music

Music can name the unknameable and communicate the unknowable
~ Leonard Brenstein
In the end I think of music as saving grace for all humanity
~ Henry Miller

Music is well said to be the speach of angels, in fact nothing among the utterences of man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite
~ Thomas Carlyle

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything
~Plato

A painter paints their pictures on a canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence
~ Leopold Stokowski

See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of nature being everywhere music
~ Thomas Carlyle

Music is the shorthand of emotion
~ Leo Tolstoy

Music was invented to confirm human lonliness
~ Lawrence Durrell

Without music life would be a mistake
~ Nietzche

Music expresses that which can not be said on which it is impossible to be silent
~Victor Hugo



The first time I heard Andrea Bocelli sing was with Sarah Brightman as a duet and the song was Time to say goodbye The song came from the radio, and I had no idea who the singers were, and since it was almost all in Italian I did not understand a word of it. I have always listened to the radio expecting a message from heaven. Some sound or words that would shake my foundations.

The music was so beautiful and the voices so majestic and soaring that I found tears welling up in my eyes. I had no idea what I was crying for. It was just uncontrolable. Was it deep communicating to deep? I remember as a child when the wind was high and blowing fiercely there would be a singing in the telephone wires. The wind which is just a movement of air drew a sound out of the wires, and so it was with me, some sonic resonance plucked a chord deep inside me that I did not know existed.

Perhaps it was about sadness and loss, or perhaps a deep yearning to be connected once again in a fresh way with all of my family. Music has always had a powerful effect on me, in that it stirs up my emotions. There is nothing much I can do about it. I have observed my children taking sidways glances at my face, and wondering if their father is going to start crying when listening to a particular piece of music.

Long ago I decided that if I ever got the opportunity to listen to Andrea Bocelli live, then I would do it. He just happened to be singing in Helsinki on my birthday on the 19th of November, so I went to see him. It was magical. He did three encores and received a standing ovation. The applause was thunderous and it was agumented by the noisey stamping of feet from 10,000 people. He finished the night off with a heartbreaking rendition of Time to say goodbye with Doriana Milazzo



So what was it like

It was like completing some code and getting a programme to work
It was like a thousand small birds fluttering inside your heart
It was like a dance on a sandy beach
It was like winning a penalty shootout
It was like having brown eyes in a blue eyed family
It was like snowboarding on powdery snow
It was like finding cloudberries in the forest
It was like knitting a pair of warm woolen socks
It was like eating new potatoes that you have grown yourself
It was like telling a story and making everybody laugh
It was like blushing when told you are loved
It ravished my soul.

The end of a perfect day

The end of a perfect day
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

SAFE IN THE HARBOUR
(Eric Bogle)

Have you stood by the ocean, on a diamond-hard morning
And felt the hor-izon stir deep in your soul
Watched the wake of a steamer as it cut through blue water
And been gripped by a fever you just can't control

Oh to throw off the shackles and fly with the seagulls
To where green waves tumble before a driving sea wind
Or to lie on the decking on a warm summer's evening
Watch the red sun fall burning, be-neath the earth's rim

cho: But to every sailor, comes time to drop anchor
Haul in the sails, and make the lines fast
You deep water dreamer, your journey is over
You're safe in the harbour at last
You're safe in the harbour at last

Some men are sailors, but most are just dreamers
Held fast by the anchors they forge in their minds
Who in ther hearts know they'll never sail over deep water
To search for a treasure they're afraid they won't find

So in sheltered harbours, they cling to their anchors
Bank down their boilers and shut down their steam
And wait for the sailors to re-turn with bright treasures
That will fan the dull embers and fire up their dreams

But to every sailor, comes time to drop anchor
Haul in the sails, and make the lines fast
You deep water dreamer, your journey is over
You're safe in the harbour at last
You're safe in the harbour at last

And some men are schemers who laugh at the dreamers
Take the gold from the sailors and turn it to dross
They're men in a prison, they're men without vision
Whose only horizon is profit and loss

So when storm clouds come sailing a-cross your blue ocean
Hold fast to your dreaming for all that your're worth
For as long as there's dreamers, there will always be sailors
Bringing back their bright treasures from the corners of earth

Cat cushions

"You know at airports they have these massage chairs?"

"Those big black things, as big as a leather porno sofa, and you just pop a coin in the slot, and you get a good going over, better than a security guard giving you a full body search at Munich airport"

"Yeah well in Hydra they have these famous cat cushions. They are fantastic. They are made to look like real cats, and you will find them on the chairs of most waterfront resturants"

"Are you sure they were cat cushions? They could have been real cats"

"Look don't you think a real cat would get up and run away if somebody was about to sit on them?"

"So was it comfy in a furry sort of way?

"Well when I sat on it I thought it was some sort of sophisticated whoopie cushion, except instead of the usual baked beans and pork sound of chronic flatulence, it made the sonic equivalent of a good bit of oak hardwood being pushed through a circular saw."

"But besides sounds was it comfy?"

"Well if it had some sort of control setting on it then it must have been set to maximum. It was vibrating like crazy"

"A cat cushion doing the Saint Vitus dance?"

"Precisely, but I reckon the batteries must have been low since it only worked for a short time then stopped."

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