HEAVEN REMAINS A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION

Bad and good news from The New York Time this morning:

The country passed 12 million cases, adding one million new cases in the past week alone. New daily cases are approaching 200,000: On Friday, the country recorded more than 198,500, a record.

Pfizer’s vaccine is now being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use and Moderna’s may not be far behind. The first Americans could get a vaccine by the middle of December.

Separately, the F.D.A. granted emergency authorization for the Regeneron antibody treatment given to Mr. Trump after he was diagnosed with Covid-19.

Finally, about President Donald Trump and the rest of the World:

Heads of state of the world’s richest countries and the European Union spoke about the battle against the coronavirus and potential debt relief for poor countries hit hard by the pandemic.

President Trump briefly participated in the summit from the White House, but skipped the event on pandemic preparedness and instead headed to his Virginia country club for a round of golf.

One final bit about our golfing president:

How timely, but some of the following came from a dream I had last night:

• President Trump puts on a full course press with key state Republican legislatures to pick electoral voters to favor him, but pulls back because too many high-level Republican politicians and leading company execs express their outrage.  

• 
  He then turns to his ultimate strategy for becoming president for life.  He has the Department of Defense support him to just stay in office.  Immediately, his cronies, Vlad, Jong, Jin, Benny and Sally endorse his leadership.  Sally?  King Salman, the Royal Assassinator.

• 
  This has not been a particularly merciful period for Trump, as Someone up there seems to be going out of His way to cripple the President's efforts.  It's unclear if Trump succumbs to morbid obesity on a golf course or merely jumps in a lake, but the result is that democracy is restored.  

• 
  Joe Biden becomes president and 
• bipartisan cooperation results in a national infrastructure plan plus the beginning of a Green New Deal to remediate global warming, 

• 
  international cooperation leading, over the next few decades, to reducing world population, ameliorating poverty, and 
• in time, WORLD PEACE.  
• You could almost say that the Trump after affect stimulated unprecedented progress.

• 
  Elon Musk lands on Mars, planting the Tesla flag, declaring ownership over the planet.  
• Sadly, it is determined that he is stuck there because he has exceeded a lifetime radiation of cosmic rays in the two-year journey to the Red globe.  
• Space exploitation ends for another century or maybe even millennium until a solution can be found for safe space travel.

• 
  However, signals are received from another galaxy, ala the movie CONTACT, and science converts them into an Encylopedia Galactica.  One part of the treatise says to send robots into space.

• 
  The next obvious challenge for Humanity becomes the Blue Revolution, creating a new frontier for human progress.

• 
  In 2021, in the vicinity of where the Tsar Bomba (largest Hydrogen Bomb--1500 times more powerful than the A-bomb over Hiroshima and 10 times more than all the munitions expended during WW2) exploded near the island of Severny Island of Russia in 1961, a portal was opened to a parallel world.  See my posting of yesterday about Counterpart.  By 2035 the two worlds establish peaceful cooperation so that the Universal Cup is held in Berlin between the best teams in each, China and Brazil.  Brazil Earth beats China Other in a close match.  After 74 years, the two worlds have become significantly different.  China is #1 in our parallel twin.

• 
  However, in 2050 advanced geophysical measurements hint that there might be yet another portal under the Chicxulub crater where 66 million years ago an asteroid approximately 7.5 miles wide crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula.

• 
  This is the event that killed off the dinosaurs and 75% of life.
• When connected, what will this third world look like?
• Will there still be dinosaurs?
• Humans?

• 
  Then around 2100 another anomaly is detected on Australia, where modeling studies indicated that 4.5 billion years ago an ancient planet Orpheus collided with Earth at just about this site, with the debris forming the Moon.  When this portal is opened:
• Will there be life?
• Could there be a civilization hundreds of millions of years more advanced?

Alas, 80 years from now, Heaven remains a figment of your imagination.

Song #36 will be either:

• String Quintet in E:  Luigi Bocherini
• Barcarolle:  Jacques Offenbach.
• Lullaby:  Johannes Brahms

The String Quintet in E major, O. 11, No. 5 (G 275) was written by Luigi Boccherini in 1771, with a focus on the cello.  Of particular noteworthiness is the third movement, referred to as the Celebrated Minuet.  Born in Italy, Boccherini flourished under royal patronage in the Spanish court.  While on his death in 1805 he was buried in Spain, Benito Mussolini in 1927 had Luigi's remains repatriated to Lucca, his birthplace.

The Barcarolle is from The Tales of Hoffman, Jacques Offenbach's final opera in 1881.  This is a duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano.  Actually, this piece was first written in 1864 for another opera.  The 1997 film Life is Beautiful used this tune to contrast European culture with Fascist oppression.  Offenbach is a German-born (Cologne in 1819) French composer.  He, too, like Boccherini, was a cellist.  In the 1860's Offenbach produced 18 full-length operettas.  He passed away in 1880 just before the premiere.

Here is one list of the 10 most memorable classical music composers.  Brahms is the only one of the three in that compilation.  Here is a quote from a posting of five years ago:

While Johannes Brahms has been credited with, perhaps, 160 classical pieces, his Lullaby is his universal gift to Humanity.  Known by many as the Cradle Song, the original was entitled Wigenlied: Guten Abend, Gute Nacht (good evening, good night), and while there is nothing to substantiate this statement, I've read that it is the most played or sung of anything ever composed.    Hear 4 hours of this blissfulness....or 12 hours of calm.  Place into your iPod to put you to sleep tonight.

Johannes Brahms is a German composer and pianist born in Hamburg in 1833.  He practiced mainly in Vienna and was a friend of Johann Strauss II, who was eight years older.  He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethovan as one of the Three B's of music.  Here is his top ten, and note that Lullaby (8 hours long) is missing.  #1 is Symphony no. 4 in E minor, Op.98.  While that might have been obscure for some, surely you are familiar with his Hungarian Dance No. 5.  His Lullaby (Wiegenlied) is my #36.

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