Monday, December 11, 2023

Currently Playing

Merle Haggard
THE BLUEGRASS SESSIONS

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From Wikipedia:

The Bluegrass Sessions is the sixty-first studio album by American country music singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, released on October 2, 2007. Produced by Ronnie Reno, former rhythm guitarist of The Strangers, the bulk of the album was cut live in the studio in one day, with very little overdubbing.

Daily Painting

Glendine Chisholm
SUMMER NIGHT IN THE KAROO (2017)

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Currently Watching

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
Sam Esmail
USA, 2023



Currently Playing

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
THE FINAL STUDIO RECORDINGS



COLM TÓIBÍN
Restlessness: A Syllabus

I am interested in texts that are pure voice or deal with difficult experience using a tone that does not offer relief or stop for comfort. Sometimes, the power in the text comes from powerlessness, whether personal or political. Sometimes, death is close or danger beckons or violence is threatened or enacted. Sometimes, there is a sense of real personal risk in the text’s revelations. Sometimes, there is little left to lose. All the time, the tone is incantatory or staccato or filled with melancholy recognitions.

  • Euripides, Medea
  • Sophocles, Electra
  • Sophocles, Antigone
  • Sylvia Plath, Ariel
  • Louise Glück, The Wild Iris
  • Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
  • Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory
  • Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer
  • Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
  • Nadine Gordimer, The Late Bourgeois World
  • Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata
  • John McGahern, The Barracks
  • Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, The Turin Horse
  • Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing
  • J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron
  • Béla Bartók, Bluebeard’s Castle
  • Constance Debré, Love Me Tender

Daily Painting

Kim Sang-duck
NO. 308 (nd)

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Currently Playing

The 5th Dimension
LOVE'S LINES, ANGLES, AND RHYMES


GALWAY KINNELL
"On The Frozen Field"

We walk across the snow,
The stars can be faint,
The moon can be eating itself out,
There can be meteors flaring to death on earth,
The Northern Lights can bloom and seethe
And be tearing themselves apart all night,
We walk arm in arm, and we are happy.

You in whose ultimate madness we live,
You flinging yourself out into the emptiness,
You—like us—great for an instant,

O only universe we know, forgive us.



Daily Painting

Jenny Saville
SHIFT (1996-97)

Friday, December 8, 2023

Currently Watching

LABYRINTH OF CINEMA
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Japan, 2019

Currently Reading

Debbie Harry
FACE IT: A MEMOIR

Currently Playing

The Postal Service
GIVE UP


OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
"The Smoker"

The man who had lived in my house on Hawkins Street had owed more on the house than it was worth. It was in an undesirable part of town, or so I was told, but I loved the neighborhood. The houses were small. There was a permanent lemon icee stand a block away. I was about twenty steps away from a bodega that functioned as the neighborhood grocery store. My next door neighbor was an elderly lady from Portugal who spoke almost no English and yet complained to me about all the dogshit in my backyard while bragging about the tomatoes in her garden, which looked exactly like her breasts beneath her housedress, heavy and sliding. We were separated by a chainlink fence.



Daily Painting

Karel Appel
BARBARIAN NUDE (1957)

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Currently Watching

PAULETTE
Jérôme Enrico
France, 2012

Currentl;y Watching

THE WICKED LADY
Leslie Arliss
UK, 1945


Currently Playing

Anonymous 4
1000 - A MASS FOR THE END OF TIME


EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS
"And Remedies Against Said Plague"

Contaminated air, poisoned ground,
Infected bodies in the cemetery, and the dead
Scattered in the fields in grievous wars,
Latrines piled with infectious dung,
Stench from garbage dumped
In fields, towns, and castles,
Great filth and heaps of excrement,
Refuse which is foolhardy to make,
Stale, polluted air, and swine:
All of these cause plague in many places.

To have a gluttonous mouth, scurrilous life,
To drink and eat without appetite,
To sit long at table is dangerous to do,
And likewise to eat too many courses.
Eating overly salted venison, beef, oxen, and pork,
Tench, eel, conger, all beasts,
Ocean fish, dairy products, fruit, leeks,
Onions and garlic, cheap wine with murky dregs,
Hard bread and unleavened cakes:
All of these cause plague in many places.

To live on water from swampy ground,
To be in heavy air when fog is thick,
Waking too early, leading a lewd life,
And to be stiff with anger are death.
To be too hot or too cold when doors are open,
To partake of spas and baths among those
Who are infected, putrid, and depressed
Engenders many similar diseases,
And such matters as in these prime examples:
All of these cause plague in many places.

Prince, one would do well in these special cases
And scurrilous circumstances, for one’s health,
To flee from them all, or at least some.
One should purge the body and keep warm,
Since without protection from such defects,
All of these cause plague in many places.


Translated by Anne M. Dropick

 

Daily Painting

Henrietta Berk
SEATED WOMAN (1962 or 1963)

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Currently Watching

THE MAN IN GREY
Leslie Arliss
UK, 1943


Currently Watching

THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL
Franklin J. Schaffner
USA, 1978

Currently Reading

Donna Twichell Roberts
THE GOOD FOOD COOKBOOK FOR DOGS
50 Home-Cooked Recipes for The Health and Happiness of Your Canine Companion

Currently Playing

Philip Glass
GLASSWORLDS 2
Complete Etudes Nos. 1-20

Nicolas Horvath


MALCOLM X

This is the media, an irresponsible media. It will make the criminal look like he is the victim and make the victim look like he is the criminal. If you aren't careful, the media will have you hating the people who are oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

This is a propaganda tactic that I would call psychological warfare.


Daily Painting

Elmer Bischoff
FIGURE WITH RED WALL (1955)

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Currently Playing

Count Basie
THE ATOMIC MR. BASIE

Currently Playing

Makaya McCraven
DECIPHERING MESSAGES

Currently Watching

SWEET HOME
Season 2
Korea, 2023

Directors
Jang Young-woo
Lee Eung-bok
Park So-hyun

Writers/Creators
Kim Hyung-min
Kim Kan-bi
Park So-jeong
Hong So-ri
Hwang Young-chan


X. J. KENNEDY
"Cross Ties"

Out walking ties left over from a track
Where nothing travels now but rust and grass,
I half-believe in something that would pass
Growing to hurtle from behind my back
And when the night wind slams by, give a start:
Out of its mass the disembodied wail
Of a far night-shift like a bag of mail
Is flung. Moon looms, her headbeam rips apart
A cloud and strews it. Wings thrash: down to strafe
The crouched grass drops a mousehawk. There’s a screech
As steel stretched taut till severed. Out of reach
Or else beneath desiring, I go safe,
Walk on, tensed for a leap, unreconciled
To a dark void all kindness.
                                                                When I spill
The salt I throw the Devil some and, still,
I let them sprinkle water on my child.



Daily Painting

David Park
DAPHNE (1959)

Monday, December 4, 2023

Currently Watching

SWEET HOME
Season 2
Korea, 2023

Directors
Jang Young-woo
Lee Eung-bok
Park So-hyun

Writers/Creators
Kim Hyung-min
Kim Kan-bi
Park So-jeong
Hong So-ri
Hwang Young-chan


RICKY GERVAIS

The only reason I work out is to live longer, and the only reason I want to live longer is to eat more cheese.



Daily Painting

Richard Diebenkorn
UNTITLED (ALBUQUERQUE) (1951)

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Currently Reading

Mathias Malzieu
THE BOY WITH THE CUCKOO-CLOCK HEART

Tickets:
Purchased.

Dopamine:
Flowing gently like a gummy kicking in.

Currently Playing

George Gershwin
RHAPSODY IN BLUE
[SECOND RHAPSODY FOR ORCHESTRA WITH PIANO]

Michael Tilson Thomas
Los Angeles Philharmonic


KATHLEEN MORRIS
"A Prayer to Eve"

Mother of fictions
and of irony,
help us to laugh.

Mother of science
and the critical method,
keep us humble.

Muse of listeners,
hope of interpreters,
inspire us to act.

Bless our metaphors,
that we may eat them.

Help us to know, Eve,
the one thing we must do.

Come with us, Muse of exile,
Mother of the road.



Daily Painting

Henrietta Berk
GREEN HILLS (c1968)

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Currently Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Currently Playing

Gregory Alan Isakov
THIS EMPTY NORTHERN HEMISPHERE


DESMOND MORRIS

The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.



Daily Painting

Theophilus Brown
FOOTBALL PAINTING #2 (1956)

Friday, December 1, 2023

Currently Watching

SWEET HOME
Season 1
Korea, 2020

Directors
Jang Young-woo
Lee Eung-bok
Park So-hyun

Writers/Creators
Kim Hyung-min
Kim Kan-bi
Park So-jeong
Hong So-ri
Hwang Young-chan

Currently Playing

Béla Bartók
STRING QUARTET NO. 5, Sz 102, BB 110

Emerson String Quartet

Felix Mendelssohn
STRING QUARTET NO. 5 in E-FLAT MAJOR, Op. 44, No. 3

Emerson String Quartet


ROLAND BARTHES
Mythologies

Ce que le public rèclame, c’est l’image de la passion, non la passion elle-même.

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What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.



Daily Painting

Jane LaFarge Hamill
UNTITLED (2014)

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Currently Watching

SWEET HOME
Season 1
Korea, 2020

Directors
Jang Young-woo
Lee Eung-bok
Park So-hyun

Writers/Creators
Kim Hyung-min
Kim Kan-bi
Park So-jeong
Hong So-ri
Hwang Young-chan

Currently Watching

POLICE PYTHON 357
Alain Corneau
France, 1976

Currently Reading

Jon Fosse
A SHINING
[KVITLEIK]

Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls

Currently Playing

Anonymous 4
MIRACLES OF SANT'IAGO
Medieval Chant & Polyphony for St. James from the Codex Calixtinus


W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Cakes and Ale

This is not so strange when you reflect that from the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.



Daily Painting

Nathan Oliveira
SEATED MAN WITH A DOG (1957)

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Currently Watching

HARD TO BE A GOD
Aleksey German
Russia, 2013

Currently Playing

Fleet Foxes
FLEET FOXES


W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Cakes and Ale

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.



Daily Painting

Paul Wonner
THE GLIDER (1957)

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Currently Watching

SALEM'S LOT
Tobe Hooper
USA, 1979

Currently Playing

Hypnotic Clambake
SQUARE DANCE MESSIAH

Currently Playing

Bester Quartet
METAMORPHOSES