The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “music”

A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music
A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music

“Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything came.”

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Let Your Heart Be Broken
Let Your Heart Be Broken

“The miracle is that we rise again out of suffering… The miracle is that we create ourselves anew.”

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The Life of Trees: A Poem
The Life of Trees: A Poem

“I want to sleep and dream the life of trees, beings from the muted world…”

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Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older
Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older

“We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around.”

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The Neurophysiology of Enchantment: How Music Casts Its Spell on Us
The Neurophysiology of Enchantment: How Music Casts Its Spell on Us

“Music so readily transports us from the present to the past, or from what is actual to what is possible.”

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Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Brought to Life in a Spanish Flashmob of 100 Musicians
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Brought to Life in a Spanish Flashmob of 100 Musicians

A touchingly human reminder of our capacity for ecstasy, transcendence, and collective felicity.

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How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old
How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old

“Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world… Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being.”

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The Balancing Monsters of Love: Leonard Cohen on What Makes a Saint
The Balancing Monsters of Love: Leonard Cohen on What Makes a Saint

On loving the world enough to surrender to the laws of gravity and chance.

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The Symphony of Belonging: Alfred Kazin on Music as Spiritual Homecoming
The Symphony of Belonging: Alfred Kazin on Music as Spiritual Homecoming

On the emotional machinery that suspends us between rapture and tears.

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Love, Music, Solitude, and How to Be More Alive: The Best of The Marginalian 2022
Love, Music, Solitude, and How to Be More Alive: The Best of The Marginalian 2022

From Emily Dickinson to Bruce Springsteen, by way of galaxies and gardening.

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