bless Capt. von Trapp’s homeland for ever

In one of the essays collected in Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman writes abou the pleasure of reading a book in its perfect setting: John Wesley Powell’s memoirs while camping during a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, Wordswort in the Lake Country and so on. I agree with Fadiman (who must spot this blog a lot if she ever does any vanity Googling), but there’s a similar pleasure to singing a song in the perfect setting. On March 9, 1983, I made sure to sing a certain song from The Sound of Music – it was the last day I could honestly sing “I am sixteen, going on seventeen”. My song today might not have been quite as perfectly set, what with being in a car that was distinctly out of period – but today I got to sing “Edelweiss” while traveling through the mountains of Austria.