Bebo Valdes, the great Cuban musician and pianist, was one of the founders of Latin jazz, and a pioneer in bringing Afro-Cuban sacred rhythms to popular dance music. His style of playing during the Mambo years of Jazz brought many lovers together with his beautiful melodies.
The life of Bebo Valdes is portrayed in the movie "Old Man Bebo." Listen to this gracious and funny man and admire his unique style of piano-playing. It is rare to find such a gift. Mambo is a musical form and dance style that developed originally in Cuba, with further significant developments by Cuban musicians in Mexico and the USA. The word "mambo" means "conversation with the gods" in Kikongo, the language spoken by Central African slaves taken to Cuba. Valdes met his second wife in Sweden, while on tour there with his band and he decided to remain and settle in Sweden. He described meeting his wife, Rose Marie Pehrson, as the most important moment of his life: "It was like being hit by lightning," he said. "If you meet a woman and you want to change your life you have to choose between love and art."[ They remained together until her death in 2012.
He Belonged in a Morgue He looked like he belonged in a morgue three days ago, an old neighbor of mind. Then a young woman moved in with him. They were up until 3:00 AM. A week later he looked better. Maybe there are some clues here to help enliven you? ~ Hafiz
When you are surrounded by negativity, you can be pushed into that unpleasant, unhappy place. But when you are surrounded by love or enthusiasm, your whole appearance changes. Your physical outward image changes because your inner transformation has been complete. Transformation can make an elderly, dying person into something else. What other medicine do we have that makes you feel so good? Hafiz gives us some clues. Al Jarreau knows the answer, sings it proud and it feels "so good".
It is located in the PAINTING AND SCULPTURE I, GALLERY 1, FLOOR 5. Next, you can listen to a musical accompaniment called Big My Secret (Scent of Love) that accompanies this painting. This musical soundtrack comes from the movie The Piano (music by Michael Nyman).
Imagine telling someone you would love to date. Ask them to meet you at the MoMA, on the Fifth Floor in front of this painting, on a Saturday in summer. Wouldn't it be mysterious and romantic? The painter Rousseau said "the lion in the painting picks up the scent of the woman, but does not devour her." The painting is unusual and improbable. The desert setting is fantastical. This painting is a fantasy. All these inconsistencies point to the fact that it is not meant to be real, that it is a dream. In this setting, the lion, known as the king of the jungle, a predator among predators, exists as an abstraction of danger. But, just as in a child's mind, it adds only a flair of excitement and mystery, not fear. He seems just as curious of the gypsy as we are of him.
Perhaps some of our love connections are that way too. We approach love not to devour the person but to share our life's journey. If this gypsy played the mandolin, I hope it sounds like
Jake Shimabukuro in the video below.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
When the pursuit of love puts up a brick wall, we have two options; look somewhere else or blast through it , no matter how impossible that seems or no matter how hard. I recently gave my daughter some bad advice. She was applying for a summer job and they called her back for "another interview" three times. I said to her, "They're stringing you along. Go look for another job." But she persisted and went back, for their fourth interview, and they hired her. They told her of all the candidates, "She could perform the job the fastest."
What does this mean? I think it means to follow the wisdom of Randy Pausch. Don't give up on love or on loving a particular person, especially if you really, really want him or her.
Although he graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, Randy Pausch nearly didn't get in to Brown in the first place -- he was wait listed. It was a brick wall that some might have walked away from. But Pausch had a novel way of looking at obstacles:
"The brick walls are there for a reason," he said during his lecture. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
He kept calling the college until it let him in.
Pausch maintained that his most formidable brick wall was a beautiful graduate student named Jai Glasgow. Pausch was 37, with a reputation as something of a ladies' man, when he met her at a lecture. Pausch was smitten, but she resisted. However, he refused to give up, and they eventually married and had three children.
Randy Pausch and his soul mate and future wife, Jai Glasgow
To give solace is to provide comfort or cheer to someone at a time of sorrow, distress or disappointment. Bringing comfort is an act of love and is the best antidote to pain. No pharmacy sells this potion.
Without love, we are unable to offer solace.
Some families find solace taking many trips together and capture the spirit of love. Fathers usually find some way to provide sage advice and solace.
This Father's Day, try to listen to the spirt of the songs on this playlist.
For a more romantic use of the word solace try this:
"My soul at least asolacehath In dreams of thee, and therein knows An Eden of bland repose."
If you are dreaming of paradise, perhaps this song is a good place to start. A former Broadway singer, who is now a nurse anesthetist, mentionned to me the other day that he used to work with a wonderful bartione and actor, named Robert Goulet. I said what was your favorite song to perform with Robert Goulet. He answered : "This Nearly Was Mine" from the Broadway musical "South Pacific".
I feel like soaring to see the woman of my dreams after listenening to this song. See if you feel weightless too.
South Pacific is about prejudices and love. Is skin color more important than love? Should age differences in a couple be a barrier to reject love offered? In this insightful commentary on the musical, the writer reminds us that we must not let our human prejudices isolate us from each other. Love is a strong enough emotion to overcome and drive away our pre-conditions, superstitions, and preconceptions.
The poet Anna Akhmatova wrote a poem about the part of her life she is leaving behind. She is going to a place which is the last time anyone will see her. Perhaps she leaves behind a lover, but something calls her to this place, this height.
The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova was brave and admired for not leaving Russia during the oppressive Stalin years. Her first husband was tortured, her poetry was banned and still she found the words to express a simple feeling from the heart... "You will hear thunder..."
Perhaps she is calling on Russians to remember her for her strength in resisting the oppressiveness of Stalinism. Perhaps she is urging her people to remember that their hearts can be on fire again. When she dies, she tells them, remember you have strength and power (thunder). The crimson color could be the flag of Russia itself.
Whenever we hear thunder, something dramatic is about to happen. When we leave a place or a person, the shadow left can be positive or negative memory. Will your shadow leave behind a fire in someone's heart?
While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher’s ink.
She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.
My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.
But I know
it is because of the way
my mother’s hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.
While looking for a special quote this week for a student graduating from High School, I came across this blessing:
"May every sunrise begin with Promise,
And every sunset end in Peace."
The poem by Li-Young Lee begins early in the morning. Two people, father and child, watch a mother combing her long black hair. Long before the birds begin their day with morning song, the father and child hear the mother's "music of comb against hair." There is an expectation that in the evening, the father will untie those long locks of hair, ending the day with love and peace.
