Dashiell Hammett
Written by Tom Fasano on May 27, 2009 – 9:49 am
Mystery writer Dashiell Hammett was born on this day in 1894. The three film adaptations of his most famous story, The Maltese Falcon, became staples of the film noir genre. His romantic relationship with Lillian Hellman, a well-known playwright, inspired The Thin Man, a story featuring heroine Nora Charles. The film adaptation of this novel was so successful that it spawned multiple sequels. Hammett was the founding father of the “hard-boiled” mystery, a subgenre characterized by its gritty characters and depictions of events.
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Emerson Pyramids
Written by Tom Fasano on February 24, 2009 – 10:43 pmHere are the two pyramids chosen by my students as best graphically representing Emerson’s hierarchy of ideas.
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Across the Universe
Written by Tom Fasano on January 15, 2009 – 12:14 amListen to the Song
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru de va om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter, shades of earth are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns and calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Jai guru deva [Repeat to fade]
Background
The following is mostly lifted from a great Beatles page called The Beatles Bible. Check it out for more information.
Some interpretations of Across the Universe can be found here.
This song’s lyrics came to John Lennon in the early hours one morning at his home in Kenwood.
I was lying next to my first wife in bed and I was thinking. It started off as a negative song and she must have been going on and on about something. She’d gone to sleep and I kept hearing, ‘Words are flowing out like endless streams…’ I was a bit irritated and I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than, ‘Why are you always mouthing off at me?…The words are purely inspirational and were given to me – except for maybe one or two where I had to resolve a line or something like that. I don’t own it; it came through like that.
Part of the song’s chorus – ‘Jai guru deva, om’ – is a Sanskrit phrase which roughly translates as ‘Victory to God divine’. It was likely inspired by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom The Beatles had met in August 1967. The Maharishi’s spiritual master was called Guru Dev. ‘Jai’ is a Hindi word meaning ‘long live’ or ‘victory’, and ‘om’ is a sacred syllable in the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions.
In 1970 John Lennon was quoted in Rolling Stone:
It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best. It’s good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin’ it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don’t have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them.
Watch a Session Video
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Waiting on a Friend
Written by Tom Fasano on January 13, 2009 – 10:01 pmWAITING ON A FRIEND
(m. jagger/k. richards)
Single by Rolling Stones
from the album Tattoo You
Watching girls go passing by
It aint the latest thing
Im just standing in a doorway
Im just trying to make some sense
Out of these girls go passing by
The tales they tell of men
Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend
A smile relieves a heart that grieves
Remember what I said
Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend
Im just waiting on a friend
Dont need a whore
I dont need no booze
Dont need a virgin priest
But I need someone I can cry to
I need someone to protect
Making love and breaking hearts
It is a game for youth
But Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend
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“What a Wonderful World”
Written by Tom Fasano on January 8, 2009 – 8:09 pmThis song has a hopeful and optimistic tone with regard to the future, and beautifully illuminates Emerson’s idea about finding “the journey’s end in every step of the road” (from Emerson’s “Experience”).
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you.
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.
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Dixie Chicks and Transcendentalism
Written by Tom Fasano on January 7, 2009 – 10:10 pmI love this song, especially the stuff about striking out on your own, chasing a dream, and finding your place in the sun – pure transcendentalism.
“Wide Open Spaces”
Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone
Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed
[Chorus:]
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test
[Repeat Chorus]
She knows the high stakes
As her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know
[Repeat Chorus]
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
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Emerson’s First Step to Successful Living
Written by Tom Fasano on December 15, 2008 – 10:37 amDEVELOP SELF-RELIANCE
Be Who You Really Are
I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.
—“Self-Reliance”
Fear, Fear, and More Fear
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.
—“Self-Reliance”
Approval Seeking: Our Psychic Plague
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
—“Self-Reliance”
Conformity—the Roadblock to Self-Reliance
You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
—“Self-Reliance”
The Danger of “Reactive” Nonconformity
Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.
—“Self-Reliance”
Conformity Drains Power
He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles.
—“Self-Reliance”
Free at Last
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
—“Self-Reliance”
Society’s Resistance to Self-Reliance
It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.
—“Self-Reliance”
One Step at a Time
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
—“Self-Reliance”
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