Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Playing

Albrecht Mayer
LOST AND FOUND

Albrecht Mayer
Kammerakademie Potsdam

-

- Franz Anton Hoffmeister – Oboe Concerto in C Major
- Ludwig August Lebrun – Oboe Concerto in G minor
- Joseph Fiala – English Horn Concerto in C minor
- Jan Antonín Kozeluch – Oboe Concerto in F minor


MARC ELIAS

Trump wants you to be fearful because he thinks that if you are fearful, you will capitulate, you will give in, you will pull your punches. And if you do that, two things will happen. Number one, you give up your integrity. But number two, Donald Trump then knows he’s got you. And once he's got you, you're not safer. You're more at risk.



Daily Painting

Franz von Lenbach
MARION LENBACH, THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER (1900)

Monday, December 2, 2024

Watching

IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE
Greg Jardin
USA, 2024

Playing

Slowdive
EVERYTHING IS ALIVE


MARTIN BUBER
As quoted in Encounter with Martin Buber (1972) by Aubrey Hodes

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.

Daily Painting

Unknown Artist
KRISHNA AT THE FEET OF RADHA (1634)
Page from a Dispersed Rasikapriya

Sunday, December 1, 2024

Watching

HISTORY OF THE OCCULT
[HISTORIA DE LO OCULTO]

Cristian Ponce
Argentina, 2020


Playing

Johnny Cash
AT FOLSOM PRISON


CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Fear

“Why can't you be decent to people?" she asked.

"Fear," I said.



Daily Painting

Maria Chepeleva
HER FIRST SNOW (2015)

Saturday, November 30, 2024

Watching

THE FLYING GUILLOTINE
Ho Meng-Hua
Hong Kong, 1975

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Watching

OUT OF DARKNESS
Andrew Cumming
UK, 2022

Playing

Philip Glass & Susan Marshall
LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES
A Dance Opera Based on Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game

Conductor
Karen Kemensek

Voices
Christine Arand, Valerie Komar, Hal Cazalet, Philip Cutlip

Pianos
Eleanor Sandresky, Nelson Padgett, Philip Glass


MARY OLIVER
"Don't Hesitate"

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.



Daily Painting

David Wojnarowicz
THE NEWSPAPER AS NATIONAL VOODOO - A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE USA (1986)

Friday, November 29, 2024

Watching

HOLY SPIDER
Ali Abbasi
Multi-National, 2022

Playing

Youth Lagoon
HEAVEN IS A JUNKYARD


ADVOCATUS PEREGRINI

Talented and well-practiced in every vice, a stranger to compassion or empathy, a liar and a cheat so complete in perfidy that he has elevated his dishonesty to hold it up as an ersatz moral principle, violent, so long as he can order someone else to do the dirty work, grotesque in body, graceless in action, in possession of a wounded self-regard so colossal as to smother any spark of grace, treasonous, not only to country, but to every ally he has ever had, the poisoned fruit and rankest flower of racism and contempt for women, and utterly devoid of shame for his moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

That is your leader. That is to whom you give your money. That is who you follow and laud. That is whose banner you willingly carry. Why?
Because he is a mirror, not a lighthouse. You see yourselves in him. He is what you would be, if you had inherited money and could shed the last vestiges of conscience and shame.

No, I do not "respect your choices," nor do I admire your loyalty and dedication to this miserific, demoniac vision. You have demonstrated not only a lack of civic virtue, loyalty to the Republic and to the rule of law, but a willingness to engage in violence and sedition at his slightest expressed wish. And you will never, ever admit you were wrong.

Because you see your dark, twisted, resentful dreams in him. And to renounce him is to renounce yourselves.



Daily Painting

Marsden Hartley
THE AERO (1914) 

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Watching

ANIMALIA
Sofia Alaoui
Morocco-France, 2023

Reading

Jenny Erpenbeck
VISITATION

Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky

You voted for it. Why are you mad?

Did you just figure out that actions have consequences?


Deer life.
From my friend David.

All work and no playing in a winter wonderland makes Jack a dull boy.

Playing

Jan Dismas Zelenka
TRIO SONATAS

Heinz Holliger

Thomas Zehetmair, Maurice Bourgue, Klaus Thunemann, Klaus Stoll, Jonathan Rubin, Christiane Jaccottet

Daily Painting

Raphael De Soto
H IS FOR HEROIN (1953)

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Watching

MA VIE DE COURGETTE
[MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI]

Claude Barras
France, 2016


Watching

SURVEILLED
Ronan Farrow
USA, 2024
Trouble's a-brewin'.

Totally not a cult. 

Totally not advanced and intellectually debilitating - but celebrated and embraced - untrested mental illness.

This "breakup over politics" whining is bullshit.

Sitting down for dinner with ANY Trump voter or non-voter is, by definition, support for their vote, any results of their vote in the coming years, and their hatred of their fellow human beings.

But to those with no real convictions, you do you.

Playing

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
STABAT MATER

Philippe Jaroussky, Julia Lezhneva

Diego Fasolis
I Barocchisti
Coro Della Radiotelevisione Svizzera


REN
“Hi Ren”

Hi there Ren, it's been a little while, did you miss me?
You thought you'd buried me, didn't you? Risky
'Cause I always come back, deep down, you know that
Deep down, you know I'm always in the periphery

Ren, aren't you pleased to see me?
It's been weeks since we spoke bro, I know you need me
You're the sheep, I'm the shepherd, not your place to lead me
Not your place to be biting off the hand that feeds me

Hi Ren, I've been taking some time to be distant
I've been taking some time to be still
I've been taking some time to be by myself
Since my therapist told me I'm ill

And I've been making some progress lately
And I've learnt some new coping skills
So I haven't really needed you much, man
I think we need to just step back and chill

Ren, you sound more insane than I do
You think that those doctors are really there to guide you?
You've been through this a million times
Your civilian mind is so perfect at always being lied to

Okay, take another pill boy
Drown yourself in the sound of white noise
Follow this ten-step program, rejoice
All your problems will be gone! Fuckin' dumb boy

Nah, mate, this time it's different, man, trust me
I feel like things might be falling in place
And my music's been kinda doing bits too
Like I actually might do something great

And when I'm gone, maybe I'll be remembered
For doing something special with myself
That's why I don't think that we should talk, man
'Cause when you're with me, it never seems to help

You think that you can amputate me?
I am you, you are me, you are I, I am we
We are one, split in two that makes one, so you see
You got to kill you if you wanna kill me

I'm not left over dinner, I'm not scraps on the side
Oh, your music is thriving? Delusional guy
Where's your top ten hit? Where's your interview with Oprah?
Where are your Grammies, Ren? Nowhere!

Yeah, but, my music's not commercial like that
I never chased numbers, statistics or stats
I never write hooks for the radio, they never even play me
So why would I concern myself with that?
But my music is really connecting
And the people who find it, respect it
And for me, that's enough 'cause this life's been tough
So it gives me a purpose I can rest in

Man, you sound so pretentious
Ren, your music is so self-centred
No one wants to hear another song about
How much you hate yourself, trust me
You should be so lucky, having me inside you to guide you
Remind you to manage expectations
Provide you perspective, that thing you neglected, I get it
You wanna be a big deal, next Jimi Hendrix? Forget it

Man, it's not like that
Man it's just like that, I'm inside you, you twat
No, it's not man, you're wrong, when I write, I belong
Let me break the fourth wall by acknowledging this song

Ren sits down, has a stroke of genius
He wants to write a song that was not done previous
A battle with his subconscious, Eminem did it
Played on guitar, Plan B did it

Man, you're not original, you criminal, rip-off artist
The pinnacle of your success is stealing other people's material
Ren, mate, we've heard it all before
Uh, "she sells seashells on the sea shore"

Fuck you, I don't need you, I don't need to hear this
'Cause I'm fine by myself, I'ma genius
And I will be great, and I will make waves
And I'll shake up the whole world beneath us

That's right, speak your truth, your fuckin' God complex leaks out of you
It's refreshing to actually hear you say it instead of downplay it
"Ugh, music Is all about the creative process and if people can find
Something to relate to within that, then that's just a bonus"

Fuck you, I'ma fuckin' kill you, Ren
Well fuckin' kill me then, let's fuckin' have you Ren
I'm a do it, watch me prove it, who are you to doubt my music?
'Cause I call the shots. I choose if you die
Yeah, I call the shots, and so I who choose who survives
I'll tie you up in knots when I'll lock you inside

News flash
I was created at the dawn of creation
I am temptation, I am the snake in Eden
I am the reason for treason, beheading all Kings
I am sin with no rhyme or reason
Sun of the morning, Lucifer, antichrist
Father of lies, Mephistopheles
Truth in a blender, deceitful pretender
The banished avenger, the righteous surrender

When standing in-front of my solar eclipse
My name it is stitched to your lips, so, you see
I won't bow to the will of a mortal, feeble and normal
You wanna kill me? I'm enteral, immortal
I live in every decision that catalysed chaos
That causes division
I live inside death, the beginning of ends
I am you, you are me, I am you, Ren

Hi Ren, I've been taking some time to be distant
I've been taking some time to be still
I've been taking some time to be by myself
And I've spent half my life ill

But just as sure as the tide starts turning
Just as sure as the night has dawn
Just as sure as rainfall soon runs dry
When you stand in an eye of the storm

I was made to be tested and twisted
I was made to be broken and beat
I was made by His hand, it's all part of His plan
That I stand on my own two feet
And you know me, my will is eternal
And you know me, you've met me before
Face to with a beast, I will rise from the east
And I'll settle on the ocean floor

And I go by many names also
Some people know me as "hope"
Some people know me as the voice that you hear
When you loosen the noose on the rope
And you know how I know how I know that I'll prosper?
'Cause I stand here beside you today
I have stood in the flames that cremated my brain
And I didn't once flinch or shake

So cower at the man I've become, when I sing from the top of my lungs
That I won't retire, I'll stand in your fire, inspire the weak to be strong
And when I am gone, I will rise, in the music that I left behind
Ferocious persistent, immortal like you, we're a coin with two different sides

When I was 17 years old, I shouted out into an empty room
Into a blank canvas, that I would defeat the forces of evil
And for the next 10 years of my life, I suffered the consequences
With autoimmunity, illness, and psychosis

As I got older, I realised that there were no real winners
And there were no real losers in physiological warfare
But there were victims and there were students
It wasn't David versus Goliath, it was a pendulum
Eternally swayin' from the dark to the light
And the more intensely that the light shone, the darker the shadow it cast

It was never really a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance
And like a dance, the more rigid I became, the harder it got
The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled
So I got older and I learned to relax
And I learned to soften and that dance got easier

It is this eternal dance that separates human beings
From angels, from demons, from gods
And I must not forget, we must not forget
That we are human beings



Daily Painting

Paul Bednney
THE TENANT (2012)

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Watching

SEBASTIAN
Mikko Mäkelä
Finland-UK, 2024

Yeah, cry me a fucking river.


Playing

Ren
SICK BOI


ARTHUR C. CLARKE
On STAR TREK TOS Episode "Devil in the Dark"

It impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.



Daily Painting

Corneille
THE ARRIVAL OF THE BIRD (1951)

Monday, November 25, 2024

Watching

TIME OF THE HEATHEN
Peter Kass
USA, 1961

Playing

JUIFS ET TROUVÈRES
Chansons juives du XIII siècle en ancien français et hébreu
[Jewish Songs of the 13h Century in Old French and Hebrew]

Ensemble Alla francesca


STEPHEN KING
Sleeping Beauties

Until this point she had assumed that abusers must live in denial. If not, how could they go on? How could you hurt or degrade a person when you were fully cognisant of what you were doing?

Well, it turned out you could.



Daily Painting

David Gauld
SAINT AGNES (1889)

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Watching

TOKYO
Michel Gondry, Léos Carax, Bong Joon-ho
France-Japan-Korea, 2008

Playing

Amira Medunjanin & Merima Ključo
ZUMRA


BEN MEISELAS
On Republicans and Matt Gaetz

Those Republicans were sure ready to cover up child sex trafficking. They were rushing to cover it up. They were blaming the media for it. And one of the things Trump did during this awful transition was basically expose the entire Republican Party as being a pro-sex trafficking party.



Daily Painting

Paul Delvaux
THE CRUCIFIXION (1957)

Hundreds? Do you accept hundreds?

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

The Affordable Care Act was passed more than 14 years ago.

There was no misinformation that Obamacare and the ACA aren't the same thing. It is common knowledge, like NYC being in New York State.

This "one man" gleefully lets him mother die so that he can own the libs. NOTHING heartbreaking about it.

One of millions of identical stories to come.

PitMutt vs Rain.


Playing

Madness
SEVEN