Bach, Jesu of Joy of Man's Desiring. Tears in my eyes, every time.
And no yucking anyone's yum
Does this mean we can't argue somebody is wrong in their selection or that we can't select somebody's genitals for ours?
I like that you are sharing cat pictures on the internet but, you know, keeping it classy.
Way to stomp on heebie's vulnerability.
2, 3: She was just yucking Ogged's yum.
I should probably try to find a space in my life for not-cynicism, but in my defense the world isn't really helping me to do so.
I actually love watercolor, but I hate anyone who does watercolor better than I do. Such as, for example, any accomplished watercolor artist.
Like, the person who did that cat managed to pull it off using almost entirely black paint. There is a little pink in the ears and a bit of white around the legs, but mostly the shape is conveyed by managing translucency, which is really hard to do well. I couldn't have pulled that off, and would have resorted to hiding blues and yellows in there to firm up the form a bit.
I submit Arvo Pärt's setting of "My Heart's In The Highlands" that was used in Sorrentino's The Great Beauty.
I'm boring, but pretty much all of J. M. W. Turner's late stuff, once he stops caring about the physical form of things. Doesn't matter what it is.
8: I like watercolor with hard edges quite a lot. Watercolor with watery edges often bugs me. (But not always! c/f penovac.)
Looking over the terraced fields from the high points of Kodaikanal.
I am very fond of Bellini's Saint Francis, which occupies a prime piece of wall estate in the Frick. I am almost equally fond of informing people of the scurrilous anti-clerical pornographic literary works of Pietro Aretino, Titian-portrayed nearby.
I am not a crackpot.
I should really use the photo in 12 when teaching Cal III and contour maps and level curves.
I like watercolor with hard edges quite a lot.
Yeah, a good clean edge-line that's done in one stroke is an amazing thing, because its just so easy to screw up.
I would have taken me more than 20 questions to figure out 12 was in India.
This was a disappointment, because the Met seems to have put most of it away, but I was just there to look at an exhibition of drawings and was pleased to get a chance to visit the room of Nakashima furniture. (Instead, there was a creepy horrible taxidermied deer covered with spherical bubble/lenses in the room. And one Nakashima desk shoved in the corner.)
And I apologize for my cliche-dom, but flying home to NYC in daylight at an angle that lets me really see Manhattan from the air makes my heart turn over. There are good ground-level views, but nothing that hits quite the same way.
I feel like even a few years ago I would have immediately written a long list but I had a hard time thinking of things I find beautiful. Depression? 2017?
I reach back and yes, traditional Islamic art and architecture, in the Maghreb and Andalusia and in Iran and Central Asia especially. So serene and mesmerizing and beautiful.
Many scenes in films, that cabin on fire scene with the water dripping from the eaves in Tarkovsky's the Mirror, just about every frame of Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flowers of Shanghai. Others.
I love this Winslow Homer for the combination of brown and turquoise. I've heard that it used to have a lot of red in it, but that pigment has since faded.
OT, but here's the creepy deer. It's more upsetting when you can get close to it and see the irregularly magnified hair.
17:Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Also disappointing. I've never seen that kind of restriction before.
20: That is beautiful.
Also heebie's cat, although my first reaction was that it was kind of scary.
That's the most awful piece of taxidermy I've ever seen and I've spent time on Etsy looking for the worst dead squirrel I could find.
Somebody who is an Englishman and not straight could comment on the tights in Labyrinth, unless 2 is right.
On the back lawn of my parents' house there is often in summer a heavy dew; and looking out from my bedroom window at the right time of the early morning I could see the sunlight striking the grass sidewise, and the droplets reflecting it into my eyes, refracted so that as I moved my head I could see the tiny star made by one drop shift from arc-light blue to sodium-lamp yellow to arterial red; the most perfect colors I have seen anywhere.
27, 28: Careful, there.
On an overnight sleeper-car train from Sofia to Istanbul, for the better part of an hour as dawn broke there were rolling hills of sunflowers in full bloom as far as the eye can sea.
Morocco, a winding mountain road traveling back to Fez through the Middle Atlas mountains in late summer, ripening wheat fields covering the sides of the mountains and hills as we hit the golden hour. Gold upon gold upon gold. Otherworldly in its beauty. It took my breath away. Not one of us said a word.
Oh, there is scenery that I can't describe without making it sound like a tacky postcard, but is heartbreaking in person.
If you're ever in Samoa, on Savaii, the bigger island, if you turn right from the ferry landing and go about ten miles, you walk through a cattle pasture and scramble about thirty feet down a little 'cliff', and you find yourself on the banks of a little rocky pool maybe 50 feet across, with a waterfall down into it and walled in by fern-covered banks. I've never been anyplace more beautiful in my life.
I probably couldn't find it now if I went back.
I saw that recently, but don't recall that shot.
Sunrise over Cleveland, from the window of a Greyhound bus. Maybe you had to be there?
The two most beautiful words in the English language: open bar
But seriously, there's one shot in Wong Kar Wai's section of Eros , an otherwise forgettable film, of the protagonist in a brown tie that was just shockingly beautiful when I saw it in the theater.
Bierstadt's Last of the Buffalo. Bierstadt's waves (Emerald, Turquoise, Seal Rock, among others). Biestadt's Yosemite (esp 1864). Bierstadt's Landers Peak.
I could go on.
If a thing of beauty is a joy forever, anybody who has been unhappy has never seen a thing of beauty. That's just science.
In real life, it's hard to beat the Mission Front; il Sella, especially but not exclusively from Val Gardena; Mont Blanc from Mont Fort, or Castle Rock, coming down from Vermillion Pass. I'm going skiing in Zermatt in February, so we'll see whether anything there gets onto the list.
Allegri, Miserere. Pachelbel, Canon in D major. Mussorsky, Pictures at an Exhibition.
Snowflakes falling through the light of street lamps. Waves crashing on rocks. These rock formations in Ohio of all places (Hocking Hills https://www.hockinghills.com/) but probably that's because I haven't been to any other impressive rock formations.
Paintings or other pieces of art don't seem to resonate with me. Unless there's something really human about them like when I saw there was sand embedded in a Monet painting. Churches and the associated art, on the other hand, I love.
More embarrassingly, any bagpipe song but especially Amazing Grace will make me choke back sobs. Choral music also makes me tear up but both of those almost seem to be physiological responses to the music.
almost seem to be physiological responses to the music.
I have a definite weird tearing-up response to strongly rhythmic poetry. It's much more about the rhythm than the emotional impact or the artistic merit of the poetry, and I don't understand it.
The Iliad. From the first line I just start grinning with the brilliance of it.
46: Any particular translation or do you know classical (?) Greek?
47: Lattimore. No Greek. I understand his isn't the most favored translation anymore, but I love it too much to care.
Don't the moon look good, mama, shinin' through the trees
Don't the brakemen look good, mama, flaggin' down the "Double-E"
Don't the sun look good goin' down over the sea
But don't my gal look fine when she's comin' after me
This part of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" - the studio version on Highway 61 Revisited.
18: [Manhattan from the air] There are good ground-level views, but nothing that hits quite the same way.
I have the same regard for DC views coming in or out of National on a nice day.
35: It's the last minute and a half or so.
Scuba diving in Tobago, 30 meters down, you look up at the surface of the water and the sun is shining on it, casting columns of light through schools of brightly-colored fish circling above your head.
The last scene of The Grey, when the piano comes in.
Also in the urban landscape category. Nighttime view from Griffith Observatory.
This Tanner at the Met.
The bas reliefs on Angkor Wat at dawn.
Crows, wrestling and tumbling in midair above a rush-hour highway sunk through the spine of a ridge.
Sacramento has been pretty astonishing for a week. It was a good week for fall leaves.
(That's all understated, but there have been some really spectacular trees that I can't describe well. Enough to gasp and stop riding.)
An incredibly tiny girl I taught, either much too young or with some kind of developmental problem, when she was doing an exercise and knew the answer, smiled this great big toothy smile.
I am reminded of Zappa's measure of "quality of life:" How much of what we individually consider to be beautiful are we able to experience every day?
I like that a lot, even if I'm not sure exactly what it means.
The night sky always awes me. I see LB has already taken note of the New York skyline, but I'd add the view from across the Hudson just before the bus enters the Lincoln Tunnel.
Gerry Mulligan, Song for Strayhorne.
The Eurpean ceramics in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum and how they work with the paintings collection. It's hard to single out one object, there's so many great ones, and the overall effect is glorious.
https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/898200325554933761
I love, love, love Remedios Varos. Her pieces are beautiful and often funny. I forget the exact title of the first one at the link, but it's something like "Leaving the psychoanalyst's office."
I have a print of "Vegetarian Vampires" on my wall.
One time I saw Barry Bonds jack a home run into the center-right upper deck of the old RFK Stadium. I don't care much for Bonds, but that was a beautiful thing to do to a baseball.
Every time I see footage of Cal Ripken, Jr. taking his lap around Camden Yards during the middle of the fifth inning of game number 2131 in his consecutive game streak, I tear up a little bit.
I dated a guy who turned out to be something of a douche, but partially redeemed himself by introducing me to Deborah Madison and Remedios Varos.
67 is allowed in this thread because it is adjacent to beauty.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's eve? Thou art more arty and better read.
69: I was ready to jump on this for misquoting Shakespeare, and then I got the douche reference. Very nice. Crossposting on Standpipe's blog.
I have no idea what you're talking about. It was a direct quote to the best of my knowledge.
Music has a lot of effects on me, but sometimes it provides an overwhelming sense of pure pleasure; often enough that I couldn't count all the pieces that have done so.
Particular trout streams; lakes in forests. But I'm not sure the effect there is entirely aesthetic -- a photograph of what I see wouldn't have the same effect. The smells and the sounds are all part of it, too.
This sounds appallingly cheesy, but small children when they are really absorbed in the world.
One particular pleasure to be had from poetry, where the words just seem to fit together so well that to use any of them in other contexts feels slightly wrong. Tennyson at the moment: lots of Tennyson.
The cathedral here when the light is right.
The first time I heard the song "Astral Weeks", by Van Morrison, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. I listened to it 50 times in one week, and then I was never able to recreate the feeling again.
Correction to 34: I meant turn left. If you turn right you end up at Tuasivi, which is a perfectly nice secondary school but not that pretty.
74: That came right on the nick of time. Ferry is about to land.
God fucking damn it if you keep fucking up this blog will be worth less than shit. Now how the fuck do I get to Lalomanu?
And now I'm googling Samoa tourist information. The goofy little bar in the beach village near my school is now 'famously luxurious':
Dive Savaii is located in Fagamolo village opposite the famously luxurious "Le Lagoto Resort & Spa" which offers a wide range of accommodation to suit every budget.
I guess they were pretty luxurious even when I was there -- they had four little rental one-room huts with hot water. And a three-option menu: fish and chips, chicken and chips, or sausage and chips.
76: Sole, you're on the wrong island. Stay on the ferry or start swimming.
Any well done live reading of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in Ulysses will make me tear up. It hits all of my buttons at once.
I have a goodly number of beautiful images burned into my head, but a recurring one I particularly cherish is looking south along Chaunigan Lake, BC, early on clear mornings at the end of vacation trips. Still lake, often with a little mist, bare Konni Mountain at the south end, and Mt. Tatlow standing gloriously in the distance.
This is a lovely thread to return to after a long, tiring day.
73 reminds me that I used to not know Morrissey was somebody different from Jim Morrison of the Doors or Van Morrison wasn't either of them. Fortunately, people just assumed I was making jokes and not stupid.
84: If you had a tiring day, imagine how much praise your male colleague doing the same thing got for his day of doing the same thing.
Crows, wrestling and tumbling in midair above a rush-hour highway sunk through the spine of a ridge.
I sometimes get a flying scarf of 1000s of grackles in the sky on my drive home at sunset, and it's mesmerizing.
TBC, I viewed said crows from a pedestrian bridge over the highway. Drive safe now!
I once saw two orioles fight an iguana. That was cool.
87: I sometimes get a flying scarf of 1000s of grackles in the sky on my drive home at sunset, and it's mesmerizing.
From my one place in Houston we'd get the same for starlings coming in to roost at Rice University. I had a 2nd floor balcony which had great view.
Are the birds that flocked into Oakland and covered the sidewalks in so much shit that you couldn't step around it crows or grackles?
Crows roost in huge numbers in various parts of Pittsburgh. Assume it is them in Oakland as well.
But not on aesthetic grounds, so I'm still in line with the rules.
Magic's Pawn, right after the frozen dream, as Vanyel professes his love. It's crazy powerful.
This remains my favorite art exhibition. I love many of the individual pieces but it's the common theme that really set it apart for me.
I saw huge flocks of crows over Regent Square last weekend just before dusk. Beautiful.
Starlings are pretty, but extremely annoying when they land on your roof.
98: At Rice they made umbrellas available during the worst of it.
99 By which I mean I feel very much the same of course.
In case it isn't obvious, let me say this thread was an excellent idea. Thanks Heebie!
Janet Cardiff's "40 Part Motet", now at the National Gallery. It's just 40 speakers in a large circle playing a live recording of this:
With a microphone for each singer. Besides the music, two things I love are: the microphones were turned on five minutes before the singing started, so I've come to know the speaking voices of the little children making each other laugh, and the rivalrous tenors, and the weary sardonic professionals.
The second thing I love is watching people move through the space, listening. I have followed this installation around, and I can't count how many times I've been through it now. It makes me cry every time.
I listened to Townes Van Zandt's "Highway Kind" for the first time in a long time while driving earlier this evening and got all choked up with how perfect it is.
The Blue Ridge Parkway in the fall.
Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. In the room, it's just jaw-dropping.
Smokey Robinson (on basically everything, as singer and as writer, but this song in particular, this version, from 1m 56 or so, with bonus Aretha): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy75z0trlDk&t=1m56s
(male falsetto, kills me every time)
Bach's BWV 975 - Largo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzPhJGPpW4w
Miles Davis - Blue in Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoPL7BExSQU
Gil Evans - Where Flamingo's Fly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUJ8P-aeZhE
(there's something about a melancholic trombone that just presses buttons)
Helen Merrill - Born to be Blue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JB-DZbP0L8
Sandrine Piau singing Handel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZoYUHInMkw
Nick Cave's Into My Arms -- like him just fine, but not a huge fan, but the construction of this song is perfect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnHoqHscTKE
Bettye Lavette's voice on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whyryu8mys
Esther Phillips voice on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvdnMzQGbEQ
I got to sit down and chat w Beto O'Rourke for 20 minuets! I saw him talking in front of a camera, so I pulled over, and they were ducking into a tiny tacqueria for lunch and asked if I wanted to pull up a chair.
Which was beautiful, the chair, the taco, or Beto?
Those Bernini sculptures sure are something in person. Pluto and Proserpine scared the daylights out of me.
My favorite Remedios Varo is this one, first sent to me a long time ago when I was living alone with a cat.
Wu Zhen's bamboo paintings.
This pass:
https://youtu.be/ZJPoyW1NF2k?t=49
re: 110
Lovely.
I am bound by national code to post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyJTBrbPIHQ
re: 111
It's a cliche but every time I see it I think he's going to get tackled...
109.last: Why does everybody Instragram their food?
Possibly on topic: The moon last night was huge and spectacular. They should really do that more often.
116: Yes. And early this morning it was nicely wreathed in the light fog. Ghostly galleon indeed.
I almost never see the moon here. If it isn't cloud it's smog, if it isn't smog it's buildings.
We had a rare clear day last week, from the bus I could see almost the whole mountain ring around the city, with clouds just sitting on the peaks, blue above. It would be great if it weren't for all the shit in the air.
