Imaginary

Visual Arts

• Kazimir Malevich, High Society in Top Hats Relaxing (1908)
• Theo van Rysselberghe, In the Shade of the Pines (1905)
• Mary Cassatt, Summertime (1894)
• Paul Gaugin, Siesta (1892-94)
• Edgar Degas, Dancers Relaxing (1885)
• Paul Cezanne, Couples Relaxing by a Pond (1875)
• Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 94 Degrees in the Shade (1876)
• Claude Monet, Relaxing in the Garden, Argenteuil (1876)
• Camille Pissarro, Landscape with Strollers Relaxing under the Trees (1872)
• Camille Corot, Rest in the Water Meadows (1865)
• Francisco de Goya, Sleep (c. 1800)

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Hawaii is a great place to vacation. Its music reflects calm ocean waves on a sandy beach. Its musical specialty is the slack key guitar, brilliantly represented by the following artists, among others.

Ray Kane albums:

• “Punahele”
• “Wa’ahila”
• “The Legendary Ray Kane Old Style Slack Key”

Dennis Kamakahi albums:

• “Pua’ena - Glow Brightly”
• “’Ohana – Family”
• “The Gift of Music – From Father to Son”

Sol Hoopii albums:

• “Master of the Hawaiian Guitar, Volume 1”
• “Master of the Hawaiian Guitar, Volume Two”
• “The Very Best of Sol Hoopii”

Keola Beamer albums:

• “ Mālama Ko Aloha (Keep Your Love)”
• “Raiatea”
• “Hawaii’s Keola and Kapono Beamer”
• “Honolulu City Lights” (Keola and Kapono Beamer)

King Bennie Nawahi album and an irrestitable track:

• “Hawaiian String Virtuoso: Acoustic Steel Guitar Classics from the 1920s”
• Singing In the Bathtub (just try not having fun listening to this)

Ozzie Kotani albums:

• “Kani Ki Ho’alu (The Sound of Slack Key)”
• “To Honor a Queen: Music of Lili’uokalani”

Aaron Larget-Caplan, New Lullaby Project:

• Volume 1: “New Lullaby”
• Volume 2: “Nights Transfigured”
• Volume 3: “Drifting”

Albums from other genres:

• Steven Halpern, “Relax into Sleep at the Speed of Sound” (2021) (72’)
• Steven Halpern, “Effortless Relaxation” (2014) (76')
• Steven Halpern, “Relaxation Suite” (2008) (75')
• Liquid Mind II, “Slow World”
• Liquid Mind VIII, “Sleep”
• Liquid Mind XI, “Deep Sleep”
• “Deep Lucid Dreaming Sleep Music”
• Frank Kimbrough, “Play”
• Bruce O’Neil conducting Orchestra of the Swan, “Vivaldi Sleep Project”, “with diverse guest artists from the world of jazz, folk and rock”

Compositions:

• Fibich, At Twilight, Op. 39, H306 (1893)

Poetry

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,

      Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,

      Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close

      In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,

Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws

      Around my bed its lulling charities.

Then save me, or the passed day will shine

Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—

      Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords

Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

      Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

[John Keats, “To Sleep”]

If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said, a pure time for the mind to rest and heal, why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel that they have stolen everything you had? Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn? It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep, it can be remembered only in half-sleep, moments of drowsiness that gild and adorn. The waking mind with dreams, which may well be but broken images of the night’s treasure, a timeless world that has no name or measure and breaks up in the mirrors of the day. Who will you be tonight, in the dark thrall of sleep, when you have slipped across its wall?

[Jorge Luis Borges, “Sleep”]

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Franz Schubert (composer), Die Nacht (The Night), D. 358 (1816) (lyrics)
• Franz Schubert, Wandrer’s Nachtlied II (Wayfarer’s Night Song II), Op. 96, No. 3, D. 768 (lyrics)
• Arnold Bax (composer), Lullaby (Berceuse)