Seamus Heaney has noted that if a person has a single poem in his head, one that he returns to and through which, even in small ways, he understands his life better, this constitutes a devotion to the art. It is enough. ~ Christian Wiman, quoted in a wonderfully contrarian essay called “The Case Against Reading Everything”
I still think the greatest gift you can give your kids is easy exposure to interesting things. Not compelling them to go see things, but making them feel that art and literature are just parts of the world. ~ Adam Gopnik, in a thoughtful profile
Imagine if the New York Review of Books had hired a slightly stoned Edwardian fop as art director and you’ve got … Rolling Stone at its point of highest development.
Very proud of my sister-in-law, Krista Costin, who is performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the MN Orchestra.
Snack time, listening to and imitating Auntie @kristacostin live on #classicalmpr. Sounds wonderful! #auntikrista #bach
This interview with Sonny Rollins is amazing.
The idea of jazz is so spiritual, and it has such great qualities, that it will always withstand whatever the larger culture is.
I loved fishing and silence. Walking in the hills…. I didn’t talk much. Had opinions about everything. Life and death. Good and evil. I was a film buff. Loved music. I’d stopped reading contemporary novels. More than anything, I loathed half-hearted, spineless people.
Tonight’s listening: Emerson String Quartet, Chaconnes and Fantasias: Music of Britten and Purcell. It’s beautiful and mysterious music, highly recommended.
Two exceptional recent Commonweal essays: David Bentley Hart demolishes an attempt to defend the death penalty Samuel Moyn reviews Jeremy Waldron’s new book on equality While you’re there, go ahead and also read Anthony Domestico on what you can learn about Millennials by reading their novels rather than silly Internet “think pieces” about them (that is, us).
The Brad Mehldau show tonight at the Dakota Jazz Club was so, so good. Among the highlights from a set filled with new material: A new Mehldau tune, “Bel and the Dragon” A new, wildly polyrhythmic composition co-written by Ballard and Mehldau A beautiful rendition of “Wolfgang’s Waltz,” from an album, Rising Grace, that I’ve been listening to constantly over the past couple weeks What a gift to see musicians like these in one’s city.