Author Archive: Bill Black
I'm a baby boomer, lefty Democrat, Boston Irish Catholic, born in 1953. I work as a public affairs consultant in Washington.
Parisian flea market
Charlie McCarthy and a friend.
— Post From My iPhone
Location:Boulevard Saint-Germain,Paris,France
Paris Subway
Rumbling into the station.
— Post From My iPhone
Location:Boulevard Saint-Germain,Paris,France
Brunch at the Odeon
We returned to the Odeon for Sunday bunch. Scrambled eggs and bacon. It’s chilly but sunny. Going to the catacombs. Apparently, not for the claustrophobic. Martha is anxious.
— Post From My iPhone
Paris – Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral
I attended 8 am Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral on this somewhat chilly and overcast morning. It was a very nice service, celebrated by two Black priests and with 34 congregants in attendance. There is something extraordinary about the fact that the Mass is the same in every corner of the world, although it is very special in French. I was able to follow the order of the Mass and the readings by using the “Breviary” app on my IPhone.
Notre Dame is very similar to the Washington Cathedral. Of course, it’s probably the other way around.
Mass was held in the front section with the congregation seated on either side of the altar.
It was a pleasant way to begin our first full day in Paris.
Back to Berlin….Without my luggage
Arrived today for my second visit to Berlin. This time, I’m accompanied by my daughter, Bridget. It will be a combination of business and pleasure. I have business meetings in Berlin, but will go to Paris for the weekend, for my first visit to the City of Lights.
The first change I noticed from my last visit was how expeditious the arrival process was. We had a layover in Munich where we showed our passport. But there were no customs declarations forms to fill out. Just show the passport and move right on through. Berlin was even more expeditious, actually too expeditious. We just followed the crowd off the plane, expecting to be herded to some large immigration line, followed by a customs line. In so doing, we walked right past baggage claim and the next thing we knew we were outside security without our luggage. Uh oh. I knew that couldn’t be good. Going back through the exist would probably have caused them to shut down the whole airport.
Sure enough, we had to go to a special office at the other end of the airport. After about an hour wait, we were told that our luggage didn’t arrive anyway. Over to another office at another end of the airport. To my relief, they told me that the luggage was in Munich. Didn’t make the connection, but would be delivered to the hotel in the evening. And that’s the situation, as it exists. Hope they are right.
Thanks to an unbelievably organized wife, I had a change of close in my carry on, so no stress…..yet.
Andrew Sullivan on Good Friday
Today, he comments on a David Brooks column that is essentially a review of the Broadway play, The Book of Mormon.
My favorite paragraph is the following:
Does a force exist that is behind everything we are and see and know? Is that force benign? Does that force love us? Was the only way that truth could be revealed was by God becoming man and sacrificing himself to show us the only way to save ourselves? Today, in the darkness of the Cross, I say yes to these questions, which go to depths that literal parsing of parables or Gospels misses entirely.
Keith Moon
I think the author nails it.
Take the interplay between tension and release in the song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who. Three-quarters of the way through the song, the guitar, bass and drums cease and are replaced by the droning sound of a synthesizer. The electronic sounds lull the listeners, providing a brief respite from the wild musical anarchy that precedes it. Suddenly, Keith Moon’s drumming comes charging out like a bull at Pamplona. It sounds as if he is hitting his tom drums with six arms, in a machine-gun frenzy of notes. As the drums build, so does the tension in the listeners. Just as the tension has built to a pinnacle, listeners are rewarded with one of the most gratifying releases in rock music—a boisterous explosion of sound punctuated by Roger Daltrey’s barbaric howl that seems to come from another world. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is lengthy for a rock song, but when a listener surrenders to the song and allows its time, tensions and expressive elements to unfold, the reward is extraordinary.
Here’s a video of that exact drum solo. Awesome.