in the volume of life are the highest forms of consciousness, and it is in this childishly speculative state of mind, so different from commonsense and its logic, that we know the world to be good. Monday, May 14, 2007 An Allemande has two halves. There is something about this "two-halviness" that I think often gets forgotten, or taken for granted. For me the following image is useful: suppose the first half of the dance is a drawing. Now for the second half, imagine Bach putting a piece of tracing paper over the first drawing ... and retracing it, but not exactly, and then pausing and removing an arm from the original drawing and putting in another face, or part of a totally different drawing ... In other words, he is passing over the ideas of the first half, but the translation is free, the words are affected, refracted, changed. The image of tracing paper is compelling to me, because it partly veils the original, the veil of the past. Studious analysts, we can go through and chart all the alterations, note the composer's developmental handiwork (here's x, and here's y, and they are reordered, etc. etc.) ... Whoa ... that is one screwed-up anagram ... but after you catalog all the changes, and reorderings, you are left with just this disheartening data and you may find yourself wondering what is it all for? It is the already-heard-ness of it that is amazing... and perhaps often ignored ... In the