Music my rampart, and my only one, wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay. Life may be hard, but for most of us it is not that hard. I have some other significant consolations--family, literature, science, exercise, religion, friends--but music is a major source for me as a means of enjoyment and a way to dig deeper into the mysteries. Not a bad combination! If such a statement, however, fails to raise your curiosity, this blog is definitely not for you.
In this addition, I shall discuss how my interest in music arose and how it has been, albeit, belatedly developed. I am presenting this not to foster interest in me as a person, but interest in me as a type. As Simone Weil wrote, even the more sensitive among us would be able to mull along if life did not give us a double punch to jolt us into mystery. The two punches are the twin jabs of beauty and suffering. Both of these hit me hard at a very young age. Self-satisfaction was not an option.
I was born in 1945 into a rather dysfunctional working-class family in what was then a very working-class city: Jersey City, New Jersey. My grandfather owned a little shop in New York City where he fashioned lamps from whatever vase or object a client brought in. Although I didn't think so at the time, this was what one would later call a "creative" occupation; he did fairly well by Jersey City standards--when he wasn't drunk, that is. He was strong as an ox and very reliable until he went on one of his periodic binges. He owned the house where we lived, and dwelled there with his wife on the first floor. My grandmother was a simple woman, who obeyed my grandfather without a murmur. Both grandparents dropped out of school in the seventh grade. My father was a depressive, self-destructive neurotic who found little pleasure in life. He was unable to hold a job for long. He was intelligent and an avid reader: I believe he finished high school, I'm not sure. With time, alchoholism, always a problem, was his sole relief. Towards the end when he was given a job commensurate with his talents, he fell apart. During my junior year of college abroad, he tried to commit suicide. After another attempt, he died of a heart attack in an asylum when I was twenty-two years old. My mother, who never finished high school, was simple, good, and strong. She did her best to make the best out of any situation, and mostly succeeded. She died at 87 from Alzheimer's in the arms of her third husband, a former doorman--thank God, at last, she had a happy marriage! If it hadn't been for the strengths of my mother and grandfather, I doubt if I would have survived.
In this addition, I shall discuss how my interest in music arose and how it has been, albeit, belatedly developed. I am presenting this not to foster interest in me as a person, but interest in me as a type. As Simone Weil wrote, even the more sensitive among us would be able to mull along if life did not give us a double punch to jolt us into mystery. The two punches are the twin jabs of beauty and suffering. Both of these hit me hard at a very young age. Self-satisfaction was not an option.
I was born in 1945 into a rather dysfunctional working-class family in what was then a very working-class city: Jersey City, New Jersey. My grandfather owned a little shop in New York City where he fashioned lamps from whatever vase or object a client brought in. Although I didn't think so at the time, this was what one would later call a "creative" occupation; he did fairly well by Jersey City standards--when he wasn't drunk, that is. He was strong as an ox and very reliable until he went on one of his periodic binges. He owned the house where we lived, and dwelled there with his wife on the first floor. My grandmother was a simple woman, who obeyed my grandfather without a murmur. Both grandparents dropped out of school in the seventh grade. My father was a depressive, self-destructive neurotic who found little pleasure in life. He was unable to hold a job for long. He was intelligent and an avid reader: I believe he finished high school, I'm not sure. With time, alchoholism, always a problem, was his sole relief. Towards the end when he was given a job commensurate with his talents, he fell apart. During my junior year of college abroad, he tried to commit suicide. After another attempt, he died of a heart attack in an asylum when I was twenty-two years old. My mother, who never finished high school, was simple, good, and strong. She did her best to make the best out of any situation, and mostly succeeded. She died at 87 from Alzheimer's in the arms of her third husband, a former doorman--thank God, at last, she had a happy marriage! If it hadn't been for the strengths of my mother and grandfather, I doubt if I would have survived.
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