To you, Shame on me

To follow yesterday's purging  - as all emotional and potentially hurtful words or actions (no matter how honestly or innocently rendered) must be followed by a heartfelt recognition of responsibility and sincere offering if relational scars are to be prevented - today's Noteworthy letter comes in the form of an apologetic letter scribbled by the late saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker to his wife Chan.  I have no idea what he is apologizing for in particular, but apparently he wrote countless letters, notes, and poems to her over the years.  This one hangs in the Hard Rock Cafe in Chicago.

-Transcript below-

To You;

The way I thought was wrong, having not known, it was right.

Here is the proof of my feelings, Don't hate me, love me forever: - -

Beautiful is the world, slow is one to take advantage.

Wind up the world the other way, and at the start of the turning of the earth, lie my feelings for thou.

To you

Shame on me.

I love you.

je ne sais quoi: The Feminine Ideal

In Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit: a Son Remembers  Sean Hepburn Ferrer included an appreciation piece the brilliant photographer and visual consultant Cecil Beaton wrote about his mother's classic public appeal.

Sean writes:

So much of who she was, of what made her unforgettable, cannot be put into words. So how did she affect people so profoundly?  What chord did she touch? -- It wasn't just the brilliant packaging or the simple yet moving themes of her films.  It wasn't just the talented screenwriters and directors.  It was also what the French wisely call je ne sais quoi ("I don't know what") that came across in between the lines of good dialogue.  It was the speech of her heart and the inflection of pure intentions.

Nobody ever looked like her before World War II; it is doubtful if anybody ever did, unless it be those wild children of the French Revolution who stride in the foreground of romantic canvases.  Yet we recognize the rightness of this appearance in relation to our historical needs.  And the proof is that thousands of imitations have appeared... What does their paradigm really look like?  Audrey Hepburn has enormous heron's eyes and dark eyebrows slanted towards the Far East.  Her facial features show character rather than prettiness: the bridge of the nose seems almost too narrow to carry its length, which flares into a globular tip with nostrils startlingly like a ducks bill.  Her mouth is wide, with a cleft under the lower lip too deep for classical beauty, and the delicate chin appears even smaller by contrast with the exaggerated width of her jaw bones.  Seen at the full, the outline of her face is perhaps too square; yet she intuitively tilts her head with a restless and perky asymmetry.  She is like a portrait by Madiglioni where the various distortions are not only interesting in themselves but make a completely satisfying composite...

Audrey Hepburn is the gamine, the urchin, the last Barnardo boy.  Sometimes she appears to be dangerously fatigued; already, at her lettuce age, there are apt to be shadows under the eyes, while her cheeks seem taut and pallid.  She is a wistful child of a war-chided era, and the shadow thrown across her youth underlines even more its precious evanescence.  But if she can reflect sorrow, she seems also to enjoy the happiness life provides for her with such bounty.

It is a rare phenomenon to find a very young girl with such inherent "star quality."  As a result of her enormous success, Audrey Hepburn has already acquired the extra incandescent glow which comes as a result of being acclaimed, admired, and loved.  Yet while developing her radiance she has too much innate candor to take on that gloss of artificiality Hollywood is apt to demand of its queens.  Her voice is peculiarly personal.  With its unaccustomed rhythm and sing-song cadence on a flat drawl, it has a quality of heartbreak...

In fact, with the passing of every month, Audrey Hepburn increases in dramatic stature.  Intelligent and alert, wistful but enthusiastic, frank yet tactful, assured without conceit and tender without sentimentality... Add to this the remarkable distinction she emanates, and it is not rash to say she also  gives every indication of being the most interesting public embodiment of our new feminine ideal.

- Audrey Hepburn by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, November 1, 1954

Noteworthy Monday

I've decided to try a new system for blogging, to help me organize and share all the wonderful words, thoughts, music, images, and experiences that are a daily part of my life.  Sunday through Thursday (I do still need to live my life away from the internet on the weekends!) I will be posting something within a particular theme for that day of the week.  Mondays are going to be dedicated to noteworthy correspondence -messages written by one person specifically for another.

I love a well thought out letter.  Words written on paper that you can hold, and save, and carry with you.  Words that are more than just a fleeting sound...instead becoming something tangible, relivable, remembered.   Words sent to persuade, to apologize, to explain, to express, to thank, to comfort, to assure. Words that can't be taken back or changed.  Words that are a snapshot, a capturing of the reality of a particular moment, or emotion, or relationship, or point of view.

These shared words of note will come from many sources. I love biographies, and have (and continue to build) collections of letters and books about numerous obscure, familiar, famous, and infamous individuals.  I admit, I am a terrible journal keeper, and if there ever was a need for my own biography to be written the majority of  information would need to gleaned from the letters and correspondence I keep. A life remembered through the notes, cards, and messages I've made for and received from others... But really, those relationships are the most important part anyway.

Today's noteworthy correspondence is a letter from John Steinbeck - renowned author of The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men - to his eldest son Thom, who was attending boarding school and had written his father about Susan, a young woman with whom he believed he had fallen in love.

New York,
November 10th, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning.  I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First--if you are in love--that's a good thing--that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.  Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second--There are several kinds of love.  One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance.  This is the ugly and crippling kind.  The other is an outpouring of everything good in you--of kindness and consideration and respect--not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable.  The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love.  If you feel so deeply--of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel.  You know better than anyone.  What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it--and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful.  Try to live up to it.

If you love someone--there is no possible harm in saying so--only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another--but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan.  She will be very welcome.  But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to.  She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens--The main thing is not to hurry.  Nothing good gets away.

Love, 
Fa

[Source: Steinbeck: a Life in Letters]