From the bleak mid-winter of our souls, we emerge into hope. When we hope, we look to the future, as we wish it to be. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day,…
Read More
Value for Sunday of Week 23 in the season of Growth
Individuality
Each of us has a sense of self, a sense of being an individual.
- My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years. Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations. [Albert Einstein]
- Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings. I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, and compassion. We are all in this life together. [attrributed to Linda Thompson]
- All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity. [James Fenimore Cooper]
In the United States, at least, this topic may be more popular than some of the others. Americans are passionate about individuality. Few of us are Einsteins but those few make invaluable contributions to society and culture.
Real
True Narratives
Some people seem to define the term "one of a kind"; and then you read about someone else who defines it again.
- Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan In America (Doubleday, 2010).
- Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samual Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010).
- Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers, 2009): on making the contribution we are uniquely qualified to make, the best kind of individuality. File this also under “Niche.”
- Stephen Taylor, Defiance: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Anne Barnard (W.W. Norton, 2017). “Over the course of Taylor’s biography, a picture emerges of a clear-eyes yet self-doubting woman, one who was resoloved to live life on her own terms but worried about her right to set those terms.”
- John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty (Viking, 2012). “ . . . the personal trials that shaped a Puritan dissident’s advocacy for the separation of church and state.”
- Alexandra Robbins, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School (Hyperion, 2011). “ . . . Robbins argues that many of the traits attributed to ‘losers’ in high school contribute to success later in life.”
- Seymour M. Hersh, Reporter: A Memoir (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018): Hersh describes “the often acrimonious relations in his professional life.”
- Hannah Arendt (Jerome Kohn, ed.), Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975 (Schochen Books, 2018): “Almost every essay in this book contains ‘pearls’ of Arendt’s tonically subversive thinking, and many of her observations push readers to think harder about the language in which political activity is conducted.”
- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas (The University of Chicago Press, 2011): “At its best, American individualism is not about the aggrandizement of the self or the acquiescent assumption that everybody simply has a right to think what they want. Rather, it stresses that our convictions are our own, and should be held as seriously as any other possessions. Or, as Nietzsche imagined philosophers would one day say, ‘My judgment is my judgment: no one else is easily entitled to it.’”
- Lisa Selin Davis, Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different (Hachette, 2020): “As for who counts as a tomboy, Davis includes anyone who is seen (or who sees herself) as moving off the narrow path of conventional femininity. Under Davis’s big umbrella we find girls who reject dolls, dresses and sparkles in favor of athletics, sportswear and dirt; those who embrace both the stereotypically girlish and boyish; and some for whom tomboyism is an early expression of what will evolve into a lesbian, trans or gender-nonconforming identity.”
- Andrew Sullivan, Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021 (Avid Reader Books, 2021): “. . . it is crystal clear that Sullivan is not on your team. He’s not on anyone’s team. Even when he endorses a politician and sings his or her praises, you know that praise is contingent. He reserves the right to try any politician, and find him wanting.”
- Annie Cohen-Solal, Picasso the Foreigner: An Artist in France, 1900-1973 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2023), is “both a portrait of Picasso, that Zeus of 20th-century modernism, as a cultural outcast, a pariah, and an indictment of the culture — French — that made him one.”
- Nicholas Fox Weber, Mondrian: His Life, His Art, His Quest for the Absolute (Knopf, 2024): “. . . Mondrian was a deeply eccentric man, and the details of his alienlike existence keep you turning the pages.”
- Nell Irvin Painter, I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays (Doubleday, 2024), “presents Painter in full, gathering personal reflections, scholarly essays and images spanning several decades to convey the range of her interests and ambition.”
- Blake Gopnik, The Maverick’s Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream (Ecco, 2025): “Voracious and vituperative, Barnes was a character of wild contradictions — a ‘tyrannical egalitarian,’ a ‘patriarchal feminist,’ a ‘Gilded Age progressive.’ Co-inventor of a gonorrhea antiseptic used to prevent blindness in newborns, he amassed more than 4,000 pieces of art and objects, and set up a personal foundation dedicated to using the collection to teach ‘plain people’ (not the intellectuals and philistine Philadelphia elites he disdained) how to learn to see.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Tatjana Soli writes of intriguing characters whose understanding “demands of the reader both patience and trust.”
- Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters: A Novel (St. Martin’s Press, 2010): “At the novel’s opening, Helen is a 32-year-old woman 'in a young man’s profession' whose 'ambition in the larger world had faded until there was only her and the camera and the war.' She was drawn to Vietnam after her brother was killed in combat; afraid she would miss her chance to see action herself, she dropped out of college and began training as a photographer, a remarkable act of courage for a 'poor little scared girl from California.'”
- Tatjana Soli, The Forgetting Tree: A Novel (St. Martin’s Press, 2012): the author allows “both of her central female characters the freedom to be eccentric and inconsistent, but also to learn from each other.”
Other novels:
- Stefan Hertmans, The Convert: A Novel (Pantheon, 2020): “an imaginative flight, full of darkness and light, lively characters, life-altering conflicts, violence and kindness, birth, death and, oddly, a lot of snakes.”
- Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain: A Novel (Grove, 2020): “How often we repeat the same disastrous mistakes, make the same wrong turn again and again. And yet, like Shuggie, how often we rise, against all odds, to stumble forward once more. The book leaves us gutted and marveling: Life may be short, but it takes forever.”
- Weike Wang, Joan Is Okay: A Novel (Random House, 2022): “. . . Joan is angry. When the status-conscious Fang muses that it would be cool if she someday became a senator’s wife, Joan thinks to herself: ‘The famed M.R.S. degree, because in practice, a female brain is worth nothing. Four lobes of the cerebrum, and I have sometimes imagined one of mine labeled RAGE.'”
- Vauhini Vara, The Immortal King Rao: A Novel (W.W. Norton & Co., 2022): “How to mediate between the competing interests of autonomy and collectivity, the desire for self-sovereignty and the reality of interdependence, is the major question this novel poses, over and over, at familial, societal and global scale.”
Poetry
In paths untrodden, / In the growth by margins of pond-waters, / Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, / From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures, profits, conformities, / Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, / Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul, / That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades, / Here by myself away from the clank of the world, / Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic, / No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,) / Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest, / Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment, / Projecting them along that substantial life, / Bequeathing hence types of athletic love, / Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year, / I proceed for all who are or have been young men, / To tell the secret my nights and days, / To celebrate the need of comrades. [Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book V: Calamus, “In Paths Untrodden”.]
Other poems:
- Walt Whitman, “One’s Self, I Sing”
- Pablo Neruda, “Magellanic Penguin”
- Edgar Lee Masters, “Lydia Humphrey”
- Edgar Lee Masters, “Tennessee Claflin Shope”
- Edgar Lee Masters, “Isa Nutter”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Tom Waits’ “rough and gravelly voice” suggests as many scars in life as on his vocal cords. He sings with a “distinctive voice that is intoxicating, gravelly and mellow, all at once . . .” Live appearances include “Rockaplast” (1977); in London (1979) and Chicago (1975); and at Amsterdam Carre Theatre (2004). He has an extensive set of releases and playlists.
Far removed from Waits musically, violinist Ginette Neveu had exhibited extraordinary talent, besting luminaries such as David Oistrakh and Ida Haendel in a major competition when she was only fifteen years old. Her playing is loaded with a distinct, ebullient personality.
From Ethiopia, we have Tsege-Mariam Gebru, who made the piano sound like an Ethiopian instrument. She also worked under the title “Emahoy”, which means “female monk”. Here is a link to her playlists.
Serge Koussevitzky’s “conducting style was highly individual. His interpretations of the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Jean Sibelius, and other Romantic composers were marked by rhapsodic animation, and he imparted a similar quality to compositions of the modern school.” An individualist through and through, at “the age of 14 he ran away from home and began his musical studies at the School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society.” “Koussevitsky served as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) from 1924 to 1949, where he helped develop the ensemble into one of the United States' leading orchestras.” Here is a link to his playlists, and a brief video clip of his conducting.
A mazurka is a “Polish folk dance for a circle of couples, characterized by stamping feet and clicking heels and traditionally danced to the music of a village band. The music is in 3/4 or 3/8 time with a forceful accent on the second beat. The dance, highly improvisatory, has no set figures, and more than 50 different steps exist. The music written for the dance is also called mazurka.” Chopin composed them for solo piano, “virtually throughout his life” (list of recorded performances), evoking the yin and yang of individuality and community. “Chopin’s mazurkas were not the traditional Polish mazurka, but much more refined, including compositional techniques such as counterpoint and fugue. He also made them more interesting harmonically and added more chromaticism. He didn’t want them used for dancing, but he didn’t have much control over that.” Top performances are by Ignaz Friedman in 1930, Artur Rubinstein in 1938-39, Janina Fialkowska (Opp. 6-41; Opp. 50 – Op. posth.), and Peter Jablonski, in 2022 (Vol. 1) and 2023 (Vol. 2); and Ingrid Fliter, in 2025 (Vol. 1). Total performance time exceeds two hours.
Mazurkas from other composers:
- Maria Szymanowska, 24 mazurkas (1825)
- Stéphan Elmas, 27 Mazurkas (1885)
- Aleksandr Scriabin, 23 mazurkas (1888-1903) (list of recorded performances)
- Karol Szymanowski, 22 mazurkas (1924-1934) (list of recorded performances)
Other compositions:
- Philip Glass, Symphony No. 3 (1995) (approx. 24-28’) (list of recorded performances): This symphony presents strong individual voices within the community of an orchestra: movements 1 and 2; 3 and 4.
- Samuel Barber, Capricorn Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Trumpet and String Orchestra, Op. 21, H109 (1944) (approx. 14-15’): personalities of three people
- Pierre Boulez, Répons for two pianos, harp, vibraphone, xylophone, cimbalom, ensemble and live electronics (1984) (approx. 47’) highlights interplay between individuality and community. Here is Boulez conducting the work, and in interview about it.
- Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Monologues - Version of Dialoge for Two Pianos Soli (1964) (approx. 18’)
- Zimmermann, Perspektiven, Musik zu einem imaginären Ballet (Music to an Imaginary Ballet) for Two Pianos (1956) (approx. 13-15’)
- Kurt Weill, songs (singers Ute Lemper and Lotte Lenya); Four Walt Whitman Songs (1942/1947) (approx. 16’)
- Lou Harrison, works for harpsichord, fortepiano and tack piano
- Lars Hegaard, compositions for guitar with various other instruments
- Goffredo Petrassi, solo works, from the album “Monologhi” (2021) (67’)
- Heinz Holliger, Lunea - Lenau-Szenen in 23 Lebensblättern [Lenau scenes in 23 leaves from a life] (2017) (approx. 102’), an opera about Nikolaus Lenau, a/k/a Nikolaus Franz Niembsch (1802-1850), a musician with a troubled life. The opera explores the connection between creativity and mental health, and a young man who was perhaps too brilliant for this world.
- Joly Braga Santos, Symphony No. 2 in B Minor (1948) (approx. 49’): “. . . Braga Santos was his own man and his individual voice and aesthetic are audible throughout”.
- Karol Szymanowski, Violin Sonata in D Minor, Op. 9 (1904) (approx. 22-24’) (list of recorded performances), “manifests Szymanowski's individuality, especially his melodic creativity and sensitivity to sound.”
- Kaija Saariaho, Reconnaissance (2020) (approx. 20’): “Through creative solutions that question musically what a chorus can be, Kaija Saariaho’s score treats humankind itself as a character, expressing itself both in unison and in fragmented voices, in opposing groups and in isolated individuals.”
- Rodion Shchedrin, Concerto Dolce, Op. 102 (1997) (approx. 21’): the viola follows its own path, maintaining its own tranquil narrative, even when the orchestra becomes harsh or edgy. “Concerto dolce is dominated by soaring viola melodies that often comply with the dolce of the title but also contain intense, painful and edgy tones. The mood of the piece is a tranquil narrative, often intensely meditative or reminiscent, with only occasional departures.”
Albums:
- Roswell Rudd & Duck Baker, “Live” (issued 2021) (62’): featuring Rudd’s quirky trombone playing
- Young-Ho Shu, “Ajaeng Sanzo” (2011) (56’): the ajaeng, a Korean bowed zither, has a scratchy and harsh tone but this too conveys meaning – in this case, a sense of individuality and taking one’s place in the world. You can imagine him saying “not gonna play music like everyone else does.”
- Tomasz Dąbrowski & The Individual Beings “The Individual Beings” (2022) (42’): Dabrowski says: “We’re all Individual Beings, and our individuality is the strongest thing we have to offer the world – it has to be protected and developed”.
- Gordon Grdina, Mark Helias & Matthew Shipp, “Pathways” (2022): “The players meld into a cohesive whole on nine adventurous tunes. Succinct in their way— everything clocks in at the four to eight minute range—with a consistency of mood and purpose, that exudes freedom and risk-taking while embracing accessibility, occasional grooves and a unique approach to interplay.”
- Clavellina d’Aire, “Músiques per emportar-se a illes desertes” (Music to Take to a Desert Island) (2023) (55’) features diatonic accordion and violin/viola on a “curious album” of marvelously quirky baubles.
- Arooj Aftab, “Night Reign” (2024) (49’): “Mercurial and moody soundscapes are infused with wistful romance in one of the Grammy-winning singer and composer’s most spirited records to date”.
- Jay Phelps, “Broken Standards, Vol. 2” (2025) (28’) gives “jazz standards a 21st century makeover while simultaneously shinning a light on the global breakdown of social and economic standards.” “. . . Phelps explores jazz standards by flipping them on their head to produce a sound that is very much synonymous with London's improvising groove scene.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Bob Seger, “Against the Wind” (lyrics)
- Lady Gaga, “Born This Way” (lyrics)
- Malvina Reynolds, "Little Boxes” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- René Magritte, Personal Values (1952)
- Paul Klee, Arches of the Bridge Stepping Out of Line (1937)
- Wassily Kandinsky, Decisive Pink (1932)
- Paul Klee, Individualized Altimetry of Stripes (1930)
- Pierre Bonnard, Girl with Parrot (1910)
- Pablo Picasso, Woman with Blue Hat (1901)
Film and Stage
- Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, about the quirky pianist-genius
- Bringing Up Baby: not about a childbut a “comedy about a madcap heiress with a pet leopard who meets an absent-minded paleontologist and unwittingly makes a fiasco of both their lives”
- The Graduate, a film aboutbreaking free from tradition
- Morgan! (Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment)”: about a strange characterwith a fixation for gorillas
- The Blue Kite (Lan feng zheng), set in China during the Mao era, the film is an “attempt to show what it was like to live in times of ideological madness”
- Best in Show, a film about dog shows and quirky dog owners
.jpg){kind=link}
