Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel – String Quartet in E-Flat Major
Fanny Mendelssohn, the older sister of Felix, was a prolific composer, a
skilled pianist and a respected hostess of a flourishing Berlin salon (a
fashionable gathering of notables, such as artists or statemen, held at the
home of a prominent individual). Fanny and Felix shared a common music
education and developed an unusually close sibling relationship. When she
was a child the family encouraged Fanny’s involvement in music, not just as
a performer but as a composer, but as she matured into womanhood her
father let her know unequivocally that, while she had great musical talent,
she would do best to focus on being a wife and mother. In a letter to her in
1820 he stated, “Music will perhaps become his [Felix’s] profession, while
for you it can and must be only an ornament”
Fanny’s music reflects her deep reverence for both Bach and Beethoven as
well as a strong influence from her brother. It exhibits a fine craftsmanship
and lyricism typical of the post-Classical Mendelssohnian style, combined
with her own experimental and inventive approach to form and content.
The String Quartet in E flat major was composed in 1834. This imaginative
and elegantly lyrical work was Fanny’s only one in the genre and acknowledges her debt to the quartets of Beethoven.
Enjoy, Jack
thank you, jack, wonderful selection. a small bouquet of musical beauty perfect for the 1st day of spring.
Fanny, I never knew ye….glad to make yer acquaintance.
Guernica redux and updated in Mariupol
Something about today … I feel a sense of balance coming on.
Fanny? How’d I miss her? Nice stuff, and great stuff for ivory ticklers., too.
From the font (wiki)
Amazing the things that somehow escape us.
jack – Lovely.
How much else has been lost because women were told their talent or mind had to be stuffed down into a tiny in place in order to make room for the the things that women were supposed to do?
I think I’ve finally found my true calling.
At the end of the lunch the young lady went to a bookstore, bought a copy of his book and a pen and had Morimoto sign it I don’t think he charged her extra.
I can see this as a real possibility in my retirement if I ever get there.
Vernal equinox – separates the last day of winter (65 degrees, sunny and breezy) from the first day of spring (35 degrees, mixed snow/rain and breezy). I thought somehow that might not be the natural order of things. Still an hour & 23 minutes away, but I don’t see a big shift on the horizon. Weather’s a mean old dog I suppose.
today
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he’s ready for negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but says if negotations fail “that would mean that this is a third World War.”
Zelensky Again Warns Of World War If Talks With Russia Fail (forbes.com)
monumental celebrations at
First Day of Spring: Stonehenge crowd gathers for sunrise to celebrate the 2022 Vernal Equinox. | Stonehenge Stone Circle News and Information (stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk)
and at Chichen Itza equinox | Kukulkan Pyramid Equinox | Chichen Itza
Zelensky to meet with Putin
Jack,
Wonderful selection. Thank you.
Since it continues cold and wet, this song comes to mind.
jamie,
where? at an extra long table straddling the borders with each man attired in double Kevlar vests with helmet hoodies and gas masks to ward off the novichok ?
no doubt vlad will be decked out in that big blue puffy coat hiding what knows within it.
My guess is Ankara, since the only thing Putin wants more than Ukraine is to deny Macron a diplomatic victory
Putin’s rally was quite futuristic. Like science-fictiony and all.
No doubt about it ……if the dipshit could sling a bunch of bombs around, he would absolutely love it.
Such a toxic little monkey.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/20/politics/joe-biden-europe-trip-vladimir-putin/index.html
“While Biden has been successful in rallying European and Asian allies behind a punishing set of sanctions and unparalleled levels of military assistance, he and his NATO counterparts have drawn lines at where their support will end.”
“What happens if, or when, Ukraine can no longer withstand Russia’s assault? “They’re going to have to look at what happens if Ukraine is lost,” said retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander. “After they have weighed the problem of what happens if Ukraine falls, they have to consider what more can be done to sustain Ukraine in the fight. Yes, there’s a risk. There’s always a risk in dealing with Mr. Putin.”
“But aside from a dramatic wartime show of resolve, few observers believe anything the leaders can agree upon will be enough to end the bloodshed in Ukraine or dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from continuing his attacks that are increasingly harming civilians.”
“I think it’s very important that NATO also send a signal about Ukraine, that Ukraine’s survival as an independent and sovereign state in Europe is a NATO interest,” Volker said.”
“We don’t want to say what we don’t do. We don’t want to be too specific about what we will do. But we need to send a signal to Putin that we’re not going to sit by while he destroys and eliminates a sovereign European country.”
So far, that’s exactly what the West has done.
Russia-Ukraine war news: Live updates – The Washington Post
Using February data, Jeffries analyst David Kelley recently calculated that the total lifetime cost of ownership of an EV is about $4,700 less than that of an internal-combustion vehicle. He said that cost difference is likely to increase as more EVs come to market — and as battery prices continue to fall — over the next couple of years.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/19/cost-of-charging-ev-vs-gas-prices.html
That dark cloud on the horizon seems to be a flock of black swans.
The Moment of Nature this morning had the sandhill cranes resting up on the Platte River, North bound into Canada.
I’ve had two wonderful moments with them just by chance.
Nearly 25 years ago I was lucky enough to watch the start of that journey near the Muleshoe Wild Life Refuge .
I noticed them flying low in flocks of 2 or 3 dozen. All singing to one another, and flying in the same direction. So I pulled over to watch , and got out of the van.
There was a low cloud deck off to the East , but to the West it was higher. It was a warm March morning with the promise of rain in the air.
The first thing I noticed was the pure joy in their song, then I started to scan the horizon more closely , and from every point of the compass the same thing that had made me stop. Thousands of them all flying to this one spot just West of me , in groups of 20 or 30 birds. Beating their wings , and singing their song.
It was then I looked up , and there was this huge double helix of birds spiraling up thousands of feet , just riding the thermal.
Layer upon layer of them all bound for the Platte River, North into Canada .
About seven years before that in the fall, I was driving near the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. This time the cloud deck was very low . I stopped to to take a leak, and I heard them singing for the first time. There was no joy in that song , they were looking for Mosca Pass in the clouds. The feature in the wall of the Sande de Cristo mountains that makes the Sand Dunes.
I never saw a bird that day , but I remember that song they sang looking for that hole in that wall.
Cranes are the most gabby birds you’ll ever see. They love to gossip.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/reported-detention-of-russian-spy-boss-shows-tension-over-stalled-ukraine-invasion-u-s-officials-say-11647687601
Yep. North Texas is on fire. Rains tomorrow, but some H2O will arrive in the form of hail. I hate ice on the road or falling from the sky.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/20/investing/stocks-week-ahead/index.html
“As crude prices surge, oil companies are raking in money — enormous profits gained from practically no extra investment.”
“Both the United States and United Kingdom have imposed windfall profit taxes in the past in with broad political support. But this time around, support has been mostly limited to liberal parties in both nations.”
“Trade groups for both the American and British oil industries argue the windfall profit tax proposals would work against calls to increase domestic production in those countries as a way of making up for the loss of Russian crude oil.”
“Dubbed “Putin’s Palace,” the 190,000 square-foot mega-mansion was purportedly built for his personal use with funds from billionaire oligarchs, whom he allegedly allowed to flourish in Russia’s notoriously corrupt economy so long as they shared the wealth — with him.”
“There is a no-fly zone in the skies above and a no-boating zone in the surrounding waters.”
“…I would be very surprised if Putin ever sets foot in there again,” Nate Sibley, an expert on Russian corruption…”
“While Putin is believed to have amassed a hidden fortune by such means earlier in his career, Sibley said, he has since become less reliant on his wealthy benefactors over the years and has surrounded himself instead with government and military loyalists who share his hardline nationalist views.”
“That shift, some Russia experts told CNN, may make it more difficult to make Putin personally feel the sting of economic sanctions the US and its European allies have imposed to punish him for invading Ukraine.
Putin has positioned himself, as Sibley put it, “above the fray.”
Putin’s days are numbered. This toady world he built around him is cracking apart.
The Kraines have killed 5 Russian Generals in less than a month.
In the entire history of warfare this has to be a record.
The longer this drags on , the more Russia looks like an old Hollywood back lot with with nuclear weapons.
Old Man
I was on a party boat in the middle of Bass Lake just enjoying the sunshine. We made the mistake of throwing some popcorn to nearby ducks. This was very shortly followed by this
WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP as a phalanx of Canadian geese beat their wings while just skimming the surface of the lake on their way to claim their share.
Dang! Those birds are big!!
BREAKING: Justice Clarence Thomas has been hospitalized due to an infection, the Supreme Court said Sunday. https://bit.ly/3qnrO4p
This war has sent energy/climate fight into hyper drive .
The carbon brains have gone back to their old playbook , release the beast, drill babies futures , etc. Full bore , but they have added Mexico, and Canada into the chant.
It would be nice to see the greens say this –
” I’m sorry you have a terrible heroin addiction , we recommend fentanyl as a cure. ”
This really happened after the Civil War , thousands of addicts came home from the war strung out on morphine , heroin was introduced as a cure for morphine addiction.
This time is different there is a Target store in SoCal that is all solar. There is a warehouse in New Jersey growing strawberries.
Read this one they finally did what I wanted ……….
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/17/targets-solar-panel-carports-at-california-store-may-be-a-green-model.html
They put up carports in the parking lot covered by solar panels. As well as the roof of the store. If you have an EV , they will let you plug in while you shop. For free .
I have long wondered when this would happen .
This store is real , not an idea , and if there is one thing we have in spades is parking lots , and big box stores.
But wait there’s more , a team at MIT has brought back a cheap 140 year old battery tech . And it is perfect for this big box idea.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/a-140-years-old-battery-technology-might-change-everything-we-know-about-energy-storage-184234.html
And while they were at it another team at MIT has figured out how to keep solar panels clean without using water.
This time is different , the world has rolled over.
All of this is a way forward from riding with Putin, Iran, and the Kings of the sand.
I just wish the Left had a PR department that could see it, and sell it.
Jamie –
If birds are living dinosaurs , and they are.
Can you imagine a herd of Hadrosaurs all singing at each other ?
Craig –
Gee that’s too bad.
Here’s that Target store –
Here’s another layer on that idea , if they design “water harvesting ” into that design , they save in storm water runoff fees, and flush a lot of toilets. One does not need treated water to flush a toilet.
Thomas admitted Friday, I’ve heard tell.
Think about all the kids out of high school needed to rework all this , all over the country. Right at our finger tips. Think about Target on a sunny Sunday feeding it’s neighborhood.
And ole’ Coal Brain Joe telling them the future is lopping off the tops of their mountains. And then what Joe ? Back to stealing copper wire from the mines ?
Coal Brain Joe is the leader in our government taking fossil money. To call him a “moderate” is a fiction of the world as we know it.
Has anyone else noticed the leader of the free world is wearing the same t-shirt that a weaselly billionaire here wears ?
But he makes it look good ?
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/keith-olbermann-msnbc-return-rachel-maddow-1235208577/
KO
“That’s 11 years of conversations about my returning to @msnbc,” he said on Twitter. “Won’t happen. Should’ve.”
“MSNBC and NBCUniversal may cast aspersions on Olbermann’s accounts, but there’s one thing executives there can’t deny: They do need to find a big primetime draw to replace Maddow, and they will have to do so relatively soon.”
As I am not a Christian , but a Scientific Pagan , I will not be praying for Clarence .
I hope the source of his infection comes from a pubic hair on the lip of a Coke can.
This entire case of the right wing being grieved has this huge tap root from that fuzzy pig Bork , then Hill before the senate.
I do not wish him ill , but I do not wish him a speedy recovery.
He was what they wanted a black face in an empty robe.
Blue –
Back in the ole’ free Blogger days. I set up a “God Bless Keith Olbermann” site. Around the same time I created the “Free Floating Fat Head File” . That was really cool , wings nuts tend to have really “blocky square heads” .
They all just floated around the page. I was deep into learning code.
If we only had Zappa, Molly, and Carlin now.
Blue –
Our kid Crawford is in the bull pin , and he has a wonderful beard . and a great “temper” to boot.
Of all the things that be set us , it is the murder of wisdom I fear the most.
One last music note –
After seeing lots of ole Westerns on Grit TV. All of the ones that involved a lot first peoples in the plot, there was the tune –
Daaaaaaaaaaaa Tot Da Da A Da Dot Tota a Daaaaaaaaaaa.
That tune is every film about murdering Redskins ,
They used it in their scores for decades in all the movies about the puny white men trying to get to California.
We all know it.
So who wrote that ?
Where did that come from ?
Sing it in your head from the Diggers to the Mohawks if it’s an old film that line is there.
Daaaaaaaaaaaa Tot Da Da A Da Dot Tota a Daaaaaaaaaaa.
I’m still thinking about “she
A long with that score was the idea that they were murdering thieves . For forty years in our movies.
And they were mainly really shitty movies.
That all changed when the corset salesman gave Chris ,and Vin a drink in 60′ . And Bernstein wrote a new score . and those six horses pulled that stage out of the scene .
There was nothing like it before , it changed the way we saw the West.
It was not well received when it was released.
“Let er Buck”
There is no “Myth of the Mid Atlantic” only the “Myth of the West”.
That is why these films mattered , and once we got there the Beach Boys picked us up in a Little Deuce Coup.
And Frankie and Anette showed us how to navigate puberty on the beach and 29 cent gas .
NEW THREAD