music clip of the day

Music, for some people, is no less vital than oxygen.

James Rhodes, talking and playing (2010)

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lagniappe

reading table

To Praise the Music
by William Bronk (1918-1999)

Evening. The trees in late winter bare
against the sky. Still light, the sky.
Trees dark against it. A few leaves
on the trees. Tension in their rigid branches as if
–oh, it is all as if, but as if, yes,
as if they sang songs, as if they praised.
Oh, I envy them. I know the songs.

As if I know some other things besides.
As if; but I don’t know, not more
than to say the trees know. The trees don’t know
and neither do I. What is it keeps me from praise?
I praise. If only to say their songs,
say yes to them, to praise the songs they sing.
Envied music. I sing to praise their song.

(Want to hear Bronk, a MCOTD Hall of Famer, read this? Here.)

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art beat: more from Tuesday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago

Roy Lichtenstein, Mirror #3 (Six Panels) (1971)