New Orts # 22

June 16 MMXXIV

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.    
— attributed to Gustav Mahler, likely quoting some earlier source

Ecclesiastes is not a book for a man my age to be reading, all about the meaninglessness of life and how your hard labor is in vain… I much prefer the Song of Solomon, the bosomy passages, the banqueting, the beloved and all her delights, I’d walk a million miles for one of her smiles, she’s the jam on my toast, the one I love most, so help me, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
     — Garrison Keillor (1942- ), in a Substack post, May 29, 2024
(for the full column google “I rise to testify in my own defense”)

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not the only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.
          — Pablo Casals (1876-1973)