Hey all,
Here are the shows I will be in at the Saltnote Stageworks festival as of right now:
Jazz/Porgy & Bess (Chorus)
Carmina Burana (Chorus)
Pagliacci/Suor Angelica (Chorus)
Mozart/Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy (Chorus)
The Magic Flute (3rd Genii, Chorus)
I had a rehearsal for Pagliacci Chorus today, and will have rehearsals for Flute (Chorus), Pagliacci and Carmina Burana. Wish me luck!
Inspirational Quote:
A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them.
– Mark Twain Letter to the Millicent [Rogers] Library, 2/22/1894
Regarding the quote by Mark Twain:
I would be glad if he were right but he is regrettably totally wrong, at least if you consider warfare in the 20th and 21st century.
Only three of many terrible examples that come to my mind:
The destruction of Warsaw National Library by Germans in October 1944; the destruction of Sarajevo National Library by Serbian nationalists in August 1992; the destruction of Baghdad National Library under the eyes of US and other western forces in April 2003.
Information about destruction of libraries can be found in an article by the Argentinian scholar E. Civallero: “When memory is turned into ashes – Memoricide during XX century” (http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00011576/01/when_memory.pdf).
— “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” Heinrich Heine, “Almansor”, 1820
Hi jens-erik, thanks for posting again! In fact one of my favorite quotes on libraries has to do with the burning of books (found originally in my post entitled “Because Librarians rule the world”:
http://feelingelephants.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/because-librarians-rule-the-world/
Over coffee one afternoon in the summer of 2001, Andras [a librarian and historian whose family fled the communist takeover in Hungary and who now works at Harvard] reminded me [Matthew Battles] of another way to burn books, explained to him by a colleague who survived the siege of Sarajevo. In the winter, the scholar and his wife ran out of firewood, and so began to turn to their books for heat and cooking. ‘This forces one to think critically,’ Andras remembered his friend saying. “One must prioritize. First, you burn old college textbooks, which you haven’t read in thirty years. Then there are the duplicates. But eventually, you’re forces to make tougher choices. Who burns today: Dostoevsky or Proust?’ I asked Andras if his friend had any books left when the war was over. ‘Oh yes’ he replied, his face lit by a flickering smile. ‘He still had many books. Sometimes, he told me, you look at the books and just choose to go hungry.’ ~ (Battles, Matthew. Library: an unquiet History“. WW Norton & Company. NY: 2003. 190-1)
It is from a wonderful book on the history of libraries called _Library: an unquiet History_, written the head librarian (if I remember correctly) of one of Harvard’s libraries.
If my translation is correct, you’re Heinrich Heine quote is very roughly–“those who burn books while burn people soon after”. (Google said: “That was only a prelude, where books burn, burn you at the end people.” Heinrich Heine, “Almansor”, 1820). Thank you for the original German I hope you are enjoying my blog!
Thank you for the reference to your quotes on libraries, Jessica. I wasn’t aware that in your quote from the book by Matthew Battles there is a mention of both the siege of Sarajevo and of the burning of books in Sarajevo albeit it is not the burning of books in the library of Sarajevo caused by Serbian gunfire.
The quote by Jorge Luis Borges (a librarian, of course) “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” is also one of my favourite quotes.
Concerning the quote by Heinrich Heine: I assume you mean “will burn”, not “while burn”; “soon after” is too little accurate for “am Ende” — it’s more like “eventually” or “ultimately”.
And yes, I do enjoy your blog.