Ever heard this instrument before? (Me neither.)
Kazue Sawai (1941-), bass koto, live, Tokyo, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
—Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), “Worstword Ho” (1983)
sounds of India
day three
Shivkumar [AKA Shiv Kumar] Sharma (1938-), santoor
Raag Hamsadhwani, live
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Indian music calls for surrender. Of what? Busyness. Distractability. Impatience.
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reading table
[S]ince we do float on an unknown sea, I think we should examine the other floating things that come our way carefully; who knows what might depend on it?
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), letter to Robert Lowell
sounds of India
day two
Feel like floating?
Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938-), bansuri (bamboo flute), Raag Durga, live
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lagniappe
random thoughts
What would it be like to live there—a world with no sky?
sounds of India
day one
Nikhil Banerjee (1931-1986), sitar, Raag Jaijaiwanti, live recording
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lagniappe
reading table
Everything only connected by “and” and “and.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), “Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance”
sounds of Cambodia
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, 2014
There are all kinds of grooves.
Dengue Fever, “Ghost Voice,” “Tokay,” “Girl from the North,” “No Sudden Moves,” live (studio performance), Seattle, 2/10/15
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lagniappe
reading table
Life is full of uncertainties and evil, but sometimes a good meal is enough to get you through even the worst of it.
—Melanie Rehak, Bookforum, April-May, 2015 (reviewing Mystery Writers of America Cookbook: Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die for)
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.
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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
serendipity
Every so often, like, for instance, last night, when I was listening to the radio* while working on a brief for a client who’s serving a 20-year sentence for attempted murder, I find myself being totally swept away by something that, a minute earlier, I didn’t even know existed.
Pannalal Ghosh (1911-1960), bansuri (Indian flute), Raga Darbari
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lagniappe
random thoughts
One thing we can be sure of, in an otherwise uncertain world, is that each of us is a child of a God who may or may not exist.
*Raag Aur Taal, WKCR-FM (Columbia University).
sounds of India
Vilayat Khan (1928-2004), sitar, with Kishan Maharaj (1923-2008), tabla, Raga Bhairavi, live, London, 2002
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lagniappe
reading table
Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes.
—John Updike, Rabbit, Run
sounds of Thailand
Kung Narin Phin Sing, live, Thailand
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lagniappe
reading table
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become “better organized.”—Lydia Davis, “Tropical Storm” (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, 2009)
music clip of the day 