By Jace, a Trail Mix Contributor
A beautiful Chopin mazurka for your early morning pleasure. Both composer and performer at their very best.
Enjoy the music, but most of all enjoy the day!?
38 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”
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according to wiki:
Over the years 1825–1849, Frédéric Chopin wrote at least 59 mazurkas for piano….Chopin based his mazurkas on the traditional Polish folk dance, also called the mazurka (or “mazur” in Polish). However, while he used the traditional mazurka as his model, he was able to transform his mazurkas into an entirely new genre, one that became known as a “Chopin genre”.
wonder how many of those mazurkas were composed during the great romance… interesting side story on a portrait of the pair [above picture is Delacroix‘s preliminary sketch, now at the Louvre, for the joint portrait. George Sand (left) sews while Chopin plays piano.] also in wiki:
The Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand was an 1838 unfinished oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Eugène Delacroix. Originally a double portrait, it was later cut in two and sold off as separate pieces. It showed composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–49) playing piano while writer George Sand (1804–76) sits to his right, listening and sewing (a favorite activity of hers). The sitters were lovers at the time, and both were close friends of the artist.
The portrait remained in Delacroix’s studio until his death. Shortly afterward, it was cut into two separate works, both of which are tightly focused. Chopin’s portrait comprises only a head shot, while Sand’s shows her upper body but is narrowly cut. This led to the loss of large areas of the original canvas. The reason for the divide is likely the then-owner’s belief that two paintings would sell for a higher price than one. Today Chopin’s portrait is housed at the Louvre in Paris, while Sand’s hangs at Copenhagen‘s Ordrupgaard Museum
Jace… how lovely!
Gonna be gone all day up at my annual fair. Not doing a booth… but I do have work in an exhibit. Hence, I have to work a couple days. So looking forward to seeing my crafter friends! So looking forward to getting out of my air conditioned house and into the heat… NOT!
Everyone take care and have a great day!
Jace – Thank You
Our family got a Chopin album as one in a series of grocery store giveaways in the late 70s. I loved it, especially a polonaise.
Why a grocery store was giving away record albums, I have no idea.
As a kid, I remember dish towels & drinking glasses being given away in boxes of Dreft soap.
They also, somehow, gave away 45s as part of the packaging on Sugar Smacks cereal. You cut it off the back of the box, so you can imagine the quality of Bobby Sherman or the Archie’s, which were the two I had. They are in an encyclopedia (or a landfill) somewhere, as I stuck them between the pages to try to improve the sound quality by removing the waviness of the cardboard backing.
What is the weirdest giveaway you remember?
Patrick Stewart: “I will always be very proud to have been a part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, but when we wrapped that final movie in the spring of 2002, I truly felt my time with Star Trek had run its natural course. It is, therefore, an unexpected but delightful surprise to find myself excited and invigorated to be returning to Jean-Luc Picard and to explore new dimensions within him. Seeking out new life for him, when I thought that life was over.
“During these past years, it has been humbling to hear stories about how The Next Generation brought people comfort, saw them through difficult periods in their lives or how the example of Jean-Luc inspired so many to follow in his footsteps, pursuing science, exploration and leadership. I feel I’m ready to return to what comforting and reforming light he might shine on these often very dark times. I look forward to working with our brilliant creative team as we endeavour to bring a fresh, unexpected and pertinent story to life once more.”
BiD, what’s so amazing about all those give-aways such as free coke trays, glasses, posters etc. back then is that now the consumer is expected to pay (and pay big) for the advertising of as well as the products themselves… and to be walking billboards wearing brand names emblazoned on everything. people have become so gullible.
Cleveland plains dealer
Manafort models Trump t-shirt: Darcy cartoon
[….]
By the time Manafort went to work for the Trump campaign without pay, Manafort was in severe debt, according to prosecutors and his accountants. His debt included $1 million for clothing.
So why did Manafort agree to work on the Trump campaign for no pay if he was in massive debt?
[….continues..]
work for free. Why? keith told us about this last year
lest we forget from daily kos last year
Manafort made Pence the VP, they talked regularly during the transition
and yesterday this year from lgbtQ nation: Manafort will never be convicted of his worst crime: Pence
Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, is currently on trial on bank and tax fraud charges. The trial has featured some fascinating details, not the least of which is the sartorial splendor to which Manafort felt entitled. Manafort spent $929,000 on suits in a five-year period, had a taste for plaid sports coats and even treated himself to an ostrich bomber jacket.
Manafort was also up to his eyeballs in Russian oligarchs, one of whom he owed millions of dollars.
But perhaps Manafort’s worst sin is one that he will never be prosecuted for: Manafort is the man who made Mike Pence vice president.
Trump was all ready to go with his pal and fellow bully New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as his running mate, but Manafort had decided Pence was the better choice. So he made up a story that Trump’s campaign plane had mechanical problems, forcing the candidate to spend the night in Indiana.
[….]
You can forgive Manafort for the ostrich bomber jacket, but for Mike Pence? Never.
blueINdallas,
We collected an entire set of placemats based on drawings by Lionel Barrymore through supermarket “save your receipt tapes” programs. Still have a couple; very nice quality.
patd,
Patrick Stewart will forever be the incredibly devious sexy Sejanus to me from I, Claudius.
Thank You for giving Mr Olbermann his due. He has returned to his greatest love, baseball ( along with being the biped of two remarkable pups ) & seems to be content in life. Will always be grateful for his razor sharp analysis of cutting through political bs & calling out anyone who spews forth lies & hate. Plus, he provided a platform to so many intelligent voices ( hi Mr Crawford! ) & good causes. A unique talent: so lucky he uses this gift for the good.
Good question to ponder, patd: What if Chris Christie had been VP?
Not excusing any of his noxious points but he did show a smidgen of humanity during Hurricane Sandy. His wife gives a stellar side eye too. His oversize personality seems a better fit with the President. Of course whether Christie or Pence the top dog remains in charge of the junkyard; garbage in, garbage out.
Pence is creepy though. The ghost of bad things past, present, future.
Inspired today to make Lime Buttermilk Quick Bread in honor of the Trail Mix limes. Interesting recipe, has a lime juice/sugar glaze poured over the top right after baking to soak in & punch up the flavor.
Will also enjoy a lemon lime un-cola. Remember that commercial? ?
Very nice presentation, Jace. What a tangled mess those 19th century people made of their lives. We have to toss in the Schumanns as well as Brahms and Chopin. But, they did make wonderful music apart and together.
I have a very old recording of that lanky Texan playing Chopin; he was very good. I think it may have been on reel-reel which I don’t have set-up. But, I did find a four record set of actual recordings of Paderewski playing all of our favorite composers. His playing was captured on player piano and was replayed on state of the art equipment for this recording. It is a 1972 issue by Murray Hill Records, S-4742.
As midterms approach, conservative ‘Never Trumpers’ find allies outside the lines
Max Boot’s life changed the moment Donald Trump announced for president.
Suddenly, the lifelong conservative Republican – historian, author, foreign-policy adviser to three GOP presidential candidates – began to question his place in his adopted home. Mr. Boot, who is Jewish, had fled the Soviet Union as a boy with his family, and here was a major Republican contender tarring immigrants in the ugliest of terms.
“I was outraged when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower, denouncing Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, and my outrage has not diminished at all since,” says Boot, now a columnist at The Washington Post, in an interview. “Writing is my therapy.”
Boot quit the Republican Party, and now decries President Trump regularly on cable TV alongside Democrats and other elite “Never Trumpers,” some still inside the GOP tent, others in the political wilderness like Boot. The term “strange bedfellows” almost no longer
applies; at this point, these one-time ideological adversaries have the on-screen rapport of old friends.
“It’s a very odd place to be in,” says Florida-based GOP consultant Rick Wilson, another vocal Trump critic and cable TV regular.
As the November midterms approach, Trump critics within the GOP orbit are raising their voices, drawing battle lines, and getting organized, if only along the edges. Many speak of their fight in moral terms. They remain a mere slice of the conservative world, elites in common cause with Democrats, in the tradition of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
But the famous names attached to Never Trump-ism give their message outsize reach. Some, like columnist George Will, strategists Steve Schmidt and Mary Matalin, and TV host Joe Scarborough, have quit the Republican Party. Some too, like Boot, openly hope the Democrats retake the House, as a check on Trump and Trump-ism.
[…]
This week, billionaire Charles Koch and his political network entered the mix – not as Never Trumpers, but megadonor Republicans willing to speak out against Trump policies. Mr. Koch, who didn’t back Trump in 2016, warned about protectionism Sunday at his network’s annual summit, and said he will fund or not fund candidates based on where they stand on issues, not party affiliation. Trump’s response – tweeting Tuesday that the “globalist” Koch brothers “are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade” – only reinforced the president’s willingness to further yank the party that elected him away from some of its core principles.
[…]
“I used to be part of the Republican cocoon, and I have completely broken from that,” says Boot, who began his career as a reporter and editor at the Monitor. “I left my tribe behind, and am now politically homeless, and forced to really think for myself in a way that partisans often don’t do.”
Still, Boot seems to have found a new tribe – elites and intellectuals who have rejected Trump. He mentions a new group called Patriots and Pragmatists, described by The New York Times as a coalition of “leading donors and operatives from the right and left.” He has also signed on to another nonpartisan effort called the Renew Democracy Initiative, which is releasing a book of essays in October.
The goal of these efforts joining the center-right and center-left, Boot says, is to oppose the “populist threat represented not just by Trump but also [Marine] LePen in France and many other rabble-rousers in the Western world.”
[….continues…]
Nice to see the Stooge admit his son is guilty of treason, today on his twitter page. He says the Tower Meeting was legal yet denies knowledge of it, beforehand, hahahahaha…
Fun on the docks starts with a fully anti-Dem person who has one of those white image things on his rear window. It features someone urinating over the names of all prominate Dems of the last thirty years. And much more nasty stuff.
For some reason he either ignores that I am a flaming liberal Progressive Dem or that he has not been able to figure it out yet. His dog and my do play together as if neither cares a whit about politics.
I came across another field of soybeans left to die off, this one very large a few hundred acres. The farmers are making calculated decisions about their income because SFB is destroying their livelihood.
Welch’s grape jelly came in Howdy Doody glasses…….some dastard stole my set of 8.
By “lanky Texan” do you refer to van cliburn? (Sp)
BB, you and your pup are the only two beings that will have anything to do with the pair of them; he feels blessed by your presence
And those repugnant congress-critters better figure out that it’s not just the farmers that are losing their livelihoods because of tariffs, it is sure to be the critters themselves who don’t have the courage of common earthworms.
No matter…..the way I heard it was……van cliburn was living down in Texas for some reason or another and somehow wound up saying yes to do a concert down at the local high school auditorium.
Well, come the day of the concert it began to snow and ice like never before…..snow was axle-deep to a Ferris wheel…….being it was too late to just call it off, van cliburn is at the auditorium waiting to see how bad it was going to get and how many people would show up and all that……at show-time there’s one old farmer with his wife and kids, and 3 or 4 assorted other folks.
wait a minute, wait a minute….stop da music, stop da music……I do believe that was a jerry clower story.
Sturg, who else? ///He was the man about town in ’57
Later on I listen to the recording of the player piano. Although the keying and pedaling was a spot-on the instrument on which the mechanicals were mounted sure wasn’t a Steinway–sounded more like retired music school piano. But, they were on the right track
I couldn’t find it…..que lastima…..
so…….van cliburn, worried about the folks getting home, walks out on the stage, apologizes, and tells them there would be no show tonight……nobody moves, and there’s a general shuffling of feet till finally the old farmer, hat in hand, stands up and says, “Mr Cliburn, I know a lot of folks didn’t show up and all and there ain’t many of us here, but we done drove a long way thru all that ice and snow……could you just sing us one song?”
…same guy took my Lampoon.
I am enjoying watching Laugh-In, again. Having watched it the first time, and a couple times on DVD, I think it is important for everyone to watch again. Although many of the jokes would not recognizable to those born after 1954, there are many scenes which are funny without politics.
It is on Amazon Prime under the annual cost.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear Jerry Clower tell it…..I saw him once down at the county fair.
My mother was big on van cliburn, I heard a lot of that guy……
I did a job once for this fellow over in this old charleston big-money district…..he calls me on the phone and says, “Hi, I’m [first name redacted] Luciano [he says: Lucy-AN-oh…] and I got your name from blah-blah-blah, etc.”. So I’m going to be worldly and I say, “Ahhhhh…..Loo-CHAH-no.”
There’s a bit of a pregnant pause and he says firmly, but not unkindly, “Lucy-AN-no”
I wound up doing the job once I learned how to say Luciano and was over to his house a good bit for awhile. Well, one of the things he had was a Steinway Grand. Computerized. No player piano stuff, Mozart was sitting at the piano invisibly playing, by way of Rubinstein or somebody. It was positively ghostly.
Ok this one will have to do.
Laugh-In was incredibly hip.
Laugh-in gave birth to SNL.
Just like Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, and Huey “Piano” Smith gave birth to Elton John, Billy Joel and the rest who used the piano as a front and center rock and roll instrument.
And Fats Antoine, of course……….guitars in the hands of Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Everly Bros, etc, threatened the primacy of piano, but Jerry Lee Lewis……..shook the hay down out the loft…….
Come on over baby, there’s a whole lot of shakin’ going on.
Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fi-Yah
I guess about the first new thing in music in 69 I heard was I wound up on Staten Islamd at a joint that my buddy’s wife wanted me to see and they had lighted walls and lighted dance floor which was somehow synced to the music……..you know, like we were doing acid or something…….just drunk……..but then thru the mega speakers this song came on………A Whole Lotta Love……Led Zeppelin……it was Killer C. killer. (cf Jerry Lewis )
Yeah, see, this is where the kids got tired of all that Martha My Dear, Call it Mellow Yellow Submarine crap and said, ok, time to rock…..take it back down to where it goes…….guitar Rules! Haha.
That zeppelin guitar player was also on the recording of Goldfinger.
“Continuity!” Cried Daniel Boone.
Well Jace, as always….
sturge, I’ll echo your Zeppelin appreciation. 69-72 and beyond were great years for guitar and guitarists. Jimmy, some guy who misspelled Jimmy as Jimi, that Allman guy, that Clapton fella and literally thousands of guys who tried to play like them moved rock to the creative point of the spear. God I loved the music that came out of those years. Classic vinyl is my preferred S/XM Channel now, cuz that’s what they play.
Burliackabacka, gimme some seafood, Mama !