tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post8225439473988648183..comments2024-03-12T17:53:27.753+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: The way upDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-7715400040165984992018-06-20T15:27:51.293+01:002018-06-20T15:27:51.293+01:00Sharing is always best, dear Thierry. It helps one...Sharing is always best, dear Thierry. It helps one to discover how many people have either been through something of the same, or know someone close to them who has.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-40928730060119652842018-06-20T14:16:50.559+01:002018-06-20T14:16:50.559+01:00Thank you so much for sharing your experience so o...Thank you so much for sharing your experience so openly and bravely dear David. Thierryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01115494590751031572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-65421051855065816592013-02-19T14:22:43.215+00:002013-02-19T14:22:43.215+00:00We were in Bergen, doing the fjord thing, though t...We were in Bergen, doing the fjord thing, though timed it for the festival, Oslo, Helsinki/Ainola (without your entrees of course), St P, Moscow blah blah. If I say Bergen to K, all he remembers is the police on bicycles in black lycra!<br /><br />To TAD to check the interview.<br /><br />Must remember to follow Mr Gardener and his programming.wandererhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08196036534397389760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-90584420525645127132013-02-19T09:51:06.825+00:002013-02-19T09:51:06.825+00:00I did a weekend course of transcendental meditatio...I did a weekend course of transcendental meditation and found it wonderful, but lacked the discipline to follow it through - and being in the abyss, with negative thoughts so intrusive, was not the time to try and make it work again. I must plan the day so that I can manage the requisite 20 mins in the morning and another 20 in the afternoon.<br /><br />Gurrelieder in Bergen? Did you make a flying visit there or was this on a broadcast? I love Litton's work with the 'other' BPO - hearing them in the Berlin Philharmoniker was an infinitely better experience than catching the home orchestra with Rattle in a terrible Ravel Sheherazade (Lady R on worst form) and a lumpy Strauss Heldenleben. And Litton was a joy to interview - there's a very long version of that on TAD.<br /><br />Good news that our Ed Gardner is to take over from Litton in Bergen, much as we want to keep him here. Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-57804322182727390872013-02-19T06:46:49.585+00:002013-02-19T06:46:49.585+00:00As the last to comment, now I'm flirting with ...As the last to comment, now I'm flirting with guilt. Still, I think/hope we can skip the need for immediacy and see another time arc at work here.<br /><br />Obliquity (and you're right of course, it was) is boring, and often insufferably smug; I apologise. And it was a touch hyperbolic as I suspect you suspected too. There are perhaps some parallels with mania and hypomania in what I'm about to say. I can work the social circumstances with the best of them, forward to the point of garrulousness, learned from many years needing to engage the trust of strangers, at work that is. It isn't my natural state though, my mean if you like. Solitude, physical solitude, suits me well - a hypomanic state if we carry the analogy - and reclusivity isn't so unattractive or extreme, but I wonder what would lie beyond that once that path were cleared.<br /><br />As for 'too good', well there's every reason surely that your upswing might tend to overshoot, and I'm sure you and yours are mindful of that. I'm loathe to enter the have-you-tried-this proselytizing posture, but I believe, as an adjunct to whatever physical and other therapies are in place, meditation is an acquired skill of incomparable benefits. I used to meditate regularly, now don't, consciously don't as in a willful self-destructive way, and am the worse off for it. This very conversation may be the trigger. <br /><br />I am loving catching up, darting a bit here and there, chez vous, Bach, and Andrew Litton (stunning Guerrelider in Bergen and achieving the impossible by making Strauss - Rosenkavalier - work in the SOH), Beauty ..wandererhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08196036534397389760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-43616730203998432382013-02-18T08:36:00.316+00:002013-02-18T08:36:00.316+00:00So pleased to see that comment, Wanderer, and I do...So pleased to see that comment, Wanderer, and I don't mind if you don't. Indeed, this post was written largely with you and your long-term concern in mind: one of the few that I think I know well through the personality that comes through and yet of course don't know at all.<br /><br />Your own description is poetic yet oblique. But I'm so glad to see you back. And yes, you only have to read all that follows this post to know I'm fine. Maybe a little too fine, but I'm learning to be watchful and reduce the stress/sense overload (difficult, the latter, in London). <br /><br />Onwards, anyway.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-26246518212163578982013-02-18T05:43:00.349+00:002013-02-18T05:43:00.349+00:00David, I think I lost a comment at the preview sta...David, I think I lost a comment at the preview stage. If it somehow found you, let it through if you see fit. If it is bobbing around the ethernet, I'll have another go. You need not post the following unless you want - it's happily for you now I suspect we are the only ones left in this particular room.<br /><br />I was saying how surprised I was to read that you had swung so low. For whatever reasons, you have never been far from my thoughts, and I did wonder if not worry what the problem was: cancer - the prostate, the blood; some consequence of the cycling accident - retinal detachment. Being used to your enthusiasms, as you say, the dark recesses of meaninglessness were hardly expected and now the silences are completely understandable. Praise be that you are back.<br /><br />My own little period in my cocoon, you need to know, has little to do with the other and everything to do with the within and my dealing with my own complexities. To be honest, I spend often days at a time alone in the bush, with no extraneous noise, music or radio, or human contact, except that K and I speak often, but then he is hardly other. Isolation is my comfort and possibly my nemesis.<br /><br />So, here we are, saying hello how are you again. How are you?wandererhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08196036534397389760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-62046434912621602242013-01-04T19:16:55.743+00:002013-01-04T19:16:55.743+00:00Huge thanks, Colin. I owe the exact phrasing of &#...Huge thanks, Colin. I owe the exact phrasing of 'this too will pass' to Dorothy Rowe, though I haven't found of much use her theory that depression is a way of telling us we're leading our lives in the wrong way. Sure, one can make adjustments, but it seems too prescriptive to me.<br /><br />I don't know what one can do for the sufferer, but I was very surprised by how many people had either suffered likewise or knew someone who had. And letters were very much appreciated.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-62357945924045218422013-01-04T19:13:33.410+00:002013-01-04T19:13:33.410+00:00Thank you for saying what you did and in your conc...Thank you for saying what you did and in your concluding words "this too will pass." How very true: it's hellish, murderous, vile beyond belief, but in time the blackest of clouds can be seen to have pin pricks of light penetrating them; that the abyssal plain has fragments of beauty on it. It's the feeling of abstraction from bright shining life with its smells, tastes, emotions and so on that make it so horrible.<br /><br />Offering a hand to someone who is deeply depressed is something that takes courage, but when offered it does give succour and a momentary awareness that you are not alone. Colin Dunnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-71828379753023117022013-01-03T00:11:59.660+00:002013-01-03T00:11:59.660+00:00And your support has meant so much to me - more th...And your support has meant so much to me - more than I would ever have thought the often deceptive world of blogpals could permit. Thank you, dear Sue.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-84863669866701906882013-01-02T22:03:50.747+00:002013-01-02T22:03:50.747+00:00I don’t think a day went by during all this period...I don’t think a day went by during all this period when I didn’t think of you and root for your return to good health, and with it, a return to your particularly gladsome brand of abundance from which I, and I suspect all of us, have gained so much. It is wonderful to have you back, as I hope you know. May 2013 bring an extra measure of abundance for you both!Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-91681995809298496572013-01-01T11:21:16.500+00:002013-01-01T11:21:16.500+00:00The resurgence has already begun, masha'Allah!...The resurgence has already begun, masha'Allah! We hope to see more of you and T in 2013. Now tuning in to Vienna - I'm not one of your sniffy ones when the NYDC is concerned, even with Welser-Most.. xxDavidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-82034831634451602682013-01-01T11:14:25.923+00:002013-01-01T11:14:25.923+00:00Thinking of you very much, David, and wishing you ...Thinking of you very much, David, and wishing you a complete resurgence of health and happiness in 2013! xxJDCMBhttp://jessicamusic.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-9876961413706026912013-01-01T11:10:50.448+00:002013-01-01T11:10:50.448+00:00Thanks all three for so quickly cushioning my anxi...Thanks all three for so quickly cushioning my anxiety over the public confessional. David, your points are so eloquent and enriching, as ever. And here's the sun on the first day of 2013... Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-30562925375951582732012-12-31T20:44:36.133+00:002012-12-31T20:44:36.133+00:00Dearest David
An e-mail is to follow but one of th...Dearest David<br />An e-mail is to follow but one of the joys of the past month or two has been to see you return to blogging, to writing at the Arts Desk and to be able to see you (though we had seen each other briefly in Janaury) two weeks ago. <br /><br />Let us hope that for all of us 2013 brings health - physical and mental - and happiness (something that you and I both have in spades from our loving and supportive spouses).<br /><br />Hugs<br /><br />WillWillymhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03652532356102638621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-53282337289644459862012-12-31T16:17:01.666+00:002012-12-31T16:17:01.666+00:00To you dear Friend and to J. very best wishes of g...To you dear Friend and to J. very best wishes of good Health and Happiness in 2013. To the pleasure of seeing you again in London. To continous reading of your delightful blog and helpful reading suggestions which I enjoy a lot. Bonne et Joyeuse Année!!Laurenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03297393116796129135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-54881154344643889972012-12-31T16:13:04.531+00:002012-12-31T16:13:04.531+00:00Winston Churchill admitted to black dog rather tha...Winston Churchill admitted to black dog rather than black hole, but there may be a parallel in that his father Lord Randolph died when Winston was young (admittedly 21) and of a debilitating illness which went on for some years. We do not understand these things, as you indicate. Also I might mention that, although the practice is in decline, Englishmen still tend to the stiff upper lip, whether they are looking at their own troubles or those of a friend. So expressions of sympathy can be restrained. Nelson's "Kiss me Hardy" can still cause embarrassment, or more recently was foolishly seen as evidence of homosexuality. The Duke of Wellington is sometimes crediting with embedding the stiff upper lip into the English character, but it was probably the spirit of the age which also turned male costume grey<br /><br />Even schoolboy Latin lessons ( faded now for me I regret to say) could show up the musical nature of Virgil's poetry. I might add the comparison made by Kobbe with Gluck's "sublime number" che faro:<br /><br /> Vox ipsa et frigida lingua<br />"Ah! Miseram Eurydicen " anima fugiente vocabat;<br />"Eurydicen" toto referabant flumine ripae [Georgics]<br /><br />E'en then his trembling tongue invoked his bride;<br />With his last voice "Eurydice " he cried<br />"Eurydice" the rocks and river banks replied [Dryden]<br /><br />I would also argue that the "sublime number" is about the loss of everything, not just a wife, and like Dido's lament "shifts the emphasis .. from the particular to the universal" [Harewood] There is nothing we can do about our predicament but by detaching ourselves from the particular we can perhaps see our fate in perspective. And works of art of genius are perhaps the greatest way to achieving this perspective<br />David Damantnoreply@blogger.com