Artist: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (composer) / Vladimir Ashkenazy (performer)
Album: Tchaikovsky: The Seasons
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I’ve been uploading these short songs each month since the spring, and this month’s piece is “January: By the Hearth”. “January” is pleasant-sounding in its A major key and easy-going in terms of tempo. The melody isn’t as distinctive or memorable as June’s or November’s, but it does have the flavor of winter to it.
Click here for last month’s piece - “December: Yuletide”, in A flat major.
State of the Union 2012: Breaking down the language
The National Post’s graphics team looks at key words and how many times they’ve been used in State of the Union addresses going back to 2001.
Fascinating!
Hear, hear!
Warren Buffett popped up on CCTV to wish the Chinese people a happy Year of the Dragon by playing the ukulele, of all things! “Your country has accomplished amazing things,” Buffett told the broadcaster, “and the best is yet to come.” Kind of random, but also kind of cool and cute in a way.
(Source: youtube.com)
I wonder how many people watching SNL not living in New York City / too young during the 90’s actually knows what Stomp and the Blue Man Group is.
“Thing That Drifted Ashore” is a short yet eerie manga by Junji Ito. As with all manga, read from right to left, and top to bottom.
What I found both intriguing and unsettling is: Was the sea creature a malevolent monstrosity that kept the people captive inside its bowels out of some primal hunger or evil intent? Or did the people, after getting swallowed by the sea creature, become parasites just to survive and the sea creature was merely an unwitting beast? Or was it merely chance that forced both the sea creature and the people into this bizarre situation?
First I was like “Hahahaha! I don’t know what’s going on here but this is funny!” [:D]. Then I was like,”Wait… did just I just laugh at well-produced bestiality-based humor?” [:|].
When Dostoevsky met Dickens in 1862 — a meeting that is hard to imagine — Dickens explained that there were two people inside him, ‘one who feels as he ought to feel and one who feels the opposite.’ […] Out of these two people he constructed his universe of characters, good and evil. Dostoevsky’s comment is laconic and ambiguous. ‘Only two people?’ he asked.
Verlyn Klinkenborg, “The Whirling Sound of Planet Dickens” (via fwriction)(via sweatyupperlip)
Columbia Pro-Tip
You don’t have to take the subway down to Columbus Circle for A Voce or Marea for some fine dining. For a comparative dining experience (although minus the Michelin stars), Vareli is located on Broadway between 112th Street and 111th Street, right next to The Heights. Vareli is a fine dining oasis of contemporary Mediterranean cuisine in the culinary wasteland that is Morningside Heights (sorry, Community and Le Monde).
I recommend the Day Boat Chatham Cod (with roasted acorn squash, braised greens, pearl onions, broccolini, and Kabocha squash chowder). I also hear the Duo of Hudson Valley Duck (with braised savoy cabbage, hen-of-the-woods, baby turnips, cranberries, roasted pear, and duck jus) is quite good. Click here to see their menu.
The problem with the old system of authority ranking was arrogance - the assumption that the world ought to be ordered according to the whims of Capital. The problem with the new order is greed - the assumption that Talent deserves whatever it can extort.
Malcolm Gladwell, “Talent Grab” in the October 11, 2010 issue of The New Yorker. The New Yorker is, hands down, my favorite magazine, and Gladwell’s work has never failed to fascinate and captivate. He explores why professional athletes are paid millions of dollars to hit a ball and corporate executives are making 350 times more than the average employee, while the salaries of school teachers, social workers, research scientists, computer programmers have stagnated in the past few decades.(Source: newyorker.com)
Gary Knight, Iraq, April 2003:
This was at the start of the invasion. We were at the Diyala Bridge, which had to be taken by the marines so they could get into Baghdad. They were the lead battalion, the ones who went on to pull down the statue of Saddam. The opposition were shelling us. It was terrifying – both the actual shelling, and the anticipation of it. It comes in waves so you can see it moving in your direction. One had exploded in the tank. If it had landed on top or a couple of feet over, I would have died. Your instinct is to bury yourself, but you can’t. You’re there to do a job. The point is to get the news out. If you keep moving, you can manage the fear. And my stress is nothing compared with civilians and soldiers. I remind myself of that all the time. I don’t have to be there – they don’t have the choice.
My wife and children were very much on my mind because the danger was so extreme. You cannot separate the rest of your life and I’ve tried not to control how much I think about them. Sometimes they have been constantly in my head, sometimes I have not thought about them at all.
From “The Shot That Nearly Killed Me: War Photographers - A Special Report” in The Guardian (June 17, 2011).
