...is that the signal that it is ready is the smell spreading across the flat. One of the best smells in the world. Of course, if you don't pay attention the first time, the next warning you get is the smell of burnt bread, which is by no means so pleasant....
The practice of music, in my experience, has a curious effect on character. It may be that, being the most spiritual of all the arts, to be exposed to it is close to being exposed to Spirit itself; but I have often been struck to what extent many musicians, people who live day in and day out with the most noble and beautiful and enlivening and even just plain fun of all the arts, indeed of any way to make a living, turn out to be miserable, odious, selfish, and especially expert at all the sins that make for immediate and lasting unhappiness. Not all of them, mind: some are great and noble people. But of the worst people I have ever known, many have been musicians. It is as though contact with this greatest of art must either raise or depress a man, as though moderate decency became impossible. After all, the greatest of them all, Beethoven, was enormous both in his virtues and his vices.
But I would rather speak of heroes than of cads. So let us speak of three musicians I know who can all be said to be integrity incarnate, who proved it by by resisting the greatest evil of their time, and who nevertheless were as different - in anything except greatness - as three men could very well be.
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But I would rather speak of heroes than of cads. So let us speak of three musicians I know who can all be said to be integrity incarnate, who proved it by by resisting the greatest evil of their time, and who nevertheless were as different - in anything except greatness - as three men could very well be.
( Read more... )The story of a great man
Mar. 25th, 2010 11:30 pmOnce upon a time there was an old sage who lived in Paris in a house so full of books that he had barely space to move; and he had read them all. He had written more than sixty books and altogether invented his own discipline, and when he was admitted to the highest academic institution in France, he was described as a "more than encyclopedic master" who wrote in a style worthy of Voltaire; and all of that was true.
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( Read more... )Cheap pleasures
Dec. 5th, 2009 08:28 pmI miscalculated the starting amount of chickpeas and ended up with an absolutely COLOSSAL amount of humus. Just as well that I love the stuff and that eating it is never a chore. In fact, what with humus, chestnuts to be roasted, and fresh tomato for salad, this is going to be a very pleasant couple of food days.
There's an awful lot of pleasures to be enjoyed in life, even if you are poor.
There's an awful lot of pleasures to be enjoyed in life, even if you are poor.
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ani_bester is engaged! EVERYBODY SING!!
May. 25th, 2008 05:06 pmGod bless you both, you children of the morning!
Who have no guile, no hidden work to do;
Whose gaze is straight, whose eyes carry no scorning,
Who will walk straight whatever you walk to.
May all your lives be promises fulfilled;
YOur work be honest, and your leisure true;
May the love of the Lord be with you still;
May the love of each other be with you.
Who have no guile, no hidden work to do;
Whose gaze is straight, whose eyes carry no scorning,
Who will walk straight whatever you walk to.
May all your lives be promises fulfilled;
YOur work be honest, and your leisure true;
May the love of the Lord be with you still;
May the love of each other be with you.
Yes, the keyboard works. If I had not forced myself away from it, I would still be there now, picking tunes. It is absolutely wonderful. The only danger is that - even though it seems to me rather small compared with some I have seen - it has so many tricks and features that it is perfectly possible to go on for minutes playing something very much like music without actually paying any attention to the keys. What I want to do is learn - or rather, re-learn - to read music and play it at sight. But what a wonderful thing it is, to have a serious musical instrument at last.
