swartzmark

Color-blind art lover, tone-deaf music fan. Author, Instant Karma (2002), H2O (2006), Summertime Jews (2018), The Music Never Died (2024). I live in Takoma Park, MD, and help organizations tell their stories. www.swartzmark.com

[swartzmark]

[jakobhetzer]

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[nearlyb]

Anselm Kiefer

[thelonerforlife]

If only my head were finally not my responsibility, could be put into someone else’s care, could be made to merge with other persons and the world so that it would no longer suffer such distance and touchlessness, would no longer even be a head, because even when touched, there are parts of my head not being touched. Even underwater parts of my head feel dry.

Ben Marcus, Notable American Women

[swartzmark]

[spilladabalia]

Kevin Coyne - Karate King

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[swartzmark]

[satanbythesea]

al jourgenson on some guy

“Gibby is the most astute, yet insane, person I have ever met in my life. He is absolutely astute and absolutely insane. He grew up with a famous TV clown for a dad, which would make anybody insane. One time, me and my buddy Mike were at my house, and Gibby stole all my crack. Then he proceeded to smoke it all in front of us with my stolen pipe! Me and Mikey got pissed and beat the living crap out of Gibby. You know what he did? He got up, all bloody, and stole the rest of my crack. The guy is relentless. I love that guy. We’re BFFs forever. You know what else? He did that to me twice. Once, he did so much crack he thought he was covered in spiders. He’s freaking out and scratching himself to the point of blood. I take off his clothes and throw him in the shower, and he’s in the shower, naked, washing the spiders off, or so he thinks. And what’s in the shower? A black widow spider… a real one. He freaks out again, and I went got a gun and shot the spider. I blew up my shower stall for Gibby.”

[swartzmark]

93

[swartzmark]

Director - Salomon Ligthelm

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Dancer: Noam Sinseau

Director: Guillaume Garat

Roaming the seas / I learned to breathe / Forgot I am plenty (ain't no bottom to the sea, you see) / Forgot I'm never empty (I've got memories / Forgot I am plenty (ain't no bottom to the sea, you see)

[swartzmark]

"Play a note on almost any musical instrument, a piano, say, or your own voice, and it will carry a range of frequencies that correspond to the central pitch. Those that form a regular arrangement -whole multiples of the base frequency — are called harmonic. Frequencies in bells on the other hand, are not harmonic. A curious fact emerges.

"Put simply, the pitch we hear when a bell is played, in contrast to those in pianos, voices, stringed instruments, and so on, does nor always correspond to any actual frequency present in its sound. If you hear a middle C in the sound of a bell, say, there is no guarantee that a frequency matching that note is in fact being transmitted through the air. Rather, the experience of hearing a middle C is an epiphenomenon, a kind of ghost: it is the mind's attempt to make sense of the richly dissonant vibrations produced by the instrument. The analogy doesn't quite fit, but it would be a bit like looking at a painting and seeing a vivid blue, where no blue paint has been used. The pitch heard in bells is virtual. It is generated inside the listener's head, an impression of something which is not there, frequencies surrounding an absence. This purely subjective quality offers one explanation as to why, in my experience, bells are so effective in the treatment of psychic distress." --Patrick Langley, The Variations (2023)

[swartzmark]

Drawings by Mervyn Peake for Maurice Collis's Quest for Sita (1946)

[swartzmark]

"Rosalie always considered herself a singer more than a songwriter. Her heroes were people who had what she called "the heartfelt tone" – the Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayão, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Patsy Cline, Sam Cooke, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. It had nothing to do with genre and everything to do with feeling." --Elijah Wald's tribute

[swartzmark]

Everyone is considered a Torah Jessica Tamar Deutsch's Illustrated Pirkei Avot (2017)

[swartzmark]

We all know they’ve got it fixed in politico-economics. We’re junking bonds; we’re dropping bombs we’ve made by guzzling gasoline. Public confidence is shaken like the apple from the tree.

Music by Mia Doi Todd Video by Sarah Elgart Dance by Oguri Cinematography by Sean Hellfritsch