basement jukebox
Buddy Guy, “This Is the End,” 1959
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lagniappe
reading table
Butterfly
sleeping
on the temple bell.—Yosa Buson, 1716-1784 (translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
violin festival
day three
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Chaconne (Partita No. 2 in D Minor); Ivry Gitlis (violin), live, Tokyo, 1990
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lagniappe
reading table
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
by Adam Zagajewski (1945-)
(translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh)Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
desert island disc
Sly and the Family Stone, Fresh, 1973
Track list:
1. In Time 00:00
2. If You Want Me To Stay 05:47
3. Let Me Have It All 08:48
4. Frisky 11:44
5. Thankful N’ Thoughtful 14:56
6. Skin I’m In 19:38
7. I Don’t Know (Satisfaction) 22:33
8. Keep On Dancin’ 26:25
9. Que Sera, Sera 28:49
10. If It Were Left Up To Me 34:13
11. Babies Makin’ Babies 36:13
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lagniappe
reading table
Now as a spirit
I shall roam
the summer fields.—Katsushika Hokusai, 1760-1849 (Japanese Death Poems, Yoel Hoffmann, ed.)
what’s new
Various DJs (Muqata’a, Sama’, et al.), live, Palestine (Ramallah), 6/22/18
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lagniappe
reading table
[W]e may reason on to our heart’s content, the fog won’t lift.
—Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), “The Expelled”
basement jukebox
Jimmy Ruffin, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” 1966
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lagniappe
reading table
Our share of night to bear –
Our share of morning –
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning –Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist – and there a mist –
Afterwards – Day!—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 116 (Franklin)
what’s new
Rolling Stones, “Like a Rolling Stone” (B. Dylan), live, England (Coventry), 6/2/18
lagniappe
reading table
The Death Deal
by Ron Padgett (1942-)Ever since that moment
when it first occurred
to me that I would die
(like everyone on earth!)
I struggled against
this eventuality, but
never thought of
how I’d die, exactly,
until around thirty
I made a mental list:
hit by car, shot
in head by random ricochet,
crushed beneath boulder,
victim of gas explosion,
head banged hard
in fall from ladder, vaporized in plane crash,
dwindling away with cancer,
and so on. I tried to think
of which I’d take
if given the choice,
and came up time
and again with He died
in his sleep.
Now that I’m officially old,
though deep inside not
old officially or otherwise,
I’m oddly almost cheered
by the thought
that I might find out
in the not too distant future.
Now for lunch.
what’s new
Is anyone in pop music farther out?
Björk, “Blissing Me,” TV show (Later . . . with Jools Holland, BBC), 5/26/18
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lagniappe
reading table
I am flowering and dying.
—Peter Gizzi, from “Tradition & The Indivisible Talent”
3n
day two
Trio Da Kali (Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, vocals; Mamadou Kouyaté, bass ngoni, vocals; Fodé Lassana Diabaté, balafon), live (studio), Seattle, 2017
“Eh Ya Ye”
***
“Kanimba”
***
“Guede”
***
“Dissa”
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lagniappe
reading table
the morning light is in us
—Peter Gizzi, from “Lullaby”
3n
day one
Sounding Tears Trio (Mat Maneri, viola; Evan Parker, soprano saxophone; Lucian Ban, piano), live, Bucharest, 2017
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lagniappe
reading table
where there’s people
there’s flies
and Buddhas—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
