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This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets) February 7, 2012 Kathleen Hennessey and Christi Parsons: Obama not worried that birth-control move will hurt his re-election chances with Catholics, other faithful Caroline B. Glick: Obama's rhetorical storm Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design David Francis: How to Avoid an IRS Audit The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: These homemade energy bars (3 recipes) are far better workout fuel than commercial ones, packing power and taste February 6, 2012 Scott Peterson: Iran's top ayatollah: We're trumping the West Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland' Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good Philip Moeller: Where Smart Investors Put Their Money Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard? The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: Vegetable Frittata --- leftovers never tasted so scrumptious February 3, 2012 Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein: Living with ideals --- in reality Caroline B. Glick: Fool me twice Jonathan Tobin : Adelsonphobia Strikes in Nevada Caucus Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US Kimberly Palmer : 8 Ways to Get Ready for Retirement Now Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Durand: A quick cookie recipe: Hazelnut and Olive Oil Shortbread: Sweet, Nutty, and Savory February 2, 2012 Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt : Welcome Home, Governor Perry Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran Kelsey Sheehy : 5 Tips for Choosing an M.B.A. Concentration Rachel Koning Beals : Investors Increasingly Tap Social Media for Stock Tips Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Savory vegetable pie is a taste of European bistro with minimal effort and maximal flavor February 1, 2012 Nara Schoenberg: What to do when you've been dissed Michelle Malkin: First, They Came for the Catholics Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran Lisa M. Krieger: Possible breakthrough in preventing Alzheimer's Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures Susan Johnston: 5 Apps for Organizing Your Expenses at Tax Time The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The famed chef's Broccoli and White Bean Soup can easily be a lunch in itself, or a nice antipasto --- and is hard to mess up January 31, 2012 Paul Greenberg: Separation of Church and State works two ways Caroline B. Glick: Hamas and the Washington establishment Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: Uncle Sam is joining in efforts to crack down on Islamists' critics Danielle Kurtzleben: The 10 Worst Cities for Finding a Job Laura McMullen: 3 Tips to Overcome a Bad Grade in College The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Durand: Orzo dish mixes plump, chewy grains with caramelized onions, garlic, mushrooms and sweet potato January 30, 2012 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Blind faith and physics Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers Menachem Wecker: 3 Do's and Don'ts for Healthy Studying in College The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Butternut Squash Gratin with Tomato Fondue is a combination of the sweet and creamy January 27, 2012 Rabbi Berel Wein: What Pharaoh can teach us sophisticates about being stubborn Caroline B. 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Jewish World Review March 11, 2008 / 4 Adar II 5768 What is a genius? We use the word frequently but surely, to guard its meaning, we should bestow it seldom By Paul Johnson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | To me, a genius is a person whose gift contains an element of the inexplicable, not to be accounted for by heredity, upbringing, background, exertions and talents, however noble. Thus, we can't account for the extraordinary imagination of Chaucer, the vintner's son, brought up at a military-minded court. Equally, where Shakespeare got or acquired his magic is a mystery. By contrast, Jane Austen, though one of the greatest of novelists — and my personal favourite — is a straightforward case of a clever girl, brought up in the congenial environment of a reading family, with its jokes, theatricals, verse-writing and wide acquaintance, who used her natural wit and sharp gift of observation, helped by her appreciative but critical siblings, to create a new kind of realistic fiction. No mystery there, whereas Dickens, coming from nowhere and nothing, to explode his Sketches by Boz and Pickwick Papers as a superbly self-confident young master, is an enigma. We can't explain it, any more than we can explain why Kipling, at 18, wrote so truthfully and enchantingly about the secrets of human hearts, of both sexes and many races. When I was 12 or 13, and first making incursions into the musical repertoire, my idea of a genius was Arturo Toscanini. He was then conducting New York's NBC Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra he virtually created and which was disbanded after his retirement. I contrived to hear him conducting all Beethoven's symphonies, either on records or on the wireless, and they are still my ideal of how they should be played; rightly so, for his fidelity both to the score and the spirit and intention of the composer was his lifelong object, achieved so comprehensibly that he changed the art of conducting for good. He looked the part too: not tall, in fact, though he seemed immense at the rostrum, but gloriously handsome with fierce, penetrating eyes and an expression of such masterful intensity as to make you gasp; a terror to the idle, incompetent, insincere or anyone who did not take great music with total seriousness. Toscanini came from Parma, where they certainly had always taken all the arts seriously. His father was nothing much: a tailor by trade who made a bare living, or less. His chief interest in life was politics. He had been a follower of Garibaldi, and his proudest possession was his red shirt, worn as a militant irredentist. His family was lucky if they got enough to eat. On the other hand, in his tailor's shop, men used to congregate to read aloud poetry and dramas and to sing opera. It was an age and a place where art was more important than a full stomach or a comfortable dwelling. When young Toscanini showed signs of musical talent, even his father, lazy though he was, stirred himself to get the boy into the local conservatoire, and eventually succeeded, Arturo specialising in the cello. He was then nine, and he was there nine years. It was then (1877) a fearsome place, dirty and insanitary; cold in winter. The food was disgusting, often fish bought cheap because it was going rotten, and the nastiest wine. There was only one water closet and no baths: the boys, who wore military uniform, went once a year for a bath at the town hospital. They slept on palliasses of straw, changed infrequently, and the dormitory stank. The boys were rarely allowed out. Discipline was strict and punishments severe. When Toscanini failed to button up his uniform properly, he was locked up in a small room with his cello. After some hours, he called the custodian and asked permission to go to the lavatory. He was told: 'No! Control yourself!' In the end he was obliged to pee into his cello, and when this was later discovered, he was further punished. Yet Toscanini emerged at the end of nine years an accomplished musician with an extraordinary knowledge of the repertoire. His memory was prodigious, perhaps the best in the whole history of music. It was this particular gift, assisted by ceaseless industry and application, and by huge self-discipline and concentration, which pushed him into the magic circle of genius. At 18, his first job was with a third-rate travelling opera company which toured Brazil. In Rio, the local conductor, a Brazilian, had to be sacked for incompetence. His Italian substitute, from the company, was booed even before he could begin to conduct, and he fled from the theatre. In despair the manager turned to 18-year-old Toscanini, still playing cello but known to be an all-rounder. The young man took over. The opera was Aida — long, difficult and exhausting. He used no score. He knew it by heart. He soon had the audience hushed, the company playing and singing their best, and the evening was a triumph. Here was a victory of genius over circumstances, and though Toscanini's subsequent ascent to the rostra of La Scala and the Metropolitan was by no means smooth, his destiny was fixed. I don't know of any other case in which memory played so important a part in the evolution of a genius. At 18, it seems, Toscanini already knew 50 operas by heart, and the number eventually rose to over 100. He never wore glasses, either from vanity or more likely because he could not find a pair to suit him. Perfect memory of a score was therefore indispensable to him. It was also a godsend, for if a conductor can avoid constant reference to a score, and all the business of turning pages, he can concentrate on the players and singers much more intently and comfortably. And it goes without saying that he knows the score in a way which mere familiarity through reading will never permit. It meant that Toscanini could go straight to the heart of great music to grasp the composer's intentions. So his memory was the means whereby he dragged the musical world into a new era of conducting and authenticity — beginning with the first proper performance of the cliché-encrusted Trovatore at La Scala. No wonder the aged Verdi once sent him a telegram, after a performance of Otello, which read simply: 'Grazie, grazie, grazie.' The way in which a particular single gift, like Toscanini's memory, heightened to an almost unimaginable pitch, becomes the key to genius, can be illustrated by other examples. Vermeer, for instance, had such unwavering control over his brush that he put the paint on the canvas without appearing to do so with any physical action of his own. It is as though it floated down to settle with total accuracy on the place designated by his mind. This skill, without parallel in the history of painting, was the key to his particular genius, which was to render stillness and make it living, even dynamic. Some writers have a particular skill in bending and twisting words to a special purpose. What raised Mark Twain from being merely an exceptionally resourceful (and ruthless) writer to the genius level was his skill with dialects: he uses seven, all distinct and perfect in Huckleberry Finn. Again, it is hopeless to single out the special skill in Shakespeare, because he had so many. But if one had to choose, I would say it is his brilliant dialogue: terse, direct, exciting to speak and hastening on the action at a terrific lick — as for instance in Macbeth, act two, scene two. Dialogue of this quality has not been bettered in the four centuries since the play was written. Or again, in the case of Tchaikovsky, the sheer invention and beauty of the melodic line are the title deeds to genius. I often think of this, and the poor man's sad, solitary death, a victim of harsh convention, when I sing that moving song, 'None but the lonely heart'. We cannot explain genius but we can salute it. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. BUY THE BOOK Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here. Previously: 03/03/08:Fiction as a crutch to get one through life 02/26/08: Impatience + Greed = Trouble 02/13/08: Shakespeare, Neo-Platonism and Princess Diana 02/07/08: Where Industry Has Failed Us 12/19/07: People who put their trust in human power delude themselves 12/12/07: What is aggression? 12/04/07: Pursuing success is not enough 11/07/07: Are famous writers accident-prone? 10/31/07: Courage needed to disarm Iran 09/20/07: Who Will Say ‘I Promise to Lay Off’? 07/24/07: Greed is safer than power-seeking 04/02/07: Benefactors must be hardheaded 03/07/07: American idealism and realpolitik 11/28/06: Space: Our ticket to survival 10/24/06: Envy is bad economics 10/11/06: Better to Borrow or Lend? Rethinking conventional wisdom 08/22/06: Don't practice legal terrorism 08/08/06: A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike 08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music? 07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity 07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives 06/06/06: First editions are not gold 05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty ones 04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties? 04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies! 04/05/06: For the love of trains 03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture 03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast 03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover 03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper 02/28/06: Creators versus critics 02/21/06: The Rhino Principle © 2006, Paul Johnson

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