READIN

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

🦋 Random 10 while reading

Another difference between Inherent Vice and my standard category of novel-reading experience is, I like the reading a lot better if there is music playing in the background. Normally I have a hard time reading when I'm listening to music, here they seem to enhance one another. From my iTunes shuffle today:

1. It ain't nobody's business, Mississippi John Hurt
2. La-Do-Dada, Dale Hawkins
3. What Goes On, Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips -- this was a very nice coincidence because it came on just as I was starting to read the lyrics to the Spotted Dicks' new single "Long Trip Out" (which is on the radio in Doc's car), and suddenly I am singing them to the tune of "What Goes On", and they are fitting pretty well. Here is a verse of it:

   Long trip out, from the Mekong Delta...
   It's a last lost chance, when you need a friend,
   And you're flyin on out of
   Cam Ranh Bay at midnight,
   And you won't know how, to
   Get back home again.

   Then I spent a little while distracted, trying to find out more about "What Goes On" -- turns out it is a Velvet Underground song.
4. The Birds Were Singing, Carter Family
5. There'll be Joy, Joy, Joy, Carter Family -- the Carter Family threatening to distract from the novel, they do not quite work together.
6. Floater, Bob Dylan -- now this is more like it --
7. Till the End of the World, Ernie Tubb
8. Salty Dog Blues, John Hurt
9. Knockin on Heaven's Door, Dylan and the Band -- I was not actually participating in the music-listening/reading activity here, "Salty Dog" had reminded me that Lola needed to go out --
10. I Something You, Robyn Hitchcock.

...and later on in the shuffle, Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra plays the "What-cha-call-'em Blues" which go very nicely with the lyrics I am reading at this moment, to Carmine and the Cal-Zones' "Just the Lasagna". Conclusion, when there's music playing it's much easier to imagine Pynchon's lyrics being sung.

posted afternoon of August 16th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, September 5th, 2009

🦋 Comme Toujours Here I Stand

This is kind of exciting to hear about: Big Dance Theater is presenting a new show called "Comme Toujours Here I Stand" based on Cléo de 5 à 7, featuring an original title song by Robyn Hitchcock -- a confluence of two of my very favorite artists! (And of an art form I'm not familiar with at all...) It will be premiering next month at The Kitchen in NYC; I'll certainly be there.

Speaking of Hitchcock, here are a couple of things I've seen in the last few days and been meaning to link to:

• See him singing a lovely new song, "Dragonfly Me", on BBC4 Today -- he performed this song yesterday at Pestival, I'm not sure whether it was written for the occasion or just a happy coincidence...
• On Jennifer Robbins' show "Cooking With Rockstars", he discusses how to make Food Pie:
  "Dead pheasant would be hung in the pantry or something for maybe a week after it dies, getting high... 'getting high' means -- as I suppose it often does in human terms -- slowly turning green..."

  I'm a little surprised to find Hitchcock not liking parsnips -- this guy who has always struck me as being the height of good taste!

posted morning of September 5th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, November 7th, 2009

🦋 At random

I found my iPod today! Have not seen it for months, and wondered occasionally on its whereabouts... Today it was sitting in plain sight on my desk. To celebrate, I shuffle:

• Pit of Souls, Robyn Hitchcock. Fantastic -- I don't really associate this style of music with Robyn but it is very nice for a change. Shades of Interstellar Overdrive!
• Djangology, the Hot Five. From Pet's picks. I can spend too much time on Hot Five listening for Grappelli's work and may miss some of the guitar. The violin solo about a minute ½ in is amazing though.
• Blue Moments, the Fletcher Henderson band.
• I'm Only You, Robyn Hitchcock. For you... (I like his play with pronouns, it reminds me of FaceBook a bit.) Live 2003 at the Great American Music Hall.
• Soldier's Drill, Rev. Gary Davis.
• The Clothes Line Saga, Dylan/The Band. Hypnotic. Wish this song was longer, it could easily have another verse and hold the mood.
• Morning Dew, The Grateful Dead.

  posted evening of November 7th, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

🦋 Propellor Time

Nice quote from Hitchcock: "We wanted to create a sprawling record like The Basement Tapes: so we sprawled for a week and then spent three years editing it."

Track listing:

1. Star of Venus
2. The Afterlight
3. Luckiness
4. Ordinary Millionaire
5. John in the Air
6. Propellor Time
7. Primitive
8. Sickie Boy
9. Born on the Wind
10. Evolove

↻...done

posted evening of January 19th, 2010: 1 response
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Thursday, February 11th, 2010

🦋 Propellor Time?

So YepRoc has no plans to release Propellor Time in the U.S., in physical or digital format. That's no good! If you are on FaceBook (and it makes a difference to you), go join the FaceBook group Persuade YepRoc to release Propellor Time stateside. That'll show 'em!

posted evening of February 11th, 2010: 3 responses
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Monday, March first, 2010

🦋 Avoiding Confrontation

The first video from Propellor Time is up at The Museum of Robyn Hitchcock:

The video is (like The Day Before Boxing Day) directed by Hannah Bird and released on Groove Egg -- now I want to find out more about this.

posted afternoon of March first, 2010: Respond

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

🦋 Born on the Wind

My copy of Propellor Time was in the mail today! Oh boy oh boy... Here's our man playing his harmonica in the back of a black cab:

posted evening of March 31st, 2010: 2 responses

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

🦋 Music in the fiddle

A mix with some of my favorite fiddle music, and a couple of my own performances... link and notes below the fold.

posted evening of June 5th, 2010: 2 responses
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Saturday, June 26th, 2010

🦋 Crossover

In the interest of drawing connections between unrelated texts... This passage from "Unworthy":

La imagen que tenemos de la ciudad siempre es algo acrónica. El café ha degenerado en bar; el zaguán que nos dejaba entrever los patios y la parra es ahora un borroso corredor con un ascensor en el fondo.

The image which one holds of one's city is always a little anacronistic. This café has deteriorated into a bar; that hallway, the one through which we could make out the patio and the garden, is now a faded corridor with an elevator at the far end.

Another useful point of reference for this passage, and for this song, is the beginning of "The aleph":

La candente mañana de febrero en que Beatriz Viterbo murió ..., noté que las carteleras de fierro de la Plaza Constitución habían renovado no sé qué aviso de cigarrillos rubios; el hecho me dolió, pues comprendí que el incesante y vasto universo ya se apartaba de ella y que ese cambio era el primero de una serie infinita.

On the hot February morning when Beatriz Viterbo died ..., I noticed that the iron billboards in Plaza Constitución had been cleared of their advertisement for blonde cigarettes (or whatever it had been)... The matter caused me some pain, when I understood that the vast, incessant universe was detaching itself from her memory; this change would be the first in an infinite series.

posted afternoon of June 26th, 2010: Respond
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Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

🦋 Television, say you love me

Two things to be watched and listened to in conjunction:

• Björk talking about and to her television:
  
  
• Robyn Hitchcock talking about and to his television.

posted evening of October 12th, 2010: Respond
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