sounds of Jamaica
Koffee, “Pressure” (remix feat. Buju Banton), 10/20/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
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reading table
We use similes to show
things are connected –and they are,
just not in the way we say.—Rae Armantrout, from “Finalist” (London Review of Books, 10/8/20)
passings
Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, singer, songwriter, December 8, 1942–September 11, 2020
The Maytals (later Toots and the Maytals), “Pressure Drop” (F. Hibbert), 1970 (original recording)
It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: If you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you. The title was a phrase I used to say. If someone done me wrong, rather than fight them like a warrior, I’d say: “The pressure’s going to drop on you.”
—Toots Hibbert, The Guardian, 9/6/16
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
basement jukebox
Dobby Dobson (July 5, 1942-July 21, 2020), “I’m a Loving Pauper,” 1967
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
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reading table
A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), from Narrow Road to the Interior (translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
sounds of Jamaica
Bob Marley and the Wailers, live (“Catch A Fire,” “Trenchtown Rock,” “Concrete Jungle,” “Midnight Ravers,” “Talkin´ Blues,” “Rebel Music,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Natty Dread”), Chicago (Quiet Knight), 6/10/75
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Happy—70th!—Birthday to my brother Don, with whom I’ve heard more music, in and around Chicago, than I could ever possibly recall. Most recently there was Ry Cooder at Thalia Hall; but before that—way before that—there was, let’s see, Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Quiet Knight (today’s clip), and the MC5 in Lincoln Park (during the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention), and the Velvet Underground at the Kinetic Playground (after which, on our way back to the car, we were stopped by Chicago police, in an unmarked car, who took us back to the station—curfew bust), and the Beatles at Comiskey Park, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Kingston Trio, the Smothers Brothers, and the Beach Boys at Arie Crown Theater (with Dad), and Johnny Tillotson, Gene Pitney, and Bobby Rydell on the basement jukebox, and . . . the list goes on, and on, and on.
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reading table
Reflecting over seventy years,
I am tired of judging right from wrong.
Faint traces of a path trodden in deep night snow.
A stick of incense under the rickety window.—Ryokan (1758-1831), translated from Japanese by Kazuaki Tanahashi
sounds of Kingston
Desmond Dekker & The Aces, “007 (Shanty Town)” (D. Dekker), official music video (shot in Kingston, Jamaica), 1967
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
We are survivors of immeasurable events,
Flung upon some reach of land,
Small, wet miracles without instructions,
Only the imperative of change.—Rebecca Elson (1960-1999), “Evolution”
sounds of Kingston
Sevana, Jaz Elise, Lila Ikè, Naomi Cowan, live, Kingston (Jamaica), 3/8/20
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Kingston
Buju Banton (1973-), live (studio), Kingston (Jamaica), 3/20/20
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
—Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926-)
basement jukebox
Alton Ellis (1938-2008), “Breaking Up,” 1968
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
basement jukebox
Desmond Dekker (1941-2006) & The Aces, “Israelites” (D. Dekker, L. Kong), 1968
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
sounds of Jamaica
Koffee (2000-), “Haffi Make It,” “Under Pressure,” live, Germany (Cologne), 7/5/19
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lagniappe
reading table
at evening tide
clinging to the flotsam . . .
a katydid—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue
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random sights
other day, Chicago
