Regarded as one of the most famous - and I would say foremost - string quartets, the Alban Berg quartetquit playing after almost forty years. They were constituted as a quartet in 1971. One of the members - Tomas Kakuska - recently died and the rest of the musicians have found it hard to continue after this.
Some have said that a quartet becomes like a family. Many musicians say that a string quartet is the most demanding form of playing ensemble music. It requires both being good musicians as well as good friends. It's also said - in connection to being an ensemble musician - that before having played together for twenty years, you are regarded as a beginner - a novice. The Alban Berg-ensemble starts a farewell concert in London this week and they end with a concert in Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires in July.
Since I started to use Facebook my blogging has radically decreased.
This is of course not - as some people claim - because you get 'addicted' to Facebook. I do have personal discipline and I don't blame neither the creators of Facebook nor other users for me having spent to much time there. It's of course because this is a relatively (I say relatively as things in cyberspace tend to change more rapidly than anyone can keep track on) new phenomena and one can find people who share the same interests and ideas or with whom one can discuss more or less interesting subjects. The response on FB is more direct than on a blog, unless you're not one of those bloggers who - for more or less good reasons (often less) - become renowned. Unfortunately there are too many people intermittently sending ridiculous messages and applications and this is not the way I want to use FB.
I have once - unfourtunately - been one of those. On the other hand there are some very active groups or 'causes', discussing interesting subjects and sharing opinions and knowledge. I have tried to be as active as possible on those 'walls' too and this is of course much more interesting.
One of these 'causes' is 'Stop Global Warming' where discussions concerning GW and the impact of humans have been lively. Another one I have joined is 'Support the Campaign for Cancer Research', a third 'Animal rights' and so on. All these groups change their name from time to time even if the content is the same. These are the 'Causes' but there are also the so called 'Groups' and here I participate (as one of many 'groups') in 'Shakespeare & Co' where we discuss different genres of literature, not only Shakespeare (so far not at all actually). We are for example reading one book from each and every Nobel laureate in litterature. We started with Doris Lessing and have now continued with Orhan Pamuk.
At the same time we also study older literature we regard as 'classics', books by Mark Twain or 'Die Elixiere des Teufels'by E. T. A. Hoffman e.g. Now I should underline that I had already read quite a number of Nobel Laureates in Litterature and in 1997 a friend and I started the ambitious project called "we will read all the literary works by all the Nobel Laureates!" Good Luck!? Well we started and read everytning published in Swedish or another language we mastered from Dario Fo 1997 until Orhan Pamuk in 2006. After this it has been some works here and some works there by each and every writer. We also, in the above group, discuss film and music and arrange small contests.
Displaying your favourite music and studying other people's lists is sometimes quite interesting as you can 'steal' their favourites, making them yours and not least discover music and artists previously unkown to your ear. These are only a few examples of all the different groups and causes I participate in but I guess most people today know what Facebook is even though not everyone uses its full potential. On the contrary, a lot of time is spent on - as I said before - different kinds of 'games' or 'applications' and some users fill their pages with only this and forget to engage themselves in the much more interesting and stimulating discussions. Maybe I shouldn't say forget because it's more a question of some people using Facebook to get in contact with potential friends and more specifically dates and 'bed-mates'. Below Mark Zuckerberg trying to explain what FB is and what it can do (a bit shortened interview or discourse):
(Facebook-logo copied from : https://preparednesspro.wordpress.com/about-preparedness-pro/facebook-logo-jpg/) (Picture of a burning Earth copied from: https://grist.org/article/2009-12-16-only-the-numbers-count-and-they-add-up-to-hell-on-earth/)
After my marriage in France the 28th of December, I have started to dream a lot. The strange thing is that I remember my dreams, something I seldom did before.
A time ago I had this dream:
Winston Churchillhad suffered a heart attack (cardiac infarct) and we (more or less me) had to take him to hospital. It seemed though as if the only way to do so was to carry him and I had to do it. Besides me and Churchill there was an assistant to Churchill who never tried to help me carry the old prime minister. He only tried to encourage me by shouting: "Jolly good, keep it up...!".
I remember that I once fell down on one of my knees under the burden but through a strong burst of effort, I managed to continue. We arrived at the hospital but there Churchill died, in spite of my attempts to save him.
I had my dream interpreted by my very good friend Siw-Marie . Now she's given me her explanation of the dream!
