Judy Garland - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

This is the only good version of this song: the original lyrics, which capture the exquisite melancholy of being separated from someone you love at Christmas. Note the date: 1944. Bing Crosby's and Karen Carpenter's voices were fantastic, but they ruined it by trying to make it more "positive" and "upbeat". I don't know the story behind the changing of the lyrics, but I can just picture Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra saying "Say, how 'bout we make this a little more upbeat? This song is depressing!" Bah, same mentality that added that dumb final verse to "Gloomy Sunday" about waking up and finding it was all a dream when they translated it to English. But by taking away the melancholy of the song, they took away its deeper meaning; because it's also a song of courage, and of hope. Foolish hope, perhaps. Many, many people who were separated from their loved ones in 1944 were never going to spend another Christmas with them. But when you're living on hope, it's all you have, and you have to do just what the song says: make the best of here and now, and keep hoping that that thing, whatever it is, is going to get better. Otherwise, the only alternative is melancholy's hideous cousin, despair.

"Minuet no. 60" - Danish String Quartet

This is lovely. My daughter heard this quartet on NPR and told me about them.

I danced a minuet in my first acting job (outside school plays). It was Cinderella, and I was a courtier and the captain of the guard. Also, in my brief time taking piano, I complained about having to learn children's songs like "Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star", and my teacher in frustration said, "Well, how about some Bach, then?" To which I replied, "Yes, please!" So the only thing I ever really learned on piano was Bach's Minuet in G. I was kind of a pain in the ass when I was young. Ha ha, yes, I know what you're thinking, so let me say it for you: "You're still a pain in the ass, Mike!"

Your pardon, if the nudes offend anyone. I didn't make the video. Although I personally have no objection to the aesthetic admiration of the feminine form, as long as one can do so without inordinate lust (which I can). God made the universe beautiful, and the very last thing he created was the most beautiful thing of all: the woman. "Rejoice in the wife of your youth...let her breasts satisfy thee always." (Proverbs 5:18-19)

Plutarch on Marital Relations

"Some men, either unable or unwilling to mount themselves into their saddles through infirmity or laziness, teach their horses to fall upon their knees, and in that posture to receive their riders. In like manner there are some persons who, having married young ladies not less considerable for the nobility of their birth than their wealthy dowries, take little care themselves to improve the advantages of such a splendid conjunction, but with a severe moroseness labor to depress and degrade their wives, proud of the mastery and vaunting in domestic tyranny. Whereas in this case it becomes a man to use the reins of government with as equal regard to the quality and dignity of the woman as to the stature of the horse." -- Plutarch, Conjugal Precepts

I came across this today, and it struck me as a fine example of the inaccuracy of the standard modern feminist narrative of the past. That is, that before feminism came and enlightened us and set women free from the shackles and dungeons of patriarchalism, all women were everywhere oppressed by cruel men who valued them not at all except for the pleasure and fruit their bodies afforded. Here is an example from the first century A.D. of a man--a Greco-Roman and a pagan, no less, teaching other men that they should be respectful and gentle to their wives.

I, on the other hand, maintain that, though it is true, has been true, and unfortunately, always will be true (until the restoration of Justice and all things upon the Earth), that there are bad men who treat women badly, that the patriarchal past is not nearly so monolithically oppressive and evil as they pretend. There were men who treated their wives badly. And there were men who treated their wives well. Just as there are now. Different ages and cultures contained varying mixes of the two: one could very easily say, for example that women were treated much better on the whole in Victorian England than they were in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. I would argue that women are treated much worse on average in relationships by men in our society today than they were a hundred, or even fifty years ago. But there have always been good men, who genuinely love women and desire and strive to treat them kindly and with respect and dignity.

But the feminist narrative is not about accuracy or truth. It is propaganda, pure and simple. In order to sell a radical ideology, one must create a dichotomy of oppressor class vs. victim class, and then re-write history and define the world according to that view. Communists use proletariat and bourgeoisie; Nazis used Jews and Arians; the French reign of terror used common and noble; and feminists use women and men.

As an example, feminists reading this passage will no doubt seize immediately upon the use of the horse as a metaphor, and claim that Plutarch is equating women to livestock. But in reality, it is just a metaphor: just as, when Jesus uses agricultural parables to demonstrate spiritual truths, he is not equating his disciples to plants in value or worth--it's just a metaphor. Focus instead, on his actual theme--that husbands should show "equal regard to the quality and dignity of the woman". And it's not equal regard to the quality and dignity of the horse--it's to the physical stature of the horse, in regard to mounting it. Again, metaphor. Meaning that the man must himself rise up to the challenge of being the husband of a woman of quality and dignity, as he must make the effort to mount a tall horse, rather than lowering the horse to his own level.

Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann / Act 3 - Barcarolle (Arr. For Violin, ...

I am left breathless.

"One who pricks the eye will make tears fall, and one who pricks the heart bares its feelings."

Ecclesiasticus 22:19

"It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."
-- Jesus

(from Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich)

"What does that feel like?" she asked.
We were talking about being in love. True love.

She was a pretty girl, with a big dog, who was curled up at my feet.
She'd gotten out of her Volvo,
barefoot, long hair loose
her femininity showing through her thin cotton t-shirt
While I was sitting at a roadside crossing
reclining against my backpack
boots off
eating trail mix and jerky
and thinking about the coming rain

Over the next few days, we crossed paths several times
She said she was trying to make it to the North Carolina border and back over the weekend
But I met her coming back the other direction, and she kept showing up
like she couldn't make up her mind
And we talked

I should probably have been hitting on her
It felt like that's what she wanted
But instead, we ended up talking about You.

"When she walks by," I answered,
"I see sparkly fairy-trails behind her.
When she's in the same room,
I hear a faint hum, just below the silence,
like angels' music.
When she's in the same building,
I feel a warm glow in my chest,
like opium.
Just knowing that she is in the world,
even if I never see her again,
makes me see it as a brighter, more beautiful place,
And loving her
makes me love everyone else more."

"In this vision he also showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut in the palm of my hand, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with my mind's eye and thought, 'What can this be?'  And the answer came to me, 'It is all that is made.' I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly have disappeared. And the answer in my mind was, It lasts and will last for ever, because God loves it; and everything exists in the same way by the love of God." -- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

 Breakfast of champions

I love complimenting ladies. I love the way a girl's face looks when she feels pretty. And how, sometimes, she can't help but prance a little bit in her movements when she feels herself being admired.

"Nobody can write a new fairy tale ; you can only mix up and dress up the old, old stories, and put the characters in new dresses."

 -- Andrew Lang  

Signs

Do you remember the day I gave you the bouquet?
Of yellow roses blushing pink at the tips of their petals
And deep pink-crimson ones
Arranged to match the pattern on the antique china vase in which they were set

Yellow roses turning pink
mean friendship turning to love
I didn't know that at the time
But it was right

Nor did I know
that they were your favorite rose
But that, too, was right

I didn't know, still, which one you meant
So I gave you another one of each
another time
And asked which was your favorite
You pointed to the yellow and pink one
with your little finger
and a little tremble in your hand

We sat together that day at the ice cream parlour
you fidgeted and fussed, and put on the scarf I'd complimented before
then took it off
then put it back on again
and arranged it to look pretty
You glanced at me, and then away
and then at me, and then away

Did you ever realize
that just after you met me
was when you caught the bouquet at your cousin's wedding?
The picture is gone now, but I still remember the proud, shy smile
Half-playful
But half pleased and wanting to believe that it truly did mean something
And the caption: "High time!"

Do you remember the last day we were friends?
The day I gave you the basket full of rasperries
that I'd picked myself
washed, and sorted
dried, then carefully arranged in layers
with wax paper and tissue paper in brilliant aquamarine blue
to match your eyes
and a ribbon of the same color wrapped around the handle
and tied in a bow

Do you remember, as you left the party that day
after coming to say goodbye to me on the front porch
where I sat, smoking my pipe
the way you looked at me
over your shoulder
as you walked away?

Still

I was thinking this morning
that it's time to move on.

I still love you.
I always will.
I'll never love anyone
Like I've loved you.

But I could find someone
to love with a different kind of love.

But then I'm out
I'm surrounded by beautiful young women
And all I can do is imagine you
Walking up to me
Saying Hello
Like you did on that cold Midwinter evening in Staunton.

"Hi, Mike."
I close my eyes.
I hear your voice.
I see your smile.

"Hi, Mike."
I've never particularly cared for my own name.
But I like it when you say it.

I close my eyes.
I hear your voice.
I see your smile
Your blush.
I feel the warmth of your presence
The glow of your femininity.
I sigh.
I stand and leave.

"Do not be afraid, for she was destined for you from eternity. You will save her, and she will accompany you."

 -- Tobit 6:18

Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen

The Lord's Prayer sung in Aramaic

Aside from the power and beauty of the music, there's something particularly touching about this, because it's the language in which Jesus originally spoke the prayer to his disciples.

The Fruit of my Labors

Remember all that digging up rocks and building of planters I did last summer? Well here's my reward.

The Temptations - Just my Imagination

"But at night-time, when the house was empty, and there was nothing to do...I'd always think of Jenny."