Gloss on my Lips.

Dear Lovelies,

I'll be brief:  A Girl-Power two song set for today, and a place to buy good clothes from nice women sewing it all together for you in North Carolina.

Song #1.

Song #2.

Clothing.

Eat at Joe's.

Tempera painting by Charles K. Wilkinson- 

depicting the Astronomical Ceiling of the Tomb of Senenmut,

1479, BC. From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Hello Humans,

My home just got a new name-  I have been calling my place "Twittering Patch;"  I painted it on the rail fence that was here before I arrived.  On the inside of the fence, I painted this message: "Happy Trails."  That's what you read when you leave. 

My home, and probably yours, too, is now featured in a galactic map, and the name they give our home in a cavern, in a canyon, in a super cluster, is Laniakea.  That's all very nice and poetic, but I am going to call it Joe's Place, and I invite you to join me;  or go me one better, and give it another name of your own.

Here is another way to consider our ever-expanding knowledge of the other, of "not-us," from author T. E. Lawrence, from his memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  You might be familiar with his story as having been the basis for the film Lawrence of Arabia.

          Nasir rolled over on his back, with my glasses, and began to study the stars, counting aloud first one group and then another; crying out with surprise at discovering little lights not noticed by his unaided eye.  Auda set us on to talk of telescopes- of the great ones-  and of how man in three hundred years had so far advanced from his first essay that now he built glasses as long as a tent, through which he counted thousands of unknown stars.  'And the stars - what are they?'  We slipped into talk of suns beyond suns, sizes and distance beyond wit.  'What will now happen with this knowledge?' asked Mohammed.  'We shall set to, and many learned and some clever men together will make these glasses as more powerful than ours, as ours than Galileo's; and yet more hundreds of astronomers will distinguish and reckon yet more thousands of now unseen stars, mapping them, and giving each one its name.  When we see them all, there will be no night in heaven.'

     'Why are the Westerners always wanting all?' provokingly said Auda.  'Behind our few stars we can see God, who is not behind your millions.'

Here's a little song that beats around this same bush; and here is a beautiful film that always delights me,  from Ray and Charles Eames.


Happy trails to you, until we meet again!

The Bounding Main.

Press here, for accompaniment.



 

 

 



 

 

What does the whale say?

Come; See Brigadoon.

Dear Space-Conscious,

Today I want to direct you to a wonderful ceramic artist:  Toshiko Takaezu.  To put us in the right frame of mind to appreciate her beautiful vessels, imagine first, the poetic and wonderful paradox of a container that cannot be empty nor can it be filled.

At the Crocker Museum, in Sacramento, I saw some of these lovely pieces, and they were so very right.  They were like the Sisters of Mercy.  These containers answered all of my questions:  I hope you run into them soon.  Learn what messages these containers have for you, at your own languid pace, in this beautiful book..

They were overflowing with feeling and presence.  Here is another song that seems an apt metaphor for the contents of the containers:  The Whole of the Moon. 

Now, let's listen to what Ms. Takaezu has to say about her work.

An Interview with Toshiko Takaezu from D.B.Long on Vimeo.






How about a little reprise?  And another?



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consider.

Dear Cronies and Allies,

I hope you can all join me today in a cup of consideration.  There are three referrals, but they will take some time, both to read and to consider.  Maybe you should make a cup of tea, now, and then come back and open these links:


Canary in a Coal Mine.

The Myth of Civilization.


You probably already hear these fine and carefully curated poems on the radio, or you read them on your device (such a titillating term for a technological gizmo!), but today's poem (Seasons, by W. S. Merwin), is especially relevant;  Take the time to enjoy it at the link below:

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Pithy Little Phrases.

 

 

Dear Darlings,

Thinking of you today, and I send you a catchy, clever, and charming song constructed largely of aphorisms and colloquial phrases.  The name of the band is Lamb's Ear and the song is Then I'm Going Home.  It gives one an idea of how much can be done with pieces strung up in a line, you know?  A little quilt, a counterpane of conversational quips.  It will send you to your guitar and your paper, to write and play. 

Extremely tangentially, there is also this treasure:  Habu Textiles.  A website like Habu has visitors longing for touch-o-vision. 

Browse and listen with pleasure, and then go home.

Compare. Contrast. Conclude.

Hello Again Music Lovers,

I bumped into a difference recently, and it knocked me right over.  I have been listening faithfully to Pieter Wispelwey's Bach Suites for Cello Solo for 20 years.  I foolishly imagined I was getting to know the Bach cello suites fairly well

And yet, I have not scraped the surface.  Here is another great cellist, Pablo Casals, playing Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.  Lovely, and so different from Pieter Wispelwey.  Wispelwey is here, but with only a very small section of the Prelude to Suite No. 1.  I am hoping, though, that you get the sense of how differently these two are playing the piece. 

I am a great dilettante of classical music-  in other words, I know nothing, but I attend with enormous adoration and enthusiasm.  So, why is Casals so much more angular, hard, swift and sharp?  While Wispelwey breezes and rounds the sounds down like river stones?  I am enjoying a fanciful explanation of my own devising, where Casals was born in a steep and rocky valley, and sounds echoed off the high cliffs like bells being rung;  And Wispelwey was born with the ceaseless sound of the sea roaring and the slow moaning of the fog horn.  When Casals sees his page of notes, he sees staccato, distinct marks to be rapped out by his bow, while Wispelwey sees his sheet of music like a line drawing, each note connected by his bow.

Which is to completely overlook the possibility that it is the cellos themselves that are playing the piece according to their own whimsy and personality....







PS  The small snippet of 'produced' video of Pieter Wispelwey talking, cannot compete with the charming and straightforward black and white filming of wordless Pablo Casals. Further study is indicated, and you must go and listen to recordings of these two and many other cellists in order to draw your conclusions.