The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “music”

Nick Cave on Creative Work as an Instrument of Self-Forgiveness and the Necessity of Hope in a Fragile World
Nick Cave on Creative Work as an Instrument of Self-Forgiveness and the Necessity of Hope in a Fragile World

In praise of “the necessary and urgent need to love life and one another, despite the casual cruelty of the world.”

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Mushrooms: The Story Behind Sylvia Plath’s Poem About the Tenacity of the Creative Spirit
Mushrooms: The Story Behind Sylvia Plath’s Poem About the Tenacity of the Creative Spirit

“Our foot’s in the door.”

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3 Things to Learn from a Child, 7 from a Thief: Bob Dylan’s Favorite Rabbi Teaching
3 Things to Learn from a Child, 7 from a Thief: Bob Dylan’s Favorite Rabbi Teaching

On the value of remaining resolutely what you are.

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The Soul, the Universe, and the Vastness of Music: Composer Caroline Shaw Brings Whitman and Tennyson to Life in the Spirit of the Golden Record
The Soul, the Universe, and the Vastness of Music: Composer Caroline Shaw Brings Whitman and Tennyson to Life in the Spirit of the Golden Record

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

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Bruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the Visitations of the Darkness
Bruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the Visitations of the Darkness

“If you can acknowledge it and you can relax with it a little bit, very often it shortens its duration.”

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Music and the Body: Richard Powers on the Power of Song
Music and the Body: Richard Powers on the Power of Song

“The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body.”

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Creativity at the End: Leonard Cohen on Preparing for Death
Creativity at the End: Leonard Cohen on Preparing for Death

On that singular moment at the end of life when all creative energy is concentrated and consecrated.

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A Language for the Exhilaration of Being Alive: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Music and the Universe
A Language for the Exhilaration of Being Alive: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Music and the Universe

“Nowhere is the joy of existence so apparent as in music… Intelligent life-forms have created a multitude of sounds that express their exhilaration at being alive.”

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Nick Cave on Songwriting, Truth, and the Mystery of the Unconscious
Nick Cave on Songwriting, Truth, and the Mystery of the Unconscious

“Metaphor can create a merciful sense of distance from the cruel idea, or the unspeakable truth, and allow it to exist within us as a kind of poetic radiance, as a work of art.”

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Improvisation and the Quantum of Consciousness
Improvisation and the Quantum of Consciousness

Inside the brain’s secret portal to remembering the future.

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