a Jakhe, a Klong jin, a Klong kaek

The music of Thailand reflects its geographic position at the intersection of China and India, and reflects trade routes that have historically included Persia, Africa, Greece and Rome. Thai musical instruments are varied and reflect ancient influence from far afield - including the klong thap and khim (Persian origin), the jakhe (Indian origin), the klong jin (Chinese origin), and the klong kaek (Indonesian origin).

Though Thailand was never colonized by colonial powers, pop music and other forms of modern Asian, European and American music have become extremely influential. The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung and mor lam; the latter in particular has close affinities with the Music of Laos.

Aside from the Thai, ethnic minorities such as the Lao, Lawa, Hmong, Akha, Khmer, Lisu, Karen and Lahu peoples have retained traditional musical forms.

 

Botero`s lifes...

His paintings and sculptures are united by their proportionally exaggerated, or "fat" figures, as he once referred to them.

Botero explains his use of these "large people", as they are often called by critics, in the following way:

"An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it."

Botero is an abstract artist in the most fundamental sense, choosing colors, shapes, and proportions based on intuitive aesthetic thinking. Though he spends only one month a year in Colombia, he considers himself the "most Colombian artist living" due to his insulation from the international trends of the art world.

In 2004 Botero exhibited a series of 27 drawings and 23 paintings dealing with the violence in Colombia from the drug cartels. He donated the works to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first exhibited.

In 2005 Botero gained considerable attention for his Abu Ghraib series, which was exhibited first in Europe. He based the works on reports of United States forces' abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Beginning with an idea he had on a plane journey, Botero produced more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings in exploring this concept and "painting out the poison." The series was exhibited at two United States locations in 2007, including Washington, DC. Botero said he would not sell any of the works, but would donate them to museums.

In 2006, after having focused exclusively on the Abu Ghraib series for over 14 months, Botero returned to the themes of his early life such as the family and maternity. In his "Une Famille" Botero represented the Colombian family, a subject often painted in the seventies and eighties. In his "Maternity", Botero repeated a composition he already painted in 2003, being able to evoke a sensuous velvety texture that lends it a special appeal and testifies for a personal involvement of the artist. Interestingly, the Child in the 2006 drawing has a wound in his right chest as if the Author wanted to identify him with Jesus Christ, thus giving it a religious meaning that was absent in the 2003 artwork.

In 2008 he exhibited the works of his The Circus collection, featuring 20 works in oil and watercolor. In a 2010 interview, Botero said that he was ready for other subjects: "After all this, I always return to the simplest things: still lifes."

History in Bangladesh

All non-official and official records of historical value are preserved in the National Archives. National Library is the legal depository of all new books and printed materials published in the country under Copy Right Law. The directorate is run by only one Director and two Deputy Directors with their respective physical infrastructure including own self reliant building and other logistics infrastructure like, Security personnel, technical manpower, Transport, Machinery, equipments, information resources, users group, service system, Act. International community, publications etc.

The present National Library was basically the Central Library of pre independence Bangladesh. It was established in 1967 as the part of the then National Library. After independence, this Central Library was turned and declared as the National Library of Bangladesh and started functioning on 6-11-1972 in Dhaka. The National Archives was formally set up in Dhaka after independence. In 1972 this twin national organizations were brought under one Directorate in the name of Directorate Archives and Libraries under the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Division. After the creation of Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1988. The Sports and Culture Division including Directorate came automatically under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs for rapid development and florishment in the light of plan, policy and infrastructure of the government.
 

a Piano, such Piano!

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American top culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings.

The Lord God is in the Details

In 1935 Walter Benjamin showed how the original artwork loses its aura through mass reproduction – an observation that is particularly relevant in the age of the Internet. As the most famous painting in Cologne and the universal “trademark” of the city’s mediaeval painting tradition, this Madonna has been reproduced countless times. So how has the “Mona Lisa of Cologne” never the less managed to retain her aura?

The countless details cannot be appreciated in reproductions; they have to be viewed in the original. From the flowers at Mary’s feet to the musical instruments held by the angels, to the precious brooch and the heavenly crown, not forgetting the decorations in the golden background. And none of this was an end in itself: just look at the ornamentation worked into Mary’s halo: it is a simplified depiction of the lunar cycle and indicates the mediaeval link between astronomy and theology. The tiny brooch repeats the main image on a symbolic level, for it shows a virgin with a unicorn. The two are linked by their gestures in much the same way as Mary and the Baby Jesus – in an allusion to the “Mystic Wedding” between Christ and the Church. In addition comes the painting’s ingenious geometry based on the old Cologne Zoll (1 Zoll = 2.4 cm): this alludes to the connection between music and celestial architecture and denotes the modest bower as Paradise. At the same time the geometry of the bower symbolises the divine plan of salvation in which Mary and Christ play the lead roles.

Like a complex system of clockwork, the elements interlock to produce an extremely subtle theological statement. Behind a delightful overall impression, the artist has concealed a gigantic programme: the phases of history and course of salvation have been condensed in a wonderful way. And with that the painting remains untouched by our human calendar – and by the technology of reproduction.

Wallraf das Museum

a way to Kokoschka

Kokoschka was born in Pöchlarn. His early career was marked by portraits of Viennese celebrities, painted in a nervously animated style. He served in the Austrian army in World War I and was wounded. At the hospital, the doctors decided that he was mentally unstable. Nevertheless, he continued to develop his career as an artist, traveling across Europe and painting the landscape.


The house in which Oskar Kokoschka was born in Pöchlarn (August 2006)Kokoschka had a passionate, often stormy affair with Alma Mahler, shortly after the death of her four-year-old daughter Maria Mahler and her affair with Walter Gropius. After several years together, Alma rejected him, explaining that she was afraid of being too overcome with passion. He continued to love her his entire life, and one of his greatest works The Bride of the Wind (The Tempest), is a tribute to her. His poem Allos Markar  was inspired by this relationship. The poet Georg Trakl visited the studio while Kokoschka was painting this masterpiece. Kokoschka also commissioned a life-sized female doll in 1918.Although intended to simulate Alma and receive his affection, the gynoid-Alma did not satisfy Kokoschka and he destroyed it during a party.


1963-Deemed a degenerate by the Nazis, Kokoschka fled Austria in 1934 for Prague. There, his name was adopted by the Oskar-Kokoschka-Bund, founded by other expatriate artists, although he declined to otherwise participate (K. Holz, Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague, and London: Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere). In 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion of the Wehrmacht, he fled to the United Kingdom and remained there during the war. With the help of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Refugee Trust Fund), all members of the OKB were able to escape through Poland and Sweden.

Kokoschka became a British citizen in 1946 and only in 1978 would regain Austrian citizenship. He traveled briefly to the United States in 1947 before settling in Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. He died in Montreux.

Kokoschka had much in common with his contemporary Max Beckmann. Both maintained their independence from German Expressionism, yet they are now regarded as its supreme masters, who delved deeply into the art of past masters to develop unique individual styles. Their individualism left them both orphaned from the main movements of Twentieth Century modernism. Both wrote eloquently of the need to develop the art of "seeing" (Kokoschka emphasized depth perception while Beckmann was concerned with mystical insight into the invisible realm), and both were masters of innovative oil painting techniques anchored in earlier traditions.

Kokoschka's last years were somewhat embittered, as he found himself marginalized as a curious footnote to art history. A noteworthy student of Kokoschka's "School of Seeing" was Konrad Juestel (1924–2001).

Kokoschka's literary works are as peculiar and interesting as his art. His memoir, A Sea Ringed with Visions, is as wildly psychedelic as anything written by others under the influence of actual hallucinogens.His short play "Murderer, the Hope of Women" (1909, set ten years later by Paul Hindemith as Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen) is often called the first Expressionist drama. His Orpheus und Eurydike (1918) became an opera by Ernst Krenek, who was first approached for incidental music.
 

Ιπτάμενη Αλεπού

"A small scale research at the location where Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632 may illustrate this point. From a 1637 document it is known that his parents rented a house back in those days from Pieter Corstiaens'son Hopprus at Voldersgracht. Indeed the 1620-1632 "kohier van verponding" tax register does show a Pieter Corstiaens'son as an owner, of the third house east of the St Luke guild house [= Old Mens House]. This seems to correspond readily with present day Voldersgracht number 25.

However, when we search within that address in the databank, this Pieter does not come up at all. We do however find him in the archival sources for the present day houses at Voldersgracht 26 and 27. Obviously in the years 1620-1640 a number of changes have been going on just in the row of houses at Voldersgracht 23-27 concerning lot ownership and rebuilding. Plausibly some buildings have been joined and then split in other lots - or the other way around. Only extremely detailed research in the building history, the ownership of houses and the names of persons living in those houses might yield Vermeer's exact birth house location. Thus enough riddles are left over to provide whole generations of researchers a pleasant puzzle."

Vermeer's

Hear the Sun Sing...

Have you ever wondered what the Sun would sound like if you could hear it?
Our Sun lies 93,000,000 miles away, surrounded by the vacuum of space.
Sound won't travel through space, of course. But with the right
instrument, scientists can "hear" pulsations from the Sun.
The entire Sun vibrates from a complex pattern of acoustical waves,
much like a bell. If your eyes were sharp enough, you could see a
bell's surface jiggle in complex patterns as the waves bounced around
within it.

Likewise, astronomers at Stanford University can record acoustical
pressure waves in the Sun by carefully tracking movements on the Sun's
surface. To do this, they use an instrument called a Michelson Doppler
Imager (MDI), mounted on the SOHO spacecraft, circling the Sun
1,000,000 miles from Earth.

The Sun's acoustical waves bounce from one side of the Sun to the
other in about two hours, causing the Sun's surface to oscillate, or
wiggle up and down. Because these sound waves travel underneath the
Sun's surface, they are influenced by conditions inside the Sun. So
scientists can use the oscillations to learn more about how the
structure of the Sun's interior shapes its surface.

The Sun's sound waves are normally at frequencies too low for the
human ear to hear. To be able to hear them, the scientists sped up the
waves 42,000 times -- and compressed 40 days of vibrations into a few
seconds. What you'll be hearing are just a few dozen of the 10 million
resonances echoing inside the Sun.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/

Monastery brewhouses...

The Trappist order originated in the Cistercian monastery of La Trappe, France. Various Cistercian congregations existed for many years, and by 1664 the Abbot of La Trappe felt that the Cistercians were becoming too liberal. He introduced strict new rules in the abbey and the Strict Observance was born. Since this time, many of the rules have been relaxed. However, a fundamental tenet, that monasteries should be self-supporting, is still maintained by these groups.

Monastery brewhouses, from different religious orders, existed all over Europe, since the Middle Ages. From the very beginning, beer was brewed in French cistercian monasteries following the Strict Observance. For example, the monastery of La Trappe in Soligny, already had its own brewery in 1685. Breweries were only later introduced in monasteries of other countries, following the extension of the trappist order from France to the rest of Europe.

The Trappists, like many other religious people, originally brewed beer as to feed the community, in a perspective of self-sufficiency. Nowadays, trappist breweries also brew beer to fund their works and for good causes. Many of the trappist monasteries and breweries were destroyed during the French Revolution and the World Wars. Among the monastic breweries, the Trappists were certainly the most active brewers: in the last 300 years, there were at least nine Trappist breweries in France, six in Belgium, two in the Netherlands, one in Germany, one in Austria, one in Bosnia and possibly other countries.

Today, seven trappist breweries remain active, 6 in Belgium and 1 just over the Belgian border, in the Netherlands.

In the twentieth century, the growing popularity of Trappist beers led some brewers with no connection to the order to label their beers "Trappist". After unsuccessful trials, monks finally sued one such brewer in 1962 in Ghent, Belgium.

Pôle Muséal Lausanne

Allied Works was named one of eighteen international finalists to create the Pôle Muséal Lausanne, which encompasses transforming an historic train shed and industrial site into a new cultural district. The design was developed in collaboration with an international team of designers, including Latz+Partner for Landscape, Resnicow Schroeder Associates for Cultural Planning, and Nicolet Chartrand Knoll for Structural and Civil.

The forms and spaces of the new museum are both monumental and transparent. The building’s geologic form is fractured by activity, providing glimpses into and through the heart of the building. Ideal gallery proportions establish a rhythm of space and structure along the Arts Walk and rail lines. Between galleries, structure, circulation and light form fissures of transparency – filtering and diffusing light into the galleries, providing views to the landscape and city while connecting the building vertically.

Located at the critical intersection of landscape and infrastructure and adjacent Lausanne’s main train station, Allied Works’ proposal builds upon what exists to create a beacon and powerful new urban gateway, signifying the city’s social and cultural center and growth into an international city. The site becomes one interwoven precinct for the arts, engaging the principles of unity and celebrating the unique combination of cultural, public and landscaped space.

e Volo