Archives for January 2013

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”
Shakespeare, King Lear

Paul Scofield plays Salieri in a scene from the National Theatre’s 1979 production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, “Crabbed Age”

From 2004:

Life is unfair, and I know I have gifts that others envy. I had a friend in high school who was completely tone-deaf–he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, as the saying goes–and who was desperately jealous of my musical talent. I wouldn’t trade my musicality for anything (though I’d hate to have to choose between going deaf and going blind). But what would I give to be able to speak and read French fluently? A year off my life? The little finger of my right hand? Probably neither, but certainly something of value, were the Devil to drop by one evening and suggest a little deal. I might, for instance, agree never to read The Great Gatsby again in return for the ability to read Proust in the original. Maybe.
One thing’s sure, though: I wouldn’t give up anything at all in order to be able to play competition-level Scrabble….

Read the whole thing here.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
Shakespeare, Richard II

I’m still on Sanibel Island, spending the day with Duke. Don’t expect to hear from me again until I have something big to tell….

Cynthia Gregory and Marcos Paredes dance “The Lake,” the pas de deux from The River, choreographed by Alvin Ailey to the music of Duke Ellington:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.”
François de La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales