Musings on Music, Love, Life and not only

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“Love is a drama of contradictions.”
— Franz Kafka

“Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.”
— Franz Kafka (Diaries of Franz Kafka 1914-1923)

“And I leave my post of observation and find I have had enough of this outside life; I feel that there is nothing more that I can learn here, either now or at any time. And I long to say a last goodbye to everything up here, to go down into my burrow never to return again, let things take their course, and not try to retard them with my profitless vigils.”
— Franz Kafka (The Basic Kafka)

“Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.”
— Franz Kafka

“All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.”
— Franz Kafka

From correspondence with my friend.

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I:

[…]  I don’t like Salsa music.

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He:

There is no salsa music; under 80% of world songs you can dance salsa. Term “salsa music” is created by people, who don’t understand concept of dancing.

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I:

Since it is clearly not a compliment, should I consider it as an invitation for a fight?  LOL

[…there was a link of a song, not a Salsa one…]
This one is not Salsa.  And I like it whatever your opinion might be.  Taste is always a personal matter.  I think.

You are stuck in an adolescent stage; I will send you the explanation once I have it.  Stop teaching the world, relax and enjoy today and NOW.

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He:

“You are stuck in an adolescent stage” – thank you for this – because this is the highest compliment possible.

The problem is that most of the people (99.99% period) never pass this stage (not only “stuck”) – they are born old – and that is the main problem of mankind - people are old – cannot learn, enjoy, evolve – and if they cannot do that, guess, who they are – right – they are our old friends – idiots.

By the way, who told you that I don’t enjoy life – this is exactly what I am doing all the time (probably, even too much) – because I am in “adolescent stage” of my life.

I see, you have last time some taste to have little fight with me – it is OK – the most important that it entertains you (I hope).

Regards & kisses (if allowed).

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I:

It makes me laugh.  I passed the stage of criticizing everyone & everything long time ago.  I was joking about fighting.  Frankly, I feel wiser than you and according to the theory of soul evolution; I am three stages further than you.  Don’t worry, there are people ahead of me – I still have a long way to go and suffer evolving.  That is why I said I will send you the info, once I have it, you wouldn’t believe me, of course, but it is not my goal to persuade.  But it requires reading. LOL

But I don’t feel superior.  To anyone.  I like people and they like me – it is genuine.  Passion & compassion go along way, so do love & kindness.

"Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never." — Franz Kafka

The reason I say you don’t enjoy life is that is how I see you.  Maybe it is not the image you want others to have… but it is for you to discover your own reflection.

Kissing in virtual space is fine, but in real life, I guess, these things are taken care of.  You know what is my love mystery?  It is passion.  I cannot go long without it.  It is passion for everything, for love, for life, for music, for dancing. I have no time for teaching world how wrong it is.  Besides, I don’t think the world is wrong or people are idiots for that matter.  Even my seven-year-old son is capable of saying things that amaze me.

We went to see an adult movie, never mind why, and it was a romantic comedy.  He asked me what a romantic comedy was and I said it was a funny movie about love.  You know what he said?  “Mom, there is nothing funny about love”.  There.  Then he cried during the movie when Julia Roberts wanted to leave the guy she was in love with.  It was priceless.  Love is always good answer and if there is no other meaning of life, love is a good one.

By the way, if you are a true Leo, that should be your thing – LOVE (besides being a teenager, LOL).  Am I wrong?  Don’t take it as insult, my son is Leo and he lives up to the promise of being full of LOVE.

All right, I am going for a walk – to enjoy the weather and the beauty of my favourite month & season.

Discourse

When I talk about definitions, I think it is important.  For me, at least.

A discourse – a conversation, talk. (apart from other meanings).

Origin: Latin dis – in different directions + currere – run.

An example?  Oh, my goodness!  I often listen to the songs on the www.youtube.com.  And how many times I had encountered absolutely insane conversations!  Most of the time I just don’t even pay attention to what is there.  But once I was asked whether I am aware of the discussions under the clips.  Then I sort of started paying attention.

I picked a clip teaching beginners’ steps for Salsa.  And a discourse jewel on top.  Here it is – a priceless example of meanness and creativity.  And one of the participants had a good point, when he mentioned the importance of definitions.

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Participant 1:

Following your line of thinking, Spanish is actually a retarded deformation of Latin and Arabic.

Notwithstanding the fact that you are unaware of the definition of the words:

1) retarded

2) language

3) dialect

the fact remains that you are neither intelligent, nor insightful, nor useful as a human being. I hereby order you, in the name of the survival of the species, to cease existing immediately.

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I was just wondering what drives those conversations.  Some people would say anger.  But I am beginning to think that it is pure loneliness.  Maybe both.

Quotes on Discourse:

1. “All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome”

(Ben Jonson)

 

2. “Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”

(Thomas Carlyle)

 

3. “It’s our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It’s a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.”

(Deborah Tannen)

4. “The only privilege literature deserves – and this privilege it requires in order to exist – is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.”

(Salman Rushdie)

 

5. “Discourse may want an animated “No”

 

To brush the surface, and to make it flow;

 

But still remember, if you mean to please,

 

To press your point with modesty and ease.”

(William Cowper)

 

6. “The failures of the press have contributed immensely to the emergence of a talk-show nation, in which public discourse is reduced to ranting and raving and posturing.”

(Carl Bernstein)

As far as the author has been able to observe in the course of his life, most people, even the most educated, have neither any awareness nor any understanding of the fact that they exist in history.  The majority think that everything will always be the way it is today.  And if a historical event happens to have taken place before their very eyes, they see the reason for its occurrence in a temporal coincidence of misunderstandings.  And it seems to them that everything can be put back the way it was.  Some of them hope for this and others fear it.  Aglaya hoped and Shubkin feared, but neither of them understood that history does not make any reverse moves.  For better or for worse, a process was under way, and the further it proceeded, the more illusory Aglaya’ hopes appeared and the more pointless Shubkin’s fears became.  Of course, things did not actually go so far that Aglaya was punished for ruining the peasantry and Shubkin was glorified for the injuries he had suffered, but by and large there was a definite movement in a certain direction, …

Sergei Yesenin (4 Oct. 1895 – 27 Dec. 1925)

* * *

The golden birch-tree grove has fallen silent

Its merry chatter having stopped afore,

The cranes up there flying over, sullen,

Have nobody to pity any more.

Whom should they pity? Each is just a trotter.

One comes and goes and leaves for good again.

The moon and hempen bush above the water

Remember all those perished, filled with pain.

I’m standing on the plain all on my own,

The cranes, the wind is taking them away,

I think about my boyhood, which has flown,

And I do not regret my bygones anyway.

I don’t regret the days that I discarded,

I don’t feel sorry for the lilac of my soul.

The purple rowan burning in the garden

Can’t warm and comfort anyone at all.

The rowan will maintain its coloration.

The grass exposed to heat will not decease,

I drop my words of sorrow and vexation

The way a tree drops quietly its leaves.

And if some day the wind of time intended

To rake them all up in a useless roll…

You ought to say: the golden grove has ended

Its lovely chatter in the prime of fall.

1924

* * *

Отговорила роща золотая

Березовым, веселым языком,

И журавли, печально пролетая,

Уж не жалеют больше ни о ком.

Кого жалеть? Ведь каждый в мире странник -

Пройдет, зайдет и вновь покинет дом.

О всех ушедших грезит конопляник

С широким месяцем над голубым прудом.

Стою один среди равнины голой,

А журавлей относит ветром в даль,

Я полон дум о юности веселой,

Но ничего в прошедшем мне не жаль.

Не жаль мне лет, растраченных напрасно,

Не жаль души сиреневую цветь.

В саду горит костер рябины красной,

Но никого не может он согреть.

Не обгорят рябиновые кисти,

От желтизны не пропадет трава,

Как дерево роняет тихо листья,

Так я роняю грустные слова.

И если время, ветром разметая,

Сгребет их все в один ненужный ком…

Скажите так… что роща золотая

Отговорила милым языком.

Sergei Yesenin (4 Oct. 1895 – 27 Dec. 1925)

My Life

It appears, my life is fated to torment;

My way is dammed up by grief and distress.

My life has been severed from fun and enjoyment,

Vexation and wounds are afflicting my chest.

It seems I’m fated to suffer from pain.

All I have in this life are bad luck and misfortune.

I have suffered enough in this life, and again

Both my body and soul have been put to the torture.

The expanse, vast and hazy, promises joy,

Sighs and tears, however, are the real solutions.

A storm will break out, the thunder – oh boy! -

Will ruin the magical luscious illusions.

Now I know life’s deception, and nevertheless

I don’t want to complain of bad luck and misfortune.

So my soul doesn’t suffer from grief and distress,

No one ever can help to relieve me from torture.

 1911-1912

Sergei Yesenin (4 Oct. 1895 – 27 Dec. 1925)

* * *

I will not deceive myself, admitting

 I have worries in my heart, so dreary.

 Why am I reputed as a cheating

 Crook and trouble-maker, really?

 I am not a villain nor a thief in hiding,

 And I never shot imprisoned convicts.

 I am just a thoughtless idler, smiling

 Friendly and avoiding conflicts.

 I am a naughty reckless Moscow loner.

 All along the main street, and around,

 Every little dog in every corner

 Knows me by the way I tread the ground.

 Every jade I meet, rundown and hopeless,

 Gives me nods of hail and salutation.

 I am a friend of animals, my verses

 Are as good for them as medication.

 I don’t wear my hat to charm the ladies

 For I can’t stand featherbrained emotions.

 It’s convenient to use my hats as ladles

 Filling them with oats to feed the horses.

 I do not have friends among the people,

 It’s a different kingdom I am bound to.

 I will gladly give my tie to simple

 Shaggy dog I happen to encounter.

 From now on I will be safe and sound.

 In my heart a sunny day is breaking.

 That’s the reason why they tend to count

 Me to be a crook and trouble-maker.

 1922

That poetry matters to the people who write it has been shown unmistakably by the ordeal of Soviet poet Irina Ratushinskaya, now living in the West.  Sentenced to prison for three and a half years, she was given paper and pencil only twice a month to write letters to her husband and her parents and was not allowed to write anything else.  Nevertheless, Ratushinskaya composed more than two hundred poems in her cell, engraving them with a burnt match in a bar of soap then memorizing the lines.  “I would read the poem and read it,” she said, “until it was committed to memory – then with one washing of my hands, it would be gone.”

From “Literature.  An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama” by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, 7^th edition, page 648

Sergei Yesenin (4 Oct. 1895 – 27 Dec. 1925)

* * *

No regret I feel, no pain, no sorrow,

Blossom blows away, a song is sung.

Overcome by autumn gold, tomorrow

I myself shall be no longer young.

You’ll not throb, heart, as before, but tremble,

Feeling chills that you have not yet known.

In bare feet you shall no more be tempted

Through the birch-print countryside to roam.

Roving spirit, ever now less often

Do you rouse a flame upon my lips.

Freshness I have lost, keen looks forgotten,

Feelings running at full flood I miss.

I’m austerer now in my desiring.

Life, were you real, or of fancy born?

It’s as if in spring I’ve been out riding

On a pink horse in the vibrant dawn.

In this world of ours we all are mortal,

Copper leaves from maples gently slide…

Ever blest was I to be accorded

Time for blossoming before I died.

1921

* * *

Не жалею, не зову, не плачу,

Все пройдет, как с белых яблонь дым.

Увяданья золотом охваченный,

Я не буду больше молодым.

Ты теперь не так уж будешь биться,

Сердце, тронутое холодком.

И страна березового ситца

Не заманит шляться босиком.

Дух бродяжий! Ты все реже, реже

Расшевеливаешь пламень уст.

О, моя утраченная свежесть,

Буйство глаз и половодье чувств.

Я теперь скупее стал в желаньях.

Жизнь моя, иль ты приснилась мне?

Словно я весенней гулкой ранью

Проскакал на розовом коне.

Все мы, все мы в этом мире тленны,

Тихо льется с кленов листьев медь…

Будь же ты вовек благословенно,

Что пришло процвесть и умереть.

1921

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

    

—    James Baldwin

by Donald Hall (1928 – )

What’s Good, What’s Bad

The claims I make for fiction are large: that it alerts and enlarges our minds, our connections with each other past and present, our understanding of our feelings.  These claims apply to excellent literature only.  This suggests that some fiction is better than other fiction, and that some narratives are not literature at all.  Even if judgments are always subject to reversal, even if there is no way we can be certain of being correct, evaluation lives at the center of literary study.

When I was nineteen, I liked to read everything: science fiction, Russian novels, mystery stories, great poems, adventure magazines.  Then for six months after an accident, sentenced to a hospital bed and a body cast, I set myself a reading list, all serious books I had been thinking about getting to.  Of course there was a background to this choice: I had been taught by a good teacher who had directed and encouraged and stimulated my reading.  I read through Shakespeare, the Bible in the King James version, novels by Henry James and Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Toward the end of six months, taking physical therapy, I hurried to finish the books I had assigned myself; I looked forward to taking a vacation among private detectives and adventurers of the twenty-fourth century.  I thought I would take a holiday of light reading.

When I tried to read the light things, I experienced one of those “turning points in life” we are asked to describe in freshman composition.  I remember the dismay, the abject melancholy that crept over me as I realized – restless, turning from book to book in search of entertainment – that these books bored me; that I was ruined for life, that I would never again lose myself to stick-figure characters and artificial suspense.  Literature ruined me for light reading…

I don’t mean to say that I was able to give reasons why Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel about a murder was better than Agatha Christie’s or why Aldous Huxley’s view of the future, thought less exciting, was more satisfying than Astounding Science Fiction’s.  But I began a lifetime of trying to figure out why.  What is it that makes Chekhov so valuable to us?  The struggle to name reasons for value – to evaluate works of art – is lifelong, and although we may never arrive at satisfactory explanations, the struggle makes the mind more sensitive, more receptive to the next work of literature it encounters.  And the mind becomes more sensitive and receptive to literature, it may become more receptive to all sorts of things.