Yesterday night I went to visit my good friend M at a restaurant in Mount Vernon (Baltimore), where he works. By the way, I hope he keeps working there for a long time, since I had the chance to get an amazing meal and outstanding Italian wines for free. Anyway, the bar was pretty quiet (not surprisingly, being a Wednesday night), with only one couple sitting at the counter. We then started chatting to this couple, and it turns out they are both composers at the Peabody Institute of John Hopkins. Since I am very impressed with their work, (which they have posted at their respective websites) I thought I should share it here. They are both young and extremely talented (this brings to my mind that chorus from The Cure: Why can’t I be you?), and I am sure people we will be talking about them soon. They are also the nicest people in the world, so I really hope they make it! Their music is modern and complex yet it flows very naturally, and it is great that they can be experimental without fully trashing the more traditional aspects of tonal music.
So here are the links to the websites of Ying-Chen Kao and David Witmer. Enjoy
Erzsébet Báthory, image taken from Wikipedia
Today we are used to throwing the word “scandal” too easily when it comes to describing the indecorous behavior of those who had the luck to be born in the right time at the right place (i.e. Royalty). Such scandals generally involve adultery, or some kind of political intrigue. They end up making the cover of sensationalist newspapers, people then gossip about it, and that is pretty much it. Boring. In the good old days monarchs knew how to be controversial, and some way more than others. So, since my posts were getting too soft, I bring you the Countess Erzsébet Báthory (more…)
Le Corbusier with Albert Einstein
The influential Swiss –born (but French – naturalized) architect Le Corbusier recounts the following story: (more…)
Steel Ruler, taken from Wikipedia
Since I am off tomorrow morning to New York to visit my good friend Chris, I’ll do my best to follow the advice on my blog’s title.
Here are three very short stories written by three writers that have mastered the art of “twittering” way before Twitter was even around.
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Walt Whitman (picture from the Library of Congress)
Borges begins his essay entitled “The Other Whitman” with the following lines:
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