Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Ugly Beauty is a composition by Thelonious Monk.
Received notions, prejudices and phobias can prevent people from seeing or hearing clearly.
Less so posthumously, but very much so during his lifetime, many just did not “get” Monk’s music – for reasons not hugely dissimilar to those which can blind people to an arachnid’s or a reptile’s beauty.
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Today’s song with words is a lovely celebration of daybreak on “the spine of England”.
Its image comes from “the roof of the world”, where even flat, “low” places are several thousand metres higher than England’s Pennine Hills.
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Today’s photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken at 7.41 am on 05 February 2020 in the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan.
Its musical companion is a sublime morning raga, performed by one of the Indian subcontinent’s most eloquent instrumentalists.
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The featured image (copyright Doug Spencer) shows produce being sold on the footpath in the “old city” quarter of Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 07 February 2020.
This post has two very different songs.
Neither is new, but each is fresh.
Both vividly remember the calls of actual produce sellers, but the second song is really about something that money cannot buy.
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Those pictured were about to meet the southern edge of Tasmania’s Bruny Island.
The next substantial landmass, thousands of kilometres distant, is Antarctica.
The waves which inspired today’s music broke upon a tropical, Brazilian shore.
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Literally speaking, the middle of the road is usually dangerous, and soulless.
Metaphorically speaking, “M.O.R” signifies music, visual art or literature that is bland, dull, pedestrian.
This post’s actual middle of a road is, however, “safe” only in the desirable sense, and its musical content is highly creative, very playful.
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On this winter’s day in Rajasthan these demoiselle cranes had it easy.
The altitude was low, the weather mild, and they only had to fly for a few minutes – from a local dam to a nearby village, where food is provided expressly for them – then, back to the dam.
To reach this cranes’ paradise, however, they had to cross the world’s mightiest mountains…and as winter becomes spring they will have to fly over the Himalayas again.
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“Aglow” describes the appearance of the plant in this post’s photograph.
The same adjective fits the emotional state/circumstance so vividly remembered/evoked in one of Patty Griffin’s finest songs.
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Around half of the 200+ known chameleon species live only in one country.
Madagascar is home to both the biggest and smallest chameleons.
Much of what most people believe about chameleons is pure fiction…or rather less than half-truth.
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The English word and the Arabic word can be translated, directly, as each other.
In either language, however, this “simple” word has an enormous number of different meanings, nuances, layers…
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