Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Mark Steyn: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Do you need a change of pace?

They say that music soothes the savage beast, so no wonder the Ayatollah Khomeni once declared a fatwa on music, saying that it was haram! 

Music is quite glorious for all living things and touches deep, limbic places in the human brain and sentimental memory places in the human soul.

So I want to share this absolutely magnificent essay from Mark Steyn about the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 

The essay itself was prompted by an e-mail written to Mark, referencing a Times of Israel piece written by my friend Simcha Jacobovici.

Apparently, Mark Steyn and Simcha have a mutual friend! The plot thickens!

But I digress. 

The point of my own post is simply to share this lovely essay with you, and actually also to introduce you to an arrangement of the song that I'm sure you've never heard unless you saw it here on my blog previously, but that you will never forget. It's by Kay Wilson, a fine jazz musician, licensed tour guide in Israel and a British-Israeli survivor of a barbaric Palestinian terror attack that killed her friend Kristine Luken. 

I find Kay's arrangement haunting, but life-affirming and sad at the same time. Kay and I are Facebook friends and I hope we can meet someday in person.

Anyway, I feel extremely blessed to know such fine humans as Kay and Simcha and Mark Steyn.

I'm primarily a badass history and politics geek on the internet, but I'm actually an artsy, creative type with a soft spot for music and dance. Gives me Teh Feeeeelzzzz.

Here's to beautiful music and good friends and to never forgetting, never forgiving those who murder our loved ones. Not ever. Ever.