Who needs instruments?
“God’s Got It,” 2011
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lagniappe
reading table
No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.—Rebecca Elson (1960-1999), from “Antidote to Fear of Death”
alone
Jimmy Rowles (1918-1996, piano), “Poor Butterfly” (J. Golden, R. Hubbell), live, New Orleans, 1982
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Only: sing.
—John Berryman (1914-1972, MCOTD Hall of Fame), from “An Untitled Dream Song” (New York Review of Books, 8/21/25)
Happy (110th) Birthday, Billie!
Billie Holiday, “I Can’t Get Started” (V. Duke, I. Gershwin), with Buck Clayton (trumpet), Dickie Wells (trombone), Lester Young (clarinet/tenor saxophone), Margaret “Queenie” Johnson (piano), Freddie Green (guitar), Walter Page (bass), Jo Jones (drums), September 15, 1938, New York
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radio
WKCR-FM (Columbia University): all Billie, all day.
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The Day Lady Died
By Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed meI walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandarinessand for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on itand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
what’s new
Elisabeth Harnik (piano), Joe Morris (guitar), live, Austria (Wels), 11/9/24
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High over the dark
shadows of Pine Islands, a
skylark breaks into song—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill
sounds of Chicago
Fred Moten (voice, words)/Brandon Lopez (bass), live, Chicago, 6/5/24
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Cut down, yes
But rooted still
What stumps compress
No axe can kill—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011), from “Survival”
sounds of New York
Being & Becoming (Peter Evans, trumpet; Joel Ross, vibraphone, electronics; Nick Jozwiak, bass, electronics; Michael Shekwoaga Ode, drums), “My Sorrow Is Luminous” (Yanka Dyagileva, 1966-1991), live, New York, 2023
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A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), from 1651 (Franklin)
sounds of New York
Marty Erlich: Dark Woods/Bright Sparks (Marty Ehrlich [1955-], woodwinds, compositions; Ron Horton, trumpet; Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon; Erik Friedlander, cello; Matt Pavolka, bass; Satoshi Takahashi, percussion; Erica Hunt, words), live, New York, 12/10/23
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random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
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Even now there are places where a thought might grow—
—Derek Mahon (1941-2020), from “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford”
only rock ‘n’ roll
Garbage & Screaming Females, “Because the Night” (B. Springsteen, P. Smith), 2013
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random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
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To think. This saving thing. This useless thing.
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My mind is
smallish.—Anne Carson (1950-), from “Funny You Should Ask” (New Yorker, 12/11/23)
timeless
The Staple Singers, “Uncloudy Day,” 1956
It was the most mysterious thing I’d ever heard. It was like the fog rolling in. I heard it again, maybe the next night, and its mystery had even deepened. What was that? How do you make that?
—Bob Dylan (quoted in M. Davidson & P. Fishel, eds., Bob Dylan: Mixing up the Medicine [2023])
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
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reading table
The unreality of our house in moonlight
Is that if the moonlight strikes it
It is truly there tho it is ours—George Oppen (1908-1984), from “Route”
voices I miss
Geri Allen (1957-2017, piano), Charlie Haden (1937-2014, bass), Paul Motian (1931-2011, drums), “Lonely Woman” (Ornette Coleman), 1988
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passing through one day—
they let me listen
to their phonograph—Taneda Santoka (1882-1940), translated from the Japanese by Burton Watson
music clip of the day 