10 Rock Album Covers Inspired by Classical Paintings

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1. Turbulent Indigo (1994) by Joni Mitchell. Painting: Self Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh

2. Viva La Vida (2008) by Cold Play. Painting: Liberty leading the people by Eugene De La Croix

3. A Night on the Town (1976) by Rod Stewart. Painting: Bal du moulin de la Galette by Pierre August Renoir

4. Fleet Foxes (2008) by the Fleet Foxes. Painting: Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

5. Greatest Hits (1977) by Black Sabbath. Painting: The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

6. Last of the Mohicans (1982) by Bow Wow Wow. Painting: Le déjeuner sur l'herbe by Edward Manet

7. Grave New World (1972) by The Strawbs. Painting: Glad Day by William Blake

8. Rum, Sodomy and the Lash (1985) by the Pogues. Painting: The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

9. Beck-Ola (1969) by The Jeff Beck Group. Painting: The Listening Room by Rene Magritte

10. Dutch Masters (1973) by Focus. Painting: The Staalmeesters by Rembrandt van Rijn

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The Holy Grail

While I was away in Aber I read a nice little hardback on The Holy Grail by Giles Morgan. It's a great little book looking at pre-Christian and Christian sources, Glastonbury, Arthur, the Templars, the Cathars, etc, and moving onto the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson, Monty Python and the Lord of the Rings and not missing the Who's Baba O'Riley. A concise and useful survey. I was surprised by my own ignorance at certain points and was glad to become better informed. More here.

30 Great poems

Today's Times features a pull out with thirty poems everyone should know. Good choices on the whole.

1. We’ll Go No More A-Roving by Lord Byron So, we’ll go no more a-roving
2. I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman I hear America singing, the varied carols
3. Poor Old Lady by Anon Poor old lady, she swallowed a fly...
4. Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone...
5. Crossing The Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Sunset and evening star...
6. The Song of Mr Toad by Kenneth Grahame The world has held great Heroes...
7. If by Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you...
8. Remember by Christina Rossetti Remember me when I am gone away...
9. Daffodils by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud...
10. The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to...
11. Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...
12. Invictus by W.E. Henley Out of the night that covers me...
13. How Soon Hath Time by John Milton How soon hath Time, the subtle thief...
14. The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I shot an arrow into...
15. Answer to a Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Do you ask what...
16. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day...
17. The Soldier by Rupert Brooke If I should die, think only this of me...
18. To Autumn by John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
19. Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars...
20. A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
21. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land...
22. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W B Yeats Had I the heavens’...
23. The Tyger by William Blake Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forest of the night
24. Death Be Not Proud by John Donne Death be not proud, though some have...
25. Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with...
26. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves...
27. How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me...
28. Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë Love is like the wild rose-briar...
29. Jerusalem by William Blake And did those feet in ancient time...
30. The Elephant by Hilaire Belloc When people call this beast to mind

Home Schooled

One of the things to come out in the obituaries for Malcolm McLaren was that he was home schooled to the age of 10 by his grandmother. That set me thinking about famous home schooled people. There is a little room for argument over what home schooled means but I think the following lists are interesting adn hopefully accurate.

1. Ten famous Christians

John Owen
Matthew Henry

Jonathan Edwards

John (and Charles) Wesley
John Newton
John Witherspoon

William Carey
Dwight L Moody
Hudson Taylor

C S Lewis

2. Ten Authors

Hans Christian Anderson

William Blake

Robert Browning

Pearl S Buck
Agatha Christie

Charles Dickens

Sean O'Casey

George Bernard Shaw

Mark Twain
Phyllis Wheatley

3. Ten composers and artists

J S Bach

Anton Bruckner
Felix Mendelssohn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Francis Poulenc

William Blake

John Singleton Copley
Evelyn de Morgan
Claude Monet
Andrew (and Jamie) Wyeth

Short Poem 22

Thomas Phillips, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This is a rather obvious choice but it is Blake's best poem.Wikipedia article here.

The Tiger

by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?