URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness

____________________

How does one hate a country, or love one? I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of [my country], but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope. 

Violent Femmes
WHY DO BIRDS SING?

 

Various Artists

Ethnic Folkways Library
KURDISH FOLK SONGS AND DANCES

 

Art Porn

____________________

Augusto Xavier
From the Polyamory series

 

SAMUEL JOHNSON

____________________

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

ANDREW WYETH

____________________

I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.

The Tallest Man On Earth
SHALLOW GRAVE

 

R. E. M.
LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT

 

OGDEN NASH

____________________

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.

Nina Simone
FODDER ON MY WINGS

Originally released in 1982.
 

JIM CARREY

____________________

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.

-

GLORIA SWANSON

____________________

Fame was thrilling only until it became grueling. Money was fun only until you ran out of things to buy.

Art Porn

__________

Rafa Canoba
 

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band
IT'S NOT BIG IT'S LARGE

 

 

DakhaBrakha from Free Ukraine

NPR Tiny Desk Concert - Apr 25, 2015

• "Sho Z-Pod Duba" 0:00
• "Torokh" 3:43
• "Divka-Marusechka" 8:07

NINA GARENETSKA

Vokals, cello, bass drum

MARKO HALANEVYCH

Vokals, darbuka, tabla, didjeridoo, accordion, trombone

IRYNA KOVALENKO

Vokals, djembe, bass drums, accordion, percussion, bugay, zgaleyka, piano

OLENA TSYBULSKA

Vokals, bass drums, percussion, garmoshka

RODNEY DANGERFIELD

____________________

What a kid I got. I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.

Screamin' Jay Hawkins
BLACK MUSIC FOR WHITE PEOPLE

FRANCIS BACON

____________________

Age appears best in four things: Old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Orazio Sciortino
CHAMBER MUSIC FOR PIANO AND STRINGS

Swiss Music Ensemble "New Wave"
Ambra Piano Trio

 

JOYCE RACHELLE

____________________

We all grow tired eventually; it happens to everyone. Even the sun, at the close of the year, is no longer a morning person.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

____________________

When one door closes another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté
ALI & TOUMANI

ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI

"My Favorite Poets"

____________________

My favorite poets

never met

They lived in different countries

and different ages

surrounded by ordinariness

by good people and bad

they lived modestly

like an apple in an orchard

They loved clouds

they lifted their heads

a great armada

of light and shade

sailed above them

a film was playing

that still hasn’t ended

Moments of bitterness

passed swiftly

likewise moments of joy

Sometimes they knew

what the world was

and wrote hard words

on soft paper

Sometimes they knew nothing

and were like children

on a school playground

when the first drop

of warm rain

descends

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Miles Davis
SKETCHES OF SPAIN

 

STEVEN WRIGHT

____________________

I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet 73

____________________

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Nick Drake
BRYTER LAYTER

 

VEGAN RESET
The 28-Day Plan to Kickstart Your Healthy Lifestyle

Kim-Julie Hansen

Art Porn

____________________

Nikos Stamatopoulos
Morning Glory

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
[ If my Valentine you won't be...]

_____________________

If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.

The Klezmer Conservatory Band
A TASTE OF PARADISE

 

 

ANTISTHENES (444-365 BCE)

____________________

Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.

Eurythmics
SAVAGE

CLINTON LEUPP aka MISS COCO PERU

____________________

I think that drag is scary, even in our own community. They would rather play it safe. People want to be really politically correct, which I think is very dangerous. 

I've heard from various people in the business that these stations are appealing to Middle America, and I find that very disturbing because I always felt that we as gay people were the leaders — we decided what was funny, what was hot in fashion. 

Now we are trying to figure out what Middle America accepts. I'm not interested in that. I'm not trying to appeal to Middle America, and that gay people are doing so only makes me angry.

Florilegium with Arakaendar Bolivia Choir

BOLIVIAN BAROQUE VOL. 2
Baroque Music from the Missions

BOLIVIAN BAROQUE VOL. 3
Music from the Missions and La Plata

 

COSTA-GAVRAS

______________________

Sometimes there are left-wing governments I'm very critical of. For me, being left-wing is to live in a society where there's permanent change. It also means to respect the freedom of everybody, and to not accept big organizations or rich, powerful people holding power.

Gogol Bordello
SUPER TARANTA!

DakhaBrakha in Dnipro, Free Ukraine - Dec 12, 2010

NINA GARENETSKA

Vokals, cello, bass drum

MARKO HALANEVYCH

Vokals, darbuka, tabla, didjeridoo, accordion, trombone

IRYNA KOVALENKO

Vokals, djembe, bass drums, accordion, percussion, bugay, zgaleyka, piano

OLENA TSYBULSKA

Vokals, bass drums, percussion, garmoshka

  

Kol Simcha
SYMPHONIC KLEZMER

Jean-Marc Grob
Sinfonietta de Lausanne

 

RAINER MARIA RILKE
Sonnets to Orpheus, Book Two, XIII

____________________

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

"The Improvisatrice"

____________________

Yet one arrow has a power

Lasting till life's latest hour--

Weary day and sleepless night, 

Lightning gleams of fierce delight,
Fragrant and yet poisoned sighs,

Agonies and ecstasies;

Hopes, like fires amid the gloom,

Lighting only to consume!

Terry Riley
THE CUSP OF MAGIC

Kronos Quartet and Wu Man

 

The Dead South
THE OCEAN WENT MAD AND WE WERE TO BLAME [EP]

 

ISAAC ASIMOV
The Road to Infinity

___________________

Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.

R.E.M.
DOCUMENT

 

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Why I Am Not a Christian

____________________

That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. 

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, "This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children." Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue.

That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is to not make people happy.

The Postal Service
GIVE UP
Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition

 

MARK TWAIN
____________________

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

Claudio Monteverdi
OTTAVO LIBRO DEI MADRIGALI

La Venexiana

 

THE SUN

Issue 543
March 2021

 

CONFUCIUS

____________________

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake.

Lucinda Williams
CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD

 

Art Porn

____________________

Photographer unknown to me.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

____________________

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

Jan Dismas Zelenka
TRIO SONATAS

Heinz Holliger

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

ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague

____________________

At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. 

Naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. 

In a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.

Orlando Lassus
MISSA OSCULETUR ME

Peter Phillips
The Tallis Scholars

 

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
The Sublime Object of Ideology

____________________

As Bertolt Brecht puts in his Threepenny Opera: ''What is the robbery of a bank compared to the foundation of a new bank?"

The Thelonious Monk Quartet
MONK'S DREAM

 

CHARLES BUKOWSKI
"8 Count"
____________________

from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone wire.

one flies off.

then another. one is left, then

it too
is gone.
my typewriter is tombstone
still.
and I am reduced to bird watching.
just thought I'd let you
know,

fucker. 

Currently Playing

Johannes Brahms
CLARINET TRIO IN A MINOR, OP. 114
CLARINET QUINTET IN B MINOR, OP. 115

József Balogh

Jeno Jandó

Csaba Onczay

Danubius String Quartet

 

ELAINE EQUI

"Ghosts in Fashion"

___________________

Although it no longer has a body

to cover out of a sense of decorum,

the ghost must still consider fashion—

must clothe its invisibility in something

if it is to “appear” in public.

Some traditional specters favor

the simple shroud—

a toga of ectoplasm

worn Isadora-Duncan-style

swirling around them.

While others opt for lightweight versions

of once familiar tee shirts and jeans.

Perhaps being thought-forms,

they can change their outfits instantly—

or if they were loved ones,

it is we who clothe them

like dolls from memory. 

Gerry Mulligan
Ben Webster
GERRY MULLIGAN MEETS BEN WEBSTER

 

ALBERT CAMUS

The Plague

____________________

In this, too, the reaction of the public was slower than might have been expected. Thus the bare statement that three hundred and two deaths had taken place in the third week of plague failed to strike their imagination.

Madness
SEVEN

MARK TWAIN

____________________

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

THE TURMERIC COOKBOOK
Discover the Health Benefits and Uses of Turmeric with 50 Delicious Recipes

Aster

Peter Schilling
THE DIFFERENT STORY (WORLD OF LUST AND CRIME)

 

MORTICIA ADDAMS

____________________

Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.

Rued Langgaard
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

Inger Dam-Jensen, Hetna Regitze Bruun, Johan Reuter, Lars Cleveman

Thomas Dausgaard

Danish National Concert Choir
Danish National Vocal Ensemble
Danish National Symphony Orchestra

 

ANAÏS NIN
Little Birds

____________________

With her eyes alone she could give this response, this absolutely erotic response, as if febrile waves were trembling there, pools of madness. Something devouring that could lick a man all over like a flame, annihilate him, with a pleasure never known before.

Klezmatics
POSSESSED

 

ANAÏS NIN

The Diaries, Volume 1 (1931-1934)

I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.