one of my favorite quotes :)
"What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: ‘If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft. You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well."
Karl Paulnack—Why Art Matters
"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours."
James Baldwin - “Sonny’s Blues”
A Winter Night
Snow-colored bulbs light the sky
For those who travel in the night
Calling to hazy blankets above
To send down soft white flakes
Come they may here below
To embrace an empty black canvas
That eagerly awaits their arrival
As though each one brings a sense of serendipity
Children enter through shop doors
Their breath no longer able to be seen
Windowsill cheeks flush with fog in embarrassment
Of the childhood hands that press against the glass of time
Winter.
I just might have a slight obsession with these little dots that light up the sky like beautiful memories. They’re usually more of a behind the scenes appreciation, but that’s what makes them their own kind of lovely. This, my friends, is bokeh.
My Word is a love letter to your soul
The sunrise is my ever renewing mercy
It never leaves
Each hug you receive is my arms wrapping around you
You sing to me and I sing over you
My love for you is never-ending
Like a black piano key never leaves a white one,
I will forever remain by your side
My love endures
_____
We create first impressions based on the smallest of things. A smile. A firm handshake. A friendly demeanor. But, humans are layered. We lift veil after veil, and it’s only when we slip past a smile and meander through our cortex that we find something that we can truly call human. We’re built as natural defense mechanisms. We hide our vulnerabilities and show strength with an upturned chin and a straight gait, but which of us mean it? Which of us can keep our shoulders like level weights without showing the vulnerability in our curves? We create angles in our form. We’ll choose empowerment in the form of redwoods instead of bending ourselves like boughs. We’re strong enough to hold an ocean instead of admitting that we’re fragile enough to be swallowed by the sea, and in that, I find humanity’s greatest flaw. We pretend to be someone we’re not, although fragility is what makes us all beautiful. We don suits and straighten our ties and walk around holding our breaths, knowing that once we step into the safety of our homes, we’d take off our skin and place them side-by-side next to our loafers. We are who we are when we believe that no one’s looking, and in turn we’re losing ourselves to what society is trying to mold us into. We’re told to conform to a monochrome world instead of painting our skies the colors we feel in. First impressions bother me because they’re nothing but well-dressed lies. I’m not interested in who you are at first glance. I’m not interested in the person that you claim to be. I only want to know what color your seas are. I only want to know what you bleed.
(Source: commovente, via ezerkenegdo)
“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness”
Lamentations 3:22-23
Editing and editing and editing…but hey, at least I have beautiful people to edit.
"Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets…"
Beethoven
