pianogonzology

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Machinery . . .

. . . of society . . .

(from No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . On the morning of their inauguration in January 1993, the Clintons were observed standing on the steps of Blair House, official hospitality head-quarters of L'Enfant's grand and dignified federal city. "Fucking bitch," the President-elect screamed at his newly-minted First Lady. "Stupid mother-fucker," she riposted. We may never know what the hideous story of "enabling" and betrayal lay behind this poisoning of their big day, but we can fix it in time as the one moment when both were totally candid in public, and both were utterly right on the facts. Those who would vote to prolong the presence of this partnership in public life are not doing so with the excuse of innocence or gullibility that might have obtained in 1992.

The figure of Mrs. Clinton was anticipated by Henry Adams in his tremendous novel Democracy, published as an anonymous satire on Washington corruption in 1880. Here we encounter Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, female manipulator extraordinaire:

In her own mind, however, she frowned on the idea of seeking for men. What she wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mold; the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society, at work. What she wanted was POWER. . . "

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Friday, September 16, 2016

More Steps . . .

Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age,
every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,
but all their notes have always proclaimed,
`He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes,
comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds
he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart,
and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine.
-Rabindranath Tagore

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Thursday, September 15, 2016

Music . . .

The church of music
Holds no ham and oyster suppers
We're all just deacons
With our boots upon the ground
Marching into mystery
In command but
Still can't quite see

The church of music
Won't require your weekly presence
You'll find it stays with you
No matter where you are
No dogmatic postulates
No demands on
Your fidelity

It can end the darkest night
Carry you through the hours
Know not if it’s wrong or right
Make no mistake
It’s divine
This church of mine

There are no fiery demons
In what I believe
It’s not for me to say
Who’s what and where they go
All things flowing naturally
No controlling
Power over you or me

It can end the darkest night
Carry you through the hours
Know not if it’s wrong or right
Make no mistake
It’s divine
This church of mine

Stricly spiritual
No trace of any politics
Lurking in the mix or in the fabric
Only what is good
No room for hate and no deceit
Honesty
Sincerity will move you
And me

This church won’t interfere
With what you think or do
Your body and your mind are
Yours and yours alone
No one tells you what to say
No one criticizes
What you feel inside

It can heal the deepest wound
Shine a light in the darkness
Warm a chill in any room
Make no mistake
It’s divine
This church . . .
It can end the darkest night
Carry you through the hours
Know not if it’s wrong or right
Make no mistake
It’s divine
This church of mine

The Embers
©2016 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Another . . .

. . . opus . .

Experience can not be known
The ups and downs
Extremes no doubt
Of breathing, living
In and out
The depths encountered
With a loss
Or simply due to one bad toss
Exhiliration, of breath be robbed
When o'er the crest we pass
And dash into a fall
Which words will fail
To capture
Still a rapture
Does enthrall
If only do we stand or fall
We never know of such affair
If never choose we to
Ascend
The stair

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Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Labels . . .

(from Hitch 22; A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens [quoting Conor Cruise O'Brien])
". . . "Are you a socialist?" asked the African Leader. I said yes. He looked me in the eye. "People have been telling me," he said lightly, "that you are a liberal. . . " the statement in its context invited a denial. I said nothing. And yet, as I drove home from my interview with the leader, I had to realize that a liberal, incurably, was what I was. Whatever I might argue. I was more profoundly attached to liberal concepts of freedom - freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom, independent judgement and independent judges - than I was to the idea of a disciplined party mobilizing all the forces of society for the creation of a social order guaranteeing more real freedom for all instead of just for a few. The revolutionary idea struck me as more immediately relevant for most of humanity than were the liberal concepts. But it was the liberal concepts and their long-term importance - though not the name of liberal - that held my allegiance. . . "

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Monday, September 12, 2016

HIghs . . .

. . . and lows . . .

Just look at the morning paper

And tell me what you see

Is something very wrong

Or maybe my eyes deceive me

Somewhere in the local section

A buried paragraph

Someone who had the time to care

And the character to act

The higher the highs

The lower the lows

The older I get

That's the way that it goes

The more that I think that I want

The less that I need

Because I realize how precious

And how short

This time with you may be

When you're young and your biggest worry's

What game you want to play

Such innocence is just surpassed

By the naivete

Take good with the worst

And better

You know they're not the same

Youth somehow brings them all together

Different they are

But subtle the shades

The higher the highs

The lower the lows

The older I get

That's the way that it goes

The more that I think that I want

The less that I need

Because I realize how precious

And how short

This time with you may be

Youth really

Is only wasted

If never

You've tasted

All the bitter

As well as sweet

I hope you don't misunderstand me

Or what I want to say

It's nothing revolutionary

Ignorance won't make this go away

Nobody likes a busybody

Nobody knows it all

There's one thing I can tell you certain

Take none for granted

Short or the tall

The higher the highs

The lower the lows

The older I get

That's the way that it goes

The more that I think that I want

The less that I need

Because I realize how precious

And how short

This time with you may be

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Sunday, September 11, 2016

Haunting . . .

. . . song . . .

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_That_All_There_Is%3F)
". . . The song [Is That All There Is? by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller]was inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by Thomas Mann. Jerry Leiber's wife Gaby Rodgers (née Gabrielle Rosenberg) was born in Germany, lived in the Netherlands. She escaped ahead of the Nazis, and settled in Hollywood where she had a brief film career in films noir. Gaby introduced Leiber to the works of Thomas Mann. The narrator in Mann's story tells the same stories of when he was a child. A dramatic adaptation of Mann's story was recorded by Erik Bauserfeld and Bernard Mayes; it was broadcast on San Francisco radio station KPFA in 1964. . ."

I remember this song stirring some emotionality in me as a child during the days of the daytime talk-variety televisions shows such as Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and the like. It's either a very prudent perspective based in reality or a deranged one being expressed by a purely hedonistic personality. Either way, as art, it is the consummate, although somewhat dated, pop song.

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