Speak, Euterpe

(An aside: I always thought it unfortunate that the muse of music should have such an ungainly name. Somebody should look into it.)

As a result, chiefly, of several nights of poor or insufficient sleep, I am in no state to do any serious thinking. (I would like to believe that some thought goes into posts on this-a-here web-log, though perhaps some readers may wish to correct that particular misapprehension of mine.) However, I would like to present two examples of admirable music, of divers and sundry kinds. Both are indisputably good, though the question of what makes music good will have to wait for another time.

Fretwork: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582:


Art Tatum: "Night and Day":

Religion Beyond Cliché

Clichés, as insufferable as they are, exist because they generally express things that are true. The most unfortunate thing about clichés is that, with prolonged exposure, they lose their effectiveness: we not only take the truth for granted, but begin to doubt its accuracy to begin with. This, as I see it, is one of the chief weaknesses of religion. Revolutionary ideas become Sunday-school platitudes, first disdained and then ignored entirely. (This goes some way towards explaining why, in a society permeated with Christian symbolism and mores, Christianity itself is not taken the least bit seriously. Granted, we've mostly ignored the teachings of Christ — "love thy neighbor", hmm? — for the last two thousand years, but at least there was a time when the religion itself was taken seriously.)

Occasionally we encounter situations that expose to us the very real truth behind the cliché: like a character in a Flannery O'Connor story, we are shocked into seeing the true nature of things, if only for a moment. Let us assume that it is better to seek unpleasant truth than to be contented with comfortable falsehood. (Only a hedonist could prefer the latter.) It is therefore beneficial to seek situations that lead to those experiences that make us more aware of reality, and likewise to avoid those things that keep us comfortably oblivious.

What is reality? From a Christian perspective, the ultimate — and indeed, the only — reality is that of God's love for us. (Come to think of it, this may apply to some other religions as well. But I won't make claims on behalf of other belief systems.) How, then, are we to become more aware of this? There are many arguments to be made for asceticism, for conscious renunciation of worldly pleasures. I suggest that the ascetic life, if it is one's vocation, is a good and noble calling; certainly we all "must achieve the character, and acquire the skills, to live much poorer than we do", as Mr Berry so admirably puts it. But it is clearly not the case that every man should flee to the monastery, or to the hermitage. What, then, is the course of action for he who is not called to seek God by himself? I hope to think about this further.

Washington, D.C.

Greetings, dear reader, from Our Nation's Capital. Though this is apparently the very worst time of year, weather-wise, to be here, I have found it a pleasant-enough place during this past week's vacation. Well, it is not technically a vacation, as I have been put to work: this morning I served as organist at Luther Place Memorial Church, which is on Thomas Circle, in what is a nice — if terribly gentrified — part of the city. The organ is a 4-manual Möller that has undergone several renovations, but it's not as bad as I feared. The reeds are surprisingly robust, but the mixtures emit a rather awful shriek, like some examples of less-fortuitous Orgelbewegung design.

The more places in this world I visit, the less inclined am I to see the sights everyone is enjoined to see. This is chiefly because one is always surrounded by tourists in such places, and tourists — especially, I have noted, American tourists — are almost always insufferable. (Perhaps this amounts to a measure of self-loathing on my part?) At the National Gallery of Art — which is a fine museum, though rather disappointing compared to my beloved Art Institute of Chicago — my experience was severely hampered by obnoxious tourists talking loudly and ignorantly, with art-school-reject tour guides shouting to be heard over them ("Now, the art in this room is a style known as Byzantine!"). Despite the ambiance, the collection is a good one. I find I am drawn the most to late medieval painting (Giotto is a particular favorite, and he has a wonderful Madonna and Child there) and to early Renaissance Netherlandish paintings: there's a spiritual richness there that one doesn't see in many other times and genres. Some things (e.g. American colonial art) leave me entirely cold.

Whilst in the city I have availed myself of various things one cannot do (not well, anyway) at home. I have discovered several excellent restaurants: perhaps the nicest surprise has been Julia's Empanadas, on Connecticut Avenue between M and N. (An empanada is, apparently, the Hispanic equivalent of the Cornish pasty: it is very tasty, indeed, at least at Julia's, and they are quite reasonably priced.) Today I took a yoga class: it was at a level a bit above my current skills (that is, none), but enjoyable nonetheless. And I have been wandering around various parts of the city. From what I have seen D.C. resembles far more closely a European city than its American counterparts: there's a sort of Hausmanesque plan to the streets, and indeed some impressive Second Empire architecture down closer to the Mall. The strict guidelines for building height make it a cozier — if more congested, traffic-wise — place to live. The metro and other mass transit services are not nearly as convenient or ubiquitous as those of Vienna, but one mustn't complain about such things.

All in all, it's not a bad city. No, indeed.