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Category: reading table

Wednesday, September 14th

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Morton Feldman (1926-1987, MCOTD Hall of Fame), For Philip Guston (1984); Either/OR (Richard Carrick, piano/celesta; Margaret Lancaster, flutes; David Shively, percussion), live, Philadelphia, 2015

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lagniappe

reading table

flitting butterfly–
every corner of my hut
is inspected

—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)

Thursday, September 1st

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Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, clarinet, flute, voice), William Parker (bass, doson gouni, shakuhachi), Hamid Drake (drums, voice), live, New York, 2016

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lagniappe

reading table

Three bowls of stew
and you feel
rich after all

—Yosa Buson (1716-1783), translated from Japanese by W.S. Merwin and Takako Lento

Wednesday, August 31st

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Michel Portal (clarinets, accordion), Hamid Drake (drums), live, France (Le Mans), 2012


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lagniappe

reading table

Skylark
sings all day,
and day not long enough.

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

Friday, August 26th

summer in the city

Moses Sumney, “Plastic,” live, Chicago (Pitchfork Music Festival), 7/15/16


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reading table: two takes

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

—Henry James (1843-1916)

There is a kind of sullenness that summer / alone possesses.

—Geoffrey Hill (1932-2016), “In Isley Church Lane (3)”

Thursday, August 25th

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), live, Moscow, 1975

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lagniappe

reading table

Here in my house
a square of light—
moon through the window

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by David Young

Wednesday, August 24th

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major (“Waldstein”); Daniel Barenboim (piano), live, Berlin, 2005

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lagniappe

reading table

Moon woke me up
nine times
—still just 4 a.m.

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by David Young

Tuesday, August 23rd

never enough

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor
Jonathan Biss, live, New York, 2011


One of the things I admire about this performance is its immediacy: it feels not like recitation but spontaneous utterance.

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lagniappe

reading table

One insect
asleep on a leaf
can change your life

—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated from Japanese by David Young

 

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

Tuesday, August 16th

If I could dance like this, I’d never sit down.

Jimmy Slyde (1927-2008) and Bob Moses, dancing, playing, talking


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lagniappe

reading table

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

—Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), “One Art”

Thursday, August 11th

sounds of London

DJ EZ, live, London, 2014


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lagniappe

reading table

She went around pre-registered
for her own eventual absence.

—Rae Armantrout, “Hoard”