January 10, 2003
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Something Wonderful
In keeping with this evening’s earlier entry “Story,” and with W. M. Spackman’s discussion of Greek equivalents of the word “wonderful” in Homer and Sophocles in his book On the Decay of Humanism (p. 6), tonight’s site music is “Something Wonderful,” from “The King and I.”
A book I think is wonderful,
in a rather more mundane sense than that of Sophocles, is
The World in Tune, by
Elizabeth Gray Vining,
tutor to Crown Prince Akihito
during the American occupation of Japan.
Mrs. Vining died on November 27, 1999, at the age of 97.
From a web page on Mrs. Vining:
“Friends report that even in her last years, around the time of her birthday [Oct. 6] a sleek diplomatic limousine would pull up at Kendal, and disgorge the Japanese ambassador, often accompanied by a large spray of sumptuous flowers, for a courtesy call on behalf of her former pupil, now the emperor.”
