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Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
OK, so I'm feeling bad about leaving the previous post up at the top, and want to at least move it down a little. It was intemperate, and saying "Screw you, Hillary" probably contributes to the atmosphere of misogyny they're discussing over at the Edge of the West. When I was listening to the speech I had a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. I didn't experience the speech as "graceless" and "classless", like a lot of commenters I've been reading today seem to have; it sounded like a really good speech to me, just totally out of place and not suited to the occasion. So anyway. I'm sorry I reacted that way and I just hope Ms. Clinton will leave the race in a civil way and one conducive to Democratic victory.
posted evening of June 4th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, June third, 2008
Sweet -- so I just turned on the TV and Larry King or somebody was saying that CNN projected Obama would secure the Democratic nomination. Hillary is going to be speaking in a minute... Come on, Hil! You can do the right thing! You can avoid going down in history as the woman who wrecked America!
 ...Oh thank you, Hillary. Thank you! ...Oh wait, I spoke too soon. Screw you, Hillary. Screw you! ...But it really sounded to me like she was making a concession speech. What's wrong with me?
posted evening of June third, 2008: Respond
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Monday, June second, 2008
I just found out about this: a new translation by Maureen Freely is out, not of Pamuk but of another Turkish author named Fethiye Çetin -- the book is a memoir of her grandmother, an Armenian Christian kidnapped by a Turkish officer. This sounds interesting on any number of points, and Mr. Pope's review makes it sound like captivating reading.
 See also this longer review and interview with Çetin, by Fréderike Geerdink.
posted evening of June second, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about My Grandmother: A Memoir
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Sunday, June first, 2008
So more songs on the Feel Alright mix tape than I would have expected, turn out to be fun to play along with, even for a group with talents as strictly limited as myself, Bob and Greg -- we were listening to it this afternoon and of course the fast jazz is just nice for listening, and of course the rock-ish tunes like "Ophelia" and "Caldonia" and "It's Alright With Me" were easy to play along with -- but there were a couple of surprises too, like "Arpay" which Greg and I did pretty nicely I thought -- a harmonica and pan pipes have something in common -- and "Boogie-Woogie Blues"; and we all jammed pretty nicely on "The Museum of Sex". We also did some nice stuff on our own, without the tape -- great version of "Ophelia" after we stopped listening, "Dock of the Bay" with this weird-but-appealing sort of accidental key change on the break, "Mr. Spaceman".
posted evening of June first, 2008: 2 responses
➳ More posts about Fiddling
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Saturday, May 31st, 2008
 My mix tape of happy music is now online -- an hour of tunes with the common factor being that they all lift my spirits when I listen to them. ("Easy Listening"?) Download the mp3's here: Feel Alright mix. Track listing and some notes below the fold. Let me know how you like it!
(...Damn, I knew I was going to do something wrong with the metadata. If you add these files to iTunes, they will go in the wrong order. You can, if you wish to, correct the order by highlighting all of the songs, choosing "Get info (ctrl-I)", and deleting the "disk # of #" fields. ...Okay, I think this is fixed now... But if you add them into iTunes and the order looks wrong, well you know what to do.)
 Track Listing
- Robyn Hitchcock & the Electric Trams: mic check/"The Museum of Sex" -- Concert at Arts Theatre, London, 5/18/08 (a date close to my heart)
- Merle Travis: "Blue Smoke" (1960?)
- Fletcher Henderson & his Orchestra: "King Porter Stomp" (1932)
- Luther Strong: "Hog-Eyed Man" (1937)
- Clarence Samuels: "Boogie-Woogie Blues"
- Pachacamac: "Arpay" (2006)
- The Band with Muddy Waters: "Caldonia" (1978)
- Jelly Roll Morton & the Red Hot Peppers: "Little Lawrence" (1930)
- The Carver Boys: "Sleeping Lula" (1937)
- Rick Danko and Levon Helm: "Ophelia" -- Concert in Eugene, Oregon, January '83
- Natalie MacMaster: selections from "The Fiddling Ladies" (1999)
- The New Riders of the Purple Sage: "It's Alright With Me" (1973)
- Dixieland Jug Blowers: "Boodle-am-Shake" (1926)
- Jimmy McGriff: "A Thing to Come By" (1969)
- Old & In the Way: "Jerry's Breakdown" -- Concert at Sonoma Fairgrounds, 11/4/73
- Abrew's Portuguese Instrumental Trio: "Cabo Verdranos Peca Nove" (1931)
- Delmore Bros.: "Kentucky Mountains"
- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: "Black Mountain Rag" (1972)
- Robyn Hitchcock: "Alright, Yeah" (1996)
Notes
I open and close this mix with Hitchcock, just like I did my last one. I'm happy with this, I'll probably do it on my next mix as well. (After all, I mean he is the Alpha and the Omega.) The "Electric Trams" are (I believe) a nonce group, I've never heard of them other than this concert. Personnel include Hitchcock regulars Kimberley Rew and Morris Windsor. The mic check at the beginning of "The Museum of Sex" was sort of what made me start building this mix. The Luther Strong and Carver Boys tracks are from a collection of early recordings from Kentucky that my parents gave me for my birthday (thanks!) -- if you like it be sure to check out the Luther Strong recordings archived at Juneberry. (Juneberry is also the source of the Jelly Roll Morton and Dixieland Jug Blowers tracks.) There's also some more recent folk-music type recordings here, and blurring over from folk-music into rock and roll. Enjoy!
↻...done
posted afternoon of May 31st, 2008: 3 responses
➳ More posts about Mix tapes
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Today, for International Children's Day, Gladney has organized a talent show at the Chinese consulate in Manhattan. Sylvia and I are going to be playing "Ashokan Farewell", which she learned in in Overture Strings this term. Fingers crossed! I think it will go well, we've been practicing it a lot over the last few days. Inspired by Apostropher and by Dave B., I have put together a mix tape of music that makes me feel happy. It's uploading right now, I probably won't get a chance to link it until we get back from our performance. So come back this evening to listen!
 ...The performance went very well indeed! We both made our entrances correctly (and I just want to point out that this was Sylvia's first experience with arranging -- she worked out who would play what part where) -- played in tune and kept time and all. Here's a photo:
posted morning of May 31st, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Youth Orchestras of Essex County
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
 Agnès Varda has her 80th birthday today. What a great life she has led these 80 years. (And oh boy! A new movie in post-production! Click on the picture for more info.) If any of you have not seen her movies, check my archives for some recommendations. One of the greatest (though hardly the most prolific) filmmakers of the 20th Century.
posted morning of May 30th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Les Plages d'Agnès
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Thursday, May 29th, 2008
In the Turkish paper Zaman, Fehmi Koru has a column today about Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and with reference to Pamuk, that strikes me as most thoughtful, though the premise on which he hangs the column seems kind of insubstantial. Koru does not allude directly to the controversy I referenced yesterday -- which makes me think it is probably not as big widespread as my reading was leading me to believe -- but it was in my mind as I read his column.
posted evening of May 29th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Orhan Pamuk
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The greatest opening for a shaggy-dog story (or possibly just a simple pun) ever conceived. But it needs direction, it doesn't have anywhere to go:
Gregor Samsa and Gregor Mendel walk into a bar...
posted evening of May 29th, 2008: Respond
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...Is the bass line of "Got to do it right". And well, there are a lot of seriously great bass lines on the record -- that one just stood out for me this morning.
Ways to respond to rhythm in music
 I want to think some more about this idea that I can't enjoy Funk unless I am able to shake my bootie... I was listening to Danko and Helm playing "Caldonia" this morning and I was loving it, digging the rhythm -- but my response to the rhythm was just to nod my head, tap the beat with my wrist. I mean I think I probably would have danced if I hadn't been driving; but there wasn't any urgent demand to. So what's the distinction between Blues and Funk that's driving this? I could totally also just be seizing on a single experience and trying to generalize from it in an invalid way -- this is a pretty common pattern with me.
On the topic of involuntary responses to music -- I find it impossible when listening to "Caldonia", not to sing along with the lines "Caldonia! Caldonia!/ What make your big head so hard?" That is running through my head all morning now.
posted morning of May 29th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Music
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