Sunday, July 31, 2011

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Respighi - Three Botticelli Pictures

Ottorino Respighi

Spring


Adoration of the Magi


The Birth of Venus

More at:

Jeff Beck - Seven Performances

Jeff Beck
Stratus

A Day in the Life

Superstition with Stevie Wonder

Blanket with Imogen Heap

Rollin & Tumblin with Imogean Heap

Cause We've Ended As Friends (featuring Tal Wilkenfeld)

Nessun Dorma

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Georges Delerue - Music from the Movies

Georges Delerue

A Little Romance
Chere Louise
Camille's Theme from Le Mépris (Contempt)
Our Mother's House

L'important c'est d'aimer (That Most Important Thing: Love)
A Summer Story
More at:

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Chris Rea - Four Songs

Blue Cafe
Josephine
On the Beach

Road to Hell

Sacagawea - Interpreter/Guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition

From The Spirit of Sacagawea

Shoshone interpreter, member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Born around 1788. Much about Sacagawea, the only woman on the Lewis and Clark expedition into the American West, is a mystery. Daughter of a Shoshone chief, it is not known exactly when she was born. Some sources say 1788 while others say 1787 and 1786. Around the age of 12, Sacagawea was captured by Hidatsa Indians, an enemy of the Shoshones. She was then sold to a French-Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau who made her one of his wives.
Sacagawea and her husband lived among the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians in the upper Missouri River area (present-day North Dakota). In November 1804, an expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark entered the area. Often called the Corps of Discovery, the expedition planned to explore newly acquired western lands and find a route to the Pacific Ocean. The group built Fort Mandan, and elected to stay there for the winter. Lewis and Clark met Charbonneau and quickly hired him to serve as interpreter on their expedition. Even though she was pregnant with her first child, Sacagawea was chosen to accompany them on their mission. Lewis and Clark believed that her knowledge of the Shoshone language would help them later in their journey.

n February 1805, Sacagawea gave birth to a son named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Despite traveling with a newborn child during the trek, Sacagawea proved to be helpful in many ways. She was skilled at finding edible plants. When a boat she was riding on capsized, she was able to save some of its cargo, including important documents and supplies. She also served as a symbol of peace — a group traveling with a woman and a child were treated with less suspicion than a group of men alone.
Sacagawea also made a miraculous discovery of her own during the trip west. When the corps encountered a group of Shoshone Indians, she soon realized that its leader was actually her brother Cameahwait. It was through her that the expedition was able to buy horses from the Shoshone to cross the Rocky Mountains. Despite this joyous family reunion, Sacagawea remained with the explorers for the trip west.
After reaching the Pacific coast in November 1805, Sacagawea was allowed to cast her vote along with the other members of the expedition for where they would build a fort to stay for the winter. They built Fort Clatsop near present-day Astoria, Oregon, and they remained there until March of the following year. Sacagawea, her husband, and her son remained with the expedition on the return trip east until they reached the Mandan villages. During the journey, Clark had become fond of her son Jean Baptiste, nicknaming him "Pomp" or "Pompey." And he even offered to help him get an education.
Once Sacagawea left the expedition, the details of her life become more elusive. In 1809, it is believed that she and her husband — or just her husband according to some accounts — traveled with their son to St. Louis to see Clark. Pomp was left in Clark's care. Sacagawea gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Lisette, three years later. Only a few months after her daughter's arrival, she reportedly died at Fort Manuel in what is now South Dakota in 1812. (There were stories that it was another wife of Charbonneau who died at Fort Manuel, but historians don t give much credence to this.) After Sacagawea's death, Clark looked after her two children, and ultimately took custody of them both.
Over the years, tributes to Sacagawea and her contribution to the Corps of Discovery have come in many forms, such as statues, place-names, and she was even featured on a dollar coin issued in 2000 by the U.S. Mint.
© 2011 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.
More at:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sacagawea.htm

Monday, July 18, 2011

UK Comedians of Mock The Week

Rejected exam questions
Bad things to say on a first date

On the subject of health

Things you won't hear your Sat Nav say

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Selected Writings of Zitkala-Sa "Red Bird" (1876 - 1938)

Zitkala-Sa


A wee child toddling in a wonder world.... I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.

Yellow Breast, swaying upon the slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit than in his wing.

My heart and I lie small upon the earth like a grain of throbbing sand. Drifting clouds and tinkling waters, together with the warmth of a genial summer day, bespeak with eloquence the loving Mystery round about us.

When the spirit swells my breast I love to roam leisurely among the green hills; or sometimes, sitting on the brink of the murmuring Missouri, I marvel at the great blue overhead. With half-closed eyes I watch the huge cloud shadows in their noiseless play upon the high bluffs opposite me, while into my ear ripple the sweet, soft cadences of the river's song.

From 
"IMPRESSIONS OF AN INDIAN CHILDHOOD"

MY MOTHER.

A wigwam of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly ascending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri.

Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall.
"Hush. My little daughter must never talk about my tears"; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, "Now let me see how fast you can run today." Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze.


Red Red Rose - Robert Burns

Robert Rurns


O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,  
  That’s newly sprung in June:  
O my Luve’s like the melodie,  
  That’s sweetly play’d in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 
  So deep in luve am I; 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
  Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, 
  And the rocks melt wi’ the sun: 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
  While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve, 
  And fare-thee-weel, a while!  
And I will come again, my Luve, 
  Tho’ 'twere ten thousand mile!

Quotes by Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett


- A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.


- Beware of geeks bearing formulas.


- If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it. 


- It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. 


- Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. 


- The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on. 


- Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars. 


- Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful". 


- Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked. 


- You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong. 


- Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. 


- Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing. 

Monday, July 11, 2011

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Diabolique and Vertigo - Films based on the books of Boileau-Narcejac

Boileau - Narcejac

The authors with Hitchcock
Boileau-Narcejac are the team of French crime fiction writers Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud. Two of their works adapted for film are Les Diaboliques, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. These are two great films directed by two great directors. Clouzot is known as the Hitchcock of French cinema.


Kim Novak & Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo

Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, & Paul Meurisse in Les Diaboliques


Director Henri-Georges Clouzot

A scene from Les Diaboliques directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot

Critics' Picks on Vertigo directed by Alfred Hitchcock

More on Boileau-Narcejac at:

Martha Argerich Plays Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major




Martha Argerich, Aldo Ceccato and the Rundfunkorchester Hannover des NDR performing Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in 1985.


Allegramente

Adagio Assai

Presto

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Selected Compositions

Ryuichi Sakamoto









HASYMO
Rain (live)

Tibetan Dance
Forbidden Colours (solo piano version)
Wonderful To Me
A Life (with Taeko Onuki)

You've Got To Help Yourself

Seven Samurai
More at: 

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Photography of Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Alvarez Bravo

The Daydream

Conversation near the statue

Running boy

Frida Kahlo

Woman combing her hair

Untitled

Caballo de madera 

Senor de Papantia

Untitled


More at: