Need a jolt?
Ballet mecanique (1924) by Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy (cinematography by Man Ray), with original score by George Anthiel (1900-1959), as performed in 1989 by the New Palais Royale Orchestra and Percussion Ensemble (Maurice Peress, cond.)
This I bumped into Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it’s playing, continuously, in the exhibit Shatter Rupture Break, which runs through May 3rd.
Here are two more takes on the song we heard Sunday (“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”)—both from Hollywood.
Robert Mitchum with Lillian Gish, The Night of the Hunter, 1955
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Van Johnson, et al., A Human Comedy, 1943
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lagniappe
art beat: more from Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage, c. 1885
old school
Dixie Hummingbirds, We Love You Like a Rock (excerpts), 1995
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lagniappe
reading table
You would think that living is a kind of scholarship in time, and that the longer we live the more expert we become at coping with it, in the way that, if you play tennis enough, you get used to coping with faster and faster serves. Instead I find that the longer I live the more bemused I become, and the more impenetrable the subject shows itself to be. I sit on a heap of days.
—Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief (James Wood, “Fly Away,” New Yorker, 12/8/14)
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taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
more sounds from Louisiana
Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians (trailer), 2012
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Music from the Big House (excerpt), 2010
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lagniappe
art beat
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), Louisiana, 1947
only rock ’n’ roll
MC5: A True Testimonial (2002)
Thanks to my brother Don for the tip. We first encountered these guys in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The park is still there. But that moment, when, as a teenager, nothing mattered more than intensity and attitude, is long gone.
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lagniappe
found words
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the advertising from the conceptual art. Last night, while driving to Hyde Park to hear pianist Rafal Blechacz, I came upon a billboard:
BE AMBITIOUS.
NOT THIRSTY.
Who knew Diet Coke could be so deep?
sounds of New Orleans
Let Me Do My Thang: Rebirth Brass Band (Keith Reynaud, 2000)
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Day after day tiptoeing through minefields, until finally our luck runs out.
sounds of Chicago
Baby Huey, “Hard Times” (C. Mayfield), 1971
Stand Up Guys, 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
sounds of Chicago
The Dells, “A Heart Is a House for Love,” 1991
The Five Heartbeats, 1991
There are all kinds of music.
Silence (excerpt), 2012
Silence tells the story of a field recordist (played by Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhríde, also co-writer of the film with director Pat Collins) who returns to his native Ireland after 15 years living in Berlin, spending his days wandering through north west Ireland and recording the soundscapes.
—Wire
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lagniappe
reading table
As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to love it more and more.
—Jules Renard (1864-1910)
music clip of the day 