testify!
Pilgrim Jubilee Singers (aka Pilgrim Jubilees), “Testify” (feat. Cleve Graham), “Old Ship of Zion” (feat. Clay Graham), live, TV Show (Jubilee Showcase), Chicago, 1964
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
***
a walk, a voice, a poem
“The Door” by Miroslav Holub (1923-1998), translated from Czech by Ian Milner
timeless
Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945), “God Don’t Never Change,” recorded 12/10/1929 (New Orleans)
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lagniappe
reading table
Within this temporal body composed of a hundred bones and nine holes there resides a spirit which, for lack of an adequate name, I think of as windblown.
—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), The Knapsack Notebook (translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
sounds of Chicago
This track, even after forty years, I never tire of hearing.
Albertina Walker (1929-2010) with Rev. James Cleveland (1931-1991), “Please Be Patient with Me” (J. Cleveland), live, Chicago, 1979 (Please Be Patient with Me)
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langiappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)
timeless
Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), “How I Got Over” (C. Ward), live, Chicago
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lagniappe
reading table
Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul?
—John Keats (1795-1821), letter to his brother George Keats, 1819
back to church
Richard Smallwood (piano), et al., “The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power” ( A. Crouch), live, Largo, Md., 2008
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Mississippi
Mississippi Mass Choir (featuring Frank Williams [1947-1993] and Angela Curry), “Near the Cross,” live, 1989
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lagniappe
reading table
You have to change to stay the same.
—Willem de Kooning, 1904-1997 (Richard Shiff, Between Sense and de Kooning, 2011)
*****
random sights
this morning, Westchester, Ill.
Aretha testifies
Aretha Franklin (1942-2018), “Climbing Higher Mountains” (with Rev. James Cleveland), live, Los Angeles, 1972
testify!
Lee Williams (1942-2017) and the Spiritual QC’s, “Can’t Run,” live, Memphis
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Kankakee, Ill. (by the local jail)
sounds of Chicago
Carrie Robinson, “Power to Live Right,” live, Chicago (Maxwell Street), 1965
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Forest Park, Ill.
two takes
“When the Gates Swing Open” (T. A. Dorsey)
Otis Clay (1942-2016), live, Chicago, c. 2007
***
Al Green (1946-), live, Memphis, 1983
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lagniappe
reading table
Spring and All
by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance,
sluggish dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
music clip of the day 