The Bear and the Rooster

There may be lots of inaccuracies in this, but it's after 2 a.m. and I want to go to sleep. So I'll post it as is, with my apologies.

* * *

This evening T., Ge., J. and I betook ourselves to the Philharmonic, braving the chills of this snowy day, passing across the rimy grass at the Kulturforum, and wandering briefly under the sky where the ghostly white clouds strayed across the blackness. Inside it was perfectly warm, and we wended our way through the great, bright foyer and the flocks of quietly cheerful or quietly hostile concertgoers, decidedly belonging to the quietly cheerful camp. Our seats were perched above stage level out in front, and we had a good view of all musicians, save the basses at the rightmost nook of the stage. There was an impressive array of chairs, for a veritable army of violinists, violists, cellists, bassists, flautists, oboists, bassoonists, trombonists, percussionists, and trumpeters. There was a celesta, two cymbals, a gong, big crimson drum, tambourine, two timpani, a triangle and xylophone, etc. The golden parquet, the blond wood chairs, the dark brown of the basses, and the copper glare of the timpani formed a most pleasing tableau as we waited for their occupants to enter.

The light on the stage became more glaring, the musicians filed in, the tardier portion of the audience straggled in, and the conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, strode onto the stage in evidently excellent spirits. Then the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin began to play Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini. Before the concert I had read up on the tale that inspired it. It comes from a passage in Dante's Inferno, where the wandering protagonist interrupts his journey through the eponymous nether regions in order to parley with old acquaintances whom he finds in the region allotted to lusty sinners. Francesca had married some person who apparently wasn't too agreeable, when she and her brother-in-law Paolo decided to read Arthurian romances together. They came as far as the episode with Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot, and never went further, for they were unwisely inspired to a spot of kissing; at which point the husband (who is going to hell too, only later, as Dante helpfully informs us) stopped by, flew into a jealous rage, and stabbed them both to death. As for the music, it was the Ride of the Valkyries without the horn theme, just the strings wuthering up and down the scale, like demons flitting and swooping, hither and thither, through the atmosphere of hell. Then there was a peaceful episode where one of the woodwinds, possibly a cor anglais, had a lyrical solo, followed by pastorally amorous string passages and a fleeting answer by the flute (the man was evidently the more talkative entity in this relationship). Then the Ride was back, as were the fortissimo passages that had a hectic effect on my blood pressure, hammering in the point that the couple were pretty darn damned. Then the music came to an end with four or so thunderous whacks of the timpani, which I surmised were the stabs of the angry husband.

After a break for applause, it was on to Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2, with the soloist Lisa Batiashvili, who was born in Tbilisi and presently lives in Munich. Her opening phrase was very beautiful, and she brought out the individuality of her violin's tone excellently. Altogether the touch was lyrical but not self-indulgently so, and the technique was inconspicuously irreproachable, as is ideal. The overall physical approach was a very athletic one, with much bending and so on, but it wasn't painful to watch even for one as humourless about theatrics as I. The violinist was absorbed in the conductor's direction and turned often to face and consult him, with a disregard for the audience that was rather likeable and an even more likeable lack of the knowing smirks that often characterize these consultations. She is decidedly not a lady-violinist, and there was a refreshing absence of revealing gowns, lavish make-up, and of the showily "graceful" movements that are often employed to emphasize a violiniste's femininity for the sake of CD and ticket sales.

What I missed in this concerto was the Russian character which, I think, could have been found and and should have been brought forth, even though the piece is in my view principally an attempt to mimick the French modernists. Mostly this concerto was not my cup of tea, though it could be worse, being an experimental jumble of disparate and insignificant motifs, which can be rendered palatable through a glowing tone and a whimsical imaginativeness of interpretation, but which is not particularly worthwhile. (I doubt that the previous sentence could have been snobbier, but oh, well.) In any case, there were many curtain calls and an encore. There the soloist played a Georgian folksong, to the accompaniment of four or so of the string players in the orchestra, which everyone visibly enjoyed.

*Intermission* (Where we stay in our seats and chatter cheerfully.)

After the break came Debussy's Jeux, which was essentially a stream of effects: strings evoking the sweeping of leaves here, cascading of the harps there, and that sort of thing. But it was agreeable while it lasted — not going anywhere really, but not boring. Theoretically I have much more use for Tchaikovsky than I have for Debussy, but these Jeux were much more distinctively and originally Debussy than Francesca da Rimini was distinctively and originally Tchaikovsky. Oddly enough, I even liked Ravel, for whom I don't have much use apart from some famous orchestral piece whose name I've presently forgotten.

The Ravel was, specifically, a rendering of Daphnis and Chloe, an old Greek tale of a sheep-herding foster brother and sister to whom it is revealed that they adore each other after much bucolic bliss. This is yet another species of romantic tale that I don't find at all romantic, as there is no surer way of leading a stifling and claustrophobic existence than marrying a person who has an identical upbringing and life experience. Anyway, as Ravel interpreted the tale, there was a very morning-ish (or, to employ a term from one of my online novels, matutinal) opening, burgeoning with clichés like trilling flutes for birds and scales on the harps and strings for the rising of the sun or who knows what. Then there was, fittingly, a great deal of the aforementioned bucolic bliss, woodland oboes and hunting horns and the like. It was hilariously over-the-top, very sweeping, and every musical instrument had its moment. I was much more excited than I should be at my mature years by all the interesting instruments, and squealed internally when, for instance, the triangle or the piccolo flute made its appearance, or when the harps had a phrase or so. Altogether the music was familiar; it resembles the score to every black-and-white film ever made. Apparently Wagner and Ravel were the alpha and omega of Hollywood composers.

Altogether my impression, not being used to comparing orchestras or knowing what is good or bad, was that the orchestra was very good and that its tone was especially remarkable. It may be balderdash, but I once read that different orchestras choose different approaches to the bowing, so that in the Israeli Philharmonic the players are permitted to find their own bowing, which apparently leads to an interesting, if a trifle anarchic, multiplicity of sound; in this case the bows of the strings rose and fell in an incredibly unisono movement. The unwieldy contingent of musicians was capable of astounding lightness and versatility as well as swelling sound, the dialogue that ran from the strings to the woodwinds and from the violins through the cellos to the basses and so on ran fluidly, and above all I thought that the tone was quite lovely. The music did not have an overly rehearsed effect at all; it was alive. What I thought was missing was the edge that would have counteracted the intermittent tendency to be nearly lush.

At the end we reemerged into the cold, cold air, running across the Kulturforum to the bus station to grow warmer, and then waiting in a literal huddle for the bus to arrive. Yet we were in a good mood. I'm glad that I'm beginning to enjoy my outings wholeheartedly — instead of going somewhere on my own initiative and on my own, out of a sense of duty, only to feel depressed by how little I get out of it — and also that I'm bothering to read up on things before I go. In the process of doing the latter, I have, for instance, discovered a very nice biography (over several webpages) of Prokofiev.

P.S.: The subject line is probably highly incongruous, but the rationale behind it is that, since bears are sort of Russian and the rooster is an emblem of France, these animals represent the nationalities of the composers.

Tales of the Idler

Mama is in the kitchen preparing what promises to be a most delectable lentil casserole, compounded of bacon, onions, carrots, leek, parsnip, celery root, parsley, green and pale orange lentils, etc. T. is back from university; Gi. and Ge. and J. are back from school; and Papa should return from work shortly. It is already dark outside, and from the whishing of the cars along the road I surmise that it is lightly raining.

I woke up at around 1 p.m., as Papa left for university, having been up after 3:30 a.m., and then lay there trying to shake off the last sleepiness. At last I got up, wrapped one of our green plaid flannel blankets around my shoulders, breakfasted on a slice of raisin bread with butter (simple but delicious), and then peregrinated over to the corner room. There I perched gingerly on the edge of hot stove; let the chocolate that remains from Papa's purchases of yesterday melt in my mouth, square by square; and read more of Jane Eyre. I've reached the point where the heroine has returned to Gateshead Manor to visit her dying aunt, stays there a month, studies the curiously contrasting pair of her cousins Eliza and Georgiana, and then travels back to Thornfield. Besides, I showered, sat at my laptop and glanced at the news. When Ge. was at home again, we watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and, later with J., The Colbert Report. The guest on the Daily Show was Sir David Frost, who makes a good impression as an intelligent and witty and well-informed representative of the traditional England that I like, and one who is very good at what he does (though surprisingly indistinct in his speech for a broadcaster) and very interested in it.

Last night I read The Cromptons, by Mary Jane Holmes. It is set at first in rural Florida, and then in some other American state whose identity escapes me, and it is the tale of a colonel who secretly marries beneath him and then abandons his uneducated wife, only to adopt the daughter when the wife dies. The daughter, rendered careless in part by the uncertainty about the identity of her father, runs off to marry her music-teacher. Then the tale skips ahead to the fortunes of a young schoolteacher who is sought by two gentlemen, and it falls into its expected course. Anyway, not great literature, certainly, and the more melodramatic plot points don't so much interest me, but despite the unrealism it is still an interesting window on the America of the author's time, i.e. around the Civil War (though the author rarely touches on it directly), reasonably well and vividly written, and not devoid of humour. What interests me too is that Miss or Mrs. Holmes writes about mentally ill people in a humane and not in a stigmatizing way, and depicts them living in their homes, with family, instead of being shut away in institutions.

Besides, I've been proofreading pages of scanned-in books for Distributed Proofreaders, which supplies gutenberg.org with its texts. I did so at university, too, but it took a long time because I was much more afraid of making errors and my attention span was shorter than it is now. (One of the great benefits of the past two years is that I am regaining the ability to focus on things properly, which I lost during teenagerhood and which was not much improved even at UBC.) I mostly look at books that have been in the queue for a very long time: French and Spanish histories and novels, musicological works, etc. It's excellent for freshening up and expanding my knowledge of both languages, and there are very absorbing books among them to which I would not otherwise be exposed, due to my predilection for fiction. For instance, the French historian Hippolyte Taine, in his great opus on the story of English literature, launches a tirade on the inane questions that St. Thomas Aquinas asked à propos of the Bible (e.g. Was the dove of the Holy Spirit an actual animal?), before opining with apparent regret that he was still the greatest theologian of his age — given the exile of Abélard and somebody else. The French writers are also generally remarkable for the fluency and purity of their style.

Otherwise I have been mulling a new story, set during World War I, which will unfortunately remain a tale that I should not like to show anyone else, unless a miracle occurs and I manage to make it more sober, well-rounded, realistic, and intellectual. I don't like writing stories merely for the exercise of developing plot, character, etc., even if they are entertaining, if I can't feel proud of them in the end. Above all, the substance is lacking. Of course I am pleased that I have started or completed more stories this year than I have in all my life before that, but quality is more important than quantity. In principle I would prefer to wait until I am capable of writing a truly worthwhile story, and in the meantime devote myself to blogging, reading, meditating, and furnishing my cranial dome as well as I can. As for attempting to write an unintelligent bestseller, I'd only like to do that if it could be unpretentious, goodhearted, and perfectly written in its modest way, and still possess sincerity and substance at its core. Perhaps that is a paradox.

Winter is setting in, and it is quite evident I won't be in New York in January, but I am bearing it with equanimity, or rather equanimity has descended upon me quite irrespective of my own exertions, and it's best to enjoy it while it lasts. Of course there will be the inevitable depression, but, as serious as they become, I've become used to battling blue devils, and as long as it's only my own moods that I have to fight, not any unfamiliar external problems, I know that they are surmountable. As for my particular blue devils, I think of them as my "maladie imaginaire." It is imaginary because it is emotional stress and desperation caused by worrying about my life, even though I am otherwise quite happy. It's reached the point, however, where I am convinced that worrying about the future, unless this worry produces some positive action, is counterproductive. In retrospect, I've figured out that, for the first year when we lived here in Berlin, I used to intentionally worry in order to punish myself for not earning money for my upkeep, but this is neither healthy nor helpful, which is why I no longer do it. Nor is there much use in worrying about what other people think; first of all, a valid criticism would require a greater understanding of my character and circumstances than anyone except my parents possesses, and, secondly, I am the one who has to live with myself and with the decisions I make. I take the effect of actions on my parents and siblings into account, for as I live with them these actions affect them directly, but otherwise there is no obligation to anyone except Ego.

The Well-Tempered Concertgoer

It already happened two days ago, but T. and Ge. and J. and I went to a concert at the Berlin Philharmonic, and here is an account of it. I very much dislike the practice of making dogmatic statements that may be totally untrue, without admitting in manner or speech that this is the case, but it is also bothersome to write "I think" or "it seems that" all the time, so I'll just state at the beginning that these are merely my thoughts. If the style is pompous, I would also like to remind the reader that this is, after all, a music review. If I can dispense with stream-of-consciousness references to impressionism and the like, that's already a considerable achievement. (c:

***

The pianist was Hélène Grimaud and the programme was Bach and Beethoven. She began by playing the Prelude and Fugue in c minor, the 2nd set in the 1st volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The prelude is a rhythmic flurry of notes, which she executed with a romantic flow, in a way that may not be quintessentially Bach-ian but that fit in well to the overarching concept of her concert; the fugue is a lightly troubled series of questions and answers, which she executed with a likewise luminous tone.

She moved on to the Prelude and Fugue in c# minor (4th set, 1st volume), which are very slow and sombre, and, in my experience, somehow awkward to play because the many sharps have a thickening effect on the tone. (I sometimes think, though it may be complete nonsense, that Bach and Händel "engineered" this thickening on purpose in their music, so that the thin sounds of the harpsichord would be richer.) There she brought out the sacral element well – the prelude brings to mind the strains of an organ in an empty church, and if the Philharmonic were a cathedral and the concert were being filmed, a camera would have been panning the soaring stained glass windows – and the tone was beautifully fit to bring out the melody to its full advantage. But the fugues are at times an unforgiving tangle of thoughts, and this one, through no fault of the performer, felt interminable.

The third Prelude and Fugue, in d minor (6th set, 2nd volume), are less my cup of tea than the others. They are a desultory wandering that, to be a bit mean, is fine background music, for instance at that point in a concert where everyone is inclined to snooze and even the performer has been hypnotized out of his self-consciousness, but not in itself so meaningful. As often happens in Bach pieces, the first bars pose a problem whose solution neither promises to be particularly interesting nor, most likely, even exists. In concrete terms, I suppose what I mean is that you always expect the minor key to be resolved into a major key, or the theme to progress into another theme (not a weird intellectual one, but one that is hummable), but nothing of the sort happens, which feels unsatisfactory. It is like the rambling Gregorian chants; they are quite beautiful as a process, but a dreadful bore if you have to sit down for an hour or so and listen to them as a performance. What is rather interesting is how Bach's preludes often have the effect of starting in medias res, which is to say, in the midst of the action.

Then Hélène Grimaud launched on Ferruccio Busoni's rewriting of Bach's chaconne (familiar as part of the violin repertoire), BWV 1004. Here her skills were most apparent. While her earlier rendering of Bach was too fluent and frictionless, and she was playing it with so resplendent a polish that it sounded as if she was playing it in an empty room for a recording (Papa told me later that her concert programme was, in fact, taken from her new CD), the conviction that Bach was not so much for her was dispelled as she gradually got into the mood. But what made her rendering of this work especially good was that, like a fine ballet dancer, she contrived to make the effort seem effortless. She did not assume virtuoso airs because of the piece's difficulty, and instead she played the octave scales, chromatic scales, etc., with an elegant sensitivity that made music out of something that otherwise bears a tiresomely close resemblance to finger exercises.

When this piece was over – with brio of course – there was a brief pause for applause, and then she started again with a Prelude and Fugue in a minor (20th set, 2nd volume), which were the epitome of desultory wandering, and very much an anticlimax. I thought that they, and the following work (i.e. Liszt's reworking of another a minor Prelude and Fugue, BWV 543), could profitably have been left out of the programme. To employ a geographical metaphor, in between the massive continental plates of the first and second halves of the programme, they were like an insignificant and superfluous fragment of oceanic crust. For a while I considered how the programme might have been constructed differently; probably it would have worked to play a more energetic and interesting pair of pieces, capable of standing on their own, instead.

*Intermission*

After the intermission, the programme moved on to Beethoven's Sonata in E major, Op. 109, one of the composer's last. (Frankly, I dislike the beginning so much that, in my peregrinations through the later sonatas, it has consistently been skipped; so it was mostly terra incognita to me.) As Hélène Grimaud played it, it was very satisfactory and recognizable as Beethoven, in his pleasant classical phase. It has much of the clarity and loveliness that is more characteristic of Mozart. The theme of the andante movement is remarkable for its rather lovely gravitas, too, and she did due justice to it. Sadly, the variations on the theme were not so great, I thought. Beethoven's variations for cello and piano are diverse and imaginative to the point of genius (the only rivals I can think of are Bach's Goldberg Variations), but his variations for piano solo are at times terribly uninspired. Maybe he tended to find it more important to finish a work, imperfect or not, than to perfect it and beautify it during the writing of it.

The concert ended with Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E major (9th set, 2nd volume) and a Prelude in E major (BWV 1006) that was reworked by Sergei Rachmaninoff. For some reason I can't remember this last prelude, but the prelude and fugue I like, and the pianist played them well. They evoke the ringing of church bells, engaging in a quid pro quo and a mutual echoing: the prelude is higher-pitched and livelier, bringing to mind little bells like those in a carillon, whereas the fugue is lower-pitched and more ponderous, bringing to mind the truly weighty bells.

After these pieces, the vigorous clapping went on for minutes and minutes. There were ca. seven call-backs, an adorable incident where a young lad came to the stage with a bouquet and handed it up to Hélène Grimaud, who then shook his hand, and two encores. The first encore was, I thought, something by Scriabin or Ravel; the second encore sounded very much like a Rachmaninoff prelude reft of the melody and the sense (fault of composer, not of performer).

In fine, to use an old expression, there are four questions that help me determine what I think of a performance in its entirety. Firstly, would I want to hear the performance again? Secondly, do I remember the music (not the opus number but the music itself) that was played? Thirdly, do I love the music that was played? Lastly, do I want to go home and play the music myself? – In the course of the past two days I've thought about them, and the answer to all of them is an enthusiastic yes. (There were, of course, exceptions that I mentioned above, but there always are.) This is, after all, the first time when I've gone out of a concert cheerfully, though perhaps annoyingly, humming part of the programme.

***

In other news, yesterday the family celebrated St. Martin's with an aunt, uncle, cousin, and two friends. Mama put up lanterns, cooked gulash, and deep-fried the incredibly rich Pöfferkes; besides, there were mandarin oranges, nuts, gingerbread, Printen (a dentist's nightmare, being an exceedingly tough variant of gingerbread, mined with large sugar crystals), Spekulatius, and Pfeffernüsse. Though I was tired by 11:30 and went to bed early (my sleeping hours are now orthodox but peculiarly short; even though I could sleep in, I somehow don't), it was most enjoyable. The conversation was extremely entertaining, as usual. After dissections of American politics and politicians, the talk turned to children's literature (old friends like The Little Princess, The Hobbit, and the Narnia series), abbreviated parodies of German poems, Sviatoslav Richter, films like Quantum of Solace, etc. Which reminds me that I would like to take the opportunity to say that I find The Hobbit much better than Lord of the Rings, because it is more healthy and less kitschy, and that I like the Ring films, though I infinitely prefer them when I can skip the tedious scenes (the Aragorn and Arwen nonsense, for instance). As far as German children's literature goes, what was discussed especially is a new film based on Otfried Preußler's book Krabat; I read it some seven years ago and found it too dark and oppressive, as opposed to the author's delightful lighthearted fare like Die Kleine Hexe, Hörbe, Wanja, etc., which I've enjoyed long after I was too old for them. Anyway, I might have said a lot yesterday evening where I didn't contribute a peep of conversation, but the preference for listening over talking is still firmly engrained in me, especially as I have little practice in formulating ideas on the spur of the moment (which is admittedly something I should work on), and moreover always was and always will be a trifle slow on the uptake.

The Day After

Last night I woke up at around midnight (my schedule is still screwy) and began to follow the election results as well as I could. The AP has a map that helpfully refreshed itself, and was the best thing of its kind that I came across in my press roamings. Then I stayed with the live webstream of CBS's coverage, with Katie Couric and Jeff Greenfield and Bob Schieffer (whom I officially like considerably now). The anchors were in an enjoyably good mood. Whenever there was not much happening I read a book.

At first the AP map was disturbing, as there were unexpectedly high results for McCain in several states, but these clearly represented very right-leaning districts. I was thoroughly worried until, in the course of the early morning, I heard that Obama had won Ohio. Then the results trickled in, and in, and then Virginia was called in his favour. I went back to my CBS video (this was at ca. 5 a.m.), hoping that they would mention it, and then Katie Couric unexpectedly said that Barack Obama had won the election, and that the local stations would return to their regular programming. Still skeptical, I went for confirmation to other sources, and CNN and ABC and the AP map had called the election, too. Shortly thereafter John McCain gave his speech in Phoenix, which speech was indeed very conciliatory, I thought, and procured him a graceful exit. I think he was relieved not to be elected president.

Going to the CBS coverage again, an African-American guest showed a photo that he keeps on his desk, of black garbage workers striking for their dignity, and then mentioned that he wanted to telephone his mother, his standard American slipping more and more into a Southern dialect in the emotion of the moment. It was very moving, and I began to cry, a trifle hysterically, trying to be as quiet as possible because everyone else was sleeping. T. woke up, and asked what was up and whether I was happy or sad, and then I calmed down. Then I saw the footage of the Rev. Jesse Jackson standing in a crowd with tears streaming down his face.

Altogether what I love about this election night (and post-election day) is the cheerfulness of the news anchors (the BBC World News anchor was thoroughly chipper this afternoon, and I thought that the economist and Nobel laureate who spoke at one point about the future of the American economy was choking up a little with joy), the gracious comments by McCain voters that I've seen on the internet, and the elation that comes with the feeling that most people are decent. What is still more incredible is that George W. Bush actually seemed at ease and even cheerful when he congratulated Obama. Also, in the eight years that I have "known" Condoleezza Rice, she has never seemed sympathetic until the moment today where, soft-eyed and trembling on the verge of alternate tears and smiles, she made her own personal statement on the election results at a State Department press conference.

What I missed was the jubilation here in Berlin. I personally felt that honking cars, cheers, balloons, and who knows what else would have been in order. Instead it was an extraordinarily quiet day, grey and twilightish. Even when I went for a walk to Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, the only symptoms of the election were the unenthusiastic conversations of two or three passersby, and a small Obama campaign sign, in the window of an Ebony hair salon, that said "Change we can believe in." Also, I felt the most benignant I am ever likely to feel again at the sight of the massive and soulless architectural bore that is our American Embassy.

On the whole I have been much more thoughtful and even sad today, than jubilant. A portion of it is that California has voted to ban gay marriage, and Arizona and Florida have voted to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which is hard for me to understand. (At least it's a good day for marijuana, medical in Michigan, and in general in Massachusetts.) A portion of it may also be a "spiritual hangover" from the past eight years of Bush and the past two years of unbearably protracted campaigning. But, above all, there are so many problems that Obama will have to confront. Dmitri Medvedev's speech (which I thought rather abhorrent) was not a good start. I have been, and perhaps most of us have been, conditioned into being very uncertain that events that promise to be good will fulfill that promise. So I fervently hope that those who transcended their traditional party affiliation and prejudices to vote for Obama will not be disappointed, and, even more fervently, I hope that his capable mind and his upright character will translate into a presidency that will truly benefit the people of America, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

But I believe that we must do what we can (in my case, as a foreigner, not much) and have faith. As long as we try to do the right thing, hour by hour and day by day, in small matters as well as in great ones, it will turn out all right.

And, to end on that hopeful note, here are passages from a speech given in Washington, D.C., forty-five years ago, by a southern preacher:

[. . .] even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

[. . .]

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

[. . .]

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

November the Fourth

P.S.: Photoshopped scan of real four-leafed clover, picked in 2006. It brought me luck, so I thought I'd "share the wealth."