Coffee and Catharsis

Me

While death enters through our feet.

Sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to the enraged Artemis, Iphigenia was removed from the sacrificial altar by the god-dess of the hunt and taken to the island of Taurus, where she was forced to serve as a priestess. The model Lucia Brunacci is shown in a grand pose, reminiscent of an ancient statue. … Set in scene as if on a stage, this often repro-duced image of unfulfilled yearning became a characteristic motif for an entire epoch.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, “Completely Without Dignity: An Interview,” the Paris Review. (via literarymiscellany)

Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 in Manhattan, New York, and has made pianos since. Payne explains: “After spending countless hours photographing the choreographies of production and scrutinizing the parts and pieces that will never be visible outside the factory, I came to realize that a piano is one of the supreme acts of human invention and imagination.”

Samantha Bee explains why Bernie Sanders supporters shouldn’t be so pissed off at superdelegates

Law professor Roger Fisher suggested that nuclear launch codes be implanted in a volunteer’s heart. The president would be required to personally take the life of an innocent person before taking the lives of hundreds of millions. (Source)

Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds, 2011 edition (via thetaijistudent)

Vine will make America great again.

“Pleasing people is a huge drive. Any artist who tells you otherwise is either selfish or autistic. Art is a communication, and it’s not incompatible with your integrity to desire an audience. A public performance is a miracle. You never know who’s watching, but you feel a communion between yourself, the audience, and the composer who wrote the notes two hundred years ago. But fuck the notes. The notes are not important. They were the composer’s only means of communicating. The important thing is what’s between the notes and behind the notes. My job as a pianist is to interpret. Why did the composer put that note there? I need to understand the moment preceding the note. And when that happens– when I can reach back two hundred years and connect to a composer’s humanity, even if I’m completely alone, it’s the same feeling of communion as when I perform in front of an audience.”

the true gay icon

(source: Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Jared Leto for Carrera - The new Maverick collection.

Italo Calvino, from Invisible Cities (via lifeinpoetry)