Alex Golub on singing: “I’ve always understood singing as an act of self-abnegation, the creation of beauty through the annihilation of one’s own ego.” … “Humility is the smart bet. I’ve watched singer after singer and academic after academic take themselves too seriously. In doing so they shut the most valuable things out and fail to fulfill their potential. And so I’ve come to respect the quiet ones, the still small voices who spend their lives keeping the rest of us in tune.” … “I have no desire to sing alone.” … “Musicianship to me means phrasing, emotion, intonation. A …
I have been thinking about Jonathon Delacour and his recent play in the fields of meaning. And this quote triggered something: “How do you interpret a thing? Don’t treat it indirectly or symbolically – look directly at it and choose spontaneously that aspect of it which is most immediately striking – the striking flash in consciousness or awareness, the most vivid, what sticks out in your mind.” — John Welwood, Ordinary Magic: Everyday Life as Spiritual Path This is what is going on: noticing the vivid internal responses to external things. Gazing upon their surfaces and trying to bore deeply …
Lola Ridge (1873-1941) was an Irish born American poet who wrote about the immigrant communities in early 20th century America. She wrote both as an outsider (writing about other ethnicities) and as one who shared the experience of being displaced and shifted. This poem is from The Ghetto and Other Poems, published around 1920. THE FIDDLER In a little Hungarian cafe Men and women are drinking Yellow wine in tall goblets. Through the milky haze of the smoke, The fiddler, under-sized, blond, Leans to his violin As to the breast of a woman. Red hair kindles to fire On the …
Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows across the sea. And I shall meet a fisherman Out of Capri, And he will say, seeing me, “What a Strange Thing! Like a fish’s scale or a Butterfly’s wing.” — Edna St. Vincent Milay
A couple of weeks ago, in my little rant about leaving the war to the warbloggers I mentioned something about wanting to pursue to purposeful exploration of beauty as my gesture of peace in the world. Since then, I have really been looking for some kind of manifesto to hang a renewed blog practice on, and today I found it, serendipitously, as always. In this article in today’s Globe and Mail [link rot warning], the architects Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind visit the University of Toronto to provide advice to graduate students. In dispensing advice, the sages held nothing back, …