You can ponder perpetual motion...

claudvandamm: Billboard in North Carolina: Church’s response to...

Wed, 30 May 2012 18:10:52 -0400

Billboard in North Carolina: Church’s response to the passing of Amendment One. Nice to see that not every religious person here is a bigot. - Imgur

Someone is doing right.

hahaha so soooo true

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:57:58 -0400

hahaha so soooo true

You are incredibly attractive, especially with facial hair.

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:35:45 -0400

Well thanks? You should leave me a message telling me who you are instead of being a grey-faced anon…

resurrection

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:34:58 -0400

silentfrenzies:

First movement. We are standing at the grave of a well-loved man. We contemplate his whole life, his struggles, his sufferings and his intentions on earth. And now, in this solemn and deeply stirring moment, when the confusion and distractions of everyday life are lifted like a hood from our eyes, a voice of awe-inspiring solemnity chills our heart, a voice that, blinded by the mirage of everyday life, we usually ignore: ‘What next?’ it says. ’What is life and what is death? Will we live on eternally? Is it all an empty dream or do our life and death have a meaning?’ And we must answer this questions, if we mean to go on living.

The next three movements are conceived as intermezzi.

Second movement: Andante. A blissful moment in the life of the dear departed and a sad recollection of his youth and last innocence.

Third movement: Scherzo. A spirit of disbelief and negation has seized him. He is bewildered by the bustle of appearances and he loses his perception of childhood and the profound strength that love alone can give. He despairs both of himself and God. The world and life begin to seem unreal. Utter disgust for every form of existence and evolution seizes him in an iron grasp, torments him until he utters a cry of despair.

Fourth movement: ‘Urlicht’ (alto solo). The stirring words of simple faith sound in his ears: ‘I am from God and will return to God! The dear God will give me a light, will lgith me to eternal, blessed life.’

Fifth movement. It begins with the ‘cry of despair’. Once more we are confronted with terrifying questions, and the atmosphere is the same as at the end of the third movement. The voice of the Caller is heard. The end of every living thing has come, the last judgement is at hand and the horror of the day of days has come upon us. The earth trembles, the graves burst open, the dead arise and march forth in endless procession. The great and the lowly of this earth, kings and beggars, the just and the godless, all press forward: ‘an endless procession of shuddering, expectant people’. The cry for mercy and forgiveness sounds fearful in our ears. The wailing becomes gradually more terrible; our senses desert us, all consciousness dies as the Eternal Spirit approaches. The ‘Last Trump’ sounds; the trumpets of the Apocalypse call out ‘to all flesh and all spirit’. In the eerie silence that follows we can just barely make out a distant nightingale, a last tremulous echo of earthly life. The gentle sound of a chorus of saints and heavenly hosts is then heard: ‘Rise again, yes, rise again thou wilt!’ Then God in all His glory comes into sight. A wondrously mild light strikes us to the heart. All is calm and bliss. And lo: there is no judgement; there are no sinners; no just men; no great and no small; there is no punishment and no reward! A feeling of overwhelming love imbues us with the bliss of knowing and being.

-Gustav Mahler, program note for the King of Saxony explaining his Second symphony, 1901

thank you for posting this! i’ve been looking for this for a looong time!!!

trafalgar-rgh: Mahler: His Time Has Come By Leonard...

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:24:22 -0400

trafalgar-rgh:

Mahler: His Time Has Come

By Leonard Bernstein
(Findings, Copyright 1981)

Has come? Had come, rather; was there all along, even as each bar of each symphony was being penned in that special psychic fluid of his. If ever there was a composer of his time it was Mahler, prophetic only in the sense that he already knew what the world would come to know and admit half a century later.

Basically, of course, all of Mahler’s music is about Mahler – which means simply that it is about conflict. Think of it: Mahler the Creator vs. Mahler the Performer; the Jew vs. the Christian; the Believer vs. the Doubter; the Naïf vs. the Sophisticate; the provincial Bohemian vs. the Viennese homme du monde; the Faustian Philosopher vs. the Oriental Mystic the Operatic Symphonist who never wrote an opera. But mainly the battle rages between Western Man at the turn of the century and the life of the spirit. Out of this opposition proceeds the endless list of antitheses – the whole roster of Yang and Yin – that inhabit Mahler’s music.

What was this duple vision of Mahler’s? A vision of his world, crumbling in corruption beneath its smug surface, fulsome, hypocritical, prosperous, sure of its terrestrial immortality, yet bereft of its faith in spiritual immortality. The music is almost cruel in its revelations: it is like a camera that has caught Western society in the moment of its incipient decay. But to Mahler’s own audiences none of this was apparent: they refused (or were unable) to see themselves mirrored in these grotesque symphonies. They heard only exaggeration, extravagance, bombast, obsessive length – failing to recognize these as symptoms of their own decline and fall. They heard what seemed like the history of German-Austrian music, recapitulated in ironic or distorted terms – and they called it shameful eclecticism. They heard endless, brutal, maniacal marches – but failed to see the imperial insignia, the Swastika (make your own list) on the uniforms of the marchers. They heard mighty Chorales, overwhelming brass hymns – but failed to see them tottering at an abyss of tonal deterioration. They heard extended, romantic love songs – but failed to understand that these Liebesträume were nightmares, as were those mad, degenerate Ländler.

But what makes the heartbreaking duplicity is that all these anxiety-ridden images were set up alongside images of the life of the spirit, Mahler’s anima, which surrounds, permeates, and floodlights these cruel pictures with the tantalizing radiance of how life could be. The intense longing for serenity is inevitably coupled with the sinister doubt that it can be achieved. Obversely, the innate violence of the music, the excesses of sentiment, the arrogance of establishment, the vulgarity of power-postures, the disturbing rumble of status-non-quo are all the more agonizing for being linked with memories of innocence, with the aching nostalgia of youthful dreams, with aspirations towards the Empyrean, noble proclamations of redemption, or with the bittersweet tease of some Nirvana or other, just barely out of reach. It is thus a conflict between an intense love of life and a disgust with life, between a fierce longing for Himmel and the fear of death.

This dual vision of Mahler’s, which tore him apart all his life, is the vision we have finally come to perceive in his music. This is what Mahler meant when he said, “My time will come.” It is only after fifty, sixty, seventy years of world holocausts, of the simultaneous advance of democracy with our increasing inability to stop making war, of the simultaneous magnification of national pieties with intensification of our active resistance to social equality – only after we have experienced all this through the smoking ovens of Auschwitz, the frantically bombed jungles of Vietnam, through Hungary, Suez, the Bay of Pigs, the farce-trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel, the refueling of the Nazi machine, the murder in Dallas, the arrogance of South Africa, the Hiss-Chambers travesty, the Trotzkyite purges, Black Power, Red Guards, the Arab encirclement of Israel, the plague of McCarthyism, the Tweedledum armament race – only after all this can we finally listen to Mahler’s music and understand that it foretold all. And in the foretelling it showered a rain of beauty on this world that has not been equaled since.

Now that the world of music has begun to understand the dualistic energy-source of Mahler’s music, the very key to its meaning, it is easier to understand this phenomenon in specific Mahlerian terms. For the doubleness of the music is the doubleness of the man. Mahler was split right down the middle, with the curious result that whatever quality is perceptible and definable in his music, the diametrically opposite quality is equally so. Of what other composer can this be said? Can we think of Beethoven as both roughhewn and epicene? Is Debussy both subtle and blatant? Mozart both refined and raw? Stravinsky both objective and maudlin? Unthinkable. But Mahler, uniquely, is all of these – roughhewn and epicene, subtle and blatant, refined, raw, objective, maudlin, brash, shy, grandiose, self-annihilating, confident, insecure, adjective, opposite, adjective, opposite.

The first spontaneous image that springs to my mind at the mention of the word “Mahler” is of a colossus straddling the magic dateline “1900.” There he stands, his left foot (closer to the heart!) firmly planted in the rich, beloved nineteenth century, and his right, rather less firmly, seeking solid ground in the twentieth. Some say he never found this foothold; others (and I agree with them) insist that twentieth-century music could not exist as we know it if that right foot had not landed there with a commanding thud. Whichever assessment is right, the image remains: he straddled. Along with Strauss, Sibelius and, yes, Schoenberg, Mahler sang the last rueful songs of nineteenth-century romanticism. But Strauss’s extraordinary gifts went the route of a not very subjective virtuosity; Sibelius and Schoenberg found their own extremely different but personal routes into the new century. Mahler was left straddling; his destiny was to sum up, package, and lay to ultimate rest the fantastic treasure that was German-Austrian music from Bach to Wagner.

It was a terrible and dangerous heritage. Whether he saw himself as the last symphonist in the long line started by Mozart, or the last Heilige Deutsche Künstler in the line started by Bach, he was in the same rocky boat. To recapitulate the line, bring it to climax, show it all in one, soldered and smelted together by his own fires – this was a function assigned him by history and destiny, a function that meant years of ridicule, rejection, and bitterness.

But he had no choice, compulsive manic creature that he was. He took all (all!) the basic elements of German music, including the clichés, and drove them to their ultimate limits. He turned rests into shuddering silences; upbeats into volcanic preparations as for a death blow. Luftpausen became gasps of shock or terrified suspense; accents grew into titanic stresses to be achieved by every conceivable means, both sonic and tonic. Ritardandi were stretched into near-motionlessness; accelerandi became tornadoes; dynamics were refined and exaggerated to a point of neurasthenic sensibility. Mahler’s marches are like heart attacks, his chorales like all Christendom gone mad. The old conventional four-bar phrases are delineated in steel; his most traditional cadences bless like the moment of remission from pain. Mahler is German music multiplied by n.

The result of all this exaggeration is, of course, that neurotic intensity which for so many years was rejected as unendurable, and in which we now find ourselves mirrored. And there are concomitant results: an irony almost too bitter to comprehend; excesses of sentimentality that still make some listeners wince; moments of utter despair, often the despair of not being able to drive all this material even further, into some kind of paramusic that might at last cleanse us. But we are cleansed, when all is said and done; no person of sensibility can come away from the Ninth Symphony without being exhausted and purified. And that is the triumphant result of all this purgatory, justifying all excesses: we do ultimately encounter an apocalyptic radiance, a glimmer of what peace must be like.

So much for the left foot: what of the right, tentatively scratching at the new soil of the twentieth century, testing it for solidity, fertility, roots? Yes, it was found fertile; there were roots there, but they had sprung from the other side. All of Mahler’s testing, experiments, incursions were made in terms of the past. His breaking-up of rhythms, his post-Wagnerian stretching of tonality to its very snapping point (but not beyond it!), his probings into a new thinness of texture, into bare linear motion, into transparent chamber-music-like orchestral manipulation – all these adumbrated what was to become twentieth-century common practice; but they all emanated from those nineteenth-century notes he loved so well. Similarly, in his straining after new forms – a two-movement symphony (#8), a six-movement symphony (#3), symphonies with voices, not only in the Finales (#3, #8, Das Lied), movements which are interludes, interruptions, movements deliberately malformed through arbitrary abridgment or obsessive repetition or fragmentation – all these attempts at new formal structures abide in the shadow of Beethoven’s Ninth, the last Sonatas and string quartets. Even the angular melodic motions, the unexpected intervals, the infinitely wide skips, the search for “endless” melody, the harmonic ambiguities – all of which have deeply influenced many a twentieth-century composer – are nevertheless ultimately traceable back to Beethoven and Wagner.

I think that this is probably why I doubt that I shall ever come to terms with the so-called Tenth Symphony. I have never been convinced of those rhythmic experiments in the Scherzo, of the flirtation with atonality. I often wonder what would have happened had Mahler not died so young. Would he have finished that Tenth Symphony, more or less as the current “versions” have it? Would he have scrapped it? Were there signs there that he was about to go over the hill, and encamp with Schoenberg? It is one of the more fascinating Ifs of history. Somehow I think he was unable to live through that crisis, because there was no solution for him; he had to die with that symphony unfinished. After all, a man’s destiny is nothing more or less than precisely what happened to him in life. Mahler’s destiny was to complete the great German symphonic line and then depart, without it being granted him to start a new one. This may be clear to us now; but for Mahler, while he lived, his destiny was anything but clear. In his own mind he was at least as much part of the new century as of the old. He was a tormented, divided man, with his eyes on the future and his heart in the past.

But his destiny did permit him to bestow much beauty, and to occupy a unique place in musical history. In this position of Amen-sayer to symphonic music, through exaggeration and distortion, through squeezing the last drops of juice out of that glorious fruit, through his desperate and insistent reexamination and reevaluation of his materials, through pushing tonal music to its uttermost boundaries, Mahler was granted the honor of having the last word, uttering the final sigh, letting fall the last living tear, saying the final good-by. To what? To life as he knew it and wanted to remember it, to unspoiled nature, to faith in redemption; but also to music as he knew it and remembered it, to the unspoiled nature of tonal beauty, to faith in its future – good-by to all that. The last C major chord of Das Lied von der Erde was for him the last resolution of all Faustian history. For him?

For more information, please see:

www.leonardbernstein.com

© 2008-2009 The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.

Photo

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:05:31 -0400

Apparently, Wagner Operas bring out my snarky side!

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:41:00 -0400

So after this rude couple sat behind me for the first two acts of Siegfried and talked and sang the lines a few seconds before the performers did, I turned around and asked him for his autograph. When he looked at me, confused, I said ooh so you’re not part of the production!?! I’m sorry I figured you must have been since you were singing the whole time !!! They promptly moved… (i realize that i was in a movie theater watching a recording of The Met performing… but still i paid 15 bucks to watch it, not listen to them!)

Light Your Pipe, Brothers :)

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:53:45 -0400

Light Your Pipe, Brothers :)

Photo

Fri, 04 May 2012 14:57:24 -0400

inlovewith-jackdaniels-again: I was browsing some websites...

Thu, 03 May 2012 04:09:42 -0400

inlovewith-jackdaniels-again:

I was browsing some websites because I want to adopt a solider (preferably a K9 solider) and I came across this picture.

SGT Adam Cann should have been a member of my family. A few months before my sister got engaged her fiance got the call that Adam had sacrificed his life to save other members of his team (sorry I don’t know military terminology) but he took the full blast of the bomb that his dog detected. He died a few days later. I wish I would have gotten to meet him, I hear he was an amazing person. Now my nephew is name after him.

Finding this really made my night. Y’all should go adopt a solider. :) <3

sillywhatwell: Cover design for my soon-to-be-released second...

Wed, 02 May 2012 01:25:41 -0400

sillywhatwell:

Cover design for my soon-to-be-released second solo album The Good, the Bad and the Awkward.

Image by Tina Fiveash (and also, thank you Tina for lending me your pretty frock *grin*)

Makeup and hair by Glitta Supernova

I LOVE this album cover :) I can’t wait for it to release! To my musician friends here on tumblr… If you don’t follow this lovely lady, you need to!!!

This is why I love sociology...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:16:47 -0400

Dr. Muir: the United States is the number one consumer of Chinese babies.
Class:...
Dr. Muir: Well that doesn't sound right, does it?
Dr. Muir: Someone write that down!

LOL!!!!!

Mmmm…. Coffeeeee…… (and i just noticed the...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:13:00 -0400

Mmmm…. Coffeeeee……

(and i just noticed the creepy thing over my right shoulder…)

Is it just me, or...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:12:14 -0400

Are most half-asian guys just freakin adorable?

idk who this is, but THOSE EYES!!!

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:30:09 -0400

idk who this is, but THOSE EYES!!!

iwantamannequin: da-heell: wastetheday: “ICEBERG ,...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:00:40 -0400

iwantamannequin:

da-heell:

wastetheday:

“ICEBERG , ICEBERG!”

omg

reblogged this yesterday, but it’s so funny, hahaha

Why I (a gay guy) will be forever alone:

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:20:09 -0400

Attractive boy: Hi! I will be incredibly too busy to even give you the slightest acknowledgement that you exist.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm famous and completely inaccessible.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm straight, so the only serious relationship we'll ever have begins with a "b".
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm a douchebag, and for the most part you'll just be a really awesome fleshlight to me.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm twice your age, so most people will assume we're related and that'll make any kind of PDA painfully awkward.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm a lot younger than you. Jail anyone?
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm taken and/or blissfully happy without you.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm going to friend-zone you. Good luck not developing feelings for me while I depend on you for everything except romance!
Attractive boy: Hi! I live on the other side of the world.
Attractive boy: Hi! I'm not even the slightest bit interested in you because you're too tall, or too short, or too skinny, or too fat, or too fem, or too masc, or too boring, or too outgoing, or I don't like your skin color, or I think your hair is gross, or some other reason that will make you feel like there's something or several things terribly wrong with you.

(This totally made me lulz cause it's mostly true.)

porknachos replied to your photoset: “Telephone Line” - Electric Light Orchestra … that is...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:08:13 -0400

porknachos replied to your photoset: “Telephone Line” - Electric Light Orchestra …

that is one of my favorite songs of all time. ever. that’s beautiful, btw!

I found it at Father & Son yesterday!!! It was my first time there and I was in a bit of a hurry… i MUST go back soon!

“Noo… noo… I stay. I clean.”

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:40:37 -0400

“Noo… noo… I stay. I clean.”

“Telephone Line” - Electric Light Orchestra B-Side -...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:30:14 -0400

“Telephone Line” - Electric Light Orchestra

B-Side - “Poor Boy (The Greenwood)”

45rpm Single

Transparent GREEN Vinyl!!!