Very Interesting Topics. Thank You For Sharing!

Very interesting topics. Thank you for sharing!

What are your thoughts on the discrepancy between passion and pure talent? Are you sometimes frustrated because you want to achieve more or create more than you are naturally capeable of? And do you think that talent can be "learned"?

We Are All Salieri (the 'Amadeus' Version of Him, Anyway)

Since @bookishdiary has been celebrating classical music this week, references to Amadeus are plentiful, and that reminded me of how much I absolutely adore Salieri as he's written. Really, the movie was based on a play which was also based on another play that toyed with "what if?" situations, one of the pairs being Mozart and my boy Salieri. In truth, their relationship wasn't at all like what we've seen in the film.

All the same, this particular quote from the movie stuck with me the most because I absolutely related to it -- and still do. I suspect other creatives suffer from this every now and then.

In the movie / play, Salieri's talented, but Mozart's a genius. The former has to work thrice as hard while the latter just waltzes in and does whatever, and everything that comes out is perfection. Again, not an accurate depiction of the two men, but the sharp contrast of their abilities and experiences in the film is pretty gutting, especially where Salieri's concerned.

Ouch. But I feel you, Salieri. I really do. In writing and publishing? Yep. All the time even though I keep plugging away and act like everything's cool.

Book recommendations based on your favourite authors

1. Oscar Wilde

Edward St Aubyn - Patrick Melrose

If you love Oscar Wilde i would recommend St. Aubyn's amazing novels. They are full of wit, cunning irony, upper - class critisicm and dry humor.

2. William Shakespeare

Margaret Atwood - Hagseed

Part of the "Hogarth Shakespeare Series" this is a brillant retelling of Shakespeares play the tempest.

3. Lewis Carroll

Michael Ende - Momo

Similar to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Ende takes us on a young girl's magical journey in which she has to bring back the "stolen time".

4. Stephen King

David Mitchell - Slade House

Stephen King himself recommended this suspensful novel about an abnormal house: “Hard to imagine a more finely wrought and chilling tale of the supernatural. One of the rare great ones.”

5. Suzanne Collins

Koushun Takami - Battle Royale

This book has a very similar storyline to Collins great Hunger Games Saga: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing.

6. Jane Austen

Goethe - Elective Affinities

A love story just as sharming and complicated as Jane Austen's beloved works: Eduard and his wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet but idle life in their estate, when their piece is fastly thrown into chaos as he invites his friend the Captain and she invites her niece Ottilie to stay with them: a story of forbidden love begins to grow as they both form attraction to their guests.

This monologue is really something else. His voice and acting are incredible. This adaptation is also wayyy more sexual than i thought a 1800s Play could be.

One of the most beautiful passages in theatre history...fight me!

“I love you, I need you, I want you. I go to sleep thinking about you and wake up with your voice winding through my head, I look at you and I can’t focus, the whole world shimmers, I’m ashamed, I’m angry, I’m in love, I’m mad, I’m happy, I’m dead, I’m alive, I’m stupid, I’m tongue-tied."

- Cyrano de Bergerac adapted by Martin Crimp

Most aesthetically pleasing movies I watched recently

1. Macbeth (2015)

The red/ orange colour theme in this is phenomenal for visualizing his inner demons. The blood he shed and will shed is literally visible everywhere.

2. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Sleeping beauty has to be the most beautiful Disney movie ever made. Check out "Awaking Beauty" by Eyvind Earl if you are interested in the artwork

3. Portrait of a lady on fire (2019)

A must watch for everyone who adores art and period dramas. The soundtrack is phenomenal too!

Books like Dorian Gray?

I am looking for good Horror/ Mystery Literature like the Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein or the stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Do you guys have any recommendations for me? Am not as familiar with that genre as i would like to be.

If you like art - You must hear pictures at an exhibition by Mussorgsky - he literally wrote music for art works imagening how they would sound!

Classical music to listen to based on your interests

(yes, I made another list.  sue me.  i’m all for spreading classical music awareness.  feel free to add to this list.)

If you like facts and logic - literally anything by Bach

If you like roasting people - “Leck mich im Arsch” by Mozart

If you like politics - Sinfonia Eroica (Symphony No. 3) by Beethoven

If you like invading other countries - “Ride of the Valkyries” by Wagner

If you like showing off - “Caprice No. 24″ by Paganini

If you like nature - “Finlandia” by Sibelius

If you like dancing - Slavonic Dances by Dvorak

If you like art - anything by Debussy

If you like reading - Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov

If you’re classy - “The Blue Danube” by Strauss

If you like history - The Water Music by Handel

If you’re religious - A German Requiem by Brahms

If you like Star Wars/Star Trek - The Planets by Holst

If you like “All By Myself” - Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff

If you like crying your eyes out - “Nimrod” by Elgar

If you like the zoo - The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens

If you like jazz - Jazz Suite No. 2, “Waltz No. 2″ by Shostakovich

If you’re patriotic - New World Symphony (Symphony No. 9) by Dvorak

If you like satanic rituals - “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky

If you like the burning flames of hell - Requiem in D Minor by Mozart

If you like New York City - “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin

If you like sleep - “Sicilienne” by Faure

If you like Halloween - “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saens