I pride myself on the ability to connect dots among seemingly unrelated topics when in conversation with other people. Whether memories or music, poetry or prose, commentary or conjecture, I like being able to conjure up a conversational tangent that ends up illuminating the whole of what was initially being discussed. Quoting film and television is no exception.

Every now and then, I find that I have been quoting something incorrectly for years. Always amusing and humbling in nature, this tends to happen when I am merging philosophical ideas. For instance, the quote from Yoda, in The Empire Strikes Back, is, “Always in motion is the future.” For years, decades actually, I heard, “Always EMOTION is the future”.

I kid you not, I did not catch this error until a few years ago, and yet, there is a surprising amount of truth in my misquoted version. Emotion does dictate what one’s next steps will be, inevitably leading to the future. Our emotions are in various states of flux, in motion, if you will.

Another example of my misquoting helped shape the title of my blog, and it highlights a musical, even spiritual devotion to the journey that I am on. The Central Line. It begins with a set of cd’s with two names in large print. MAHLER/BERNSTEIN.

My introduction to Leonard Bernstein, during my undergraduate years of study, is a life marker for me. I was 19. I saw a set of cd’s with two names in large print. MAHLER/BERNSTEIN. This set of cd’s was a baptism into two artists whose influences in my life cannot be understated. Thankfully, this is not an isolated phenomenon for either artist, but Bernstein’s influence reaches us all at one point or another. Sad to think that in his final days, he was seen shouting at the sky, cursing God for seemingly not being given enough time to feel fulfilled. I’d like to think that in the end, he made peace with it all. His analysis of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde made me feel like he had mastered the art of feeling at peace with the end. He magically and masterfully illuminated the finale’s story about a character that seemingly merges into the nothingness of space, into eternity. “Evig, evig…”

Leonard Bernstein took the time to give as much insight as he could to anyone who would listen. The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (tv series) was such a gift from him to the public. There was also a six part lecture series he gave at Harvard, titled: The Unanswered Question after a piece by Charles Ives. The piece by Charles Ives is worth exploring in and of itself, but the lecture series? It is the Holy Grail of musical and poetic understanding, and if you connect with it, it will shape you in a way that applies to everything you will ever do. The key to it all? The Central Line.

The Central Line (part 2 coming shortly). Sorry for the post being split up.