An excellent movie.
The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man. His compulsion is my liberation.
27 May 2023
Elton John, "Philadelphia Freedom"
The salad bar is open (the plates chilled), the soup is French Onion, and schooners of Weidemann are two-for-one. Try the chicken nachos with an extra side of ranch ...
Happy Birthday, Sioux
Siouxsie Sioux was born on this day in 1957.
"Song from the Edge of the World" ...
Profound.
Cassatt, Two Women Seated by a Woodland Stream, 1869
I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.
In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Flying.
The American Flag, The Stars and Stripes, Old Glory is pretty much just for flying. Stop using it for pop culture decoration. I'm talking to you, Charcuterie Sharon -- no flag napkins.
Clear.
O'Keeffe, An Orchid, 1941
I feel that a real living form is the result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown—where it has experienced something—felt something—it has not understood—and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown—known. By unknown—I mean the thing that means so much to the person that wants to put it down—clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand—sometimes he partially knows why—sometimes he doesn’t—sometimes it is all working in the dark—but a working that must be done—Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you—catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life—only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead—that you must always keep working to grasp—the form must take care of its self if you can keep your vision clear.
Georgia O'Keeffe
Weber, Bassoon Concerto in F major, Op.75
Gordon Fantini performs with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Gabor Takácks-Nagy ...
Intoxicating.
Wyeth, N.C., Sea Fever, 1937
He who indulges habitually in the intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very reason that he reaps a greater pleasure than others, must resign himself to a keener pain, a more intolerable and utter prostration.
Robert Louis Stevenson, from Notes and Essays: Chiefly of the Road
26 May 2023
Stand.
Martin Luther was declared an outlaw and his writings banned by the Edict of Worms on this day in 1521.
Excellent.
An excellent album.
From bandcamp.com ...
Following rare access to the bell tower at Hull Minster in September 2021, this immersive electronic work is made entirely of recordings of the bells that have rung out over the city of Hull for centuries, and of the clock mechanism that has marked that time. With live spatialisation across 24 speakers set up around the magnificent Hull Minster, this music delves deep into the resonances of the place and plays with the rich acoustics of the building.Nightports is based on a simple rule of restriction: only sounds captured for a particular project can be used. Nothing else – no samples or synths or drum machines – though the sounds captured can be stretched, cut, morphed and twisted, ordered and reordered. All of the sounds of this performance come from Hull Minster. It is music in and of this special place.
25 May 2023
Working.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Juan Hamilton in discussion, Interview, 1983 ...
HAMILTONGeorgia, tell Andy about how you got your mountain. Remember when somebody was interviewing you, and you said, “That’s my mountain.” And they said, “What do you mean that’s your mountain?” You said, “God told me if I painted it enough he’d give it to me.” Isn’t that true?
O’KEEFFEAnd I’m still working on it.
Adventures.
It's the last day of school. Time to leave the nest and let the adventures of life begin!
Today is your day!Your mountain is waiting.So ... get on your way!Dr. Seuss
24 May 2023
Spectacular.
Casey, Gin and Tonic, 2016
Bond ordered a double gin and tonic and one whole green lime. When the drink came he cut the lime in half, dropped the two squeezed halves into the long glass, almost filled the glass with ice cubes and then poured in the tonic. He took the drink out on to the balcony, and sat and looked out across the spectacular view.
Ian Fleming
Orangery.
In 1663 the Palace of Versailles was endowed with an orangery built by Louis Le Vau.
\\
Urgency.
An image which captures, perfectly, the urgency of life in the rare map trade: me, answering a customer enquiry after a good lunch. pic.twitter.com/zEKASDLstV
— Tim Bryars (@TimBryars) May 22, 2023
Beyond.
Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.
Georgia O'Keefe
23 May 2023
22 May 2023
Be.
Homer, Boys Wading, 1873
By not letting places be themselves we show our contempt for them. We bury them in sentiment, then suffocate them to death in one way or another. I can ruin both the desert and the Museum of Modern Art in New York by carrying to them an insufferable load of distinctions that disallows actually seeing the flora and fauna or the paintings. Children are usually better at finding mushrooms and arrowheads because they are either ignorant of or unwilling to carry the load.
Jim Harrison, from Dalva
Bound.
If the brass wakes the trumpet, it’s not its fault. That’s obvious to me: I witness the unfolding of my own thought: I watch it, I hear it: I make a stroke with the bow: the symphony begins in the depths, or springs with a bound onto the stage.
Arthur Rimbaud
Poet.
Modigliani, Self-portrait, 1919
The first study for the man who wants to be a poet is knowledge of himself, complete: he searches for his soul, he inspects it, he puts it to the test, he learns it. As soon as he has learned it, he must cultivate it! I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned derangement of all the senses. All shapes of love suffering, madness. He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself, to keep only the quintessences. Ineffable torture where he needs all his faith, all his superhuman strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed one--and the supreme Scholar! For he reaches the unknown! ... so the poet is actually a thief of Fire! He is responsible for humanity, for animals even; he will have to make sure his visions can be smelled, fondled, listened to; if what he brings back from beyond has form, he gives it form; if it has none, he gives it none. A language must be found … of the soul, for the soul and will include everything: perfumes, sounds colors, thought grappling with thought.
Arthur Rimbaud
Happy Birthday, Wagner
Richard Wagner was born on this day in 1813.
Siegfried Idyll, performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by Alain Altinoglu ...
21 May 2023
Happy Birthday, Lynch
Stan Lynch was born on this day in 1955.
A neat version of "Even the Losers" from 1986's Farm Aid ...
Warning.
Listening to them, you begin to understand what Nietzsche meant when he said the strong must be protected from the weak. The force of the whining is so overwhelming, the corresponding urge not to appear mean or unreasonable so great, that one is tempted to make humiliating concessions just to shut them up.
This year our school moved into a different building, one of the many benefits of this being access to eight pristinely-paved tennis courts for recess. In August, administration graciously provided equipment for pickleball, but the squibs quickly and intelligently abandoned the game, and instead began bringing their own tennis racquets (which they call "thundersticks") for jeu de paume. Skills are enthusiastically developing and interpretations are thriving. What a blast.
Ackroyd.
Norman Ackroyd Unmasked ...
What Do Artists Do All Day: Norman Ackroyd ...
Turned.
I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.
Arthur Rimbaud
Telemann, Overture Suite in in G major, "La Bizarre," TWV 55:G2
The Bremen Baroque Orchestra dances through the Sarabande ...
Significance.
An excellent book ...
To write history, or even to read it, is to be endlessly engaged in a process of selection. No part of the job is more difficult or more important, and yet no part has been studied with less system, or practiced with less method. Many facts are called, but few are consciously chosen, on explicit and rational criteria of factual significance.Historians have, I think, deliberately resisted the refinement and rationalization of this aspect of their task. For some of them, the idea of a chosen fact is hateful in itself. Others think that the process of selection is not merely an unknown but a mystery. Both of these beliefs are utterly mistaken. The process of selection can and must be clarified if history is to develop beyond its present condition. Criteria of factual significance can and must be specified, or else historians will be running through records like rats in a maze, without even a rudimentary notion of the nature of their predicament. In every historical inquiry, the process of factual selection operates in several separate ways. One species of selection, commonly called "sampling," consists in the selection of representative facts of a certain predetermined kind, within a closed universe of investigation. This undertaking, difficult as it often is in practice, presents comparatively few conceptual problems. We shall consider it in a later chapter. A much tougher problem is presented by the complex selection process that precedes sampling-namely, the selection of the kinds of facts to be sampled. This involves the determination of fundamental criteria offactual significance.Significance is the sort of word which sends shudders down the spine of every working historian. But if he turns his back upon the problem, he will operate upon covert criteria of factual significance, which may be incompatible with his own objectives. "He who is deficient in the art of selection," Macaulay wrote, "may, by showing nothing but the truth, produce the effect of the grossest falsehood." And he who is deficient in his ideas of significance is sure to be equally so in the art of selection.There are a few common fallacies in this respect, a few criteria of factual significance which are inconsistent with empiricism in history. In each of the following instances, the fallacy consists not in the criteria themselves but rather in an attempt to combine them with the methods and objects of empirical inquiry. Every historian, of course, has the inalienable right to do any kind of history that pleases him-a constitutional right to go wrong in his own way. But no historian is liberated from the logical consequences of his own assumptions. The object of this chapter is not to condemn certain deviations from narrow academic norms. It is rather to demonstrate that all historians operate upon certain criteria of factual significance in their work, and that those criteria must be aligned with their own purposes, and methods.
Perspectives.
Raphael, School of Athens, 1511
A few perspectives on the liberal arts and the definition and purpose of intellectual freedom and diversity ...
A liberal education implies breadth and depth: basic knowledge in a range of disciplines, focused by more concentrated work in one. These goals are common to all liberal arts institutions, but at Brown they have a special context. Our open curriculum ensures you great freedom in directing the course of your education, but it also expects you to remain open—to people, ideas, and experiences that may be entirely new. By cultivating such openness, you will learn to make the most of the freedom you have, and to chart the broadest possible intellectual journey, not just during your first semesters but through your entire time at Brown.What does it mean to be broadly educated? The first Western universities conceived of the liberal arts as seven distinct modes of thought, three based on language (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), and four on number (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). While this structure has changed over the centuries, the basic concept has endured. A modern liberal arts education is still defined in terms of a core curriculum comprised of several areas of knowledge. At Brown, rather than specifying these areas, we challenge you to develop your own core. Over four years you will sample courses in the humanities, the social sciences, the life sciences, and the physical sciences. But the real challenge is to make connections between those courses, using the perspective gained from one discipline as a window onto the next. The most significant social, political, and moral issues of our time require the ability to think from multiple vantage points, and Brown’s curriculum affords you the opportunity to develop just this sort of nuanced perspective.
The liberal arts education has its roots in ancient history and the subjects deemed necessary for a citizen to take part in civic society. In the modern era, a liberal arts education stems from the belief that an interdisciplinary education prepares students for society through exposure to a breadth of academic disciplines while allowing for depth in a major area of study. Students need to be adaptable in a fast-paced, interconnected world; through a four-year discourse with peers, students will learn analysis, argument, quantitative reasoning, logical inference and creative thinking. Students are encouraged to ask critical questions; not just the how, but the why. Not only will this instill personal passions for students, but many employers rank skills such as working in a team structure, communication, decision making and problem solving, and obtaining and processing information very highly in job candidates. A true liberal arts education is achieved without concern for vocational utility, yet at the same time prepares students for the evolving world and job market within which we operate today.
A liberal arts education at Cornell will change the way you think, challenge your assumptions, and make you take a deeper look at the world around you. It will help you understand the foundations of knowledge, inquiry, and creativity, and prepare you for a lifetime of intellectual growth and adventure. Choice and flexibility are the hallmarks of the College of Arts and Sciences’ approach to providing a liberal arts education. As an undergraduate, you’ll have two years to choose a major, which will give you plenty of time to sample courses that intrigue you and expand your academic horizons. The college ensures that you receive broad exposure to important liberal arts disciplines through its distribution requirements in the humanities and arts, science and math, the social sciences, and language. In-depth study in a specific major field helps you develop and hone your reasoning and writing skills.
Freedom of expression and dissent is protected by Dartmouth regulations. Dartmouth prizes and defends the right of free speech and the freedom of the individual to make their own disclosures, while at the same time recognizing that such freedom exists in the context of the law and in responsibility for one's own actions. The exercise of these rights must not deny the same rights to any other individual. The institution therefore both fosters and protects the rights of individuals to express dissent.Protest or demonstration shall not be discouraged so long as neither force nor the threat of force is used, and so long as the orderly processes of the institution are not deliberately obstructed. Membership in the Dartmouth community carries with it, as a necessary condition, the agreement to honor and abide by this policy.
Commitment to liberal arts & sciences is at the core of Harvard College’s mission: before students can help change the world, they need to understand it. The liberal arts & sciences offer a broad intellectual foundation for the tools to think critically, reason analytically and write clearly. These proficiencies will prepare students to navigate the world’s most complex issues, and address future innovations with unforeseen challenges. Shaped by ideas encountered and created, these new modes of thinking will prepare students for leading meaningful lives, with conscientious global citizenship, to enhance the greater good.
A liberal arts education offers an expansive intellectual grounding in all kinds of humanistic inquiry.By exploring issues, ideas and methods across the humanities and the arts, and the natural and social sciences, you will learn to read critically, write cogently and think broadly. These skills will elevate your conversations in the classroom and strengthen your social and cultural analysis; they will cultivate the tools necessary to allow you to navigate the world’s most complex issues.
Yale is committed to the idea of a liberal arts education through which students think and learn across disciplines, liberating or freeing the mind to its fullest potential. The essence of such an education is not what you study, but the result: gaining the ability to think critically and independently and to write, reason, and communicate clearly – the foundation for all professions.
Indeed.
Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr., American Civil Liberties Union, et al. v. Janet Reno (No. 98-5591)
Just read and keep reading.
Unsettle.
The Rev. Dr. Cornel West in defense of unsafe spaces ...
I am an old-school humanist intellectual, and so I believe that the classroom is a place where you thoroughly unsettle people. You unnerve and unhouse them. I guess when the younger generation talks about safe spaces, they have in mind that they want to be respected. And I do think that we ought to respect each other’s perspectives, but at the same time if they feel that they don’t want their views to be violated, then I’m critical of that.Education is very much about the shaking of whatever convictions we have. You know what Nietzsche says: It’s not just the courage of having your convictions, it’s a matter of mustering the courage to attack your convictions, too. That doesn’t mean that you have to give them up in the end, but they need to be seriously scrutinized. So in that sense, safe space for me means respect for perspective, and then robust Socratic energy.
Rigorous.
Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818
Professor Stanley Fish on intellectual diversity ...
Isn't it the case that, at least in the humanities and social sciences, the materials to be studied are fraught with political and ideological implications? How could those implications be ignored or removed without producing a classroom experience that would be arid and just plain dull? Easy. What you do is regard the political and ideological implications of your materials as something to be studied and not as something you and your students vote on. The master rule was given long ago by Max Weber when he insisted that while canvassing for votes and trying to persuade others to your partisan views is perfectly appropriate in the political arena, it is perfectly inappropriate in the classroom. "It is one thing," says Weber, "to determine...the internal structure of cultural values, while it is another thing to answer questions of the value of culture." I have coined an ugly word which, I think, captures Weber's understanding of what should and should not go on in higher education. The word is "academicize," and it is easily turned into a slogan on the model of Duke Professor Fredrick Jameson's famous advice to cultural critics--always historicize. My advice is always academicize, by which I mean always remove the materials you bring to the classroom from the context of their real-world urgency--where you ask and answer questions like what should we do now and which of the alternative courses of action is just and moral--and insert them into the context of academic urgencies--where you ask and answer questions like what is the structure of the arguments on either side of this issue or what are the historical antecedents of the present controversy or what is the relationship between this controversy and others now playing out in neighboring areas of inquiry? The more you ask this second kind of question, the less you and your students will ask, or even be interested in, the first kind. Academicizing a subject means draining it of the energies that animate partisan proponents of one position or another, and infusing it with the energies that come along with rigorous intellectual interrogation. And you can do this without losing the political significance of the subject; it's just that that significance becomes part of what is being studied rather an occasion for real-life decision making.
Martin Hackworth on the orthodoxy of the elites ...
The triumph of group-think over intellectual diversity has occurred to our considerable detriment. Our government is vastly incompetent and the progenitor of bad outcomes because political parties and the federal bureaucracy each rely on only their own corrals of acceptable thought. You may be incompetent (see Pete Buttigieg), you may be of any race, creed, or sexual orientation, you may even identify as a puppy and still get a seat at the table with the big kids, as long as you don’t object to the orthodoxy du jour. Do that, and you are out.
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