Dear Dr. Meyer: (_) It seems your surmises have turned correct. I am no stranger to wishful thinking; in fact, it is my intimate friend. I had better make a beeline up to Portsmouth. I hope to be back at least for a few days starting Boxing Day. (_) At any rate, I'm not sure you would want a greeting card, on card stock or in-person. I'm not sure if we've ever talked for less than an hour, and five minutes is all I would have had time for, and now I don't even have that! If you have an aphorism to deliver, I should think you can deliver it over email (Twitter is not necessary). At the moment, I have no aphorisms, though I'll probably think of one. ((_)) If you have a discourse on Hallmark, please declaim. It seems to me that it is one of our most extraordinary industries: the very idea of outsourcing greeting! I see nothing wrong with a printed card saying thank you, Merry Christmas, and so forth: those are mechanical even in real life. But to walk through the drugstore and find sentiment adorned with printed roses, or a racy joke accompanied by a shirtless photograph...... (( ((_)) )) My parents have a tradition of buying Hallmark cards for the wrong occasion, and then crossing out all the text and writing something else. Merry Birthday, for instance (though I suppose that is somewhat blasphemous). It's quite a fun literary game, to cross out a bunch of words and write what comes to mind. The last time I did it, I got "kindly yet feral muffins", or something like that. ((^)) What sort of customs were there in Germany around notes and visiting cards? I know, for instance, that the British had quite a complex system of semaphores around visiting cards: one or the other corner folded down based, black borders for mourning, etc. But I'm not sure if that was still around in the thirties. (^) By the way, I'm trying out some prose semaphores here, to jump up and down between digression levels. (I used to do that with parentheses and double parentheses around entire paragraphs, but sometimes that's tiresome.) It is probably overkill here; but you never know when this sort of thing might come in handy. (_) Is anything happening Meyerway for Christmas? Nathaniel said you and Mrs. Meyer used to have trees and so forth, but maybe I'm not remembering correctly. ((_)) This tangentially reminds me of a quite horrible but vaguely amusing story from one of my violinist friends; in fact you may have come across the Letvins in medical circles, or perhaps Klemens has. Andrea's grandmother grew up in Prague: they were a very wealthy family who literally lived in a palace. I think Andrea told me it's the US embassy now. Anyway, somehow her grandmother (who must have been a little girl before they left) was quite taken with Nazi propaganda, in spite of being Jewish. To this day, Andrea says, she refuses to celebrate Jewish holidays, puts up a Christmas tree, and, in her words, is an anti-semite. One wonders if the tale is exaggerated in the telling, but very little about human nature can be surprising. (( ((_)) )) I am, of course, making no implicatures about your Christmas trees, knowing you were married in a Lutheran church and I thought grew up Lutheran to some extent, and perfectly entitled to otherwise. But maybe this will remind you of another story.... (( (( ((_)) )) )) Ah! How political correctness sends us into mazes! I would be lost without prose semaphores, at this point: how do people in the throes of political correctness do without them? I mean to say, of course, that I intend no imputations; no cultural appropriations; no Christonormativity;; irregardless [sic] of my good intentions, I pre-emptively apologize for any hurt feelings, take full responsibility for any and all subjunctive traumas, will gladly be shunned and shamed if necessary, and understand that I have inferred the message of unwritten signs that say: "no __. Violaters will be towed to sensitivity training at their own expense"; that any and all such signs are to be interpreted broadly;;; I do not discriminate on the basis of X, Y, Z,, and sincerely regret my inability to include multicultural symbols, up to and including Chinese characters: the use of the Latin alphabet is not to be taken as a sign of Eurocentrism, nor does it constitute an endorsement of the Roman power structure, nor minimize its continuing historical impacts, injustices, and oppressions;;;; irregardless [sic] of my good intentions, I pre-emptively apologize for any hurt feelings, take full responsibility for any and all subjunctive traumas, will gladly be shunned and shamed if necessary, and understand that I have inferred the message of unwritten signs that say: "no __. Violaters will be towed to sensitivity training at their own expense"; that any and all such signs are to be interpreted broadly-- -- -- --in short, I do not have the time to type Chinese characters. (^) And is Nathaniel around? I haven't heard from him in a little while; of course maybe you haven't heard from him either..... And let us put the greeting card last: Merry Christmas. (Which Hallmark, of course, can accomplish. But what they can't say is: please give my best to Klemens and Laura; and Nathaniel, Benji, Leah, and Rebecca if they're around.) ((To which Gilbert and Sullivan would add: also sisters, cousins, and aunts.)) NIC. On Tue, Dec 24, 2019 at 1:24 AM Ernst Meyer wrote: I experience and interpret "Christmas" as recurring conclusive evidence that history is myth. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, if it turns out that you have the time. Otherwise, I understand. Understanding I consider my specialty. On Tue, 2019-12-24 at 01:08 -0500, Nikola Chubrich wrote: > Dear Dr. Meyer: > > I have much to say of the aforebabbled, and how right the > aforementioned is, of music, I mean. I may have a few dangling > pointers following interprocess communication (I am not able to > obtain a denotation for a "different and otherwise unimaginable > dimension of time", though I am able to obtain a connotation: but > that's child's play, and a game that can always be won without being > scored); but so far as I know I am not prone to segmentation faults. > > It looks like if I do make it over tomorrow it will be later, perhaps > around 2:00, and brief. I'd like to come by and wish you a Merry > Christmas, for what it's worth, and then I'll have to get on the road > and into the maw of Christmas. The turkey never survives the meal, > but sometimes one's immortal soul makes it through, though rarely > unscathed. I may have to call on you to revive the poetry in me come > December 26th. > > I know of nothing less poetic than conversation around the Christmas > table.....and this year, in the midst of Trumpification or > Detrumpification: what can one say? The meal may be home-cooked; the > conversation will surely be canned. > > God forbid I should walk into the arena with a spark in my eyes; the > lions will be let loose. And as we well know, the lions always beat > the christians: as my Latin teacher used to say: lions 10, Christians > zero. > > Could there possibly be a less Christian meal than Christmas dinner? > I wonder if I could rustle up a tax collector, a beggar, a leper, and > a prostitute,, and test the notion. Peradventure ten of the poor or > despised be impromptu invited to Christmas dinner? Peradventure there > be nine? Peradventure there be, good heavens, one? Peradventure there > be an unwed mother with a child born into a mangy trashcan? > Peradventure three wise men show up without texting beforehand, > claiming guidance from a celestial event? > > If it were merely that, then one might get away with a cross of > Thorazine. Overturn the tables of the money-changers, on the other > hand----we might surmise the Second Coming would head straight for > the Christmas aisle in Target and have a little fun with that----and > you go straight to jail. > > However, that is skipping ahead thirty-three years to Easter. As you > point out, narrative allows such a thing; music does not. We were > speaking, I believe, of a child born in a trashcan. > > I am giving my parents two bowls for Christmas. I will attach a note > that says: not-knowing is the vessel for knowing. May your vessel be > not full. I wonder if they will have any idea of what I am talking > about. I wonder if it will stanch the flow of assertions and > declarative sentences, speaking of things about which one can know > nothing. > > NIC > > > > On Mon, Dec 23, 2019 at 6:05 PM Ernst Meyer > wrote: > > Dear Nick, > > > > a) You shouldn't be embarrassed or apologetic if you don't bother > > to > > read this letter at all, because like almost everything else I do, > > this > > writing, like my loquaciousness in conversation, should be > > construed as > > an exercise in vanity. > > > > b) Last evening I accepted an introduction to Beethoven's last > > three > > piano sonatas by listening to No. 32, Op. 111; played however not > > by > > Andras Schiff as had been suggested - the Internet denied me access > > to > > that recording because I had not become a member of the elect group > > for > > which it is reserved - but by Annie Fischer in an obviously old, > > technically imperfect audio-video recording which (in spite of or > > because of its imperfections) I found very stimulating. > > > > c) Opus 111 is obviously very complex music. I obtained a copy of > > the > > score. It remains to be seen to what extent, if at all, I will be > > able > > to follow it, but I believe there is correspondingly much to be > > learned. > > > > d) I hear music as translation into a transcendental realm of > > reality, > > specifically as a transformation of time, where a given note or > > chord, > > that is immediate and present, unmittelbar und gegenwärtig, fuses > > with > > the continuum of melody and becomes inseparably linked with an > > earlier > > beginning and a later end. In this manner, music solves the > > otherwise > > insoluble riddles of time, the contradictions and incompatibilities > > of > > present and past, and of present and future. > > > > e) When music inseparably fuses a present, an instant: "now", into > > a > > protracted harmonious melody, it reveals (and displays) a different > > and > > otherwise unimaginable dimension of time. > > > > f) The intensely punctuated stylized endings of Beethoven's > > compositions, both instrumental and vocal, serve as sound-frames, > > as > > fences, that separate the dedicated transcendental coherence of > > music > > from the mundane secular flacidity of silence and from the inchoate > > confusion of noise. > > > > g) This letter needs no answer. > > > > h) Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. > > > > i) EJM > >