Curiosities
Ephemera
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“There is no such thing as disciplining one corner of a life. There are only disciplined or undisciplined lives.”
“Give us a magic trick,
but not a miracle.
A magic trick might make us laugh.
A miracle threatens our soul.”
“We spend a lot of time identifying kids with talent and training them on technique,” says writer Carey Wallace. “But there’s virtually no rigorous thought on inspiration.”
“Faith asks believers for a virtuosic act of imagination: to believe in a world beyond the one we see, and to believe that something better than what we see could be true in this one.”
“Inspiration is something that feels like it comes from beyond us. It feels like it has a personality, desires, a point of view different from our own.”
“Our most central work is welcoming that inspiration when it arrives: not just to show up and grind, but to form ourselves to be capable of surrendering to something we may not understand, that takes us somewhere we’ve never been, to do things we didn’t dream we were capable of.”
“If we believe the testimony of artists that creating art involves a negotiation with the spirit of inspiration, then the central gesture of creation is surrender: getting out of the way to let that spirit in.”
“Creating art, and loving it, are not for a chosen few, but for everyone. The sensation that we’ve encountered something divine in our experiences with art is not an illusion, but a reality.”
“Our ability or inability to speak about love in these secret moments can have profound repercussions in our lives, and lasting echoes in the lives of others. But if Robert Browning fails here, in the earliest stage of his great romance, is there hope for any of us?”
“It hits different to hear a man who has been fighting for his life for years sing “you don’t know how it feels to be me,” sing, “I am glory bound,” sing “don’t you know it’s gonna be all right, even at the bottom there’s still some light,” sing, “can I kiss you, and then I’ll be gone?””
“Burr may be the only Founding Father who wouldn’t be baffled or outraged by America as we know it today, in which all citizens, including women and minorities, have an equal vote regardless of class.”
“It’s not clear if they’re brave or crazy.”
“But despite the dust, and perhaps because of the ghosts, Alone at the Microphone is a fundamentally lovely and stubbornly hopeful recording.”
