Dancing with Nasrallah

Hezbollah: if you're looking to have fun while you're in town.

23:58

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Independence of inquisitiveness

Yesterday was the kind of day that makes you wonder which species has a higher sense of ethics: man or the tiger snake. Suffice it to say I was in less than jubilant spirits when I drove to the cinema to watch 'United 93' with Bob, my publisher.
While driving, I was listening to a business news radio station that devoted some minutes to a series of classical concerts that are currently taking place in Amsterdam. They played a musical piece I'd never heard before. Yet, with temperatures currently soaring well into the 80's, my eyes watered, and my bad mood lifted.
(Remember kids, invest in a good sound system in your car. It may well kill you one day, whilst you slam into a wall due to excessively wet eyes.)
I could barely make out the name of the composer, but upon return from 'United 93' I looked up the station's website and found out his name was Charles Ives, and the piece they played was called 'The Unanswered Question'.
Now, if you want deeply existential stuff that's equally depressing, there's usually plenty of it in your local book store or concert hall. Dutch literature in particular revels in portraying even the happiest occasion as the ultimate proof of life's futility.
And that is precisely why my skin flared while listing to Ives in the car. Ives poses the question, but he doesn't profess to know the answer. All without mocking the trumpet that asks the question. Instead, it keeps on asking the question until only the silence of the violins remains.
Happy Fourth of July, and never mind the frustrated woodwinds.

22:45

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