Weather.

"Weather Sayings of the Old Sailors" ...

"Insect Thermometer"

Robert Plant, "The May Queen"

Mad.

Happy birthday, Schenker.

Rudolf Schenker was born on this day in 1948.

"Loving You Sunday Morning" (It's in HD so you won't miss any subtle nuance)

Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Spider, Snake and Little Sun"

Forever.

Gardner, Ear-of-Corn, Oglala Lakota, 1872

Their musical names remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders. Already the once sweet-watered streams, most of which bore Indian names, were clouded with silt and the wastes of man; the very earth was being ravaged and squandered. To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature—the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy glades, the water, the soil, and the air itself.

Dee Brown, from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Evensong.

Live BBC radio broadcast from Chichester Cathedral, 24 March 1965 ...

Live BBC radio broadcast from Winchester Cathedral, 19 May 1976 ...

Live BBC radio broadcast from Salisbury Cathedral, 27 February 1980 ...

CONNECT

Bach, Brandenburg Concertos

Nikolaus Harnoncourt discusses and conducts Bach's Brandenburg Concertos ...

Concerto No.1 in F Major, BWV 1046



Concerto No.2 in F Major, BWV 1047



Concerto No.3 in G Major, BWV 1048



Concerto No.4 in G Major, BWV 1049



Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050



Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051

Good.

DEVO, "Girl U Want"

McEnroe.

Happy birthday, David.

David, Alphonse Leroy, 1783

Jaques-Louis David was born on this day in 1748.

The David episode of Simon Schama's Power of Art ...

Another.

Cox, Within These Walls, 2017

ANOTHER COUNTRY

I love these raw moist dawns with

a thousand birds you hear but can’t

quite see in the mist.

My old alien body is a foreigner

struggling to get into another country.

The loon call makes me shiver.

Back at the cabin I see a book

and am not quite sure what it is.

Jim Harrison

Walk'd.

What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price

Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun

And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,

To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,

To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season

When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;

To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;

To hear sounds of love in the thunderstorm that destroys our enemies' house;

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,

And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field

When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:

Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

Compel the poor to live upon a crust of bread, by soft mild arts.

Smile when they frown, frown when they smile; and when a man looks pale

With labour and abstinence, say he looks healthy and happy;

And when his children sicken, let them die; there are enough

Born, even too many, and our earth will be overrun

Without these arts. If you would make the poor live with temper,

With pomp give every crust of bread you give; with gracious cunning

Magnify small gifts; reduce the man to want a gift, and then give with pomp.

Say he smiles if you hear him sigh. If pale, say he is ruddy.

Preach temperance: say he is overgorg'd and drowns his wit

In strong drink, though you know that bread and water are all

He can afford. Flatter his wife, pity his children, till we can

Reduce all to our will, as spaniels are taught with art."

The sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning,

And the mild moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night,

And Man walks forth from midst of the fires: the evil is all consum'd.

His eyes behold the Angelic spheres arising night and day;

The stars consum'd like a lamp blown out, and in their stead, behold

The expanding eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds!

One Earth, one sea beneath; nor erring globes wander, but stars

Of fire rise up nightly from the ocean; and one sun

Each morning, like a new born man, issues with songs and joy

Calling the Plowman to his labour and the Shepherd to his rest.

He walks upon the Eternal Mountains, raising his heavenly voice,

Conversing with the animal forms of wisdom night and day,

That, risen from the sea of fire, renew'd walk o'er the Earth;

For Tharmas brought his flocks upon the hills, and in the vales

Around the Eternal Man's bright tent, the little children play

Among the woolly flocks. The hammer of Urthona sounds

In the deep caves beneath; his limbs renew'd, his Lions roar

They raise their faces from the earth, conversing with the Man:

How is it we have walk'd through fires and yet are not consum'd?

How is it that all things are chang'd, even as in ancient times?

William Blake

Momentous.

Leonardo, Helicopter, Codex Madrid, 1503

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

Brian Eno

UFO, "Cherry"

Modigliani.

A great section from Modigliani ...

Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492

Daniel Barenboim directs the East-West Divan Symphony Orchestra in the Overture ...

Sustained.

Collins, Bread and Water, 2003

for Wendell Berry

Each face in the street is a slice of bread

wandering on

searching

somewhere in the light the true hunger

appears to be passing them by

they clutch

have they forgotten the pale caves

they dreamed of hiding in

their own caves

full of the waiting of their footprints

hung with the hollow marks of their groping

full of their sleep and their hiding

have they forgotten the ragged tunnels

they dreamed of following in out of the light

to hear step after step

the heart of bread

to be sustained by its dark breath

and emerge

to find themselves alone

before a wheat field
raising its radiance to the moon

W.S. Merwin

Enamored.

SONG of the HIGHEST TOWER

Idle youth

Enslaved to everything,

By being too sensitive

I have wasted my life.

Ah! Let the time come

When hearts are enamored.

I said to myself: let be,

And let no one see you:

Do without the promise

Of higher joys.

Let nothing delay you,

Majestic retirement.

I have endured so long

That I have forgotten everything;

Fear and suffering

Have flown to the skies.

And morbid thirst

Darkens my veins.

Thus the meadow

Given over to oblivion,

Grown up, and flowering

With frankincense and tares

To the wild buzzing

Of a hundred filthy flies.

Oh! the thousand bereavements

Of the poor soul

Which possesses only the image

Of Our Lady!

Can one pray

To the Virgin Mary?

Idle youth

Enslaved by everything,

By being too sensitive

I have wasted my life.

Ah! Let the time come

When hearts are enamored!

Arthur Rimbaud

RUSH, "Xanadu"

Mozart.

Repeating his 1984 film role as Antonio Salieri, F. Murray Abraham reads Amadeus by Peter Shaffer ... HERE.

Bowsprit.

Wyeth, Bowsprit, 1987

Typography.

Limber.

Happy birthday, Ingres.

Ingres, Monsieur Bertin, 1832

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born on this day in 1780.

Fine and delicate taste is the fruit of education and experience.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Acts.

Leonardo, John, the Baptist (detail), 1516

All great acts of genius begin with the same consideration: do not be constrained by your present reality.

Leonardo da Vinci

Sacred.

If conservatism is based on a disposition, on a reality that transcends en vogue realities, on the notion that man always creates something out of another something (since only God creates out of nothing), then conservatism is not a movement. The instant conservatism becomes a movement, it ceases to be conservatism. A conservative must be in order to do.

“No man is an island,” wrote John Donne. We become fully ourselves in an encounter with another. However, despite the fluidity of thought and being, there must be a set of principles we live by. For me, they involve individual freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They involve a recognition of our Creator and giving thanks to Him. They involve being charitable toward others, in whatever form we may choose. They involve a recognition of my own humanity as well as the humanity of another — only then can we truly talk about rights. And they involve creating a community, rather than a collective. These are the principles that shape the character of America, this place I have come to call my home.

Although we are finite beings, we have the capacity to move toward the infinite. Buckley, I think, knew this quite well. He writes: “Conservatism must insist that while the will of man is limited in what it can do, it can do enough to make over the face of the world; and that the question that must always be before us is, What shape should the world take, given modern realities?” In other words, the question is what must we do to defend the sacred from the assault of the profane? Let us not be naïve: Various vulgarities have existed in the very far and recent past. Today, however, we have ceased to recognize the difference between the sacred and the profane. Buckley not only understood the difference, he also enacted that understanding through an authentic intellectual life.

CONNECT

Jamey Johnson, "You Asked Me To"

Alison Krauss, fiddle, and Cowboy Eddie Long, steel ...

Iris DeMent, "Let the Mystery Be"

Thank You, Jess!

Mind.

Not everything in life can or should be explained. Part of every painting should be incomplete, to be completed in the mind of the viewer.

Russell Chatham

Frank Sinatra, "For You"

Properly.

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Marth Argerich performs with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, directed by Riccardo Chailly ...

Potent.

Rinehart, Chase In The Morning, Lakota, 1899

The contemplative and spiritual side of Lakota life was calm and dignified, undisrupted by religious quarrels and wars that turned man against man and even man against animal. Not until a European faith came was it taught that not life on Earth but only life after death was to be glorified; and not until the native man forsook the faith of his forefathers did he learn of Satan and Hell. Furthermore, until that time he had no reason to think otherwise than that the directing and protecting guidance of the Great Mystery was as potent on this side of the world as on the other.

Luther Standing Bear

The Tallest Man on Earth, "Rivers"

Hold.

You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis

CONNECT

Support Our Troops, straighten up.

Thanks, Kurt.

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

The Allman Brothers, "No One to Run With"

Happy Friday!

Fountainhead.

Sargent, Villa Torlonia, Fountain, 1907

There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teacher says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more

marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest. This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,

and it doesn’t move from outside to inside

through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

Rumi