Picture Day

The incredible Aleksandar Antonijevich

By way of my friend Damien, I ended up spending an hour of Family Day sitting on a stool, under bright lights, shirtless, being photographed by the beautiful empathic ex-principle-ballet-dancer-turned-photographer/philosopher Aleksandar Antonijevich. (http://aleksandarantonijevic.com) We talked about how we are eternally walking away from ourselves and becoming something else. We talked about love.  We talked about desire and sex. We talked about ageing and the cruelty of having our identities tied to what we do. We talked about not-knowing and lack of clarity as virtues. We talked about sweating too much. We talked about difficult choices. We talked about seeing and not-seeing others. We talked about pleasure and time and death and how those things walk together. We talked about whether any of it means anything and whether it's possible to know anything with certainty. We talked about Montaigne's great motto: "Que sais-je?" We talked about stage fright and fear. We talked about the differences between dancing and acting. We talked about loved ones dying. We talked about versions of ourselves dying and whether anyone notices.

It was an incredible hour sitting and talking with a big-souled human who happened to be clicking away.

Total safety with a total stranger.

I left feeling weightless and glad to be alive on a great sunny day.

Tonight I listened to Beethoven's String Quartet No. 1, Opus 18 in F Major.  Beethoven wrote this and revised it extensively for over a year before publication.  According to his friend Karl Amenda, the second movement was inspired by the Tomb Scene from Romeo and Juliet and one of Beethoven revisions was changing that movement's markings from "Adagio molto" to "Adagio affetuouso ed appassionato": "at ease, with tenderness and passion".

That seemed to fit thematically with this day pretty goddamn well.

Listen to the whole piece when you want, but for tonight...try a little tenderness (and passion) with the second movement played by the Alban Berg Quartet: