Eternal sounds…

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Antonio De Lorenzi takes a seat onstage in the concert hall of Museo del Violino in Cremona, Italy, and carefully tucks a Stradivarius (a violi crafted in 1727 and called Vesuvio) under his chin. Through an earpiece, the ­soloist hears a metronomic beat as a voice says, “Go.”

De Lorenzi draws his bow across the lowest string and plays G for half a beat. He pauses. He then follows with A-flat. Then A. He moves up the scale, never changing his pace as he works through all four strings. Once he finishes, he repeats the exercise, this time sounding each tone just a bit faster. Clearly, this is no ordinary concert—or a typical practice. Outside, police have cordoned off the street to traffic. Inside, workers have shut down the heater despite the January chill, dimmed the lights, and unscrewed any buzzing bulbs. As each solitary note reverberates, an audience of 32 microphones ­dotted throughout the auditorium silently listens.

This was part of a campaign to preserve the Stradi­varius sound. The museum hoped this painstaking exercise grants the rare treasures a degree of immortality so they might enchant future generations. (1)

Humans. Always wanting to keep things alive. Never satisfied with the ephemeral; always seeking the eternal instead. And yet, life itself is ephemeral. The universe is ephemeral. The cosmos itself is shouting: There is nothing that lives forever.

Magic sounds.

Mystical music.

Echoing through the aeons.

Break the violin.

Dead sounds.

Dead music.

Always there.

To remind us that it once was alive…

Can you feel the violin in your hands?

Can you whisper?

“There is nothing that lives forever. Except the things which never did”…

Who wrote what? It matters not.

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

The 17th century playwright Molière is as important to French literature as William Shakespeare is to the English canon. But for the past 100 years, a question has swirled around him: Did Molière really write his plays? Or was Pierre Corneille, another famous French playwright of the time, the true author? A new study uses computational methods to analyze subtle, unconscious elements of both authors’ writing and concludes that Molière did indeed write the plays attributed to him. (1)

But does it matter who wrote what?

In the old days people did not care about signing their works with their own name.

For what mattered, was what they wrote.

Go on.

Write down your name.

Do you see?

You are not you!

You are Homer.

You are Nietzsche.

You are Shestov.

You are me.

You are you.

You are No-one!

Attributing art. Understanding art. Making art?!

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AI used to analyze and attribute art. (1)

Computers analyzing art.

Categorizing it. Attributing it.

Computers understanding art.

Computers destroying art.

Only because they understood it.

While it is not meant to be understood.

But can’t you see?

This means that they didn’t understand it after all!

Weird cosmos.

Full of people. Full of computers.

Humans creating art.

Computers understanding it!

How nonsensical.

How dull.

How awfully… artistic!

Death miniature 2: The school bus

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

[Death miniatures series stories]

Death miniatures are fictional ultra-small stories related to death. The goal is to draw out emotions and make the reader think more about death, which is the only thing that we keep on avoiding, even though it is defining our life and behavior from the moment we are born till the day we draw our last breath…

He was waiting for the school bus with his daughter.

She laughed and played around.

Giggling and smiling.

(Oh, how much he wanted that bus to be late…)

Oh, how lovely she was.

Happy days.

Now how daughter was in her 50s.

And as he held her tight in his arms, he was now ready to die.

And in his last breath, he was there again.

One cold morning.

With his daughter. Laughing and smiling. Giggling and playing.

Happy.

Waiting for the school bus.

A tear…

(Oh, the bus was here now…)

~

Death stories series

Death miniature: The toy…

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

[Death miniatures series stories]

Death miniatures are fictional ultra-small stories related to death. The goal is to draw out emotions and make the reader think more about death, which is the only thing that we keep on avoiding, even though it is defining our life and behavior from the moment we are born till the day we draw our last breath…

She always loved this toy.

From the moment that she saw it she could never sleep without it.

She would be so happy now.

Holding it in her small little hands.

A small fluffy octopus with seven arms.

We had laughed so much with that.

Look at her now.

With the sevenctopus again in her tiny arms…

A touch on my shoulder.

It was time.

I gave her a kiss.

(Sleep tight my child)

The tears rising.

But as the coffin was closing…

I could still see the toy.

And for a moment.

Without knowing why or how.

I just smiled.

(Oh, she loves this toy!)

~

Death stories series

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