Lifting your spirits

On such a day as this, what can you do to lift your spirits without forgetting the atrocities of last night?

I recommend music, especially music that represents the best of the culture that is presently under attack. Listening to the best of the west is almost like an act of defiance, a reminder that this is what we're defending against the nihilists.

So what works then? Jean Sibelius' 2nd Symphony is presently doing wonders for me. Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Thomas Tallis' has also hit the spot, and I fully expect Jesse Norman's rendition of Richard Strauss' 'Four Last Songs' and Wagner's five 'Wesendonck' lieder to do it for me shortly. And I note Craig is listening to and enjoying Noel Coward's 'London Pride,' as I did earlier when I followed the link he posted.

And even Radio New Zealand have offered something to look forward to. Tomorrow afternoon they begin a two-part programme on, in my estimation, America's greatest composer: Duke Ellington. (Word has it that RNZ have their programming streamed somewhere, but I'm blowed if I can work out where.) And Duke perhaps should have the last word on rising above adversity: "I merely took the energy it would have taken to pout," he used to say, " and I wrote some blues." And such effortless-seeming blues they are too. I can't wait.