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)
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
sounds of Japan
Frothiness is next to godliness.
Perfume, “Pick Me Up,” 2015
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
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.
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.”
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)
sounds from all over
Russia
Anton Maskeliade, “Crown,” Moscow, 2014
*****
Japan
Perfume, “Sweet Refrain,” 2013
*****
Egypt
Cellar Door, “Blind,” 2013
sounds of Japan
What do you get when you cross Abba and the Chipmunks?
Perfume, “1 mm,” 2013
Some sounds once they enter your brain they never leave.
Perfume, “Baby Cruising Love” (2008)
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lagniappe
reading table
How little we know,
and when we know it!*****
We close in on ourselves,
then yelp that the world is awry.*****
We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.—John Ashbery, miscellaneous fragments (“Like A Sentence,” “Tahiti Trot,” “This Room”)
