John Escreet Trio (JS, piano, compositions; John Hébert, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums, vibraphone), live, Amsterdam, 2014
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
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reading table
Listen carefully,
Neither the Vedas
Nor the Qur’an
Will teach you this:
Put the bit in its mouth,
The saddle on its back,
Your foot in the stirrup,
And ride your wild runaway mind
All the way to heaven.
—Kabir (15th century), translated from Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Reading is rapture (or if it isn’t, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out the side door). A felicitously turned sentence can induce it. Or a description. Or unexpected behavior. Or ordinary behavior raised to the nth degree. Or intolerable suspense, as with the second half of Conrad’s Victory. Or the forward movement of prose that is bent only on saying what the writer has to say. Or dialogue that carries with it the unconscious flowering of character. Or, sometimes, a fact.