Old School R&B - And the List Goes On...

Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, James Brown, Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White, Billy Preston, Isaac Hayes, Mary Wells, Freda Payne, Eddie Kendricks, Billy Paul,  George Benson, Sister Sledge, Rose Royce, Harold Melvin and the BlueNotes, Sly and the Family Stone, Isley Brothers, Tower of Power, Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Four Tops, Temptations, Stylistics, Delphonics, Dramatics, Moments,  O'Jays,  Spinners, Whispers, Intruders,  Impressions, War, Tower of Power, Parliament, Stevie Wonder, Heatwave, Commodores, Earth-Wind-and-Fire,  Brothers Johnson, TSOP (Gamble and Huff), Jackson Five, Blackbirds, Roberta Flack, Donnie Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler,  Lou Rawls, Barbara Mason, Average White Band, Archie Bell and the Drells, Patti LaBelle, MFSB, Rufus (featuring Chaka Khan), Peaches and Herb, Ray, Goodman and Brown, GQ,  Dazz Band, Brick, Teena Marie...

Time Capsule - Record Heat

Record 100+ temperature recorded in several states...wildfires blaze in Colorado...wild storms knock out power to millions in the midwest and mid-atlantic states...Northern Florida is dealing with the aftermath of storms that dropped 20+ inches of rain...

John Roberts - Mystery Man

Well - it looks like John Roberts has recently made a name for himself writing the majority (5-4) decision in the case upholding President Obama's healthcare law (the "Affordable Care Act" I think is its official name). I'm trying to find out more about this youthful Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The only book I know of that contains some brief biographical tidbits, is called The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Based on the title alone, and from what I've read, there's bound to be some hidden drama and intrigue surrounding this guy. Let's hope...

Paul Simon - Songwriter

What is America's favorite Paul Simon song? Any nominations? So much to choose from: "Sounds of Silence," "I am a Rock," "Kathy's Song," "Richard Cory," "April She Will Come," "Leaves that are Green,"  "A Most Peculiar Man," "Somewhere They Can't Find Me," "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall," "The Dangling Conversation," "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her," "Patterns,  "A Poem Written on the Underground Wall," "The 59th Street Bridge Song," "Homeward Bound," "America," "Old Friends," "Fakin' It," "Mrs. Robinson," "Hazy Shade of Winter," "At the Zoo," "The Boxer," "Baby Driver," "The Only Living Boy in New York," "Keep the Customer Satisfied,"  "Mother and Child Reunion," "Loves Me Like a Rock," "Kodachrome," "My Little Town," "Hearts and Bones," "The Boy in the Bubble," "Graceland," "Born at the Right Time," "The Obvious Child," "The Afterlife" - The hits just keep on coming...

Alice Munro - On Stories

“A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.” ― Alice Munro

Chagall's Circus Horse Rider

Kierkegaard on "Infinite Absolute Negativity"

In Part Two of The Concept of Irony,  Kierkegaard begins by addressing Socratic irony once again, as if to underscore how this strange half-playful, half-serious attitude, so emblematic of the individual and his subjective awareness, is crucial to Socrates' spiritual mission. It is a curious, questioning tendency that exists out of respect for the daimon, a meticulous search for a Truth that lies beyond the whatever public opinion or historical actuality is able to express. Because it is so reluctant to affirm and to eager to expose inadequacies in speeches and logoi, Socratic irony, for some represents a destructive, nay-saying, atheistical force that mocks sacred, settled opinions; for others it heralds the beginning of a negative theology of sorts that is constantly testing the tradition, smashing idols as it goes, while making room for a divine logos able to embraces and explain the full complexity of the human predicament...

...irony [is] the infinite absolute negativity. It is negativity, because it only negates; it is infinite, because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. The irony established nothing, because that which is to be established lies behind it.... Irony is a qualification of subjectivity. In irony, the subject is negatively free, since the actuality that is supposed to give the subject content is not there. He is free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject, but he is negatively free and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him. But this very freedom, this suspension, gives the ironist a certain enthusiasm, because he becomes intoxicated, so to speak, in the infinity of possibilities .... But if irony is a qualification of subjectivity, then it must manifest itself the first time subjectivity makes its appearance in world history. Irony is, namely, the first and most abstract qualification of subjectivity. This points to the historical turning point where subjectivity made its appearance for the first time, and with this we have come to Socrates.... For him, the whole given actuality had entirely lost its validity; he had become alien to the actuality of the whole substantial world. This is one side of irony, but on the other hand he used irony as he destroyed Greek culture. His conduct toward it was at all times ironic; he was ignorant and knew nothing but was continually seeking information from others; yet as he let the existing go on existing, it foundered. He kept on using this tactic until the very last, as was especially evident when he was accused. But his fervor in this service consumed him, and in the end irony overwhelmed; he became dizzy, and everything lost its reality (p. 262ff.).