Tag: Throwback: John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

On the evening of September 11, 2005, I returned home from a day job working as an Editorial Assistant at a small, Midtown Manhattan-based, family-owned book publisher of bilingual dictionaries and phrasebooks and international cuisine cookbook to my father cooking and playing John Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme.

My father was a very troubled man with whom I had a uneasy and difficult relationship for a significant portion of my life. But for some reason, playing Coltrane’s gorgeous and meditative opus on a day of such horror and terror seems like a fitting response. And it’s quickly become an annual tradition for me.

As always cherish life — especially today.

Throwback by William Ruben Helms

On September 11, 2005, I had returned home from a day job working as an Editorial Assistant at a small, independent and family-run publisher of bilingual dictionaries, bilingual phrasebooks and international cuisine cookbooks in Midtown Manhattan to my father cooking in the kitchen and playing John Coltrane‘s A Love Supreme. Since then it has become a personal tradition that has also extended to this site. In light of such terrifying events that have reverberated in the lives of so many people here in New York and elsewhere across this planet, it seems appropriate to turn towards something that’s profoundly beautiful.

3,000 New Yorkers died that morning. And for their loved ones, there isn’t such a thing as closure. But somehow they’ve managed to keep on keeping on, moving forward as best as they can. So to that end, cherish life, cherish the small things today and every single day.