I moved cubicles today. Yay!!! I’m next to the window and near all my favorite people in my department. I can’t tell you all how much better this is going to make me work. I have trouble editing proofs with headphones and music, so it was torture trying to concentrate while the Whistler whistled and never shut up. I was bringing so much work home. I’m hoping that now I can get the work I need to concentrate on finished during regular business hours.
One stupid thing I did while moving my stuff was that I kept my heels on as I walked back and forth from my old desk to the new one. My feet are still aching. So are my calves. Dumb Debbie.
I cooked dinner tonight. It’s been quite a while since I’ve felt inspired to cook. And it’s been too hot. I made one of my favorites, Farfalle with chicken and broccoli in a lemon garlic sauce. I put the recipe up on my sorry excuse of a recipe blog. So, go there if you like a lot of lemon and garlic and yumminess.
Claire de lune….my soundtrack
I’ve been feeling very sentimental tonight. Actually, all weekend (despite the odd encounters with assholes). When I was loading songs onto my Ipod I came across one of my favorite pieces of music. It was one of the first things I put on the Ipod, but I didn’t listen to it because I know what it does to me. Sometimes I’m afraid to go where the piece takes me. It’s not a bad place, but it’s a place of intense love and beauty and comfort. No other piece of music has this effect on me. It’s almost like a trance.
The first time I heard it I was 12 years old. I was listening to my first Walkman late at night and was surfing the stations. I came across a classical music station I didn’t know about. I listened to a few pieces of music before this particular piece was played. I have been under it’s spell ever since.
Listening to Debussy’s Claire de lune destroys me in the best way possible. I can’t move when I’m listening to it. It’s impossible to describe what goes through my mind when it’s playing because it’s so personal. It moves over me like a memory I can’t quite put my finger on. A memory from another time that I haven’t gotten to yet…maybe…or the memory is from another life. I close my eyes and I’m surrounded by warmth and coolness all at once. I’m enclosed in comfort and softness. I’m humbled. I’m satisfied. I’m happy. And yet when it’s over I feel like someone has ripped me out of the womb again.
There was a little peak into my mind. Something extremely personal. You might find that a weird statement considering the things I’ve shared with you all. But there are some things that aren’t so visceral, do you know what I mean? This little piece of music defines me in a way.
Debussy found inspiration for this piece in a poem by Paul Verlaine.
Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.
The while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain;
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise–
The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone
The fountains tall to sob with ecstacy.
If you are looking for this piece, please do yourself a favor and find a rendition played by a solo pianist. Maybe you’ll love it too.
Yes. That is an amazingly powerful piece of music. Beautifully melancholy. I did’t know that Debussy was inspired by Verlaine’s poem. I used Claire de lune as inspiration for a painting I finished last year. Maybe I’ll make a post about that. Hmm.
Anyway, a piece of music that I enjoy in much the same way is Gabriel Fauré’s Angus Dei. Very different style of music but you should give it a listen if you aren’t already familiar with it.
nice post! i get the same way when i hear hilary hahn play bernstein. mesmerizing.
however, i also get that way when i listen to selected works of pink floyd and jerry garcia.
When I need some good old-fashioned unabashed romanticism, I leisten to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
Or Billy Eckstine.
Or George Strait.
And depending upon my supply of bourbon, sometimes all 3.
Listen.
And one post will do, thanks.
Maybe I’m drunk right now…
I agree w/ hearing it from a soloist for a truly intense effect.
Where-ever you are in this country, you have the ability to see classical music played live. Well, in the big cities anyway. Go to your nearest music conservatory’s website to see when what pieces are being played. Most recitals are intimate affairs, & free.
Philly’s got a few schools, Curtis being the most elite. Chi-town’s got Roosevelt’s Chi School for the Performing Arts. Cali’s got a ton.
cool post on music. That was part of the reason I started my second blog..there are so many great cds that now we “forget” about for some reason cuz of Ipods (which I love mind you but we never listen to full cds in “order”).
I love when music moves me. Anyone that has never been moved by music is dead to me..sorry.
i’m more of a baroque music fan, but claire de lune is one of the few pieces i like from the classical or romantic periods. i totally get what you’re saying in this post.
great poem, too.
duckie: I’ll definitely check it out. Thanks.
hotwire: Now, I have to look into the Bernstein thingy too.
jj: You’re drunk? Sheesh, that was early in the morning. I have a lot of music to check out now.
yllwsdaisie: I used to attend the symphony regularly. Nothing like live classical music to move you.
March: I agree that people who aren’t moved by music are dead inside. The same with any kind of art. I love your second blog. You’ve been taking me back to my youth lately and I appreciate it.
sage: Isn’t the poem nice?
hey, just posted that painting I mentioned to my second blog. Check it out when you’ve got a second. I’d like to hear your opinion.
thanks. that contrast in focus is what gives a nice depth-of-field.