The Girl at 36:34

    I’m in love again. This time safely at a distance with no possibility of being rejected. She doesn’t know me or that I’m infatuated with her. I don’t know her or her name. She’s probably Italian since I “met” her while watching a YouTube video of a 2008 Andre Rieu concert [Romantic Paradise - Part 1] in Cortona, Tuscany, Italy.

    The video was moving in and of itself but this young, ethereal, mesmerizing beauty appears for a second or two at 36 minutes and 27 seconds — enough of a glimpse to invoke a bated breath hoping for another glimpse which, fortunately, does happen. The second and clinching appearance is at 36 minutes, 34 seconds.  Her appearances occur after the orchestra’s moving rendition of Verdi’s Grand March from Aida with actual heraldic trumpets and during the rousing Italian National Anthem, “Il Canto Degli Italiani (The Song of the Italians)”. Music aside, her beauty stands on its own; no music necessary to strum my heartstrings.

Bella Signorina
[This link no longer works because of possible copyright infringement I was not aware of.
It may still be accessible through the YouTube video of the Andre Rieu concert mentioned above.]

    My ancestors are from Bavaria but who’s to say they didn’t venture over the Alps for a visit to Italy only a couple hundred kilometers away. Perhaps there’s some Italian in my Heinz 57 ancestral make-up.

    I studied the Italian language in Naples in 1964 and later that year spent a weekend in Florence less than 100 kilometers from Cortona. Had I known of the beauty that would later be in this village, I‘d have made a side trip. Of course, it would have been this lady’s mother (or grandmother probably) I would have happily met. I knew enough Italian by then to have intelligibly greeted her with a cheery, “Buon Giorno, signorina”  [She would not yet have been signora]. That would have gotten her attention; an American sailor speaking to her in her own language.

    I don’t know why certain assortments of physical features are so heart-stoppingly, captivatingly exquisite while others barely arouse a second glance. Many words exist to modify and enhance the word ‘Beauty’ yet there are times when no adjectives added to the word can ever effectively cover the entire spectrum of descriptives. It’s as though some beauties most be seen to be experienced; that any attempt to describe with mere words is doomed to failure. With this young lady, all it took was one look.

    In the meantime, I continue working on my Master’s thesis on “How to Accept Rejection Gracefully and With a Smile”.  Until that’s completed, though, love at a distance is the best I can hope for. It’s much less rewarding but it is not nearly as painful.

    It’s less frustrating to want the impossible and never get it
than it is to want the possible and be denied it.

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Music, Monks and Mortality

    Today I spent a couple hours listening to Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss orchestra performing in New York’s Radio City Music Hall (2007).  He and his orchestra are filled with a joie de vivre, a joie de musique unparalleled by any other group I’ve ever experienced.

    It occurred to me that it would be a joy to die for if I were invited to sing with his orchestra and perhaps conduct a song or two. I am thinking of writing a letter requesting an audience with the high priest of beautiful music.

    As soon as I thought of this “to die for” possibility I remembered the Arthur C. Clarke science fiction short story from 1953 about the Tibetan monks who sought to write down all nine billion names of God. They thought once that was accomplished, God would bring the universe to an end.

    In that story they did complete the naming and "overhead, without any fuss, the stars [went] out." I feared that if I got my wish to perform with Rieu and his orchestra, I’d die at the end of my performance having been granted my “to die for” wish. Perhaps I’ll simply continue to enjoy their love of music from a safe distance. There’s too much music yet to be heard.

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