Elegant and chic, Sarah Chang, said Princess Haiku playing the Brahms Violin Concerto.

I haven't heard Sarah Chang live in concert for three or four years and was delighted to come across this youtube video of her playing Brahms Violin Concerto in D. This is one of my favorites and the delight of people across the globe. Sarah is so expressive when she plays it is almost as though she dances with her violin. The warmth and fire in her playing is a wonder.

I don't know about you but I can't envision a world without Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin and other great classical music.

The Little Mermaid, said Princess Haiku

The San Francisco Ballet is premiering, The Little Mermaid, starring Yuan Yuan Tan and I must absolutely see it. You can see a short preview of the performance on the video below and of course more information is available via the ballet's website.



photo

“The Little Mermaid presents a variation on the theme of love, which is quite unique, said Neumeier. “Someone whose love is so strong that they will pass boundaries — a boundless love.”

San Francisco Ballet’s Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, who describes The Little Mermaid as “a feast for the eye,” had the pleasure of seeing the ballet in Hamburg and “loved it.” He thought it would be a fantastic production to bring to San Francisco.

“It’s very, very different than anything we have done before,” said Tomasson.

The debuting ballet still encompasses the popular film’s major concept – a mermaid who falls in love with a prince and transcends through both worlds to be with him. However, this ballet reaches a whole new psychological and emotional level, as the mermaid’s two physical states represent a battle between lifestyles and state of being.

The Little Mermaid will also feature an original commissioned score by renowned composer Lera Auerbach.

I wonder what it would be like to be a mermaid and torn between sea and mortal world? Perhaps like the undertow, the pull of deep feelings of mystical consciousness and the need for practical daily interaction with humans would leave one haunted. The mythical and archetypal possibilities of this kind of musing are endless.

Such blue, such an eternal sea of doubt..

another dream of a luminous magenta chrysanthemum

Pale fog of yet
another winter day.
Suddenly this star
of absolute magenta.
Surprise, said the
winter garden!

Princess Haiku's car music

The People who were onto the music I play in my car are
Chedwick
Dreamer
Lotus
Painter

a mystery palaquin said, Princess Haiku

A mystery palaquin carried Princess Haiku into the farthest reaches of night. Why even the stars were at my fingertips, I was so far away she exclaimed!





What music was Princess Haiku listening to on her esoteric journey? The closest guess wins a link of the day. When you stop let me know what you listen to in your car when you are driving, or are on a break daydreaming.

feeling Blue

Since I am feeling blue I decided to explore "blue blogs" and here they are.

Blue Tea is well, very blue.
Celestine Musings has a blue background on her blog.
Tangled Up in l'Heure Blue can never escape blue.
Blue Poppy embraces blue itself.
Woolgathersomeis a superior blog recently back from a long blue sleep.
Argos world reflects blue ice.
Cergipontin is splashed with blue sky.
In Cinq flashes blue from its background.
June Blue defines itself as blue.

If any of you are Blue and I left you out left me know and I will add you to this blue link list.

Brain Opera

Here is a bon bon for music lovers. Care to do your own composing on futuristic instruments. Well, click away...

Blending opera and computer technology, the Brain Opera is a unique, interactive musical event created by composer Tod Machover and a team of artists and scientists at the MIT Media Lab. A synthesis of art, music and technology, the opera invites the audience to make music on hyperinstruments, which is incorporated into the performance. .

on dreams

I was thinking about a Bob Dylan quote..

"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours."
How is it that we enter each others dreams, Princess Haiku mused. what do you think?

BTW My dreams are often magenta

love in the poetry of Charles Olson

*****
...flight
(of the bird
o kylix, o
Antony of Padua
sweep low, o bless
the roofs,
*****
love is form, and cannot be without
important substance
*****
But that which matters, that which insists, that which will last,
that! o my people, where shall you find it, how, where, where shall you
listen
when all is become billboards, when, all, even silence, is spray-gunned?
*****
one loves only form,
and form only comes
into existence when
the thing is born

born of yourself,
*****
love is not easy
but how shall you know,
New England, now
that pejorocracy is here,



Olson, Charles.
"I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You." _The Columbia
Granger's World of Poetry._ December 3, 2007.
http://www.columbiagrangers.org.




Biography
Olson, Charles (1910–70)

Charles Olson, American critic and poet, was born in Worcester,
Massachusetts, and received his education at Harvard (B.A., 1932; M.A.,
1933). His literary reputation was established with / Call Me Ishmael /
(1947), a study of the influence of Shakespeare and other writers on
Melville's / Moby Dick./ In the
1950's, he became noted as a poet, a central figure of what is now known
as the Black Mountain School, which also included Robert Creeley, Denise
Levertov, and Robert Duncan. Olson wrote what he called projective
(open) verse, which he believed transmitted energy from the past to the
reader. His works include his lifetime poetry project, /The Maximus
Poems / (1960 and
1968), along with / Causal Mythology / (1969), and / Poetry and Truth /
(1971). His best known poem is "The Kingfishers"
, which opens with
the line "What does not change / is the will to change."


Bibliography:
Clark, Tom. / Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet's Life./New York:
Norton, 1991. Merrill, Thomas F. /The Poetry of Charles Olson: A
Primer./Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1982. Olson, Charles. /The
Maximus Poems./Ed. George Butterick. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983. ———. /The Collected Poems of Charles Olson, Excluding the
Maximus Poems./ Ed. George Butterick. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1987. Von Hallberg, Robert. /Charles Olson: The Scholar's
Art./Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.


To cite this biography:
Biography of Charles Olson. _The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry._
December 3, 2007. http://www.columbiagrangers.org.

mystery creature with fiery Chrysanthemum twins

Yesterday, was a perfect day said, Princess Haiku, for a friend gave me a gift of Chrysanthemum twins. Who are you, I asked them as they burst into fiery beauty.

Who do you think they are?

I am full of mysteries today, Princess Haiku continued. I thought my several hundred year old guardian creature was a Fu dog and now I am not so sure. If anyone can identify it please let me know. It stands ever alert guarding my door and on certain nights exhales frankincense into the air with ancient force. BTW his name is George.

Miss Perfumado

Thought you would like to hear this. I had the pleasure of hearing Miss Perfumado sung live by Caesaria Evora at Cal Performances in Berkeley a few years ago. Her plaintive melody filled the auditorium while she sang...... She performs in long skirts and bare feet belonging to Cape Verde and the past. and the audience was enchanted.


"Cesaria Evora was born on August 27th, 1941 in Mindelo, Cape Verde. With her great voice and stunning looks she soon attracted attention, but her hopes to become a professional singer were yet to be fulfilled. The singer Bana and a Cape Verde women's association respectively invited her to record in Lisbon but not one single producer showed any interest. In 1988 a young Frenchman of Cape Verde blood, Josè Da Silva offered her to come to Paris to record an album. She was 47 at the time and had nothing to loose, she had never been to Paris before, so she agreed."

The rest belongs to musical history. I was very moved by the fact that Ms. Evora donates large sums of money to the poor of her community. -Actions are so very telling.

a Solstice Love Song

"The Love Song" by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones can be heard on a Solstice night, when the sun sleeps early and twilight spills out angels clothed in fiery red dreams.

angels that were having a subtle conversation, said Princess Haiku

They were whispering to each other, said Princess Haiku. I couldn't quite get the drift of their conversation but it seemed well, otherworldly. What do you think they were talking about?

my name is Winter, said the pale magenta rose

On a perfectly ordinary day, I found this rose, said the mysterious Princess Haiku. Perhaps it wasn't.

a living holiday tree is a gift to the future, said Princess Haiku

The tradition of the Christmas tree is believed to have originated in medieval Germany. On December 24th, the townspeople would decorate a “Paradise Tree” that was a symbol of Adam and Eve. The “Paradise Tree” was a symbol of eternal life. Why not celebrate with a living tree and give every tree that would have died on your behalf to the future.

Princess Haiku; searching for Heathcliff

"It's me, It's Kathy...I've come home again."

I'm surprised that Kate Bush's song "Wuthering Heights" didn't awaken the ghost of, Heathcliff, said Princess Haiku. I was chatting with him yesterday on the Moor. There I was, walking with my friend, Chedwick, the cat and then voila, there he was. .. As broody as ever. I really don't understand Kathy's thing for him, do you? But then-how do you explain chemistry, asked Princess Haiku vanishing in a haze of San Francisco fog.


Wuthering Height's was Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres. (As an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather.) The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys both themselves and many around them.




Kate Bush

Out on the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me?
When I needed to possess you
I hated you, I loved you too

Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window

Oh it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back love, cruel Heathcliff
My one dream, my only master

Too long I roam in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy

Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights"
(her first hit in 1978)

..fair thou art as moonlight after Rain

Joy is but sorrow
While we know
It ends to-morrow---
Even so!
Joy with lifted veil
Shows a face as pale
As the fair changing moon so fair and frail.

Pain is but pleasure,
If we know
It heaps up treasure:---
Even so!
Turn, transfigured Pain,
Sweetheart, turn again, .
For fair Thou art as moonrise after Rain

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti was born into an Italian/English family in London in 1830. Her book of poetry, "Goblin Market & Other Poems" was one of the first, great triumphs of the Pre-Raphaelite era. Christina led the cloistered, confined and sad life of many women of her day. If she were alive today we would hope she could dance with joy under the moon at times rather than only leave tears to water night blooming jasmine.

the flower turned to glass before my eyes

What else could I do, said Princess Haiku, I decided to wait...

Train_Man a film by Shosuke Murakami

Train_Man; a film released in 2005 is a next generation, coming of age tale. The story centers around a geek, his laptop, a beauty and one thousand internet "friends" on a real time website called (2ch) offering dating advice. Train_Man was called, "candy-colored and wide-eyed..unusually perceptive.." by the New York Times. It is one of those delightful independent films that should come to a neighborhood near you, but doesn't in lieu of yet one more Hollywood in a violent box thrillers.

This movie will appeal to anyone who has experienced the thrill and rush of first love- and hides a pure, innocent geek or geekess within.

a Shosuke Murakami Film