My Impromptus today begins with the politics of abortion. Those we will always have with us, right? Well, “always” is a long time. But we will have them for the foreseeable future, no doubt. I move on to Emmanuel Macron, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan, and lots of other topics. Give it a whirl, here.
I also have a new podcast for you, a new Music for a While: here. I begin with the Overture for Orchestra by Grażyna Bacewicz, written in Warsaw in 1943. (Some time, some place.) I end with a verismo aria, from Fedora. In between are sundry items, including a modern piece for unaccompanied violin and an old-timey Viennese polka (schnell).
A reader writes,
Jay: What’s the word to describe certain music? “Difficult”? Whatever the accurate term, you had some of it in your new episode. Just when I was about to move on, you played “Pennies from Heaven,” and all your sins were forgiven!
Whew. Dodged a bullet.
Every other week, it seems, some Russian inconvenient to the Kremlin suffers a fatal “accident.” A friend of mine writes: “If no one wants freedom and democracy in Russia, why do so many people keep falling out of windows?” Yeah, good question.
More reader mail:
Last night, as I was out walking our dog, I met our neighbor, who was walking hers. Our neighbor is an émigrée from Russia. She was very upset about what was happening in Ukraine. We talked it over. And she said, “I have learned to think for myself, and we raised our sons to think for themselves.”
Before we parted, I said, “‘Think for yourself’ — sounds very American to me.” You should have seen the broad smile I got, and heard the loud laugh I got, as she walked away.
There are few who love this country more than those who have come from places that are the opposite of the American ideal.
Damn right.
Last month, I interviewed and wrote about Félix Maradiaga, the democracy leader from Nicaragua. He has just been released from prison. A colleague of mine commented on a particular part of my piece. I will paste a paragraph from that piece:
People who overthrow their oppressor, Maradiaga says, often wind up as oppressive as their enemies. “They become exactly what they hated.” He believes that this happened in Nicaragua when the Sandinistas replaced the Somozistas. And “I don’t want that to happen again.”
My colleague — a literary sort — recalled Auden:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
That is from “September 1, 1939.” Virtually every line of this poem sets off a flood of thoughts.
My thanks to all readers and correspondents (and podcast-listeners!).