View from The Apartment -- Tuesday afternoon

The world -- the view -- is outside the window ....
Or, is the view actually inside the window ....

Or, maybe, the view envelopes the viewer

Outside The Apartment on Castle Square, the world went by, while inside The Apartment, it was possible to view the activity taking place just outside on television broadcast live from a camera atop the Taras Widokowy viewing terrace.

The daily view of Castle Square is worth thinking about and writing about. A photograph might be worth a thousand words, but a photograph cannot reveal the significance of the experience nearly as well as words. Through a photograph, it is possible to see what the viewer saw, but not to feel what the viewer felt or to understand what the viewer experienced. Words still rule.

The Apartment is on the second floor of one of the buildings at the far end of Castle Square. Perhaps, if you look very, very carefully, you might see hands waving to you from Neverland ....

Music & the magic it envelopes

Put on the costume & no one sleeps

If you had been in Florence, Italy, in May of 1971, you would have had the opportunity to hear this voice and this tenor aria in person. Well, I was not there, either, but I heard recordings of this voice singing one song or another two or three or four times a week for a few years when I was a teenager.

There have been a few times when I have mentioned that I had a step-father who had lived on Long Island in New York for a decade and, when he returned to his hometown in Minnesota, brought with him an acquired love of opera, Broadway musicals and classical music in general. When he and my mother married, I became the beneficiary of hearing these forms of music. As you might imagine, few, if any, of my small town contemporaries were exposed to these types of music.

My step-father's favorite singer was Richard Tucker, an American who reportedly was more Italian in voice, demeanor and talent than any native-born Italian of his time. So, for the fun of it, here is an audio of Tucker singing "Vesti la Giubba" from Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." This excerpt is from a live, May 1971, performance at Florence's May Festival. Riccardo Muti is conducting the orchestra. I picked this one to offer a taste of Tucker because everyone knows Florence is a mystical city, and because no one knows where he might find himself next May.

Following next is a clip of Tucker performing the sensually beautiful aria, "Nessum Dorma," from Puccini's "Turandot." The clip is from an "ancient" Ed Sullivan Show recorded in 1961. Too bad they did not permit Tucker to carry on the final note another five or six seconds. By the way, Turandot is one young lady a young man definitely does not want to lose his head over. Rock on, baby, and roll away ....

Song No. 1 -- Richard Tucker
Vesti la guibba = Put on the costume
Florence, Italy 1971

Song No. 2 -- Richard Tucker
Nessum dorma = No one sleeps
Ed Sullivan Show 1961





Will the real Fram please stand up

Just to make certain no one walks away from here thinking Fram is flipping his cookies (well, actually, he might be), here is a taste of the music more likely to be identified with him. David Coverdale is a fairly typical, fairly average (I think) singer who generally is identified with the bands Deep Purple or Whitesnake. Jimmy Page might be typical, but is hardly average. His name will forever be linked to the band Led Zeppelin, and he is among the premier guitar players of his era.

Coverdale and Page tied in together for a while in the 1990s. This is an amateur video from a performance in 1993 in Japan. Page is playing his "famous" two-neck, Gibson guitar for this piece, which is, "Take Me for a Little While." Too, bad the video is not better quality, but, alas, nothing is perfect.

David Coverdale & Jimmy Page
Take Me for a Little While
Osaka, Japan 1993

Books (again), internationalism & clouds

Seeing behind the curtains ….

Yesterday, I made a remark that I thought books produce more questions than they do answers. Hopefully, it was understood I was referring to literature, and to "legitimate" commentaries regarding philosophy, religion , history and similar topics.

There are any number of quacks, phonies and two-bit charlatans publishing books. Want to lose 50 pounds in 50 days? Want to double your income? You know what I mean. People who buy such books either are desperate or probably only interested in the pictures. But, the entire world revolves around selling and sales. Even "legitimate" authors want to have their books sell and to make money and, most certainly, they all want to convince you, the reader, that their talent is real and their ideas are valid.

Whether an individual reads to learn or for entertainment or for both, it would be nice to believe each individual's reading habit will include books that leave him asking questions rather than thinking he has learned all the answers. It is at that point when seeing behind the curtains and hearing beyond the spoken words begin, I think.

Comes the internationalist ….

It did not occur to me that I'm (sort of) an "internationalist" until someone pointed it out to me in terms of books. My list of the fourteen best novels of the 20th Century had two books written by a Greek, one by a German, two by an Irish expatriate, one (actually a four-book set) written by an English expatriate born in India, one written by a Norwegian who did not come to the U.S. until he was an adult, and seven by Americans, at least two of which were expatriates for parts of their lives.

Who drives the clouds?

A few nights ago, I was perusing (or cruising, if you prefer) a few blog sites when I encountered this phrase: "I know who drives the clouds."

My immediate thought was, "That is one thing I do not know."

My second thought was, "What a beautiful use of words; what a perfect expression. Did it originally come from a novel or, maybe, from a poem?"

My next thought was, "Drives, as one drives a herd of cattle over natural terrain, or drives, as one drives a car along a defined roadway?"

My walking-away thought was, "Now, there is something of relevance to mull over for a while."

As Bob Dylan once said:
"How many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky?"

Music Note: Currently listening to Richard Tucker ....
Specifically, "Richard Tucker Sings Puccini" ....
(I gotta find a way to bust out of this serious mood)