Hungary has the trappings of a 21st-century European democracy, but uses its devices to exert the same kind of control as the autocracies of the Cold War.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/world/europe/hungary-democracy-orban.html
The NYT is absolutely obsessed with Hungary. Sadly, it ignored the country while under communist rule.
Ok, ok, it makes no sense. I know, I know. Yes, 90125, Christmas? What the heck, Birzer?
And, if you pushed me, I still couldn’t tell you why with any reasonable explanation why 90125 is my favorite Christmas album, but it is.
I can feel no sense of measure
No illusion as we take
Refuge in young man’s pleasure
Breaking down the dreams we make real
Like almost every male of my generation, I purchased 90125 within a week or two of its arrival in the music stores. Combining old Yes, Trevor Horn’s growing signature new wave production, Trevor Rabin’s soaring and BIG guitars, libertarian, ponderous, and (mostly) optimistic lyrics, plus some of the best vocal harmonies of the 1980s, 90125 was a wonder.
I had grown up with Fragile, Close to the Edge, and Yessongs, but I had no prejudice against the new direction of Yes. This was crisp excellence and nothing less. Granted, I missed the intricacies of Roger Dean’s artwork, but the Apple graphics were pretty good and interesting–especially given the Jobs-ian minimalist trends of the day.
Music, good for you!
Music, good to you!
So, why Christmas? Well, because once I bought the album in early November of 1983, I couldn’t stop listening to it. Long before digitized music, I listened to the vinyl with headphones, over and over again. And, one of my most vivid memories of 1983? Laying down on my bedroom floor, staring out the window into the night sky, listening to 90125 with my huge and glorious headphones on Christmas Eve.
Reasonable? No. After all, 1983, Yes, Christmas, 90125. . . Stranger Things, indeed.
Jigsaw puzzle traitors
Set to spill the beans
Constitution screw up
Shattering the dreams
Blood flows in the desert
Dark citadels burning too
Watch! Look over your shoulder
As we quickly exit Advent and even more quickly approach the 12 days of Christmas, I can’t help but think of one of my favorite writers, the Italian-German Romano Guardini, on the meaning of time and the Incarnation.
The world, time, history had begun with Creation; they reached apotheosis in the Incarnation of the Son of God-“the fullness of Time”-and all shall end with the destruction of the world and the Last Judgment. . . . [as such], each moment of time was etched against the sweeping panorama of history. Each present moment gained its uniqueness from the impact of the Incarnation with marked the piercing of time itself by eternity. —The End of the Modern World
May we never take for granted that the “fullness of time” reached its culmination and happened tonight, two thousand years ago, when a humble Jewish mother gave birth to the Son of God. Not in a palace, but in a dung-filled manger, surrounded by the most humble. Thus came our Lord.
As the second anniversary of the Women’s March approaches, charges of anti-Semitism are overshadowing the movement and plans for more marches.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/us/womens-march-anti-semitism.html
The Left eats its own.
“Behind all these things is the fact that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is to stir the deep things of the soul.” (pg. 108)
“These are the myths: and he who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with me. But he who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality. But though they provide a man with a calendar they do not provide him with a creed.” (pg. 109)
“But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists still talk as if the Church has introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion. The truth is that the Church was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion. There had never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers. Mythology, then, sought God through the imagination; or sought truth by means of beauty.” (pg. 111)
–G.K. Chesterton, Everlasting Man (Ignatius edition).
A Visit to the Brubeck Archives « JazzEd Magazine
— Read on www.jazzedmagazine.com/articles/featured/a-visit-to-the-brubeck-archives/
The iPad Pro has changed my life, and I don’t care about desktop computing anymore.
— Read on www.fastcompany.com/90259725/why-i-ditched-the-mac-to-work-exclusively-on-ipad-pro
A Christmas Fairy Tale
— Read on etinkerbell.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/a-christmas-fairy-tale/
I’m always a fan of E-Tinkerbell’s thoughts and words. And, she’s not even a native English speaker! Bravo.
I’m sure that many of you well remember that jazz master, Dave Brubeck, died six years ago this month. I always liked him when I was alive, but I’ve certainly got to know him and his art much better since he passed onto the heavenly realm.
Given his extraordinary creativity and his equally extraordinary defense of the humane (especially against racism in the 1950s), I wonder if it’s time we start looking into the possible canonization of Brubeck.
While I have no idea if there are miracles associated with this life, I do know that the man lived and breathed a tangible grace in all that he did. And, not too surprisingly, he found his way into the Catholic Church, adding to an already stunning list of converts over the past century.
One of my single best purchases over the past year was of the boxed set of his five albums dealing with time, FOR ALL TIME, capturing his recordings from 1959 to 1965. It includes Time Out, Time Further Out, Time In, Countdown, and Time Changes. Unquestionably, his most famous album is the 1959, Time Out, fearing “Take Five.”
Yet, for me, the best album is his truly experimental, Time Changes. I suppose it’s the prog rock inside my soul, but the second side features only one song, the 16-plus minute “Elementals,” a piece that is equal parts classical composition and jazz. I simply can’t get enough of it.
When I listen to it, I feel as though I’m living inside a sacrament. It is just so utterly and deeply graceful.
God definitely touched the soul of Brubeck with something special, and I believe we would be fools to dismiss that gift to Brubeck and, ultimately, to ourselves.
St. Brubeck? Maybe. Let’s ask and find out.
Addendum (found after posting this piece). Brubeck’s agent tried to get him to replace Eugene Wright (a black American) with a white American. Brubeck who had been supporting black musicians since World War II adamantly refused. “Dave refused; the tour was cancelled at a great financial loss; but Dave’s message was clear“–reads a letter from his agent.
Spirit of Cecilia 
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