.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Flying Away

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
-Albert Einstein

12 comments:

FreeThinke said...

My favorite quotation -- and the basis for my personal creed.

While not against "book learning" per se, I long ago realized that everything we believe we know, now stored between the covers of books and stored in vast electronic data bases, originated in the mind of some observant, highly perceptive individual who on a "hunch" or through the use of vivid, fertile imagination put the proverbial two and two together, and gave us four -- now an established "fact," but SOMEONE had to SEE it FOR HIMSELF, and REALIZE that it was TRUE.

An oversimplification, of course, but I am absolutely convinced that the "knowledge" we learn from books and tuition BEGAN as germ of awareness in some INDIVIDUAL'S brain.

Ergo, without imagination we would have no such thing as knowledge beyond "fire will burn you," "water will make you wet," and sex feels good.

Great discoveries never come to us COLLECTIVELY, but only through the manifestation of what some creative, perceptive, or inherently wise individual saw in his mind's eye.

FreeThinke said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
FreeThinke said...

GANYMED - poem by Goethe, music by Franz Schubert

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v235hTRyCQw

Kathleen Ferrier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_w7di1QfFQ

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

How, in the morning brightness,

You all around shine at me,

Springtime, Beloved!

With thousandfold love-bliss

The holy feeling

Of your eternal warmth

Presses itself upon my heart,

Unending beauty!


Could I but embrace you
In this arm!


Ah, upon your breast
I lie, languish,

And your blossoms, your grass
press upon my heart.


You cool the burning

Thirst of my bosom,

Lovely morning-wind!

There calls the nightingale

Lovingly for me from the misty vale.


I come, I come!

Whither, ah whither?



Up! Up it surges.

The clouds are leaning

Downwards, the clouds

Bow down to yearning love.

To me! To me!

In your lap, clouds,

Upwards!

Embracing, embraced!

Upwards to thy bosom,

All-loving Father!

FreeThinke said...

ICH SCHWEBE (I float)

Poem by Karl Friedrich Henckel
music by Richard Strauss

Wilma Driessenm soprano
Pierre Palla, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVLLLuWCoA8

Kathleen battle, soprano
Dan Saunders, piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2KmB1jG9Fw

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

I float as if on an angel's wings,
my foot hardly touching the ground,
I hear a lament resounding
As if it were my love's farewell.

It resounds, so lovely, gentle and soft,
It speaks to me, so shy, so frail and pure,
The echo of the melody softly lulling
Me into a blissful dream.

My gleaming eye, while basking
In the sweetest of melodies
Watches my smiling love go by
Without any fabric's fold, any wraps.


NOTE: The third of Henckel’s 4 original stanzas was omitted by Strauss


FreeThinke said...

UP UP and AWAY

Words and music by Jimmy L. Webb

As sung by The Fifth Dimension:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akEgsZSfhg

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?
Would you like to glide in my beautiful balloon?
We could flow among the stars, together you and I

For we can fly, up, up and away
(For we can fly)
In my beautiful, my beautiful balloon

The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky

For we can fly, up, up and away
(For we can fly)
In my beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Suspended under the twilight canopy
We'll search the sky for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We'll find a cloud to hide us, keep the moon beside us

Love is waiting there, in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air, in my beautiful balloon
If you'll hold my hand, we'll chase your dream across the sky

For we can fly, up, up and away
(For we can fly)
In my beautiful, my beautiful balloon, balloon

Up, up and away
Up, up and away
Up, up and away




FreeThinke said...

I’M FLYING (from Peter Pan -1954)

Music by Jule Styne, Mark Charlap

Words by Betty Comden, Adolphe Green and Carolyn Leigh

Mary Martin as Peter Pan

1956 telecast (black and white)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9pk1reRzg

1960 telecast (color)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AilIsO6EG4c

JOHN:"Can you really fly?"


PETER:"I'll teach you."

PETER and CHILDREN: 
I'm flying
(Flying, flying, flying)

Look at me way up high
,
Suddenly here am I
I'm flying.
I'm flying
(Flying, flying, flying)

I can soar

I can weave and what's more

I'm not even trying
High up, and as light as I can be.

I must be a sight lovely to see.
I'm flying.
(Flying, flying, flying)

Nothing will stop me now:

Higher still look at how

I can zoom around,

'Way up off the ground
I'm flying.

I fly and I'm all over the place

You try and you fall flat on your face

I'm flying.
(Flying, flying, flying)

Over bed, over chair

Duck your head, clear the air

Oh, what lovely fun

Watch me everyone

Take a look at me

And you can see how easily it's done

I'm flying!

CHILDREN:
Oh, teach us Peter, please, teach us!

PETER PAN:
First I must blow the fairy dust on you!
(blows)

Shhh...
Shhh...
Shhh...
Now think lovely thoughts

ALL:
Think lovely thoughts

Think lovely thoughts

Fishing

Hoopskirt

Candy!

Picnics

Summer

Candy!
Sailing
Flowers
Candy!

Lovelier thoughts, Michael!

Christmas?!

PETER PAN:
Ah, ah, flying!

Like an owl, like a bat,

Or the crow,

It's so satisfying!
I'm whizzing
Through a cloud


Past the star
I'm so proud

Look how far I breeze in

High over the moon

Higher I fly

By old mister moon

Wave me goodbye

I'm flying.
(Flying, flying, flying)

Heading far out of sight

Second star to the right

Now the way is clear

Never Land is near
Follow all the air

Cause I'm about to disappear

I'm flying!


-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

:P

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Pandemonium

FreeThinke said...

"... Just think of lovely things
And your heart will fly on wings ..."


It's really excellent advice, FJ, whether it came from J.M. Barrie, himself, or Comden, Green and Leigh doesn't matter.

It's all about liberating one's SPIRIT.

FreeThinke said...

__________ THE SWING __________


How do you like to go up in a swing, 

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do! 



Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide, 

River and trees and cattle and all 

Over the countryside-- 



Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again, 

Up in the air and down!


~ Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894)

Thersites said...

Swinging back and forth between Social realities and the unfettered imagination...

FreeThinke said...

Unfettered imagination is the only possible means of escape we're ever going to get from "Social Realities."

That is why "art," –– when it is genuine, –– trumps every other field of endeavor, and why we remember the authors, poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, composers, architects, with some degree of reverence and affection, but think very little of the kings, queens, generals, governors, politicians and reformers."

Philosophers, Scientists, Inventors, and Medical Practitioners have given us a long series of mixed blessings, so we remember them, but our feelings abut them are probably every bit as mixed as the long range value of their achievements.