Searching for Mozart, and warmth

Headline I just read: "It's colder in Canada than it is on Mars."

Well woo hoo, ain't that grand. All I could think today, as I picked my way carefully along the frozen streets, is how stoic Canadians are. No choice. How foolish it would be if Africans always complained about the heat. That's where they live - it's hot. And where we live, it's as @#$# cold as Mars.

Movies. The escape. Today - heaven - Searching for Mozart, a documentary about the man's life and music. I wept and wept - my eyes are still puffy. What a story; what a score. It was heartening to know that the movie Amadeus distorted many facts and invented more. Mozart's scatological references were normal in his family and at his time, he wasn't a cackling idiot savant. He wasn't poisoned, didn't die a pauper. He did have money troubles toward the end but was becoming more prosperous in his last year. His marriage was a happy one, except for the tragedy of dead children - he adored Constanze and she him. He died probably of a combination of rheumatic fever and kidney failure, struggling in his dying moments to finish his Requiem. He was 35 years old. He started composing brilliantly at five.

The last shot of the doc was the stack of his compositions - up up up, reaching to the ceiling. A sublime and hardworking genius of the highest order. It made me glad, once more, to be a human being alive on this earth where such glory exists. The same planet where lunatics and fanatics slaughter their fellow men. I'd rather focus on Mozart.

One nice moment for me particularly - the doc interviewed all kinds of experts about his music and life, often watching them play his music. One, talking about Mozart's professionalism, said, "It's like Lennon and McCartney in the Sixties - the reason they were so successful was that like Mozart, they took the writing seriously." John, Paul and Wolfgang ... works for me.