James Taylor sings his classics to fans in Zürich

13 May 2012 James Taylor @ Kongresshaus in Zürich  

Warm and comforting acoustics set the mind back in time

Carolina in my mind

In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moonshine
Maybe just like a friend of mine
It hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

Karen she's a silver sun
You best walk her way and watch it shinin'
Watch her watch the mornin' come
A silver tear appearing now I'm cryin'
Ain't I goin' to Carolina in my mind

There ain't no doubt it no ones mind
That loves the finest thing around
Whisper something warm and kind
And hey babe the sky's on fire, I'm Dyin'
Ain't I goin' to Carolina in my

In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moonshine
Maybe just like a friend of mine
It hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

Dark and silent last last night
I think I might have heard the highway calling
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
Signs that might be omens say I going, going
I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

With a holy host of others standing 'round me
Still I'm on the dark side of the moon
And it seems like it goes on like this forever
You must forgive me
If I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind

In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moonshine
Maybe just like a friend of mine
It hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind

Alain de Botton in Zürich...

...about The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
19 April 2012 @ Theatre Rigiblick, Zürich, Switzerland
Speaker: Alain de Botton

Theatre Rigiblick - stairway to heightened intellect

  

Hear, read, watch to learn more:
http://www.theschooloflife.com/
http://www.alaindebotton.com/

 
 

   

The escalation of the staircase leading up to the Theatre Rigiblick space confers a sense of intellectual elevation. This venue is an ideal platform for Alain de Botton to elaborate on his published dissertations about life and work. The audience, an ecclectic mix of well-to-do Swiss members of the "older generation" and a select few younger "mature student-like" anglo-saxon "expats" with interests exceeding those of standard and possibly less mentally engaging activities such as skiing, hiking and social drinking, ooze a wealth of “cultural, educated and intellectual” vibes.

Alain de Botton captivates his audience, as one imagines a guest lecturer in high-brow academic institutions would an amphitheatre full of eager-to-learn and disillusioned middle-class university students, striving to minimise the gap between their dreams and their reality. 

On this Thursday evening, Alain de Botton addresses a more mature audience, albeit with lingering eagerness, akin to that present in life’s younger apprentices, to find the answers to life’s perennial questions, some of which Alain de Botton raises during his eloquent and evidently practiced presentation: 

Can there be “…miraculous union of duty and pleasure…”?

Can we “…correct the silence that there is about our working lives…”?

Why has our work become such a “…cruel and definitive form of evaluation…”?

Alain de Botton's argumentation is thought-provoking and compelling, very much evidence based and remarkably unbiased. He is not preaching as much as sharing his views which, in hindsight might seem self-evident, but are in fact alarminingly enlightening. His work re-opens rusty old channels of communication and sweeps clear the dusty path to the understanding of life.

Further reading:





For my father

 

order it on: http://www.penguin.co.uk/



Why do so many of us love or hate our work?

How has it come to dominate our lives?

And what should we do about it?

Work makes us. Without it we are at a loss; in work we hope to have a measure of control over our lives. Yet for many of us, work is a straitjacket from which we cannot free ourselves.

Criss-crossing the world to visit workplaces and workers both ordinary and extraordinary, and drawing on the wit and wisdom of great artists, writers and thinkers, Alain de Botton here explores our love-hate relationship with our jobs. He poses and answers little and big questions, from what should I do with my life? to what will I have achieved when I retire?

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work will not only explain why it is we do what we do all day, but through its sympathy, humour and insight will seek to help us make the most of it.

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Shakespeare in Switzerland - Richard III

Richard III.                                                     

by William Shakespeare

German adaptation by Thomas Brasch

Directed by Barbara Frey

13 April 2012 @ Schauspielhaus Pfauen , Zurich, Switzerland

A deeply psychological audiovisual theatrical treat

A well clad and apparently well educated Friday evening crowd gathers at Zurich’s intimate Schauspielhaus to be entertained by William Shakespeare…

…the German language, beautifully adapted by author, poet and film director Thomas Brasch a Yorkshire-born Berliner, is fitting for the rather rigid belligerent and tragic themes of betrayal , manipulation and cold blooded murder, which fuel the underlying current of The Tragedy of King Richard the Third.

Michael Maertens, while exceedingly convincing as a somewhat crazy, conniving and evil Richard of Gloucester, has an uncanny resemblance to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects (1995 film directed by Bryan Singer) and is possibly less well practiced a cripple than the latter – which begs to question the genuineness of Richard’s affliction, also reminiscent of Spacey’s rendition of a remorseless, morally corrupt and quietly manipulative character.

This interpretation marries well with the contrasting feisty, aggressive yet distraught and submissive mourning mothers Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret and the aged Duchess of York – whose hysterics leave murderous Richard of Gloucester, but not the audience, unmoved. Indeed, all three leading ladies express their distress with a curious timber to their voice – a rasp akin to that of a long-time smoker’s – which lead the spectator to wonder if this was a directors choice or simply a direct consequence of excessive screaming and damage to the actors’ vocal chords. Irrespective, the hysterical bouts of shrieking in despair, well justified in light of the permanent waves of grievous murder, are drowned by loud competing musical interludes, a recurrent feature of the production, bringing an emotional and contemporary note of originality filling a minimalistic set, so providing added depth and a sense of spaciousness.

The acts of murderous violence were staged with impressive subtlety yet significant emotional impact, in particular the exquisitely realistic and daunting wails of pain during the murder of the Duke of Clarence, played by talented Fritz Fenne, were muted by the recurring loud musical interludes that ultimately culminate magnificently in the falling of King Richard the Third – the death of whom is quietly peaceful.

A screenshot-like final scene, a piece of Art in itself, brings the play to a close with all Richard’s silent victims individually confined in upright military-like containers – sealing the tragedy in the spectators mind’s eye for eternity.