Similarly, these passion pieces are punctuated with grace notes, and this mysterious working of grace is something I’ve likewise often considered in my political reporting: grace in its original sense as gratis, for free. One works and works at something, which then happens of its own accord: it would not have happened without all the prior work, true, but its happening cannot be said to have resulted from all that work, the way effects are said to result from a series of causes. There is all the work, which is preparation, preparation for receptivity, but then there is something beyond that which is gratis, for free. August 1980 in Gdansk, Poland, would never have happened without the years and years of tenuous labor by a small band of seemingly marginal activists—on one denies this—but when that strike suddenly happened, it seemed to come out of nowhere, to happen all by itself. Everyone still talks about this (particularly the activists), talks about and wonders at the sudden overwhelming sense of rightness that descended on the place at that moment.
Nate
: ?As the world (or at least a good 4 billion of us) turn our thoughts towards Beijing this weekend, I recalled this wonderful in-studio performance from 2005, by a musical ensemble led (but by no means dominated -- he's merely a virtuoso among virtuosos) by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. They weave together many of the deep, rich musical cultures along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Europe with the Far East: Persian, Roma, Mongolian, Chinese, etc. It's amazing watching this group of diverse musicians interact with, really listen and respond to, one another.?Nate
: ?A top-down approach to creating that basic unit of culture making: the family.?A major Iranian state-owned company has told its single employees to get married by September or face losing their jobs, the press reported on Tuesday. “One of the economic entities in the south of the country has asked its single employees to start creating a family,” the hard-line Kayhan daily reported.