Back in Cleveland

Actually I'm in Westlake but who really cares. I'm glad to be done with the festival even though it was fun and productive. It's nice to be back to normalcy. I have some work to do getting my place back in order but it will be a good break from my excerpt work every so often.

I've read a couple books recently. Tender Warriorby Stu Weber and Adolf Hitler: A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture Art and Musicby Sherree O. Zalampas.

Stu Weber's book was a great encouragement. It's about what God wants a real man to be. I suggest this book to any man who is looking for encouragement in being manly, not in the typical sense but in the real sense of what the purpose of a man is as opposed to woman. Unfortunately men sometimes aren't manly and women aren't womanly. Animals don't seem to have this obvious lack of common sense. You'd think that it would be easy for a man to be manly but there are fewer examples of manliness every day, making it harder to model.

You may be asking what I mean by "manliness," well...read the book.

The book I read about Hitler was interesting because it gave Hitler's views on culture and the broader scope of what he was trying to do culturally, in art, architecture, and music. Interestingly enough literature and film were not discussed even though they are tied directly to the three subjects that are covered in the book. The book got immediately boring when the psychology aspect of it was discussed but thankfully the author saw fit to compartmentalize it in to one chapter. Easily avoidable. :)

On Monday I spent the day in Cleveland with Jakub (a violinist from the Czech Republic who was at the festival) before taking him to the airport. He's supposed to send pictures so I'll put them up when I get them. Here's a picture of him from my friend's blog (they were roommates at the festival).