the fire in the mountain has been burning for days...the streets are under bbq air...surreal like the end of the world.
for a whole day I feel vulnerable. not doing anything is like being naked.
I'm used to...after work go to school, after school go to library, after library drive home...sometimes look at the moon through the car window as if I've never seen it before, wondering about the fact that it's up there...or, occasionally go to a late night concert.
...the other night I was in doheny mansion listening to richard egarr, the 'bernstein of early music', playing harpsichord. it was an intimate chamber setting in the living room. he played and tuning keys right in front of us. otherwise, bach and the sounds of this ancient instrument at late night could be too remote to reach my heart...
I got to chat with egarr and an old student of his, another harpsichord player, whose profession is researching dynamites for the defense dept...the math of people's life I don't try to figure out. but what they create can move me.
last night in a party, friend said - we haven't heard you talking much about spain. oh yes, I haven't finished reviewing it...
...tracing the baroque sounds of harpsichord, I remember the elegant baroque town in the northern spain - salamanca. its beauty in the full bloom of churriguera style felt quietly kept to itself...walking down an alley, I saw an antique iron patio, the kind where you expect to see skirt, but the branches leaves and lights gushing out - there was nothing behind but wild trees. I felt surreal standing underneath...
in the salamanca university, I walked into those empty classrooms. in one dark room, there was a dome of painted constellations - there, my breath left me and tears arrived. things that moved you once always do...the alter piece by the window in toledo cathedral, juan de valdes's ceiling fresco in seville...etc etc.
sometimes at night they emerge with hints of music. when they do, I'm urged to share and to get busy again...
A big fan
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