"If you believe in magic, come along with me"

"The Reader" (Young Woman Reading a Book) is an 1875-76 oil on canvas by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The model was Margot, who is described as having curly auburn hair, sparse eyebrows, a wide nose, plump cheeks, often seen with her voluptuous lips curled in a scornful smile, and a noisy and a vulgar way of speaking with her suburban, Parisian accent. She is a dancing girl and was painted often by Renoir -- always transfigured by his art. In 1881, she died of typhoid fever .... Renoir paid for her burial. The musical selections today are The Yardbirds -- "Train Kept 'a Rollin'" (a clip from the 1966 film "Blowup" featuring two guitar legends in their early days) / Claude Debussy: An orchestra variation of "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" / J.S. Bach -- Nuria Rial & L'Arpeggiata -- "La dama d'Aragó" (Cantata BWV 89).

A tale of the times .... more-or-less

(Part 1 of 2)

Double double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good

Those lines and a few more were among some I memorized as a 15-year-old in a high school English class. They come from the play, "Macbeth," written in trochaic tetrameter by William Shakespeare.  This was my first exposure to "Willie Boy," an encounter which has taken place many times during the years since.

The words are spoken by three witches and probably are among the most quoted and misquoted lines composed by friend Shakespeare. I have a tendency to think "bubble bubble," rather than "double double."

Although I am not a religious individual, I like to think of myself as a spiritual one and believe I was "blest" to have had two absolutely dedicated and superb English teachers during five of my six high school years. One was a spinster who had lifelong medical problems and died young, and the other was a married lady whose husband had a deserved reputation for pursuing anyone who wore a skirt, as the old cliché noted. My speculation is that they found solace in literature for the cards life had dealt them and felt an obligation to pass their love for it on to their students.

Moving along with a hop, a skip and a jump:

This is not a post about Shakespeare or my reading habits and not even about the "magic day" of October: Hallows' Even or Hallows' Evening or Allhalloween or, as it is known today, Halloween.

Relax, we shall pass by the history and traditions of Halloween, a liturgical event for remembering the dead. Such data is abundant for those curious enough to look.

Rather, this is a two-part post about magic. Yep, magic .... well, sort of, anyway ....

(End Part 1 .... to be continued ....)