“Wagner’s music isn’t as bad as it sounds.” – Mark Twain
Music
[Mu1] With the end of CDs these things will go away as well, but Now That’s What I Call Music made it to the century mark. Not a bad run.
[Mu2] It doesn’t happen often, but the San Francisco Opera went the distance and did Wagner’s entire 17 hour Ring Cycle. Who knew there were Wagner die-hards known as “ring-nuts” who travel the world chasing the full presentation?
[Mu3] The music copywrite debate will only get more complicated, and CATO has a write-up on the Music Modernization Act (MMA) that is currently winding its way through congress, and what it means.
[Mu4] OK, then…“A detailed musical analysis of how ABBA’s ‘Mamma Mia’ is literally a perfect pop song”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuf1NOAWvug&w=560&h=315]
Art
[Ar1] The Art of a Fired Cartoonist
[Ar2] Turning a radio telescope into a giant art installation
[Ar3] Using AI to make art, in this robotic art competition.
[Ar4] Las Vegas is many things. Come for the gambling, shows, and the rest of it… and take in one of this list of art galleries and exhibits. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhWoUrsT82I&w=560&h=315]
History
[Hi1] The college board reverses itself and decides not to trim 250 years off of history.
[Hi2] Have you ever considered where your brush came from. Or where they might have been? If you are this company in Buffalo, NY, after 150 years of making your product brushes along a lot of history.
[Hi3] With streaming on your devices all the rage, good time to remember the original mobile streaming: the drive-in movie theater.
[Hi4} Steamtown National Historic Site does the hard work of archiving everything from handwritten notes, half-destroyed books, and tons of paper, but it’s the 20K glass plate negatives that really bring the history to life.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhjZLmPcW6I&w=560&h=315]
Architecture
[At1] The viral video of the racoon scaling a building was all over the place; here’s the breakdown on how the architecture of the building lended itself to the furry critter’s climb of glory.
[At2] The Museum of Modern Art is doing a full on exhibit of socialist architecture from the former Yugoslavia and the radical ideas they came up with. Who knew you could do so much variation in cement buildings.
[At3] Don’t have Baku on your to-go list of architectural cities not to miss? You should. My personal favorite here is the carpet museum in the style of a rolled up rug.
[At4] Los Angeles is a city of people from somewhere else coming to live and build dreams, so of course the architecture would reflect that, with a decidedly California twist when it came to buildings meant to get attention for businesses.
At2 more pics hereReport
Thank you for sharing moreReport
At this point, I have zero desire to go back to western Europe, but eastern and points further out have always fascinated me, and these pics just add fuel to the fire.Report
Lived in German two different times, and traveled around quite a bit and I found visiting the old “eastern bloc” countries to be more interesting on several levels. This was mostly in the 2000’s, but even with 10+ years of westernization at that time you could tell a huge difference. Something that would be a good write up one of these days.Report
When I visited Prague in 1999, I was extremely surprised (and amused) by the way people spoke of “in communistic (sic) times X, Y, Z” as if they were talking about the Hapsburg Empire, Good King Wenceslas, or the Romans, and not something not yet ten years ago.
And talking about that, going by the way Prague looked and felt in 1999, communistic times could really have been before the Thirty Years War.Report
Prague is a funny one. One of my favorite cities, its thought of as Eastern but its actually further west than Vienna. Funny how things work out.Report
Refinery 29 is having their blow back about one of their money diaries:
https://jezebel.com/refinery29s-money-diaries-arent-the-revolution-they-pro-1827697912
Though some think this current scandal du internet is written by a troll/prankster and not a real person.Report
Does sound like the Coachella article linked to a few days ago.Report
I love Das Rheingold. It is probably my favorite Wagner. Though Lohengrin has some very special moments.
That could have been me describing it in that video, I’m so rapt with the prelude.Report
I started to parse out a piece of the music to play but I liked how that video served as a good intro to someone if they may not be familiar. Report
New York Daily News is going to suffer layoffs. Tronc has announced that they’re cutting editorial 50%.
(Insert Infinity Gauntlet joke here.)Report