Thanks for this thread. It's given me a really peaceful feeling to read.
Man, I love beauty, and the quiet feeling of awe that comes with it.
A shortlist then, of my own.
Music (apologies, I'm a muso, I'm not trying to be a wanker):
Shostakovich's Largo in D. He was a composer in turn-of-the-century Russia and this was just after he was forced to write for the Bolsheviks after they'd killed his son. Hauntingly beautiful. Just a stillness every time I hear it. Amazing.
'The Piano' piano concerto from the film "The Piano" (literally. That's how you say it). Someone played it at an assembly when I was in primary school. I thought, one day I'll be good enough to play piano like that. (Now, I can play it.)
Stephen Leek's choral piece 'Cathedrals'. Learnt it on a multi-state band camp where everyone had to do choir (at the time singing = death for me). My brother was there. 200 kids in a room singing that. Shivers. Complex rhythm, atonal chords.
Debussy's Arabesque. Light, flighty, beautifully composed and groundbreaking technologically. (Same as above: heard, thought one day I'd learn, did.) Shivers. Every. Time.
Damien Rice. Just. Whoa
This week in beautiful music, it's been:
Vienna Teng - Stray Italian Greyhound. Omg omg omg. As a jazz muso I bitch all the time about classical training being too evident. This is classical training gone right. The articulation is fkn genius, I've never heard that done quite the same way in all my years of music. Had to pull over the car to listen kind of good.
For country fans, Chasing Devils by Delta Rae. "The only love I've ever loved, the only soul I've ever saved.", "dust and devils on my conscience, my cathedral is the bare land." I'm an Aussie, so hearing the land told from a different perspective was amazing. We don't call them twisters or dust devils here.
Photographs:
Grand Central Station, New York, 1931. Dust catching the light through the glass windows. Before all the buildings blocked out the light. Google it. Amazing.
And Penny Wong's tears of relief at the gay marriage vote in Aus. For the uninitiated, Wong is a hard, unflappable badarse with the best economic policy in the EU which saved Australia from the 2011-12 financial crisis. She is the ultimate cool customer. To see her so obviously broken down in the moment. Far out.
I'm not trying to stir controversy, but the photo of Elan's shoes. That Syrian refugee boy? And Missy Higgins' 49 candles. Not the best song ever written, but.damned if it didn't hit me. Pretty much sums up my approach to her work.
Quotes and ideas:
The Ba'hai religion believes that all messengers are prophets of the same god. I'm not religious, but what an awesome idea.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are but rounded in a sleep." - Willy shakes, Prospero, The Tempest. Don't ever get me started on Shakespeare.
"The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can hold." - Khalil Gibran, The Prophet. And pretty much all of that book.
Arundhati Roy. In general. I'm reading "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" atm, and I'm savouring it. Like, I won't read more than a little bit at a time, because I want to save it for later. And the last book I did that with was
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Mirror of Ink"
My personal fav is Ragnarok. I won't spoil the last two lines, but fk me it's the best. A page and a half long. When I lost my concentration, short stories were the gig, really.
"The Library" is a close second. It theorises the universe as a library. In the middle is a book with every known letter. Mystics claim that this book is God. Amazing.
WB Yeats - The Song of Wandering Aegnus. "And pluck til time and times are done - the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun."
I've had my moments of interpersonal beauty, but they're too raw to post atm.
