Sunday Serendipity

I went looking for something different and found the Balletto. According to the Britannica web site

genre of light vocal composition of the late 16th–early 17th centuries, originating in Italy. Dancelike and having much in common with the madrigal, 

The video below is an instrumental but is very madrigal in feel.

I enjoyed it, I hope you do too

Jack

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29 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  2. how it all ends (at least that part of europe and maybe more depending on the winds): not with a bang but a radioactive whisper

    Sept 11 (Reuters) – Operations at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine have been fully stopped as a safety measure, Energoatom, the state agency in charge of the plant, said on Sunday.
    The plant “is completely stopped” after the agency disconnected the number 6 power unit from the grid at 3:41 a.m. (0041 GMT), it said in a statement. “Preparations are underway for its cooling and transfer to a cold state.”
    […]
    Energoatom said that on Saturday it restored to operational capacity a communications line to the power system, which it said had been damaged by Russian shelling, allowing the plant to be powered by Ukraine’s energy system.
    “Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state – cold shutdown,” it said. It said the risk of further damage to the line “remains high”, which would force the plant to be “powered by diesel generators, the duration of which is limited by the technological resource and the amount of available diesel fuel.”

  3.  We are the hollow men
        We are the stuffed men
        Leaning together
        Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
        Our dried voices, when
        We whisper together
        Are quiet and meaningless
        As wind in dry grass
        Or rats’ feet over broken glass
        In our dry cellar
       
        Shape without form, shade without colour,
        Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
       
        Those who have crossed
        With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
        Remember us-if at all-not as lost
        Violent souls, but only
        As the hollow men
        The stuffed men.

    […]

    This is the way the world ends
        This is the way the world ends
        This is the way the world ends
        Not with a bang but a whimper.

     

    [t.s.eliot]

  4. considering the poem and the about-to-go-poof nuclear plant, “t.s.” stands for “tough shit” to all downwind of Zaporizhzhia 

  5. on happier thoughts

    When we asked the Queen to tea with Paddington, something magic happened – the most lovely goodbye | Frank Cottrell-Boyce | The Guardian

    […]
    It used to be said that millions of people had dreams in which they had tea with the Queen. Even our dream life is going to have to change. Watching her have tea with Paddington will have to do instead. It’s easy to see why that was so powerful. In retrospect, it was valedictory. A woman waving a happy goodbye to her grandchildren and great grandchildren, an image of love and a happy death.
    But Paddington is an evacuee, a refugee, one-time prisoner, pretty much every category of need that is mentioned in Matthew 25. Here, he is being welcomed with tea and good manners. This is a strong statement of a set of values that are not uncontested in the corridors of power. To have them exemplified so joyfully at such a moment meant something.
    One of the reasons the Queen’s death feels so huge is that she was a living connection with that postwar consensus, that attempt to build a better nation and a rules-based world. A vision that is being demolished even as we plan her funeral. Ten years ago, we lived in a world of divided opinion. Now, we live in a world of divided reality.
    A conspiracy theory went round that the establishment had employed Paddington’s producers Framestore and Heyday (and me and the other writers James Lamont and Jon Foster, plus Ben “Paddington” Wishaw) to create a deep fake queen. No one seemed to question the reality of the bear.
    I’m writing on Friday night. It won’t be long before the mourning gives way to the furious name-calling that characterises our current political discourse. The sides in these culture wars are like custard. The harder you jump on them the more solid they become. No one changes their mind. I don’t know much but I do know that the fury is in someone’s interest and it’s not ours.
    People often quote GK Chesterton’s line: “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.” But I love these (edited) sentences that precede it: “It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico; in that case he will merely move to Chelsea. Nor is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico; for then he will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico… If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico might be fairer than Florence.”
    The most emotional moment in that encounter with Paddington is when the bear says: “Thank you, Ma’am. For everything.” People will ask: “What everything?” Well, make your own list. But I’m thankful for the way she used the peculiar power of her archaic role to allow us to glimpse, however fleetingly, that we share something good and that we need to defend that.

     Frank Cottrell-Boyce is a screenwriter and novelist

  6. A video of Queen Elizabeth having tea with Paddington Bear served as a surprise opening for a concert on June 4, 2022, that was part of the British monarch’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The 96-year-old monarch said she shared Paddington’s love of marmalade sandwiches and both agreed they always keep one handy “for emergencies”.

  14. The folks over at the ISW agree with our assessment.

    The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast is routing Russian forces and collapsing Russia’s northern Donbas axis. Russian forces are not conducting a controlled withdrawal and are hurriedly fleeing southeastern Kharkiv Oblast to escape encirclement around Izyum.

  16. The BBC is one of my go to news sites for world news.
    Sometimes, it can be so foriegn. This is especially so with the Royal watch. 
    All this talk about status and rank.
    Reminds me of a time years ago, when I was back on the farm. I stopped by a local bar that also attracted tourists. I was dressed in my dirty work clothes. A couple of young women came in and set next to me. I struck up a conversation with the one closest. Her friend, in a rather haughty manner, and to obvious embarrassment of her friend, told me “She is an executive”. I just wink at the young lady I had been chatting with and replied to her friend. ” Really? Well, I’m the boss”
    So there is William, who is handed his job by birth, will never be more than a spokes model, even when he is promoted to King. Then there is Harry , who has moved to California and is busy making a life for himself, even at time working for a living.
    And it is poor Harry, who has lower status than his brother. 
    The mind boggles.
    Jack

  19. another search warrant on the way? photos show boxes moving from mal an ego to badmister clubs around time doj was trying to negotiate returns.

    the daily mail reported in may last year:

    Later, pictures taken by DailyMail.com Sunday evening show Trump boarding a private jet in Florida. The Cessna is registered to a company owned by Trump. Aides appear to have carried a number of boxes onto the flight.

  21. and by meidas touch

  23. patd, thanks. Not an impressive performance but I’ll take the win. As I said to my sis and best friend, both rabid Bama fans – I’m getting too old for this shit. I just want a comfortable, dominant performance. Btw, Mark Stoops beat Bear Bryant’s record to become the winningest coach at Kentucky.

  24. Anyone who has ever seen Richard Diamond, Kojak, Rockford, Banacek, Mannix, Baretta, Cannon, Magnum, Columbo, Hawaii Five-O, or Barnaby Jones knows what’s going on in that video.

  25. You know, spies used to be smuggling microfilm, and tiny stuff that goes in ink pens, etc…..those clowns are smuggling whole freakin BOXES of stuff.

  26. Are the folks actually carrying the boxes for SFB liable if it is found they contained gov’t property? 

    Moving the docs. More obstruction.

  27. bId – there are a lot of what the legal profession term “It Depends”.  Say the ramp guy tossing the boxes on the aircraft is part of SFB staff, she may be involved; or may not due to no linkage to the transfer.  However, if the ramp guy is part of the airport contract staff and has no connection at all to SFB probably no problems.  But, say they were handpicked by SFB from certain Secret Service staff, from what we know so far, they might want to lawyer up.  I suspect that the boxing and shipping of file boxes was not trusted to people outside the cult, the immediate cult to be specific.
     
    When classified material is moved from the security location there is a sign out.  You just don’t get to grab whatever and walk away.  Classified documents are accounted for. The higher the classification the tighter the control. Once you get to where each and every document is accounted for, 1 of 1 or 2 of 20 type counts, when something is not in the control scheme it is easily noted.  If it is something like Classified, yeah that can be easily lost and not known.  Figure if it is Classified it is like seeing the control of your medical records.  If it is Secret, there are a lot more controls.  When something is Top Secret you are not going to look over someones shoulder to see it. 
     
    And, then there are the others. . . Nope. If you even see those you are in a very small circle of people.  Most of them are so highly classified even the president does not know the details.  Most of these the access codes are classified. These are the documents SFB stole.  These are the documents that if released get people killed. These are known to so few people that the numbers of documents printed could be counted on one hand, or a few hands. These are the ones of the joke “if I told you, I would have to kill you”.

  28. Bid, it depends – on what they knew or should have known.

    Sturg, we ain’t dealing with particularly sophisticated thieves here.  Oh, and Perry Mason. The one who started most of those you mentioned.

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