The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone and tenor saxophones; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), live, London, 2010
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You ask: what is life? That’s like asking: what is a carrot? A carrot is a carrot, and that’s all there is to know.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), letter to wife Olga Knipper-Chekhova, April 20, 1904 (translated from Russian by Cathy Popkin [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])
Nathan Davis (mbira, electronics), Simple Songs of Birth and Return
Live, Chicago, 2014
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In the fifth century, the sun used to rise every morning and lie down to sleep every evening just as it does now. In the morning, as the first sunbeams kissed the dew, the earth would come to life and the air would fill with sounds of joy, hope, and delight, while in the evening the same earth would fall silent and be swallowed by stern darkness. Day was like day, night like night.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), “Without a Title” (translated from Russian by Robert Chandler [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello; Anner Bylsma, live, 2000
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I haven’t got a kopeck, but as I see it, it’s not the person with a lot of money who is rich, but rather the one who has the wherewithal to be alive here and now in the lush, bountiful setting bestowed upon us by early spring.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), letter to Lidia Avilova, April 29, 1892 (trans. from Russian by Cathy Popkin [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])
On this date thirty-eight years ago my father died. When I was a child, he often took me to concerts. In the early sixties, at Chicago’s Arie Crown Theater, we saw two guys with short dark beards and a lady with long blond hair.
Peter, Paul and Mary, live (TV show), England, 1965*
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To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), letter to Maria Kiselyova, January 14, 1887 (trans. from Russian by Cathy Popkin [Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories, Cathy Popkin, ed.])
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*Set list (courtesy of YouTube):
1. When the Ship Comes In (Bob Dylan)
2. The First Time (Ewan MacColl)
3. San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller)
4. For Lovin’ Me (Gordon Lightfoot)
5. Jesus Met the Woman at the Well (Traditional)
6. Early Morning Rain (Gordon Lightfoot)
7. Jane Jane (Traditional)/Children Go Where I Send Thee (Traditional) (new words & music by DeCormier/Stookey/Yarrow/Travers)
8. The Whole Wide World Around (Tom Glaser lyrics; J.S. Bach St. Matthew Passion melody)
9. Early in the Mornin’ (Paul Stookey)
10. The Times They Are A’Changing (Bob Dylan)
11. The Hangman (The Gallows Pole) (Traditional)
12. On a Desert Island With You in My Dreams (Paul Stookey & Dick Kniss)
13. Puff the Magic Dragon (Leonard Lipton & Peter Yarrow)
14. The Rising of the Moon (Traditional)
15. Come and Go With Me (Traditional)
16. Blowin’ in the Wind (Bob Dylan)
17. If I Had My Way (Rev. Gary Davis)
The sky’s all thunder and lightning, and it’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting in a Walgreens parking lot near Midway Airport, waiting for my son Alex’s long-delayed flight to arrive, and if it weren’t for Rubinstein’s recordings of Chopin’s nocturnes, which I keep playing over and over amidst the rain and the neon, I’d be going absolutely bonkers.
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1; Arthur [Artur] Rubinstein (1887-1982), piano
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random thoughts
Listening to Chopin, reading Chekhov: if I ever retire, maybe I’ll relocate to the 19th century.
J. B. Lenoir (1929-1967), “Mama Talk To Your Daughter,” 1954
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In the hospital yard stands a small annex surrounded by a whole forest of burdock, nettles, and wild hemp. The roof is rusty, the chimney is half fallen down, the porch steps are rotten and overgrown with grass, and only a few traces of stucco remain. The front facade faces the hospital, the back looks onto a field, from which it is separated by the gray hospital fence topped with nails. These nails, turned point up, and the fence, and the annex itself have that special despondent and accursed look that only our hospitals and prisons have.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), “Ward No. 6” (opening paragraph; translated from Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
