what’s new
Shabazz Palaces, “Forerunner Foray” (video by Chad VanGaalen), 1/9/15
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lagniappe
passings
Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs infielder (SS, 1B), January 31, 1931-January 23, 2015
blues festival (day three)
J. B. Lenoir, “Slow Down” (J. B. Lenoir), live (at home), Chicago, 1965
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lagniappe
reading table
You need to be crazy to be great. I love crazy.
—Cubs’ new manager Joe Maddon (Chicago Tribune, 11/3/14)
basement jukebox
Bobby “Blue” Bland, “That’s the Way Love Is” (Duke 1962)
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O.V. Wright, “That’s How Strong My Love Is” (Goldwax 1964)
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Jimmy Ruffin, “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” (Motown 1966)
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lagniappe
found words
You’ve got [Cubs left fielder] Alfonso Soriano out there with Mickey Mantle’s knees. I’m not talking metaphor here. I think he really has Mickey Mantle’s knees.
—Jim Memolo, WGN Radio, Sunday’s post-game call-in show, following the Cubs’ third straight loss to the White Sox
three takes
“Dream Baby Dream” (A. Vega [Suicide])
Neneh Cherry & The Thing, The Cherry Thing, 6/12
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Bruce Springsteen, live (encore), 2005
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Suicide (long version), 1980
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Who says sports are frivolous? Baseball offers a veritable Ph.D. program in life’s hardest lessons. Good fortune is fleeting. Nothing can be taken for granted—ever. No matter how smooth the sailing, the shoals of despair are never far away. Yesterday, going into the bottom of the ninth, the Cubs were beating the Reds 3-0. Exit starter Ryan Dempster; enter closer Carlos Marmol. He gives up a walk. Then another. The next batter reaches on an error. Then there’s a line drive. The next batter? He walks, too. By the time Marmol crawls back to the dugout, the bases are loaded, there are no outs, and two runs are in. If nothing else, the pain would have come and gone more swiftly if the Reds had finished things right there. But they don’t. They add just one more run, tying the game. The Cubs come to bat. Nothing. The Reds score again and, finally, it’s over. Reds 4, Cubs 3. No tale from Greek mythology could have made the point more emphatically: fate is pitiless.
two takes
“Run Joe” (L. Jordan, et al.)
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, live
Capital Centre, Landover, Md., 1987
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Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, recording, 1948
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Last night, sitting at Wrigley Field with my brother Don (something we’ve been doing together for over 50 years), I thought of a line my younger son Luke, who turns 21 next month, wrote in elementary school in response to a prompt: “When I am 100 I will not be able to play baseball with my brother.” (P.S. Cubs 3, Cards 2—their second straight walk-off victory.)
Aretha testifies
Aretha Franklin, “Surely God Is Able,” live, Detroit, 1990
More? Here. And here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
random thoughts: Marcel Proust (or is it Samuel Beckett?) on Opening Day
You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.
Actually, it’s Joe DiMaggio. But for Joltin’ Joe, like Marvelous Marcel and Slammin’ Sammy, life consists largely of “look[ing] forward” to things, “wonderful” things—things that seldom, if ever, actually “happen.” Just ask the Cubs: going into the eighth inning of Thursday’s opener, they were winning 1-0; they lost 2-1.
Listening to the Cubs—baseball’s always been a radio game for me—just hasn’t been the same without Ronnie.
Ron Santo
Cubs’ radio color commentator (and player)
February 25, 1940-December 3, 2010
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, “My Oh My” (2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Dave Niehaus
Seattle Mariners’ radio play-by-play announcer
February 19, 1935-November 10, 2010
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lagniappe
random thoughts
One of many remarkable things about the world we live in is the variety of ways you can die. It’s easy to imagine a world in which there was just one cause of death—say, heart attack. But here we have strokes, too. And there is colon cancer, and liver cancer, and breast cancer, and brain cancer. Don’t forget infectious diseases: pneumonia, tuberculosis, AIDS. Daily folks depart in car crashes. You could also drown. If death were a product sold in stores, imagine how many aisles it would occupy.
If one sign of a great performance is that the moment it ends you want to hear it again, this one delivers—I just listened to it three times (may go back for three more).
Spencer Taylor & The Highway Q.C.’s, “I’ve Got Shoes,” live
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
radio
WGN Radio continues its celebration of the life of Ron Santo today, rebroadcasting one of “Ron’s Greatest Games” (Carlos Zambrano’s 9/14/08 no-hitter) at 2 p.m. (CST), with other special programs before and after.
You reach a certain age.
Waking up one morning, you hear news that’s both unsurprising and unbelievable: a Cubs radio broadcaster who’s been around forever died.
Later in the day you find yourself wondering: “When I die, what music should I have at the funeral?”
(WGN Radio remembers Ron Santo today at 1 p.m. [CST] with a rebroadcast of Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game [5/6/1998], followed by other special broadcasts.)
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replay: a clip too good for just one day
two takes
If God plays a musical instrument, I bet it’s the cello.
Bach, Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello, 4th Movement (Sarabande)
Mstislav Rostropovich, live
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Mischa Maisky, live
Want more of Bach’s cello music? Here.
(Originally posted on 10/21/10.)
music clip of the day 