Quickies: A Little Nostalgia

     It’s common for men of my age to spend significant amounts of time with our memories. The memories we revisit aren’t all pleasant ones. However, my trips into the past are largely positive recollections of experiences I greatly enjoyed and want never to forget.

     (No, they didn’t all involve sex. Get your mind out of the gutter. Besides, not all sexual experiences are particularly enjoyable. Not all of mine, at any rate...though that might just mean that I was doing it wrong. Oh, never mind.)

     I’ve spent the past hour or so enjoying old Moody Blues tunes. All of them date from the Sixties and very early Seventies. I’m unfamiliar with their later efforts. When I left academia for other vistas, I lost touch with what was happening in music. I only returned to familiarity with such trends long afterward. Such are the pressures that go along with becoming a self-supporting adult.

     The Moodies of my preferred period were consummate musicians. None of them acted like “virtuosi.” They didn’t show off on their instruments. They emphasized composition and faithfulness to it. Their stuff wears very well, despite its age.

     I only had one chance to see them live. I greatly enjoyed the concert, but mostly because I loved their songs and admired them so much. At the time I was an intermediate-level guitarist, and my highest aspiration was to play as competently as did Justin Hayward. That having been said, the concert was much like listening to their recordings. That was their way.

     Yet, even though that concert didn’t expose the audience to anything we couldn’t have played on our stereos, it remains one of the brightest of my musical memories. I was in the same room with musicians I admired, listening to them do what they did so well, and yearning to attain their level of competence some day.

     Something has changed in contemporary music. It seems there’s been an ethical shift – a kind of “can you top this?” attitude that displaces musicianship. There are exceptions – Glass Hammer immediately comes to mind – but they’re not many, and they don’t get the degree of promotion they need to become widely known. Everyone else is showing off; few are humble enough to allow the import of the songs to shine through. That might be because the songs themselves aren’t terribly good, but de gustibus and all that.

     Not long ago I saw a bumper sticker that tickled me:

I May Be Old,
But I Got To See
All the Good Bands

     It resonated with me for obvious reasons. Yet it’s strange to feel that way. Maybe you will too, some day, Gentle Reader. Cherish the things you love. Clutch them to your breast, no matter what they are. All those things must pass away, just as we will. Love ‘em while you’ve got ‘em.

Sunday Quickies

I don’t have any essay-size topics for today, and a bunchaton of domestic chores and other practical matters to address, so I hope you won’t be too let down by the following quick emissions:

First, to the anonymous commenter of a week ago who was curious to read more about the life of Paul of Tarsus, my parish priest Father Edward Kealey recommends two works by Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor:

• Paul: A Critical Life
• Paul: His Story

The former is more scholarly; the latter is written in a more narrative, almost novelistic style.

Second, in connection with the demise of Saints Peter and Paul and the “sub-apostolic” period that followed, Father Ed made some interesting observations just this morning, about the “house churches” that predominated during those years. The absence of towering personalities who had direct acquaintance with Jesus seems to have brought about a recognition that the faith itself would persist and continue to gain allegiants despite the departure of the last of His Disciples from mortal life. The hundreds of what we might call “micro-churches” today, though they functioned independently from one another, nevertheless maintained a communion of faith that saw the Church through its difficult early years to the culminating events of the Fourth Century and the Council of Nicaea, when most of the Christian doctrines we uphold today were first formalized.

If only the many fragmented descendants of Christendom could agree on such an overarching communion in this century: the separation of the key elements of our faith from the opinions of mere humans and divergences of ritual. The world would be a far better place for it. (And I say that only partly because I’m tired of being accused of “worshipping” the Blessed Virgin.)

Third, to the several Gentle Readers who wrote to inquire about the following:

...especially on a Saturday morning on which, to my considerable surprise, I find myself remarkably pain-free.

It’s just old-age stuff. Really. No need to worry about me.

Fourth:

• To Yankees fans: Don’t hate the Red Sox. Not every year is our year, you know. We’ll get ‘em next season...assuming we can field a team that can leave its crutches and Electric Mobility scooters in the dugout.
• To Giants fans: “bye-weeks” really are Hell, aren’t they?
• And to Rangers fans: Go, Derek Stepan and Carl Hagelin! Bravo!

And may God bless and keep you all!