Something to wash over you.
John Luther Adams (1953-), The Light Within (2007); New Music Detroit, live, Detroit, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
spring rain—
the uneaten ducks
are quacking—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
sweet soul music
Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999), “Move On Up” (C. Mayfield), live (Master Henry Gibson [1942-2002], hand drums), Netherlands (The Hague), 1987
In a hurry?
Better go somewhere else.
Want to step outside of time?
You’ve come to the right place.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Piano Sonata No. 18 (G major, D. 894); Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), live
Tried listening to this last night while working on a criminal appeal. Couldn’t. Work waited.
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
sweet soul music
Do you feel me?
—Bobby Womack (1944-2014)
Bobby Womack, live, England (Glastonbury Festival), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Garfield Park Conservatory)
old school
Mighty Clouds of Joy (feat. Joe Ligon, lead vocals), live (TV show), 1976
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lagniappe
reading table
God’s Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)The world is charged with the grandeur of God.It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black West wentOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —Because the Holy Ghost over the bentWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
otherworldly
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Infinity for bass clarinet and ensemble, Hyperion Ensemble (feat. Tim Hodgkinson, clarinets), live, Bucharest, 2009
#1
***
#2
I love watching this guy conduct.
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh, Parisian Novels, 1887 (Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, through May 10th)
only rock ‘n’ roll
Joy Division, live (“Digital,” “New Dawn Fades,” “Colony,” “Autosuggestion”), Netherlands, 1980
Uneasy sounds for an uneasy world.
Iancu Dumitrescu (1944-), Hyperspectres for doublebasses, cellos, and percussion, live, Paris, 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow / And leaden-eyed despairs
—John Keats (1795-1821), “Ode to a Nightingale”
More cello.
Marcos Balter (1974-), Memoria (2007); Katinka Kleijn, live, Brazil (Manaus), 2014
lagniappe
reading table
. . . and the mystery itself is the gateway to perception.
—Lao Tzu (c. 5th cent. B.C.), Tao Te Ching, translated from Chinese by Sam Hamill
More cello.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), Transitions (2014); Michael Nicolas, live, Chicago, 2015
lagniappe
reading table
Let Emily sing for you because she cannot pray . . .
—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), letter to cousins Louis and Frances Norcross (on the death of their father), 1863
music clip of the day 