January

Janus: the two-faced God. Only in extreme — real cold — do we understand the month of January, which is two-faced; looks forward to the coming year, and backwards towards the year we have just left. Winter should be cold; a negation — the renewal of spring only makes proper sense in the context of a desolate winter. January cleans away the debris of the old year, while preparing the ground for the spring ahead.

The heat in my apartment isn’t working. All we have is a small space heater. So it is very cold. Heat leaks through the windows of my bedroom; which are not well insulated. I’m tempted to put on a Bach mass — and to use the music for its original purpose: to keep people warm. Imagine being a Pietist in early 18th-century German, rising at dawn for church — the music had to create not only spiritual heat, but real heat: had to keep people alert, awake, moving; there had to be enough intensity and power to ward off what the chill of one of the coldest centuries on record. I can almost picture organ-master, choir-master Johann Sebastian Bach, rocking back at forth at the organ, or leading an ensemble as the first violinist — animated by a quasi-divine inspiration… creating an aural warmth that transcends its aurality; becomes physical, biochemical, prayerful….

The big windows let in cold — but they also let in a lot of light.

A Saturday with coffee, records, books, cold light; no one to tell you what to do — this is one of the supreme (small) joys of adulthood.

I could use more days like this one.

I write down a remark from Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary: “I do not doubt man’s inborn need for beauty.”