Sunday Serendipity

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I had company Saturday so I was running late, wtf, just do Mozart I said to myself, quick easy.

Then Youtube’s algo came to my rescue.

It is a beautiful 20 century work by composer  Joaquín Rodrigo and performed by the Danish National symphony.

Enjoy, Jack

From Wikipedia:

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a classical guitar concerto by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is by far Rodrigo’s best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the 20th century.

The Concierto de Aranjuez was inspired by the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort palace and gardens built by Philip II in the last half of the 16th century and rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century by Ferdinand VI. The work attempts to transport the listener to another place and time through the evocation of the sounds of nature.

According to the composer, the first movement is “animated by a rhythmic spirit and vigour without either of the two themes… interrupting its relentless pace”; the second movement “represents a dialogue between classical guitar and solo instruments (cor anglais, bassoon, oboe, horn etc.)”; and the last movement “recalls a courtly dance in which the combination of double and triple time maintains a taut tempo right to the closing bar.” He described the concerto itself as capturing “the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains” in the gardens of Aranjuez.

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25 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  1. jack, thank you for the musical tour thru the royal gardens.  i could hear the “singing birds” and the “gushing fountains” but couldn’t smell the magnolias – must be out of season.

    here’s wiki on a little bit about the locale:

    The Royal Palace of Aranjuez (Spanish: Palacio Real de Aranjuez) is a former Spanish royal residence. It is located 50 km south of Madrid in the town of Aranjuez.

    It was established around the time Philip II of Spain moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid. Aranjuez became one of four seasonal seats of government, occupied during the springtime (from about holy week). Thereafter, the court moved successively to Rascafría, El Escorial and wintered in Madrid.

    Several international treaties were signed there and several members of the royal family died there, including:

    In 1931, during the Second Spanish Republic, the area was declared an Artistic Historical Monument and opened to the public. The palace, gardens and associated buildings are part of the Aranjuez Cultural Landscape, which was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Cultural Organization in 2001.

    It is open to the public as one of several Spanish royal sites in the Community of Madrid, Spain.

  4. In Wake of Miami Collapse, It’s Clear South Florida in Danger (gizmodo.com)

    On Thursday, a 12-story beachside condo building just north of Miami Beach collapsed, killing at least four people with almost 160 still missing. It could be a scary sign for the future, particularly as sea level rise undermines the very foundation that South Florida sits on.
    Long before the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside crashed, the building started sinking. An April 2020 study found that the area showed signs of land subsidence—sinking brought on by natural occurrences like sinkholes and exacerbated by human activities like extracting fossil fuels and groundwater. The study’s authors told USA Today that back in the 1990s, the building was descending at a rate of 0.08 inches (2 millimeters) per year, though it’s not clear that that necessarily contributed to its horrific collapse.
    […]
    But though the specifics of the crash are still under investigation, it’s been clear for decades that sea level rise and subsidence threaten infrastructure—and people—in South Florida. And the time to address those risks is now, particularly with what the next few decades hold for the region. Sea level rise is expected to accelerate. A report released last year found that Miami “faces the largest risk of any major coastal city in the world” because of the sheer amount of expensive real estate and people living in such a fragile place. An estimated $3.5 trillion of real estate is at risk of inundation by the 2070s, according to the report. Those buildings, though, are ill-equipped for rising seas.
    […]
    Buildings in Surfside and Miami Beach are constructed atop reclaimed wetland. Underpinning them is porous limestone, which forms the region’s geological base. As rising seas encroach on the area—whether from storm surge or increasingly common sunny day floods—brackish, corrosive groundwater can get pushed up through the limestone, causing problems for structures.
    [continues]

  5. Sand, reclaimed wetlands, compacted fill, all on limestone … what could possibly go wrong?  

    Jack , nice selection (although Wolfie would have been fine). 

    BB, amazing that only one rider was a nonstarter today after that massive pileup yesterday. Like this – 3 weeks of not having to search for decent sports programming- NBA & TDF – done‼️

  9. How Barr Finally Turned on Trump – The Atlantic

    In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke, for the first time, about the events surrounding his break with Trump. I have also spoken with other senior officials in the Trump White House and Justice Department, who provided additional details about Barr’s actions and the former president’s explosive response. Barr and those close to him have a reason to tell his version of this story. He has been widely seen as a Trump lackey who politicized the Justice Department. But when the big moment came after the election, he defied the president who expected him to do his bidding.

    [goes on here about barr’s interview with AP balsomo where he said there was no election fraud, how mitch earlier had pleaded with barr and what happened at WH with dt]

    After the lunch with Balsamo, Barr and Levi went to the White House for a previously scheduled meeting with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. After talking briefly with Meadows, they went upstairs to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s office. As they were conferring, one of the counsel’s aides knocked on the door and told Cipollone that the president wanted to see him and then, pointing to Barr, the aide said, “And he is looking for you.”
    Barr, Levi, and Cipollone walked to the president’s personal dining room near the Oval Office. Trump was sitting at the table. Meadows was sitting next to him with his arms crossed; the White House adviser Eric Herschmann stood off to the side. The details of this meeting were described to me by several people present. One told me that Trump had “the eyes and mannerism of a madman.”
    He went off on Barr.
    “I think you’ve noticed I haven’t been talking to you much,” Trump said to him. “I’ve been leaving you alone.”
    Barr later told others that the comment was reminiscent of a line in the movie Dr. Strangelove, in which the main character, Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, says, “I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.” Trump, Barr thought, was saying that he had been denying him his essence.
    Trump brought up Barr’s AP interview.
    “Did you say that?”
    “Yes,” Barr responded.
    “How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?”
    “Because it’s true.”
    The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”
    Barr thought that the president was trying to control himself, but he seemed angrier than he had ever seen him. His face was red. Barr’s AP interview was dominating every cable news channel except the one Trump was watching. The television in the room was tuned to the right-wing, pro-Trump network One America News,…
    [continues]

  10. what atlantic says about the author of the above article/book excerpt:

    Jonathan D. Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. His book on the last days of the Trump administration, Betrayal, will be published by Dutton on November 16, 2021.

  14. Company is gone.
    My sister and her oldest child. Was fun but I’m glad they are gone. 
    My sister was able to get an antivacxer coworker to take the Covid shot.
    When he said he wasn’t going to get the shot she just said “Good; do that, the more Republicans that don’t do the shot the more who will die and the Democrats will take over”
    He got the shot the next day
    Jack

  15. Pat
    Thanks for the research and sharing you do every Sunday on the stuff I post.
    It makes for a better experience
    Jack

  21. Trump Organization attorneys given Monday deadline to persuade prosecutors not to file charges against it – The Washington Post

    Prosecutors in New York have given former president Donald Trump’s attorneys a deadline of Monday afternoon to make any final arguments as to why the Trump Organization should not face criminal charges over its financial dealings, according to two people familiar with the matter.
    That deadline is a strong signal that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) — now working together, after each has spent more than two years investigating Trump’s business — are considering criminal charges against the company as an entity.
    [continues]

  22. Pull that thread and it will all unravel…because Orange Adolf won’t be able to keep quiet and he’ll probably incriminate himself.  

  23. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/24/texas-power-grid-causes/

    “…the state’s main power grid operator will have three days — instead of 60 — to release some information about power plant outages. “

    “The directive from the Public Utility Commission comes the week after power grid operator ERCOT asked Texans to conserve electricity because 12,000 megawatts of power generation was unexpectedly offline — enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day.”

    “ERCOT says it still doesn’t know why so many power generators were offline and the PUC stopped short of requiring the grid operator to release detailed information about the root causes for the loss of electricity capacity.“

    We already know when there’s a problem because we either have outages or ERCOT sends emails and texts asking us not to use our A/C. Why is the question that needs to be answered and remedied.

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