Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Live.

A photograph of Italo Calvino ...

The minute you start saying something - "Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!" - you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it had never existed, and that therefore, in order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity, the second is madness.

Italo Calvino

More.

A man who has read a thousand books is armed for life; a man who has read none is easy prey. The man who has read a thousand books has lived a thousand lives. He has seen cities he has never visited, spoken to men who died centuries ago, and walked in worlds that no longer exist. Reading does not merely inform him; it enlarges him. It stretches the boundaries of his own experience until he becomes something more than himself.

G.K. Chesterton

Happy Birthday, Charles Baudelaire

The Poet is a kinsman of the clouds

Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;

But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,

He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.

Charles Baudelaire, born on this day in 1821, from "The Albatross"

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Humbling.

That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan, from Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Happy Birthday, William Wordsworth

Edridge, William Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, 1807

Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone ...

William Wordsworth, born on this day in 1770, from “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798”

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Telemann, "Victoria! Mein Jesus ist erstanden," TWV 1:1746

Michael Burow-Geier, bass, Jonas Hillenmeyer, trumpet, and Siegfried Gmeiner, organ, perform ...

Excellent.

An excellent album …

Alone.

Tiepolo, Resurrection of Christ, 1753

Believers do not believe in people or in the good in people that ultimately must triumph; they also do not believe in the church, in its human power. Rather, believers believe solely in God, who creates and does the impossible, who creates life out of death, who has called the dying church to life against and in spite of us and through us. But God does it alone.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from God Is On The Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter

Steve Winwood, "Now the Green Blade Riseth"

Means.

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Milton Friedman, from Capitalism and Freedom

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Act.

Chappel, Samuel Adams, 1887

Is it not High Time for the People of this Country explicitly to declare, whether they will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be decided. It concerns us more than any Thing in this Life. The Salvation of our Souls is interested in the Event: For wherever Tyranny is established, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a Torrent. It is in the Interest of Tyrants to reduce the People to Ignorance and Vice. For they cannot live in any Country where Virtue and Knowledge prevail. The Religion and public Liberty of a People are intimately connected; their Interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this Reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to destroy the People’s Liberties, practice every Art to poison their Morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all Events, to put a Stop to the Progress of Tyranny. It is advanced already by far too many Strides. We are at this moment upon a precipice. The next step may be fatal to us. Let us then act like wise Men; calmly look around us and consider what is best to be done.

Samuel Adams, signed "Valerius Poplicola," Boston Gazette, October 5, 1772

Talk.

There is a tendency of people in universities to think that what’s going on in the university is what really matters and that was the case of Bloom. When he was talking about the closing of the American mind, he really meant the fact that he couldn’t talk to his students anymore. Outside the universities there are all kinds of natural, normal Americans still existing, going about their business, going to church services. America has remained a devoted, devout Christian society through all these things — at least, if you’re outside the cities and also if you’re outside the universities, a basically decent society. So the fact is that it wasn’t as bad as he thought, it was just bad for him. But he had a point because what he was saying was that relativism had made it impossible for him to teach the curriculum as though it had any objective authority. That was really what upset him. You couldn’t really say to the student, here is Shakespeare, just look; here is Steinbeck, just look. Surely you’ve got to see that that first thing is not just better, but touching on the human reality in a deeper way. And his students would say: “That’s your view, I’ve got my Bob Dylan” — which is a million times better than what they have now. There is a problem if you can’t teach the old curriculum in the humanities because of this relativism; what are you going to teach students? Increasingly, people teach pseudo-sciences instead: the deconstructionist analysis of Steinbeck. Or instead of teaching esthetics, neuro-esthetics — not knowing quite what that is, except it’s Beethoven plus brain scans.

Sir Roger Scruton, from "On Moral Relativism"

Growing.

When people ask me are you happy, I'd say that isn't quite the question. The real question is am I still growing? Have I become a finished creation? Am I dead or am I still growing? Is my life still an adventure, an adventure full of trouble, full of joy, full of pain, full of cataclysm. Am I still living dangerously? So, am I still growing is the real question.

John Moriarty, from a conversation with Joe Duffy on Liveline, 2005

True.

What if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.

Plato, from "Ladder of Love"

Jimmy Buffett, "Twelve Volt Man""

I never got a grip on penmanship

Could never make the small L's flow

Seldom found the trick to arith-a-metic

Three plus two be faux, pas

But ask for some palm trees

Or tales from the South Seas

And I just might turn your head ...

Happy Birthday, Mac

Darren McCarty was born on this day in 1972.

The game-winner in Game Four of the '97 Stanley Cup Final ...

Released.

RUSH released 2112 on this day in 1976.

"Overture/The Temples of Syrinx"...

Locally-Sourced.

Locally-sourced ice.

Habit.

Allen & Co., John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron of Acton, 1902

There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.

Lord Acton, from Lectures on Modern History

Chopin, Prelude in D-flat Major, Op. 28: No. 15, “Raindrop”

Lang Lang ...

Full.

Abbey, Study for Design of The Hours, 1937

The great trouble with the vast majority of artists is that they cease to be students too soon. They spend a couple of years--even three or four-years--in Paris, among the best teachers and academies in 19th century Europe or some other place where students congregate, and, bored by the drudgery of the serious atelier or academy and seeing certain easy-going pictures attracting a certain amount of attention and having also a certain amount of merit, they throw over the opportunity which, mind you, never comes again, to make themselves as perfect as they may be with the aid of all the facilities a far-seeing body of eminent artists have, during many years, accumulated for their benefit, and dash into paint with a confidence bred entirely of ignorance and intolerance of the training that they, at that ill-informed and blind period of their lives, do not see the need of ...

Go to the Louvre constantly (on Sunday mornings you will have the place to yourself, or nearly so). Look at the designs and drawings by the great masters and reflect that they thought it necessary to take all that pains before they began their painting, and that they did not rely upon genius or talent to carry them through. Remember that you are pretty blind at present. I don't remember ever before having seen an art student of your age absolutely without a sketch-book. You should be sketching always, always. Draw anything. Draw the dishes on the table while you are waiting for your breakfast. Draw the people in the station while you are waiting for your train. Look at everything. It is all part of your world. You are going to be one of a profession to which everything on this earth means something. Keep every faculty you have been blessed with wide awake. The older you get the more full your life will be getting.

Edwin Austin Abbey, born on this day in 1852, from Edwin Austin Abbey, royal academician; the record of his life and work, by E.V. Lucas

Delightful.

van Gogh, Landscape at Auvers in the Rain, 1890

APRIL SHOWERS

Delightful weather for all sorts of moods

& most for him – grey morn and swarthy eye

Found rambling up the little narrow lane

Where primrose banks amid the hazly woods

Peep most delightfully on passers bye

While Aprils little clouds about the sky

Mottle & freak unto fancy lie

Idling and ending travel for the day

Till darker clouds sail up with cumberous heave

South oer the woods & scares them all away

Then comes the rain pelting with pearly drops

The primrose crowds until they stoop & lie

All fragrance to his mind that musing stops

Beneath the hawthorn till the shower is bye

John Clare

Emboldened.

 Böcklin, Spring Evening, 1879

And now that the year wearily turns and stretches herself before the perfect waking, the god emboldened begins to blow a clearer note.

Kenneth Grahame, from "The Rural Pan (An April Essay)"

Released.

The Smiths released Louder Than Bombs on this day in 1987.

"Panic"...

Haydn, Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Hob. VIIb:1

Hayoung Choi performs with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, under the direction of Vahan Mardirossian ...

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Happy Birthday, Angus Young

Angus Young was born on this day in 1955.

"Riff Raff" (it's in high definition so you won't miss any nuance)...

Deep.

I have thoughts that are fed by the sun:

The things which I see

Are welcome to me,

Welcome every one –

I do not wish to lie

Dead, dead,

Dead, without any company.

Here alone on my bed

With thoughts that are fed by the sun,

And hopes that are welcome every one,

Happy am I.

Oh life there is about thee

A deep delicious peace;

I would not be without thee,

Stay, oh stay!

Yet be thou ever as now –

Sweetness and breath, with the quiet of death –

Be but thou ever as now,

Peace, peace, peace.

William Wordsworth

Phallus.

Execupundit has an update on renderings of the presidential phallus, I mean palace, sorry ... "library."

Reciprocal.

Friedrich, Seashore in the Fog, 1807

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

J.D. Salinger, from The Catcher in the Rye

Happy Birthday, Franz Joseph Haydn

Hoppner, Franz Joseph Haydn, 1791

Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts. I listened more than I studied, therefore little by little my knowledge and ability were developed. 

Franz Joseph Haydn, born on this day in 1732

Alfred Brendel performs the Piano Sonata No. 59 in E-Flat, Hob XVI 49 ...

Happy Birthday, René Descartes

Weenix, Portrait of René Descartes, 1649

I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto, "To live well you must live unseen”.

René Descartes, born on this day in 1596, from The Principles of Philosophy

Suited.

The Westerner has been able move forward in ordered steps, while we have met superior civilization and have had to surrender to it, and we have had to leave a road we have followed for thousands of years. The missteps and inconveniences this has caused have, I think, been many. If we had been left alone we might not be much further now in a material way than we were five hundred years ago. Even now in the Indian and Chinese countryside life no doubt goes on much as it did when Buddha and Confucius were alive. But we would have gone only in a direction that suited us. We would have gone ahead very slowly, and yet it is not impossible that we would one day have discovered our own substitute for the trolley, the radio, the airplane of today. They would have been no borrowed gadgets, they would have been the tools of our culture, suited to us.

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, from In Praise of Shadows

Reversed.

Rush, "Vital Signs"...

Happy Birthday, Vincent van Gogh

van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Dark Felt Hat at the Easel, 1886

I, for one, am a man of passions, capable of and liable to do rather foolish things for which I sometimes feel rather sorry. I do often find myself speaking or acting somewhat too quickly when it would be better to wait more patiently. I think that other people may also sometimes do similar foolish things. Now that being so, what’s to be done, must one consider oneself a dangerous man, incapable of anything at all? I don’t think so. But it’s a matter of trying by every means to turn even these passions to good account. For example, to name one passion among others, I have a more or less irresistible passion for books, and I have a need continually to educate myself, to study, if you like, precisely as I need to eat my bread.

Vincent van Gogh, born on this day in 1853, from a letter to Theo van Gogh, June 1880

One.

The TABLES TURNED

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you'll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun above the mountain's head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

William Wordsworth

Happy Birthday, Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto was born on this day in 1940.

"Take Me to Aruanda"...

Treasures.

Hamilton of Finnart, Stirling Castle, 1496

On the following morning, the sun darted his beams from over the hills through the low lattice window. I rose at an early hour, and looked out between the branches of eglantine which overhung the casement. To my surprise Scott was already up and forth, seated on a fragment of stone, and chatting with the workmen employed on the new building. I had supposed, after the time he had wasted upon me yesterday, he would be closely occupied this morning, but he appeared like a man of leisure, who had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine and amuse himself.

I soon dressed myself and joined him. He talked about his proposed plans of Abbotsford; happy would it have been for him could he have contented himself with his delightful little vine-covered cottage, and the simple, yet hearty and hospitable style, in which he lived at the time of my visit. The great pile of Abbotsford, with the huge expense it entailed upon him, of servants, retainers, guests, and baronial style, was a drain upon his purse, a tax upon his exertions, and a weight upon his mind, that finally crushed him.

As yet, however, all was in embryo and perspective, and Scott pleased himself with picturing out his future residence, as he would one of the fanciful creations of his own romances. "It was one of his air castles," he said, "which he was reducing to solid stone and mortar." About the place were strewed various morsels from the ruins of Melrose Abbey, which were to be incorporated in his mansion. He had already constructed out of similar materials a kind of Gothic shrine over a spring, and had surmounted it by a small stone cross.

Among the relics from the Abbey which lay scattered before us, was a most quaint and antique little lion, either of red stone, or painted red, which hit my fancy. I forgot whose cognizance it was; but I shall never forget the delightful observations concerning old Melrose to which it accidentally gave rise. The Abbey was evidently a pile that called up all Scott's poetic and romantic feelings; and one to which he was enthusiastically attached by the most fanciful and delightful of his early associations. He spoke of it, I may say, with affection. "There is no telling," said he, "what treasures are hid in that glorious old pile. It is a famous place for antiquarian plunder; there are such rich bits of old time sculpture for the architect, and old time story for the poet. There is as rare picking in it as a Stilton cheese, and in the same taste—the mouldier the better."

Washington Irving, from "Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey"

Essential.

 Lively Run Goat Dairy, Finger Lakes Gold Reserve 

Food & Wine has 25 essential American cheeses ...

Ample.

Delacroix, A Vase of Flowers, 1833

We are nothing but links in a chain.  Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it? Aren't we also thoroughly artists enough to contradict suspicions on that score by what we say with our brush?  Perhaps someday everyone will have neurosis, St. Vitus' dance, or something else.

But doesn't the antidote exist? In Delacroix, in Berlioz, and Wagner? And really, as for the artist's madness of all the rest of us, I do not say that I especially am not infected through and through, but I say and will maintain that our antidotes and consolations may, with a little good will, be considered ample compensation.

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh. Monday, 28 January 1889

Telemann, "Schaut die Demut Palmen tragen"

Behold the palms of humility,

which God has exalted.

Behold Jesus in His crown—

He who, from the highest throne of joy,

willingly stepped down into the abyss of suffering,

into a world filled with woe.

Meike Luluschko performs with Eva Liebe, oboe, and Gregor Schwarz, continuo ...

Scrolling.

Feeling.

The Van Gogh Museum explores Vincent's palette ...

For Vincent, an understanding of colour theory was essential in painting. He also realised that a painter should not attempt to reproduce the exact colour he saw before him. That was merely "the reflection of reality in the mirror," not art. "The effects colours produce through their harmonies or discords should be boldly exaggerated" to convey a feeling.

Understand.

van Gogh, Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890

Do go on doing a lot of walking and keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see.

And then there are painters who never do anything that is no good, who cannot do anything bad, just as there are ordinary people who can do nothing but good.

I'm getting on very well here. I've got a delightful home and I'm finding it very pleasurable taking a look at London and the English way of life and the English people themselves, and then I've got nature and art and poetry, and if that isn't enough, what is? 

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh, January 1874