Vengeful Reading

    Made use of my free time (allotment: thirty minutes) by dashing to the library and checking out books for my own personal reading instead of more material for school.

    I write this at the one of computer stations in the library. To my left is an orange blond (orange tanner and streaked hair) and to my right is an older gentleman with thick glasses.

    I decided to blog because, as I made my way to the non-fiction, I entertained high hopes of checking out Anne Lamott’s new book only to discover that all the volumes were gone. I took revenge by cleaning off the entire shelf of the “writer’s help” section. Among a lot of nonsense I found this honest book:

John and John

Reading that John Donne poem reminded me of Doctor Atomic. If you ever get the chance to see this opera, do so (don't worry, it's in English).

Composed by John Adams (libretto by Sellars), the dramatization of of the 'Trinity' test of the first atomic bomb premiered in 2005 and was instantly hailed as a masterpiece.

Here is perhaps the most famous aria from the opera. Sellars employs Donne's holy sonnet ("Batter my heart, three person'd God") to illustrate Dr. Oppenheimer's anxiety and distress as he ponders what he's created. To prepare your ears, you should keep in mind that John Adam's established himself as a minimalist composer. So, although he likes short motives in repetition he does not adhere strictly to the rules of true minimalism. The result is a powerful forward motion of rhythm and directed intervals without the 'composer as scientist' or 'mechanical effect' of many minimalist artists.

J. S. Bach's B Minor Mass

    Something for your ears and soul on this Easter afternoon. Here is a youtube link to a movement from Bach's astonishing B Minor Mass (BWV 232). This is one of my favorite portions of the mass because of its joyful imitation and highly complex harmonies...I don't want to say it's the most dissonant of all the movements, but it certainly has its share of crunch.

    And if you like that, here is the Sanctus. Turn up the volume. And lock the door.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus...

Original page from the Credo

  

He Is Risen!

From the twelfth play, “The King Comes To His Own:”

MARY MAGDALEN: Peter is here with you?
JOHN: Like a sick animal that has crawled home to die. He can’t eat. He can’t sleep. He can’t forgive himself. (With passionate self-reproach) It was my fault. I knew he was frightened, yet I left him alone in the house of Annas. Dear Lord! Was there none of us you could trust for five minutes?
MARY MAGDALEN: Poor Peter! He takes his failures hard.
JOHN: He calls himself a worse traitor than – I can’t speak the name. It is like poison to me. I can’t say our Master’s prayer. “Forgive us out trespasses, as we forgive” – no, it’s impossible….You heard what became of him?
MARY MAGDALEN: Yes. John, you can’t hate him worse than he came to hate himself. His self-hate murdered him.
JOHN (slowly): If I hate him, I am his murderer too….Oh, God! There is no end to our sins! Do we all murder Jesus and one another?

Addendum to Yesterday

 Good Friday
by George Herbert

O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death ?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign,
Of the true vine?

Good Friday

Missouri is overcast with an eerie light at noon. Dark and beautiful quotes follow…

From the tenth play, “The Princes of this World.”

CAIAPHUS: You came to us of your own accord – and with the highest motives, I am sure.
JUDAS: I cam because I hated him. “The man who hates his brothers is a murderer” – I have murdered the Christ of God for hate…It was written that he must suffer – Yes! And why? – Because there are too many men in the world like me….I was in love with suffering, because I wanted to see him suffer. I wanted to believe him guilty, because I could not endure his innocence. He was greater than I, and I hated him. And now I hate myself….Do you know what hell-fire is? It is the light of God’s unbearable innocence that sears and shrivels you like flame. It shows you what you are….Priest, it is a fearful thing to see one’s self for a moment as one really is.

Maundy Thursday

    I considered posting some quotes for each day of Holy Week, but decided against it. The reason being that I know too many of my reader's haven't read the books being quoted....I shouldn't share too much! With that said, here are a few I loved the first time I read them.

From the eighth play, “Royal Progress,” of “The Man Born to Be King.”

3rd WOMAN: Do tell me, Lazarus (with a nervous giggle) – I hope I’m not being impertinent – but what does it feel like to be dead?
2nd MAN: My dear! What a question to ask a man in the middle of dinner!
3rd WOMAN: Oh, but it’s so important! Please!
LAZARUS: Master, what shall I say?
JESUS (laughing): I’m sorry, Lazarus. You must do your best with it. But no State secrets.
LAZARUS (as he speaks, the conversation dies away into an inquisitive silence): This life is like a weaving at the back of the loom. All you see is the crossing of the threads. In that life you go around to the front and see the wonder of the pattern.
3rd WOMAN: What sort of a pattern is it?
LAZARUS: Beautiful and terrible. And – how can I tell you? – it is familiar. You have known it from all eternity. For He that made it is the form of all things. Himself both the weaver and the loom.

And from the ninth play, “The King’s Supper.”