big william's world

Things to note about this beemer combination! - Earles forks (on the front) with leading link swinging arms - this gives much more rigidity to the steering, which in a motorcycle and sidecar combination is about the most asymmetrical, unstable arrangement you can imagine. Turning left is an entirely different experience from turning right.
On the rear there is plunger suspension - the predecessor to swinging arm suspension - one step ahead of just having springs under the seat.
Where is the culture? I hear you ask well BMW's are about as cultured a motorcycle as you can get.
Well as I was just eating macaroni and cheese (please enlighten me about the cholesterol content thereof) and listening to Richard Strauss' "Four Last Songs"
Because? well I just read Philip Roth's latest book "Exit Ghost" - which I think is my favorite of all the ones I have read - which include, Goodbye Columbus, Everyman, The Human Stain and American Pastoral.
In Exit Ghost he is a recluse writer who falls in love with a much younger woman writer, much to his surprise since he is old and impotent. They exchange houses for a short time - she moves to his recluse place in upstate New York and he moves back to Manhattan. They have in common a love of music and in particular these "Four Last Songs" with which I was not familiar but from their excellent descriptions of them I knew I would love them and I do.
They were the four last things Strauss wrote and he finished them in 1948 the year I was born. They were first performed in 1950 in the Albert Hall.
Strauss was an exact contemporary of Mahler and this music has the wonderful soprano parts one hears in Mahler. Strauss's wife Pauline was a soprano.
The peacefulness of the piece reminded me of Mahler's 10 symphony - which depicts his own slow, very peaceful death.
(I just wrote all this out of my head but I will be delighted if any pedants want to correct me on anything.)
Please try to listen to these slices of serenity - which seem all the more serene when eating cheese!