CHRISTIAN TETZLAFF - BACH SARABANDE - PARTITA IN D MINOR

"Bach's music confronts the player and the audience in a very personal situation, in a very alone way," he [Christian Tetzlaff] explained.  "And I try at that moment to put away pretensions - in levels of violin playing, pretensions of being a strong man, of being invulnerable - and instead say, 'This is where all of us have common ground.' Most of the time, we try to tell oursleves 'I'm confidant' or 'I'm doing well.' But then, in a moment alone at home, you feel how close you are to some kind of abyss." 

He continued, "Music, even at terrible moments, can make you accept so much more - accept your dark sides, or the things that happen to you. Maybe it's just because you see that this is a common trait for all of us. You see that we are not alone." He said this with such quiet intensity that it seemed the opposite of sentimental.  "And that's what the concert situation is about for me, when I'm sitting in the hall and also when I'm playing myself.  It's about communication - I almost want to say 'communion.'  As a player, you really don't interpret anymore.  You listen, together with the audience."

Tetzler says he is not a religious man.  What shall we say of him?  He is spiritual but not religious?  Earlier in the article the author, Jeremy Eichler, says of Tetzlaff:

Tetzlaff is not a religious man, but he describes his art in frankly spiritual terms.  Performing music, he says, "is the job that has the most to do with the belief in the existence of a soul.  I deal in Berg's soul, in Brahm's soul - that's my job.  And you can challenge me, but I find that music is himans' most advanced achievement, more so than painting and writing, because it's more mysterious, more magical, and it acts in such a direct way.  Trying to turn lead into gold is nothing compared to taking something mechanical like an instrument - a string and a bow - and using it to invoke a human soul.

Something beyond the senses, something ineffable is evoked by music, art, and words, which I've had great difficulty describing.  Tetzlaff's description as soul meeting soul articulates for me what I have never been able to put into words.  It's not that I never notice mastery of the skills, or technique, or style, because I do, but either a soul to soul encounter happens, or it doesn't.  When I hear Tetzlaff play Bach, we three meet soul to soul, and, in a concert hall, I'd encounter the other souls listening with me.

With my slow internet connection which allows the video to play only in fits and starts, along with my poor sound system on my laptop, I can't say whether the video is of good quality or not.  I can but hope.... 
 
The quote is from "String Theorist" in The New Yorker by Jeremy Eichler.  Unless you have a subscription, you can read only the abstract of the article.

NOT QUITE YET

Did I say Tropical Storm Isaac had passed over us? Another storm band came through with winds and more rain. Upper Lafourche (that is us) is still under a tropical storm warning and flash flood watch.

Areas in New Orleans and Jefferson are flooded, but the new levees held. Neighborhoods in Slidell and LaPlace are flooded, and communities north of Lake Pontchartrain are threatened by a dam on Lake Tangipahoa that is in danger of breaking. Isaac has and will cause much devastation. 

WWL-TV's website has good information, but I have difficulty navigating the site because of a slow internet connection. 

Sorry about all the misinformation, which is probably due, in part, to wishful thinking.

KEEP WALKING

Seems right to me. Thanks to Doug.

ISAAC IS STILL WITH US

I thought Isaac was past us, but apparently we were in a kind of lull, and now the wind and rain is back, but not as strong as previously.  My internet connection is so slow that any website with pictures loads at a snail's pace, and I can't get to all the information I want.  I finally reached Wunderground with the satellite picture shown above.

ISAAC NOW CATEGORY 1 HURRICANE

Isaac, who is no gentleman, is now a Category 1 hurricane, with winds predicted at 75 mph and rainfall over a long period as it comes near or passes over us.  What can I say?  I'm not looking forward to Isaac's arrival, but I've been through worse.  Four-letter words come to mind, but I won't inflict the words on my readers in my post, as mine is a family-oriented blog.

Image from WunderMap.

UPDATE:  Before dark, I took my dog, Diana, for a half mile walk, with the thought in mind that the weather will get worse later.  I usually walk her late, because she's an older dog and sometimes has problems with incontinence, and exercise is the best medicine.  A blustery wind blew, with occasional stronger gusts, along with short periods of relative calm.  I wore my plastic parka for protection against the light rain, because an umbrella would have been of no use.  So far, we still have electric power, but who knows for how long?

UPDATE 2: We're fine. The weather is still blustery and rainy. We have power at this time, but periodically it goes off. Internet service on my laptop is slow, very slow. No TV or internet for the desktop. Tom and I slept last night, so we don't know what the worst of the hurricane was like. No large limbs fell from our trees, just a lot of small limbs to be cleaned up.

Thanks for your prayers and concern.  We are very grateful.  Love.

GOVERNOR JINDAL STAYS HOME

From DemocraticUnderground.com
.
Bobby Jindal was passed over...

1. As Mitt Romney's choice for vice-president

2. As keynote speaker for the Republican National Convention

3. As a speaker in prime time at the RNC

That's not to say that I think the governor is staying home for any reason other than the approach of Tropical Storm Isaac.

OBAMA DID IT - RUINED THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION

According to Rush Limbaugh, Obama caused the Republicans to cancel the first day of their convention by ordering the National Hurricane Center to track Tropical Storm Isaac to Tampa.

The Republican National Convention. A pretty important one, too. Introducing the nominee, Mitt Romney. It’s only after the convention that Romney can actually start spending all of this money that he’s raised, so this convention is very important. It’s a chance to introduce Romney to a lot of people who don’t know him yet. And I noticed that the hurricane center’s track is — and I’m not alleging conspiracies here. The hurricane center is the regime; the hurricane center is the Commerce Department.\

It’s the government.

It’s Obama.

And I’m noticing that that track stayed zeroed in on Tampa day after day after day. And the Republicans react to it accordingly over the weekend, canceling the first day of the convention. What could be better for the Democrats than the Republicans to cancel a day of this?

….Again, I’m alleging no conspiracy. I don’t want anybody thinking I’m going somewhere with this. I’m just telling you what happened.

I’m sharing with you my thought process, ’cause I know full well that if you give these people the slightest chance and they’re gonna turn this into Katrina and they’re gonna scare the hell out of New Orleans and they’re gonna revive, “Bush doesn’t care about people” and revive all of it. They’re gonna politicize everything ’cause they do it. And now they had the model runs allowing them to do it.

Now they had these model runs allowing them to start scaring the hell out of people in New Orleans and make political connections to Bush.

Somehow Obama and the Democrats convinced the hurricane center, weather services, and weather experts from all over the world to disregard their own observations and information, including satellite feeds, to go along and ruin the Republican National Convention by tracking the storm to Tampa.  But remember, Rush is not alleging a conspiracy.

Nor is it a conspiracy when "these people", once again, persuade the hurricane center, weather services, and weather experts all over the world to collude to skew the election to Obama by tracking the storm to the vicinity of New Orleans, in order to scare the hell out of the people there and remind the US voting public of the Bush maladministration's incompetence after Katrina - a conspiracy of vast proportions, indeed, if it was a conspiracy, but it's not.  Exactly what it is, I can't say.  Rush will have to tell us.   

How gullible can a person be?  Apparently, there are no limits if you're intent on finding conspiracies to match your prejudices, and Rush is your man to provide the material.  Start with, "Obama did it", and go back from there to find your "proof".

Photo from Wikipedia.

LATER TRACKING MAP OF ISAAC

From WonderMap.  Click on the map for a larger view.

WEEKLY REMINDER

ON PLAYING THE RACE CARD

Note: I removed the earlier video with the extraneous segments. The video above is a longer segment from the "Morning Joe" show.

"I have to call you on this, Mr. Chairman,” Matthews said in an appearance with Priebus on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” as he responded to Republicans’ criticism that Obama is running a very negative campaign. “But they’ve both negative. That cheap shot about ‘I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate’ was awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card.”

Matthews continued, turning the attacks up a notch:

"You can play your games and giggle about it but the fact is your side playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing and everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s a race card and yeah, if your name’s Romney, yeah you were well born, you went to prep school, yeah, brag about it. This guy has an African name and he’s got to live with it. Look who’s gone further in their life. Who was born on third base? Making fun of the guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue except for the right wing.”

Thank you, Chris Matthews, for calling the Romney campaign on playing the race card.  Chris is right.  We all know what game the Republicans play, and it's ugly.

H/T to Charles Pierce.