Classical Guitar

Love In The Time Of Brain-Scans-The Science Of Romantic Poets

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How many post-Romantic, Modern and Postmodern hopes can be hung upon the coatrack of (S)cience?

Perhaps we’ll find out. Dear Reader, let me know if this is you:

‘Whoa I wasn’t expecting this…the butterflies, I can’t stop thinking about her….am I…in love?

‘Oh my God, it’s over. This is it. She’s gone. We’re through. I’m a failure. All is black.‘

Recovery Step 1: It says here I’ve been changed at the physiological level and many behavioral scientists, with theoretical brilliance and empirical rigor, agree ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all‘.

Step 2: Prairie voles. A French philosopher. I’m not alone.

Step 3 (Optional,Inferred) Since I got my free brain-scan down at the clinic to address the suffering of loving, living and losing in a modern society, I’d better lobby Congress to make sure brain scans are free for everybody.

—

Has the danger, foolishness and chaos of being in love changed much? Is the comfort, wisdom and order of a committed relationship really so different?

In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 27

I envy not in any moods 
         The captive void of noble rage, 
         The linnet born within the cage, 
That never knew the summer woods: 

I envy not the beast that takes 
         His license in the field of time, 
         Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, 
To whom a conscience never wakes; 

Nor, what may count itself as blest, 
         The heart that never plighted troth 
         But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; 
Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whate’er befall; 
         I feel it, when I sorrow most; 
         ‘Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all.

–Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The full poem demonstrates where some Romantics and Moderns went wild and bad:

…loverhood
will swing your soul like a broken bell
deep in a forsaken wood…

We’re probably not as far from the below as you might think…the more you think about it:

Three Songs and A Poem-Merry Christmas

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I prefer ‘Silent Night’ to be pure, and simple, and clear.   I imagine drifts of snow frozen and crusted over, everything still, under a starry sky.

A bit of a prayer, really, but one of warmth:

It reminded me of this:

IV

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

–William Butler Yeats

Whole poem here.

Not exactly Christmas…

Become a gentlemen, and recover your nobility, honor, and dignity, but with twinges of nostalgia, melancholy and loss.

Please don’t think of windmills, but there’s a lot of Spain in this one:

And if you’re tired of Christmas music, have some metal. Give this one a chance. It’s exquisitely played and thoughtfully arranged:

You Never Go Full ‘Adult Contemporary’-Some Links

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I’ve wondered why Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells, English guitarist and smart composer, New-Agey prog rock but deep…out there) seemed so popular in Spain.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an appeal to a sense of the deeply tragic going on, well-designed but emotionally intense songs; compositions with some classical influence and historical context, but still functioning as popular/bar songs.

He manages to work with excellent singers too.

Going For Baroque (get it?):

I imagine a bunch of little kids slowly waking-up in a loft, daylight breaking through shutters, the cobwebs of sleep still filling the room.

A simple wonder at the architecture of things: