Mozart's Memorial, Vienna 2004
On Weekend Edition I heard about Elliott Yamin, "A Soulful Kind of Dude." He placed third on the third season of American Idol and is releasing a new album, Fight for Love, a compilation of love songs on May 5. He told the guest host, David Greene, "I'm still Elliott Yamin. I'm still the funky white Jewish boy from Richmond, Va." He had dropped out of high school, went from one small job to another before getting his GED and was selected for the America Idol competition. He credited his mother, a soul singer, with much of who he has become. "She was my best friend." He wrote a song about her. She recently died.
Last night I watched Bruno Monsaingeon's Glenn Gould: Hereafter. I've always liked Gould's Back recordings. Recently I've fallen in love again with Bach and watching the movie last night relit my desire to brush up my piano technique from watching Gould playing, his face inches from the keyboard. Such a shame that he died (of a stroke) only age 50 but he lived intensely those fifty years. Still that reminded me how life can be snatched away any moment.
This morning, at the computer, I came across Screen Tests on the New York Times T Magazine. I watched Diane Kruger and Tom Cruise talk about their beginnings, elegant little videos show in black and white against a black background. Cruise spoke of cutting lawns, doing anything to earn money before he got his first break in Taps. He couldn't sleep, he said, "excited and concerned" that he might get fired. He knew nothing about film, only knew he wanted to be in it.
These lines from Longfellow's A Psalm of Life always come to mind:
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublilme,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
The phrases and words may be dated - who now says "sublime"? - but the concept remains alive. We may not wish a marble monument to us or our achievement, a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize, but when all is said and done the life we live affect others that we come in contact with during our lifetime and maybe after we are gone. That being said we have to be aware what kind of energy we impart or leave to others. Are we going to in turn inspire others to push their boundaries and become more of what they are or are we going to impact only our own life, not join the stream of energies that are the human race?
We influence each other. We sadden each other, share our worries, share our struggles, inspire one another. In the end we realize we are all in this one boat together. Let's get on with our own dreams. Maybe we can influence someone else positively to make their own dreams their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment