{"id":56440,"date":"2017-08-14T02:24:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T02:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56440"},"modified":"2017-08-14T03:03:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T03:03:28","slug":"sunday-surprise-my-ashes-when-the-time-comes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=56440","title":{"rendered":"Sunday surprise, my ashes when the time comes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; the poem as guided tour ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>So, my son <strong>Emlyn<\/strong> asked me where I would like my ashes scattered when I&#8217;m gone, offering to do me that service, and the ensuing discussion made it clear I had an opportunity not only to send him to some places I&#8217;ve loved where he&#8217;d be likely to find adventure, but also to provide him with reading (or listening) along the way &#8212; again, close to my mind and heart and potentially revelatory for his.<\/p>\n<p>^^<\/p>\n<p>I was tossing this around in my mind a day or two ago, and this poem announced itself:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Paradise or Pasadena, since you asked  <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I should like my ashes scattered in the upper atmosphere,<br \/>\nin Bach to be precise,<br \/>\nin deep feeling, in the St Anne Prelude and Fugue,<br \/>\nin \u201cnot of this world\u201d in other words,<br \/>\nbelieving that if met by JSB<br \/>\nat the General Resurrection, I was most choicely planted.  <\/p>\n<p>Bach, seriously, is the mountain range I have assiduously<br \/>\nclimbed since early youth,<br \/>\nand the St Anne not the most obvious,<br \/>\nbut among the most glorious works therein,<br \/>\nthough I am also vastly taken by Contrapunctus IX<br \/>\nand the Dorian Toccata was my first love.  <\/p>\n<p>More practically, fold me between pages of Yeats or Rilke,<br \/>\nand leave me on a bench in the Huntington Gardens.  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s by no means my final response to Emlyn&#8217;s question, I look forward to many more hours of pondering and reminiscing. But it&#8217;s a thought..<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Here, for your delight and enrichment, are the musical offerings the poem mentions:<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>St Anne Prelude and Fugue<\/strong>, played here by <strong>Peter Hurford<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kSRwG5Iu3FI?ecver=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Contrapunctus IX<\/strong> from <strong>The Art of Fugue<\/strong>, played by <strong>Glenn Gould<\/strong> on piano, his usual instrument:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FAU4EGgfGm0?ecver=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and, in a rare instance for Gould, on organ:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LfQmitWzuTM?ecver=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212; and the <strong>Dorian Toccata and Fugue<\/strong>, my first Bach love, which I bought, treasured, and binge-listened to back in the late 50s (?) on a 45 rpm disc:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uJURToP15nI?ecver=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Noteworthy, the second of two images of <strong>Ton Koopman<\/strong> accompanying that last recording &#8212; which shows the fierce nature of Koopman when he was young &#8212;  fading in right at the end of the Toccata:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Koopman-young.png\" alt=\"Ton Koopman\" width=\"600\" height=\"427\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-56443\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Koopman-young.png 600w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Koopman-young-300x214.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I would love to have known him back when..<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>And place &#8212; the <strong>Huntington Gardens<\/strong> in Pasadena, which include a garden of flowers named in Shakespeare&#8217;s works, a Japanese garde, rose garden, and &#8212; my absolute favorite &#8211;the Desert Garden, containing 5,000 varieties of cactus and other xerophytes across 10 acres..<\/p>\n<p>I suspect that losing oneself in those 10 acres is the closest thing to visiting an alien planet to be found on this one&#8230; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/DesertGarden.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"453\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-56447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/DesertGarden.jpg 600w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/DesertGarden-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Once you&#8217;re in the garden and have escaped the lure of the cacti, the cool of the <strong>Huntington Library<\/strong> is nearby &#8212; with some stunning <strong>William Blake<\/strong> illuminations perhaps, and both a <strong>First Folio Shakespeare<\/strong> and the remarkable &#8220;bad&#8221; <strong>First Quarto <\/strong>of <strong>Hamlet <\/strong>which preceded it.<\/p>\n<p>How has the mighty <strong>soliloquy <\/strong>been truncated:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/To_be_or_not_to_be_Q1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"418\" height=\"242\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-56448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/To_be_or_not_to_be_Q1.jpg 418w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/To_be_or_not_to_be_Q1-300x174.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 418px) 100vw, 418px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>To Die, to sleepe, is that all?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Cacti, roses, Folio, scholars, tea rooms &#8212; heaven, in its earthly approximation&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; the poem as guided tour ] . So, my son Emlyn asked me where I would like my ashes scattered when I&#8217;m gone, offering to do me that service, and the ensuing discussion made it clear I had an opportunity not only to send him to some places I&#8217;ve loved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[837,526,1349,1038,1506,480,741,1095,946,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bach","category-charles-cameron","category-death","category-emlyn","category-library","category-music","category-poetry","category-shakespeare","category-sunday-surprise","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56440"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56453,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56440\/revisions\/56453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}