Opening microchips (to find their surprisingly beautiful internals)
Nico Muhly and Nadia Sirota - “Part I: Material In D”
Drones & Viola
Part of a series of short contemporary chamber music EPs by Muhly and collaborators, this track is perhaps the most listenable (some of the pieces are a little— bangy), yet is also fundamentally elusive. The “drone” aspect acquires different tones throughout the piece despite remaining in essentially the same key, causing an interesting tension: Are the ever-present strings or the itinerant piano driving the melody? (insound)
Far on the right, her dogs foul Scylla hides:Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides;
Then spouts them from below: with fury driv’n,
The waves mount up and wash the face of heav’n.
But Scylla from her den, with open jaws,
The sinking vessel in her eddy draws,
Then dashes on the rocks. A human face,
And virgin bosom, hides her tail’s disgrace:
Her parts obscene below the waves descend,
With dogs inclos’d, and in a dolphin end.
‘Tis safer, then, to bear aloof to sea,
And coast Pachynus, tho’ with more delay,
Than once to view misshapen Scylla near,
And the loud yell of wat’ry wolves to hear.
Glitch art from Hismajestytheguru
But where the company are real gentlemen and men of education, you will see no flute-girls, nor dancing-girls, nor harp-girls; and they have no nonsense or games, but are contented with one another’s conversation, of which their own voices are the medium, and which they carry on by turns and in an orderly manner, even though they are very liberal in their potations.
Mojave 3 - “My Life In Art”
Excuses For Travelers
Mojave 3 may be cuddling music, but that doesn’t mean their solid songwriting can’t be acknowledged. This classic album has more than a couple tracks I’ve been whistling for years, but “My Life In Art” is the low-key, porch-sitting, significant-other-squeezing centerpiece.
87.8% of Mars (ESA)
Let every man observe, and be a law unto himself.
Thomas Bewick’s History of Quadrupeds
Nothing pesters the body and mind sooner than to be still fed, to eat and ingurgitate beyond all measure, as many do. “By overmuch eating and continual feasts they stifle nature, and choke up themselves; which, had they lived coarsely, or like galley-slaves tied to an oar, might have happily prolonged many fair years.” [saith Lessius’ Hygiasticon]Temperance is like a bridle of gold, and he that can use it aright, ego non summis viris comparo, sed simillimum Deo judico [Tully], is liker a god than a man: for as it will transform a beast to a man again, so will it make a man a god.
Original text of Camerarius’s Symbolorvm et Emblematvm, Century II, Emblem 55, the text of which is summarized here. (Munich Digitization Center)
All art, music, words © their original authors.
