Anniversary of "The Raven"

"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,/ In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore...."  

"The Raven" was first published in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. Poe used internal rhyme and alliteration, and based the rhythm on Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship". Of course, the poem is about an agonized lover who becomes more upset by the single word spoken by his avian visitor.

(We used to have ravens in our Arizona backyard. They're nearly two feet long, depending on the type. If one flew into my house, I wouldn't talk to it, I'd run away, LOL) 

The poem brought Poe little income but acclaim as a poet.

Three Great Baseball Players

Great ball players!  Jackie Robinson, and Ernie "Mr. Cub" Banks, and also Nolan Ryan, were all born on January 31st (1919, 1931, 1947).  

Copied under fair use principles. 

Morris Founding Fathers

Here are Gouveneur Morris and Robert Morris, painted by Charles Wilson Peale in 1783. The two were not related but they shared a January 31st birthday (1752, 1734) and distinction as Founding Fathers. 

Robert Morris served as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, the Second Continental Congress, and the United States Senate, and was one of only two people who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. (Roger Sherman is the other.) Robert served as Superintendent of Finance of the U.S. in 1781-1784. With Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, Robert is one of the founders of the U.S. financial system. 

Gouveneur Morris not only signed both the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution, he also wrote the final version of the Constitution's Preamble. He advanced the idea of being a citizen of the Union, rather than only the citizen of an individual state. (This idea continued to develop in the U.S.). Gouveneur was also one of the outspoken opponents to slavery at the constitutional convention. He represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803.

The two men served together in the 1780s when Robert was Superintendent of Finance and Gouveneur was Assistant Superintendent.

Jacqueline du Pre

Although her life and career were cut short by MS, Jacqueline du Pré is regarded as one of the greatest cellists. She was born January 26, 1945, 80 years ago. I remember getting such a lump in my throat as I listened to her playing the Elgar concerto, on Kent State's radio station several years ago. That 9/8 beginning is so affecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPhkZW_jwc0

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On January 27, 1945--80 years ago--Allied forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz was the complex of camps, near the Polish town of Oświęcim, where nearly a million Jews were murdered within five years, and also non-Jewish Poles, Roma, the handicapped, and others, 1.1 million altogether. The United Nations designed January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to remember the Jewish victims of the Shoah and the millions of other victims of the Nazis... I had heard of this book, "And Every Single One Was Someone," by Phil Chernofsky. Except for the introduction, the book contains only the word Jew, 4800 times on each page for 1250 pages, thus repeating the word 6 million times. The cover depicts a Jewish prayer shawl.

New Music Every Week: Bruckner's Fifth

 I decided to listen to new music---new to me---every week in 2025. 

I've always read about Bruckner's symphonies but had listened very little to them. Here is the beautiful Fifth, conducted by Sergiu Celibidache. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elVHvTrEM34

 

Landscape: John Clymer