Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos

PUBLIC NOTICE

Vleeptron will be inactive for the next 2 or 3 or 4 days.

My beloved brother Maury passed away at his apartment in his beloved Silver Spring, Maryland USA, and his Unitarian-Universalist church -- he was its Music Big Cheese for decades, and many other things of great value to lots of people -- will hold a memorial service on Wednesday. Then a shiva -- that translates pretty near as a Jewish wake -- at his son David's house.

He loved this poem, made famous in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

* * *

Funeral Blues
by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks 
of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.