Archive for the ‘Music & Art’ Category
Spam Art
We all hate spam. Especially, by now, those silly appeals from Mr. What's-His-Name who wishes to join with us in confidence so that he can transfer some gazillion unclaimed dollars from his native country into a US bank, thus making us rich for doing nothing much whatsoever. Don't you sometimes wish you could take that […]
Atchison in Autumn
Last November, which is to say in 2007, we visited my father at his home in Kansas City,* While we were there we took a day trip to Atchison, Kansas, a smallish town in the northeast corner of Kansas on the Missouri river. The Missouri river is what divides Kansas and Missouri there and it's […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week XXXV: The Sound of Music
This week's beard belongs to Thiemo (died 1102), a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. This information, from Catholic Online, appears to be about half of everything known about Thiemo: Benedictine bishop and martyr, also called Theodinarus. A member of the family of the counts of Meglin, Bavaria, Germany, he entered the Benedictines at […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
"Peter Grimes"
I had seen a large opera performed live only once before; some years ago Isaac and I went to Baltimore for a dress rehearsal of Strauss' "Elektra". It was a good experience, but it seemed much smaller than when Bill and I went to see "Peter Grimes" at the Metropolitan Opera House on 11 March […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Bjørn Jørgensen: Arctic Photo
A recent story from Science@NASA ("Spring is Aurora Season", 20 March 2008) told an interesting story about how the aurora borealis seems to be more active near the equinoxes. The apparent reason has to do with "magnetic tubes" whose creation is favored when the Earth's magnetic poles have the alignment relative to the Sun that […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Beard of the Week XXXIV: Medieval Cloisters
This week's beard belongs to Saint Peter Martyr, also known as Peter of Verona. Peter (1205–1252) became a Dominican Friar at the age of 16, apparently received into the order by Dominic himself. He was murdered on a road near Milan, Italy, by being first struck on the head with an ax then stabbed through […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
"Ombra mai fu"
A little while ago on the radio we heard the "Largo" from Handel's opera "Xerxes", the all-instrumental arrangement of the opening aria of the opera, called "Ombra Mai Fu" ("Never has there been a shade"). It's a love song sung by the main character to the tree under which he sits, enjoying its shade. The […]
Taking in Some Culture
Culture, culture, culture. I'm back from my whirlwind tour of Manhattan, New York. Parts of it, at least. Our friend Bill, a reader of this blog, some months ago had planned one of his opera trips to that city and he ended up with a bigger hotel room than he'd planned. Thus came the invitation […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week XXXIII: A Fresh Perspective
This week's beard belongs to Albrecht Dürer, easily in my top-10 of most extraordinary artists ever. This amazing self-portrait was painted when the artist was 29 years old, in the year 1500. Is it symbolic that Dürer paints himself in this remarkably self-possessed, self-confident pose, looking directly at the viewer? It's also interesting that he […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Cinematic Penises
The last two films that we watched here at Björnslottet were Mrs. Henderson Presents (directed by Stephen Frears; official site; Wikipedia on) Black Book (directed by Paul Verhoeven; official site for "Zwartboek" {english option available}; Wikipedia on) One thing that that two films had in common, in addition to both being seen here recently, is […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week XXX: Bauhaus Style
Let's get the year of beards started with a bit of style–Bauhaus style, to be specific. This week's beard belongs to Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879–1940). The upper photo shows Klee as most of the world might have seen him; the lower image is Paul Klee as seen by Paul Klee. He taught at the […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Sing a Song of Science
As so often happens, this began innocently enough. It all started on Monday, when a friend of mine sent me a YouTube link, claiming that he had found the prefect theme song for Ars Hermeneutica's Sun Truck project. Indeed he may have done. The song was called "Why the Sun Shines?". Fans of the group […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Some Architecture
Architecture was the field I had planned to enter for most of my life, until the end of high school. For some reason, as I was getting ready for college, I decided to follow the way of physics. Good decision or bad decision, it was, it is, but I still have a fascination for all […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Handel's Bagpipes
'Tis the season to saturate the airwaves with Christmas music and, since I'm a certifiable old curmudgeon, 'tis also the season to complain about poor performances and bad Christmas music. There is, of course, plenty of very nice music and remarkable performances that I've heard occasionally, but this post isn't about that. Mostly it's about […]
Wind Machines
Believe it or not, for years — decades even — I have been fascinated by the use in music of the wind machine. Honestly. You may not be aware that the device even exists, but it does and it is used occasionally in orchestral music (romantic era and later) to create the very realistic sound […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Music & Art
Spooky Classical Music
My big time-waster of the last couple of days was working on a Squidoo Lens* on the subject "Spooky Classical Music for Halloween". This all came about one night when we were having dinner with our friend George, whose musical tastes range from eclectic to odd. He was thinking about music from his collection that […]
Performance & Performing
Our "Kiss Me, Kate" rehearsal Wednesday night# went pretty well, about where we should have been with two days to go and a few details to brush up. For me it was good because I finally remembered all my lines at all the right times, as well as lyrics and dance steps. All this was […]
In: All, Music & Art, Reflections
Symphonic Dogs
I've occasionally given my opinion about music that I like, or music that I think is great, or variants on those topics, but I don't think I've ever mentioned some of the music that I detest. This came to mind because the radio station I was listening to started playing one of the pieces I […]
Via Crucis
When we were in Rome in April (of this year, 2007), it was for the third time in six years — twice in the last two, in fact. It seemed more familiar this time, and I felt like we had a more relaxed time choosing what old familiars to see for the second or third […]
A Beethovenish Birthday
Monday night, thanks to my friend Deb, I had a very lovely evening by way of a birthday treat. True, it was two weeks after the event but then, I was out of the country at the time. Besides, I was well rested this way. Further besides, this Monday was the scheduled date of the […]