Words decompose

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Perpetual sunset is rather an unsettling thing...

"Night Waltz I", originally from A Little Night Music here taken from Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas feat. Julie Andrews, John Denver and Placido Domingo

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Things I learnt today: 2 tens are the same as 3 sevens, and so are 2 elevens.

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Tell me: how is this night Diff'rent from all other nights? ... This year in fear and shame, Next year in virtue and justice.

The conclusion of Act I of John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, performed by Russell Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. The text is a translation of Primo Levi's "Pasqua", from Ad ora incerta (This is the translation that's all over the internet, but I haven't found an attribution).

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Staging "Nun will ich jubeln" like "No Children" is certainly a capital-C Choice, but it still made me cry, so...

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Not singing it at all is also a capital-C Choice! (This version didn't make me cry; but I was open mouthed with shock.)

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Have you forgotten Washington?

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Here I Am

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Staging "Nun will ich jubeln" like "No Children" is certainly a capital-C Choice, but it still made me cry, so...

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Have you forgotten Washington?

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The dog!

lol

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I loved the dog

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The dog!

lol

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An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design.

COMPOSER OF THE WEEK - Stephen Sondheim This (and the second video linked in the description) is approximately three episodes out of five from a week-long feature on BBC Radio 3 in 2010.

While there's unlikely to be any new information, it's a nice synoptic view of his career, and was nice listening for today.

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Premiere, please, where's the toilet?

[theslugsareback]

every day there is a new sadness to be borne, but there is also stuff like this typed exhibit label:

transcript with two-dot ellipses and all here:

Madonna Surrounded by Many Animals

Albrecht Durer..Nurnberg..1471-1528

Vienna Gallery..Albertina Collection.

This is a line drawing..painted over in water colors.

It is one of the rare instances when the Madonna wears a white dress. The smiling, fat child has reached out and plucked a strawberry plant.

Owls, birds, butterflies, foxes, bettles [sic!], snails, bees, a woodpecker..a giant crab..2 geese on a pond are all drawn with the German fidelity to nature! Joseph and a Crane are gazing at one another..and then "the hand of Nurnberg" as Durer is so often called, fancifully drew in an angel..giving the glad tidings to simple shepherds and there is too, the Star of Bethlehem.

The flowers of the Madonna are present..the rose...the iris (fleur di lis) and then because hollyhocks abounded in Nurnberg in Renaissance Days.. Durer has included a few hollyhock plants. I've often been chided for having hollyhocks in my yard...but what is good enuf for Durer, is good enuf for me!

There are two rarities in this print...the aforementioned white dress of the Madonna and the fact that Durer has not signed it with the familiar AD..always in the foreground of his works...but his signature is really plain enuf to see to anyone familiar with Durer's drawings...the shaggy little terrier in the foreground, Apparently Durer's favorite breed of dog...because we see him over and over in the Durer woodcuts.

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The image, for anyone else curious:

[shimyereh]

«Нет, жизнь не кончена в 31 год,» вдруг окончательно, беспеременно решил князь Андрей.

[“No, life is not over at 31,” Prince Andrei suddenly, definitively, and irrevocably decided.]

***

Along the path, the coachman spies it; He points it out: that same old oak. Except — you barely recognize it. It can’t be. Surely, he misspoke? You drive past, but the image lingers: The branches with their gnarled fingers Show fresh leaves specked with sap-bead stars; Lush foliage hides the trunk’s deep scars. And suddenly — you can’t stop grinning: Joy, sunlight, spring! Why say you’re done? Life doesn’t end at thirty-one! A brand new chapter’s just beginning — Why close the book at such an age? Whole worlds await! You turn the page.

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Have you forgotten Washington?

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My word, Autolycus is insufferably irritating.

[destroymylife]