Thursday, May 3rd
string quartet festival
day three
György Ligeti (1923-2006), String Quartet No. 2 (1968); Arditti Quartet, live (studio), Tokyo, 2018
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lagniappe
random sights
last night, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: Japan
2018
2017
Monday, September 25th
Ever heard this instrument before? (Me neither.)
Kazue Sawai (1941-), bass koto, live, Tokyo, 2009
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lagniappe
reading table
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
—Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), “Worstword Ho” (1983)
2016
Saturday, August 20th
Close your eyes.
Listen—just listen.
If you don’t have time for this, what do you have time for?
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), From me flows what you call Time (1990); La Jolla Symphony (Steven Schick, cond.), live, San Diego, 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
Come, see
real flowers
of this painful world.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
2016
Friday, January 29th
sounds of Japan
Frothiness is next to godliness.
Perfume, “Pick Me Up,” 2015
2015
Saturday, March 28th
sounds of Japan
Perfume, “STORY (SXSW MIX),” SXSW (Austin, Tx.), 3/17/15
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Untitled (Hotel de la Duchesse-Anne), 1957
2015
Monday, February 9th
Why start the week with the same old stuff?
Derek Bailey (1930-2005, guitar), Min Tanaka (1945-, dance), Japan, 1993
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lagniappe
reading table
For you fleas too,
The night must be long,
It must be lonely.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by R. H. Blyth)
*****
the beat goes on
Nineteen hundred posts—and counting.
2014
Friday, October 17th
sounds of Japan
Perfume, live, Tokyo, 2014
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lagniappe
art beat
Garry Winogrand (1928-1984), New York (Metropolitan Opera), c. 1951
*****
musical thoughts
No musical pleasure is “guilty.”
2014
Thursday, July 3rd
alone
Mochizuki Harutaka (alto saxophone), live, Japan (Hamamatsu), 2011
#1
#2
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lagniappe
reading table
Even in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo’s cry—
I long for Kyoto.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694; translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
*****
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago (lunch hour)
Ilse Bing (1899-1998), Three Men Sitting on Steps at the Seine, Paris (1931)
2014
Friday, March 14th
sounds from all over
Russia
Anton Maskeliade, “Crown,” Moscow, 2014
*****
Japan
Perfume, “Sweet Refrain,” 2013
*****
Egypt
Cellar Door, “Blind,” 2013
2014
Saturday, January 25th
sounds of Japan
What do you get when you cross Abba and the Chipmunks?
Perfume, “1 mm,” 2013
