East of Eden + Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch = a love letter to Northern California

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4: 9 - 16, NIV)

Setting the scene with blue lupins

a few white flowers...

"On the wide level acres of the valley the topsoil lay deep and fertile. It required only a rich winter of rain to make it break forth in grass and flowers. The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor, and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies. Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine. And mixed with these were splashes of California poppies. Those too are of a burning color—not orange, not gold, but if pure gold were liquid and could raise a cream, that golden cream might be the color of the poppies. When their season was over the yellow mustard came up and grew to a great height. When my grandfather came into the valley the mustard was so tall that a man on horseback showed only his head above the yellow flowers. On the uplands the grass would be strewn with buttercups, with hen-and-chickens, with black-centered yellow violets. And a little later in the season there would be red and yellow stands of Indian paintbrush. These were the flowers of the open places exposed to the sun..." (Steinbeck 5).

"When June came the grasses headed out and turned brown, and the hills turned a brown which was not brown but a gold and saffron and red—an indescribable color. And from then on until the next rains the earth dried and the streams stopped... I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley... The land dried up and grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the safe-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs... And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way" (S 6).

"Here there is abiding peace, the peace of God, and the serene security created by a handful of good neighbors living at one with the creature world, with noble, ancient trees, scrub and sage-brush, wild lilac and lovely lupin, with poppies and buzzards, eagles and humming birds, gophers and rattlesnakes, and sea and sky unending" (Miller 404).

"Here at Big Sur, at a certain time of the year and a certain time of the day only, a pale blue-green hue pervades the distant hills... There are two magic hours of the day which I have only really come to know and wait for, bathe in, I might say, since living here. One is dawn, the other sunset. In both we have what I like to think of as 'the true light': the one cold, the other warm, but both creating an ambiance of super-reality" (M 92).

"And where on this earth will you find a towering wall of fog advancing from the date line with a knife-blue crest behind which a setting sun shoots out 'squirrels and lightning'?" (M 37). 

"Speaking of artists, the curious thing is that few of this stripe ever last it out here. Is something lacking? Or is there too much... too much sunshine, too much fog, too much peace and contentment?" (M 13).

Lee Being Wise

memory is all we get

Lee: "'Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally?... It's one of the great fallacies, it seems to me... that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to a man.''

'And memory.'
'Yes, memory. Without that, time would be unarmed against us.'" (S 376).

Lee: "'There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can't see or hear or touch a man, it's best to let him go'" (S 417). Hard to hear during this time when we're spread out all over the world, or when one's family lives far away. Or perhaps now that there's more than mere mail holding us together, such associations can continue?

"Lee's voice said, 'I know that sometimes a lie is used in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. That's a running sore.'" (S 429).

Lee: "'Why am I content to be a servant?' (...) 'There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension. I don't know where being a servant came into disrepute. It is the refuge of a philosopher, the food of the lazy, and, properly carried out, it is a position of power, even of love. I can't understand why more intelligent people don't take it as a career—learn to do it well and reap its benefits. A good servant has absolute security, not because of his master's kindness, but because of habit and indolence. It's a hard thing for a man to change spices or lay out his own socks. He'll keep a bad servant rather than change. But a good servant, and I am an excellent one, can completely control his master, tell him what to think, how to act, whom to marry, when to divorce, reduce him to terror as a discipline, or distribute happiness to him, and finally be mentioned in his will... I don't know any profession where the field is so cluttered with incompetents and where excellence is so rare.'" (S 165-166).

My mom has much of the Lee about her

Lee: "'Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win (...) It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There's no godliness there (...) I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—because 'Thou mayest.'" (S 303-304). 

Lee: "'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.'" (S  497).

Henry Miller Being Wise: "acquiring knowledge is like biting into a cheese which grows bigger with every bite" (M 176).

Lee: "You stand the [winter melon] in a pot, cut off the top carefully, put in a whole chicken, mushrooms, water chestnuts, leeks, and just a touch of ginger. Then you put the top back on the melon and cook it as slowly as possible for two days. Ought to be good.'" (S 487)

"After Will had gone Lee brought out one-third of a lemon pie and cut it in two. 'He's getting too fat,' Lee said." (S 427).

Standalone Passages

"'When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too.'" (S 578).

"Maybe the Bacigalupis would give him [Cal] a job" (S 537). 
Uncle Frank, our neighbor from North Beach, was an expert on the Bacigalupis!

"Strawberries don't taste as they used to... "(S 129).

In 2020: "Suppose we [the US] have the highest standard of living of any country in the world. Do we, though? It depends on what one means by high standards. Certainly nowhere does it cost more to live than here in America. The cost is not only in dollars and cents but in sweat and blood, in frustration, ennui, broken homes, smashed deals, illness and insanity. We have the most wonderful hospitals, the most gorgeous insane asylums, the most fabulous prisons, the best equipped and highest paid army and navy, the speediest bombers, the largest stockpile of atom bombs, yet never enough of any of these items to satisfy the demand. Our manual workers are the highest paid in the world; our poets the worst. There are more automobiles than one can count. And as for the drugstores, where in the world will you find the like? We have only one enemy we really fear: the microbe" (M 250).

"Samuel wrote to Joe, saying, 'I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart not to try to convert your mother... Your mother does not believe there are many ills uncurable by good strong soap. She puts your brave attack on the structure of our civilization down to a stomach ache. It worries her. Her faith is a mountain, and you, my son, haven't even got a shovel yet.'" (S 253).

Sticky note: "Heartbreaks + Setbacks" & Basia's dish

There's a song and recipe in this storyline, too. Dedicated to my very best roommate, B.

Any given hour, January - March, and then July - August, 2020
Flip-flopping around the Apt. 4K kitchen

The general outline, adapted from NYT's recipe for broken eggs:

• Slice potatoes of any kind into half-moons or wedges; however many potato pieces will fill the pan.
• A 2" layer of olive oil + hefty pinch*(paprika, cumin, chili flakes) on medium-high heat
• Other combos: thyme and cherry tomato, clumps of chorizo, eggs love oregano...
• Slide potatoes into the flavored oil and sprinkle first round of salt. Cook, flipping, until fork tender.
• Slice an onion of any kind; give 2-3 cloves of garlic the Goodfellas treatment.
• Add both to the pan, where they'll now cook for just the right amount of time. Salt accordingly.
• Once your alliums are softened without being golden, crack any number of eggs into the pan, cover, and cook until the whites are set.
• Be pleased! From humble ingredients, a midweek treat.
• When in California, top with more readily available ripe avocado and lime. :)

Pairing "the dish," as it's come be known, with a gem from Yebba's "Distance" playlist: Thundercat's "Heartbreaks + Setbacks." Trace the bassline. Characteristic of the times.

NYE 2019: "Kathy's Song" and Tiramisu

In an effort to keep my parents and their passions near even when they're home and I'm here, I present a series of songs and recipes from my dad and mom, respectively. Sometimes they go together. I find that that music always works its way into the dish if played in the background.

Monday, December 30th, 2019
Sockless in the kitchen, 10:30pm
for loved ones meeting at Vivian's on New Year's Eve

Dad deploys Simon & Garfunkel's "Kathy's Song"

Lyrics:
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England, where my heart lies

My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
And kiss you when you start your day

And a song I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can’t believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme

And so you see, I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I

© 1965 Words and Music by Paul Simon

Mom taught this to me in middle school. Adapted from Megan's Tiramisu Recipe

Make zabaglione:
8 large eggs yolks, ½ cup cane sugar, 1½ cups Marsala wine
Whisk eggs and sugar together in a heatproof bowl, then place over simmering pot of water, and whisk fiendishly while gradually streaming in the wine. All done when it can form ribbons.

Make the cloud layer:
750g mascarpone cheese (four tubs of the kind from Trader Joe's!), 500ml heavy cream
whip mascarpone, whip cream, then fold your three creamy components into each other in order of increasing airiness (zabaglione into mascarpone, then that into whipped cream)

Assemble the treat:
2 cups strong espresso, 3 tbsp Kahlua or any other liqueur, 2 Tbs sugar, lots of lady fingers (about 3 packages of the kind from Trader Joe's)
Combine all but the cookies into a Pyrex pourer or just a mug. Make a bed of lady fingers by soaking them one by one* until their centers just give way and placing them side by side in a lasagna dish. Paint them with more of the Kahlua coffee, then top with half of the cloud layer. Repeat. Refrigerate overnight, dust with cocoa, and serve!

*Tip: before dipping, unwrap all the cookies you foresee fitting into the dish (recycle plastics and flatten cardboards! Disturbing thought from the break: do Bay Area things actually get recycled?). Allows for uninterrupted dips.

Wish I had a photo of the tiramisu, but it went away quickly, as tiramisus should! Here instead I present to you a mom's fridge so happy to see you that items topple out in greeting.

April snow

will make the good things grow

Obsessed with the C-G-D-A-E in "A Day In The Life"

my father's namesake

Saturday, March 23, 2019, was a day that defies summary, so I'll let the photos lead as usual.

First Evangelical Lutheran Church, stained glass, trumpet song. A eulogy about the "man who stayed at home," whose story, like Leopold Bloom's, would be much harder to write and read than The Odyssey (and therefore/all the more worthwhile). And a quote from this book: 

I'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living

My [family] you'll be.

My cousin Delia taught me that the sweets in the lower left-hand corner are called "Buckeyes" and should not be consumed by University of Michigan fans.

Back at the aforementioned home: Great-Grandfather Ernst constructed hundreds of drawers to house everything from staples to solder, and Great-Uncle Bill contorted pipes to fit crawlspaces.

Great-Aunt Norma forms flowers from bread dough, on display in the shop, home, and here. Framed:

You never really leave 

the people you have loved. 

Part of them stays with you, 

leaving a part of you with them.

Here's my mom with two periwinkle-colored roses in her ears! Aunt Norma lovingly gave them to us, along with an ingredient for her six-decade marriage: "Respect."

An afternoon spent poring over pictures, with yellow lamplight gradually replacing the white of day.

Very fruitful poring! Top: my grandma Marion as a child (center), holding a tinier Great-Uncle Bill. Next generation back: passports (Reisepässen) from 1926 featuring my great-grandparents, Ernst Rudloff and Margarethe Bardenhagen. Great-Grandma ("Urgroßmutti") passed her prominent "Bardenhagen" nose to almost everyone in the house that afternoon. I did a lil google and discovered that Rudloff and Bardenhagen roughly translate to "fame and glory wolf" and "poets in an enclosure," respectively. Lastly, another generation back: my great-great-grandparents, one of whom was also a William. I think Great-Uncle Bill resembles his grandmother.

My great-grandparents' resting place, less than two miles from the home that their son lived in for most of his life. His ashes will stay, too, and when commingled with Aunt Norma's will be the bed for a tree.

And the very best reunion: I hadn't seen Delia and Uncle Bob for about ten years. My heart was full at last, and I felt like I could talk to them forever. Looking forward to having everyone together again one day. If Delia and I plan à la Parent Trap, that day will be within a year!

To end: Back at the Days Inn with Aunt Norma's flowers in my hair, processing each conversation. I am filled with love for my family: Great-Aunt Norma, Aunt Connie, Uncle David, Aunt Karen, and all their children, as well as for my dear own Breck-Grimes family. Thank you, Uncle Bill, for loving your family so well, and for bringing us together again. I wish I had met you sailing the lakes or the skies.

Psalm 23:6

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

When pages are places

Some choice passages from The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann.

Seasons

Behold “a wide, luxuriantly green park of hardwoods, of elms, planes, beeches, maples, birches, with subtle gradations in the colors of the full, fresh, glossy foliage. Their tops rustled gently in the breeze, and the air was perfumed with their delicate, moist balm... A rainbow stretched across flank of the landscape... shimmering in pure splendor and flowing like rich oils down into the dense, lustrous green” (480-481). Rattlesnake Mountain, Oct 2018.

“The sun abruptly hid itself... and a wind bearing cold, alien air that went to your bones and seemed to have come from unknown regions of ice suddenly swept down through the valley, setting the temperature plunging and inaugurating a whole new regimen” (92). The wind bowl, Feb 2019.

We could tell that “spring had definitely arrived, a spring without any hint of summer’s oppressiveness—with spicy, light, thin air, with a radiant, silvery-blue sky and blossoming meadows as colorful as a child’s paint box” (364). Middlebury Organic Farm, May 2018. Photo by Yuki.

Waiting for “great masses of Alpine campion and wild pansies, daisies, marguerites, cowslips in red and yellow—much larger and more beautiful than any Hans Castorp remembered seeing in the flatlands, that is, to the extent that he had ever paid any attention to them—plus nodding soldanella, little ciliated bells of blue, purple, and pink, a specialty of the region” (365). Garden-peeping in Meredith, Aug 2018.

Boredom

“What is the cause of the enervation and apathy that arise when the rules of life are not abrogated from time to time? It is not so much the physical and mental exhaustion and abrasion that come with the challenges of life (for these, in fact, simple rest would be the best medicine); the cause is, rather, something psychological, our very sense of time itself—which, if it flows with uninterrupted regularity, threatens to elude us... Emptiness and monotony may stretch a moment or even an hour and make it 'boring,' but they can likewise abbreviate and dissolve large, indeed the largest units of time, until they seem nothing at all. Conversely, rich and interesting events are capable of filling time, until hours, even days, are shortened and speed past on wings; whereas on a larger scale, interest lends the passage of time breadth, solidity, and weight, so that years rich in events pass much more slowly than do paltry, bare, featherweight years that are blown before the wind and are gone" (102). Winter storm, Feb 2019.

Variety is the spice of life: "What people call boredom is actually an abnormal compression of time caused by monotony... When one day is like every other, then all days are like one, and perfect homogeneity would make the longest life seem very short, as if it had flown by in a twinkling. Habit arises when our sense of time falls asleep, or at least, grows dull; and if the years of youth are experienced slowly, while the later years of life hurtle past at an every-increasing speed, it must be habit that causes it. We know full well that the insertion of new habits or the changing of old ones is the only way to preserve life, to renew our sense of time, to rejuvenate, intensify, and retard our experience of time—and thereby renew our sense of time itself" (102). Nobody likes you when you're 23, Jan 2019.

Coming and going: "[This] is the reason for every change of scenery and air, for a trip to the shore: the experience of a variety of refreshing episodes. The first few days in a new place have a youthful swing to them, a kind of sturdy, long stride—that lasts for about six to eight days. Then, to the extent that we 'settle in,' the gradual shortening becomes noticeable. Whoever clings to life, or better, wants to cling to life, may realize to his horror that the days have begun to grow light again and are scurrying past... To be sure, this refreshment of our sense of time extends beyond the interlude; its effect is noticeable again when we return to our daily routine. The first few days at home after a change of scene are likewise experienced in a new, broad, more youthful fashion—but only a very few, for we are quicker to grow accustomed to the old rules than to their abrogation. And if our sense of time has grown weary with age or was never all that strongly developed—a sign of inborn lack of vitality [is this me]—it very soon falls asleep again, and within twenty-four hours it is as if we were never gone and our journey was merely last night’s dream” (103). Routine, Jan 2019.

Spacetime: t, x, y, z

The classroom where we ask: “What is time? A secret—insubstantial and omnipotent. A prerequisite of the external world, a motion intermingled and fused with bodies existing and moving in space. But would there be no time, if there were no motion? No motion, if there were no time? What a question! Is time a function of space? Or vice versa? Or are the two identical? An even bigger question! Time is active, by nature it is much like a verb, it both 'ripens' and 'brings forth.' And what does it bring forth? Change! Now is not then, here is not there—for in both cases motion lies in between. But since we measure time by a circular motion closed in on itself, we could just as easily say that its motion and change are rest and stagnation—for the then is constantly repeated in the now, the there in the here. Moreover, since, despite our best desperate attempts, we cannot imagine an end to time or a finite border around space, we have decided to 'think' of them as eternal and infinite—in the apparent belief that even if we are not totally successful, this marks some improvement. But does not the very positing of eternity and infinity imply the logical, mathematical negation of things limited and finite, their relative reduction to zero? Is a sequence of events possible in eternity, a juxtaposition of objects in infinity? How does our makeshift assumption of eternity and infinity square with concepts like distance, motion, change, or even the very existence of a finite body in space? Now there’s a real question for you!” (339). Sep 2018.

“We walk and we walk—how long has it been now? How far? It does not matter. And at every step, nothing changes—‘there’ is now ‘here,’ ‘before’ is both ‘now’ and ‘then.’ Time drowns in the unmeasured monotony of space. Where uniformity reigns, movement from point to point is no longer movement; and where movement is no longer movement, there is no time” (537). The commute, Jan 2019. Photo by Nicole.

Topic 9.3, resolving two distant stars: “It was a faith like any other, only worse and more obtuse than the rest... The ether of space—that was exact, was it? The atom, that nice little mathematical joke, ‘the smallest, indivisible particle’—proved, was it? The theory of infinite space and time—that was definitely based on experience, was it? Indeed, with just a modicum of logic, one could achieve very amusing results from the dogma of infinite space and time—to wit, nothing. To wit, the insight that realism was true nihilism. And why? For the simple reason that in relation to infinity any given unit of mass approached zero. There was no size in infinity, and no duration or change in eternity, either. In infinite space, given that every distance is the mathematical equivalent of zero, there could be no two adjacent points, let alone a body, let alone movement…What blasphemous nonsense, ultimately, to measure the ‘distance’ of some star or other from the earth in trillions of miles or even light-years and to imagine that by the ruse of number you had given the human spirit an insight into the nature of infinity and eternity—when infinity had absolutely nothing to do with size, nor eternity with duration and distances in time… Indeed, the child’s simple belief that stars were holes in the tent of heaven through which eternal brightness shone was many thousand times dearer to his heart than all the empty, absurd, and presumptuous babble about the ‘cosmos’ perpetuated by monistic science” (681-683). Christmas tea lights, Dec 2018.

“Space, as it rolls and tumbles away between him and his native soil, proves to have powers normally ascribed only to time; from hour to hour, space brings about changes very like those time produces, yet surpassing them in certain ways. Space, like time, gives birth to forgetfulness, but does so by removing an individual from all relationships and placing him in a free and pristine state—indeed, in but a moment it can turn a pedant and philistine into something vagabond. Time, they say, is water from the river Lethe, but alien air is a similar drink; and if its effects are less profound, it works all the more quickly” (4). CNY in NH, Feb 2019.

Music {and, vs., in} written word

Debatable: “Yes, I am a fancier of music—which is not to say that I particularly revere it—not, for instance, as I love and revere the written word, the bearer of the human intellect, the tool, the shining plow of progress. Music…there is something only semi-articulate about it, something dubious, irresponsible, indifferent... Let music assume its most high-minded pose. Fine! And then our emotions are inflamed. And yet the real point would be to inflame our reason. Music, it would appear, is movement for its own sake—although I suspect it of quietism... Music is invaluable as the ultimate means for awakening our zeal, a power that draws the mind trained for its effects forward and upward. But literature must precede it. By itself, music cannot draw the world forward. By itself, music is dangerous” (111). Tomi Jazz waiting room, Feb 2019. Photo by Diana.

“Word was the glory of humankind, and it alone gave dignity to life. Not just humanism, but humanity itself, man’s dignity and self-respect—they were inseparable from the Word, from literature... And politics were bound up with literature, too—or rather they were derived from the oneness of humanity and literature. For the beautiful Word gave birth to the beautiful deed” (158). 4pm walk, Feb 2019.

“Music a story is like music in that it fills time, 'fills it up so nicely and properly,' 'divides it up,' so that there is 'something to it,' 'something going on'…Time is the element of narration, just as it is the element of life—it is inextricably bound up in it, as bodies are in space. It is also the element of music, which itself measures and divides time, making it suddenly diverting and precious; and related to music, as we have noted, is the story, which also can only present itself in successive events, as movement toward an end (and not as something suddenly, brilliantly present, like a work of visual art, which is pure body bound to time), and even if it would try to be totally here in each moment, would still need time for its presentation." Stories with the Giant Peach, Mar 2019.

t and t-prime: "The time element of music is singular: a segment of human earthly existence in which it gushes forth, thereby ineffably enhancing and ennobling life. Narrative, however, has two kinds of time: first, its own real time, which like musical time defines its movement and presentation; and second, the time of its contents, which has a perspective quality that can vary widely, from a story in which the narrative’s imaginary time is almost, or indeed totally coincident with its musical time, to one in which it stretches out over light-years. A musical piece entitled 'Five Minute Waltz' lasts five minutes—this and only this defines its relationship to time. A story whose contents involved a time span of five minutes, however, could, by means of an extraordinary scrupulosity in filling up those five minutes, last a thousand times as long—and still remain short on boredom, although in relationship to its imaginary time it would be very long in the telling. On the other hand, it is possible for a narrative’s content-time to exceed its own duration immeasurably." Old Country Store, Moultonborough, Mar 2019.

Love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts

“Man is the master of contradictions, they occur through him, and so he is more noble than they. More noble than death, too noble for it—that is the devotion of his heart... Love stands opposed to death—it alone, and not reason, is stronger than death. Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts... I will keep faith with death in my heart, but I will clearly remember that if faithfulness to death and to what is past rules our thoughts and deeds, that leads only to wickedness, dark lust, and hatred of humankind. For the sake of goodness and love, man shall grant death no dominion over his thoughts” (487). Cheery dining hall day, Feb 2019.

As Hans fights in WWI: “Farewell, Hans—whether you live or stay where you are! You chances are not good. The wicked dance in which you are caught up will last many a little sinful year yet, and we would not wager much that you will come out whole. To be honest, we are not really bothered by leaving the question open. Adventures in the flesh and spirit, which enhanced and heightened your ordinariness, allowed you to survive in the spirit what you probably will not survive in the flesh. There were moments when, as you 'played king,' you saw the intimation of a dream of love rising up out of death and this carnal body. And out of this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever that inflames the rainy evening sky all around—will love someday rise up out of this, too?” (706). Looking ahead at Land's End Labyrinth, Aug 2018.

Bits and bats

According to my AP Physics teacher, Mr. Davis, one should only ever invest in “education and property—behold the bourgeoisie!” (504). Another kind of reading: https://davidbach.com/books/. Smart Women Finish Rich tells all about pretax retirement account.

The attitude I should have had in discussion classes: “I’m talking nonsense, I know, but I would rather babble away and at least partially express something difficult than reproduce impeccable cliches” (576).

Silicon Valley fashion: “There he sat, sporting a little beard that he had let grow out by then…which we are forced to interpret as a sign of a certain philosophical indifference to his appearance” (688).

中庸之道: “Humanist—certainly I am that. You will never find me guilty of ascetic tendencies. I affirm, I respect, I love the body, just as I affirm, respect, and love form, beauty, freedom, mirth, and pleasure—just as I champion the ‘world,’ the interests of life against sentimental flight from the world, classicismo against romanticismo” (245).

The essential little intervention: “He saw that the enchantment was broken, that he was released, set free—not by his own actions, as he had to admit to his shame, but set free by elementary external forces, for whom his liberation was a very irrelevant matter” (702).

Youtubers: “To be human was to be ill... and whoever sought to make him healthy and attempted to get him to make peace with nature, to “return to nature” (whereas he had never been natural), the whole pack of Rousseauian prophets—regenerators, vegetarians, fresh-air freaks, sunbath apostles, ad so forth—wanted nothing more than to dehumanize man and turn him into an animal. Humanity? Nobility? The Spirit was what distinguished man—a creature set very much apart from nature, with feelings very much contrary to nature—from the rest of organic life. Therefore, the dignity and nobility of man was based in the Spirit, in illness. In a word, the more ill a man was the more highly human he was, and the genius of illness was more human than that of health” (457). I still like Youtubers.

Cures, and "next" is a weird word

At my piano teacher's 80th birthday party two weeks ago, there wasn't too much conversation; I marveled once at the syncopated slaps of noodle-slurping against silence. We then engaged in the master's postprandial party activity of choice: listening to a recording of Schubert's string quintet. No phones were checked for four movements (save one stealthy student's, under the piano). My teacher's expressions incited imaginings of what eighty years must have brought into those forty-five minutes. Considered the reverse case as well. 

Anyway—I now listen to this piece during ~loner lunch~ (good acoustics in the classroom). It keeps playing as my favorite section of students trickles in for a .ppt-heavy hour. 

A KDFC listener called in to cite a Beethoven violin sonata (unsure which) as a cure for depression. Not physiological phooey: Beethoven's powers of mood-mending and mind-molding cured me just last night (it was amazing! I fell asleep pleasantly emptied of the will to wake, which is fine because it returned with the arpeggio alarm of yore). 22:38-22:58 above are worth your half-minute, and then in context, of course.

I hadn't heard these late sonatas until I met the one whose ghost still inspires the occasional 1 AM letter-to-God: "What was the point?!" At 1:30, I listen to these pieces and I am answered. A boon. So, thkunxt

best gift from Jurby!