Hubert de Givenchy on Elegance...

The minimalist "Bauhaus" style is in demand - some say it's elegant, while others find it stark or boring.

"The greatest elegance is that of the heart, which consists of doing good works with the highest degree of confidentiality, even anonymously. Elegance is always inconspicuous and never intrusive; it does not indulge itself in luxuriousness and display. Elegance is always the refinement of that which is simple and almost indiscernable..."

This quote is my translation from an article in which Givenchy commented on elegance. After all the pomp of Christmas, and now Carneval, and the Oscars yesterday in the USA, I needed a little refreshment and airing-out of my senses.

So one year goes by....

In August 2004 we enjoyed a mild morning having coffee at Central Market in Fort Worth.

As of today it has been one year since I last saw my mother. I hugged her, kissed her, and felt confident I would see her again in just a few months, in the summer of 2008, since I was certain I was moving back to Texas to be there to help take care of her.

I walked out of the door and got into the car as my friend Randy drove me to the airport. I commented to him that now the most difficult part was over - saying goodbye was the most challenging. Little did I know I had just said my last goodbye in person to her during this life...

And about two weeks later here in Leipzig I had a shivering revelation that I would not see her alive again. I chose to ignore that knowledge, dismissing it as an insane notion. I knew there was something different about that notion, though. Yet I continued my plans, not suspecting that in just a few weeks the fabric of my life would be torn beyond all repair...

Fed Up with February Flurries...

Here the view I was greeted with when I walked into my living room this morning...
The back deck doesn't look very inviting today....
This is where I stand in front of my apartment house and wait for the tram - just like these people.

I am officially tired and fed up with Winter. I am tired of not being able to keep clean shoes. I am tired of needing one whole minute to bundle myself up to go outside. Just as the paths in the forest were finally clear, we get another load of snow, so now it will be slip and slide in the forest again when I try to go running, and I will run, because I do not want to start gaining weight - that happens when you aren't 20 anymore and don't burn off calories that fast.
So those of you down under or over there in the warm south of the USA, think warm thoughts of us over here. This post wasn't profound, just mundane - too much cold stifles deeper thoughts...

February Funk

Where have the days gone? We are well into February, and so far 2009 has been uneventful - a welcome change from a 2008 full of tragedy for me. Central Europe has been in a deep freeze, and terrible cold and flu viruses have been going around. I usually get off scott-free, but this time I was up for a round, so I have been nursing a bad cold and feeling blah all the time. Now I am healthy again, but the enegry you lose in the battle comes back slowly. And, that is why no posts have been forth-coming.

Why do we box time into artificial segments? Crops, mating seasons, the moon, etc. give us natural biological segmentation, but for humans, there are overriding aspects defying such separation. Birth, marriage, the rituals of the stages of life, and then death may provide the prominent pillars, but even many of these still do not stem the flow of union between events perhaps even far removed from the present.

I found a bargain two weeks ago: a box of the complete Beethoven String Quartets, performed by the Gewandhaus Quartet, the resident string quartet of the orchestra in Leipzig bearing the same name. 10 cds and a 96 page booklet for 10 Euros! (bar code no. 4 019272 601392) This set is already one of my all-time favourite collections. If you know Beethoven, you may know his lapel-grabbing tendencies and the lack of melodies in his works. But this interpretation of his string quartets uses impeccable purity of tone and intonation to present a Beethoven that doesn't grab you lapel but invades your psyche via the ear, leaving you haunted by the timelessness of his music - breaking the pillars convention would erect between events. At the end of his Nineth Symphony, you want to shout and scream, but the same sublime beauty and insight here leaves you in silent awe, as you agree with Wittgenstein, who, at the end of his most difficult work, said there are some things we cannot know, and our only response to these is silence.

Do not forget that by the time Beethoven composed most of these string quartets, he was completely deaf; he could hear nothing he composed - as far as we know. But he still heard as he composed. I hope we can listen as intently as he heard.