Ruins of the Tower of Babel
If it is the grandeur of the revolution to gaze steadily upon the dazzling ideal, and to fly to it through the lightning, with blood and fire in its talons, it is the beauty of progress to be without a stain; and there is between them the difference which separates the angel with the wings of a swan, from the angle with the wings of an eagle.
Les Miserables
Amazing panorama and time-lapse of Hitchcock’s Rear Window courtyard (more)
Loscil – “Zephyr”
Plume
This hypnotizing album is Loscil’s third, far more rich than the muted Submers or the barely-there Triple Point. It’s full of tracks like this, repetitive but enveloping, and deceptively full of detail at every tone level. Beauty, but hovering on the border of threatening depths. (insound)
Letter from Kurt Vonnegut to one who would burn his books
Letter from Kurt Vonnegut to one who would burn his books
November 16, 1973
Dear Mr. McCarthy:
I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.
Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.
He was twice witty, first with his own wit, then with the wit which was attributed to him.
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Black Forest/Black Sea – “Sevastopol”
Black Forest/Black Sea
An album of freaky chamber folk, before the band went a bit more digital. The cello/guitar combo makes it sound like an Espers backing track, but the off-kilter melody and confidently atonal background noise set it apart. An unpredictable band, for good and ill.