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I’m reading, I’m watching, I’m listening to . . .

I’m reading, I’m watching, I’m listening to . . .

Last updated on: September 30, 2015 at 9:26 am by Simcha Fisher

I’m reading, I’m watching, I’m listening to . . . 2015-09-30T09:26:32-05:00 Simcha Fisher

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I’m reading . . .

Zorro by Isabel Allende.

Allende is definitely a guilty pleasure. Zorro is silly fun, very typical of Allende, with her contemptuous fondness for Catholicism, the silly sex scenes mashed naively in with a kind of lascivious clumsy feminism, a few plot turns that don’t make any sense and quietly get abandoned, and lots of running around, sailing, fighting, crying, eating, singing, being squalid, and more running around. I like the bouncy, tasty prose, and her characters are always memorable. So sue me.

I’m watching . . .

The Sopranos for the first time.

image source

Damien is a few seasons ahead of me, but is watching along with me on Amazon Prime. This show blows my mind every single episode. It’s super violent, and we have to look away during the sex scenes, but the writing and acting are even more brilliant than everyone said. Probably the best TV I’ve ever seen in my life. Every episode leaves me something to think about, and funny, oh my gosh.

DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS. I’M ONLY ON SEASON THREE.

I’m listening to . . .

Jessye Norman singing Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

By NoJin (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I honestly thought I didn’t like Jessye Norman, but hoo boy. We were driving home from Philly and I dozed off in the back seat, and this came on the radio sometime during interminable Connecticut. That woke me up! Here is “Der Abschied” (“The Farewell”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_gOilmRvuw

From Wikipedia:

Three personal disasters befell Mahler during the summer of 1907. Political maneuvering and anti-semitism forced him to resign his post as Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his eldest daughter Maria died from scarlet fever and diphtheria, and Mahler himself was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. “With one stroke,” he wrote to his friend Bruno Walter, “I have lost everything I have gained in terms of who I thought I was, and have to learn my first steps again like a newborn”.[3]

A translation of the words:

The sun departs behind the mountains.
In all the valleys the evening descends
with its shadow, full cooling.
O look! Like a silver boat sails
the moon in the watery blue heaven.
I sense the fine breeze stirring
behind the dark pines.
The brook sings out clear through the darkness.
The flowers pale in the twilight.
The earth breathes, in full rest and sleep.
All longing now becomes a dream.
Weary men traipse homeward
to sleep; forgotten happiness
and youth to rediscover.
The birds roost silent in their branches.
The world falls asleep.
It blows coolly in the shadows of my pines.
I stand here and wait for my friend;
I wait to bid him a last farewell.
I yearn, my friend, at your side
to enjoy the beauty of this evening.
Where are you? You leave me long alone!
I walk up and down with my lute
on paths swelling with soft grass.
O beauty! O eternal loving-and-life-bedrunken world!
He dismounted and handed him the drink
of Farewells. He asked him where
he would go and why must it be.
He spoke, his voice was quiet. Ah my friend,
Fortune was not kind to me in this world!
Where do I go? I go, I wander in the mountains.
I seek peace for my lonely heart.
I wander homeward, to my abode!
I’ll never wander far.
Still is my heart, awaiting its hour.
The dear earth everywhere blossoms in spring and grows green
anew! Everywhere and forever blue is the horizon!
Forever … Forever …

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