The Music is the third movement of Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil, often known as Vespers in the U.S. The paintings are by Russian painter Isaak Levitan. The description of this video includes the text and translation and the titles of the paintings.

If God truly did not want the woman’s little precious to read “Slaughterhouse Five”, He would not have made Kurt Vonnegut write it… — here …sci-fi writers are completely ignoring this revolution. Just as they’ve completely missed the boat on the Internet even a few decades ago. — there “To the strains of the Ninth, [...]

A history of condiments. Interesting. — “Today, you can tell how strongly a man or woman yearns for freedom by counting the condiments in his or her refrigerator.” — I’m not going to bother to count mine but the door shelves in my refrigerator are full. Also, hollandaise sauce is not a condiment and most [...]

I have to say something about the Koran burning nonsense. Generally, I am of the opinion that anyone who is too easily pissed off needs to be pissed off repeatedly until they learn that their actions have an effect that is the exact opposite of what they intend. On the other hand, any kind of [...]

The REAL Stuff White People Like is actually about what different ethnic groups like. We selected 526,000 OkCupid users at random and divided them into groups by their (self-stated) race. We then took all these people’s profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group’s essays [...]

Neal Asher has a few things to say about smoking bans, among other things. I have always been 100 percent anti-smoking. I have had no sympathy for smokers who complain about not being allowed to smoke wherever they please. You choose to smoke; the rest of us do not choose to smell it. I have [...]

Among the other transcendent attributes of Mozart’s music, it possesses more than any other that of appearing to come from the heart; you enter into the passions expressed by him, and are transported with grief, joy, anger, or confusion, as he, our soul’s master, chooses to inspire. — Mary Shelley Of course I can’t post [...]

What’s up with Google? Yesterday afternoon they gave us bouncy circles, which I thought was really fun, and this morning it’s the usual logo but all gray. Hey, Google! I want my colors back! Apparently its a big mystery. And I didn’t know until I read this article just now that the gray logo changes [...]

While everyone was watching Earl, Hermine sneaked into the Gulf of Mexico almost unnoticed. She’s not quite a hurricane, (last I heard) merely a tropical storm – though “merely” probably isn’t an appropriate word to put in front of “tropical storm” – but she’s in just the right place to bring us rain this week. [...]

After spending two days with it, I do not have any complaints about my new Kindle. I haven’t tried Web searching with it yet so I can’t say anything about that but otherwise it’s a very simple device. It does exactly what I want it to do plus it has a few nice features but [...]

My Kindle arrived in the mail this afternoon. It’s charging right now. I haven’t fooled around with it much yet. With all wireless devices, connectivity here is very random. I noticed, in the twenty minutes or so that I spent reading the manual and looking at menus, that the indicator started out at two bars, [...]

The one conclusive argument that has at all times discouraged people from drinking a poison is not that it kills but rather that it tastes bad. — Nietzsche Hmmm… I don’t know about that. Found at Uncertain Times. That post contains a few other quotes and a great number of poison and toxicology related links.

“I strongly believe that we need to spend more time talking about how information is being used and less time talking about how stupid people are for sharing it in the first place.” — here Y’know something, a modern police procedural or thriller would be unique if the central protagonist had a happy and relatively [...]

Thanks to LeeAnn and her commenters for introducing me to some very useful substitute cuss words: “melon farmers” and “cork soakers”. I especially like the first one because it’s not immediately obvious what it’s a substitute for (at least it wasn’t immediately obvious to me) so you might get those highly entertaining “What kind of [...]

This really should be bigger on the inside. Now that would be worth forty dollars. I mean… can you imagine? What I really need is a refrigerator that’s bigger on the inside. Or perhaps not.

This post that is. No point to it. I don’t even know what I’m going to say yet. So, come to think of it, I might end up making a point but I doubt it. That would be rare wouldn’t it? September is here. September and October would be my favorite months if they weren’t [...]

There is a gunman inside Discovery headquarters. The building has been evacuated. It was reported on Twitter that these demands might have something to do with it. I’m listening to the live stream. I don’t have much to say right now – just that I hope they capture the bastard alive. I want him to [...]

Serenity cycle – Actually, it’s one of those three wheeled car things and a really, really bad photoshop. Still, nice idea. CraftKB – craft discussion groups, wide variety of craft topics including, sewing, quilting, woodworking, blacksmithing and lots more Red rain – curious Chewbacca “talking” doll and Star Wars pie Black fawn – Melanistic deer [...]

Janis Ian writes science fiction. Really? I had no idea. I need to get out more. Or perhaps, less. Back in the 70′s I liked her song At Seventeen but other than that I know absolutely nothing about her. At first I was excited about the science fiction but then I read some of the [...]