serendipity
Late yesterday afternoon, at my local grocery store, as I was hunting for my son Alex’s Multi Grain Cheerios, this came over the speakers. The temptation to put walking on the shelf—to start dancing my way down the cereal aisle—was strong. Mighty strong. But it was resisted, successfully if not happily.
Macy Gray, “I Try” (1999)
The other day, in the wake of Inez’s passing, we heard several takes on this. How about another?
Aretha Franklin (with James Cleveland & The Southern California Community Choir), “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” live, Los Angeles, 1972
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lagniappe
reading table
The recent death of a friend of my younger brother’s, whose sole housemate was his beloved cat, brought this to mind.
“Cat in an Empty Apartment”
by Wislawa Szymborska (MCOTD Hall of Famer; trans. from Polish by Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak)Die—you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here
but nothing is the same.
Nothing’s been moved
but there’s more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.Footsteps on the staircase,
but they’re new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.Something doesn’t start
at its usual time.
Something doesn’t happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.Every closet’s been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.
keep on dancing
Theo Parrish, “Dan Ryan” (1998)
Repetitive?
Yep.
That’s the idea.
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lagniappe
reading table
There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.
My heart’s on fire . . .
Nona Hendryx (with Ronny Drayton, guitar), Philadelphia, 2012
“Temple of Heaven”
*****
“Rock This House”
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lagniappe
reading table
Her life, she said, was an out-of-tune piano played with passion.
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This evening I sat listening to five presidential candidates offering their imaginary solutions for a country that doesn’t exist.
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“Imaginary maladies are much worse than the real ones, because they’re incurable,” an old friend who walks with difficulty was telling me.
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Much of what our eyes see and our ears hear is lost in translation.
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“An alarm clock with no hands, ticking on the town dump,” is how he described himself.
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They gave the nice old gentleman I met at the bake sale several medals for the misery he caused in some country that no one could find any longer on the map.
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I bet all our elected representatives in Washington spend a great deal of time in front of mirrors admiring themselves. They lift their noses and chins, stare straight ahead without moving an eyebrow or a muscle, then nod their heads gravely and smile to themselves as they go out to meet the people.
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He sat on a bench in Washington Square Park whispering something extremely confidential to his dog, who sat before him with ears perked, wagging his tail cautiously from time to time.
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The crosses all men and women must carry through life are even more visible on this dark and rainy November evening.
—Charles Simic, “A Year in Fragments” (excerpts), New York Review Blog, 12/31/12
He wasn’t content with the sounds he found—so he created new ones.
Harry Partch (1901-1974), Music Studio (1958)
#1
#2
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
There’s a world, somewhere, that sounds nothing like this one.
Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble (ED, alto saxophone; Steve Berry, trombone; Darius Savage, bass; Isaiah Spencer, drums), live, Chicago, 2005
Happy New Year!
Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan, TV show (In Session, Canada), 1983
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Once upon a time there was a common musical culture. Certain dialects, like blues, were known to nearly everyone. No more.
William Ferguson, “The Music They Made,” New York Times (12/27/12): Etta James, Dave Brubeck, Davy Jones, Levon Helm, Donna Summer, Chuck Brown, Ed Cassidy, Greg Ham, Jimmy Castor, Ravi Shankar, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Ronnie Montrose, Jon Lord, Michael Davis, Joe South, Chavela Vargas, Duck Dunn, Johnny Otis, Whitney Houston, Jimmy Ellis, Adam Yauch, Mickey Baker, Bill Doss, Ketty Wells, Bob Babbitt, Robin Gibb, Andy Williams, Terry Callier
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
To love anything—music, literature, comedy, sports, whatever—is to be perpetually saying goodbye.
*****
reading table
clamoring geese—
over there is the year
ending too?—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
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found words
FASTEN SEATBELT WHILE SEATED
USE BOTTOM CUSHION FOR FLOTATION—Saturday morning, on a flight from Chicago to a family gathering in Lincoln, Nebraska, this was on the back of the seat in front of me
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random thoughts
Some things are better left unexamined. Like, for instance, flying on a commercial airplane. If I thought much about it, I’d never do it.
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radio
WKCR-FM’s Bach Festival, mentioned the other day, concludes at midnight.
Here, following up on Monday’s post, is more of Inez Andrews.
Live, “I Made It,” Washington, D.C.
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Live (with the True Voices of Christ Concert Ensemble), “Come In,” Chicago
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lagniappe
reading table
“[B]eing able to ask a question means being able to wait, even one’s whole life.” (quoting Martin Heidegger)
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“Someone who proposes a non-strange answer [to the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing’?] shows he didn’t understand the question.” (quoting Robert Nozick)
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[T]he universe was created by a being that is 100% malevolent but only 80% effective.
—Jim Holt, Why Does The World Exist? (2012)
passings
Fontella Bass, singer, July 3, 1940-December 26, 2012
“Rescue Me,” TV Show (Shindig), 1965
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“Theme De Yoyo,” with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, 1970
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“God Has Smiled On Me,” with mother Martha Bass, brother David Peaston, Amina Claudine Myers (piano), Malachi Favors (bass), Phillip Wilson (drums), 1980
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“All That You Give,” with The Cinematic Orchestra, 2002
music clip of the day 