The Church has Already Burnt. . .

Supposing you need to leave the planet in a hurry -- let's say the world's on fire, and you need to bolt -- what would you take with you?

The Band's suggestions:

• As much Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as you can afford to carry. All of the Well-Tempered Clavier, with Glenn Gould playing, if possible, plus the smaller chamber works. And, for the young'n's, not just the symphonies, but all of the chamber works (quartets, quintets, duets), plus the overtures, operas, sonatas and Wolferl's Requiem.
  
• The Brahms Third.
  
• Some Shostakovich, some Stravinsky and some Prokofiev -- prolly whatever you have will be fine.
  
• A copy of Citizen Kane
  
• Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony, plus all of his songs (preferably with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing), and his piano compositions.
  
• All of Frederic Chopin's Etudes
  
• Copies of All the King's Men, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, Eugene Onegin, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Farenheit 451, A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Stranger, The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and Jitterbug Perfume. Also, everything by Tom McGuane and Raymond Carver.
  
• Thirteen, Tuesday, The Elfabet, The Math Curse, the complete Seuss, Shel Silverstein, all of Richard Scary's books, The Little Prince, The Velveteen Rabbit, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Goodnight Moon, Oscar the Otter, and the complete unabridged Grimm's Faery Tales.
  
• The Rachmaninoff 3rd. Horowitz.
  
• Verdi's Requiem
  
• Carl Orff's Carmina Burana
  
• Dry socks and a few changes of underwear.
  

That oughtta get you through the first long winter.

Homage to the Masters

People The Band have studied under -- a few select teachers, influences and mentors who made The Acquisition of Knowledge less than the stale and stodgy chore that it can often become in the wrong hands. These following individuals rise far above the norm, and leave the mediocre in their dust.

• Lee K. Abbott, writer
  Quotation: "For an instant, and for another, I imagined the hole to heaven, which was small and tight and already closing fast on my tail." -- from the short story, "All Things, All at Once"
  
• William M. Marling, writer
  Quotation: "In the real world, everything is typed."
  
• Mary Oliver, poet
  Quotation: "You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves./ Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./ Meanwhile the world goes on." -- from Wild Geese
  
• Robert Ornstein, Shakespeare scholar and Oviatt Professor Emeritus of English at Case Western Reserve University
  
• Kenneth W. Grundy, director (former?) of CWRU's Center for Policy Studies
  Quotation: "When you bet your money on the wrong horse, well, you lose."
  
• Peter Salm, modern language and literature
  
• Walter A. Strauss, modern language and literature (Emeritus, Humanities)
  
• Thomas Esper, history

Emergence from the Prehistory of Daily Life

Flash: TBH announces that work on their latest masterpiece is nearly complete. The album, to be called Fecundity and Collusion in the Lower 48, is sure to be controversial. Tracks will include:

• "Death is Not the End" -- An experimental nod to Jim Morrison and Stalin, inspired by the Newseum's The Commissar Vanishes exhibit, which Yahoo! describes as a sobering collection of "Before and After" photographs from the Stalin era, when Mr. Moostache broke new ground in spin control, and set the standard for years of Ogilvy & Mather ads for Procter & Gamble cleaning products -- here today, gone tomorrow! No more hours of scrubbing by hand!!
  
  
• "Rosie's World" -- Speaking of propaganda, check out Posters American Style, a selection of The National Museum of American Art's traveling exhibit of poster designs, including Rosie the Riveter, snake oil ads, psychedelic stuff and Hitchcock film promotions.

....more on this later......