Ringing . . .

(from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/06/ten-best-bells-in-literature)
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers

In sleepy Fenland St Paul, the death of a villager is marked by nine rings of the great bell, Tailor Paul, in the tower of the church. The visiting sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, finds himself challenged by a mystery involving jewel theft and murder that centres on the bell tower. Only Wimsey's knowledge of campanology allows him to decipher the coded message that unravels the tale.

Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer, lives in the belfry of Notre Dame and has been made deaf by the bells. He loves ringing them, "long morning serenades, which lasted from prime to compline; peals from the belfry for a high mass, rich scales drawn over the smaller bells for a wedding". But when he encounters the beautiful Esmerelda, he abandons the bells for a greater love.

"Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station" by John Betjeman

Betjeman's characteristic celebration of the City of London's "steepled forest of churches" evokes the sounds of bells breaking the "Sunday silence". It begins with the "tingle tang" of "the bell of St Mildred's Bread Street", and ends by drowning in "the roaring flood of a twelve-voiced peal from Paul's".

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray

One of the best-known opening lines in English poetry is the sound of a bell ringing: "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." Gray's tolling curfew was the traditional sound of the country parish. Since the days of William the Conqueror, the curfew bell had been rung to signal that it was time for bed.

The Bell by Iris Murdoch

A wonderfully batty cast of characters converges on Imber Abbey in Gloucestershire. According to legend, the abbey bell flew into the lake centuries earlier when a bishop cursed the place because of the sexual misdemeanours of one of the nuns. A new bell is to be installed, but Toby and Dora find the old bell in the lake and decide to effect a bell-swap. Chaos ensues.

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

Tinkerbell the fairy communicates with the sound of a tinkling bell, which can only be understood by initiates. "It is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once before."

The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis

In the distant, dying world of Charn, Digory comes upon a small golden bell with a hammer next to it and this needling rhyme: "Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; / Strike the bell and bide the danger, / Or wonder, till it drive you mad, / What would have happened if you had." He cannot resist striking the bell, whose reverberations bring the witch Queen Jadis to life.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth waits for his wife to signal that the sleeping Duncan's guards have been drugged. She rings a bell, and Macbeth exits to do the terrible deed. "I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. / Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell."

"The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's lyric starts cheerily with sleigh bells, proceeding to wedding bells and then alarum bells, before the poem's final section evokes the "iron bells" that make us shudder with terror. "For every sound that floats / From the rust within their throats / Is a groan".

In Memoriam AHH by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Ring out the old, ring in the new." In section CVI of Tennyson's elegy, church bells ring out across the Lincolnshire snow at Christmas, lifting the poet from the gloom and pain that have engulfed him. "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, / The flying cloud, the frosty light: / The year is dying in the night; / Ring out, wild bells, and let him die."

OHO live at Millstone Cellars, Novermber 2017

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Thomas Mann . . .

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann)
". . .Thomas Mann's works were first translated into English by H. T. Lowe-Porter beginning in 1924. Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, principally in recognition of his popular achievement with the epic Buddenbrooks (1901), The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924) and his numerous short stories. (Due to the personal taste of an influential committee member, only Buddenbrooks was cited at any great length.) Based on Mann's own family, Buddenbrooks relates the decline of a merchant family in Lübeck over the course of three generations. The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924) follows an engineering student who, planning to visit his tubercular cousin at a Swiss sanatorium for only three weeks, finds his departure from the sanatorium delayed. During that time, he confronts medicine and the way it looks at the body and encounters a variety of characters, who play out ideological conflicts and discontents of contemporary European civilization. The tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers is an epic novel written over a period of sixteen years, which is one of the largest and most significant works in Mann's oeuvre. Later, other novels included Lotte in Weimar (1939), in which Mann returned to the world of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774); Doktor Faustus (1947), the story of composer Adrian Leverkühn and the corruption of German culture in the years before and during World War II and Confessions of Felix Krull (Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull, 1954), which was unfinished at Mann's death. . . In 1930, Mann gave a public address in Berlin titled "An Appeal to Reason", in which he strongly denounced National Socialism and encouraged resistance by the working class. This was followed by numerous essays and lectures in which he attacked the Nazis. At the same time, he expressed increasing sympathy for socialist ideas. In 1933 when the Nazis came to power, Mann and his wife were on holiday in Switzerland. Due to his strident denunciations of Nazi policies, his son Klaus advised him not to return. But Thomas Mann's books, in contrast to those of his brother Heinrich and his son Klaus, were not among those burnt publicly by Hitler's regime in May 1933, possibly since he had been the Nobel laureate in literature for 1929. Finally in 1936 the Nazi government officially revoked his German citizenship. . ."

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A Certain Something. . .

As far back as I can remember, I have always possessed a great appreciation for humor.  I don't just mean the telling of jokes good or bad, or listening to jokes per se. Even though all kids, myself included, go through the 'knock knock" stage.  (I remember when our youngest did.  He would concoct the most nonsensical knock knock jokes which evoked the most hilarious laughter from himself, non-stop at the dinner table.) And I certainly enjoy certain stand-up comedians as well as humorists in literature. 

Maybe I should more specifically say that the appreciation to which I am referring was (and is) for individuals possessing a natural, innate quality in their ability to inject a humorous element in ordinary conversation to the degree that they become, for lack of a better word, humorous.

I have personally encountered several of such personalities throughout the years.  In the past I even enjoyed them so much that I wanted to be like them.  But this mysterious, humorous quality is not something that can be taught or learned.  It appears to be a genetic trait and a natural characteristic that one either has or does not, such as blue eyes or the ability to curl your tongue.

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Sha-laa-la-la-la. . .

. . . let's live for today. . .

. . . the mortality reported in the entertainment, literature and business (motivation) worlds yesterday gives one pause, I would like to think.  At my age, mortality does enter the consciousness more often than in younger days.  But it doesn't have to be depressing.  It's just one of those things that has to happen no matter our aversion or distaste for it, like . . . Brussels sprouts or . . . American Idol.  (I didn't mean that.  I really do like Brussels sprouts.)

 So goodbye Kitty, Donald, Stephen, Bob and Jon.  You will be missed. And for those who won't be missed by quite as many, you will be missed by some every bit as deeply.

So as difficult as it may be, try to think about mortality every now and then;  yours as well as everyone else's.  Think about how natural and unavoidable it is.  Then remember . . . today, right now. . . . you are alive!

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