“Home” most always represents both a real, particular place and a metaphor with almost unparalleled richness in human life. Home, as the ancient maxim has it, is not only where our hearts are, but also where we lay our heads down on familiar pillows in beloved zones of comfort, where we are (or at least nurture a hope to be) most ourselves and most accepted and understood as the selves we are. It’s where we go to regather ourselves in times of turmoil and crisis, whether of inner identity or outer world upheava. To “go home” is to “call it…
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Amidst the chill of a world seeming to spiral ever deeper into an abyss, with spring making its usual valiant effort to overcome the darkness, could we maybe help it with an exquisite extra dollop of light? In the words of a certain ex-president: “Yes, we can!” So we will, in this uncustomarily short (!!) blog post I will soon turn over to the Swiss street cellist who bills himself as “Jodoc Cello” (real surname, “Vuill”). A few notes in, he is joined by an unknown violinist seemingly strolling by and inspired to create an ad hoc duo. (Though I…
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To be born female in this world since its very beginning is to have experienced a certain kind of powerlessness, sourced, very simply, in a relative lack of muscle mass and the particular burdens of childbirth. These brute facts of biology have dictated women being less effective hunters of prey, and thus subject to domination by their more physically imposing male counterparts and sometimes companions. (Talk about an old story…) But underneath that competitive imbalance lies an often latent, sometimes wayward, increasingly confident and directed ferocity. An inner strength gathering itself over eons now, cracking the foundations of male hegemony…
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The assaults, the responses, the anguish, the questions, the cruelty, the concern, the reprisals, the relentless tsunami of invective and resultant anxiety. The anger and exhaustion, which is largely the intent. The despair which creeps in quietly underneath, simmering… And still, with Maya Angelou, we must rise. But not today. Not this moment. We must protect ourselves, too, by tending regularly to our zones of joy. Today, beauty, for beauty’s sake. (And our own.) Though with a loop back into history near the end. *** *** Leoš Janáček (pronounced “Lowsh Yun-ahh-check”) was a Czech classical composer who made abundant use…
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All right, so we will let pass without further comment the strange coincidence of the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.—and all the noble ideals he stood and died for—falling this year on the same day as the inauguration of the incoming president. We shall instead focus on another profoundly decent man who also called us to our better angels over a long career of music-making. I, perhaps like you, have sung David Mallett’s music out loud on various occasions over many years now without even knowing who he was. His “Garden Song” (“Inch by inch, row by row….”) has…