The only way to put finality to an amazing weekend was to walk to work this morning and immerse myself in Brahms' clarinet quintet, which is rendered here by none-other-than David Shiffrin, professor of clarinet at Yale.
It seemed as though my body involuntarily trembled when the clarinet first comes in, as if one could hang in the air on that blissfully long and yearning note, drawn out above a cascade of beautiful cello. What perfection! So many nuanced emotions packed into that one gorgeous movement.
And for a bit of humor, one of my favorite (as of yet) quotes from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next pedestrian crossing.
"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his bestselling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."