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“Painted following the First Impressionist Exhibition in April 1874—which had opened the eyes of the public to the revolutionary Impressionist aesthetic—and around the time of its second iteration which helped cement the validity of its new, modern terminology,Matinée d’octobre près de Port-Marlypays fitting homage to the movement’s pursuit of paintingen plein air. Determined to capture the fleeting, atmospheric beauty of the cool, early morning light, one can almost imagine Sisley waking early in order to secure the perfect location from which to paint—dismissing the icy autumn chill which must have no doubt plagued his fingers as he began to work the canvas.”

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Clair de Lune

Your soul is a chosen landscape
On which masks and Bergamasques cast enchantment as they go,
Playing the lute, and dancing, and all but
Sad beneath their fantasy-disguises.

Singing all the while, in the minor mode,
Of all-conquering love and life so kind to them
They do not seem to believe in their good fortune,
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
 
 With the calm moonlight, sad and lovely,
 Which makes the birds dream in the trees,
 And the plumes of the fountains weep in ecstasy,
 The tall, slender plumes of the fountains among the marble sculptures. 

Note

“Clair de lune” (French for “Moonlight”) is a poem written by French poet Paul Verlaine in 1869. It is the inspiration for the third and most famous movement…

The greatest American crime novelist you’ve never heard of is Dorothy Hughes. Unless, of course, you’ve already heard of her.

Ms. Hughes wrote some 14 crime novels in the 1950’s and 60’s, then retired from the scene to become a leading critic of the genre. She’s something of a writer’s writer, long admired by those working in crime fiction but not widely known. You may have seen the Humphrey Bogart film based on her novel In a Lonely Place, which is terrific by the way. Both book and film.

A few years ago, she enjoyed something of a mini renaissance, with quite a few titles released as reprints which is how I found her and her wonderful novel The Expendable Man.

The Expendable Man concerns a young medical intern, almost a full doctor, travelling in his family’s white Cadillac across the California desert to Phoenix to attend a family…

“Méditation” is a symphonic intermezzo from the opera Thaïs by French composer Jules Massenet. The piece is written for solo violin and orchestra. The opera premiered at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on March 16, 1894.

The Méditation is an instrumental entr’acte performed between the scenes of Act II in the opera Thaïs. In the first scene of Act II, Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, confronts Thaïs, a beautiful and hedonistic courtesan and devotée of Venus, and attempts to persuade her to leave her life of luxury and pleasure and find salvation through God. It is during a time of reflection following the encounter that the Méditation is played by the orchestra.”

wikipedia