Three days ago I was struck by a whim that has turned nearly into a plan: namely, that I want to spend the summer working on a horse ranch in the American Midwest. I don't know if it's absurd or not, but I do think it's possible. I've already begun to research getting a travel visa and to work out the details. It would be in between May and October 2008; I would go to a student advisor at the Freie Uni first to see, among other things, if I would be able to re-apply from overseas; I would place an advertisement in the National Geographic or some other national periodical; etc.
The main thing I have to make sure is that the reasons why I want to do this are good, for example not that I simply want to run away from my problems. So far I've found many advantages to the plan: I've always been interested in horse-back riding and the prairies (since I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books); I don't like sitting around the whole time, as I have for the last year and a half, and if I am working on a ranch I will probably be quite active; it would be helpful to learn to get up early; it will most likely be an adventure; and so on and so forth. It would also be a lovely opportunity to read up on Midwestern history and geography and botany, horses, and First Aid; perhaps also to improve my Spanish.
Besides, I'm not getting much out of my time here in Berlin at present. University fell through; haven't got a job yet; seldom go out; etc. And I've met very few congenial people yet, and none my own age, which is not surprising under the aforementioned circumstances. But even if I had a full-time career and a social life, I don't think that these are enough to round out existence. One can't really get a sense of perspective on the relative importance of things in life even in the varied environment of the city. What one needs is, I think, to be busy physically as well as mentally, and to get to know the world from different perspectives. And, if I'm cleaning out the stables (or, perchance, even riding a horse) in the middle of the American countryside, not only will I see the world from a different angle, but I'll also be too busy to even think of employing my time with the guilt-ridden brooding of the past year. Besides, as far as I have seen and read, something about "roughing it" does give many people a steady self-respect and a quiet tolerance of everyone else. This is what I most want. One can be matured by other experience, too; but I'd rather shovel manure at 5 a.m. every day, or fall off a horse and break a leg and learn to take it in stride, than to suffer the slings and arrows of other people. As I learned in school, the petty persecutions of other people tend to destroy more than they build up, and the damage takes years to repair; I've had quite enough of it.
As for politics, I can distinguish the American government from the American people. The Americans I knew in school and university were mostly well-informed and tolerant. Where Bush is concerned, I do not consider that European leaders like Berlusconi are any better. Besides, it should be interesting to be in the US as the electoral campaigns hit their peak.
It's true that living in Berlin has many good points. The most obvious is that my family lives there. Then I like being among people who have a more thorough way of working, more interests, and perhaps more intelligence; I'd generally rather live in the city than the country, despite the dirt and bad air; and I am happy to be close to so many old buildings, museums, art galleries, etc. But none of this will be lost to me if I go off for four months or so, and I'll probably appreciate the advantages of Berlin twice as much after I return home. Altogether I know that this journey would have its risks, and might turn out a disappointment, but if it were to work out as I hope, I could get so much out of it.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Halls of Hoary Antiquity
It has rained and rained today, but I stayed inside quite happily. For the past three days I've been stirring out-of-doors considerably (a trip to an art gallery, a walk to the Kleistpark, and an evening out with T. and my aunt L.), and have been in correspondingly good spirits. Going out does not necessarily equate cheerfulness, but lately I've been fortunate. Yesterday evening, however, I had a headache and felt quite ill, so today I "took it easy." First of all I played on the ukulele and piano.
Then I read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, a slim tome that my aunt gave me for my birthday. It describes the fictional scenario of the Queen becoming an inveterate bookworm. Modest in its aims, understated, and gently paced, it's very British, I think, and much reminds me of Stephen Frears's film with Helen Mirren. The character of the Queen -- the emotional inhibition, brief and calm and somewhat stilted speech, hints of acerbity, reserve, and strange isolation -- is fairly similar. The book's humour is not really of the laugh-out-loud sort, more of the quiet chuckle variety, but it is consistently entertaining in its mild way and I thought that the ending was an excellent, unexpected but not incongruous touch.
While I don't want to describe the last days much, I do want to tell about L.'s, T.'s and my trip to the Bode Museum yesterday evening. I had never been there before. We took the U-Bahn to Friedrichstraße station, then wandered down along the Georgenstraße. A tram line (I didn't know there were any trams left in Berlin) ran to our right, and to the left there ran the raised S-Bahn tracks. The shops and restaurants underneath made it look like an inverted and more prosaic version of Florence's Ponte Vecchio. The shops were closed; only the glow of their lamps and the elegant china and polished wood, etc., in their windows remained. A garbage can overflowed with the débris of the day. But a large restaurant, Die Zwölf Apostel, was open, filled with dinner guests. We peered in, then passed on through the no-man's-land at the S-Bahn overpasses, then along the waterway that separates the Museum Island from the rest of Berlin. The globe-lamps were shining along the broad, low bridge over it; the water was glittering; and through the tall windows of the Bode Museum we already saw some of the paintings hanging in a white hallway.
We reached the steps of the Museum, and pushed our way through three ranks of great doors until we reached the foyer. Entrance was free, but I gave my coat and bag away at the cloakroom, in the shadow of a great equestrian statue. We went nearly directly to the Gothic rooms, which L. had missed the last time she went to the museum. Then T. and I strayed about separately, looking for whatever struck our fancy. Early on we encountered a sculpture of Christ on a donkey, which greeted visitors into one room; as T. remarked, it presented, in its fairly humble and approachable aspect, a sharp contrast to the usual pompous king-astride-a-horse. In the same room L. pointed out an oaken figurine of St. Christopher with the infant Jesus on its shoulder, a wooden stick in his hand, a ripply chunk of blue-painted water at his feet, and a strong expression of consternation or perhaps irritation on his face. The statues and paintings in that room had the intermingling of beauty, darkness, crudity, intricate richness, and grotesqueness that annoys but also intrigues me about medieval art.
Later there were two extremely ornate ivory carvings of hundreds of little human figures, skeletons, devils, etc., in the Day of Judgment and the Fall of the Angels, set in a golden frame; a maternal woman in bronze looking fondly upon three infants who played around her skirts, as she casually crushed the agonized head of a bearded man underfoot; a head of the mater dolorosa, perhaps in majolica, with a beautiful, pure and finely-molded face, but red-rimmed eyes whence tears coursed down her cheeks. There was a gloomy painting of Christ that was the least sympathetic I'd ever seen. Also, a golden bust of St. Apollonia as a fifteenth-century court lady straight out of a Henry VIII film or portrait: immensely puffy sleeves, tight brocade corset, and a loose blue sash tied around her waist. There was a Venetian fireplace carved out of beige stone, with acanthus leaves and faces; a twisty column standing on the back of a lion; an ivory (hunting-?)horn that might have come out of Narnia; a 6th(?)-century silver spoon; and the coin-sized, staring face of what may have been a king. In another room there stood a splendid larger-than-life-size marble statue of Diana, her dog baring its teeth at her knee; a bronze bust of a Pope; and a graceful marble sculpture of a dancer in a clinging dress, facing a rougher fountain where a burly man ate grapes from the vine with his mouth as a rather repulsive-looking dog stretched out between his legs.
I reflected that there is something sad and absurd in lifelike figures, who are doomed to hold the same position and wear the same expression for eternity, and to be paradoxically lively and active-looking despite being wholly motionless. This isn't a very original sentiment, of course, but valid nonetheless.
Altogether, brief though it was, I enjoyed the visit very much. I think that it is a lovely experience to become completely immersed in a book, or painting, or piece of music, or whatever, so that one forgets one's surroundings and feels the atmosphere of the object much more vividly than one normally would. Yesterday many of the museum pieces did make a deep impression on me. Not only the pieces, but also the building; when T. and I entered the stately stairway under the cupola, I was involuntarily struck dumb for a moment. I didn't like being so much affected by grandioseness; but I'm sure that Friedrich II, whose statue stood in a niche above the first landing, would have been pleased.
Then I read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, a slim tome that my aunt gave me for my birthday. It describes the fictional scenario of the Queen becoming an inveterate bookworm. Modest in its aims, understated, and gently paced, it's very British, I think, and much reminds me of Stephen Frears's film with Helen Mirren. The character of the Queen -- the emotional inhibition, brief and calm and somewhat stilted speech, hints of acerbity, reserve, and strange isolation -- is fairly similar. The book's humour is not really of the laugh-out-loud sort, more of the quiet chuckle variety, but it is consistently entertaining in its mild way and I thought that the ending was an excellent, unexpected but not incongruous touch.
While I don't want to describe the last days much, I do want to tell about L.'s, T.'s and my trip to the Bode Museum yesterday evening. I had never been there before. We took the U-Bahn to Friedrichstraße station, then wandered down along the Georgenstraße. A tram line (I didn't know there were any trams left in Berlin) ran to our right, and to the left there ran the raised S-Bahn tracks. The shops and restaurants underneath made it look like an inverted and more prosaic version of Florence's Ponte Vecchio. The shops were closed; only the glow of their lamps and the elegant china and polished wood, etc., in their windows remained. A garbage can overflowed with the débris of the day. But a large restaurant, Die Zwölf Apostel, was open, filled with dinner guests. We peered in, then passed on through the no-man's-land at the S-Bahn overpasses, then along the waterway that separates the Museum Island from the rest of Berlin. The globe-lamps were shining along the broad, low bridge over it; the water was glittering; and through the tall windows of the Bode Museum we already saw some of the paintings hanging in a white hallway.
We reached the steps of the Museum, and pushed our way through three ranks of great doors until we reached the foyer. Entrance was free, but I gave my coat and bag away at the cloakroom, in the shadow of a great equestrian statue. We went nearly directly to the Gothic rooms, which L. had missed the last time she went to the museum. Then T. and I strayed about separately, looking for whatever struck our fancy. Early on we encountered a sculpture of Christ on a donkey, which greeted visitors into one room; as T. remarked, it presented, in its fairly humble and approachable aspect, a sharp contrast to the usual pompous king-astride-a-horse. In the same room L. pointed out an oaken figurine of St. Christopher with the infant Jesus on its shoulder, a wooden stick in his hand, a ripply chunk of blue-painted water at his feet, and a strong expression of consternation or perhaps irritation on his face. The statues and paintings in that room had the intermingling of beauty, darkness, crudity, intricate richness, and grotesqueness that annoys but also intrigues me about medieval art.
Later there were two extremely ornate ivory carvings of hundreds of little human figures, skeletons, devils, etc., in the Day of Judgment and the Fall of the Angels, set in a golden frame; a maternal woman in bronze looking fondly upon three infants who played around her skirts, as she casually crushed the agonized head of a bearded man underfoot; a head of the mater dolorosa, perhaps in majolica, with a beautiful, pure and finely-molded face, but red-rimmed eyes whence tears coursed down her cheeks. There was a gloomy painting of Christ that was the least sympathetic I'd ever seen. Also, a golden bust of St. Apollonia as a fifteenth-century court lady straight out of a Henry VIII film or portrait: immensely puffy sleeves, tight brocade corset, and a loose blue sash tied around her waist. There was a Venetian fireplace carved out of beige stone, with acanthus leaves and faces; a twisty column standing on the back of a lion; an ivory (hunting-?)horn that might have come out of Narnia; a 6th(?)-century silver spoon; and the coin-sized, staring face of what may have been a king. In another room there stood a splendid larger-than-life-size marble statue of Diana, her dog baring its teeth at her knee; a bronze bust of a Pope; and a graceful marble sculpture of a dancer in a clinging dress, facing a rougher fountain where a burly man ate grapes from the vine with his mouth as a rather repulsive-looking dog stretched out between his legs.
I reflected that there is something sad and absurd in lifelike figures, who are doomed to hold the same position and wear the same expression for eternity, and to be paradoxically lively and active-looking despite being wholly motionless. This isn't a very original sentiment, of course, but valid nonetheless.
Altogether, brief though it was, I enjoyed the visit very much. I think that it is a lovely experience to become completely immersed in a book, or painting, or piece of music, or whatever, so that one forgets one's surroundings and feels the atmosphere of the object much more vividly than one normally would. Yesterday many of the museum pieces did make a deep impression on me. Not only the pieces, but also the building; when T. and I entered the stately stairway under the cupola, I was involuntarily struck dumb for a moment. I didn't like being so much affected by grandioseness; but I'm sure that Friedrich II, whose statue stood in a niche above the first landing, would have been pleased.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Piano, Pencil, and Prada
Today I woke up late, but well-rested and happy. Clouds overspread the sky during much of the day; I stayed inside and read Guardian and New York Times articles, browsed YouTube, and played the piano.
Lately I'd practically given up on my piano-playing. It seems that I won't make any more progress in any case, and for a while I no longer felt compelled to work through moods or troubled thoughts with it. But since then there have been moods and troubled thoughts in plenty, so I turned to the piano again and played much more expressively than usual (which is the upside of gloominess). The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (despite its endless potential in boringness and kitsch) and the B flat major sonata of Schubert fit my mood particularly well, as did Bach's Goldberg Variations. These three compositions have what I prize most in music, which I think of as "nobility": a mixture of deep feeling, unforced grandeur, beauty, and seriousness. In recorded music I look for the same thing; I don't see the point of playing classical music if the chief motivation and aim is to perform for an audience, and not to express one's self. It's unreasonable to demand that musicians should turn their feelings off and on in public, but that's what the artist's career essentially is and always has been, I think.
What I like about music best is that it conveys feeling instantly, on a simple, unanalytical level. If I am gloomy, I play that way, and don't consider why I am gloomy, or tell myself to cheer up, or pretend anything, as I would do for instance when writing in my diary. I think it's also impossible to interact with other people without having to pretend things, like trying to pay attention to them and being in a good mood when one is tired and unhappy. It is extremely safe confiding one's feelings to the piano: it, being inanimate, can't be bored; always understands; and never blames one or suggests that one should move on and stop taking things too seriously. -- As you can tell, I am a very conflicted soul. (c: -- And it can be extremely satisfying to play grumpy pieces, like Beethoven's last piano sonata in c minor. I rarely become angry and never swear (apart from "damn"), but playing the heavy chords and fortes in that sonata gives one the same sense of pleasure that one would, I believe, derive from giving someone who has richly deserved it a punch on the nose.
Among the newspaper articles, I much enjoyed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's account of curing his cold, where his voice sounded "like a throttled frog." It's often evident in travel, dining, fashion, etc. articles (especially in the Guardian) that the writer is striving to be entertaining, but whenever I meet an especially well-turned phrase I enjoy it anyway. Yesterday I also found a journal (written by a Daily Show writer) of the television and film writers' strike in the US, which has been felt even here because of the void that is created in our souls by the lack of new episodes of our favourite political satire shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Episodes of America's Next Top Model will be broadcast normally, but this afternoon I watched the show again on YouTube and became completely disgusted with the show's superficiality, so it makes no difference. It has turned into a cynical, soulless money-making machine. The show's mixture of fashion and sanctimoniousness is an extremely uneasy one, and it leads to hypocrisy. This season the contestants were banned from smoking, because smoking supposedly makes them bad "role models" for the children watching the show. I don't know if the ban is even legal, and it's certainly tyrannical. Couldn't the smoking scenes have been edited out anyway? Besides, anorexia and bulimia have been treated not as illnesses but as moral delinquencies, and the would-be models are never told to "lose weight" but just to "tone down a little." Last week a perfectly healthy contestant was dropped from the competition because she was no longer plus-size. Good grief.
Anyway, I've also read the New York Times (among others) obituary of Norman Mailer, and much enjoyed this quote from Gore Vidal: "He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements." But the gossip in the obituaries did irritate me. I wonder if famous people with wild lifestyles like Norman Mailer's really do as much damage as many others whose failings are scrupulously kept private. In school, at least, I found that the least pleasant fellow students were those who had been bullied themselves, or popular ones who felt superior to everyone else. Most of the students were "good" students who seriously believed that they did and would do nothing wrong or unkind. They mistook being bien-pensant (thinking what one is desired to think; conformist) for moral uprightness, and the highest good in their eyes was fitting in. It was the mischief-makers who were more generous and kind than everyone else. I don't know for sure if Mr. Mailer fit into this last category, but in any case, to paraphrase the Bible, I think that the obituary-writer who is without sin should cast the first stone.
J. read one of the obituaries with me after we had done his homework together. There is a Youth Parliament in our district of Berlin (Tempelhof-Schöneberg) that is to be disbanded; it apparently worked together with the municipal government on earth-shattering issues like setting up soccer goals. The teacher told the class to write a letter to the editor of the Berliner Morgenpost, taking a stand either for or against its dissolution, and using the arguments that were presented in the worksheets. J. didn't care that much and didn't feel he knew that much either, so I suggested that he just write that he didn't have an opinion, but state what he thought were the two strongest points, pro and con. So he wrote something in English, and I translated it into German for him. This whole exercise reminded me of things I disliked in school, for example having to formulate opinions where I didn't feel that I had enough information or interest to do it intelligently. If c'est la vie, la vie can be improved with very little effort.
Besides, I caught up on the Sartorialist and Chocolate & Zucchini blogs. The first is the website of a photographer who takes pictures of ordinary people in the street who are wearing interesting clothing. Lately, as his fame has grown, these "ordinary people" are largely superseded by Vogue editors from New York to Milan, Karl Lagerfeld, and fashionistas tottering about in Prada shoes or clutching portfolios bearing the double-C logo of Chanel. But an original person still appears here and there, and the rich and fashionable and beautiful are also worthwhile seeing in moderation. Thanks to the blog, I have been initiated into the mystic fashion jargon (e.g. "silhouette" and "proportions"), the eccentric delights of Thom Browne, and fearful controversies (e.g. sleeve length, oversized bags, and neckties that are too tightly or too loosely knotted). Now I've tired of trivial fashion detail, but even if I still rarely notice what other people are wearing, I will at least be able to notice it intelligently when I do. But my resulting explorations of the online New York Times and Guardian fashion sections and Style.com have inspired me to vague thoughts about clothing as a revelation of character, aesthetics, the use of cross-cultural references in fashion, and so on and so forth. And, though I still doubt that I could talk worthwhile-ly about fashion, I think I can drop names as well as anybody. (c:
Chocolate & Zucchini is a blog by a Parisienne who has lived in the US; she writes about cooking with a truly excellent English style and French wit. Her ingredients are rather recherché, to be found only in an organic market with a wide and varied stock, but reading about faro and spelt wheat, quinoa, fleur de sel, etc. is an agreeably exotic experience in any case.
And in my foragings on YouTube I found, among others, black-and-white clips of Marian Anderson. In one she sings the American anthem, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," in front of the Lincoln Memorial (at Eleanor Roosevelt's invitation) in 1939. But a recording that I find musically better is her beautiful rendition of "He shall feed his flock" from Händel's Messiah.
Lately I'd practically given up on my piano-playing. It seems that I won't make any more progress in any case, and for a while I no longer felt compelled to work through moods or troubled thoughts with it. But since then there have been moods and troubled thoughts in plenty, so I turned to the piano again and played much more expressively than usual (which is the upside of gloominess). The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (despite its endless potential in boringness and kitsch) and the B flat major sonata of Schubert fit my mood particularly well, as did Bach's Goldberg Variations. These three compositions have what I prize most in music, which I think of as "nobility": a mixture of deep feeling, unforced grandeur, beauty, and seriousness. In recorded music I look for the same thing; I don't see the point of playing classical music if the chief motivation and aim is to perform for an audience, and not to express one's self. It's unreasonable to demand that musicians should turn their feelings off and on in public, but that's what the artist's career essentially is and always has been, I think.
What I like about music best is that it conveys feeling instantly, on a simple, unanalytical level. If I am gloomy, I play that way, and don't consider why I am gloomy, or tell myself to cheer up, or pretend anything, as I would do for instance when writing in my diary. I think it's also impossible to interact with other people without having to pretend things, like trying to pay attention to them and being in a good mood when one is tired and unhappy. It is extremely safe confiding one's feelings to the piano: it, being inanimate, can't be bored; always understands; and never blames one or suggests that one should move on and stop taking things too seriously. -- As you can tell, I am a very conflicted soul. (c: -- And it can be extremely satisfying to play grumpy pieces, like Beethoven's last piano sonata in c minor. I rarely become angry and never swear (apart from "damn"), but playing the heavy chords and fortes in that sonata gives one the same sense of pleasure that one would, I believe, derive from giving someone who has richly deserved it a punch on the nose.
Among the newspaper articles, I much enjoyed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's account of curing his cold, where his voice sounded "like a throttled frog." It's often evident in travel, dining, fashion, etc. articles (especially in the Guardian) that the writer is striving to be entertaining, but whenever I meet an especially well-turned phrase I enjoy it anyway. Yesterday I also found a journal (written by a Daily Show writer) of the television and film writers' strike in the US, which has been felt even here because of the void that is created in our souls by the lack of new episodes of our favourite political satire shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Episodes of America's Next Top Model will be broadcast normally, but this afternoon I watched the show again on YouTube and became completely disgusted with the show's superficiality, so it makes no difference. It has turned into a cynical, soulless money-making machine. The show's mixture of fashion and sanctimoniousness is an extremely uneasy one, and it leads to hypocrisy. This season the contestants were banned from smoking, because smoking supposedly makes them bad "role models" for the children watching the show. I don't know if the ban is even legal, and it's certainly tyrannical. Couldn't the smoking scenes have been edited out anyway? Besides, anorexia and bulimia have been treated not as illnesses but as moral delinquencies, and the would-be models are never told to "lose weight" but just to "tone down a little." Last week a perfectly healthy contestant was dropped from the competition because she was no longer plus-size. Good grief.
Anyway, I've also read the New York Times (among others) obituary of Norman Mailer, and much enjoyed this quote from Gore Vidal: "He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements." But the gossip in the obituaries did irritate me. I wonder if famous people with wild lifestyles like Norman Mailer's really do as much damage as many others whose failings are scrupulously kept private. In school, at least, I found that the least pleasant fellow students were those who had been bullied themselves, or popular ones who felt superior to everyone else. Most of the students were "good" students who seriously believed that they did and would do nothing wrong or unkind. They mistook being bien-pensant (thinking what one is desired to think; conformist) for moral uprightness, and the highest good in their eyes was fitting in. It was the mischief-makers who were more generous and kind than everyone else. I don't know for sure if Mr. Mailer fit into this last category, but in any case, to paraphrase the Bible, I think that the obituary-writer who is without sin should cast the first stone.
J. read one of the obituaries with me after we had done his homework together. There is a Youth Parliament in our district of Berlin (Tempelhof-Schöneberg) that is to be disbanded; it apparently worked together with the municipal government on earth-shattering issues like setting up soccer goals. The teacher told the class to write a letter to the editor of the Berliner Morgenpost, taking a stand either for or against its dissolution, and using the arguments that were presented in the worksheets. J. didn't care that much and didn't feel he knew that much either, so I suggested that he just write that he didn't have an opinion, but state what he thought were the two strongest points, pro and con. So he wrote something in English, and I translated it into German for him. This whole exercise reminded me of things I disliked in school, for example having to formulate opinions where I didn't feel that I had enough information or interest to do it intelligently. If c'est la vie, la vie can be improved with very little effort.
Besides, I caught up on the Sartorialist and Chocolate & Zucchini blogs. The first is the website of a photographer who takes pictures of ordinary people in the street who are wearing interesting clothing. Lately, as his fame has grown, these "ordinary people" are largely superseded by Vogue editors from New York to Milan, Karl Lagerfeld, and fashionistas tottering about in Prada shoes or clutching portfolios bearing the double-C logo of Chanel. But an original person still appears here and there, and the rich and fashionable and beautiful are also worthwhile seeing in moderation. Thanks to the blog, I have been initiated into the mystic fashion jargon (e.g. "silhouette" and "proportions"), the eccentric delights of Thom Browne, and fearful controversies (e.g. sleeve length, oversized bags, and neckties that are too tightly or too loosely knotted). Now I've tired of trivial fashion detail, but even if I still rarely notice what other people are wearing, I will at least be able to notice it intelligently when I do. But my resulting explorations of the online New York Times and Guardian fashion sections and Style.com have inspired me to vague thoughts about clothing as a revelation of character, aesthetics, the use of cross-cultural references in fashion, and so on and so forth. And, though I still doubt that I could talk worthwhile-ly about fashion, I think I can drop names as well as anybody. (c:
Chocolate & Zucchini is a blog by a Parisienne who has lived in the US; she writes about cooking with a truly excellent English style and French wit. Her ingredients are rather recherché, to be found only in an organic market with a wide and varied stock, but reading about faro and spelt wheat, quinoa, fleur de sel, etc. is an agreeably exotic experience in any case.
And in my foragings on YouTube I found, among others, black-and-white clips of Marian Anderson. In one she sings the American anthem, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," in front of the Lincoln Memorial (at Eleanor Roosevelt's invitation) in 1939. But a recording that I find musically better is her beautiful rendition of "He shall feed his flock" from Händel's Messiah.
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