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found lamb: Blue Danube Waltz

found lamb: Lila Downs - live in Paris

found lamb: Suzy Bogguss - All the Pretty Little Horses

found lamb:

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Joan Lindsay’s 1967 Picnic at Hanging Rock is a work of fiction set in Victoria, Australia, in 1900. The novel recounts the tale of three schoolgirls and a teacher who go missing after wandering onto the dangerous Hanging Rock formation. Only one of them is recovered a week later; the rest are never heard from again, despite careful searches of the area. The trauma and horror of this incident spreads, leading to the suicide of two other characters. Lindsay’s novel can be considered a piece of Gothic fiction. It might be further classified as Female Gothic for its critique of the strict rules that dictate the lives of the female characters, who escape society for the freedom and horror of the wilderness.

The students at Appleyard College, a prestigious boarding school for teenage girls outside the town of Macedon, are excited to be going on a picnic on Valentine’s Day. They are accompanied by two of their teachers, their French and dance teacher, Mademoiselle de Poitiers, and their mathematics teacher, Miss McCraw. As the headmistress, Mrs. Appleyard, bids them farewell, she instructs them to keep their gloves on when they ride through town. The girls are driven to the picnic ground by Mr. Hussey on his horse-drawn buggy.

The picnic ground is eerily quiet. Mr. Hussey and Miss McCraw notice that their watches have stopped working. Seniors Marion, Miranda, and Irma ask if they can walk to the base of Hanging Rock, which looms beyond the trees. They are allowed to do so, but instructed not to take too long, as they need to leave the picnic ground at four o’clock. The unpopular Edith asks if she can tag along, and kind-hearted Miranda consents.

The girls follow the creek toward Hanging Rock, passing another group of picnickers as they do. Michael “Mike” Fitzhubert, a young aristocratic English man, and Albert Crundall, the family’s coachman, watch the girls pass. Mike notices the grace and beauty of Miranda, while Albert pays particular attention to Irma. Mike and Albert discuss the girls’ progress and talk about their respective upbringings.

Initially, the girls are attentive to the time; Miranda reminds the group that they will have to turn around shortly. However, as they ascend Hanging Rock, the senior girls start to behave erratically. They take off their shoes and stockings despite the rough surface of the rock, Marion throws her notebook and pencil into a bush, and Irma starts to dance, imagining that she is a ballerina. All four girls fall into a deep sleep. When they wake up, the three senior girls continue to walk up Hanging Rock, despite Edith’s pleas that they turn back. It is now twilight. They hear a distant beating sound, but disregard it. The sound is Mr. Hussey beating on a billy (a kettle) to attract the lost girls’ attention. Edith screams, but no one hears. She runs back to the picnic ground.

Mr. Hussey retraces the girls’ steps according to Edith but cannot find them. Meanwhile Mike and Albert’s party has departed with no idea that anything is amiss. Back at the picnic ground, the group realizes that Miss McCraw is also missing; her gloves and books are where she left them. Eventually, the group decides to return to the college despite the fact that Marion, Miranda, Irma, and Miss McCraw are still not accounted for. Mr. Hussey stops at the police station on the way back and provides a full account of the mystery.

The next day, some of the girls are attended to by a doctor; no one is hurt. Police interview Edith and Mademoiselle de Poitiers as they begin searching Hanging Rock and the surrounding area. There is no evidence of the missing persons. The police detective, Constable Bumpher, brings Edith back to the site, and she recalls seeing Miss McCraw striding up Hanging Rock without her skirt on. Mrs. Appleyard tries to manage the tide of gossip and to alert the families of the missing girls and teacher without attracting controversy or attention to the college.

A week later, Mike escapes from a party of local well-to-do families to share a beer with Albert in the boatshed; the two have become close friends. Mike confides that he can’t stop thinking about the Hanging Rock mystery. He convinces Albert to accompany him to Hanging Rock the next day, although they pretend that they are just going for a ride. They reach Hanging Rock and begin to search. Mike loses track of time and is hours late to his rendezvous with Albert. Mike insists on staying the night there; he has marked the last place he reached in his search. Albert is worried about him but concedes, returning to Lake View (the Fitzhuberts’ estate). The next morning he tells Mike’s uncle, Colonel Fitzhubert, that Mike spent the night in a pub. After a fitful sleep, Mike searches again the next morning. At one point, he falls into a deep sleep. He awakes with a gash on his head and hears the sound of girlish laughter, which he believes is coming from Miranda. He pursues her over strange and dangerous rock formations. Meanwhile, Albert is beginning to worry about Mike, and rides back to Hanging Rock. He arrives in the early afternoon and finds Mike unconscious on the ground beneath the rock. Albert runs to find a doctor; they transport Mike back to Lake View. Albert checks Mike’s pocket and finds that he has left a confusing, half-finished note about having found someone. Albert alerts the police and they go to the place indicated by Mike’s note, where they find Irma, exhausted and unconscious but alive. Irma recuperates at the gardener’s cottage at Lake View. When she finally regains consciousness, she cannot remember any of the events of Hanging Rock. Mike, too, cannot properly remember what happened, although he is haunted by the idea of Miranda. A romance seems to be developing between Irma and Mike, but Mike abruptly leaves for Melbourne.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Appleyard continues trying to quash rumors about the college and to maintain a sense of decorum and normality. The girls are forced back into a regimented routine of lessons and rules. Sara Waybourne, the youngest boarder at the school, struggles especially; Miranda was her roommate and her closest friend. She is treated cruelly by her teachers, especially Mrs. Appleyard, who cancels Sara’s art lessons when her guardian’s school fees are late and dismisses the art teacher, Mrs. Vallange. Before she leaves, Mrs. Vallange leaves a note for Sara, inviting her to stay with her in Melbourne whenever she would like to. Irish Tom, the college handyman, forgets to give Mrs. Vallange’s note to Sara.

Irma visits the college before she is due to travel to Europe with her parents. She expects a warm welcome, but the girls crowd her savagely, acting like animals. After Irma leaves, the girls seem to have no memory of their behavior.

Mike briefly returns to Macedon to retrieve a letter he left at Lake View. He tells Albert that he is still haunted by Hanging Rock; he believes that he will never forget it. He invites Albert to accompany him on a trip to Queensland, but Albert doesn’t want to leave the stability of his position at Lake View. The next morning, as Albert is driving Mike back to the station to return to Melbourne, Albert receives a letter from Irma Leopold’s father, thanking him for saving his daughter’s life. A check for 1,000 pounds is included. Albert replies, thanking Mr. Leopold sincerely, then gives his notice to Colonel Fitzhubert and writes to Mike to tell him that he will come to Queensland.

At the college, Mrs. Appleyard tries to hide the fact that Sara is missing. She tells some staff members that her guardian has already collected her, while telling others that her guardian will be coming shortly. Madame de Poitiers is suspicious, and writes to Constable Bumpher about her fear that Sara is missing. Meanwhile, Mrs. Appleyard sneaks into Sara’s room looking for clues but finds none. Sara’s guardian writes to say that he will be arriving to collect her that weekend.

Mr. Whitehead, the gardener, finds Sara’s body; she has killed herself by jumping off the college’s high tower. Mr. Whitehead tells Mrs. Appleyard, who lets out an animalistic scream. She goes to town, where she instructs Mr. Hussey to drive her to Hanging Rock. She walks up Hanging Rock alone and throws herself from a precipice, killing herself.

In a newspaper article written 13 years later, the mystery of the missing persons has still not been solved. It is revealed that Appleyard College burned down in 1901.

found lamb:

Our Lady of Fátima

Also known as: Lady of the Rosary

Our Lady of Fátima, in Roman Catholicism, the Virgin Mary in her six appearances before three peasant children near the village of Fátima, Portugal, in 1917. Since that revelation, millions of the faithful have made pilgrimages to the site where the woman, commonly called Our Lady of Fátima, appeared. The Roman Catholic Church officially recognized the Fátima events as worthy of belief in 1930.

On May 13, 1917, Lucia dos Santos (aged 9) and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto (aged 8 and 6, respectively) were tending sheep in central Portugal, about 113 km (70 miles) northeast of Lisbon, when they had a vision of a woman surrounded by light who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. Following the initial event, the children reported seeing the vision five more times, once each month through October. During her appearances, Our Lady of Fátima supposedly gave the children three secrets and repeatedly exhorted them to pray the rosary for world peace and emphasized the necessity of devotions to her Immaculate Heart in order for souls to be saved. The children also said that she told them God would perform a miracle on October 13 so that people would believe. A crowd estimated at about 70,000 gathered at Fátima on that day and witnessed what has been described as a miraculous solar phenomenon in which the Sun appeared to fall toward Earth—sometimes called the Miracle of the Sun—immediately after the lady’s final appearance to the children.

After initially questioning the authenticity of the children’s visions, the Vatican accepted them as appearances of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima), and Fátima became the location of one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims each year. The first national pilgrimage to Fátima took place in 1927, and a basilica was begun in 1928 and consecrated in 1953. With a tower 65 metres (213 feet) high and surmounted by a large bronze crown and a crystal cross, the basilica is flanked by hospitals and retreat houses and faces a vast square in which the little Chapel of the Apparitions is located. Numerous cures of the sick have been reported. On May 13, 1967—the 50th anniversary of the first vision—a crowd of about a million pilgrims gathered at Fátima to hear Pope Paul VI say mass and pray for peace.

At the end of the 20th century, there was growing speculation concerning the three secrets Our Lady of Fátima allegedly revealed to the children in 1917. Though two of the messages had been disclosed in the 1940s—commonly interpreted as the prediction of the end of World War I and the start of World War II and the rise and fall of communism—the third had been kept secret by the Vatican, giving rise to numerous theories. In May 2000 it was finally announced that the third message was the Virgin Mary’s vision of the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, .and the pope publicly credited Our Lady of Fátima for saving his life.

Although Lucia dos Santos would later become a Carmelite nun and live to the age of 97, Francisco and Jacinta Marto died as children as a result of the influenza pandemic of 1918–19. The pious siblings were beatified in 2000 by Pope John Paul II, making them the youngest non-martyred children to be beatified in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. They were canonized as saints by Pope Francis in 2017 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of their visions.

found lamb:

MARY MAGDALENE

At the beginning of the eighth chapter of his Gospel, Luke describes the followers who accompanied Jesus as he travelled and preached:

The twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,and many others which ministered unto him of their substance.

Elsewhere in the gospels, Mary Magdalene is named as a witness to the Crucifixion (Matthew, 27, 56) and the Resurrection (Matthew, 28, 1–10).

From an early time she was also identified with other women in the New Testament: the 'sinner' who anoints Christ's feet in the house of the Pharisee (Luke, 7, 36–50); with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha (Luke, 10, 38–42), and sister of Lazarus, the dead man revived by Christ (John, 11, 1–44); and with the woman taken in adultery, whom Jesus saves from the stones of a hypocritical mob (John, 8, 1–11).

Popular interest in Mary grew in the eleventh century, but her story is told most fully in The Golden Legend, the thirteenth–century collection of saints' lives written by the Italian Dominican monk Jacobus de Voragine. He gives us a detailed description of her background and early character:

Mary Magdalene is so called because of her connection with the town of Magdalum. She was born of noble parents who indeed were of royal descent. Together with her brother Lazarus and sister Martha she owned Magdalum, a fortified town two miles from Genezareth, Bethany, near Jerusalem, and a large part of Jerusalem itself. Since Mary Magdalene was enormously wealthy, and pleasure is the boon companion of affluence, she was as notorious for her abandonment to fleshly pleasures as she was celebrated for her beauty and riches.

She meets Jesus, who 'set her all on fire with love for him, made her one of his closest associates, and lovingly defended her on many occasions'. After Christ's Ascension, she travels to France with her sister Martha and brother Lazarus, where she eventually retires to a life of solitude:

In the meantime blessed Mary Magdalene, wishing to devote herself to heavenly contemplation, withdrew to a barren wilderness where she remained in anonymity for thirty years in a place prepared for her by the hands of angels. In this wilderness there was no water, and there were no trees or grass, nor any comforts of any kind, so that it was clear that our Redeemer had meant to feed her not with earthly foods but with the sweets of Heaven alone. Each day at the seven canonical hours she was lifted in the air by angels and actually heard, with her bodily organs of hearing, the glorious harmonies of the celestial chorus. So, filled day by day with this exquisite heavenly fare, when she was bought back to her cave, she had not the slightest need for bodily nourishment.

The site of her hermitage, Ste-Baume in Provence, and Vézelay, where her relics were brought in the eleventh century, became popular sites of pilgrimage. They remained so, even after 1641 when a scholar in Paris published a treatise entitled Dissertation on the False Arrival in Provence of Lazarus, Maximinus, Magdalene and Martha.

In the seventeenth century, the theme of Mary, wide-eyed and weeping in her grotto, was a popular subject in poetry as well as art. Mary's name, written as 'maudlin', entered the English language as a synonym for 'tearful', eventually coming to describe 'that stage of drunkenness which is characterised by the shedding of tears and effusive displays of affection'.

found lamb: Marian Anderson - Ave Maria - Lincoln Memorial - 1939

found lamb: Caterina Valente - My Funny Valentine

found lamb:

Marion Anderson and the DAR

In addition to its striking neoclassical design by architect John Russell Pope, Constitution Hall is noted for an important event that never occurred there. In 1939, Constitution Hall was at the center of a Civil Rights crisis when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), an all-white organization of descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers, denied famous African-American opera singer Marian Anderson use of its concert hall.

At that time, Constitution Hall was the only local venue large enough to accommodate Anderson’s typical audience, but the venue banned black performers. The organization would not make an exception for Anderson and claimed the hall was already booked. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Anderson’s manager, Sol Hurok, arranged for her to sing instead on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes helped organize the Easter Sunday event on April 9, 1939. Accompanied by a piano, Anderson first serenaded an integrated crowd of 75,000 people with the patriotic ballad, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” The entire concert lasted 25 minutes.

Although Anderson and the DAR maintained the incident was merely a misunderstanding, the singer’s outdoor concert became a symbol for Civil Rights activism nation-wide. In support of Anderson and equal rights, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the DAR. In 1943, making an exception to its racial ban, which did not end until 1952, the DAR invited Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall for a war-benefit concert. Anderson agreed under the condition that the audience be integrated. Around half of the sold-out audience was black. Eleanor Roosevelt, two Supreme Court justices, and other prominent politicians also attended. For her last song Anderson sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” a powerful reminder of American perseverance through hardship.

Anderson’s concert in front of the iconic Lincoln statue has become part of the popular consciousness of race relations in the United States. Contrary to its aims, the DAR unwittingly gave voice and publicity to the Civil Rights struggle. In recent years the organization has apologized for its past segregationist policies. It has pursued various methods of righting the wrong including calling attention to this important chapter in Civil Rights history by amending the National Historic Landmark nomination for Constitution Hall to document the significance of Marian Anderson’s exclusion. Constitution Hall stands as a reminder of a major shift in the Civil Rights movement when one woman sang against adversity.

found lamb: Bouguereau

found lamb: El Vito

found lamb: Handel - Watermusic

found lamb: Pachelbel

found lamb: Anita O'Day - Newport Jazz Festival - 1958

found lamb: Ana Vidovic plays Spanish guitar

found lamb: Loretta Lynn - Ten Thousand Angels

found lamb: Maria Callas - Madame Butterfly

found lamb: Sumina Studer - Mozart Violin Concerto No.3

found lamb: Hilary Hahn - Bach Sarabande

found lamb: Jennifer Pike - The Lark Ascending

found lamb: Lila Downs - La Llarona

found lamb: Joan Baez - La Llarona

found lamb: Chavela Vargas - La Llarona

found lamb: Angela Aguilar - La Llarona