two takes
“Don’t Start Me Talkin'” (S. Williamson)
Sonny Boy Williamson II (AKA Aleck [or Alex] “Rice” Miller), recording, 1955
*****
Bob Dylan, TV show (David Letterman), 1984
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lagniappe
reading table
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
—Herman Melville (1819-1891), Moby-Dick
Food.
Family.
Gratitude.
Once a year’s plenty for most holidays.
Thanksgiving couldn’t come too often.
Dolly Varden, “Thank You” (For A While, 2013)
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Strand (1890-1976)
Barns and Sheds, Louiseville, Quebec, 1936
serendipity
This I bumped into the other day on the radio.*
Salvatore Sciarrino (1947-), Piano Trio No. 2 (1987); Alter Ego Ensemble, 1999
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lagniappe
art beat
Paul Strand (1890-1976)
Abstraction, Porch Shadows, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916
*****
*WKCR-FM (Columbia University), Afternoon New Music (11/25/13).
alone
John Cage (1912-1992), In a Landscape (1948); Keiko Shichijo (piano), live, Amsterdam, c. 2009
This I could listen to all day, all week, all month.
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
I find that music is humans’ most advanced achievement, more so than painting and writing, because it’s more mysterious, more magical, and it acts in such a direct way.
alone
Something quiet to start the week.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), Palais de Mari (1986); Michael Hicks (piano), live, Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), 2006
His music, like Mozart’s, grants us access to an alternative world—one that’s clear, and light, and airy.
Jimmy Witherspoon (vocals) with Art Pepper (alto saxophone), “Past Forty Blues,” live, Los Angeles, 1981
Art never fails to captivate. But it’s hard to watch this without mixed emotions. He looks, to these eyes, completely coked up. The next year, at the age of fifty-six, he suffered a fatal stroke.
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lagniappe
reading table
[W]hen a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself.
—Rebecca Mead, My Life in Middlemarch (reviewed by novelist Claire Messud in the Dec./Jan. 2014 Bookforum)
only rock ’n’ roll
The Dirtbombs, live, Birmingham, Ala., 2008
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
When I turn to rock ’n’ roll, I’m not looking for poetry. I go to poetry for poetry. Nor am I looking for brilliant musicianship. That I can find in classical music and in jazz. I’m not looking for roof-raising fervor, either. Gospel music gives me that. What I’m looking for when I turn to rock ’n’ roll is something I can’t find anywhere else—rock ’n’ roll.
spellbinding
Hariprasad Chaurasia (bansuri [bamboo flute]), Raga Bhimpalasi, 1991
#1
#2
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lagniappe
radio
Today, celebrating the jazz saxophonist’s birthday, WKCR-FM (Columbia University) is Coleman Hawkins Radio.
*****
reading table
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
—Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), The Rambler (#2), 1750
music clip of the day 