"The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates

- - scatterings of ideas sent to my younger self, a sensitive girl who was fooled into believing she was a boy because of anatomy - -

Thursday 24 February 2011

Simple Gifts

There have been a few posts in the last few days that evoke thoughts of 'why we blog'. Apart from the selfish reasons that I personally cherish (thank you to everyone who participates), now and then my mind turns to the 'lurkers' out there who I will never know. I wish you well too!

There is trouble all around right now. Beauty still exists all around too, if we look for it. Here in this paradise called Canada, we are on the brink of spring. The signs are all around us. I know many of my American friends are looking forward to spring too. Canada is not the only place in North America to feel winter's sting.

My favourite composer happens to be iconically American: Aaron Copland, creator of music that feeds the soul, in my humble opinion.

From Appalachian Spring, the tune "Simple Gifts" as only Copland could have imagined it, simple, then magnificent, and then simple again.

Photography by Ansel Adams.. unabashedly gorgeous American images.

I do not know who "jaxdriver" is, but you are like the rest of us who use the internet to share our thoughts and my thanks go out to you for putting this together and leaving it as a treasure for others to stumble upon.

2 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! Ansel Adams and Aaron Copeland together. How quintessentially American!

    I had not realized that the melody Copeland used, now quite familiar (as the hymn "Lord of the Dance"), came from a Shaker song called "Simple Gifts."

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  2. That was beautiful Halle! I've always loved the works of both Copeland and Adams.

    Melissa XX

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