Playing

Tina Brooks
BACK TO THE TRACKS

Playing

Sampha
LAHAI

Playing

The Police
SYNCHRONICITY

Playing

The Police
ZENYATTA MONDATTA

Playing

R.E.M.
OUT OF TIME

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CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

What am I then? A dream?

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos….

We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors.

A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.

HANIF KUREISHI
Intimacy

At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?

Playing

Tan Dun
GHOST OPERA

Kronos Quartet
Wu Man

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny.

So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...

Daily Painting

Bernard Buffet
HIBOU OU LE GRAND DUC (1958)

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Daily Painting

Ryszard Kaja
DACHSHUND (2017)

Playing

Jeff Beal
THE PAPER LINED SHACK

Leonard Slatkin

Hila Plitmann
The Eastman Philharmonia
The New Hollywood String Quartet

Daily Painting

Oskar Bergman
SNOWFALL OVER SKÄRGÅRD (1962)

Playing

The Velvet Underground
SQUEEZE

Daily Painting

Laurence Stephen Lowry
BLITZED SITE (1942)

Playing

The Cars
SHAKE IT UP

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.

Daily Painting

Ivan Pylypenko
WINTER (2017) 

Daily Painting

Carl August Johansson
WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH FISHERMEN (1891)

Playing

Craig Ogden
CRAIG OGDEN IN CONCERT

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

Our thesis eleven today should be:

"Critical leftists have hitherto only dirtied with dust the balls of those in power – the point is to cut them off."

Daily Painting

Svend Rasmussen Svendsen
FOOTPRINTS IN SNOW AND BIRCH TREES (1920)

Playing

Warsaw Village Band
MAZOVIA ROOTS REACTION

Daily Painting

Carl Blechen
MOUNTAIN GORGE IN WINTER (1825)

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Playing

Frédéric Chopin
BALLETS

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Les Sylphides
Robert Irving, Philharmonia Orchestra

A Month in the Country
John Lanchbury, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

A human being, appearances to the contrary, doesn’t create his own purposes. These are imposed by the time he’s born into; he may serve them, he may rebel against them, but the object of his service or rebellion comes from the outside. To experience complete freedom in seeking his purposes he would have to be alone, and that’s impossible, since a person who isn’t brought up among people cannot become a person.

Daily Painting

Jeanie Tomanek
DEMETER'S SEARCH (2013) 

Playing

John Cale
MERCY

Daily Painting

Everett Shinn
AFTER THE REHEARSAL (1912)

Playing

Various Artists
Putumayo Presents - NORTH AFRICAN GROOVE

STANISŁAW LEM
Solaris

If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently.

JOHN WRAY

Only a blind man could have lived through these last years without seeing what was bearing down upon us; so I made myself blind as I could manage. I wanted to believe the worst was behind me, and I found an easy way to make it so. I simply turned my back on what was coming.

Daily Painting

Domenico Gnoli
WINTER (1967)

Playing

Tom Waits
NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER

Daily Painting

Jesse Savage
NOCTURNAL (2022)

Reading

Stanisław Lem
SOLARIS

Playing

Nathalie Stutzmann
CONTRALTO

Orfeo 55

Daily Painting

Ludwig Munthe
ON THE PATH (1882)

Playing

Domenico Scarlatti
SONATEN

Alexis Weissenberg

RAY BRADBURY
Fahrenheit 451

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.

Daily Painting

Bernard Buffet
RUE DE VILLAGE (1970)

Playing

Elgan Llŷr Thomas
UNVEILED

Iain Burside
Craig Ogden

STEPHEN KING
The Dead Zone

Something in his heart seemed to have closed. It was not a major feeling. That was the worst of it—it wasn’t a major feeling at all.

Daily Painting

Jack Kampmann
LANDSCAPE FROM THE FAROE ISLANDS (1980)

Playing

CLUB MOD on allclassical.org

Hosted by Andrea Murray

Playing 

Antonio Vivald
GRISELDA, RV718

Jean-Christophe Spinosi​

Marie-Nicole Lemieux​,​ Veronica Cangemi​,​ Simone Kermes​,​ Philippe Jaroussky​,​ Stefano Ferrari​,​ Iestyn Davies​

Ensemble Matheus

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Sex and the Failed Absolute

Trump's twisted 'greatness' is that he effectively acts - he is not afraid to break the unwritten (and written) rules to impose his decisions. As we learned (not only) from Hegel, our life is regulated by a thick web of written and unwritten rules, rules which teach us how to practice the explicit (written) rules. While Trump (more or less) sticks to explicit legal regulations, he tends to ignore the unwritten silent pacts which determine how we should practice these rules - the way he dealt with Kavanaugh was just one example of it.

Instead of just blaming Trump, the Left should learn from him and do the same. When a situation demands it, we should shamelessly do the impossible and break the unwritten rules. Unfortunately, today's Left is in advance terrified of any radical acts - even when it is in power, it worries all the time:'If we do this, how will the worlds react? Will our acts cause panic?' Ultimately, this fear means: 'Will our enemies be mad and react?' In order to act in politics, one has to overcome this fear and assume the risk, make a step into the unknown.

Daily Painting

Anders Andersen Lundby
VIEW OF A STREET ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF MUNICH, WINTER (1884)

Playing

Felix Mendelssohn
SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN D MAJOR, OP. 107 "REFORMATION"

John Eliot Gardiner
Wiener Philharmoniker

Daily Painting

Domenico Gnoli
RED DRESS COLLAR (1969)

Playing

Anthony Holborne
TEARES OF THE MUSES
ELIZABETHAN CONSORT MUSIC VOL. 2

Jordi Savall
Hespèrion XXI

Playing

ELIZABETHAN CONSORT MUSIC 1558-1603

Jordi Savall
Hespèrion XXI

Daily Painting

Allen William Seaby
SNOW AND HARE (1923)

Playing

The Monks of Sherab Ling Monastery
SACRED TIBETAN CHANT

Daily Painting

Amaldus Nielsen
SNEFOKK I MAJORSTUVEIEN 8 (ND/Late 19th Century)

Playing

Thomas Wimmer, Ensemble Accentus
SEPHARDIC ROMANCES
Traditional Jewish Music from Spain