timeless
Anton Webern (1883-1945), Variations, op. 27 (1936); Maurizio Pollini (1942-, piano), live, Paris, 2002
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
found words
Nobody’s “fine.”
—Governor Andrew Cuomo, yesterday’s press briefing on the pandemic
This I could listen to all day.
Georgia Louis, “Canaan Land,” live (TV show), New York, 1960s
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lagniappe
found words
Yesterday, on the radio, a man held in solitary confinement in Louisiana’s Angola Prison for over forty years:
You feel like the atmosphere is closing in on you. You feel like the very skin on your body is compressing.
—Albert Woodfox, author of Solitary (out March 5th)
only rock ’n’ roll
MC5: A True Testimonial (2002)
Thanks to my brother Don for the tip. We first encountered these guys in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The park is still there. But that moment, when, as a teenager, nothing mattered more than intensity and attitude, is long gone.
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lagniappe
found words
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the advertising from the conceptual art. Last night, while driving to Hyde Park to hear pianist Rafal Blechacz, I came upon a billboard:
BE AMBITIOUS.
NOT THIRSTY.
Who knew Diet Coke could be so deep?
sounds of Chicago
Paul Butterfield (vocals, harmonica), Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Mark Naftalin (keyboards), et al., live, Boston, 1971
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lagniappe
found words
Automated response received yesterday, after calling my pharmacy to find out if a prescription was ready, getting a recorded recitation of the available options, and hitting “0” in the hope of reaching a non-virtual human being:
This is not a valid command.
two takes
Weary of winter? Here in Chicago we’ve had six feet of snow. How about a little trip south, way south, to Argentina?
Juana Molina, “Un Dia”
Live (TV show), c. 2010
***
Recording, 2008
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lagniappe
found words
This just in from Spotify:
Now trending near you. Bob Dylan.
only rock ’n’ roll
The Ex, “Double Order,” France (Orleans), 2013
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lagniappe
found words
From the Chicago Reader music section (2/20/14):
. . . hails from the same quasi-grimestep/post-IDM interzone that’s home to artists as disparate as . . .
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This Liverpool trio plays what it calls ‘caveman doom’ . . .
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. . . retrofuturist murder ballad . . .
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. . . works the same territory that grindcore and sludge bands cleared in the 90s.
my favorite 103-year-old composer
Elliott Carter (December 11, 1908-), Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux (1985); Claire Chase (flute),* Joshua Rubin (clarinet), International Contemporary Ensemble; live, Brazil (Sao Paulo), 2012
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
The “opportunity cost” of listening to something you already know, to borrow from the dreary world of economics, is that you’re forgoing an opportunity to discover something new.
*****
found words
Last night, after a concert at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall (Takacs Quartet), I stopped at Harold’s Chicken Shack on 53rd Street, as much for old times’ sake as anything else (Harold got me through law school), and found this at the bottom of the receipt:
REFUNDS WITHIN 24 HOURS
MUST BRING FOOD BACK
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*Winner of a 2012 MacArthur “genius grant.”
basement jukebox
The Falcons (feat. Wilson Pickett [vocals], Robert Ward [guitar])
“Take This Love I’ve Got” (1963)
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The Ohio Untouchables (feat. Robert Ward [vocals/guitar])
“I’m Tired” (1962)
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lagniappe
found words
Singer, 43, Snapped In Tiny Bikini
—AOL Headline, 8/31/12
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This active fluidity and tidal composite of duration is the condition of the aesthetic.
—George Steiner, The Poetry of Thought: From Hellenism To Celan (2011)
back to church
“What I Am,” Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, Chester, S.C.
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lagniappe
found words
Sometimes particles are essentially their own anti-particle.
—Sean Carroll, Science Friday (NPR), 7/7/12
two takes
“Kung Fu” (C. Mayfield)
The Dirtbombs, live, New York (Southpaw, Brooklyn), 2008
*****
Curtis Mayfield, recording (Sweet Exorcist), 1974
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lagniappe
found words
Yesterday, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where I am for my son Alex’s college graduation), sitting on a brick sidewalk in Harvard Square, a panhandler with a sign:
OBAMA’S NOT THE ONLY ONE
WHO WANTS CHANGE
music clip of the day 