Welcome to Saturday ...

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“Now something that will interest you – we’ve made some excursions in the brothels, and it’s likely that we’ll eventually go there often to work,” said Van Gogh in the only letter he ever co-wrote with a fellow artist. “At the moment Gauguin has a canvas in progress of the same night cafe that I also painted, but with figures seen in the brothels. It promises to become a beautiful thing.

The Yellow House (The Street), 1888 by Vincent van Gogh. Photograph: Van Gogh Museum

A Night Cafe in Arles (Madame Ginoux) ~ Paul Gauguin

~~~

Vienna, city of paradox
How did the city of elegant classicism give birth to an explosive modernism, threatening to destroy its very traditions?

Vienna, 1912. It is autumn, and the city’s fin-de-siècle extravagance is approaching its peak. On the stage of the city’s pre-eminent concert house, the Musikverein, the mute and melancholy clown Pierrot, the star of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal melodrama Pierrot Lunaire, is drinking moonlight – the stuff of intoxicating artistic inspiration – with his eyes. The moon-drunk aesthete soon becomes disillusioned: stigmatised and abused by an intolerant society (a part played unwittingly by the audience at the Musikverien), Pierrot retreats from the world, floating home in a boat, following the trail of an ancient scent back to his dreamy, distant home in Bergamo. Featuring a small chamber ensemble and a spoken-sung part for a reciter, Pierrot Lunaire is a grotesque parody of the cabaret style. It is also allegorical and autobiographical: Pierrot, moon-drunk and doomed from the start to be misunderstood and unappreciated, is the epitome of the modern artist at the turn of the century.

In this incarnation, Schoenberg’s Pierrot – as the artist desperately seeking new means of expression in the modern world, while at the same time vilified by that world – neatly encapsulates the feverish and often contradictory spirit of Vienna in the early decades of the 20th century. A much-romanticised era for the city, these years are commonly celebrated as a period of explosive artistic, literary, intellectual and especially musical modernisation in which resolutely iconoclastic geniuses such as Schoenberg, Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt and Alfred Schnitzler broke with the past in order to lay the groundwork for the future. In this narrative, Vienna’s musical revolution was especially radical: Schoenberg’s Pierrot was later characterised by Igor Stravinsky as ‘the solar-plexus of modern music’ – the culmination of a shift away from tonality and hundreds of years of classical music, in favour of a new music for a new century. But how did this happen? How did Europe’s ‘city of music’ – the home of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms – become the birthplace of an explosive musical modernism that threatened to destroy the very tradition to which it belonged? https://aeon.co/essays/vienna-schoenberg-and-the-advent-of-musical-moder...

~

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smiley7's picture

A link to the letter:
Van Gogh and Gauguin letter about brothel visit sells for €210,000

‘Exceptional’ correspondence sent from Arles in 1888 is bought by Van Gogh Museum https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/17/van-gogh-and-gaugui...

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A nod to the updated non-dependency on ...

teevee
facebook
twitter
governments in general
political parties
commercial exploitation
spook propaganda
british royal tabloid trash
police protection
synthetic opiods
military symbolism
and fireworks

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smiley7's picture

@QMS

a great dependency upon white supremacy it is.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS

I'm definitely gonna stash this for future reference and possibly use. Thanks

be well and have a good one.

Most especially have a good non-dependency day!

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Check out the podcast at this link from an outfit called ZBS Media

Link to info about ZBS here.

I have done a bunch of work with people who were deep into Psychoacoustics. I worked for a sound company called "Ultra Sound" that provided audio for touring bands. That company had west and east coast offices. The people who owned that company included some band members of the Grateful Dead. They provided sound at the Dead's shows for many years. I never worked a Dead Show for them. I worked out of the east coast office and went out on tour providing audio services for a number of other acts. Little know fact about that company was that there was fire at the warehouse in New Jersey. It destroyed a whole lot of high end audio equipment. The space cadet lady with the purple hair back at the west coast office had failed to pay the insurance premium and it took them several years to recoup losses from that fire. Another little know fact about them is that one of the custom made mixing boards from "Gamble Audio" was damaged when the bomb went off in the entertainment tent at the Olympics in Atlanta.
note: edited to add link about ZBS.

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smiley7's picture

@jbob
From your link:

ZBS Foundation, a small non-profit audio production company, was founded by Thomas Lopez (aka "Meatball Fulton") in 1970 with a grant from Robert E. Durand as a working commune based on a donated farm in Upstate New York. ZBS stands for "Zero Bull Shit".[1] The commune's purpose was to raise consciousness through media, specifically full-cast audio dramas. The foundation is "one of the most prolific producers of contemporary radio drama."[2]

The commune started with 18 people, and an island in the Hudson River was chosen as the location because it was between New York City and Montreal.[3] Eventually, the commune disintegrated, and the foundation moved to create an artists-in-residence program over the next decade. Allen Ginsberg recorded at ZBS in 1981, and Laurie Anderson visited in 1975. Philip Glass also worked on the opera Einstein on the Beach at ZBS. The residency program ended in the mid 1980s.

Thank you.

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magiamma's picture

All quiet on the western front. Except for a yellow jacket nest in my front yard. Pre dawn attack with a hose, nozzle on full and hard. We will see soon enough.

Some interesting good news. whadda mess and yet this story is so moving.

Chris Hedges: My Student Comes Home

In 1990, Lawrence Bell was 14, orphaned and living in an abandoned house when three Camden cops pressured him to sign a confession of murder. Sunday, thanks to the dogged work of his laywer, he was freed.

Prisons, along with the police, are the twin pillars of social control. They are used by the ruling elites to keep those discarded by deindustrialization and austerity fearful, intimidated and neutralized. Break the reigns of terror by the police and the bonds of the world’s largest prison system and the ruling elites will stand naked before us. And this is why the reigning oligarchs, despite gaslighting us with promises of reform, have no intention of weakening the two principle institutions that keep those they have betrayed in bondage and themselves in power.

Thanks for the van gok. One of my faves. He ate his paint chems frim time to time. No wonder he was a bit nutty.

Hope you are finding fresh air and open spaces. Take good care and have a very good one, amigo.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

smiley7's picture

Good fortune with those yellow jackets. Thanks for the story. Have a fishing client, an ex big-city cop and dea dude who shares the horrors he's witnessed.

Getting out a little and hope to do more; likely, i won't be around as much on c99 and that should be a sign the back is manageable and i've gone fishing. Smile

Have a wonderful day.

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Sounds great, the fishing and the getting out. Keep that back healthy and in check. We finished our there-and-back-again road trip dash, and my own back is not pleased with the prolonged sitting in the car. I'm going to initiate a set of back exercises that are rumored to help. I will let you know how my experiment with that goes, perhaps some exercises may work for you as well.

Thanks for the Van Hoch (as they say in the Netherlands), always a favorite. It is interesting how, in the art world, we come to accept different permutations of artist's renditions of music or whatever is their medium. Perhaps the artists lead the way and we come to be able to see and hear what they are trying to show us. Some artists carry the seed of what is to come and what will be accepted only way later, sometimes not until after their death. Here is some Beethoven that I think illustrates this:

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we manage to preserve what is best about civilization and we manage to take care of each other, (which appears to require a simple miracle) then, I want to get the performing arts back on their feet. I miss it all so much. https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/the-precarious-future-of-the-performing-...

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smiley7's picture

@randtntx
Good read, thank you:

The system’s sudden breakdown leaves artists and presenters clinging to a shared article of faith: Crisis makes art even more crucial to people’s lives. “We are a necessity, not a luxury,” Goerke says.

We've long needed a continuation of the WPA Federal Art Project or something similar, now is a great time to begin anew.

Thanks for the wonderful Beethoven String Quartet.

Imagine it's hot in Texas; stay cool and be safe.

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@smiley7 to listen to the music you posted, I really enjoyed the selections this morning, thnx.

I agree with you, you hit on the most important point in that article, the crux of the matter is that the arts are " a necessity, not a luxury”.

A very enthusiastic yes to the idea of a new WPA. We could even do it more and better...more better... although the FDR administration and Francis Perkins did a fine job with the original program. It could be such a fabulous program to implement anew.

Yes the weather is quite warm here Smile
Don't know if you"ll see this so late....but...
Hope you are doing well and take good care.

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enhydra lutris's picture

our Saturday rituals. It is also "The Fourth" and I am already skipping our major ritual, else I would be in the woods right now. Will definitely skip almost all of society's rituals for "The Fourth" as well. I will take a figurative knee. I favor QMS' alternative holiday and the descriptive detail pertinent thereto.

Haven't read the article yet, but will get there because it is to be a lazy day, at least tentatively, beyond farmers' market and dinner. I'm going to grill a 5# tri-tip on the kettle, nize and slow with a reverse sear at the end and we will eat from it off and on all week and almost certainly freeze up a good chunk for later. (The way we eat and the meals we design, that puppy should be good for over 10 dinners.)

Thanks for the OT. Good to know about the back, so yes, fishing, nature, outdoors.

be well, have a good one and have an exceptional non-dependency day.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

smiley7's picture

@enhydra lutris

Interesting reverse sear technique; happy roasting.

Likewise to avoiding all holiday endeavors, the hills are crowded with heat escapees, don't wish to be caught in the madness.

Caught a beauty yesterday in a hidden spot up high. Very pleased to be moving a little again, thank you.

Enjoy the market and lazy afternoon.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@smiley7

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

smiley7's picture

@enhydra lutris
inspired some additional reading and pondering.

Messalina and her companion ~ Aubrey Beardsley, 1895
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For a semester in college, I had joined 3 other students to rent a a giant, really old, home. It had 1 bathroom.
They were art majors. They would pick out something from my wardrobe to wear, tell me how to do my hair, and I would sit for them for the afternoon while they painted and sketched. More often than not, the music playing would be The Moody Blues.
So, I had a plan to move office furniture. One of the crew got sick. The move was cancelled. I had intended to set up a computer system, plug in my phones, but the crew from the phone co. failed to arrive Thursday, and that office was closed yesterday.
I was going to set up my paralegal's office in my home. That changed within minutes. I had my legal software downloaded onto my home computer. Except that user names and passwords were on cards in a box that is either in my home, my hay barn, my barn, or a warehouse. We had to set up new everything.
I am losing weight. I ordered 6 outfits, designer clothes at clearance prices. By the time they arrived, I was down another size. The slacks fell off of me. The tops fit. That will work for Zoom hearings, I suppose...
I planned on shopping at a business furniture store. It was closed for the holiday, now the weekend.
My emergency moving crew said they would be at the office at 10 this morning. They promptly changed it to 9 a.m.
I shared my coffee this morning, didn't leave enough for me, and I am half asleep. My snap decisions this morning should be interesting.
Both my fiance who just moved away from his home state, and I, who just watched my place of business for 22 years burn to the ground, are under the stress of a lifetime. Instead of flying apart, taking out all our troubles on each other, we listen to music, laugh all day, cook like each meal is our last, and hold each other tight.
Normal life should be a blast, once we get there.
I wish for everyone a trip to the Louvre.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

smiley7's picture

@on the cusp

we listen to music, laugh all day, cook like each meal is our last, and hold each other tight.

Perfect. All the other stuff will take care of it-selves.Three cheers and virtual champagne all around.

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@on the cusp
"Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly
love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret ANYTHING
that makes you smile."
-Mark Twain

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@aliasalias One of our running jokes is to scream at vehicles driving by with loud mufflers. They get cursed, and I make remarks about over-compensation.
My moving crew was here at home while I was writing their checks. A loud muffler guy whizzed by, and I yelled out about how his penis was likely small and not working properly.
The crew fell out laughing, glad they had quietly running trucks. They said I didn't have to worry out their genitalia. They sort of gave a nod
to my fiance, drove quietly away.
Smiles all around.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Anja Geitz's picture

Gifted to me on Wednesday by my Sister in an unprecedented act of generosity. I am beyond appreciative but this car is so nice, I feel like an imposter driving it.

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27A22509-C737-45AE-9AD2-497AD26F666E.jpeg
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My old Toyota was not passing the smog test, didn’t have tags, and I’d already been pulled over by the police and given a warning. Lucinda was her name and her paint was faded, she leaked oil, the seatbelt and door handle on the driver side broke, the fabric on the inside of the roof is coming undone, but she was reliable and got me where I needed to go.

Adjusting from New York City’s public transportation to car crazy California was a difficult one for me and I just did not want to be saddled down with car payments when I moved here for a pretty new car. So I paid cash for a 1998 Toyota Corolla that was a little dented and a little faded when I got her. Didn’t care, wasn’t into that kind of status thing that’s prevalent here in California among car owners, and instead spent my money on making my home and my garden beautiful. Now I’ve got the Prius and it’s like I went from sleeping in a pup tent to a 5-Star luxury resort. It’s weird and wonderful at the same time. Doesn’t quite feel real to me yet...

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

All my friends drive porches and suburbs
I must make amends. Prove that you love me
and enjoy the next round.

Qmess

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Anja Geitz's picture

@QMS

Judging by the cars your friends drive, you get what I’m saying about the status thing. Frankly, I enjoyed what driving my faded old car represented. As in, I could give a rats ass what you think of me. Although, I will admit to some prejudice whenever I see anyone driving a Porsche or a Mercedes Benz, the first thought being, “well there goes some smug asshole”.

I must make amends.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

My old Honda Insight is a sight to behold.
Normally covered in bird shit and maple pollen,
more camo than status statement.
Still gets 70 mpg. The big pick-em-up trucks hate it.
Tailgate my ass so I just slow her down.
Oh what fun to be riding in a one liter sleigh!

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Anja Geitz's picture

@QMS

And last forever. The added dust and bird debris merely add character, like a patina on a treasured keepsake.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Azazello's picture

@QMS
Here she is with her 356C.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Azazello

Now that’s the kind of car that would really attract attention!

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

psychedelic porches
and her fuzzy halo to boot!
good times

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Granma's picture

@Anja Geitz the delighted owner of Zelda. That's quite a gift from your sister. Enjoy!

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Granma

When I was picking the car up, I asked my brother-in-law how the both of them were doing, health wise, and he responded that they both were healthy.

“I’m really glad to hear that,” I said. “Because when I heard Martina wanted to give me her beloved Prius, I thought maybe she was dying”.

Fortunately my brother-in-law has a sense of humor and he laughed. But part of me was serious because that is what I initially thought. When I asked my Sister about why she gave up her car, she said she wrestled with it for awhile but then decided to pay it forward. I’m still pretty flabbergasted about the whole thing and am wrestling with my own feelings of unworthiness. Which is a bit ironic because whenever my Sister would see my old faded Toyota, she’d say, “why don’t you get yourself a nicer car, you deserve it”, and I’d think to myself, “she really doesn’t get me. That’s not why I’m driving the car I drive”. But now I’m not so sure she wasn’t right. Hmmm...

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

enhydra lutris's picture

@Anja Geitz

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@Anja Geitz as they rolled off the assembly line. They are both on their second ones, swear by them.
You will love Zelda!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

smiley7's picture

perhaps, you would enjoy a spin around The Grove Park Inn. Smile

Congratulations and big cheers to sister; a great car.

Have had good fortune with Toyota, drive a corolla, now.

Enjoy riding in style and watching the battery dashboard recharge, loved that experience.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@smiley7

I now enjoy running errands because I think to myself “Oh, I get to drive the Prius again!” Lol.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Anja Geitz's picture

I meant to comment on the painting you chose to introduce that interesting piece about Pierrot Lunaire. For starters, who painted it, and what made you select it?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

smiley7's picture

@Anja Geitz

The photo of Beethoven Frieze was used to promote the article. Cool mural, isn't it?

Beethoven Frieze was painted by Klimt in 1902 for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition, which was intended to be a celebration of the composer and featured a monumental polychrome sculpture by Max Klinger. Meant for the exhibition only, the frieze was painted directly on the walls with light materials. After the exhibition the painting was preserved, although it did not go on display again until 1986. The Beethoven Frieze is now on permanent display in the Vienna Secession Building.

The frieze illustrates human desire for happiness in a suffering and tempestuous world in which one contends not only with external evil forces but also with internal weaknesses. The viewer follows this journey of discovery in a stunning visual and linear fashion. It begins gently with the floating female Genii searching the Earth but soon follows the dark, sinister-looking storm-wind giant, Typhoeus.

In the first half of this evil vision, a gorilla portrays the giant, Typhoeus, personificaton of the typhoid which plague European cities, including Vienna, in the nineteenth century. The three gorgons, as exotic, tempting sirens, with gold snaking through their hair, were to reappear in the another controversial work by Klimt, Jurisprudence (1899-1907). Above them, crazed, wasted faces of death and syphilitic disease, also prevalent in Viennese society, stare down. Klimt plays with paradoxical themes of ugliness in beauty and death in love, and the work's nudity, with explicit black pubic hair, re-incensed the Viennese establishment.https://www.gustav-klimt.com/Beethoven-Frieze.jsp

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gulfgal98's picture

This little town is stuffed to the gills with tourists bringing whatever pandemic they carry with them to town. Although there has only been 25 cases in the county thus far, I fully expect a big outbreak in two to three weeks. The city fathers were sane and cancelled all the festivities which include the usual celebrations, a huge antique car show and shutting down of the downtown for out of town vendors and a parade. They also cancelled the fireworks which are set off at the college less than a half mile from our house. This always poses a big problem with three dogs, so I am grateful that the fireworks are cancelled this year.

I hope everyone has a safe and sane 4th of July.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

smiley7's picture

@gulfgal98

Same here, staying in to avoid the crowds and same worries, we've been reasonably lucky, but i fear with the second home and resorts full, covid will rise exponentially.

At least, it's cool, comparative to down the hills.

Be well and be safe.

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As a stargazer, you should be aware
tonight is the full moon
on the east coast
a lunar eclipse will begin around 11:30 pm
on the west coast
it begins about moonrise or 8:30 pm
those somewhere in-between can gauge it
the penumbra (earth's shadow) lasts around 3 hours
with the total darkness 1/2 way after incidence

may have fog here, but skies are clear
kinda eerie to see the red glow
heads are popping
nature ain't stopping

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Granma's picture

I can get my kitchen cleaned up. I now know why plumbers charge so much. My kitchen sinks got clogged, filled up when didwasher emptied. I did all the things recommended to clear clogs. Thought I had it fixed at one point in time, but Friday it stopped up and nothing cleared it.

Friend went under the house and took out a section of pipe. To make the story shorter, after much time and effort, clog finally and suddenly gave way. Out came a 4 foot long clog of gunk, the diameter of the pipes. Four feet of clog!!! The house is about 46 years old. I've only been here 6 years and I keep screen things over the drains in the sink to prevent food debris from going down.

I will buy some of that stuff that one puts in drains once a month, bacteria that eat gunk, to maintain free flowing pipes. I don't ever want to deal with that kind of mess again. An awfully kind friend did the work so I don't owe my soul to a plumber. Please send up kind thoughts and good wishes for him.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Granma

one's hands. A thorough flushing with hot water does much to prevent grease buildup, but also much to deplete aquifers. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Also, never use the garbage disposal, that's asking for trouble, compost all that stuff instead.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@Granma

lo siento mucho

have a snake at the ready
to open drains
here, what goes down
have to live with
on-sight septic
sensitive about clogs

pipes -- well that's another ball of wax

good luck

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smiley7's picture

@Granma

all of our friends, they do fill our lives in positive ways.

Glad you can that problem solved.

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Lookout's picture

Took the day off and didn't even get on line yesterday. Had a nice one and hope you did too.

Love Vienna. My sister lived there for a few years. Hope to return sometime, but for now COVID keeps me home.

Take care and all the best.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”