Beato on Bach (and me on everybody else...)

Rick Beato is a real musician and his videos are often surprising. Like this one, a tribute to Bach and Glenn Gould:

One of the joys of growing up on Vancouver Island in the 60s was that on CBC TV on Sunday afternoons you would often find Glenn Gould playing Bach on piano, or Orlando Gibbons on harpsichord or telling us remarkable things about music as in this video. Yes, all that is gone from television.

Now let me share a few out of the way cultural things. First of all, a couple of poems. No-one reads poems any more, let alone writes them. One exception was Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer who in his pre-vampire days was a rather feckless poet. Here is the first part of a poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1502 - 1542)

They flee from me that sometime did me seek,

With naked foot stalking in my chamber:

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not once remember

That sometime they have put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Written when he was in prison. This is from a wonderful anthology The Oxford Book of English Verse, the New Edition of 1941. This is an excerpt from a song lyric by Leonard Cohen:

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for

trying to change the system from within. I'm coming

now, I'm coming to reward them. First we take Man-

hattan, then we take Berlin

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by the

birthmark on my skin. I'm guided by the beauty of our

weapons. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

Next, from a famous poem by Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream:

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are use to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

How about a couple of books? One of the most enjoyable books I have ever read is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Not only is it a great science fiction adventure, but it is the first book that I know of that has an artificial intelligence as a protagonist. It is also a libertarian novel and, that rarity, a tragedy. Master and Commander is perhaps the finest historical novel ever written, by Patrick O'Brian--and it starts with a string quartet concert on Minorca. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is probably the funniest novel ever written, and a quick read.

That ought to keep you occupied for a few days!