George Szamuely discusses the latest developments in the Ukraine negotiations, and wonders whether the prospects for peace are growing ever dimmer.

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Alan Hovhaness's Symphony No. 2, "Mysterious Mountain" (Op. 132).

Commissioned by Leopold Stokowski for the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1955, Hovhaness's composition acquired the name "Mysterious Mountain" much later. Incidentally, it wasn't Hovhaness himself who coined the name. However, Hovhaness himself often spoke of mountains as metaphors for spiritual aspiration and cosmic grandeur, and the name "Mysterious Mountain" did match the tone of the music rather well. The symphony captures the mountain as a sacred symbol: majestic, distant, eternal, serene--a place somewhere between earth and the heavens.

At the time of the composition, Hovhaness had been involved by then in a personal and artistic quest for spiritual music, outside traditional Western modernism.

The symphony has three movements:

The first movement, Andante con moto, opens with a serene, hymn-like theme. The orchestration is soft and glowing, featuring lush strings and gentle...

Each week, the Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.

Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.

This week's selection is Christopher Lasch's "The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy." Published in 1994, the title of Lasch's work consciously inverts the title of José Ortega y Gasset’s classic from 1930, "The Revolt of the Masses," written as a warning about mass society. Lasch's argument was that the problem wasn't the masses rising up; rather it was the elites turning their backs on democracy.

Writing in the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of the old European order, Ortega had argued that modern society had empowered "the masses", and that the masses were mediocre, anti-intellectual ...

Disclose.tv:
JUST IN - German Defense Minister Pistorius says Trump's proposals for territorial cessions from Ukraine to Russia are "going too far" and has assured Ukraine of more weapons from Germany.

@disclosetv

JUST IN - Kim Jong-Un decided to deploy North Korean troops to Russia for military assistance and notified Moscow — Yonhap

Kim Jong-Un: "We will be faithful to the implementation of the North Korea-Russia treaty."

https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20250428004500504

@disclosetv
=)))) innit really embarrassing to have to beg and rely on second-hand countries like Iran and North Korea for military technology and now manpower? :))) if I were Estonia, I would spit on Russia's wannabe great power status too

Dear Gagglers:

Monday is, and has always been, a profoundly depressing day. That's why we have decided to add a little bit of fun to it.

On Monday, March 24, we are holding another film screening. Gagglers can watch a movie and, as they do so, offer comments, random thoughts, aesthetic observations and critical insights in the Live Chat.

We will be screening the winner of The Gaggle's "Vietnam in the movies" poll: Michael Cimino's 1978 masterpiece, "The Deer Hunter,"starring Robert de Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
The film will starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.

See you at the movies.