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Tag: W. S. Merwin

2017

Saturday, October 14th

sounds of Chicago, Amsterdam, Vienna

Made to Break (Ken Vandermark, tenor saxophone, compositions; Tim Daisy, drums; Jasper Stadhouders, bass; Christof Kurzmann, electronics), live, Macedonia (Skopje), 2016

“Dial the Number”

 

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“Theme”

 

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lagniappe

reading table 

Offering
by W.S. Merwin (1927-)

Saturday morning and the trades
are back trading out of the east
offering their samples of cloud
each the only one of its kind
and each of them changing even
as it is offered only once
without a word except the one
sound of hushing to say that this
is all happening in secret
this unrepeatable present
only today for the lucky one

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2014

Wednesday, October 1st

Three-word review: Don’t miss this.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), String Quartet in F major (1903); Hagen Quartet, live, Austria (Salzburg), 2000

1st movt.

2nd movt.

3rd movt.

4th movt.

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lagniappe

reading table

Can I get used to it day after day
a little at a time while the tide keeps
coming in faster the waves get bigger
building on each other breaking records
this is not the world that I remember
then comes the day when I open the box
that I remember packing with such care
and there is the face that I had known well
in little pieces staring up at me
it is not mentioned on the front pages
but somewhere far back near the real estate
among the things that happen every day
to someone who now happens to be me
and what can I do and who can tell me
then there is what the doctor comes to say
endless patience will never be enough
the only hope is to be the daylight

—W. S. Merwin, “Living With the News” (New Yorker, 7/28/14)

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2014

Tuesday, August 5th

summer in the city

Chance The Rapper (1993-), “Wonderful Everyday: Arthur,” live, Chicago (Lollapalooza), 8/3/14


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Another take (recording with Wyclef Jean, Jessie Ware, et al., 2014)


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lagniappe

reading table

the only hope is to be the daylight

—W. S. Merwin, “Living with the News,” last line (New Yorker, 7/28/14)

 

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2011

Sunday, 12/18/11

It’s our lucky day. Down on the corner there’s a guy with a little guitar amp who just finished setting up. Let’s listen.

Rev. Billy H. Grady, “Holy Rock” (1965)

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lagniappe

reading table

Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember

almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back

that I did not notice when they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them

this morning the black shepherd dog
still young looking up and saying

Are you ready this time

—W. S. Merwin, “Turning”

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2011

Friday, 10/7/11

It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how great somebody could be.

B.B. King, “How Blue Can You Get?”
Live, Sing Sing Prison (Ossining, New York), 1972

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

last night

W. S. Merwin, who just finished a term as U.S. Poet Laureate, gave a reading at Chicago’s downtown library, where he talked about this and that:

The English language is a great dump. Everything that has come into it has stayed there.

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Poetry begins . . . with listening.

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I wanted to be open . . . to anything that sounded like poetry.

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To animals the meaning is the sound—and that’s pretty close to poetry.

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Time is one of the great human fictions.

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Many of the most important things we do are not calculated. They take us by surprise.

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What the arts are made of is nothing but pure attention.

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radio

Happy (100th) Birthday, Papa Jo! WCKR-FM’s Centennial Festival, mentioned Monday, continues until noon tomorrow.

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