Ustad Farida Mahwash, On Love (And Music)

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=256562024

"Art in general, she says, and singing especially, is all about love. I am a messenger of love. It doesn't matter if you're Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim. I love humans, all humans."


In the simplest of definitions, is this what art all comes down to?

On Art, and Time, and War

For the full article (on rediscovered works of art that were lost to the Nazis), please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/arts/design/in-a-rediscovered-trove-of-art-a-triumph-over-the-nazis-will.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131106&_r=0.

 "art continues to be found, refusing oblivion."

"But while paintings, drawings and sculptures are sadly fragile, the ideals they represent — the best ones, anyway — aren’t. And so the painted woman by Matisse, fan in lap, a string of pearls around her neck, a veil draped over her hair, is a testament to art’s indefatigable ambitions."

We're all going to die someday, right? I think that's the biggest truth I know, that we all are bound for oblivion. And yet we have now.

We have our minds, our hearts and our spirits. We have our art, our ideals.

To refusing oblivion. To making art.

George Saunders's Convocation Speech, Syracuse University, 2013

I haven't read any speeches in a while, and came across this yesterday. Now, I still haven't gotten to actually reading any of Saunders's work (see: http://wingedbywords.blogspot.com/2013/01/feeling-known.html), but I will, one of these days.

And meanwhile, I am so inspired and moved by this speech he gave at Syracuse University earlier this year. Especially this one bit (well, okay, it's more than a bit):

"Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.  That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Theresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly."
-George Saunders

It's pretty simple stuff, when it comes down to it: doing things "that incline you toward the big questions," avoiding "the things that would reduce you and make you trivial." Simple and difficult, all at once. But start today. Whatever it is. Take a moment and look up at the night sky. Or close your eyes and breathe and breathe, and just breathe. Read. Listen to music. Make music. Be kind. 

And remember, "That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.  Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Theresa’s.  Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place."

To being kind. To nurturing that "luminous part of you." 




For the full text: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?src=me

Terius Nash, a.k.a The-Dream on Songwriting

I read this article a while ago, and kept meaning to do a post. I always feel like I never have enough time to do everything I want to do, and I keep wanting to make it a priority to do things that make me happy and make me wonder. Here are two quotes about songwriting (and really, the importance of doing things that reaffirm your humanity, that keep you connected to yourself, and to something outside of you that's well, mysterious):

"It's hard to explain. It's definitely more spiritual — why I would be doing music in the first place, if I didn't get goose bumps and stuff? We're so excited, all of us — we're like kids...that just found out that you can mix the packs of Kool-Aid – mix the powder with the sugar, and just eat it straight. We used to do it as kids — I have no idea why we used to do that. But that feeling of childlike – childhood — finding something for the first time."
 - The-Dream

"it feels like the sun is rising, without me having to say that in the lyric.
With music and with harmony it's just one of those things, man. Yeah, I can't even explain it. It just makes me feel alive, I guess."
-The-Dream

For the full article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/06/19/193538349/the-dream-on-why-we-all-need-r-b

To goose bumps (the good kind), to wonder and to doing things that make us feel alive.

Artists Don't Stop

I read this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/nyregion/discovered-at-64-a-brooklyn-artist-takes-his-place.html?nl=nyregion&emc=edit_ur_20130605&_r=0) the other day, and found it inspirational. It's a brief profile of a 64-year old artist, Rafael Leonardo Black, who was recently "discovered."

For thirty years - "day after day, year by year, he labored like a monk [on his art]," while making his living "as a typist in a law firm, a salesman at Gimbels and then Macy’s, and as a secretary in a school. Most recently, he has worked mornings as a part-time receptionist in a hospital."

“I never expected to be able to make a living at it, but I’ve always done it since — well, I guess, since I’ve known my self.”
-Rafael Leonardo Black

"What I do is read and make my pictures. To rip off Max Ernst, you keep one eye on what’s going on outside, and one eye focused inside. Then you make things that say something to both.”
-Rafael Leonardo Black 

Well past the usual age of discovery for an emerging artist, Mr. Black notes that he is not news to himself.

“People who become what are called artists don’t stop,” he said. “There’s a saying: ‘Everybody writes poems at 15; real poets write them at 50.’ ” 

To writing poetry or  reading and making pictures or whatever it is that you do at 50, 60, 70...as long as you live. To not stopping.

Inspiration from Ari Cohen, of the blog Advanced Style

(For full article: http://www.npr.org/2013/04/01/174767233/-a-lovely-feeling-celebrating-older-women-with-fabulous-style)

"I didn't set out to be a photographer or a writer," he [Ari Cohen] says. "I just wanted to do something that I felt inspired by and start sharing it with people."

Simple, right? Maybe we don't have to start out with detailed five-year plans or even any clear idea of what we want to do...maybe we just need to start (for now, at least).

And one more thing - "Ilona Royce Smithkin, 93, is one of Cohen's most famous subjects...[art that she has made over a decades-long career] never brought her fame. The Advanced Style blog has. Now, she gets modeling jobs. She's on billboards. People recognize her on the streets of New York.
 
""It's a lovely feeling," she says, "like you are part of the world and the world is part of you.""

I'm pretty amazed by the fact that she's 93 and this whole new phase of her life- the modeling and recognition for her style - is happening now. Sometimes it feels like things aren't happening, or they're never going to happen. Dreams are completely out of reach (except perhaps in sleep). Only, the unexpected, the unpredictable...well, they do happen. You can live out your dreams.

To doing something that both inspires us and others. And of course, living out your dreams.

Desiderata - Max Ehrmann

Desiderata

Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. 



Wise words. What strikes me most is the emphasis on finding peace - in silence, with God, your soul. Your self. Maybe sometimes all you can ask is to be at peace with yourself. Change starts from within, right?

Such a beautiful poem, and so practical, too. 

To finding peace, speaking your truth, and remembering that "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here...With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world."

Ballet, Art & Death

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/19/174753335/a-ballet-memorial-to-a-son-killed-at-war

"You're taking something which is horrible ... and turning it into something which is beautiful and life-affirming," Amy Wolfe tells NPR's Lynn Neary. "That's the way art is."

I think that's a damn good definition of art, don't you?

And I just think it's so incredible that we can take our grief and our pain and all the things we wished hadn't happened and turn them into something. Make them into something more. It's like that story Rumpelstiltskin, and how he spins straw into gold.

We can spin our sorrow into art.

To creating something beautiful out of whatever we have on hand.

Hold On - Alabama Shakes

For the music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le-3MIBxQTw

"Hold On"

Bless my heart, bless my soul.
Didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old.
There must be someone up above sayin',
"Come on, Brittany, you got to come on up.
You got to hold on...
Hey, you got to hold on..."

So, bless my heart and bless yours too.
I don't know where I'm gonna go
Don't know what I'm gonna do.
There must be somebody up above sayin',
"Come on, Brittany, you got to come on now!
You got to hold on...
Hey, you got to hold on..."

"Yeah! You got to wait!
Yeah! You got to wait!"
But I don't wanna wait!
No, I don't wanna wait...

So, bless my heart and bless my mind.
I got so much to do, I ain't got much time
So, must be someone up above saying,
"Come on, girl! Yeah, you got to get back up!
You got to hold on...
Yeah, you got to hold on..."

"Yeah! You got to wait!"
I don't wanna wait!
But I don't wanna wait!
No, I don't wanna wait!

You got to hold on...
You got to hold on...
You got to hold on...
You got to hold on...

This is one of those songs I listen to and just feel like somebody else completely understands how I'm feeling right now. To holding on.

So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye

 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/so-much-happiness/

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.


I haven't posted a poem in a while, so here's one I read a while ago. I think Nye does a wonderful job of writing about how happiness feels, as much as you can explain it, anyway: how it "floats," then "lands on the roof of the next house," and "flows out of you into everything you touch." Isn't that so absolutely true?

Because it's an extra-special day (why not?), here's another quote:
"Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.”
-Naomi Shihab Nye
(found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/naomi-shihab-nye)

To happiness flowing out of us into the world around us, and seeing the shimmering.

More on Frankl

See: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

"In his bestselling 1946 book, Man's Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning."

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

"In the words of Martin E. P. Seligman, one of the leading psychological scientists alive today, in the meaningful life "you use your highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self."

The pursuit of happiness seems to be a topic of near-universal interest. After all, doesn't everybody just want to be happy?

So we try, try, try. We pursue happiness. We go out and meet people and go on vacations and buy things and we might even read books about happiness. And yet...sometimes there is just that niggling feeling that something is missing. Maybe it isn't happiness, but meaning.

I don't mean to say that I believe happiness and meaning are mutually exclusive - I don't think that all - but I do think the article brings up interesting points about the pursuit of happiness versus the pursuit of meaning. I don't think that happiness is necessarily selfish; I think that doing something selfless might make someone pretty happy as well as bring meaning.

To finding meaning.

Lois Lowry: On Empathy

See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/lois-lowry-the-childrens-author-who-actually-listens-to-children.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  for full article.

I must admit, I've never read The Giver. It's going on my list. 

The author of The Giver, Lowry, creates this "magical talent" called "veer"  in the novel - "he is able to enter another person’s consciousness and feel what they feel. That is, Gabriel battles evil with empathy." 

Isn't that stunning? There isn't any violence or hatred or any sort of animosity...instead, he feels what the other person feels. 

“The ability to understand other people’s feelings,” Lowry said. “As an encompassing gift that a kid could have — or a human — that could be the one that could save the world. If we could all acquire it to the extent that boy had it, no one would go into a movie theater with a gun.”

To empathy and to books and words and stories and anything and everything that help us develop empathy.

Feeling Known

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/george-saunders-just-wrote-the-best-book-youll-read-this-year.html?pagewanted=3&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130106&_r=0

So I've never actually written anything George Saunders has written. But now I'm adding him to my list.

"One thing is that you read them and you feel known, if that makes any sense. Or, possibly even woollier, you feel as if he understands humanity in a way that no one else quite does, and you’re comforted by it."

I think that is one of the essential functions of art, of books. We all hunger, deep down, for some sense of connection. The feeling that we are not alone in feeling whatever it is that we are feeling at the moment - lost, maybe. Confused and scared and maybe even despairing.

The fact that someone you have never met and probably never will can lift you out of that self-pitying stupor through a line in a book or a phrase in a song and make you "feel known" is a certain type of magic.

To feeling known.

Wright's Law, Or, The Purpose

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/laws-of-physics-cant-trump-the-bonds-of-love/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121225

I'm not really much of a physics kind of girl (and believe me, that is such an understatement). But the guy profiled in this documentary...well, he transcends being a physics teacher. He gets right into the heart of being human. If you have 10 or 15 minutes, watch the video and read the accompanying article.

 A few highlights:
“There is something a lot greater than energy. There’s something a lot greater than entropy. What’s the greatest thing?”
“Love,” his students whisper.

Okay, so that probably sounds a tad cliche, veering into after-school special territory. But it can be true, don't you think?

“That’s what makes the why of what we exist,” Mr. Wright tells the spellbound students. “In this great big universe, we have all those stars. Who cares? Well, somebody cares. Somebody cares about you a lot. As long as we care about each other, that’s where we go from here.”

So we don't know why the stars are there (or if you do, please enlighten me), or why we're here or if there's a why at all. But we do know that we're here, right? And caring about each other and being kind - well, that's one purpose.


“When you look at physics, it’s all about laws and how the world works,” he told me. “But if you don’t tie those laws into a much bigger purpose, the purpose in your heart, then they are going to sit there and ask the question ‘Who cares?’

To the purpose in our hearts.

Dear Sugar

So I was at work today, listening to a podcast (The Writer's Block...PBS?) and it was one of those podcasts that make you stop working and start listening. Not just the type of listening like the way you listen to music mindlessly while working, but listening the way you listen when you can't do anything but listen because what you're listening to compels you to Just Listen (anybody else read that Sarah Dessen book?). That kind of listening.

I was listening to an excerpt from Tiny Beautiful Things (http://www.amazon.com/Tiny-Beautiful-Things-Advice-Sugar/dp/0307949338), which I'd heard about and had been curious about but hadn't read. And now it's on my to-read list. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get the book (let's just say the list is a long one and leave it at that), but I definitely want to read it.

This is an excerpt from the excerpt she read from. Find the whole column here: http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
...
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.



To long meandering walks and reading and wondering, and yes, even shitty jobs, because they are "your becoming." To becoming.

Dancing and Shadows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-dancer-who-made-lifes-transcience-lasting/2012/10/14/b797929e-1626-11e2-9855-71f2b202721b_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

First of all, sorry it's been such a long time. I was consistent for a while...and then inconsistent for a while (maybe a cycle of its own?). I'll try to update a couple times a week again (to the possible one person out there who's reading this).

I haven't actually seen Eric Hampton's work at all, but a few sentences caught my attention in the article:

"The dances he created...had everything you need in dark times, or in life in general: humor, poetry, human warmth. Moments that trapped a fleeting sensation and kept it aglow in your mind like a candle flame."

Don't you just love that? There is so much truth in those sentences, especially the part about how humor, poetry, and human warmth are so essential.

"It was always Hampton’s strength to find gold in the shadows."

I would like to be able to do that. We don't control so much of what happens in the world, but we can always control how we react...yes, maybe it does feel like the sky is falling. But isn't it the loveliest shade of blue? (Okay, maybe that just sounds completely absurd...but you know what? Maybe life is absurd. Things don't always make sense.)

"Yet Hampton’s courage (or was it unquenchable artistic fire?) still astounds those of us who witnessed it, and borders on the superhuman. As amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (the dread Lou Gehrig’s disease) gradually shut down his outer functioning, he still managed to bring forth a creative, nurturing inner life. "

That's just beyond words, isn't it? Impressive doesn't even come close.

To "humor, poetry and human warmth" - wherever you may find them: dance, art, sports, anything. Everything.

Richard Russo's 2004 Commencement Speech

For the full text: http://www.colby.edu/news/detail/488/

...suggest what the next decade of your lives is likely to be about, and that is, trying to ensure that you don't wake up at 32 or 35 or 40 tenured to a life that happened to you when you weren't paying strict attention, either because the money was good, or it made your parents proud, or because you were unlucky enough to discover an aptitude for the very thing that bores you to tears, or for any of the other semi-valid reasons people marshal to justify allowing the true passion of their lives to leak away. If you're lucky, you may have more than one chance to get things right, but second and third chances, like second and third marriages, can be dicey propositions, and they don't come with guarantees.
-Richard Russo

I don't want to wake up one day tenured to a life that happened - I want to make my life happen. To make the things that I want happen. But oh, sometimes it feels so far away, doesn't it?

Search out the kind of work that you would gladly do for free and then get somebody to pay you for it. Don't expect this to happen overnight. It took me nearly twenty years to get people to pay me a living wage for my writing, which makes me, even at this juncture, one of the fortunate few. Your work should be something that satisfies, excites and rewards you, something that gives your life meaning and direction, that stays fresh and new and challenging, a task you'll never quite master, that will never be completed. It should be the kind of work that constantly humbles you, that never allows you to become smug—in short, work that sustains you instead of just paying your bills. While you search for this work, you'll need a job. For me that job was teaching, and it's a fine thing to be good at your job, as long as you don't confuse it with your work, which it's hard not to do.
-Richard Russo

I know, I know. I am obsessed with work quotes. But I can't help it, at this particular time in my life. I keep reading these quotes about doing what you love in the hopes that it will make me courageous enough to well, do it. I'm still working on it, obviously.

I have a job. But I'm still looking for my work. I wonder how many other people out there are in the same boat.

To working on the true passion of our lives and doing our own work.

Goethe on The Sense of the Beautiful

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Have you heard some music (and/or made some), read any poetry or seen a fine picture today yet? Go listen/read/see if you haven't yet. It's not too late.

Isn't it strange that for all the technological leaps and bounds we've made in the past centuries since Goethe died, life is still the same in certain ways? There are still the same worldly cares...and the same cures - music, poetry, art. Something that elevates you above the tedium.

Today was one of those days I really needed to focus on the sense of the beautiful.

To listening to music, reading poetry and looking at art every day and to maintaining our sense of the beautiful. 

Monday Mainstay: Leisure (William Henry Davies)

Leisure

William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

It's pretty common to hear that someone is busy. It's almost like a competition sometimes. But I don't want to be the busiest person. I never want to be too busy "to stand and stare." I think there are lovely moments that arise only from standing still, from staring at something and letting your mind drift wherever it pleases.

So this Monday, stay still for a while. To standing and staring.

Dalai Lama: You Are Just Who You Are

“There is only one important point you must keep in your mind and let it be your guide. No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life. We live and we die, this is the truth that we can only face alone. No one can help us, not even the Buddha. So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life?
-Dalai Lama XIV

I think keeping to the truth of who you are is difficult. I can't decide if I think it's easy or hard to even know who you are...there are days I think it's incredibly simple and people just complicate things needlessly. And then there are days I am so confused about everything, and I can't even begin to explain.

I guess we can always keep asking, though. I think it's important to. Don't drive yourself crazy about it, but ask: how do you want to live your life? And what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life?

There are so many factors to consider, of course. It's completely overwhelming to think of instituting huge changes and sticking to it. Maybe the way to go (for me, at least) is to integrate a little bit of change every day. Not everything at once, but baby steps.

Maybe the most important thing is not succeeding (because we're all works-in-progress, right? There will always be room for improvement), but just to keep trying. To wake up every day and keep asking these really difficult questions and reflecting and trying.

To keeping to this truth that you are just who you are, to asking how you want to live your life, to living the way you want to live your life.