Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death” 

Emily Dickinson might be America’s greatest poet. Even better than Walt Whitman or E.A. Poe. At the very least, she is America’s best Metaphysical poet. If you’ve never heard one of her poems recited, this will be a treat. Click here.

Pop-Up Classical Music Performances 

DF, my elder sister, sent an issue of The Marginalia, where Maria Popova included this link to a pop-up performance of Beethoven’s final symphony. Click here.

I’ve covered a few of these before. I especially like it when they are orchestrated in a way that really surprises the audience.

Click here for a link to more of them, with a bit of history on how they came about.

“I rise at eleven, I dine about two,

I get drunk before seven, and the next thing I do…” 

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester 

Number Two Son sent the following link to me and my brother, a professor of ancient literature at Princeton. He said, “I thought you two would appreciate it… but you should listen to it in private…”

I was intrigued.

It was a poem by John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester, who lived during the reign of Charles II in the late 17th century. The poem itself, as you will see, is bawdy. But it is also technically impressive.

I love the idea that proficiency at writing verse might have been something that the king and his gentlemen friends considered important. In that sense, Wilmot is typical of a group of courtiers of his time that are now known as the Cavalier poets. (Although back then they were sometimes referred to as “roistering gallants.”) For these aristocrats, wit and poetry were considered de rigueur for their class, just as playing the pianoforte was expected of gentle ladies a century later.

(I took a few extra minutes to write that last paragraph because I wanted to see if I could sound like a Princeton professor. My brother said, “Not quite!”)

You can hear the poem beautifully read by Douglas Murray here.

Long Ago… I Fell for Her

When The Carpenters were on the charts, I never thought much of them. I saw them as syrupy sweet and sentimental, which was not my teenage thing. But I do remember liking Karen Carpenter’s voice. A few days ago, I came across this clip of a vocal coach reacting to her singing. It may explain why, despite my antipathy for the sort of songs she sang, I was a secret fan.

Click here.