sounds of Mali and all over
Fatoumata Diawara, live (“”Kanou Dan Yen,” “Nterini,” “Negue Negue”), Italy (Como), published 2/3/22
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lagniappe
reading table
I think of you daily and feel anxious lest we lose our old backward and forward flow that always seems to open me up and bring color and peace.
–Robert Lowell (1917-1977), letter (3/10/1963) to Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) (Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell)
only rock ‘n’ roll
Norah Jones (vocals, keyboard) with Brian Blade (drums), Sasha Dobson (vocals), Gus Seyffert (bass, vocals), live, New York, published 1/28/22
“I’ve Got a Feeling” (Lennon–McCartney)
*****
“Let It Be” (Lennon–McCartney)
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
what’s new
Norah Jones (vocals, keyboard) with Brian Blade (drums, vocals), Sasha Dobson (vocals), Gus Seyffert (bass, vocals), live (“Christmas In My Soul” [L. Nyro], “Christmastime,” “Run Rudolph Run,” “Blue Christmas,” “You’re Not Alone,” “Christmas Calling (Jolly Jones)”), New York, 12/9/21
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
more
Lonnie Holley (1950-, vocals, keyboard, electronics, composition), with Dave Nelson (trombone, electronics), Marlon Patton (drums, electronics), “I Left My Wings in Heaven,” Netherlands (Utrecht), 2018
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
what’s new
Robert Glasper (keyboards), “Shine” (feat. D Smoke, Tiffany Gouché), 10/6/21
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
I miss this moment
as it goes on happening.—Rae Armantrout (1947-), from “Crescendo” (New Yorker, 10/18/21)
like nobody else
Lonnie Holley (1950-, vocals, keyboard, electronics, composition), with Dave Nelson (trombone, electronics), Marlon Patton (drums, electronics), “I Slipped in Under the Radar,” live, Arizona (Arcosanti), 2019
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago (Columbus Park)
sounds of Dublin
Xenia Pestova Bennett (toy piano, desk bells, music boxes) and Ed Bennett (electronics, music boxes), live, Dublin, 9/1/21
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill. (Frank Lloyd Wright, Laura Gale House, 1909)
*****
reading table
Midsummer
by William Bronk (1918-1999; MCOTD Hall of Fame; Poetry, May, 1955)
A green world, a scene of green, deep
with light blues, the greens made deep
by those blues. One thinks how
in certain pictures, envied landscapes are seen
(through a window, maybe) far behind the serene
sitter’s face, the serene pose, as though
in some impossible mirror, face to back,
human serenity gazed at a green world
which gazed at this face.
And see now,
here is that place, those greens
are here, deep with those blues. The air
we breathe is freshly sweet, and warm, as though
with berries. We are here. We are here.
Set this down too, as much
as if an atrocity had happened and been seen.
The earth is beautiful beyond all change.
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
what’s new
Rae Khalil, live (“Way Down,” “FATHER,” “UP LATE,” “MARIA”), Los Angeles, published 2/18/21
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Interchanged, 1955 (detail)
music clip of the day 