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Dear Craig,

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Welcome back. That was a quick goodbye and hello. Just a stage exit I guess. Never mind, it’s great to have you back.

The post you refer to, which I wrote during your brief absence, was intended for Peter.

I imagined him backstage, peeping through the red velvet curtains. As I was alone on stage and there was no one in the audience whom I could see, I imagined a scenario à la Samuel Beckett. It was his “Waiting for Godot” that came to mind.

You’re right, it was a rather fatalistically miserabilist atmosphere but I figured I just had to bide my time and wait patiently until Peter was ready to emerge from behind the curtains.

His words kept running through my mind :

« I will engage with you if you engage with me ! »
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You ask :

« Banjo, have you thought of a career as a disc jockey? »

I’m afraid I should not be much of a DJ. I doubt that anyone would want to dance to the sort of music that I am interested in. I know nothing of the hardware and software used by DJs in mixing and synchronizing sound recordings. Also, I understand that the introduction of the Pioneer SVM-1000 Audio and Video Mixer and other high-tech digital sound mixers have made a whole new culture of disco DJ integration.

The message I was trying to convey was that after your departure, I was all alone on this thread (“All alone am I”). And that “evening shadows make me blue, when each weary day is through. How I long to be with you, my happiness …), and to conclude: “Who’s sorry now? Who’s sorry now? Who’s heart is aching for breaking (his) vow …?”.

Apparently, it was a totally futile attempt at a metaphor but I couldn’t think of a better way to epitomize having to pass the time in a situation that offers no hope.

Thanks for kindly returning, Craig. Your company gives me courage and strength to carry on. I appreciate it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JByePXtnHU#t=169

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Here is my favourite version of Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” composed in early 1939 in Paris, interpreted by the Melbourne-born British guitarist, John Williams :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Xdlgii-Rc

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Thanks for that, Banjo, another beautiful piece and a perfect start to my last day this semester of wrestling with the beautiful intricacies of semiconductor theory.

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Dear Craig,

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I hope all goes well for you on this last day of your semester. I’m sure you have earned a good rest.

Here is another one of my favourites from the soundtrack of Peter Brook’s film “Mahabharata”, based on the ancient (5th century BC) Sanskrit text.

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad opens with metaphysical questions about the primal cause of all existence, its origin, its end, and the possible role of time, nature, necessity or chance as primal cause of the spirit.

It concludes that "the Universal Soul exists in every individual and expresses itself in every creature. That everything in the world is a projection of it, and that there is oneness, a unity of souls in the one and only Self". The text evokes the concept of a personal god (in Sanskrit: Ishvara) suggesting it to be a path to one's own highest self.

The text is embedded in Yajurveda, one of the four canonical texts of Hinduism, the Vedas. It is a foundational text of the philosophy of Shaivism (from the god, Shiva) as well as the Yoga and Vedanta (Hinduist philosophy in general) schools of Hinduism.

The 19th-century German Sanskritist, Theodore Goldstücker, saw similarities between the religious conceptions of the Vedanta and those of Spinoza :

« ... so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines [...] comparing the fundamental ideas of both we should have no difficulty in proving that, had Spinoza been a Hindu, his system would in all probability mark a last phase of the Vedanta philosophy.

Robert Ernest Hume (1877-1914), a scholar of Hindu religions, also interprets the Shvetashvatara Upanishad to be referring to a pantheistic God. »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VET84iPVcuE
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In a much lighter vein, as it’s the summer solstice, it’s the day of the annual music festival here in France :

… at home :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqZKqaczcvE

... and in the streets :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pMVB1sE1JY

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Estas Tonne is a modern day Troubadour, born in Ukraine. Reka Fodor is a Romanian actress, singer, dancer and percussionist.

Here is a brief biographical note on the guitarist :

http://www.sonicbids.com/band/estastonne/

… and an improvisation of the two artists that kicked off at the Russian Drama Theatre in Vilnius and continued a couple of days later at the VDU Great Hall in Kaunas (Lithuania’s second-largest city) in November 2014 :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUX8o7vK-Ac

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Banjo, I'd love to take you up on the fascinating points in your first comment this morning, but I have a chemistry exam in 3 1/2 hours, then a break for 7 hours until my final exam for the semester, the previously mentioned semiconductors. If you don't mind I'll defer my comments until later, when I have more time.

In the meantime I'll enjoy listening to the lovely music while I study.