American actress and soprano Geraldine Farrar.
Rumor says she had a hot affaire with Kronprinz Wilhelm von preussen, previous and during his marriage with the gorgeous Cecilie von Mecklenburg- Schwerin.
(via holdthisphoto)
The New York premiere of Thomas Àdes’ opera The Tempest was more beautiful than I expected. It was everything it needed to be…dreamy, airy, dark, funny at times and subtly heartbreaking at others.
This play has always maganged to pull at a sentimental heartstring of mine, not because it is my my favorite (it isn’t), but because it was the first one of Shakespeare’s plays that I read and actually appreciated. After reading The Tempest I went back to other plays that I had been forced into and half heartedly read in high school…it was the beginning of a love.
(Source: aperfectdarling)
Cloud Atlas: A Post-Modern Masterpiece is Turned into A Movie
David Mitchell’s novel “Cloud Atlas” erases boundaries of genre and truly manages to escape simple classification. The readings that one can take from the novel vary as much as the person reading it does and yet, almost all of them seem to be relevant.
It cannot be an easy task to turn a book of such a magnitude into a movie, but the Wachowskis have embarked on the journey.
(Source: aperfectdarling)
Mystery and Horror: A List of Books to Haunt You
Halloween is approaching and in the spirit of the spooky, supernatural and the mysterious, here is a list of novels to get you in the mood. From true horror to subtle mysterious happenings, everyone is bound to find something that is capable of making them run for the lights.
1. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
This will forever be the story that tears my emotions in two, because, although the clumsy monster of the novel is horrendous and scary, he is also one that you cannot help but to pity because he becomes a truly evil monster figure as a result of everyone treating him that way from the start. It teaches us that there is a chain reaction and that how we treat others will eventually lead back to us—treat someone as a monster and perhaps he will be a monster to you. The messages of this novel are simple and beautiful but also highly political.
2. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
This is one of my personal favorite novels—of all time. It is both plot orientated, so that you are almost tearing at the pages to know what will happen next, and gorgeously written. The images that Bronte creates truly embody the genre of the classic, gothic novel and will strike you with their beauty and gloominess. There are illusions to witches, ghosts, daemons and the supernatural and yet none of them are literal. A truly timeless work of literary genius that everyone should eventually make some time for.
3. Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland
Wieland is known to be America’s first gothic novel. The novel introduces us to a home that resembles a paradise and to a family that is full of happiness, knowledge and love, until everything begins to falls to pieces. The paradise turns into a wild horror of murderers, ghosts, strangers and lies. There are not many novels that Wieland can be compared to and a good word to describe it would be “weird”. What is also interesting is that it was written just before America’s independence and critics have said that the messages of a paradise being destroyed was partly a political one.
Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping
A more contemporary one, this novel is about a house in a small lake town and the family—particularly the women—that live in it. The protagonists of the novel are two sisters whose mother has committed suicide and who have been brought to her childhood house to be raised by their grandmother. She eventually dies and various caretakers move into the house to care for the girls— one of them being their insane, transient aunt. This novel doesn’t have actual monsters and the horror of it very subtle, but, it is there in the form of insanity, loneliness, depression and death. It will haunt you and give you chills for many years after you have read it.
(Source: aperfectdarling)
Messy Room- Shell Silverstein
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Whosever room this is should be ashamed! His underwear is hanging on the lamp. His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp. His workbook is wedged in the window, His sweater's been thrown on the floor. His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door. His books are all jammed in the closet, His vest has been left in the hall. A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed, And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall. Whosever room this is should be ashamed! Donald or Robert or Willie or-- Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear, I knew it looked familiar!
Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
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I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. Money's new-minted in this fat purse. I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I've eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off.
This palace is the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle. It is a 19th Century Romanesque Revival and was commissioned by Ludwig the 2nd of Bavaria as an homage to Richard Wagner.
Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany. Winter 2012
