The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Leonard Nimoy sings "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". Nothing odd about this:

Works by the French artist Charles Hoffbauer (1875-1957)

"In London" from 1907, one of the more popular paintings I saw hanging in the Hermitage gallery in Amsterdam.

Hoffbauer visited the front in World War One and made several sketches published in "L'Illustration", 1918.

After the War, he moved to New York and illustrated scenes from "The roaring twenties" with rain and snow:

"Times Square", 1927

"Astor Hotel, New York".

Kayerts and Carlier from Joseph Conrad's "Outpost of Progress"

"There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs."



























"Kayerts had been in the Administration of the Telegraphs, and knew how to express himself correctly....He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many years; all the things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts suggested by familiar things--the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices."





















"Carlier, an ex-non-commissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed from harm by several European Powers.."

























"Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death."












"...all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men."
























"Kayerts stood still. He looked upwards; the fog rolled low over his head. He looked round like a man who has lost his way..."


















"...one of the Company's steamers had been wrecked, and the Director was busy with the other, relieving very distant and important stations on the main river. He thought that the useless station, and the useless men, could wait. Meantime Kayerts and Carlier lived on rice boiled without salt, and cursed the Company, all Africa, and the day they were born."

Martin Carthy: "High Germany"

This is the first track from Martin Carthy's first record (titled Martin Carthy). There are several versions of this soldier's song where the soldier has to leave his (often pregnant) love behind and she wishes to 'dress in uniform' and go with him (Lisbon, Banks of the Nile, others). In this version, it's the soldier whose doing the begging. Nice visuals on the youtube put the song in historical context (War of the Spanish Successsion):

Art from my Grandfather's house 1

My Grandfather, a seaman, sailed from port to port and collected works of art wherever he went. Where the originals are now, I don't actually know; but I have a few photographs.

















I think this is a painting of a late sunset in Northern Norway (or possibly Iceland or Greenland), a midnight sun, probably.













Who painted this, or when they painted it, I don't know. I'd guess it was painted sometime in the early half of the 20th century.

It's quite skilfully divided, I think, into a cold "artic" half:





















And the right side of the canvas is warmer and more summery (despite the distant iceberg):

Vid by Pes

Hippie Interlude!

The Hippie Interlude is Bert Sommer singing "Jennifer" live at Woodstock. Never heard of him doing anything else, really. This probably his finest moment. S'nice: