#411 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Saturday July 23)
Good morning,
MUSIC
Thank you, Ron Cappello, for sharing this rendition of 40 Fingers (four guitars) playing The Marriage of Figaro:
https://laughingsquid.com/mozart-marriage-of-figaro-40-fingers/
I’m drawn this week to folk tunes that make us think, like Blowin’ In the Wind, sung by Bob Dylan live on TV from 1963:
And “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds, also from a live TV performance:
POETRY
Many of you have visited Doheny Library, the main library on USC’s campus. What you may not know is that, directly below the main information desk, there is a rotunda in which special exhibits often are mounted. The rotunda was named the Sonnenberg Rotunda, in memory of my parents, some 10 years ago. If you visit, you will see a couple of plaques, including one wonderful quote that reminds me of my parents and their love of books—a love they passed along to Gale and me. It is these words of the great writer Jorge Luis Borges:
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.”
This week, some Borges:
Simplicity
By Jorge Luis Borges
It opens, the gate to the garden
with the docility of a page
that frequent devotion questions
and inside, my gaze
has no need to fix on objects
that already exist, exact, in memory.
I know the customs and souls
and that dialect of allusions
that every human gathering goes weaving.
I’ve no need to speak
nor claim false privilege;
they know me well who surround me here,
know well my afflictions and weakness.
This is to reach the highest thing,
that Heaven perhaps will grant us:
not admiration or victory
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones and trees.
Have a great weekend,
GlennHave a great weekend,
Glenn
From the archives: