The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “music”

Esperanza Spalding Performs William Blake’s Short Existential Poem “The Fly”
Esperanza Spalding Performs William Blake’s Short Existential Poem “The Fly”

A centuries-old, timeless meditation on chance, suffering, and the improbable glory of life.

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Geometry and the Art of Seeing: Iron & Wine Reads Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Love Sonnet to Euclid
Geometry and the Art of Seeing: Iron & Wine Reads Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Love Sonnet to Euclid

“Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.”

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The Heartening Illustrated Story of How Blues Pioneer Muddy Waters Transmuted Loss and Loneliness into Music That Changed History
The Heartening Illustrated Story of How Blues Pioneer Muddy Waters Transmuted Loss and Loneliness into Music That Changed History

“The guitar howled like a wolf: powerful, lonely, and proud.”

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Amanda Palmer Reads “Happiness” by Jane Kenyon
Amanda Palmer Reads “Happiness” by Jane Kenyon

“There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away.”

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Having It Out with Melancholy: Amanda Palmer Reads Jane Kenyon’s Stunning Poem About Living to the Other Side of Depression
Having It Out with Melancholy: Amanda Palmer Reads Jane Kenyon’s Stunning Poem About Living to the Other Side of Depression

“What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment?”

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Regina Spektor Reads “The Everyday Enchantment of Music” by Mark Strand
Regina Spektor Reads “The Everyday Enchantment of Music” by Mark Strand

“A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music.”

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Conversations with the Earth: Geologist Hans Cloos on the Complementarity of Art and Science in Illuminating the Splendor of Nature and Reality
Conversations with the Earth: Geologist Hans Cloos on the Complementarity of Art and Science in Illuminating the Splendor of Nature and Reality

“There is another, inner way… which binds the artist to the world. He who walks this trail sees the beauty of the earth, and hears its music.”

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Margaret Fuller on the Power of Music
Margaret Fuller on the Power of Music

“All truth is comprised in music and mathematics.”

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Walt Whitman on Beethoven and Music as the Profoundest Expression of Nature
Walt Whitman on Beethoven and Music as the Profoundest Expression of Nature

In praise of the “dainty abandon” that awakens us to wonder and carries us outside ourselves.

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Take Fate by the Throat: Beethoven on Creative Vitality and Resilience in the Face of Suffering
Take Fate by the Throat: Beethoven on Creative Vitality and Resilience in the Face of Suffering

“Day by day I am approaching the goal which I apprehend but cannot describe.”

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