A midsummer night's dream

What a beautiful night! The air smells so smoky. It is the longest day of the year.

My sister Katie and my niece Rosie were over and so was my brother George and we all sat on the back porch tasting wine and eating cheese and crackers and fried rice. Then later George and I went out and saw this new bar that just opened in Black Rock.

And earlier I worked and worked on the book. And before that I went to Zumba.

A wonderful day!

I was thinking about the longest day of the year which is today. When George and I went to the bar in Black Rock it was 9:30 but still light.

Today was traditionally the Feast of St. John the Baptist, or Johannestag. It is famous from Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" where you hear them in church singing a chorale in honor of the feast day. Of course if you look at the Catholic calendar now, the feast of St. John is a few days away. Now it is June 24. Probably somebody changed it. They changed a lot of saints' days after Vatican II. Talk about a boneheaded thing to do, but they did it.

Anyway I always think of June 21 as Johannestag. It is also Midsummer Night as in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Just as in "Die Meistersinger," all this insane drama takes place in this one loopy day.

I was thinking also of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" but now that I think about it, I know the action in that opera also takes place all in a single day, but I am not sure it is this particular day.

In "Die Meistersinger," it is June 21. You can hear the chorale in honor of Johannestag starting at about 8:40.



And now the days start getting shorter.

A sobering thought.

Let us banish it!