Mozart aside, Ludwig van Beethoven is the most famous classical composer of the western world.
Beethoven is remembered for his powerful and stormy compositions, and for continuing to compose and conduct even after he began to go deaf at age 28. The ominous four-note beginning to his Fifth Symphony --bom bom bom bommmmm-- is one of the most famous moments in all of music.
Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. A traditional belief concerning Johann is that he was a harsh instructor, and that the child Beethoven, "made to stand at the keyboard, was often in tears" .His father was said to be a violent and intemperate man, who returned home late at night much worse for drink and dragged young Ludwig from his bed in order to "beat" music lessons into the boy's sleepy head. There are also stories of his father forcing him to play his violin for the amusement of his drinking cronies. Despite these and other abuses - which might well have persuaded as lesser person to loathe the subject - the young Beethoven developed a sensitivity and vision for music.
He had other local teachers as well: the court organist van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer (a family friend, who taught Beethoven piano), and a relative, Franz Rovantini (violin and viola).

Beethoven was born probably on 16 December 1770, and baptized the next day, he died in Vienna on March 26, 1827.
Around 1796, Beethoven began to lose his hearing.He suffered a severe form of tinnitus, a "ringing" in his ears that made it hard for him to perceive and appreciate music; he also avoided conversation. The cause of Beethoven's deafness is unknown, but it has variously been attributed to syphilis,lead poisoning,typhus,auto-immune disorder (such as systemic lupus erythematosus), and even his habit of immersing his head in cold water to stay awake. The oldest explanation, from the autopsy of the time, is that he had a "distended inner ear" which developed lesions over time.
Russell Martin has shown from analysis done on a sample of Beethoven's hair that there were alarmingly high levels of lead in Beethoven's system. High concentrations of lead can lead to bizarre and erratic behaviour, including rages. Another symptom of lead poisoning is deafness. In Beethoven's time, lead was used widely without an understanding of the damage which it could cause: for sweetening wine, in finishes on porcelain, and even in medicines. The investigation of this link was detailed in the book, Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved. However, while the likelihood of lead poisoning is very high, the deafness associated with it seldom takes the form that Beethoven exhibited.
Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made concerts—lucrative sources of income—increasingly hard.

Image via Wikipedia

Move Pen Move

Here it is, Move Pen Move. Read it and look at the mood, the tone and the word choice Shane Koyczan uses. It really captures your emotions, and I really like how he's done this.

Move Pen Move

By Shane Koyczan

Stay
That’s what mothers say when their sons and daughters go away
They say stay
My mother said go
So I wasn’t there the night she fell out of her wheel chair
So frustrated that she amputated her legs rather tried to with a steak knife
Her life lay on the white floor like
Roses in the snow
Our relationship was an anthem composed of words like “gotta go”
So we went
And sent our regards on post cards from the places we’ve been
Stories about all the things we’ve seen
That’s how it was with you and I
Why say good bye when we could still write
And then I took your hands
We should have practiced our good-byes
Because then I took your eyes
And I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere
Watching the sun rise
Over a stop sign placed down the center line of a high way full of sudden turns for the worse
Running back home cause I gotta play nurse
Gotta figure out which pill alleviates which pain
Which part of your brain is being used for a boxing bag
As your body became a never ending game of freeze tag
Taking place in an empty playground
That was left looking for your limbs in the post and found and I couldn’t set you free
So we just sat there
Our heads bent towards each other like flowers in the small hours of the morning
While light wondering in like a warning that
Time is passing
And you right along with it
Bit by bit everyday
And all I can say is if I could I would write you some way out of this
But my gift is useless
And you said no
Write me a poem to make me happy
So I wrote move pen move
Write me a bedroom where curse make love to our cancers
But my mother just motions to a bottle full of answers and says
Help me go
And I know something of how pianos feel when it looks at the fireplace to see sheet music
Being used for kindling
Smoke signaling the end of some song that it thought would take to long to learn
Now I just sit here and watch you burn away
All those notes never had a chance to play to hear the music of what you had to say
But I count out the pills just to see if I can do it
I can’t even get half way through it before I turn back into your son and say
Stay
I could hook up my heart to your ears and let my tears be your morphine drip
Because maybe it’s easier to let you slip away than it is to say goodbye
So I hold my breath
Because in the count down to death the question of why melts into when
How much time do we have left
Because if I knew what I know now then
I would say move pen move
Write me a mountain
Because head stones are not big enough
And my mother says
Stop it
Write me a poem to make me happy
So I write this
Stay
She smiles and says
Gotta go
I know
Goo-bye…

__________________
...thats the beauty of faith; you dont need a miracle to believe.

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

RECUERDO A MI PADRE

Sola no estoy, te tengo junto a mi
veo tus huellas, siento tus pasos, escucho tu voz
y contemplo tu figura ya doblada por el tiempo
es tu recuerdo, la que da fuerza a mi vida
pero es mi imaginación la que da forma a mis sueños

Siento padre querido, un deseo enorme
de volver a arrullarme en tus brazos,
de hacerte reír y sentir tu perdón por mis travesuras

Fuiste el bastón que me sostuvo en la vida
me enseñaste el valor de las cosas
alumbraste mi camino por donde andar
son cosas que no se pueden olvidar.

Quiero rendirte un homenaje
y que sepas querido padre
que tu imagen la tengo grabada
en el fondo de mi corazón

(Maria Luz Novoa Olivera)

-----------opinions-opiniones-opinions--------------

17 de junio del 2009-06-17

.....Hablar de humanismo real, no de la caridad burguesa limosnera, que da la sobra de lo que consume, es desarrollar ideas muy actuales e imprescindibles para el hombre y la mujer contemporánea.

Hablar de amor, de amistad, de solidaridad entre los humanos, no es tema de los grandes medios, sus temas son todo lo contrario, cómo van las guerras imperialistas, cómo y cuándo se va la crisis económica, qué va a pasar con la depresión global, y otros temas antivalores, como la ambición, como salvarse hundiendo a otros, como sobrevivir en el mundo de los lobos, etc.......

En fin el mundo de los grandes medios de difusión está al revés, su divulgación esta dirigida a ensalzar a estas personas, defenderlas, edulcorar sus antecedentes, presentarlos como ejemplos de luchadores por la democracia, y condenar entonces, a los verdaderos luchadores contra el terrorismo.

Todo lo que hagamos a favor de esos cinco hombres antiterroristas verdaderos será poco, ellos se lo merecen y nos corresponde a nosotros derrumbar el muro de la desinformación y esclarecer en toda su fuerza el grado de corrupción e ignominia de estos medios que están vendidos al poderoso dios dinero.

opiniones-opiniones-opiniones-opiniones

-------------enviame tus opiniones y lo que piensas------------


Estimada Graciela:


He leído con sumo interés sus notas, escritos y selecciones que divulga en su blog, “en fin el mar",...me han conmovido, que tienen un profundo contenido humano, como desgraciadamente no se estila en los últimos tiempos. Todos respiran amor, delicadeza y ternura. Todos son la prueba de que usted es fruto de la sensibilidad y la justicia.


......gracias por sus sueños y añoranzas, con usted y como los que viven como usted transformaremos el mundo y sus humanos.


....ojala sean muchos los que se decidan a promover, como usted lo hace, no las ambiciones y los vicios humanos, sino las verdaderas virtudes y valores que nos separan del resto de los mamíferos.


ALE

de Garcilaso de la Vega

Escrito está en mi alma vuestro gesto,
y cuanto yo escribir de vos deseo;
vos sola lo escribisteis, yo lo leo
tan solo, que aun de vos me guardo en esto.

En esto estoy y estaré siempre puesto;
que aunque no cabe en mí cuanto en vos veo,
de tanto bien lo que no entiendo creo,
tomando ya la fe por presupuesto.

Yo no nací sino para quereros;
mi alma os ha cortado a su medida;
por hábito del alma mismo os quiero.

Cuanto tengo confieso yo deberos;
por vos nací, por vos tengo la vida,
por vos he de morir, y por vos muero