Music medication

Does anyone else use music to self-medicate?

This week I lost a friend very close to me. Normally I do not like to write about sad things but I loved this man. He was a friend from my 20s and he died of a heart attack.

I had to write his obituary. He was a great painter. I went to the city desk to ask to write his obituary and our city editors, they are so great, they recognized it right away that we had to commemorate him.

Onto the self-medication (a topic I love!).

My friend loved Mississippi John Hurt.




He actually gave Howard and me a portrait of Mississippi John Hurt for our wedding present. We treasure it. It is the only portrait of Mississippi John Hurt ever to be given to anyone as a wedding present. We know that for a fact.


Even  Mississippi John Hurt, when he was married, did not get a portrait painted of himself!


This painter, Bob, and I knew each other from that medieval group I belonged to when I was in my 20s when you think about it was not, ahem, THAT long ago. I was, am, friends with him and his wife. They would let me crash on their couch. I cannot count the number of weekends I slept on their couch, back in the day. 


With all the medieval associations I like to play this song and think of him.



So many times in my life when I am sad I listen to Franz Schubert. He expressed sorrow so beautifully. In this song you can imagine him with stars in his eyes, bewitched by the poetry of Sir Walter Scott. You hear the beat of the drums, feel the flash of the swords.

That is sad at the end of that video, when they show the warrior's coffin!

That is my life, lived to the soundtrack of Schubert songs. Pennario loved them and so do I.

Raste, Krieger!


Krieg ist aus.


Wouldn't it be great to be up all night listening to records?