Happy 250th Birthday, Mozart! Today I will celebrate by listening to the Kyrie from your C-Minor mass, going on a date with my wife, who like Constanze, makes me more responsible, profitable and tolerable than I’d be on my own, and informing my small audience about your exceptional life:
Mozart, an ugly child with one eye noticeably larger than the other, was raised by his father Leopold, a musician bent on making Mozart a success. It’s hard to say whether Mozart was a prodigy by nature or by nurture. What is certain is that Mozart grew up in a sort of home school music boot camp that gave him such advanced skills in harpsichord/piano performance and composition that he was rocking for royalty and high society as a grade schooler - like a trained monkey on parade, one of my professors once said.
Unfortunately, like the Michael Jackson of his day, unable to have a “normal” childhood full of whimsy and play, Mozart lacked social graces as an adult and often chose goofing off or pulling pranks over the serious work of composing and self-promoting. Was Mozart aching for a childhood he never had? Among his favorite past times was a game some think he invented called musical dice and bowling, a lowbrow pastime then in its infancy.
Mozart wrote church music, masses for the wealthy Catholic Church which along with government was the primary patron of the arts until popular secular music forms like comic opera funded by business men and ticket sales brought Mozart’s music to the masses - something he always wanted more than the restrictive and pious worlds of sacred music and government sanctioned safely scripted “serious” opera. We modern Christians sometimes look back on this period of Church-funded art as the good ole days and fail to see the whole dismal picture: restricted themes and forms and lengths and ranges etc, character and acceptance of set beliefs were not requirements for the job of Church composer - only skill and acceptance of pay, the inability for Church composers often to accept contracts from outside the Church once working for her. This was a stifling existence for an artist of great ambition with many varied interests artistically and thematically - and even more stifling for an often immoral and brash man like Mozart.
Frustrating for Mozart as well because he could write, it seemed, anything he wanted, quickly and in one draft, and was therefore limited only by what he could find a market for, what he could be paid to compose since there was little time after composing for pay to compose for fun. The comedic opera for the common man The Magic Flute is one of the few examples of what Mozart composed for his own amusement - not that he didn’t enjoy composing other pieces but this humorous and whimsical opera composed for pennies gives us a glimpse at what Mozart was willing to compose simply for his love of the music itself. It might reveal what Mozart would have written had money been no object. And *cough* it was pop music.
Unlike Beethoven and other great composers, Mozart’s scores are eerily clean. No scratch outs. No rough drafts. He was said to be taking dictation, simply writing down what he heard playing in his mind, composing constantly inside his mind until a piece was completed, then transcribing it onto paper with pen. All the drafts and revisions took place in his imagination.
Mozart, despite this rare gifting, popularity with both the commoners and royalty (though he wasn’t their favorite because he broke the composition rules of the day for length, form and range often), and his more than 600 compositions, Mozart died in relative poverty. Buried in an unmarked grave. His wife outlived him by fifty years and in those years sold many of his manuscripts, returned to his birth place in Salzburg and promoted Mozart and the city as his home. Her tireless efforts created the Mozart tourism industry, expanded his fame and the reach of his music and birthed the Mozart “brand” worth over six billion dollars today.
Proof that greatness is not always rewarded but always rewarding, Mozart reminds the artist that art is what we make because we can’t help ourselves, not something we do just for money but something we do when there is none. It’s who we are. And he reminds us that beauty and divinity can, and often do, force their way into the world through the most ugly and irreverent of people. So look for them - beauty and God - where you least expect them.
Happy Birthday, Mozart.
Google claims it has mastered the search engine and is now able to eliminate time-consuming and irritating false results caused by blog pages and other websites listing frequently searched for words in order to attract visits. Let’s see.
SHLOG.COM CONTAINS NO INFORMATION ABOUT THESE TOP QUERIES: anna benson, zac efron, kate beckinsale, miss america, jenna elfman, leif garrett, barrett jackson, american idol, tanith belbin, australian open, martina hingis, jill carroll, maria sharapova, seahawks, steelers, Janet Jackson, Hurricane Katrina, tsunami, xbox 360, Brad Pitt, Michael Jackson, American Idol, Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, Harry Potter, ipod, digital camera, mp3 player, ipod mini, psp, laptop, xbox, ipod shuffle, computer desk, ipod nano, free porn, on-line poker, myspace, or burnlounge. DID YOU GET HERE BY GOOGLING ANY OF THEM?
If so, I apologize if this test has been time-consuming or irritating to you.
Don’t like how department store t-shirts snuggle your torso? Try Threadless.com, a company utilizing the increasingly popular open-source method of production to clothe the finicky fashion-forward consumer like you. Threadless puts YOU the consumer in charge of the t-shirt production process in which you submit a t-shirt design on-line, the plans are posted, commented on, blogged about and voted upon. Designs with the most votes “win” are put into production. And you get the t-shirt you’ve always wanted to wear, the joy of creating something everyone else wants to wear and a chunk of change for helping Threadless make a buck or two along the way. Everyone’s happy. Amazing!
The LINUX operating system constantly being tweaked and updated by its users is another example of open-source production, as is the popular and always accurate Wikipedia on-line encyclopedia.
Of course Luther may be the father of open-source production theory. He advanced an idea called “priesthood of the believer” - the belief that God is equally accessible to all individual Christians. This idea coupled with rampant consumerism (I want it my way) and individualism (I can do it by myself) have brought open-source theology to us all. That’s right, it’s finally here, open-source theology. For an example of this marvelous theology formation technique at work visit your local “Sunday school” class where the teacher will lead you and your classmates in the exciting creation of your very own customized theology. The tools? One verse of scripture and one question: What do YOU think this means?
Yes, thanks to the open-source production method you can create your own apparel, your own facts, your own computer software and now your very own God. Songwriters, authors, preachers, publishers, record companies and radio stations are just some of the few prolific theology manufacturers who’ve discovered this powerful market-pleasing production method. Now it’s your turn! Join the open-source revolution.
Who do YOU think God should be? Have it Yaweh!
We all worship something I guess. Here’s a sample of one man’s praise of Chuck:
Forget Wikipedia, if Chuck Norris wants you know something, he will tell you.
Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. But he has never cried. Ever.
Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.
Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone else has ever gotten.
There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.
The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed misserably.
There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
Chuck Norris will attain statehood in 2009. His state flower will be the Magnolia.
Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.
In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.
Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.
Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
Worship further - and buy a t-shirt - here. (Warning: As is the case with most religions, parts of this one are offensive to some and may contain references and lingo understood and meaningful only to it’s followers. Read at your own risk.)
HT: Jordan Cooper
It gnawed one grandmother’s nose from her face. It consumed my other grandmother’s pancreas. It melted my grandfather’s organs so quickly we’re not sure which one it began feasting on first.
Cancer.
Cancer from smoking. From inhaling smoke. From inhaling the smoke exhaled by others.
Every eight seconds someone in the United States - a mother, father, friend, child - dies using as directed a legally manufactured product. They often die of cancer. From cigarettes.
Stupid people die. Stupid smokers - I’ve thought before.
I don’t easily understand why an adult with a radio, a television, a newspaper, common sense, with any information from the last twenty years concerning the fatal effects of tobacco would raise a cigarette to their lips, set it on fire and inhale their venom into their lungs and bloodstream. I don’t easily understand, but I understand. I do now. I understand why David smokes at least.
No such poll has been conducted to my knowledge but nine out of ten doctors I’m sure would agree that cigarettes are a healthier alternative to heroin. I’ve never lost a grandparent to heroin yet I know from stories like David’s its hooks are longer and sharper and it’s death more gruesome than Marlboro’s.
David smokes so he won’t shoot up. That’s progress. I met David tonight at a homeless program, and as is the case with many jubilant recovering addicts I’ve met over the years, David was eager to tell me his story of regret and redemption.
Pot. Acid. Mushrooms. Cocaine.
Heroin.
Lost job. Lost house. Lost hope.
Jesus.
Lost drugs. Found smoking.
Then church. Church - a place where David felt like a stupid smoker and not a healed heroin addict.
David has me looking past my dead grandparents tonight, past the burning paper/failed IQ test in his hands, past tonight to his past. I’m seeing the mountain of progress through the smoke. I’m seeing myself more clearly.
I’m reminded that there are more than a few warm vices in my own hands these days, unhealthy alternatives to the more dangerous poisons of my yesterdays. I hope someone doesn’t write me off as stupid because I stumble over these. After all it was only yesterday I couldn’t get up to stumble. That’s progress.
Be patient with me and David. Be patient with yourself. We’re all getting well, one addiction at a time.
