Thursday, October 17, 2024


"What's the matter, Tough Guy? Someone grab you by the pussy?"

Playing

Various Artists
RADIO DAYS
Selections from the Original Soundtrack of the Motion Picture

Playing

Various Artists
STARDUST MEMORIES
Music from the Motion Picture


TIMOTHY SNYDER
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

As observers of totalitarianism such as Victor Klemperer noticed, truth dies in four modes, all of which we have just witnessed.

The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld.

The second mode is shamanistic incantation. As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless repetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable. The systematic use of nicknames such as “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself. Yet through blunt repetition over Twitter, our president managed the transformation of individuals into stereotypes that people then spoke aloud. At rallies, the repeated chants of “Build that wall” and “Lock her up” did not describe anything that the president had specific plans to do, but their very grandiosity established a connection between him and his audience.

The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction. The president’s campaign involved the promises of cutting taxes for everyone, eliminating the national debt, and increasing spending on both social policy and national defense. These promises mutually contradict. It is as if a farmer said he were taking an egg from the henhouse, boiling it whole and serving it to his wife, and also poaching it and serving it to his children, and then returning it to the hen unbroken, and then watching as the chick hatches.

Accepting untruth of this radical kind requires a blatant abandonment of reason. Klemperer’s descriptions of losing friends in Germany in 1933 over the issue of magical thinking ring eerily true today. One of his former students implored him to “abandon yourself to your feelings, and you must always focus on the Führer’s greatness, rather than on the discomfort you are feeling at present.” Twelve years later, after all the atrocities, and at the end of a war that Germany had clearly lost, an amputated soldier told Klemperer that Hitler “has never lied yet. I believe in Hitler.”

The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant. At the end of the war a worker told Klemperer that “understanding is useless, you have to have faith. I believe in the Führer.”



Daily Painting

Jean Hélion
L'HOMME À LA CRAVATE TORDUE [MAN WITHA CROOKED TIE] (1943)

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

STRANGE DARLING
JT Mollner
USA, 2024


Playing

Philip Glass
KUNDUN
Music from the Original Soundtrack

Michael Riesman

Daily Painting

Jean Dubuffet
PORTRAIT D'HOMME [PORTRAIT OF A MAN] (1957)

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

TIN CAN MAN
Ivan Kavanagh
Ireland, 2007

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

THE FEAST
[GWLEDD]

Lee Haven Jones
Wales, 2021



Playing

TRUMPET CONCERTOS
Sergei Nakariakov

Jesus Lopez-Cobos
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne

-

- André Jolivet - Concertino for Trumpet, Piano, and Strings
- Henri Tomasi - Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra
- Johann Nepomuk Hummel - Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major
- Joseph Haydn - Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major


MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
Fascism: A Warning

We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be most useful to ask, perhaps we should begin by discerning what our prospective leaders believe it worthwhile for us to hear.

Do they cater to our prejudices by suggesting that we treat people outside our ethnicity, race, creed or party as unworthy of dignity and respect?

Do they want us to nurture our anger toward those who we believe have done us wrong, rub raw our grievances and set our sights on revenge?

Do they encourage us to have contempt for our governing institutions and the electoral process?

Do they seek to destroy our faith in essential contributors to democracy, such as an independent press, and a professional judiciary?

Do they exploit the symbols of patriotism, the flag, the pledge in a conscious effort to turn us against one another?

If defeated at the polls, will they accept the verdict, or insist without evidence they have won?

Do they go beyond asking about our votes to brag about their ability to solve all problems put to rest all anxieties and satisfy every desire?

Do they solicit our cheers by speaking casually and with pumped up machismo about using violence to blow enemies away?

Do they echo the attitude of Musolini: “The crowd doesn’t have to know, all they have to do is believe and submit to being shaped.”?

Or do they invite us to join with them in building and maintaining a healthy center for our society, a place where rights and duties are apportioned fairly, the social contract is honored, and all have room to dream and grow.

The answers to these questions will not tell us whether a prospective leader is left or right-wing, conservative or liberal, or, in the American context, a Democrat or a Republican. However, they will tell us much that we need to know about those wanting to lead us, and much also about ourselves.

For those who cherish freedom, the answers will provide grounds for reassurance, or, a warning we dare not ignore.



Daily Painting

Robert Motherwell
UNTITLED [IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE] (1941)

Monday, October 14, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

WHEN EVIL LURKS
[CUANDO ACECHA LA MALDAD]

Demián Rugna
Argentina, 2023


Playing

Nicola Benedetti
HOMECOMING - A SCOTTISH FANTASY

Rory Macdonald
Julie Fowlis, Phil Cunningham, Aly Bain
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra


BERTOLT BRECHT
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

If we could learn to look instead of gawking,
We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,
If only we could act instead of talking,
We wouldn't always end up on our arse.
This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;
Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!
Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.



Daily Painting

Carole Vanderlinden
ESCARMOUCHE [SKIRMISH] (2019)

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024 Edition

CURE
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 1997



Playing

Nino Rota
SYMPHONY NO. 3 IN C MAJOR

Ole Kristian Ruud
Hannu Koivula
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

-

- Symphony No. 3 in C Major (1957)
- Concerto Festivo in F Major (1958-61)
- Le Molière Imaginaire - Ballet Suite (1976/78)


LEON WIESELTIER
Kaddish

Surely it is foolish to hate facts. The struggle against the past is a futile struggle. Acceptance seems so much more like wisdom. I know all this. And yet there are some facts that one must never, never accept. This is not merely an emotional matter. The reason that one must hate certain facts is that one must prepare for the possibility of their return. 

If the past were really past, then one might permit oneself an attitude of acceptance, and come away from the study of history with a feeling of serenity. But the past is often only an earlier instantiation of the evil in our hearts. It is not precisely the case that history repeats itself. We repeat history—or we do not repeat it, if we choose to stand in the way of its repetition. For this reason, it is one of the purposes of the study of history that we learn to oppose it.



Daily Painting

Odilon Redon
BUDDHA WALKING AMONG THE FLOWERS (1905)

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024 Edition

THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
Michael Felker
USA, 2024

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Playing

Green Day
DOOKIE

Daily Painting

Rasoul Ashtary
MEN ARE LUNATICS IN THE DESERT (2022)

Friday, October 11, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

TERRIFIER

Damien Leone
USA, 2016

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

ALL HALLOW'S EVE
Damien Leone
USA, 2013


Playing

Philip Glass
AKHNATEN

Karen Kamensek

Zachary James, Richard Bernstein, Aaron Blake, Will Liverman, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Disella Lárusdóttir, J'Nai Bridges,

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus


TREVOR NOAH
On The View - October 10, 2024

What does it say about a country when the people feel thy need to find scapegoats?



Daily Painting

Vincent van Gogh
THE GARDEN OF SAINT PAUL'S HOSPITAL (LEAF-FALL) (1889)

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

STOPMOTION
Robert Morgan
UK, 2024

America First?

Playing

Johannes Brahms
PIANO QUINTET IN F MINOR, OP. 34
STRING QUARTET NO. 1 IN C MINOR, OP. 51
STRING QUARTET NO. 3 IN B FLAT MAJOR, OP. 67

Takács Quartet
András Schiff

 

WILHELM RÖPKE
The German Question

Whether in Bolshevism, Fascism, or Nazism, we meet continually with the forcible and ruthless usurpation of the power of the State by a minority drawn from the masses, resting on their support, flattering them and threatening them at the same time; a minority led by a charismatic leader and brazenly identifying itself with the State.

It is a tyranny that does away with all the guarantees of the constitutional State, constituting as the only party the minority that has created it, furnishing that party with far-reaching judicial and administrative functions, and permitting within the whole life of the nation no groups, no activities, no opinions, no associations or religions, no publications, no educational institutions, no business transactions, that are not dependent on the will of the Government.

Daily Painting

Jakub Schikaneder
SYMBOLICKÝ VÝJEV [SYMBOLLIC SCENE} (1895-97)

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Watching HorrorFest 2024

THIRST
[박쥐]

Park Chan-wook
Korea, 2009

Of course. 

MAGAts wouldn't buy their blasphemy from anywhere else.

More here.



Playing

FACCE D'AMORE

Jakub Józef Orlinski
Il Pomo d'Oro

Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse
July 21, 2021

-

Arias by Nicola Matteis, Giovanni Antonio Boretti, Giovanni Bononcini, Francesco Bartolomeo Conti, Luca Antonio Predieri, Pietro Antonio Locatelli, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Nicola Fago, George Frideric Handel


SAMUEL BECKETT
Malone Dies

Let us say before I go any further, that I forgive nobody. I wish them all an atrocious life in the fires of icy hell and in the execrable generations to come.



Daily Painting

Júlio Pomar
LUSITÂNIA NO BAIRRO LATINO (1985)
[LUSITANIA IN THE LATIN QUARTER]

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH
Sergio Bergonzelli
Italy-Spain, 1970

Absolute lunatic. 

The very best the State of Georgia has to offer.

Playing

PJ Harvey
THE HOPE SIX DEMOLITION PROJECT


EDNA O'BRIEN
The Light of Evening

Never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature’s assiduousness and human cruelty.



Daily Painting

Helen Frankenthaler
CRUSADES (1976)

Monday, October 7, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

IL DEMONIO
Brunello Rondi
Italy, 1963

Playing

Dinosaur Jr.
WHERE YOU BEEN


ALICE CORBIN HENDERSON
“From the Stone Age”

Long ago some one carved me in the semblance of a god.
I have forgot now what god I was meant to represent.
I have no consciousness now but of stone, sunlight, and rain;
The sun baking my skin of stone, the wind lifting my hair;
The sun’s light is hot upon me,
The moon’s light is cool,
Casting a silver-laced pattern of light and dark
Over the planes of my body:
My thoughts now are the thoughts of a stone,
My substance now is the substance of life itself;
I have sunk deep into life as one sinks into sleep;
Life is above me, below me, around me,
Moving through my pores of stone—
It does not matter how small the space you pack life in,
That space is as big as the universe—
Space, volume, and the overtone of volume
Move through me like chords of music,
Like the taste of happiness in the throat,
Which you fear to lose, though it may choke you—
(In the cities this is not known,
For space there is emptiness,
And time is torment) . . . . .
Since I became a stone
I have no need to remember anything—
Everything is remembered for me;
I live and I think and I dream as a stone,
In the warm sunlight, in the grey rain;
All my surfaces are touched to softness
By the light fingers of the wind,
The slow dripping of rain:
My body retains only faintly the image
It was meant to represent,
I am more beautiful and less rigid,
I am a part of space,
Time has entered into me,
Life has passed through me—
What matter the name of the god I was meant to represent?



Daily Painting

Ralph Steadman
PORTRAIT OF GEORGE ORWELL (1995)

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Watching
HorrorFest 2024

MONOLITH
Matt Vesely
Australia, 2022

Reading

Susan Sontag
ON PHOTOGRAPHY

Playing

Bonnie "Prince" Billy
KEEPING SECRETS WILL DESTROY YOU


SUSAN SONTAG
On Photography

For [Diane] Arbus, both freaks and Middle America were equally exotic: a boy marching in a pro-war parade and a Levittown housewife were as alien as a dwarf or a transvestite; lower-middle-class suburbia was as remote as Times Square, lunatic asylums, and gay bars. Arbus's work expressed her turn against what was public (as she experienced it), conventional, safe, reassuring--and boring--in favor of what was private, hidden, ugly, dangerous, and fascinating. These contrasts, now, seem almost quaint. What is safe no long monopolizes public imagery. The freakish is no longer a private zone, difficult of access. People who are bizarre, in sexual disgrace, emotionally vacant are seen daily on the newsstands, on TV, in the subways. Hobbesian man roams the streets, quite visible, with glitter in his hair.



Daily Painting

Joan Miró
WOMEN, BIRDS, AND A STAR (1949)