What's Not To Like?

A blog about "music, film, literature, philosophy." Bring it on!

Belated welcome to the blogosphere to Blind Impress, a blog by Larry Hardesty. I was asked to herald it a month ago--and promptly forgot. Bad Belle. But any friend of Hipster Law Prof Dude is a friend of Belle. I'm happy to promote the blog.

I was sad to read that the Hopeful Monsters broke up. I'm glad to read that Larry is blogging about Richard Rorty and Philip Larkin (a featured Saturday poet). I'm also happy that he's explaining musical scales and other musical nonesuch--very useful! I wanted to learn how to play an instrument as a kid, but my parents couldn't afford the instrument, lessons, etc. Years later, I only have a listener's appreciation for music (bolstered by a nerdy inclination to read music theory and classical music history). So it's interesting to read.

I still don't know if I get it, but then again that's the sad plight of a girl who never strummed a guitar, mumbling underneath her breath imperceptibly "this goes out to the one I love." Okay, yeah I'd make a lame musician. Still, I'd like to think I'd rock more than Jewel. Actually, anyone would rock more than that yodel-y sexpot who writes trite lyrics and truly terrible poetry--Tom Jones most certainly, and even Pat Boone. Oh yes, I am a hater, and I hate more player than game.

I look forward to reading more of Blind Impress. I hope that Larry will continue to blog about literature, philosophy, music and film--and all in one post!

It's not too hard to imagine. There's the 1971 film Death In Venice--lots of stuff to work with there, including Mahler's 5th Adagietto, and the Nietzche-influenced author Thomas Mann. I do believe this might be a blog tag, Larry.

So, go read Larry's blog. And I'll leave you with two of my favorite poems that describe the evocative nature of music:

From "The Dry Salvages" by T.S. Eliot:

Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.


Music I Heard by Conrad Aiken:

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved, --
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always, --
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.