sounds of New York
Nate Wooley (trumpet, compositions), et al., Mutual Aid Music, live, New York, 12/11/20 ((performance begins at 6:40)
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Skylark
sings all day,
and day not long enough.—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from the Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
sounds of Paris and Moscow
Ensemble Intercontemporain (Dylan Corlay, direction), live, Moscow (Tchaikovsky Concert Hall), 11/19/20: Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), Dérive 1; Bruno Mantovani (1974-), Chamber Concerto No. 2
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, outside Chicago (Salt Creek Trail)
*****
reading table
Light was on its way
from nothing
to nowhere.***
How could speed take shape?
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God is encrypting his account.
—Rae Armantrout (1947-), from “Accounts”
Why not begin the week, in this battered world, with something beautiful?
John Luther Adams (1953-), Sila: The Breath of the World (2014); Oberlin Conservatory of Music (featuring students from the Brass and Percussion Departments; Timothy Weiss, cond.), live, Oberlin, Ohio, 9/11/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill
timeless
R. H. Harris (1916-2000; :30-) and His Gospel Paraders, “Have You Got Good Religion,” live (TV show [TV Gospel Time]), 1960s
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
My spring is just this:
a single bamboo shoot,
a willow branch—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill
what’s new
Adrianne Lenker (voice, guitar, compositions), live (“anything,” “zombie girl,” “half return,” “forwards beckon rebound”), published 3/2/21
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lagniappe
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
With a warbler for
a soul, it sleeps peacefully,
this mountain willow—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill
sounds of Paris
Ensemble Intercontemporain (Pierre Bleuse, direction), live, Paris, 2/16/20: David Bastien, Urban Song (2019)
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
Insisting that change defined our world, Heraclitus concluded that we cannot step into the same river twice. Yet the novel coronavirus has taught us a newer truth: we cannot step into the same river even once.
—Robert Zaretsky, The Subervise Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas (2021), preface
what’s new
Scary Pockets featuring Solomon Dorsey, “Shake It Off” (Taylor Swift cover), live, Los Angeles, published 3/22/21
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
who is the owner of unremembered moments
would they open their great book
if I stood
at the door
and begged?–Xiao Yue Shan, from “details escape” (Poetry, 4/21)
what’s new
Mogwai, live, Scotland (Glasgow), published 3/18/21
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Spring and All
by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance,
sluggish dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
sounds of India
This I could listen to all day.
Sashank Subramanyam and Rakesh Chaurasia (flutes), Anubrata Chatterjee (tabla), Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam), live (Rag Hamsadwani), India (Velliangiri Hills), 2014
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Not yet disappeared
like a dewdrop
on a blade of grass,
I am still in this floating world,
moon in the morning.—Ryokan (1758-1831), translated from Japanese by Kazuaki Tanahashi
sounds of Chicago
Gospel Songbirds (featuring Otis Clay [1942-2016], 1:55-), “Help Me Run This Race,” live (TV show [Jubilee Showcase]), Chicago, 1964
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples, 1887 (detail)
*****
reading table
He walks on, northwards, toward the snow
and things unseen, unknown.
Slowly the imperfect cities’ sounds grow still,
only streams hold forth chaotically
while white clouds play at nothingness.
He hears an oriole’s song, delicate,
uncertain, like a prayer, like weeping.—Adam Zagajewski (1945-), from “The Great Poet Basho Begins His Journey,” translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh (The Threepenny Review, Spring, 2021)
music clip of the day 