Wednesday, May 31, 2023

hit the bottom

 




Fish Magic, Paul Klee, 1925.





Dear All,

Here is your song for today.  Maybe you want to enjoy this version, too, and perhaps also this first one.  The thing I love about this song is the kind of fullness of the underwater sound.  There is the musical equivalent of onomatopoeia here; the sound is evocative of what the lyric describes.






Monday, May 29, 2023

three

 




Installation view of Robert Indiana's Number Paintings.




Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

Aldous Harding is, for the third time, your song (writer, performer) of the day!  I hear a ghost, a hint, of this song, in that song.  Do you?






Thursday, May 25, 2023

therapist

 













Dear Poets & Healers,

Here are three dear images.  The first is René Magritte's 1937 painting, The Therapist.  The second image, the photograph, is René Magritte as The Therapist, date unknown.  The last image, is titled The Healer, and it is a René Magritte bronze of the same subject matter, from 1967, I believe.  

There is a lot, a lot to love here, and I think I won't give you any of my instructions for appreciating these works, because I think you don't need to be led like that.






un peu plus






Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Monday, May 22, 2023

mundane

 



Scissors, Richard Diebenkorn, 1963.




Dear Viewers,

Today, our project is to remember not to underestimate the mundane, the everyday.  This Diebenkorn painting of scissors is as much proof as anyone needs.  While you are further contemplating this work, listen to this, your song of the day.

Do you want me to start you off?  Consider first how breathtaking a concept it is that the paint is the scissors, the paint is the surface the scissors are on, and the paint is the air between the two.  See how the paint holds up the blades, like a little hill?  See how the paint, the brushstrokes, fit around the blades?  See how the sky of paint crushes down on the handles?  See how the whole thing makes a formal division of the space into four triangles?

I think we might further extend this project, just this once.  You are out of music, by now, of course, so have this second Minuit song, and while you are listening, make yourself a little drawing of your scissors, and see if it isn't just the nicest thing.



Tuesday, May 16, 2023

baby blue

 




Ellsworth Kelly,  Yellow Blue, at the Rijksmuseum.




Dear Unborn,

I thought you might like some small introduction to human life.  Everything is reason and science, all of it.  Everything you might not like comes from it: toothpaste, surgeries, missiles, economic policy, borders.  Anything negative can be proven to be so and so to be necessary.  Anything you might like, anything good at all, is magic.  A winning lottery ticket, chocolate bars, love, beauty, kindly fairies.

So, there you have it, our essential dualism.

I am not a big fan either.  Still, we only do it this way because we choose to, so resist as much as you are able the pull of those two poles, and listen to this beautiful song of rebirth and regeneration; it's your song of the day!





Thursday, May 11, 2023

eighteen hundred

 








Dear Everyone,

What a beautiful day to roller skate for the 1800th day in a row!  Join me, won't you?  I know, it's the same old thing, isn't it?  Day after day, skate after skate, a hundred days after a hundred days.  Maybe you are tired of the same old things: a suggestion for music or a video, some spiffing skate stuff to buy?  


Nah, I know you know that the everyday is the holiest day, and that everything is the sacredest thing, so lets get this party started!

Check out these great skates, try this party move, try to resist these, and remember that the most fun, is to try it.  




PS

Maybe you just aren't sure what to wear roller skating?  Here are some ideas!




Friday, May 5, 2023

Another Dance Party Friday!

 









Dear Feet,

It's been a while, but here is something to inspire your dancing.  Let's inspect The Jerk  (contemporary) a little closer.  You will want a tune, or two.  Or, maybe you want this.  Anyway, take it all, or take none of it; the world is crammed with things you can watch, think, see, and do!


PS  

One more.