Music For The End Of The World, Part 6: "Untitled #1 - Vaka" by Sigur Ros

Scoring the end of the world...

If heaven had a house band, it would be Sigur Ros.

https://sigurros.com/

Music For The End Of The World, Part 5: "Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun" by M83

Making a soundtrack for the end of the world...

https://ilovem83.com/

BEAUTY: Painting--Angela Lane

I am mesmerized and set on edge by Angela Lane's eerie imagery of celestial events. Eclipses, inexplicable twin suns, and sudden spectral emanations of light present themselves over innocent landscapes ... uncanny portents hinting at something we don't or can't understand.

Top to bottom: Transference; Aperture; Autoluminescence; Blood Moon; Burning Sky; Conduit (After K.S.L.); Firefall; Half LIght; Luminous Echo; Occurence; Phantom Light; Supernatural Sunset; Transmission; Umbra

https://angela-lane.com/

Music For The End Of The World, Part 4: "Symphony No. 3, Op. 36: I. Lento - Sostenuto Tranquillo Ma Cantabile" by Górecki sung by Dawn Upshaw with the London Sinfonietta

Making a soundtrack for the end of the world...

https://londonsinfonietta.org.uk/

Music For The End Of The World, Part 3: "Ask Yourself" by Plastikman

Scoring the end of the world...

"I am everything
Why listen to me
I'm just a voice inside your head
I can't help you
Help yourself"

https://www.plastikman.com/

Bonne Fête Nationale! 2026

Aujourd'hui c'est la Fête nationale en France!

The French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a major event of the French Revolution, as well as the Fête de la Fédération that celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790.

A mes lecteurs qui habitent en France, je vous souhaite...

Bonne Fête Nationale!

Music For The End Of The World, Part 2: "Summoning of the Muse" by Dead Can Dance

Creating a soundtrack for the end of the world...

...within the realm of a dying sun.

https://www.deadcandance.com/

Music For The End Of The World, Part 1: "Ethhnicolor" by Jean Michel Jarre

Might as well score the end of the world ... let's start with "Ethnicolor" from Jean Michel Jarre's incredible album "Zoolook." This track features samples of Laurie Anderson among many other spoken word sections. It is an appropriate way to kick things off, right from the first howling, screaming moments.

https://jeanmicheljarre.com/
https://laurieanderson.com/

BEAUTY: Tableaux

As an interior designer, artist, and maximalist, I truly appreciate a good tablescape or tableau. I love gazing at fascinating sculptures, natural objects, treasured personal mementoes, antiques with a story, handmade creations of beauty ... collected and displayed in a way that allows these elements to play off one another, to provide harmony or contrast.

Painting by William McClure

Collection by Pierre Le Tan, sold at Sotheby's

Tableau by Sean Anderson

Elevator landing at Kips Bay Showhouse NYC, 2023

Tableau by JF Chen

Tableau by Anna Spiro Design

Tableau by India Hicks

Tableau by John Derian

The Three Things

4th of July Night Ride Home

Once in a while
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this Fourth of July
Night ride home

Hula girls
And caterpillar tractors in the sand
The Ukulele man
The fireworks
This Fourth of July
Night ride home

I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones 'til Friday
Far from the overkill
Far from the overload

Back at the bar
The band tears down
But out here in the headlight beams
The silver powerlines
Gleam
On this Fourth of July
Night ride home

Round the curve
And a big dark horse
Red tail lights on his hide
Is keeping right alongside
Rev for stride
4th of July
Night ride home

I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the undertow
Far from the overload

Once in a while
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this Fourth of July
Night ride home
Night ride home
Night ride home
On a night ride home
On a night ride home
Night ride home

Thank you, Joni.

https://jonimitchell.com/

July 4th, 2026

On this anniversary of our country's independence, we find the "United" part of our "United States of America" under severe strain. But I am not letting that stop me from celebrating the achievements of and possibilities inherent in our country.

I resent how conservatives invented and have actively promoted the lie that anyone who supports progressive, liberal, optimistic ideas about our country are "haters" of the USA. They hold up this ridiculous idea that they and they alone can feel any sense of pride in their nation--and then turn around and behave and vote like people who are anything but supportive of the nation and its citizens. For this reason, and as a proud Liberal, I am heartily celebrating our Independence Day, our country, and the concept of actual, real Democracy.

When over two and a half centuries ago, a band of patriots gathered in Philadelphia to declare that "all men are created equal," they intended for this country to be different from the others, to be better, to be always striving toward a more perfect union. It is why they made the Constitution a living document, able to be revised, changed, improved upon, thus improving the lives of everyone living in these United States. It is our true purpose, our original ideal to continually improve the quality of life for Americans--all Americans--no matter their race, sex, age, physical ability, religion, ethnicity, and sexual or gender identity.

And July 4th is a celebration of that, a Celebration of Possibility, a celebration of the idea that we can continually improve upon our morals, our laws, our procedures, our attitudes. We continually strive toward those possibilities which include instead of exclude, which right what has been wrong, which bring more people into our national fabric, elevating and enriching life in this country. That is why it is particularly distressing and brings a very specific anguish to see these ideals, this leap toward possibilities of greatness that is part of our Constitution and of Democracy itself eroded, attacked, and mocked by the current government, conservatives, and the right wing ... and more shockingly, by a large section of our own fellow citizens who support the viciousness and hatred. Their support demonstrates that only cruelty with a perverse need to punish, and not the health and future of the United States and the well-being of its citizens is their goal.

Today I am choosing to celebrate the good this country has been and done but also the possibilities of change, of improvement, of an ever-strengthening yearning toward a more perfect union, and the idea that we can protect what this country stands for. Please vote to honor these ideals in the 2026 mid-term elections--we must have a President and not a King or despot--to ensure that we live up to the promise of making life for all citizens--ALL CITIZENS--better. We haven't yet and we need to, finally, fulfill that promise. And taking back at least one of the branches of government will help us in reclaiming our country, our Democracy, and our standing in the world.

I love my country, I was born here, it is my home, and I have no intention of leaving. I am of an age when my American History and Civics classes in high school and college were not sanitized, and I understand the good and the bad in our past as well as present. Did the United States make mistakes? Yes. Is the nation as a whole perfect? Not yet. Are we the best version of ourselves? We are working on it and many of us who believe in the promise of the United States are striving, earnestly, with a clear vision. I like to think I am one of those people and because of that, I have no intention of handing my home over to the current administration and its supporters who are toiling to turn it into an authoritarian, theocratic, fascistic regime.

Here is the sonnet "The New Colossus" by poet Emma Lazarus which serves as the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, our valuable ally. The inscription affirms the ideal of inclusiveness and the United States as a beacon of hope, comfort, and stability for anyone who seeks it.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"Here Come July" by Scritti Politti 2026

Yep, here comes July...I'm gonna watch the worlds crash, burn, collide...I think we all will. Hang on.

The incredible Green Gartside and Scritti Politti (previously here): some of the smartest pop music ever recorded.

Here come July
The world is there for me to share
Here come July
It sort of feels so hyper-real

Here come July
To test you all before the fall
Here come July
The end of school, the death of cool

Here come July now
And everybody's burning
My summer's high now
The world has never been so happy in its heart of hearts

Here come July
To sort the men from boys again
Here come July
To melt away the need to say

Here come July now
The heat'll hurt your feelings
It's beautified now
The sun will scorch the pavements of all piety and sin

It doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't mean sh*t
How can I be a part of it?
It doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't mean spit
How can I be a part of it?

It doesn't mean nothing
Some things never do to me

I'll mean the world to you
Maybe I could double all the negatives we know

Here come July
I love it makes it hard to take
So why d'you lie?
To me about the truth will out

Here come July now
And I can't hear your lipgloss
No case to try now
The sun will be on subterfuge, iniquity and you

It doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't mean sh*t
How can I be a part of it?
It doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't mean spit
How can I be a part of it?

Here come July now
Here it comes (woah)
Here we come
I'm gonna crash, gonna burn, gonna watch as the worlds collide
I'm gonna crash, gonna burn, gonna watch as the worlds collide

(It doesn't mean nothing)
Here come July now (it doesn't mean nothing)
Here come July now.

http://www.scritti.net/
https://www.facebook.com/scrittinet