Posted by Rattle:

The following poem was written by Karol Wojtyla when he was in his 20's, during the war. It was a time when friends, colleagues, and teachers were being shipped off to concentration camps. His father, who he was extremely close to, had recently passed away. Karol had escaped imprisonment and death at the hands of the Germans several times by this point, and was working in the inhuman conditions of a rock quarry to avoid deportation. This poem recounts when a fellow worker standing next to him was killed. Several miles away, untold numbers of people were being put to death in bulk at Auschwitz. Several years later, he would enter the priesthood.

The Quarry

He wasn't alone.
His muscles grew into the flesh of the crowd, energy their pulse,
As long as they held a hammer, as long as his feet felt the ground.
And a stone smashed his temples and cut through his heart's chamber.
They took his body and walked in a silent line
Toil still lingered about him, a sense of wrong.
They wore gray blouses, boots ankle-deep in mud.
In this, they showed the end.
How violently his time halted: the pointers on the low voltage dials jerked, then dropped to zero again.
White stone now within him, eating into his being, taking over enough of him to turn him into stone.
Who will lift up that stone, unfurl his thoughts again under the cracked temples?
So plaster cracks on the wall.
They laid him down, his back on a sheet of gravel.
His wife came, worn out with worry; his son returned from school
Should his anger now flow into the anger of others?
It was maturing in him through his own truth and love
Should he be used by those who came after, deprived of substance, unique and deeply his own?
The stones on the move again; a wagon bruising the flowers.
Again the electric current cuts deep into the walls.
But the man has taken with him the world's inner structure, where the greater the anger, the higher the explosion of love.

The Quarry, by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)

Interesting article about the life of Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code". It sounds about right, in terms of how he's gone into a virtual bunker. I used to be able to correspond with him via email and even talk on the phone about Kryptos, but over the last several months, I've only been able to get through to his assistant. I'm still dying of curiosity though as to whether (or how much that) Kryptos is going to factor into his new book (and whether or not my name will be one of the ones in the long list on the "thank you" page).

Making notes for myself from the article (in case it gets lost to web rot):

"The Da Vinci Code," released on 3/18/2003, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list on 4/6/2003, and has sold "roughly" 25 million copies in 44 languages, including 10 million copies in North America.

Brown's earlier novels have now sold more than 7 million copies.

Doubleday's original contract with Brown was for $400,000 for two books, of which "Da Vinci Code" was the first. The contract has since been renegotiated (probably for millions).

Brown has probably earned about $50 million from the sales of his books.

The manuscript for the next book may not be ready until 2006 (this pushes it back at least a year from previous reports).

Brown can evidently be seen in the audience of an Aerosmith concert scene in the new movie "Be Cool".

And this bit gave me a chuckle:

] "In some ways, my life has changed dramatically," Mr.
] Brown said, as when he arrived at the airport in Boston
] to catch the shuttle to La Guardia Airport - only to
] realize that he had left his driver's license at his home
] in New Hampshire. "Fortunately, the guy behind me in line
] had a copy of 'Da Vinci Code,' " he said. "I borrowed it,
] showed security the author photo and made my flight."

LOL! So now a bookjacket counts as a federally-approved ID?

For 'Code' Author, 24 Months in a Circus

] This page is a listing of adult fiction books which have
] made number one on the New York Times Best Seller List
] along with the date that they first reached number one,
] in date order. This listing starts with the very first
] book ever placed on the list back on August 9, 1942.

Interesting list. It's worth remembering that the years with only a few titles, must have obviously been dominated by one of those titles. Years with lots of titles, mean there wasn't any one clear leader for the year.

New York Times Best Seller Number Ones Listing

] Virtual Tour of Santa Maria Delle Grazie

For those "Da Vinci Code" fans who are hungry for a good hi-res closeup of "The Last Supper", this is the best page I've found. Via Java, you can zoom in on any section of the image that you want.

Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper - Java VR Homepage

] This is a corrected version of the interview at:
] http://www.star-interviews.com/Rayma-Alfred.html. On the
] Star Interviews site, there is a confusing page where
] Rayma Alfred's name and picture are incorrectly listed
] with the interview of another dancer, Eliset Lobato. This
] page here attempts to untangle things.

As a favor for a friend, I set up a couple webpages with corrected interviews for some Vegas showgirls. I just did it for free (and for fun), but since the favor was for the girls' publicist, looks like I'll be getting some free tickets to shows next time I'm in Vegas for Def Con.

Elonka :)

Rayma Alfred - Corrected Interview

] Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens is
] the first exhibition in the United States to present a
] comprehensive survey of Rubens's oil sketches. Painted in
] preparation for other, larger works, including
] tapestries, altarpieces, engravings, sculptures, and
] ceiling paintings, these small, engaging sketches were
] completed entirely by the artist's own hand; they are
] thus a direct record of the artist's creative process, an
] intimate glimpse of the original spark of inspiration.
] Rubens (1577-1640) was a man of broad talents and
] interests; he was immensely successful as a diplomat,
] entrepreneur, and artist in service to powerful patrons
] across Europe. Drawn by the Brush provides today's
] viewers with a window into the fertile imagination of
] this master, revealing his artistic passion, spontaneity,
] and spirit of invention.

Rubens is my favorite painter. This exhibit is currently in Connecticut, then will be in Berkeley from March through May, and then go to its final stop in Ohio. I'm going to try and see it in Berkeley when I'm there in early March for the Game Developers Conference. If anyone would like to go with me, let me know!

Elonka :)

Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens - The U.S. Tour

] The Classical Archives is the largest classical music site on the web:
] 31,805 full length classical music files by 2,067 composers.

Nice resource! Free users can access 5 files/day. Subscribers ($25/year) can download 1000 files/month.

Classical Music Archives

] LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Kelly Freas, an
] influential illustrator who produced sleek, stirring
] images for science fiction and fantasy books and helped
] shape the image of Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Newman,
] has died. He was 82.
 . . .
] In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Freas
] illustrated the covers or the pages of books by writers
] including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C.
] Clarke, A.E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson and Frederik Pohl.

I met Freas a few years ago, at one of the conventions where I was speaking, and put him in touch with the staff at Dragon*Con so he could be invited to be a guest of honor there as well (I think in 2001).

He was an amazing talent. When I was a kid and reading back issues of Analog and Astounding magazine, it was one of his drawings that made me finally ask myself, "Wow, that's an amazing picture, I wonder who drew that?" Then once I knew his name and went looking, I found that he'd created many of the other book and magazine covers that I loved.

It was an honor to meet him, and I am very sorry to hear of his passing.

More information about him can be found here, at the Dragon*Con bio site: http://dragoncon.org/people/freasf.html

And a page with some samples of his art can be found here: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/freas.htm

Mad magazine, sci-fi artist Kelly Freas passes away - Jan 3, 2005

] The musicians are demanding that the symphony dip into
] its donation-fattened endowment to give them raises.
] Management refuses, insisting that the fund be left
] intact to ensure the 125-year-old symphony never again
] faces bankruptcy.
]
] The impasse here is a reflection of the immense strains
] threatening orchestras across the nation.
]
] Intense and often divisive contract negotiations consumed
] three of the nation's top orchestras last fall: Chicago,
] Cleveland and Philadelphia. All were settled without
] strikes. But analysts say they and many smaller groups
] are struggling. In response, management has asked
] musicians to change the way they work.
]
] Contracts that traditionally set rigid limits on
] rehearsal times and performance dates have been amended
] so orchestras can reach out to new audiences.
]
] And in this year's contract negotiations, musicians in
] both Chicago and Philadelphia agreed to cut a few
] full-time positions - a painful concession in the
] classical music world, where hundreds of musicians might
] audition for a single open seat.
 . . .
] The musicians say they won't play until they have a new contract.
] Adams says he won't negotiate until they resume performances.
] Ticket holders who looked forward to a winter full of Mozart and
] Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky will have to be satisfied with
] recorded CDs.

Looks like the strike at my local St. Louis Symphony is indicative of a larger nationwide problem.

Los Angeles Times: Top Orchestras Face Tough Contract Talks

] Mozart wrote only one sonata for two pianos, the Sonata
] in D Major K. 448/375a, of which Alfred Einstein was to
] write that "not a single shadow darkens its cheerful
] character. The artistry of balance and dialogue between
] the two pianos, the delicacy of the figuration, the sense
] of texture in blending and exploiting the registers of
] the instrument are all of such supreme mastery that the
] seemingly 'superficial' and enthralling composition
] becomes one of the most profound and mature Mozart ever
] wrote."

I'm still in the process of importing my entire music library to iTunes. Along the way, I'm listening to a bunch of music that I own, but hadn't listened to in years. One of the pieces, this Mozart Sonata, immediately (pardon the pun) struck a chord with me, and I can't get enough of it right now.

Listening to it on CD is fine and good, but I'm also trying to figure out if there might be some place within a day's drive where I could hear this live. Unfortunately, I can't figure out where I might track down that kind of information (a live performance of that particular sonata within a day's drive of St. Louis).

Anyone have suggestions?

Mozart's Piano Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos