music clip of the day

sounds old and new

Nathan Davis (mbira, electronics), Simple Songs of Birth and Return
Live, Chicago, 2014

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lagniappe

reading table

In the fifth century, the sun used to rise every morning and lie down to sleep every evening just as it does now. In the morning, as the first sunbeams kissed the dew, the earth would come to life and the air would fill with sounds of joy, hope, and delight, while in the evening the same earth would fall silent and be swallowed by stern darkness. Day was like day, night like night.

—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), “Without a Title” (translated from Russian by Robert Chandler [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])