More of Cecil T.
Cecil Taylor, live, Switzerland (Montreux), 1974
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It is a very painful thing, having to part company with what torments you.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Balloon Journey” (translated from German by Christopher Middleton)
last night in Chicago
These guys played at Constellation.
James Falzone’s Renga Ensemble,* “Not Seeing” (The Room Is), 2015
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sweeping the soot
washing the fence . . .
sickle moon—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827; translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
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*James Falzone, Bb and Eb clarinets; Ken Vandermark, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone; Keefe Jackson, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, contra Bb bass clarinet; Jason Stein, bass clarinet; Ben Goldberg, Bb clarinet, contra Eb alto clarinet; Ned Rothenberg, Bb clarinet, alto saxophone.
what’s new
Daniel Knox, “Don’t Touch Me” (Daniel Knox, Carrot Top Records, 2/24/15)
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Some people really are what they seem to be—though not that many.
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Like most explanations, it’s as plausible as anything else.
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Character, to me, is one more lie of history and the dramatic arts. In my view, we have only what we did yesterday, what we do today, and what we might do tomorrow. Plus, whatever we think about all of that. But nothing else—nothing hard or kernel like. I’ve never seen evidence of anything resembling it. In fact I’ve seen the opposite: life as teeming and befuddling, followed by the end.
—Richard Ford, “The New Normal” (Let Me Be Frank With You)
white folks got soul, too
(day two)
Tony Joe White & Shelby Lynne, live, Nashville, 2010
“Rainy Night in Georgia” (T. J. White)
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“Can’t Go Back Home” (T. J. White)
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“Did I forget to mention that when you’re dead
You’re dead a long time.
My uncle, dying, told me this when asked, Why stay here for such suffering.”
—Lucie Brock-Broido, “Currying the Fallow-Colored Horse” (Stay, Illusion)
white folks got soul, too
(day one)
More of Lucinda W.
Lucinda Williams (with Tony Joe White [harmonica, guitar], et al.), “West Memphis” (L. Williams), recording session, 2014
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Why am I now a walking accident waiting to happen? Why am I more worried about that than whether there’s an afterlife?
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I don’t look in mirrors anymore. It’s cheaper than surgery.
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Bonding heads the list of words I’ve ruled out. Emerson was right—as he was about everything: an infinite remoteness underlies us all. And what’s wrong with that? Remoteness joins us as much as it separates us, but in a way that’s truly mysterious, yet completely adequate for the life ongoing.
—Richard Ford, “I’m Here” (Let Me Be Frank With You)
Something cheery to start the weekend.
Lucinda Williams, “It’s Gonna Rain” (L. Williams), live (studio performance), Seattle, 2/11/15
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How can you give orders when nobody is listening?
—John Ashbery, “Be Careful What You Wish For” (New York Review of Books, 3/5/15)
Why start the week with the same old stuff?
Derek Bailey (1930-2005, guitar), Min Tanaka (1945-, dance), Japan, 1993
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For you fleas too,
The night must be long,
It must be lonely.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828; translated from Japanese by R. H. Blyth)
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the beat goes on
Nineteen hundred posts—and counting.
old school
Soul Revivals, “If You Miss Me,” c. 1975
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Speak, You Also
by Paul Celan (1920-1970, translated from German by Michael Hamburger)Speak, you also,
speak as the last,
have your say.Speak—
But keep yes and no unsplit.
And give your say this meaning:
give it the shade.Give it shade enough,
give it as much
as you know has been dealt out between
midnight and midday and midnight.Look around:
look how it all leaps alive—
where death is! Alive!
He speaks truly who speaks the shade.But now shrinks the place where you stand:
Where now, stripped by shade, will you go?
Upward. Grope your way up.
Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer.
Finer: a thread by which
it wants to be lowered, the star:
to float farther down, down below
where it sees itself gleam: in the swell
of wandering words.
sounds of Mali (day four)
Tinariwen, live, Paris, 2011
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It was what it might have been to be alive, but tenderly.
—Lucie Brock-Broido, “A Meadow” (Stay, Illusion)
old school
Soul Stirrers, “He’s Been a Shelter to Me” (Paul Foster, lead vocal), “I’m a Soldier” (Jimmy Outler, lead vocal), live (TV show), early 1960s
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When you’re playing baseball, on that field, it’s like your whole life, it’s your world and you don’t want to leave it. It was such a joy to be there, to be able to make decisions on your own: when to swing, when not to swing; when to run, when not to run. I felt this is the only place in the world where I could make my own decisions.
—Ernie Banks (1931-2015)
