Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

I absolutely love In The Beginning, too, especially the "Let there be light in the firmament..." section (I'm a choral singer so I know more choral than orchestral music).

In classical music circles in the UK he’s very well-known. Fanfare for the Common Man is often played. And Appalachian Spring is popular too.

In fact @MissConductUS his music is in 4 Proms this year and Fanfare for the Common Man opens the First Night of the season this Friday 😊 It’ll be televised and you may be able to see it Stateside?

(sorry for the derail, everyone else!)

It's lovely to find Copland fans who aren't American! His music is so heavily influenced by American music traditions and forms that I sometimes wonder how well it works for non-Americans. He grew up in NYC, and one of my favorite Copland compositions is "Quiet City", a musical portrait of the city awakening for the day.

The Copland House website has a "Shop" link where you can buy Copland House merchandise. Perhaps your DH would like a Copland House polo shirt or baseball cap. 😁

I'm a member of Copland House, and DH and I go there often for live performances. They do get quite a few tourists, so if your travels ever bring you to NYC, it's an easy one hour train trip from Manhattan and a short taxi ride.

I’m also a big Copland fan @MissConductUS. It greatly amused me when that blockbuster film ‘Copland’ came out, and DH (a musician) and I liked to pretend it was a Hollywood epic about the mild-mannered Aaron and his compositional process . How interesting that you live not far from his home. I’d really like to visit.

There's no "e" in Aaron Copland's last name.

I'm a huge fan of his work, and live just a few miles from where he lived for the last few decades of his life.

https://www.coplandhouse.org/home/

The house is now run by a non-profit organization that promotes his work and provides residencies to up-and-coming American composers.

Tina Weymouth (Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads) is the daughter of a US Navy Vice Admiral Ralph Weymouth who went on to be an anti-nuclear campaigner.

I always thought Stewart Copeland (The Police) was related to Aaron Copeland (American composer of Appalachian Spring) but it turns out not to be true (although Stewart referred to him as 'Uncle Aaron' as a joke). But the truth is almost as good: Stewart's parents were both spies. 👀

Joseph Williams, lead singer of Toto (of “Africa” fame) is son of legendary composer John.

I love looking at them too, and swimming pools.

I am only on the original posters post and ive lost two hours! Think I’ll be a few years older by the time I finish this thread! I always go head first into a rabbit hole!

Amazing thank you. Watching now!

This is a funny but true little video about octopuses:

Happy to revive! The Nutty Putty cave incident above gave me nightmares. I can't imagine anything worse.

My latest rabbit hole has been Octopus based! There is just SO much fascinating stuff about them - from their high-intelligence to their three hearts, independent thinking tentacles, ability to recognise human faces, ability to use tools, blue copper based blood, the fact that they can see through their skin... and on it goes.

Can we revive this thread? It's great! My contributions would be;

Listing's of old causes of death. Like "lethargie, lunatique, made away with themselves, worms"

Autopsy reports, morbid I know. Especially those of celebrities.

Not because I believe them but reading about the different conspiracy theories like the illuminati or lizard people.

...and imagine if her sister was called Delilah?!

Not a disaster but if you like caves there is a brilliant documentary on Netflix called Unknown - Cave of Bones which has archaeologists scrambling through something like the picture above.

God, the Nutty Putty cave is a tale of nightmares. There’s a photo which is erroneously attributed to it, it made me gasp out loud when I saw it. I’ll attach it here but put a sensitive thing on it so that claustrophobic people don’t have to look at it!

The Nutty Putty one is awful! That's the one that haunts me. Diving disasters are another rabbit hole to check out when you've had enough of caves.

I haven't seen that particular one, but the Nutty Putty Cave Incident is dreadfully upsetting. There's a Russian cave disaster, too which is chilling.

I have a real phobia of enclosed spaces myself, and can think of few things more dreadful than being trapped underground.

I wasn't watching it, but I will now!

Yes, the Vasa is AMAZING. It’s just incredible that they knew it was there for all those years - and finally managed to raise it in such pristine condition. It's huge - but so unbalanced, you can see exactly why it tipped over and sank on its maiden voyage.

The link I posted to 18th century battleships on the Fascinating things thread shows that too. Very interesting.

Also, they had an ACTUAL FIRE (in a brick hearth) in the galley. Which if I'd thought about it for a minute would seem obvious, because how else do you cook? But it did remind me of a favourite line from Harry Potter, when Hagrid is trying to hatch a baby dragon, and Hermione says, "Hagrid, you live in a WOODEN HOUSE."