The moment this ends I want to hear it again.
Rev. E. M. Martin and Pearline Johns, “I’m Going Home On The Morning Train,” Clarksdale, Miss. (Nelson Funeral Home), 1942
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lagniappe
reading table
Mortality is fatal
Gentility is fine
Rascality, heroic
Insolvency, sublime—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #2 (excerpt), 1852
White folks are cool, too.
Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, live, Washington, D.C., 2013
what’s new
Mavis Staples, “I Like The Things About Me” (R. Staples & M. Stubbs), One True Vine, 6/13
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Language, no matter how much it’s used, never seems to get used up. Take this sentence, for instance, which opens Donald Ray Pollock’s story collection Knockemstiff: “My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old.” Not one of these words is unusual, nor is the syntax. But this particular set of words, in this particular order, never existed before. How improbable is that?
tonight
I’ll be at the Hideout, a small club on Chicago’s northwest side, seeing this Ethiopian dancer, this baritone saxophonist, and an array of other dancers and musicians.
Melaku Belay (dance), Ken Vandermark (baritone saxophone), Joe McPhee (alto saxophone), Milwaukee, 6/22/13
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wind blowing
paper fans rustling
rustling—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), 1823 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
passings
Bobby “Blue” Bland, singer, January 27, 1930-June 23, 2013
“I’ll Take Care Of You,” 1959
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“I Pity The Fool,” 1961
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“That’s The Way Love Is,” 1963
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“Call On Me,” 1962
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“Ain’t Nothing You Can Do,” 1964
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“Turn On Your Love Light,” 1961
two takes
“A House Is Not A Home” (B. Bacharach & H. David)
Luther Vandross (1951-2005), live, 1988
*****
Ronald Isley (1941-) & Burt Bacharach, TV show, 2004
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This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me –—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #519 (excerpt)
Stevie testifies.
Stevie Wonder, “I Won’t Complain,” Luther Vandross’s funeral, New York (The Riverside Church), 2005
(Originally posted 10/11/09.)
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reading table
I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears.
—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
If I had a dollar for every guitar player I’ve ever heard who had an original sound and approach, I probably couldn’t afford dinner.
David Fiuczynski Group,* live, New York, 2010
#1
#2
#3
*DF, guitar; Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophone; John Medeski, keyboards; David Ginyard, bass; Skoota Warner, drums.
old school
The Miracles (AKA, beginning in 1965, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles), live (TV shows), 1960s
“You Really Got A Hold On Me”
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“Ooo Baby Baby” (AKA “Ooh Baby Baby”)
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reading table
As life proceeds, and the long journey is recognised for what it is, the look that is cast back unconsciously falsifies. That there were winters is a fact which is discarded, seemingly forgotten. And the longing for more summer, more life, intensifies as the dark days wear on, as if light and life have become interchangeable, as perhaps they are.
—Anita Brookner, Dolly
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