Happy birthday, Mahatma.
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I.
“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.”
(attr. Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869-1948)
“And this independence is gained, not by means of strife, not by the destruction of existing forms,of life, but only by a change in the interpretation of life. This independence results first from the Christian recognizing the [...]
Apologies in advance: there may not be anything else in this post as good as the title.
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I.
There are two musics (or so I have always thought): the music one listens to, the music one plays. These two musics are two totally different arts, each with its own history, its own sociology, its own aesthetics, [...]
I’ve been geeking out on Coltrane a little bit this week… particularly “Giant Steps.” This post is basically a linkdump of any Coltrane site/video I may ever want to look at again, but hopefully someone else may like these.
If you’re passing through quickly and only have time to follow one of these links, I’d [...]
Interesting fact: The last words attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (the prominent German man of letters) are often said to be “More light!” This is usually taken to be a spiritual proclamation… but, alas, it’s ripped from the real context. According to J. A. Froude, this statement was not only made [...]
Oh do I have a chance?
You’re such a pretty girl
I’ll stay till you’re convinced -
there’s evil in this world.
Eef Barzelay (of Clem Snide), “Fight Song Melodies,” from the Rocket Science soundtrack.
Work is hectic, so blogging has been deprioritized for the moment. I’m singing Mozart’s Requiem on Saturday and Sunday, preparing for a possible John Cage performance at CalARTS in early June (!), and contending with the end of the school year. A few posts are in the works (subjects include Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Bataille, [...]
This past Wednesday was the 50th anniversary of the second and final recording session for Kind of Blue; Miles Davis et al. got together to put “Flamenco Sketches” and “All Blues” down on tape.
Here’s Davis’s legendary 60s band (Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony WIlliams) playing “All Blues” live.
And, here’s a different and more [...]
I.
From The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), lines 19-42
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no [...]
“I like boring things. I like things to be exactly the same over and over again.” [Andy Warhol]
I’m in San Francisco at the moment visiting Casey. So far, the cultural highlight of the trip (aside from drinking in the Castro; my friend gingerbeer and I went out and had a couple of drinks on Monday, [...]
(That’s a sentence I never thought I would type.)
This blog is named for 4′33″, John Cage’s famous “silent piece” and a work with which I’ve been mildly obsessed ever since reading Cage’s book/manifesto Silence as a college freshman. Today, iTunes offered part of 4′33″ as a free download. Which, of course, is awesome. If you [...]