Philip Glass At 84

 

Philip Glass                              Luis Alvarez Roure, U.S., 2016

Philip Glass is the most well-known minimalist composer of our time. He was born in Baltimore and studied music at a very early age at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. At fifteen, he continued his musical training and studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago. Listeners cannot help but "count" in one way or another throughout all of his compositions. And his work is surely a Calculus in our own time, retaining its minimalist core wrapped in a stylistic evolution.

He composed his first score for the film, Koyaaniqatsi (1982), a mesmerizing audiovisual feast by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke examining the interface of people, technology, and nature. Glass's score for this film has become a signature piece, one that he and his ensemble have performed around the world for almost four decades. Glass has also composed for many popular films including Candyman (1992), The Hours (2002), and the memorable satire, The Truman Show (1998).

The following pieces sample the composer's work for the concert stage, as a bridge between classical and popular music, and the theater. 

 

Listening to Glass is often more an experience where one can get "into" the music as a participant rather than merely observe. Even at its simplest, his work has complexities in tone, harmony, tempo and orchestration. For one thing, Glass counts. He plays by the numbers, practicing his musical arithmetic adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and even solving some algebraic formulas here and there. In the end, music to Glass seems like the mathematics he studied. Fortunately for our culture, popular as well as haute, he became an extraordinary, prolific, and popular composer whose significant international influences in the music world continue to this very day which happens to be his 84th birthday.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. 

Text:

philipglass.com
wikipendia.org

Frederick Delius: Songs From The Soul

Frederick Delius was born on this day in Yorkshire, England, in 1862. At 24, he lived the classic story of breaking away from the family business - wool, no less - to pursue a love for the arts, in this case, music. The break was interesting for it took him first to Solano Grove and an orange plantation on the banks of the St. Johns River south of Jacksonville, Florida. Later, he would teach music in Danville, Virginia, before returning to Europe for formal education in Germany. He took the sounds of American culture with him. In 1888, he settled in Paris, later married the painter, Jelka Rosen, and devoted his life to composition.

In the last sixteen years of his life he was tortured by the pain of a slow death from syphilis contracted during his early years in Paris. In the four years before his death in 1934, he was blind and essentially paralyzed from the neck down. He composed and completed some of his most significant work during this period, all of it reaching paper through the notations of his loyal amanuensis, Eric Fenby.

In 1968, Ken Russell directed a biography of Frederick Delius for the BBC. I saw the program by chance in its U.S. premier during the summer of the following year. At the time I was in full cultural rebellion against the West at the time, but the unique lyric quality of this English composer's music was like a magnet. There was no escape from the compelling soundscapes with such rich, complex imagery and depth.

Eventually my bitterness over the lost decade (1964-74) of the Johnson-Nixon years would pass but I never outgrew fondness for the music of Delius. Today, there is a new wave of  international interest in that music. In fact the Delius recording catalog has never been larger in spite of the music being some of the most difficult to realize in performance.

This post opened with Song of Summer, written in 1930 when Delius was blind and paralyzed. To conclude, here are two earlier compositions. The first is from the Florida Suite, written when he was twenty years old. Music historians agree that this piece represents the first use of black American folk idioms in classical form by a European composer. He also composed the first black opera, Koanga. (George Gershwin is most often erroneously credited with this accomplishment, but his opera, Porgy and Bess, premiered fifty years later.) Delius influenced a number of popular music composers well into the 20th century.

Duke Ellington composed In A Blue Summer Garden as a tribute to Delius. And here is the work that inspired Ellington to honor one of the most lyrical composers in western music.

Music is a cry of the soul. It is addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener. It is a revelation, a thing to be reverenced.

         

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Portrait of Frederick Delius by his wife, Jelka Rosen.

Text:

The Delius Society
Before the Champions: Frederick Delius' Florida Suite for Orchestra, Mary E. Greene., M.A. Thesis, University of Miami, 2011
Radio Swiss Classic, Frederick Delius
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Frederick Delius

closing quote, Frederick Delius

Stephane, Django And Jazz Manouche

Jazz manouche - gypsy jazz - swept the clubs of Paris in the mid-1930's. The club responsible for this new sound was the Hot Club de France, founded by jazz fans and promoters, Hugh Panassie and Charles Delaunay. They brought together two performers who would become the core of their house ban, the Quintette. That band's music continues to both influence jazz and be enjoyed by listeners today. Our post commemorates those two performers, guitarist, Django Reinhardt, and violinist, Stephane Grappelli, who share birthdays this week.

The 20th century produced a number of fine guitarists in the fields of classical and popular music. And then there was Django Reinhardt, born January 23, 1910 in Belgium. He was a poor gypsy who by the age of twelve could earn his way playing the guitar in the streets and small clubs around Paris. At seventeen a trailer fire left him with a severely injured hand but he soon developed a new fingering style and with it a unique sound. By 1930 Reinhardt developed an appreciation of American jazz and began incorporating its elements in his playing. In a few years he would go on to meet the violinist, Stephane Grappelli, an equally free musical spirit and innovator. They soon formed a new group, the "Quintette du Hot Club de France", and a "hot swing" sound that would make music as well as music history for the next twenty years. At its core was the Reinhardt style that has influenced guitarists for more than eight decades.

Reinhardt died in 1953 at the age of 43, but his impact has lived on for decades. Even today, almost every celebrity guitarist in the world of popular music, jazz, blues and rock and roll would acknowledge Reinhardt as an influence in their music. Here is an entertaining musical link to an NPR Jazz Live blog expanding on Reinhardt's legacy. 

Stephane Grappelli, born in Paris on January 26, 1908, was an unsurpassed master of the jazz violin who entertained audiences almost to the very day he died in 1997. There was happiness and optimism in virtually every note of his music, even when those notes brought nostalgia and its touch of sadness to mind. No question he loved what he did and it flowed straight to his listeners.

Like his friend, Django, he was a self taught musician who developed a unique playing style that would have broad influence in the worlds of jazz and popular music. Fortunately, much of that influence was direct as he outlived Reinhardt by nearly fifty years. He loved people almost as much as he loved music and brought his jovial, upbeat personality and style to audiences young and old, large and small, performing both solo and with many of the jazz greats of the twentieth century. 

One would think that a jazz virtuoso would be well known in the country that birthed the genre but he was little known in the United States even after thirty years of success in Europe. His American debut in 1969 brought him wide publicity and the international "rediscovery" that followed kept him on tour before adoring audiences for almost three decades.

To conclude, here is the Quintette du Hot Club de France in their classic performance of Minor Swing, composed by Reinhardt and Grappell in the mid-1930's:

Sources

Text:
wikipedia.org
theguardian.com, Nigel Kennedy article, December 19, 2007
nytimes.com, Stephane Grappelli obituary, December 2, 1997
Louis Miner, Paris Jazz: A Guide From the Jazz Age to the Present, The Little Bookroom, New York, 2005

Burns Night 2021: Celebrating A Man And His Country

Today Scottish organizations and communities around the world are celebrating Burns Day, the 216th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Bard of Scotland. Soon after the daylight fades, attention turns to Burns Night, a supper commemorating his life and work. In 2016 the International Business Times UK Edition had this to say about him:

Burns is one of Scotland's most important literary figures, best known for his famous – and often humorous – songs and poetry. He is regarded as Scotland's National Bard. His most recognised works include Auld Lang Syne, which is often sung at Hogmanay on New Year's Eve, and Scots Wha Hae, which has become an unofficial Scottish national anthem. Burns, commonly known as Rabbie, was born to a poor family in Alloway, Ayr, on 25 January 1759 and began his working life on the family farm. His father hired a local teacher to tutor Burns, who showed signs of having a natural talent for writing from a young age. As Burns grew older, his passion for Scotland and his contemporary vision played important roles in inspiring the founders of socialism and liberalism. His first work, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect – later known as the Kilmarnock Edition – was published in 1786. He also wrote in English and is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. Burns' poetry drew on references to classical, biblical and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition – a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard. Burns died in Dumfries at the age of 37. Inspired by Scottish history and culture, as well as Scotland's countryside, Burns remains one of the most celebrated figures in the country's history – as demonstrated by the annual Burns Night celebrations.

Here are interpretations of three of Burns's best known poems. The first two are by the late, great Scottish folk singer and educator, Jean Redpath:

There's nought but care on ev'ry han',

In every hour that passes, O
What signifies the life o' man,
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O.


Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O


The warl'y race may riches chase,
An' riches still may fly them, O
An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.


Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O


But gie me a cannie hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O,
An' warl'y cares an' war'ly men
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!


Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O


For you sae douce, ye sneer at this
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O
The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O.


Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O


Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O
Her prentice han' she try'd on man,
An' then she made the lasses, O.


Green grow the rashes, O
Green grow the rashes, O
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O

Cauld is the e'enin blast,
O' Boreus o'er the pool,
An' dawin' it is dreary,
When birks are bare at Yule.


Cauld blaws the e'enin blast,
When bitter bites the frost,
And, in the mirk and dreary drift,
The hills and glens are lost.


Ne'er sae murky blew the night,
That drifted o'er the hill,
But bonie Peg-a-Ramsay
Gat grist in her mill.



Every Burns Night ends with the singing of Auld Lang Syne, a poem written by Burns in 1788 from old song fragments and his own words and set to a Scottish folk melody. This version has the complete and original lyrics.

For everything you ever wanted to know about Robert Burns and Burns Night go here. If you were fortunate enough to attend a Burns Supper tonight we trust you enjoyed the haggis and the extra dram or two of fine whisky to wash it down.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Alexander Reid, miniature portrait, ca, 1795, National Portrait Gallery Scotland

Text:
poems are public domain

Edgar Allan Poe: Imagination From The Boundaries Of Life And Death

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more.'

In our home we have a shelf reserved for treasured books. Among the first editions, autographed copies, rare titles, and nostalgic family favorites is a small and well-worn paperback from my high school years. Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe has been a part of my life for over 60 years. 

I'm happy to report that virtually every high school graduate in the U.S. still encounters the suspense, mystery, and magic of Poe even if it is nothing more than a reading and discussion of The Raven.  The poem brought Edgar Allan Poe instant fame in 1845 and ensured him a secure place in American literature. His appeal to readers, especially young ones, rests in his dark and burdened subjects, his fantastic plots, and rich, descriptive writing. 

I don't recall when Poe's work first entered my life, but it was long before high school. Little did I know that we would eventually share a bit of history at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. He was stationed there for about a year beginning in 1827. The fort and island are the setting for his short story, The Gold Bug. During my career, I spent several weeks walking the damp tunnels, the grassy terreplein, and studying the character of this historic fort and those who garrisoned it over the centuries. I watched the sun rise and set over its walls, and stood at the gun emplacements at midnight listening to the invisible surf breaking on the beach or watching ship traffic moving in and out of Charleston harbor. For all I know, Poe's shadow watched my every move. 

There is magic about such historic places, and it is magnified by darkness, fog, or a thick drizzle. Judging by the vast body of his work, I'd say Poe enjoyed his duty station at Fort Moultrie but his biographers tell us otherwise. In fact, unrest, tension and unhappiness seemed to follow him everywhere well beyond the wind swept dunes of Sullivan's Island. Out of his personal darkness came a magic that blossomed into a timeless contribution to Western literature. For certain his work and legacy will continue to provide all of us with fantastic entertainment. 

Poe was born in Boston on this day in 1809. He spent his lifetime living and working between the coastal cities of Boston and Charleston. Death found him in Baltimore in 1849 wrapped in the mystery and tragedy that surrounded him during much of his life. Here is his last complete poem written a few months before his death.

Annabell Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Few American writers have had such a broad impact on the arts. In his 2009 commentary on the bicentennial of the author's birth, Jeffrey A. Savoye, Secretary/Treasurer of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore said this:

We can see that his writings still work their magic on succeeding generations of readers, and yet Poe’s secrets remain distinctively his own. We can ape and parody the form, but legions of would-be disciples have too often created mostly pale imitations, and scholars have laid waste to forests of trees in printing articles and books that attempt to explain the essence of his genius. Yet, traces of Poe’s influence can be seen in the writings of such diverse authors as Jules Verne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ray Bradbury, Charles Baudelaire and Allen Ginsberg. (His writings have also been translated into every major language. One Japanese author and critic so greatly admired Poe that he changed his own name from Tarö Hirai to Edogawa Rampo.) And this influence has not been limited to the written word. Such artists as Gustave Doré, Arthur Rackham, and Édouard Manet have illustrated his works. Sergei Rachmaninov, Leonard Slatkin, Philip Glass, and many others have composed musical tributes. In an interview published in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock, the great movie director, commented that “It’s because I liked Edgar Allan Poe’s stories so much that I began to make suspense films.”

Today there is another mystery surrounding Poe. Between 1949 and 2012, an anonymous toaster appeared at Poe's grave in Baltimore's Westminster Burial Ground in the early hours of his birthday. The toaster left three roses and a half bottle of cognac. Over time he became somewhat of a celebrity himself appearing suddenly in the cemetery only to fulfill his task then disappear as mysteriously as he had appeared. In 2012 the tribute stopped. Did the toaster lose interest? Was he tired of the media circus and copycats? Was he infirm? Had he passed away? The world has no answer for these questions. The Toaster adds a fitting mystery to Poe's legacy, a window into fantasy that lives on in classrooms, in private libraries, in rippling glowing coals and faces in the fire or anywhere readers enjoy imagination at its best.






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
commons.wikimedia.org, public domain photograph by Edwin H. Manchester taken November 9, 1848 in Providence, Rhode Island

Text:

eapoe.org
poetryfoundation.org

MLK Day 2021: Echoes Of Peace And Justice For Our Time

 

Today is the official holiday commemorating King's birth on January 15, 1929. From the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Washington:

I doubt our Founding Fathers ever expected the American experience they created to be an easy one to maintain. Furthermore, I doubt they expected it to evolve outside the freedoms they enshrined in the rule of law. Much of what King did, much of what he said about equality and peaceful change operated within that context. Although there is much debate on whether  he could have maintained that posture due to rising competition from more militant organizations, his legacy lives on to help us perfect our union. As a people we pay a huge price for focusing on what divides us rather than on what unites us. The erosion of the political environment over the past four years is a daily reminder of that cost As Americans we should stop talking and listen to the wisdom of this great preacher.



More about this day, the man, and his legacy can be found at the King Center website and that of the Martin Luther King National Historical Park.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Public domain photo, Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org/) and Wikimedia Commons

January 16, 1938: The Day When Jazz Gained Overnight Respect

On this night,  Benny Goodman and his band, along with select members of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands, performed a concert at Carnegie Hall. No jazz bandleader had ever performed there. The concert was a sensation, reaffirming Goodman as the "King of Swing," and jazz as serious American music. Over eighty years later in the eyes of many music critics and historians, this concert remains the single most important event in popular music history in the United States. 

Benny Goodman in New York City, 1946

Superlatives aside, the concert was a study in swing music history and jazz improvisation. After several curtain calls at the end of the concert, Goodman announced to the screaming fans that an encore would follow. Sing, Sing, Sing was the last song in that set. It already was a popular piece for the band, but this performance lifted it to holy status in the swing jazz genre. Featured players: Gene Kruppa on drums, Babe Russin on saxaphone, Harry James on trumpet, Goodman on clarinet, and Jess Stacy in a masterpiece of improvisation on piano.

Recordings of the concert have remained in print as best sellers since 1950 when tape masters were found in Goodman's home and in 1998 with the discovery of the original aluminum masters. What more can be said?

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Library of Congress

The Depths Of Winter

 

The warmth of the joyous holidays of Christmas and News Year's Day are behind us. I suppose that leaves most of us looking forward to the natural warmth we see in the world outside our windows. Who among us doesn't enjoy the early flocks  beginning their migrations, rising sap that brings a faint and sudden redness to young branches, and a impatient crocus popping out of leaf litter. Earlier this week as I completed my astronomical calendar for the new year I was reminded that January 9 - 12 is on average the coldest period of the year in this part of the Georgia Piedmont. 

This year the three days seem to be living up to its reputation quite well but tomorrow shows some promise. Outside my window at midafternoon it's barely 40 degrees and the light rain and drizzle hasn't stopped since sunrise. This kind of day compels me to abandon the office and move to a southern exposure in a room walled with windows. Overlooking our woods there, the opportunity for distraction is high but matched by the opportunity for inspiration. I'll take the risk.  

For most friends in the eastern United States there's a good chance that your dates for the depth of winter correspond reasonably with mine. And if you're like me, don't care much for winter, and haven't made it to tropical Florida this year maybe its time to celebrate the coming of the migrations, rising sap, and renegade flowers.  It's a bit late today now that darkness is upon us but think ahead to tomorrow and find a southern-facing window overlooking a cherished landscape large or small. Get comfortable. Relax and look at it. In time you'll hear it, smell it, taste it, even touch it. A bit of George Winston's piano, soft and distant, may help set the mood. 

It may be winter and the season of rest but landscapes are very much alive. Stay warm!

The First Sunday In Epiphany: The Feast Of The Baptism Of The Lord

On this, the first Sunday in Epiphany, many Christians celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  

The Baptism of Christ                William Blake, about 1799                 

From Mark 1:4-11 (NIV)

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with[a] water, but he will baptize you with[b] the Holy Spirit.”

The Baptism and Testing of Jesus

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 And from Martin Luther's 1534 sermon on the baptism of Jesus:

So we should learn to understand baptism and cherish it, because it contains the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—or even just the name of Christ, as reported in Acts.10 It is sufficient to be baptized in the name of Christ, because the Father and the Holy Spirit are there [where he is]. So don’t separate the water from the word, but say, “The water is ordained by God to make us pure for Christ’s sake, for the sake of the Father and the Holy Spirit. They are there in the water to purify us from sin and death.” Whoever is in sin, stick them in the baptism[al water], and their sin will be extinguished. Whoever is in death, stick them in the baptism[al water], and death will be swallowed up. For baptism has divine power, the power to break sin and death. That’s why we are baptized. If later we fall into error or sin, we have not thereby demolished our baptism; we return to it, and say, “God has baptized me, plunged me into the baptism[al water] of his Son, of the Father and the Holy Spirit. There I return, and I trust that my baptism will take away my sin—not for my sake, but for the sake of the man Christ, who instituted it.”

Here is some music for the day, J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 7, "Christ our Lord came to the Jordan." Titles for its seven sections are based on the first line of each stanza of a Martin Luther hymn of the same name.  

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

Wikimedia Commons, File: William Blake - The Baptism of Christ

Text:

 Word & World, Volume XVI, Number 1 Winter 1996

Carl Sandburg: Speaking American

Today is the birthday of the American lecturer, journalist, poet, biographer, editor and folk singer, Carl Sandburg. He remains my favorite American socialist. Those of us who had a childhood in the 1950s grew up knowing Sandburg rather well as he enjoyed near iconic status as a literary figure. By 1950, his most significant work had already appeared but he maintained a busy working retirement at his farm, Connemara, located in western North Carolina, where he produced about one-third of his total literary output.

Sandburg was widely known as the voice of the American people, especially the working men and women who built a new and prosperous nation out of dreams and sweat. In spite of his popularity, he was a family man at heart who loved the warmth and activities associated with his close-knit family consisting of his wife, Lillian Steichen Sandburg and their three children and their families.

Carl Sandburg in 1955 Library of Congress photo 

For about forty years now, Connemara has been preserved as the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site . During my career I was honored to work for several months with the staff and resources there and was offered the opportunity to manage the place in the mid 90's. As time and fate would have it I declined that offer thus preserving my sole family tie to Lillian and Carl Sandburg at Connemara, that being my late goat farming father-in-law and his business with them and their award-winning Chikaming herd.

If you find yourself near Connemara and Flat Rock, North Carolina, a visit to the historic site would be time well spent. Penelope Niven's 1991 work, Carl Sandburg: A Biography, is an essential resource for those who want to know more about the three-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer and his family.



Here is Sandburg reading his work for a Caedmon recording released in 1959.

The Way Of Alan Watts: It's Just The Dancing Pattern

By the 1960's he had become rather well-known on the American scene as much for living "in the moment" in alcohol, experimental drugs, and other excesses as for his writings. Classical Zen masters criticized him for practicing a light version of Buddhism. Many in the youth rebellion of the time latched on to his eccentricities and independent thought as a beacon in what they viewed as a western world in decline. Either way, he would say that he was what he did. We can do nothing more or less than accept the full man. 

His name was Alan Watts. He was born January 6, 1915, in Britain where he developed a keen interest in Asian studies. He moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s and became an Episcopal priest in 1943. After seven years Watts left the church and returned to the study of Asian philosophy and religion full-time. When he died in November 1973 he left the world over two dozen books, hundreds of pamphlets and briefs, and well over a thousand hours of audiovisual recordings offering his original thoughts on the Western expression of Zen/ Zen Buddhism and Asian philosophy. For further reading I recommend his autobiography, In My Own Way, published in 1972. It is an entertaining book providing readers with a memorable glimpse of American culture and character in the generation following World War II.

And how did I come to know of Watts and his world? In 1968 documentary filmmakers, Irving and Elda Hartley, produced a fourteen-minute film entitled Buddhism: Man and Nature. Watts wrote the script and provided the narration. For the Hartleys, it was an award winning addition to their series on spirituality and religion. For others, particularly those studying or working in natural resource management, education/interpretation, and related fields, the film was a compelling prescription for understanding and appreciating our natural world. It is in that context that I encountered it in the early 1970’s as a new employee of the National Park Service.

Within days of seeing Buddhism: Man and Nature I found myself alone on a summer evening at a place I had known from early childhood. In my years there I grew to love a rich landscape of distant mountains, woods, fields, and water, an attachment that shaped my career. The film narration I transcribed later that night would travel with me for the next 36 years as I fulfilled a mission helping people appreciate, understand, and preserve some of the finest natural and cultural landscapes throughout the nation.

The film never influenced my personal religious convictions but the Zen concepts certainly impacted my understanding of the human place and role in natural landscapes. Alan Watts’s powerful script as well as his transcendent narration motivated me to look deeper into the man and his writings. Over the next decade his books on Zen, human behavior, and Asian philosophy and the West's response, grew to occupy well over three feet of shelf space in my library.

And what about the transcript I pounded out on my trusty Smith-Corona portable typewriter that evening? Now fragile, well-tattered, torn and coffee stained, it sits enshrined in the household safe.









Sources

Photos and Illustration:
kpfa.org

Text:
wikipedia.org
alanwatts.com

Epiphany 2021: Bearing Gifts For All

Today is Epiphany, the celebration of the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, and their recognition or revelation of Him as the King of Kings. With them they brought three precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And journeying from afar to Bethlehem they brought notice to the world that this King of Kings was for all humankind. What precious gifts!

The Adoration of the Kings                  William Blake, 1799

There is but one popular American carol for the celebration of Epiphany. It was written by the Episcopal clergyman, John Henry Hopkins, Jr., and appeared in print in 1863 in a collection of his sacred music.

And speaking of gifts here is a post I wrote in 2009 about a gift-giving tradition from my childhood. 

We can only imagine what it must have been like to celebrate Christmas for twelve days. The festivities, including the giving of one gift a day, then opening all of them on Twelfth Night or the following day (Epiphany), must have filled children with both anticipation and unbridled delight. I suspect that more than a few of those gifts were modest by today's standards, perhaps as simple as an orange or bag of special candy. Indeed, that was the case with my grandparents. My dad once told me that as far back as he could remember - he was born in 1907 -  his Aunt Lizzie (shown here in 1912 when she was 24)  had always given her nieces

and nephews several gifts, including a popcorn ball wrapped in colored cellophane. I'm sure they were a part of Lizzie's childhood in the late 1880s and 90s when popcorn was wildly popular. 

Like many women of her era Lizzie never married, choosing instead to care for her parents and brothers. When her brothers and sisters married and had children of their own, she continued her generosity, including the distribution of those popcorn balls up through her last Christmas in 1958. By that time, her popcorn ball making had turned into a small industry that not only served her large family but also the neighborhood. And so, every Christmas for my first ten years, I eagerly accompanied my parents to Lizzie's home to exchange gifts and return with a bag of popcorn balls. 

For some reason, my parents never carried on Lizzie's tradition for their one and only, nor did I for my three children. Obviously it's too late for my kids, and grandchildren are somewhere on a distant horizon. On the other hand, many readers may find joy in making a historic Christmas treat for their children or grandchildren in 2021. For even more fun and adventure you could  ask them to help!  From her small, red, and tattered memo book, I offer the recipe for...

Aunt Lizzie's Christmas Popcorn Balls

8 cups of popcorn
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup of sorghum syrup
1/3 cup of water
1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

Combine the sugar, sorghum, water, butter and salt in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches about 250 degrees or hardens when dropped into cold water. Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla, and pour over the popcorn. Working quickly, mix thoroughly, butter your hands and shape popcorn into balls about four inches wide. Let them cool on wax paper. Wrap each ball in red or green cellophane and secure with a ribbon. Distribute to wide-eyed youngsters or oldsters alike.


Sounds like a tradition in the making.

The Closing Day Of Christmas 2020: Twelfth Night Revelry

 

The quietness of the penultimate day of Christmastide 2020 has given way to the Twelfth and last day This day is important among Christians who maintain liturgical traditions: it marks the end of the twelve day festival celebrating the birth of Christ, it is the eve of Epiphany, and it is the beginning of the carnival season ending with Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent. Those who are reluctant to bid Christmas farewell can take heart knowing that the tradition of Christmastide extends through February 2 or Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

For some the Twelve Days of Christmas will end with elaborate costumes, masks, feasting, music, dancing, and theater at Twelfth Night festivities where misrule is the only rule. They are indeed topsy-turvy events. Only the Surveyor of Ceremonies will appear without a mask. He will direct the company through a series of games and other activities beginning with the distribution of the Twelfth Cakes. When all the party goers have arrived, each will select a small festival cake or cake slice. Three of those cakes contain a hidden bean or token designating them as the king cake, queen cake and fool cake. The lucky holders of the royal cakes oversee the evening's activities before returning to their normal lives, most likely "below the salt."

These Twelfth Night traditions have been part of western culture for over a thousand years. Some traditions carry over the night into Epiphany, January 6. This is the case in New Orleans where Twelfth Night parties have been popular for centuries due in part to their role as opening events of the Carnival season.

Twelfth Night festivities in New Orleans in 1884

We trust that you have experienced a wonder-filled Christmas. May you live throughout this new year in the spirit of Twelfth Night, finding joy and happiness in what often seems a disordered world. In the words of William Shakespeare, who had a bit to say about this evening in Twelfth Night, (Act II, Scene 5):

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Great or common - What you will!

And speaking of greatness here is music for the season, Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat in D Major. The composition was originally written in Leipzig for Christmas 1723 and contained four seasonal hymns.   In 1730 the composer revised the work by dropping the four seasonal hymns and changing the key to D Major. The second version is the one most often head today.