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August 19, 2005
TT: Mailbag
To begin with, I want to thank the sharp-eared reader who read this posting about Joseph Taylor's 1908 recording of "Unto Brigg Fair" and wrote to tell me that it has indeed been transferred to CD. It's part of English Rhapsody, a really lovely collection of music by Frederick Delius, George Butterworth, and Percy Grainger, performed by Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra. I have since bought the disc, ripped all 39 seconds' worth of "Unto Brigg Fair," and dumped it into my iPod. I bet I'm the only person in the world whose iPod contains a 1908 recording by Joseph Taylor....I also want to thank the sharp-eyed reader who read this almanac entry and wrote:
Love your blog, particularly the poetry. But if you google the great "perhaps everything terrible..." line you'll see that although Richard Rhodes incorrectly attributes it to Auden, the line actually comes from Rilke. (Auden's great. Eliot's great. Stevens is great. Merrill can be great. Rilke is the best.)
Arrgh! I don't even have a halfway decent excuse for getting this wrong, because while I usually make a point of tracing all the quotations I use in my daily almanac entries to their original sources, I lifted this one directly from Sherill Tippins' February House: The Story of W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Wartime America without noticing that Auden was quoting from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Pardon me while I pull up my pants. (Richard Rhodes can pull up his own damn pants.)
Now, some letters:
- "How unobservant of you and Maud. Stars are indeed visible in the New York City sky--not very many, not very often--but they are the sign of an especially clear night. You see more of them if you live in an apartment building and have access to the roof. I once saw the wisp of a comet from the top of mine. My desk looks over Third Avenue, St. George's Church, and Stuyvesant Park, and I see moons of many different colors and brightness."
Yeah, well, serves us right for not living in high-rise buildings....
- "I loved your post about the problems of recommending a play like '25th Annual....' When I saw it, the first thing I thought was 'this is perfect for the new hot HS musical' (something has to replace 'Fiddler' and 'Oklahoma' and 'Grease'!) but then I heard the 'problem song' and the Jesus-on-the-cross and the gay parents and had to rethink that. At my old school, where most of the children are relatively sophisticated, we decided that the parents of the 4-6 grade students could choose to allow those kids to come to the evening performances of 'Laramie Project' and 'A Chorus Line,' but that we would schedule other activities during the afternoon performance so as to not offend anyone that thought those were too heavy/inappropriate for their child. And several parents did not allow their children to attend (much to the kid's disappointment). Jesus and gay parents aside, any child 11-15 will be laughing at 'M.U.E.' but not for the right reasons--they'll be laughing because it's happened to them, because it's an embarrassing topic, because they're trying to be 'cool,' etc., just as they laugh at the lyrics to 'The Flintstones' ('we'll have a gay old time').Your solution is probably the best, even though it sort of looks like the ratings addenda to the NYTimes movie reviews (which, I think, are getting progressively snarkier)."
- "I was catching up with About Last Night (you write faster than I can read) last night and came across this about several pieces you listed from Bill Evans: 'No one has ever made more beautiful music.' I might have been able to swallow that without gagging had I not been listening to Angela Hewitt's new recording of the Bach keyboard concerti. Come now. Shirley U. Jest."
Well, O.K., maybe I exaggerated in the heat of aesthetic frenzy, but surely Evans' recording of "My Foolish Heart," at the very least, is not unworthy of comparison to Bach, no matter who's at the piano. (And stop calling me Shirley.)
- "I loved the map. I could see the green dot in the heart of Europe and knew that was in fact me reading your blog, as I do every day. (At least, if I was reading the map and the rest of the page correctly.) Very cool. I'm an American living in Prague for 13 years and got turned onto your web page a couple of years ago, which I read religiously. It's a great way for this English major/music major/lawyer/investment banker to keep up with what's really important back home. Your reviews and recommendations are spot on, and I make it a point to chase up (whenever possible) your suggestions. Many thanks for producing such a consistently interesting, honest, enriching and deeply enjoyable body of work."
Right back at all of you. Need I say how much Our Girl and I love hearing from the readers of "About Last Night"? Keep it coming.
Posted August 19, 2005 12:03 PM
