Wednesday, February 18th
white folks got soul, too
(day three)
J.J. Cale (1938-2013)
“Call Me the Breeze” (J.J. Cale), live, Tulsa, 2004
***
“After Midnight” (J.J. Cale), live (with Eric Clapton), Dallas, 2004
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Month: February, 2015
2015
2015
Tuesday, February 17th
white folks got soul, too
(day two)
Tony Joe White & Shelby Lynne, live, Nashville, 2010
“Rainy Night in Georgia” (T. J. White)
***
“Can’t Go Back Home” (T. J. White)
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lagniappe
reading table
“Did I forget to mention that when you’re dead
You’re dead a long time.
My uncle, dying, told me this when asked, Why stay here for such suffering.”
—Lucie Brock-Broido, “Currying the Fallow-Colored Horse” (Stay, Illusion)
2015
Monday, February 16th
white folks got soul, too
(day one)
More of Lucinda W.
Lucinda Williams (with Tony Joe White [harmonica, guitar], et al.), “West Memphis” (L. Williams), recording session, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Why am I now a walking accident waiting to happen? Why am I more worried about that than whether there’s an afterlife?
***
I don’t look in mirrors anymore. It’s cheaper than surgery.
***
Bonding heads the list of words I’ve ruled out. Emerson was right—as he was about everything: an infinite remoteness underlies us all. And what’s wrong with that? Remoteness joins us as much as it separates us, but in a way that’s truly mysterious, yet completely adequate for the life ongoing.
—Richard Ford, “I’m Here” (Let Me Be Frank With You)
2015
Sunday, February 15th
back to church
Pineville AME Hymn Choir, “Daniel—That Suits Me,” St. Luke Baptist Church, Sharon, South Carolina, 2001
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lagniappe
art beat
William Klein (1928-), Pray, Sin, New York, 1954
2015
Saturday, February 14th
Something cheery to start the weekend.
Lucinda Williams, “It’s Gonna Rain” (L. Williams), live (studio performance), Seattle, 2/11/15
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lagniappe
reading table
How can you give orders when nobody is listening?
—John Ashbery, “Be Careful What You Wish For” (New York Review of Books, 3/5/15)
2015
Tuesday, February 10th
more sounds of Mali
Toumani Diabate (kora), live, India (New Delhi), 2011
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lagniappe
random thoughts
If today is the answer, what is the question?
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
2015
Monday, February 9th
Why start the week with the same old stuff?
Derek Bailey (1930-2005, guitar), Min Tanaka (1945-, dance), Japan, 1993
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lagniappe
reading table
For you fleas too,
The night must be long,
It must be lonely.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by R. H. Blyth)
*****
the beat goes on
Nineteen hundred posts—and counting.
2015
Sunday, February 8th
old school
Soul Revivals, “If You Miss Me,” c. 1975
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lagniappe
reading table
Speak, You Also
by Paul Celan (1920-1970, translated from German by Michael Hamburger)Speak, you also,
speak as the last,
have your say.Speak—
But keep yes and no unsplit.
And give your say this meaning:
give it the shade.Give it shade enough,
give it as much
as you know has been dealt out between
midnight and midday and midnight.Look around:
look how it all leaps alive—
where death is! Alive!
He speaks truly who speaks the shade.But now shrinks the place where you stand:
Where now, stripped by shade, will you go?
Upward. Grope your way up.
Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer.
Finer: a thread by which
it wants to be lowered, the star:
to float farther down, down below
where it sees itself gleam: in the swell
of wandering words.
2015
Saturday, February 7th
basement jukebox
Hank Snow (1914-1999), “Honeymoon on a Rocket Ship”(C. E. “Hank” Snow, J. Masters), 1953
2015
Friday, February 6th
sounds of Mali (day four)
Tinariwen, live, Paris, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
It was what it might have been to be alive, but tenderly.
—Lucie Brock-Broido, “A Meadow” (Stay, Illusion)
music clip of the day 