Dame Felicity Lott (and Elizabeth Mandeno) at Rannoch

I'm just home from a stunning evening of beauty and wit.
Dame Felicity Lott and husband Gabriel Woolf regaled us with a selection of love songs: childish, lyrical, comic, witty and cynical, with a smattering of poems and witticisms in between. For the last song, the trio from the end of  Der Rosenkavalier, Dame Felicity was joined by Sarah Court, beautiful mezzo soprano, and Elizabeth Mandeno, soprano, ravishingly beautiful in white and gold, with voice to more than match, all three singing on the mezzanine above us.

Dame Felicity was as gracious and warm and alive as she was in the film of La Belle Hélène which so captivated me, at Mum's "Greek Odyssey" end of year treat film a year ago - she played the most beautiful woman in the world when pushing 60 and surrounded by deliciously beautiful young parisienne actors, and utterly pulled it off. I was struck then by how thoroughly sexy and beautiful she was, and how she seemed utterly at ease with herself - "bien dans sa peau", as we say in French. Yet throughout the evening (there was a Q&A after the singing) she several times referred to her "complexes" and lack of confidence, and how being chosen by the great conductor Karlos Kleiber (spelt phonetically, sorry, hope it's close to right) to sing an opera gave her confidence - "if I'm good enough for him ..." she thought. Not a trace of a hint of any lack of confidence (or indeed ability - her very-high pianissimos were amazing) in her performance tonight - yet she told me afterwards that she was sick with nerves before going on tonight. It never goes away, huh?

Left me topped up with delight and Art and Song and the sense of a wider world.

Muslim Scholars' Letter to ISIS: Mercy greater than Wrath

I won't even attempt to lay claim to any hope of future regularity - but here is an important thread in the weave of our current day.
For all four of my followers, and anyone I might badger with emails.
I will attempt to attach the link to the above, and my comments on it from facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/LetterToBaghdadi

Got the link OK!
Now for my comments immediately upon skim-reading:

'I think the main point of this whole letter is that, from a Muslim point of view, God's mercy is greater than his wrath.
So far I've skimmed it and it seems well reasoned. I don't hold out much hope that it will have any great effect on the ISIS leaders as they will be able to dismiss it as quibbling, if they are they type they seem, ie so firm of conviction that any opposite argument will be rejected without deep inspection. But it might help in two other ways: one, prompt many a young Muslim tempted to think that the extreme violent way is the most pious way (which this letter firmly argues against), and two, encourage non-Muslims, and especially Westerners, including Christians, to see that the extreme, violent and anti-women "Islam" so beloved of our media is not considered valid by such a large and knowledgeable sector if Islam.
See also previously-posted video of Reza Aslan in discussion on separating "Muslim" from "Violent and anti-woman".'
All best,
Teufel

Chris Norman & David Greenberg Duo: Amazing Concert

Brief notes on a fantastic evening: this duo of fiddle (two kinds) and bellows pipes/wooden flute/tin whistle played  a range of music from Cape Breton through Ireland, Scotland, the Borders, to Bach and Telemann, foot-tapping, singing, bursting with energy and humour to add to their virtuosic talents. They were fresh from teaching a week-long course in Waipu, with the Nova-Scotia link, and refreshment at the Buddhist centre in Kaukapakapa.

If you missed them, they'll be back next year - they've been coming annually for some years now. Tonight's concert was held at the St John's Theological College Library in St Johns, Auckland.

In a way, a bigger venue would be good so more people could hear them, but it was SOOOOOO nice to hear wooden instruments close-up, with no microphones or speakers, and neither too loud nor distorted. Stunningly beautiful sound.

Stuart Maclean should get them on his Vinyl Café show (CBC).

Thanks to Chantelle for alerting us to it - and we saw a couple of familiar home-schooling faces there - and enormous thanks to Noël for a divinely delicious dinner and superb conversation and entertainment.

       - Teufel

A Proud Member of the Chimney Sweeps' Club!

I hereby declare myself a member of the yet-to-be instituted Chimney Sweeps' Club!
This is in reference to an image from Robert Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology, in which an atheist and a worldly Bishop discuss religion or the lack of it, and the grey area between faith and doubt, whichever side of the dividing line you fall, or whichever colour of the checker board you happen to have drawn for the game.
  The image is all about the suspense felt watching a boy leap nimbly along the roof ridge - once he falls to one side or the other the spectacle is over; all the interest's in the boy still a-balance on the line between.

   " ... You see lads walk the street
   Sixty the minute; what's to note in that?
   You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack;
   Him you must watch - he's sure to fall, yet stands!
   Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
   The honest thief, the tender murderer,
   The superstitious atheist, ....
   ....
   We watch while these in equilibrium keep
   The giddy line midway:  one step aside,
   They're classed and done with.  I, then, keep the line
    ...."

                                                         lines 391-401


   This long poem repays re-reading and re-reading - I find I have marked many passages in it. Not as delicious as "My Last Duchess" or "Fra Lippo Lippi," but if anything richer in resonant images and layers of thought.

Tschüss!

   -Teufel

Didn't Win, Not in Top Five

So need to vote for me, but I still recommend reading the top five.
The link was unwieldy but googling "NZ Writers' College short story competition" brings it up pretty easily.

No News Yet - And How do you Join?

No news on the short story competition yet.
And - those who successfully have - how did you become a follower? Did you have to have a google account? Many can't get to the blog, or once in, can't become a follower. Any ideas? especially Brian, Jasmine, Nick?
Cheers,
Teufel

Link worked

Just to say the I successfully followed the link from this blog to the list of finalists - some had trouble from my email as it was such a long name.
Teufel