THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” ― Betty Smith
“There are so many kinds of time. The time by which we measure our lives. Months and years. Or the big time, the time that raises mountains and makes stars. Or all the things that happen between one heartbeat and the next. It’s hard to live in all those kinds of times. Easy to forget that you live in all of them.”
― Robert Charles Wilson
Jonathan Richman recently told me, when I asked him if it feels at all special to turn 70: “No. We are using a decimal system. 20-30-40-50. They happened to have ZEROS at the end. But suppose we were on base 8 rather than base 10.” Time in this case is not only represented by how we count it, but the system we use to count the numbers and put importance on them. And while I understand what he is saying…the fact that today…this day…we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth….it just seems like a big thing.
Beethoven was one of my Dad’s favorite composers. One of his favorite compositions was Beethoven’s fifth. I had not heard the piece for a long long time when I played it for my Dad, through my computer, in his hospital room the day he passed. I had forgotten how mighty and moving the piece was, and how it could facilitate comforting layers of dark reflection on an already dark day.
My friend Kaveh, who knows more about classical music than most, clued me on to one of the best recordings of the 5th. So I directed myself to that performance when I played it at 3:30 in the morning as I was speeding home from Healdsburg, driving through the infamous electrical storm we had during last summer. The lightening blasted around me, electrifying the sky, as the famous DAH-DAH-DAH-DUMMMMMMM provided the epic real-life film soundtrack.
His symphonies…his concertos: I have since dug into many of them and just cannot believe the timeless, complex and nothing less than brilliant compositions that came from his head. The fact that he was deaf…that we learn about his deafness as children, making me almost take for granted that very insane handicap—the fact that he was deaf and could still write what he did is really too hard to comprehend. How did he do it?
I wish my Dad was around to listen to some Beethoven with me today. We actually just fixed up the stereo at my parents house and it sounds great. I will have to blast some in his memory…as well as the memory of the Beethoven himself, a person so incredibly masterful with his musical language that to this day….250 years later…his fame and appreciation has not diminished in the slightest.
1XRUN Celebrates Beethoven's 250th Birthday With Print Set by John Van Hamersveld
Van Hamersveld’s print is a perfect celebration of Beethoven’s 250th…and yes, I had to buy one.
The problem with Shane MacGowan
An interesting piece by Michael O'Loughlin about Shane MacGowan’s music and the mixed feelings of how it showcases aspects of Irish life and how Shane’s life arc is a worthy example of the issues felt around Irish emigration.
Dutch national museum to stage 2021 exhibition on slavery
File this under: I really wish I could go and am thankful that on-line experiences are being embraced by museums. The article lays our how they are telling this story, and it sounds very powerful.
The Cliff House won’t reopen when the pandemic ends
I do not know how to process this. No cliff house? Are you kidding? Anyone growing up in San Francisco understands how the city is partially defined by the Cliff House. And growing up a mile away from it…it has woven itself into so many formative memories…and memories for my kids. Hard to believe that after the pandemic someone will take the jump to reopen it.
The Indoors is Endless
BY TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER
It’s spring in 1827, Beethoven
hoists his death-mask and sails off.
The grindstones are turning in Europe’s windmills.
The wild geese are flying northwards.
Here is the north, here is Stockholm
swimming palaces and hovels.
The logs in the royal fireplace
collapse from Attention to At Ease.
Peace prevails, vaccine and potatoes,
but the city wells breathe heavily.
Privy barrels in sedan chairs like paschas
are carried by night over the North Bridge.
The cobblestones make them stagger
mamselles loafers gentlemen.
Implacably still, the sign-board
with the smoking blackamoor.
So many islands, so much rowing
with invisible oars against the current!
The channels open up, April May
and sweet honey dribbling June.
The heat reaches islands far out.
The village doors are open, except one.
The snake-clock’s pointer licks the silence.
The rock slopes glow with geology’s patience.
It happened like this, or almost.
It is an obscure family tale
about Erik, done down by a curse
disabled by a bullet through the soul.
He went to town, met an enemy
and sailed home sick and grey.
Keeps to his bed all that summer.
The tools on the wall are in mourning.
He lies awake, hears the woolly flutter
of night moths, his moonlight comrades.
His strength ebbs out, he pushes in vain
against the iron-bound tomorrow.
And the God of the depths cries out of the depths
‘Deliver me! Deliver yourself!’
All the surface action turns inwards.
He’s taken apart, put together.
The wind rises and the wild rose bushes
catch on the fleeing light.
The future opens, he looks into
the self-rotating kaleidoscope
sees indistinct fluttering faces
family faces not yet born.
By mistake his gaze strikes me
as I walk around here in Washington
among grandiose houses where only
every second column bears weight.
White buildings in crematorium style
where the dream of the poor turns to ash.
The gentle downward slope gets steeper
and imperceptibly becomes an abyss.
