Anton Chekhov – The Seagull
“NINA. Your play is very hard to act; there are no living characters in it. TREPLIEFF. Living characters! Life must be represented not as it is, but as it ought to be; as it appears in dreams.”
Centuries of Sound on Resonance FM
Centuries of Sound’s debut radio show on London’s Resonance FM was this Thursday night, repeated this Friday morning. The show goes through the first four mixes, spanning the years 1860 to 1889, and features my actual real-life voice, which I’m not quite ready to actually listen to myself . The whole hour is here on …
Elsewhere in 1896
Firsts The first modern Olympic Games takes place, Blackpool Pleasure Beach opens, X-rays are discovered, La bohème premiers, Henry Ford builds The Ford Quadricycle, his first vehicle, there is the world’s first motoring fatality, the first speeding fine and the first study of the sensitivity of global climate to atmospheric carbon dioxide. American Politics William …
1896
MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack In a tiny, bare-walled back room a man sings into a huge metal horn. The sound causes vibrations in the air, which travel down the horn, compressing into a smaller point, causing a diaphragm to vibrate. The diaphragm pushes a metal stylus, …
1895 in Art
Sir Frederic Leighton – Flaming June George William Joy – The Bayswater Omnibus Edvard Munch – Madonna Thomas Eakins — Portrait of Maud Cook Paul Cézanne – The Basket of Apples Valentin Serov — Portrait of Countess Varvara Musina-Pushkina Aubrey Beardsley — Venus Between Terminal Gods Edgar Degas – After the Bath, Woman drying herself …
1895 in Film
L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat Annabelle Serpentine Dance Repas de bébé Barque sortant du port Akrobatisches Potpourri La Charcuterie mécanique Démolition d’un mur The Derby L’Arroseur Arrosé Cordeliers’ Square in Lyon The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory
J. Meade Falkner – The Lost Stradivarius
If obsessively uncovering secrets through ancient sound is our job here, then this is very much on-topic. It’s not exactly an obscure occult text, but The Lost Stradivarius is a great ghost story anyway, Falkner pitching it at a sweet spot somewhere between The Great God Pan and the works of M. R. James. It’s …
About
Just a note to say that the ‘about’ page has been comprehensively updated, with lists of sources to follow.
H. G. Wells – The Time Machine
Looking back at people looking forward never fails to fascinate – in order to judge predictions, of course, but also because of what these stories tell us about the cutting edge of thought and values at the time. On the whole The Time Machine works well from this sort of perspective, the predictions are far …
The Importance of Being Earnest
Is there anyone out there who is unaware of The Importance of Being Earnest? If so then hello! The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s final, most well-known play – like his earlier comedies it is largely concerned with switched identities, sparring witticisms, and situations deliberated convoluted for comic effect. It’s still wonderful and …