What Are You Listening To?

[ZenDruid]

The Native American "flute" reminds me of the Japanese flute:

Yes, I love Japanese flute. I like to listen and just let it clear my mind and take me someplace else. Somewhere in my stack I have an old vinyl LP of the same music.

 

[stlukesguild]

You might also check into the piece for solo flute, Les chants de Nectaire, by the French composer, Charles Koechlin:

​

 

[brianvds]

A collection titled Concerti Galanti:

Perhaps not the most profound music, but what an endless delight on the ear, the very definition of "ear candy," like the musical equivalent of paintings by Watteau, Fragonard or Boucher.

 

[ZenDruid]

what an endless delight on the ear, the very definition of "ear candy,"

It is delightful, reminds me of "Afternoon Of A Faun Chasing Nymphs Around The Forest".

 

[stlukesguild]

One of my favorite classical vocalists singing lush 19th-century French music.

 

[Triduana]

I'm into 1966 now ...

Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde

I honestly didn't think I liked Bob Dylan that much, I might be changing my mind.

 

[stlukesguild]

Here's your boy, Brian... in one of the best recordings ever. Sadly, it seems to be out of print and selling for $62+

It is truly sad that Beethoven and Mozart didn't compose more violin concertos considering just how brilliant their efforts in the genre were. Beethoven only wrote this single violin concerto and Mozart only composed 5... all early compositions... and still among his finest works.

 

[brianvds]

It is truly sad that Beethoven and Mozart didn't compose more violin concertos considering just how brilliant their efforts in the genre were. Beethoven only wrote this single violin concerto and Mozart only composed 5... all early compositions... and still among his finest works.

As I recall, Beethoven's was a box office flop, and this may have contributed to his decision not to bother again. And for some reason he wouldn't write a cello concerto either, despite having given us five very lovely sonatas for the instrument.

I'm currently exploring Mozart's piano concertos. There are so many one is spoiled for choice, and while some are far more well known and popular than others, all the "in-between" ones are also well worth a listen.

 

[Hermes2020]

As I recall, Beethoven's was a box office flop, and this may have contributed to his decision not to bother again. And for some reason he wouldn't write a cello concerto either, despite having given us five very lovely sonatas for the instrument.

I'm currently exploring Mozart's piano concertos. There are so many one is spoiled for choice, and while some are far more well known and popular than others, all the "in-between" ones are also well worth a listen.

Part of the fun of exploring the Mozart piano concertos is listening to the many different interpretations. I have listened to so many performers over the years, but of my recent recordings those by Angela Hewitt and Rudolf Buchbinder give me great pleasure. Of course one shouldn't ignore other giants like Murray Perahia, Maria Joao Pires, or Andras Schiff.

 

[Artyczar]

Been listening to the latest PJ Harvey and First Aid Kit. Both are great.

 

[stlukesguild]

Part of the fun of exploring the Mozart piano concertos is listening to the many different interpretations. I have listened to so many performers over the years, but of my recent recordings those by Angela Hewitt and Rudolf Buchbinder give me great pleasure. Of course one shouldn't ignore other giants like Murray Perahia, Maria Joao Pires, or Andras Schiff.

Some years back I made a great concerted effort to explore a vast range of composers... including many Modernists who ultimately left me cold. With the passing of time I found that I was afforded far more pleasure... and ultimately, that's the goal, isn't it?... my listening to a range of interpretations of favorite composers and favorite works. Mozart's piano concertos are certainly a body of work that rewards in-depth listening through a variety of interpretations. I am a great fan of Angela Hewitt, but admittedly, I have not heard her recordings of the Mozart piano concertos. My go-to artist is probably Murray Perahia, but I also like recordings by Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, as well as Horowitz, Rubinstein, Argerich, and Kempff.

 

[stlukesguild]

As I recall, Beethoven's was a box office flop, and this may have contributed to his decision not to bother again. And for some reason he wouldn't write a cello concerto either, despite having given us five very lovely sonatas for the instrument.

Part of the reasoning behind Beethoven's early abandonment of the piano and violin concertos may have been due to his loss of hearing. This was especially true of the piano concertos. They would have been initially performed with the composer as soloist and included improvised cadenzas, etc... It would have grown increasingly difficult for him to perform as a soloist with an orchestra that he couldn't rightly hear. Undoubtedly, his hearing loss led to his turning to the piano sonatas... which prior to Beethoven were really minor forms. The artist's limitations lead to something magnificent... not unlike what Schubert achieved with the lowly lied.

 

[brianvds]

Right, here's one specially dedicated to StLukes:

Noonoouri is largely AI-generated, voice and all, and "she" is an influencer with more Instagram followers than the rest of us put together. At least "her" songs are still written by humans. We're truly tumbling down the rabbit hole now...

 

[stlukesguild]

Maybe her songs would be better had they also been written by AI.

 

[brianvds]

Maybe her songs would be better had they also been written by AI.

Probably just a question of time, and you can be sure that most Instagram followers will also be AIs trying to sell her stuff.

 

[brianvds]

Some years back I made a great concerted effort to explore a vast range of composers... including many Modernists who ultimately left me cold.

There's usually a reason why a work fell into obscurity. I remain somewhat in two minds about it, because I have discovered some pieces by obscure composers that I rather like and even re-listen every now and then, including some of the symphonies of the much-maligned Joachim Raff. Still, his work is perhaps about as popular it should be, i.e. perfectly respectable, some of it perfectly listenable now and then, but not likely to become the focus of one's listening.

Western culture has grown very, very deep and broad, and we really do have something of embarrassment of riches. There's simply no way to discover all of it.

With the passing of time I found that I was afforded far more pleasure... and ultimately, that's the goal, isn't it?... my listening to a range of interpretations of favorite composers and favorite works.

Indeed: I'm simply getting too old for this endless soul searching about entertainment. Much of my taste in the arts is thoroughly unsophisticated. Well, so be it. I'm probably done trying to read "important literature" for example. I have tried reading those old classics; most of them I found utterly unreadable, and the ones I managed to plow through left me cold. It is what it is: when it comes to literature, I read mostly pulp fiction, and I will no longer make excuses for it or try to hide it. I want to enjoy what I read, not feel like I'm trying to scale Mount Everest.

Thus far, the "difficult literature" that rewarded me the most for taking the considerable effort needed to understand it, have been, surprise, surprise, my university textbooks!

Heard an amusing story yesterday about Edgar Rice Burroughs. Apparently he was a salesman, and none too successful at it. As for reading, he mostly read lots of pulp fiction. Then one day he thought, well geez, frickin' ANYONE could write stuff like this. And so he wrote his first Tarzan book. The rest is history. All that remains now is for the learned professors to decide whether those books are the basest of pulp fiction, or actual genuine classics, or whether, gasp, they could just possibly actually be both.

When I was a conscript in the army, many, many moons ago, they went to some lengths to prevent us from getting hold of such things as high quality newspapers or books, so I ended up reading whatever was lying around. This ranged from tabloid magazines to "photo strips" that were still popular at the time. Not sure whether these were available anywhere outside of this country, but here they were a big thing: basically the same format as a comic book, but the the individual frames were posed by real actors and photographed, rather than being drawn by artists. It was utterly ridiculous, mindless entertainment, and we all loved them.

Ah, I see there's a brief blog post about them here:

Photo Story Magazines - Die Swart Luiperd

Thanks to gorkyvark for these pictures from the famous Photo Story Magazine " Die Swart Luiperd " published by Republican Press in the 1980s...

southafricancomicbooks.blogspot.com

That was also where I discovered my first Stephen King books, which I borrowed from a fellow trooper, and greatly enjoyed.

Last but not least, the whole Tarzan series floated around the dormitory, albeit in Afrikaans translation. I read them all. Utter, complete pulp, and the originals somewhat shockingly racist by modern standards. And I loved them.

I suppose my taste in music is what one might call "sophisticated." In art and literature it is not. And I don't care.

 

[stlukesguild]

There's usually a reason why a work fell into obscurity.

That's not always true. Much of the Baroque and earlier slipped into obscurity as Classical music was dominated by the big orchestral music of Beethoven and later. When I first began to seriously explore and collect Classical music, the Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, and Messiah were about all that could be easily found by Handel, and Vivaldi was almost limited to the Four Seasons. I never found any recordings of Schubert's lieder until I was in Chicago and visited a huge record store there. Even Bach's cantatas and oratorios were a challenge to come by. The movement toward a revival of "early music" is perhaps only 30-40 years old and has uncovered many works of real brilliance that were sadly ignored... or poorly performed using huge "Romantic" orchestras.

I have discovered some pieces by obscure composers that I rather like and even re-listen every now and then, including some of the symphonies of the much-maligned Joachim Raff. Still, his work is perhaps about as popular it should be, i.e. perfectly respectable, some of it perfectly listenable now and then, but not likely to become the focus of one's listening.

Yes, you are correct in the sense that for example Mozart and Haydn remain the dominant focus of the "Classical" era in spite of the fact that there are many other composers of interest: Gossec, J.C. Bach, František Xaver Dušek, Salieri, Johann Peter Salomon, etc... Still, as pleasant as their works may be, none of them are near Mozart or Haydn in terms of quality of their oeuvres as a whole

Western culture has grown very, very deep and broad, and we really do have something of an embarrassment of riches. There's simply no way to discover all of it.

Music and literature... especially... require an investment of time to experience and appreciate, and we can only really come to appreciate so much. And then the world of non-Western Art & Culture is a whole other universe. I have a few works of Indian and Persian music... and even less from Japan... that I am slightly familiar with. I have quite a bit more familiarity and appreciation of non-Western Visual Art... especially the Art of Persia and the Middle East, and Japan... but again, my knowledge of that is far less than my knowledge of Western Art.

Indeed: I'm simply getting too old for this endless soul searching about entertainment. Much of my taste in the arts is thoroughly unsophisticated. Well, so be it. I'm probably done trying to read "important literature" for example. I have tried reading those old classics; most of them I found utterly unreadable, and the ones I managed to plow through left me cold. It is what it is: when it comes to literature, I read mostly pulp fiction, and I will no longer make excuses for it or try to hide it. I want to enjoy what I read, not feel like I'm trying to scale Mount Everest.

My tastes in the Arts range from High to Low. I enjoy comic books, superhero movies, pulp fiction paintings...

... and pinups from the 1940s and 1950s...

... but I also love Shakespeare and Baudelaire and films by Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Ingmar Bergman, etc... and of course classic Art by Michelangelo, Rubens, Degas, and Matisse. I can understand that older literature... perhaps even more than older music and art... demands an investment on the part of the audience. I have found that this pays off... and that once I have put in a certain degree of effort to understand and appreciate the structure and language it becomes second nature. After having read a good deal of poetry and older authors such as Shakespeare and William Blake, I have found I can easily pick up most other poets and authors. But then... I have been a voracious reader of fiction since I was maybe 8 years old, and of poetry since in my early 20s.

Thus far, the "difficult literature" that rewarded me the most for taking the considerable effort needed to understand it, have been, surprise, surprise, my university textbooks!

I can't say this has ever been true for me. I can easily imagine never wanting to read another textbook on the latest educational theories.

Heard an amusing story yesterday about Edgar Rice Burroughs. Apparently he was a salesman, and none too successful at it. As for reading, he mostly read lots of pulp fiction. Then one day he thought, well geez, frickin' ANYONE could write stuff like this. And so he wrote his first Tarzan book. The rest is history. All that remains now is for the learned professors to decide whether those books are the basest of pulp fiction, or actual genuine classics, or whether, gasp, they could just possibly actually be both.

There has always been that Art which straddled both the "High" and the "Low" cultures... for lack of better terms. Shakespeare's plays were popular with the audiences in London... but the poetry of his language is also beloved by academia and the "literati". Hitchcock's films were and still are quite popular with broad audiences... but also with film buffs. Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, among others, certainly straddle pulp fiction and literature.

When I was a conscript in the army, many, many moons ago, they went to some lengths to prevent us from getting hold of such things as high-quality newspapers or books, so I ended up reading whatever was lying around.

Probably don't want soldiers who think too much or too deeply who might then question the powers that be.

This is where I was coming from. While I might be deemed as having a sophisticated taste is music... I don't accept the notion that I need to appreciate... let alone enjoy... the whole of the Classical realm. I'm thinking especially of a good many of the hard-core Modernists... atonal composers like Schoenberg, Krenek, Webern, Berg, John Cage, Ligetti, Xenakis, etc... demand a great deal in terms of an investment of time to come to appreciate... or certainly, this has been true for me... and the payoff has not been a degree of pleasure anywhere near what I have been afforded by exploring alternative performances of favorite composers and favorite works of music... or even from exploring more obscure composers from the same periods as favorite composers. There are a few works I do admire by Berg, Webern, etc... but nothing that makes me think of them as equals to Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Vaughan-Williams, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, etc... let alone Wagner, Mahler, Brahms, etc...

Now back to burying my snobbish nose in Rimbaud's Illuminations.

 

[brianvds]

There's usually a reason why a work fell into obscurity.

That's not always true. Much of the Baroque and earlier slipped into obscurity as Classical music was dominated by the big orchestral music of Beethoven and later. When I first began to seriously explore and collect Classical music, the Water Music, Royal Fireworks Music, and Messiah were about all that could be easily found by Handel, and Vivaldi was almost limited to the Four Seasons.

And there lies the problem. If I don't spend some time trying out obscure composers or works, I'll miss out on some great stuff, but if I spend too much time exploring, I'll never get to fully appreciate some of the well known bits. So much music, so little time.

I recently completed my project of listening through all of Beethoven's numbered opuses (well, with the exception of Fidelio, for the moment, but I did once listen to it in my teens). There are quite a number of potboilers there that are today rightly largely ignored, but also much that I really want to get more deeply into. And I definitely want to expand my exploration of Mozart and Haydn. And Schubert, and Schumann, and Brahms and Dvorak, and....

My tastes in the Arts range from High to Low. I enjoy comic books, superhero movies, pulp fiction paintings...

We both grew up on comics, I think. Remains among my favorite art.

Thus far, the "difficult literature" that rewarded me the most for taking the considerable effort needed to understand it, have been, surprise, surprise, my university textbooks!

I can't say this has ever been true for me. I can easily imagine never wanting to read another textbook on the latest educational theories.

Yeah, but that stuff often isn't "difficult literature." It's obscurantist nonsense. You have my sympathy: I tried to do a postgrad diploma in education once, and got a few months in before I simply couldn't stand it anymore. Here's how I know it's mostly nonsense: the lecturers are supposed to be the experts at presenting material. That is after all the whole point of there being a qualification in education at all. So you'd expect the presentation of the material to be the best you have ever encountered.

Alas, alas: their presentation was the very worst I have ever experienced. Couldn't make head or tails of what they were on about, never got any proper feedback, months into the diploma I had no idea at all of what was expected. By then I had managed to get a job as teacher at a private school which did not require the diploma, so I just let it go.

It was perhaps unwise, because nowadays it has become pretty much impossible to get a teaching job without such qualification. Einstein himself would not be able to get a job as high school physics teacher - he'd be considered, er, "not qualified."

While working at two different schools I had plenty of time to observe teachers "qualified" in education versus ones qualified in the subjects they taught. And I have observed the ability of the "experts in education" to present material versus the ability of my lecturers in other subjects such as botany, zoology and chemistry. I have developed a very deep skepticism about the utility of education as a field, and "theories of education", many of which have proved an utter disaster.

Well, don't even get me started on education, because this is the music thread.

There has always been that Art which straddled both the "High" and the "Low" cultures... for lack of better terms. Shakespeare's plays were popular with the audiences in London... but the poetry of his language is also beloved by academia and the "literati". Hitchcock's films were and still are quite popular with broad audiences... but also with film buffs. Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, among others, certainly straddle pulp fiction and literature.

I often seem to enjoy some of that, e.g. I managed to get through such classic books as Dracula, Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn. But it remains a hit or miss thing.

When I was a conscript in the army, many, many moons ago, they went to some lengths to prevent us from getting hold of such things as high-quality newspapers or books, so I ended up reading whatever was lying around.

Probably don't want soldiers who think too much or too deeply who might then question the powers that be.

Indeed, this was during the apartheid era, when censorship became an epidemic. Such newspapers as were not under control of the government eventually took to printing big, black blocks to indicate that an article had been censored - until that was also prohibited: you were not allowed to even know whether the news was censored.

In the army, no reading material was forbidden as such, but the base's shop only stocked pulpy magazines and such newspapers as were approved by the government, so we got very little news. When South Africa invaded Angola, the last people to learn of this were the soldiers in the army!

This is where I was coming from. While I might be deemed as having a sophisticated taste is music... I don't accept the notion that I need to appreciate... let alone enjoy... the whole of the Classical realm. I'm thinking especially of a good many of the hard-core Modernists... atonal composers like Schoenberg, Krenek, Webern, Berg, John Cage, Ligetti, Xenakis, etc... demand a great deal in terms of an investment of time to come to appreciate... or certainly, this has been true for me... and the payoff has not been a degree of pleasure anywhere near what I have been afforded by exploring alternative performances of favorite composers and favorite works of music... or even from exploring more obscure composers from the same periods as favorite composers. There are a few works I do admire by Berg, Webern, etc... but nothing that makes me think of them as equals to Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Vaughan-Williams, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, etc... let alone Wagner, Mahler, Brahms, etc...

Yes, that was my experience as well, for the most part. I have learned to enjoy a lot of 20th century classical music, but not really the atonalists. I think with a lot of that, the emperor simply isn't all that heavily clad. A great deal of what the cognoscenti claim to be the pinnacle of intellectual and/or aesthetic life, is just obscurantist nonsense. It has infected the humanities and arts; in the sciences and engineering, not so much, because if your bridge crumbles, it's rather tricky to convince the families of the dead people that it had actually worked well, and they just need to think about it a bit more deeply.

But I have some strange tastes, e.g. to the extent that I enjoy architecture as art form, I am quite fond of a lot of brutalism, while much of classical architecture leaves me cold.

Now back to burying my snobbish nose in Rimbaud's Illuminations.

Good luck with it! I just finished Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and it was a grisly delight.

 

[stlukesguild]

And there lies the problem. If I don't spend some time trying out obscure composers or works, I'll miss out on some great stuff, but if I spend too much time exploring, I'll never get to fully appreciate some of the well-known bits. So much music, so little time.
Yes... and having amassed a sizeable collection of recorded music I've reached a stage where I'm not really interested in seeking out anything new. I think the same is true of my library of literature... and to a lesser extent, to the visual arts. I have enough already to explore more deeply for the rest of my life. Perhaps, it's just my age... or perhaps I think of how artists like Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, J.S. Bach were far less knowledgeable of the breadth of art/music/literature than we are... but perhaps more understanding of the depth that might be found within a smaller range.
I recently completed my project of listening through all of Beethoven's numbered opuses... There are quite a number of potboilers there that are today rightly largely ignored, but also much that I really want to get more deeply into. And I definitely want to expand my exploration of Mozart and Haydn. And Schubert, and Schumann, and Brahms and Dvorak, and....
There have been times that I have made concerted efforts to explore the entire oeuvre of certain artists that enthrall me... but usually, I have been far more likely to skip about. I'll listen to several Beethoven quartets then jump to Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones, and back to Mozart or Haydn. Over the years, there have been any number of artists whose entire oeuvre I have eventually digested... and even become quite familiar with... as a whole.
We both grew up on comics, I think. Remains among my favorite art.
My first real exposure... and love of the visual arts definitely included book illustrations and comic books. There was a period in my teens when I seriously aspired to become a comic book illustrator. I never saw any real paintings by master artists until I was 17 or 18 and visited a couple of local museums on my own. I definitely still look at comic book illustrations... and there are several "fine artists" whose work I greatly admire who began as comic book artists or illustrators... perhaps most prominently, Wiesenfeld...

... and Kent Williams:

SLG (quoted) I can't say this has ever been true for me. I can easily imagine never wanting to read another textbook on the latest educational theories.

Yeah, but that stuff often isn't "difficult literature." It's obscurantist nonsense. You have my sympathy: I tried to do a postgrad diploma in education once, and got a few months in before I simply couldn't stand it anymore.
Yes... there is the obscurantist BS... and there is a lot pushing for teaching based on standardized testing and data, data, data. The idea that the visual arts can not be reduced to objective standards and data goes against the desire of educational leaders and administrators to package everything neatly within a box. The child who goes off on a tangent and fails to meet the objective standards but achieves something really original is not something they can understand... or appreciate.
I had plenty of time to observe teachers "qualified" in education versus ones qualified in the subjects they taught. And I have observed the ability of the "experts in education" to present material versus the ability of my lecturers in other subjects such as botany, zoology and chemistry. I have developed a very deep skepticism about the utility of education as a field, and "theories of education", many of which have proved an utter disaster.
I have experienced both. I have seen/experienced teachers whose studies involved mostly "how to teach", and I have seen/experienced teachers who were primarily masters of a given field of study (Art, Literature, etc...) I have seen/experienced good and bad teachers in both groups. I had professors who were undoubtedly brilliant artists but miserable at communicating their knowledge to students... and brilliant teachers who were admittedly limited in their grasp of the discipline they were called to teach. I suspect that in teaching children, the teacher needs a good deal of knowledge in understanding child development and how to engage children. We have repeatedly had politicians suggest we confront the shortage in teachers by allowing those who are experts in a given discipline (Science, Mathematics, History, etc...) be rapidly certified to teach in the public schools... but quite honestly, I don't know how well such experienced "experts"... or even a college professor might do at teaching Math (for example) without any real idea of how to engage and maintain control and order in a class of 28 11-year-olds.
... this was during the apartheid era, when censorship became an epidemic. Such newspapers as were not under control of the government eventually took to printing big, black blocks to indicate that an article had been censored - until that was also prohibited: you were not allowed to even know whether the news was censored.
Not to delve into the forbidden topic of politics, we have more than a few who seem eager to embrace censorship here. As an artist, I have always been strongly in favor of "freedom of speech and freedom of the press." My old studio partner used to bemoan the Internet because anyone could say anything without any editorial oversight. Initially, I wholly embraced this. Seeing what a monster social media has become, I must admit to having second thoughts.
Yes, that was my experience as well, for the most part. I have learned to enjoy a lot of 20th century classical music, but not really the atonalists. I think with a lot of that, the emperor simply isn't all that heavily clad. A great deal of what the cognoscenti claim to be the pinnacle of intellectual and/or aesthetic life, is just obscurantist nonsense. It has infected the humanities and arts; in the sciences and engineering, not so much, because if your bridge crumbles, it's rather tricky to convince the families of the dead people that it had actually worked well, and they just need to think about it a bit more deeply.
I haven't seen as much of the mental Onanism that resulted in 4-minutes & 33 seconds of silence or a banana duct-taped to the wall being championed as brilliant works of Art within the real of literature. There are literary critics whose works strike me as little more than gobbledygook... but I haven't come upon too many leading figures within the realm of novelists or poets that leave me baffled or thinking indeed, this is the Emperor's New Clothes.
But I have some strange tastes, e.g. to the extent that I enjoy architecture as art form, I am quite fond of a lot of brutalism, while much of classical architecture leaves me cold.

I have to agree with the critics who argue that Brutalism almost abuses the audience who must daily live with such. I think it was Frank Lloyd Wright who suggested that a bad sculpture can just be stored away in the closet somewhere, while someone has to live in a garish or ugly house or apartment.

 

[Artyczar]

Not to delve into the forbidden topic of politics, we have more than a few who seem eager to embrace censorship here. As an artist, I have always been strongly in favor of "freedom of speech and freedom of the press." My old studio partner used to bemoan the Internet because anyone could say anything without any editorial oversight. Initially, I wholly embraced this. Seeing what a monster social media has become, I must admit to having second thoughts.

To remind you, the people who run CreativeSpark are not "the Internet," "America," "the Press," or "eager" to censor anyone. Perhaps we are also in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of the press! We are also artists you know. I don't think this was a fair comment. It is a bit of a personal insult. Or maybe you still don't understand that this forum that has rules like any other forum. It's a place that has a very specific purpose. It is not a free-for-all. It is not for politics. It is not for any type of debate or religious commentary or belief systems. It's for art and we don't want to waste time having to moderate every single thing when it's all created on the backs of a labor of love, volunteer help, and a few generous donations from the members to keep all the bandwidth possible for everyone's images. We don't represent the internet as a whole. We are but one little place that allows some stuff, but doesn't allow other stuff for our own good reasons. That's not a commentary on the beliefs of "censorship" upon the owners of the site just because we don't want to moderate divisive conversations and/or images. Feel free to set up a web server and forum software and try it yourself with 100% freedoms and see how easy that would be.