Wednesday, December 11th
sounds of Chicago
Son Seals, “On My Knees,” live (TV show), 1980s
Musical notation has its place. Sometimes, though, it’s useless. How could marks on a piece of paper ever capture his attack?
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Month: December, 2013
2013
2013
Tuesday, December 10th
keep on dancing
Theo Parrish, live, London (Boiler Room), 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
*****
the beat goes on
Fifteen hundred posts—and counting.
2013
Monday, December 9th
sounds of Chicago
Something quiet to begin the week.
Tobias Broström (1978-), “Twilight”; Third Coast Percussion, live
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lagniappe
reading table
quite remarkable
being born human . . .
autumn dusk.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
2013
Sunday, December 8th
sounds of Chicago
The Stars of Heaven, live, Chicago, 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
John H. White, Chicago (south side), 1973
2013
Saturday, December 7th
serendipity
Last night I was feeling glum. Then I happened upon this. Listen to this piano sing.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major; Maria João Pires (piano), Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Trevor Pinnock, cond.), live
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lagniappe
reading table
Why love what you will lose?
There is nothing else to love.—Louise Glück, “From the Japanese” (excerpt)
2013
Friday, December 6th
sounds of Chicago
Robbie Fulks, “I’ll Trade You Money For Wine,” live, Norway (Oslo), 2013
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Uptown, Chicago (1965)
2013
Thursday, December 5th
soundtrack to a dream
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994), String Quartet (1964); Tetris Quartet, live, Thailand (Bangkok), 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Lee Friedlander (1934-), Japan (Kyoto), 1981
2013
Wednesday, December 4th
two takes
Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931), Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor (1923)
Maxim Vengerov, live
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Hilary Hahn, live
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lagniappe
reading table
Fragments from the December issue of Poetry:
Mother died last night,
Mother who never dies.—Louise Glück, “Nocturne”
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The purpose
Life is
To find—May Swenson, “Banyan”
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Poetry knows we are as close as a feather to disaster.
—Marianne Boruch, “Melodrama”
2013
Tuesday, December 3rd
career plans for the next life
If none of those other things pan out (tap dancer, rubboard player, reggae bassist, guitarist in a Malian band), I might give cellist-in-a-string-quartet a shot.
Keller String Quartet, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), The Art of the Fugue (excerpts); György Kurtág (1926-), Officium Breve (excerpts)
2013
Monday, December 2nd
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Second Hand (1970),* New York (Brooklyn Academy of Music), 2011
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lagniappe
random thoughts
What if your entire life—every thought, every movement, every word—were actually a work of art, only pretending to be something ordinary?
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*Merce Cunningham, choreography; John Cage, music; Jasper Johns, costumes.
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