Draußen stehen und zugleich drinnen,
ergreifen und umgriffen werden,
schauen und das Geschaute selbst sein,
halten und gehalten werden:
das ist das Ziel.
Dort verharrt der Geist in Ruhe
Und ist eins mit der Ewigkeit.

(Meister Eckhart)


Snippets:
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King Arthur (2004). 126 min. w/ Clive Owen (Arthur), Ioan Gruffudd (Lancelot), Keira Knightley (Guinevere). Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Fictious story showing Arthur as a Roman centurio, before becoming king and how he met Guinevere, and fought the pagan Saxons. Plenty of factual and historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies despite claims about the 'historical Arthur' made at the beginning of the film. Mediocre acting, although Gruffudd is remarkable. Interesting new approach, but failed to deliver. Overall rating: 3 out of 10.
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Literature: The Mabinogion (pronounced 'Mabin-OGion')is an assembly of Welsh Storys that were taken from two ancient books called the 'Red Book of Hergest' and the earlier 'The White Book of Rhydderch'. They tell the storys of people in celtic times around 500 BC. Mabinogion means 'tales of youth'. Also available as TXT at Project Gutenberg. Further info on The Mabinogion.
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Music: Nellie McKay (pronounced 'mi-KAI', b. 1984). Signed with Columbia Records. Vocals and piano. Inriguing lyrics. First album: Get away from me (2004). New album 'Pretty Little Head' featuring duets with Cyndi Lauper and k.d. lang will be released January 3, 2006.
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Music: Amplifico. From Edinburgh, Scottland. Donna Maciocia (vocals, piano, guitar), Brett Allan (bass), Ross Kilgour (guitar) and Dave Brunton (drums). Reminds of a mixture of Portishead, Rainbirds, Nelly Furtado, and Cranberries. Unsigned band, distibutes recordings over the Internet. Current albums: Hometakes Volume 1, Hometakes Volume 2. Also some demo material on the web site. Some great songs, e.g. All Your Sins.
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Music: Hurdy gurdy: a stringed musical instrument; strings are arranged such that they can all be vibrated by a rotating wheel.
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News: Watching America: reflects global opinion about the United States, helping Americans and non-Americans alike understand what the world thinks of current issues that involve the U.S. This is done by providing news and views about the United States published in other countries.
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Snippets:
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Computer/Music/Art: NYT Circuits, December 1, 2005: 'Computer-Generated Wonder' by David Pogue. About 'Animusic' a set of DVDs of computer-generated, photorealistic animation music videos. Envision a futuristic, 3D-computer generated version of the automatic piano playing in the hotel lobby by itself. Created by Wayne Lytle, who uses custom-written software, called Animusic Studio, that generates the animation automatically when fed a MIDI file of his music. Therefore, every audio note has a video correlate. Video clips on the Animusic webseite.
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Video: Mansfield Park (1999). w/ Frances O'Connor (Fanny Price), Alessandro Nivola (Henry Crawford), Jonny Lee Miller (Edmund Bertram). Directed by Patricia Rozema. After the novel by Jane Austen. Young girl is given away by her impoverished parents to live with wealthy realtives. There she grows up to be a beautiful and educated, but shy young woman (O'Connor). She refuses a proposal for marriage from a man (Nivola) she does not trust, realizing that her heart belongs to one of the sons of the family (Miller). Some great dialogues, good tempo. Humourous moments. Overall rating: 8 out of 10.
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Snippets:
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Literature: Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the Chaplain): 'De amore'. Influential handbook on love, written ~ 1184-86. Main points at the Internet Medieval Source Book. Other excerpts. Ideas partly based on Ovid's 'Art of Love'. First came to the attention of critics in a famous article by Gaston Paris named "Etudes sur le roman de la table ronde. Lancelot du Lac. II Le conte de la Carette," Romania XII (1883), 459ff. Gaston Paris also popularized the label 'courtly love' (amour cortois) for this form of courtship. This phrase was rare in the Middle Ages, while 'Fin amour', 'Minne', and, in English "trwe love," were more common.
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History: Peace of Augsburg (Augsburger Religionsfriede), signed by Ferdinand I. in September 1555. Ended the religious wars. Legalized Lutheranism, laying down the rule, later epitomized in the phrase cuius regio, 'eius religio' (“he who governs the territory decides its religion”). Each ruler in the empire - i.e., each prince or city government - could opt for either the Roman Catholic or the Lutheran religion (jus reformandi) and that this choice was binding on everyone under that ruler's jurisdiction. Only one faith could legitimately exist in a given state, and that faith had to be the ruler's and could be only Catholicism or Lutheranism. Calvinism, Zwinglianism, and Anabaptism were excluded. A subject unwilling to live by this choice was free to emigrate and take his belongings with him (a provision considered liberal at the time).
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