Saturday Night Soup for the Soul (31)

Hello. I trust everyone had a good summer, Me? I was busy, and not with things that were of my choosing. Such is life, I suppose. These days I am busy with something that is of my choosing. A major literary, multi media (not sure how else to describe the scope) project that I worked on several years ago. I had to put it on hiatus due to exhaustion, which was quickly followed by the deaths of the core of my immediate family. I decided that I am not getting any younger, and am the person to tell the story that I am telling. It is a research work, that may take me several years to complete. The scope includes a superficial examination of the roots of “popular culture” going back 10,000 years. It also includes an extreme and detailed examination of a quartet of artists whose parternership and collaborations uprooted established forms of popular culture, and even influenced the course of global politics in the decade of the 1960’s. Twice they led cultural revolutions that overturned the established order. In January 1969, they plotted a third revolution. But this time, events did not go as planned. It is this last cultural revolution, which did in fact occur, but in an unintended form (the death of 1960's liberal progressive idealism), that I am documenting. The artists I am speaking of are the Beatles. You can visit me on my other web site here, where I am working under a pen name (isn’t that what writers are supposed to do?). With all this writing (because of all this writing?) melancholia is visiting me. I think that may be an occupational hazard of writing. It is making me feel isolated and secluded. I find that this project is become my mistress, and the words our shared intimacies.. I wish I had a muse and companion to “take care of me” while I escape into research and writing. To be there when I resurface from the depths, standing in the kitchen, smiling. But as they say, “wishing ain’t getting”, so… The soup this week is an extract from my other web site, and features a single piece of music that I was writing about yesterday, and therefore listening to (might this be the source of the profound melancholia that I feel?). It is by gay composer Samuel Barber. The piece is his Adagio for Strings (Op. 11). The Adagio for Strings was arranged for string orchestra from the slow movement of gay composer Samuel Barber's string quartet of 1936 (Op. 11). Paul McCartney plays this melancholic and beautiful passage (that he possibly transcribed for piano) which taxes his capabilities to the limit as Ringo (who has since arrived) looks on. This scene was used as the first musical scene of the film documentary Let It Be. Here is Paul's piano exercise version, followed by the very moving Barber original. All of this makes it's way into this week's soup. You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soul for the Soul by clicking the jukebox.