These are tightly packed, severely constructed works; with their intense intellectualism and their ethereal exquisiteness, these two cycles of colossal miniatures are worthy to stand alongside Chopin's Nocturnes and Brahms's intermezzi; yet their lofty virtues of severity and intimacy are among the reasons why they have been largely overlooked in the shuffle of musical history.
"They are four characters in search of an objective correlative, their intimacies obstructed by lofty words -- honesty, cowardice, love -- that seem, after a while, to mean nothing at all," A. O. Scott wrote in The Times.
Strange, too, was that only by choosing to view it this way, from a perspective fusing the grimiest intimacy with the loftiest abstraction, did it seem necessary, or even worthwhile.
While the sweep is less dramatic than that from the lofty heights of the Eiffel Tower, this intimacy is perhaps more appropriate for a city where most everything remains at human scale.
The curator, Maxwell K. Hearn of the Met's Asian art department, has given the museum's lofty Chinese painting and calligraphy galleries the intimacy of a teaching collection, with a limited number of objects accompanied by short labels and photographic enlargements of details.
And with the New York Times reporting that 5% of Americans are 6'2 or taller, it seems there are plenty of other economy-class fliers crammed into their seats, rubbing knees in awkward intimacy with their neighbours.The paper offers various recommendations for lofty travellers, and identifies particularly sympathetic airlines and hotels.
Cummings's voice is indeed lofty and formal, commanding and almost lordly — its tone goes against the playfulness of his poems, and especially against the intimacy that Kennedy recalls about her longtime association with the words.
Yet the intimacy remained.
Intimacy is our currency.
