Edna St. Vincent Millay on the love of music – a beautiful 1920 letter.
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So great: A soundtrack for Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America, Jon Mooallem’s sublime meditation on wilderness and what it means to be human.
Starving artist special – Patti Smith shares her lettuce soup recipe in this exclusive recording.
Patti Smith, reconstructionist. Pair with Carl Sagan on books.
This is lovely – Diego Stocco makes music from leaves and a turntable.
This is lovely: Amanda Palmer plays a ukulele anthem at Neil Gaiman’s University of the Arts lecture about his fantastic recently released book of advice on the creative life.
Complement with Palmer on the art of asking without shame – one of the most moving TED talks of all time.
What makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you.
Ambient music godfather Brian Eno, born on May 15, 1948, on the essence of art.
Respond esthetically to all sounds, from the hum of the refrigerator motor or the paddling of oars on a lake, to the tones of a cello or muted trumpet.
How to Listen to Music – a wonderful vintage guide to the 7 essential skills of listening.
Joe Hanson examines the sciences of what it is about music that makes us feel all those feelings. Pair with 7 essential books about music, emotion, and the brain.
Legendary jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Mary Lou Williams, born May 8, 1910 – a remarkable woman in a then-man’s world – in William Gottlieb’s portraits of jazz icons.
Legendary album designer Storm Thorgerson, whom we lost at the age of 69, on what it was like to work with Pink Floyd and create some of history’s most iconic vinyl covers. Find his era-defining work in For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis.
The loveliest thing you’ll watch today: Tilda Swinton and Roger Ebert’s widow lead a 1,500-person Barry White dance-along honoring Ebert. Pair with Ebert on writing, life and mortality.
Tender and beautiful stop-motion music video for “Joy” by Iron & Wine, from their fantastic latest album Ghost On Ghost.
The female voice has always been opera’s chief vessel of high emotion; something powerful happens when those voices become not just the conduit but also the creative source.
The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, who authored one of these 7 indispensable books on music, emotion, and the brain, on how female composers are edging forward.
