Sincerity is the emotional component of honesty – the desire to be honest. Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite. [attributed to Charles Spurgeon] . . . for a creative writer possession of the “truth” is less important than emotional sincerity. [George Orwell] I suppose my best attribute, if you want…
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Value for Wednesday of Week 34 in the season of Interlude
Being Vigilant
Vigilance is a form of diligence: diligence in the presence or threat of danger.
- The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. [falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson, and others]
- When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail. [attributed to Pearl S. Buck]
- The thing about tennis is if you stay off for two weeks, or just for three days, you can lose your rhythm quickly. So it’s just a question of constant diligence and vigilance. [Venus Williams]
Real
True Narratives
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Fictional works on the costs of vigilance:
- Kelsey Ronan, Chevy in the Hole: A Novel (Henry Holt & Co., 2022): “Does relentless commitment always yield positive results? Monae seems committed to what others see as lost causes, namely Gus, and the city of Flint. It’s lonely work, this kind of commitment, and the sections of the novel from Monae’s point of view tend to reflect that loneliness.”
Poetry
In my Spanish cloak,
And old slouch hat,
And overshoes of felt,
And Tyke, my faithful dog,
And my knotted hickory cane,
I slipped about with a bull’s-eye lantern
From door to door on the square,
As the midnight stars wheeled round,
And the bell in the steeple murmured
From the blowing of the wind;
And the weary steps of old Doc Hill
Sounded like one who walks in sleep,
And a far-off rooster crew.
And now another is watching Spoon River
As others watched before me.
And here we lie, Doc Hill and I
Where none breaks through and steals,
And no eye needs to guard.
[Edgar Lee Masters, “Andy the Night-Watch”]
Other poems:
- Edgar Lee Masters, “Enoch Dunlap”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Compositions:
- André Jolivet, Violin Concerto (1972) (approx. 33’): the concerto expresses an unwavering seriousness of intent and purpose. “. . . the trigger . . . was his discovery of a Hopi Indian aphorism that equates sound with both life and the human soul. An extremely beautiful, if occasionally daunting work, it envisions the soloist as the celebrant of a sequence of arcane rituals and sacred dances, provoking the orchestra to a series of responses alternately trance-like and convulsive.”
- Mieczysław Weinberg, Trumpet Concerto in B-flat Major, Op. 94 (1967) (approx. 26’) (list of recorded performances): “Though the movement titles suggest fragmentation and playfulness, they are in many ways belied by the music itself, whose strong sense of continuity and nervous tension prompted Shostakovich to dub the work (with only a little exaggeration) a 'symphony for trumpet and orchestra.'”
Music: songs and other short pieces
Visual Arts
- Ilya Repin, Watch (1881)
