The quoted section in the headline above referring to the composer and lyricist of this “Brilliant Song” selection may look odd, but like so many other matters in United States history, it is all tangled up in the legacy of slavery that in many ways serves as the primary fault line whose cracks continue to influence our cultural and political life. Type “Swannanoa Tunnel” into You Tube and you can scroll through cover songs from a wide variety of artists for a very long time before reaching its end. I stopped counting at 50, and listened to at least half…
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I have no idea anymore how I came across Clint Mansell’s chilling musical composition, “Lux Aeterna.” Literally translated as “eternal light,” the words are from the ending prayer of the Latin mass for the dead, beseeching God to be merciful in shining light and love on the departed for all eternity. One link or comment or other lure begets another, and whatever I was initially looking for was subsumed a few notes into the Kronos Quartet’s performance (see below). Mansell engaged the renowned group to serve as the musical interpreters of his friend Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream,” a…
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One of the wonderful things about essay collections is you don’t have to keep going. It’s a breeze to read an essay at a time, spaced a day or a week or at whatever interval you please, no need to keep a narrative thread in your head as you would, say, were you trying to read “War and Peace” BECAUSE YOU SHOULD, but then you get waylaid for a week because your basement floods or you took a vacation that didn’t turn out to really be one, and when you return to the tale you can no longer distinguish between…
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“Let us always remember: That those who thought the world could be ruled by hate and fear were wrong. Our country did not let that dark vision of humanity stand. That vigilance is still required to protect and secure us. That we are one people—drawn from different religious, ethnic and national origins—but that we have been forged into an extraordinary whole. We are American.” *** The words above are from former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice’s concluding remarks to attendees at a 9/11 memorial observance at the Pentagon on Friday, where she shared the lectern and…
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So I’d been all week seeking some pathway out of the chaos and rancor, some mode of reconciling the angers, shoutings, the sneerings with the longings for some sense, some refuge of comity and just plain normal. A retreat to the shelves for daily visitations with old friends D.T. Suzuki and Thich Nhat Hanh. With my now broken-binded and discolored edition of “The Dhammapada,” supposedly the Buddha’s very own words, purchased in the University of Redlands bookstore on October 26, 1977 for the princely sum of $3.45. (The date had helpfully been stamped on the opening page.) Took an extended…
