Skip to main content

Memorization

Today I re-read Robert Frost's classic "The Road Not Taken". Always, as I read, I think I should commit this to memory; I adore it so. My internal script, though, tells me I can't memorize. Laughable, really, this notion. As a musician, I memorized a great deal. Several years of drum corps shows, marching band music, myriad jazz tunes; all committed to mind. Odd, then, that this dated and disproven script still influences. I wonder, at times, if we'd cease to exist without our insecurities. So prevalent and deep seated they are. Frustrating, really; perhaps memorizing this piece would help defeat this script forever? A worthy endeavor, methinks.

Via BlackBerry

Comments

Aaron Burkhalter said…
Have you heard Frostiana by Randall Thompson. It's a 1959 choral piece setting Frost's words to music. Includes that piece and another that we sang for Advent at UBC, "Choose Something Like A Star."

If you haven't, I'll bring you a copy next time I see you
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Driving along in Kirkland , home of the modern yuppie, I’m passed by a new Mercedes. Lovely, silver, shiny, new, bling-bling; a part of me loaded with insecurity twinges while I purr along in my Toyota. Why? How come this is a metric of my self-esteem? Am I being unfair to myself, being upset by this train of thought and it’s influence? Consider, please, how much this viewpoint is drilled into us. Look at how often this imagery gets pushed into our faces, and how long that’s been going on. It shouldn’t surprise me, really, that I sometimes feel this way. Though my conscious values oppose this, the lingering thread of this programming has threads into the depths psyche.
4 comments
Read more

Oh, A Meeting We Will Go

This post gives me pause. Meetings, the infernal overwrought obsession of our lives. It's not just corporate America, but the various groups and org's I've dallied with over the years suffer from meetopia, too. No one I know likes the blasted things, yet I don't know anyone offering up a successful resistance. Related to this, methinks, I have noted that I do a great deal over my workdays (check off a ridiculous number of to-dos) and accomplish little or nothing. The mass of tasks don't roll up to anything. And I've noticed a lingering sense of frustration lately. I spend precious little time reflecting on my goals, and how I can link them to what I do over the course of any given day. I'm so divorced from this, I really wonder what I really want to do, to accomplish any more. Within a recess of my brain comes a niggling thought. Perhaps this passion for meetings offers up a substitute for reflection. Knowing that we must account, personally, face-to-face f...
2 comments
Read more