune “Secrets” with melodies and moments from all four movements of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
We used 5 different melodies from the 4 movements of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (not including the “bridge” the orchestra plays in the middle). Try to guess where they are and where they come from!
What are Beethoven’s secrets? He had many. His most prominent secret that he desperately tried to keep from the public and that caused him to be considered extremely eccentric, irritable, and hermit-like was his “weakness.” He was deaf during most of his life. Imagine that…one of the greatest composers that ever lived could hardly hear. And yet, he wrote his life’s greatest works after becoming deaf. He believed that art itself had “secrets” that had to be “forced into” in order to obtain art’s highest level. There is no doubt Beethoven discovered many of the “secrets” of art — people all over the world enjoy them every day. He was a true master of music, blessed by God. This piece and video are dedicated to him.”
Good addition. Thanks.
Equality has become more important than Beethoven. These Blamtifa idiots and their enablers are trying to force us into a “Harrison Bergeron” world in order to insure equality of outcome.