Wrote an absolutely shit paper last night (Durkheim and Weber.)
Weber... pragmatic, consequentialist in a very human way. Love my lecturer - here's the little title page he created for our dreary readings. Hats off, Max.
Bubble above:
"I am under the impression that in nine out of ten cases I deal with windbags who do not fully realize what they take upon themselves but who intoxicate themsevles with romantic sensation.... However, it is immensely moving when a mature man - no matter whether old or young in yeras - is aware of a responsibility of for the consequences of his conduct and really feels such responsibility with heart and soul.... and somewhere he reahces the point where he says: 'Here I stand; I can do no other.' That is something genuiney human and moving. And every one of us who is not spiritually dead must realize the possiblity of finding himself at some time in that position...."
A few more videos where this came from... Steph if you're reading this... thanks for the good memories ; )
Skipped 1:30 lecture, napped instead for an hour in the tranquility of my burrow. Completely dead to the world... Woke up, felt like a whole world went by.
Sitting at Lavazza cafe on Washington, using Cosi's free internet instead...
There are these days, as rare as they come, where you feel you're going to accomplish something big. You're going to get that dream job offer, or some girl is going to propose to you - You're going to finally write that star essay and be content with it.
This is not one of them (at least as far as that essay goes).
I haven't written anything here for half a year (gosh, it's May), but I might as well... (to you, the Reader, cf. Calvino post ages ago) Here's some background music:
What a life Barenboim must have! Child prodigy, studied with Boulanger, conductor, pianist (with charisma and genius enough to get away with slight deficiency of accuracy and technique), cellist for a wife (best cellist ever, at that), being able to put his passion to the good of the world (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra etc.)
Now that's what I call "dream job", or "dream life".
If only =)
Went to the Art and Culture career day held by CAPS (UChicago's career service). I've never seen such happy panelists. One step at time, I guess, hopefully starting at Lincoln Center this summer (sorry Hong Kong).
The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, The full round moon and the star-laden sky, And the loud song of the eversinging leaves, Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.
And then you came with those red mournful lips, And with you came the whole of the world's tears, And all the sorrows of her labouring ships And all the burden of her myriad years.
And now the sparrows warring in the eaves, The crumbling moon, the white stars in the sky, And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves, Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.
A piece our choir (UChicago Motet Choir) is singing, to the words:
O magnum mysterium, O great mystery, et admirabile sacramentum, and wonderful sacrament, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, that animals should see the Lord born jacentem in praesepio! lying in a manger! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera Blessed Virgin, whose womb meruerunt portare was worthy of bearing Dominum Christum. Christ the Lord Alleluia. Alleluia
This is something Caravaggio would listen to in Rome...
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On a more terrestrial (or not) note - animists, and shaman(ists). To what extent are anthropologists, post-industrial, "dis-illusioned" metropolitans, really, willing to throw aside their own cultural presumptions when approaching these peoples? Or does our New Age sentiment warm up to them? Is it culturally permitted for us, and if so, when, can we deem people 'wrong', or 'psychotic', 'infantile', 'hallucinatory', if at all? Are we willing to accept as academically sound scholars who, being animists themselves, write about person-trees and the consequences of improper of placenta burial with a tone of empirical certainty? Are peoples, who accuse and punish fellow human beings of committing witchcraft on the basis of cock-divination, unjust? Is female genital 'mutilation' really a crime against humanity in non-paternalistic and aesthetic contexts? Are we to take Barbara Tedlock seriously when she spends half her book accounting for shamanistic séances, her personal experiences with dreams, shamanistic healing, and talking blood?
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That aside, yes, I realize I haven't blogged for a couple of months and, actually, haven't even visited this blog for a couple of months... In brevity, sì, I'm in Chicago, and in a state of general well-being and happiness.
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This afternoon I played in a masterclass conducted by maestra Judit Jaimes... o, would that there are more musicians like her in the world!
The 4 pieces we presented (except for my more earth-bound Liszt piece) confirmed the existence of an immaterial and transcendent realm of beauty and aesthetic understanding. The Schumann-Liszt Widmung, the heart-melting Brahms Rhapsody in b minor, and alas, Beethoven's Op 27 No.1.
My rational self caved in when Veronica played (in her pre-masterclass warm-up) the following passage from the 1st mvmt (~0:42 to ~1:25 below, especially the modulation to C major at 1:18....)
I was reminded again why I should set my heart to the pursual of music not as a profession but as a way of life.
Spent about 2 hours rolling in bed, got up, wrote about 20 bars of piano accompaniment to a setting of a Yeats poem I wrote on the plane, read a bit of Mark in Greek, facebooked, e-mailed...
caught the sunrise, albeit a rainy one.
First thoughts of Hong Kong in need of expanding in some other less grogged up time:
Risk Society a la forte Multiplicity of cultural authority class stratification occidentalism objectification of the body gentrified music --- Can't go, won't go to Yunnan, it's rain season.
Neuer weather-beaten Saile more willing bent to shore, Neuer tyred Pilgrims limbs affected slumber more Than my wearied spright now longs to flye out of my troubled brest : O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soule to rest.
First half of a poem by Thomas Campion, to which C.H.Parry set to a motet which we sang in Cologne; No recording on Youtube, sadly. A hommage here to my homecoming next week and the limenal period which is now...
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Our concert yesterday in Koblenz shed a few tears in the audience... here's one of the pieces that did this, by Orlando Gibbons 1583-1625 (and a puzzling background image on Youtube to go with it):
The silver swan, who living had no note, When death approached unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more: Farewell, all joys; O death, come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.
