Life, the Universe, and the pianoforte

Two thoughts:

We had a guest lecturer in my intro religion course this afternoon, Omid Safi, and he was brilliant as usual. But besides that, he had some salient points about life. To paraphrase,

"You guys don't get it. This is the vertex! From here, you're just going to get uglier, fatter, and balder!"

...the message being, of course, to live in the now. I think this fits well with my recent obsession with aficion. We'll see if I can incorporate it into everyday life, but I'm sure as hell gonna try.

Second, a quote from Vladimir Horowitz (seen here
playing my favorite piece, a Scriabin etude I'm trying desperately to learn), arguably the greatest pianist of the 20th century.

"There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

Doomed to that fate, I'm still gonna give it what I got. Now if only i could reach from a D# to a G#. Try it. If you can, I'm making you my piano apprentice and I will live vicariously through your glorious exploits and ridiculous propensity for stride piano.