To thine own self be true

Glenn Gould (died at 50 in1982–32 years ago this past week). The Master Expressionist of Bach. A Veritable Piano Genius.

Well, a must-have for any serious Gould or Bach fan is (top-left photo) Glenn Gould: A State of Wonder–The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981 (Sony Classical Legacy 2 CD set)–his final radio interview, outtakes, and fun play-by-play comparison).

Gould was fascinated with sound and voice, and that aspect of him is splendidly covered by (bottom left) 3 sound documentaries on 3 CDs–Glenn Gould’s Solitude Trilogy issued by CBC Records.

More insights into his playing and unique, but problematic life are handsomely offered by Francois Girard and Don McKellar’s excellent film Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould (Columbia Tristar Home Video) starring Colm Feore.

Also visually recommended, the excellent 10 DVD set of Sony Classical’s Glenn Gould on Television contains the complete CBC broadcasts 1954-1977. It includes “The Anatomy of the Fugue”, The Idea of North documentary, and music by Bach, Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Yehudi Menuhin, Schoenberg, and Mozart.

And next time you are in T.O., you can cuddle next to his wonderfully-sculpted-bench-likeness by Ruth Abernethy on Front St. in front of the C.B.C. building.

Yes, indeed, Glenn is still very much still with us.

Below an oldie of mine based on the Goldberg Variations, called “Variations on Goldberg”.

Slow teasing measures

there is time

teasing measures

why despair when

there is time

teasing measures?

Then run dancing joy

come with me

formal balance

up & down

see the range

counterpoint

& then

 stop

And drops of

rain falling

one-two

one too many

see drops of rain

falling:

the droplets of

rain

Now measure how

slowly

they weave down-

ward slowly

the bright drops

of water:

perfection

of rain 

(Wind chill -38)

Winter City? Frozen North? (fact)
Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”
or Sam McGee incarnate.
Too bloody cold for rats.
Snow blown across Xmas potholes.
Someone else’s bad dream
rammed down a senior’s throat
like feckless mayors, windrows
or snow-covered bike-lanes.
City of arena-sized illusions
and forever extinct teams
awaiting the mercy of exorcism.
Awaiting the day when the power
conks out for gutted grid-hours
and all will simply freeze and die:
pets, plants, taps, houses, taxpayers.
Or else as some huddle in their monster trucks
idling the pipe-dream mirage
until all that PC gas runs out.

…………………………………..

This one has become relevant again as EPCOR threatens several neighborhoods with power outages for a minimum of 2 hours and as long as several hours until January. The lack of common sense about this frozen North metropolis borders on extreme nerviness, absurdity, greed, public irresponsibility, and denial.

Also, a fan threw his sweater and phone on the ice in disgust after the Oilers` first home game (an unnecessary loss). He obviously feels that exorcism may still be necessary even though the ground has finally been broken for the new arena.

Poem notes:

AB is professed to be rat-free, but there are too many feckless mayors in this burg and rat-like provincial politicians (bow-tied-clown Mandel again, claiming no new Mis hospital (the current one a crumbling joke) is necessary. Lord help AB Health and Albertans all.

The senior citizen allusion is to that poor schmo who had enormous windrows dumped in front of his place and was then told he had to shovel out by the City.

The bike lanes symbolize a major Mandel-Iveson folly and massive waste of public funds for their own personal agendas. Lanes used by less than 1% of the population in summer and a handful of diehard-idiots in winter. fact: Far more cyclists prefer the safety (not for pedestrians, though) of sidewalks over the very dangerous bike lanes.

to feed the chickadees at Laurier Park on a warm fall afternoon. This one, a whir of wings about to land.

top: Thoreau’s cabin (facsimile) at Walden Pond, Mass.

below: Emily Dickinson’s grave, Amherst, Mass.

…………………………………………………

Boston: Lenox Hotel, harbour cruise, Bull & Finch (Cheers) pub, Quincy Market, Boston Common. Fenneuil Hall, Old Burying Ground

Salem, Mass.: House of the 7 Gables–Garden Coffee Shop, Salem Witch Museum

Derry, N.H.: Robert Frost Farm-“Mending Wall”, “Hyla Brook”, “West Running Brook” (actual sites)

Franconia, N.H.: Robert Frost Place

Squam Lake: On Golden Pond filmed here

Lake Winnepesaukee: Mt. Washington boat cruise

Portsmouth, N.H.: Strawberry Banke antique houses

Freeport, Maine: L.L. Bean flagship store

Boothbay Harbor, Maine: Tugboat Inn accommodation on/over the bay

Camden, Maine: Edna St. Vincent Millay statue

Bar Harbor, Maine: Castlemaine Inn–old-fashioned B & B, Acadia National Park: Mt. Desert Harbor, Cadillac Mountain view, Sandy Beach where Cider House Rules filmed

Montpelier, Vt.: Inn at Montpelier

Ripton, Vt.: Homer Noble Farm (Frost’s last home)

Bennington, Vt.: Frost’s grave

N. Bennington: Shirley Jackson’s house

Pittsfield, Mass.: Arrowhead (Melville house with view of Mt. Greylock (Moby Dick inspiration)

Lenox, Mass.: The Mount (Edith Wharton’s estate)

Stockbridge, Mass: Rockwell museum, Red Lion Inn

Amherst, Mass: Dickinson house (living room and her bedroom and garden all visitable), Lord Jeffrey Inn (where Frost stayed when at Amherst College)

Hartford, Conn.: Mark Twain house

New London, Ct.: Monte Cristo Cottage (Eugene O`Neill house–site where Canadian Long Day`s Journey into Night was filmed)

Newport, R.I.: Newport mansions (includes Rosecliffe–where Redford Gatsby and True Lies filmed), Inn at Castle Hill, the Cliff Walk(seen in Reversal of Fortune opening)

Concord, Mass.: The Old Manse (Hawthornes and Emerson lived there), Concord bridge (where Americans fought British), Orchard House (Alcott home & school), Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (where several illuminaries are buried), Walden Pond, Thoreau Lyceum

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U, T.S. Eliot`s house, Longfellow`s house

…………………………….

Best time to go? (Been there 2x) First week of October

Scientists have recently found interesting information when they revived hospital patients who were officially/clinically. As some have long suspected (myself included), patients retain consciousness on their ‘way out’, and later recounted what was said or done in their rooms even after death.

When my mother declined in her last week quickly into a vegetative state, I had to usher out nurses who wanted to talk to me about her condition in front of her. They seemed surprised by this, but I did not choose to let my mother hear complete strangers talking about how badly off she was (with me, no less) in front of her on the off-chance the above-mentioned consciousness was possible.

The above scenario has a Twilight Zone episode-like quality about it. Imagine children and other family discussing in the presence of the dying or dead one what to do about the estate, let alone body! Imagine how this kind of talk might register on the patients and form the last harsh memories of life and the people closest to them. So insensitive, greedy, selfish, and thoughtless.

Worst and saddest of all is not the limits and limitations that others impose on us, but those we freely choose ourselves, limiting the innumerable possibilities, limiting ourselves and our potential, limiting the experience and joy of true freedom. The best there is and can be. As D.H. Lawrence and William Blake put it, the limitations of ego and reason straight-jacketing the joyous inner child or inner self.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.–Anonymous

T.E. Lawrence said that the dangerous dreamers were the ones who tried to make their dreams a possibility during the day.

where we are going until we get there. Then, indeed, we shall know the place as if for the first time.

reference to state of dying or death

“To remain ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a child.”–Cicero

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”–Socrates