Thankful I am, two days before Thanksgiving, for things that sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
Horatiu Radulescu (1942-2008), String Quartet No. 5 (“before the universe was born”); JACK Quartet, live, Los Angeles, 2011
Why not begin the week with something beautiful?
John Cage (1912-1992), In a Landscape (1948); Shira Legmann (piano), live, Boston
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lagniappe
reading table
Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
Insomniacs of generations past could never have imagined a world where an unwelcome awakening would yield a jewel like this.
Four Tet (AKA Kieran Hebden), live, Paris, 11/1/14
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lagniappe
found words
Don’t Postpone Joy!
—album title (Joe McPhee Survival Unit III)
alone
Masayoshi Fujita, “Snow Storm,” 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
early winter seclusion—
whose thin smoke
over there?—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
tonight in Chicago
These guys will be playing at Constellation.
Frode Gjerstad Trio (FG, reeds; Jon Rune Strøm, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums)
Live, Poland (Poznan), 2012
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Live, New York, 2012
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lagniappe
random thoughts
What’s surprising isn’t that we die: it’s that we live.
sounds of Niger
Group Inerane, live, Scotland (Glasgow), 2011
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday afternoon, Rito y Recuerdo: Day of the Dead, National Museum of Mexican Art (1852 W. 19th St., Chicago; through December 14th)
*****
onstage: last night, Happy Days (Samuel Beckett), Theatre Y (2649 N. Francisco Ave., Chicago; through November 23rd)
Sometimes I hear sounds. But not often. They are a boon, sounds are a boon, they help me . . . through the day. The old style! Yes, those are happy days, when there are sounds. When I hear sounds.
—Winnie
Need a jolt?
Arto Lindsay (guitar, vocals) & Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), live, Germany (Moers Festival), 2014
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lagniappe
art beat
William Klein (1928-), Gun 1, New York, 1955
sounds of Chicago
Steve Dawson’s Funeral Bonsai Wedding (SD, vocals and guitar; Jason Adasiewicz, vibraphone; Jason Roebke, bass; Frank Rosaly, drums), “As Soon As I Walk In” (S. Dawson), 2014
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music and family have provided two of my life’s through lines. As little boys, my brother Don and I would play in the basement, listening, on the brightly lit juke box, to the Everly Brothers (“Wake Up, Little Susie”), and Johnny Horton (“The Battle of New Orleans”), and Gene Pitney (“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”). Soon we were out the door, hearing the Beatles at Comiskey Park, the Velvet Underground at the Kinetic Playground, and the MC5 in Lincoln Park. Still the beat goes on, undiminished by the passing years. Last week, for my sixty-second birthday, Don gave me (what else?) a record—the new album by this guy, Steve Dawson.
After spending a week and a half in federal court, trying a drug-conspiracy case involving the unfortunately named Imperial Insane Vice Lords, I’m ready for a world without words.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987), For Stefan Wolpe (1986)
Helsinki Chamber Choir, live, Helsinki, 2014
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lagniappe
art beat: more from the other day at the Art Institute of Chicago
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913
two takes
“A Little Lost” (A. Russell)
Sufjan Stevens (1975-), 2014
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Arthur Russell (1951-1992)
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, 1940s
music clip of the day 