Wind

A gust of wind made it look as if the grass were racing away. A white plastic bag caught on the end of the hedge was flapping, and it struck me that someone who didn't know that wind existed would have thought that the bag was moving of its own accord. (Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Three: Boyhood, transl. Don Bartlett, Archipelago 2014, p. 51)

Joycean Dashes

H.G. Wells on James Joyce's use of dashes for dialogue instead of quotation marks:

...most of the talk flickers blindingly with these dashes, one has the same wincing feeling of being flicked at that one used to have in the early cinema shows. (from "James Joyce," in The New Republic 1917-03-10)

Playlist, Week of 2015-10-25

A classic revisited; I hadn't listened to all of this in a while. Wyatt wrote none of the songs, but he dominates this album. His drumming is brilliant: subtle but powerful, bombastic when called for but always with a keen melodic sense and high level of invention.

Playlist 2015-10-26:

*Muhal Richard Abrams: 1-OQA + 19
*Anthony Braxton with the Northwest Creative Orchestra: Eugene (1989) (selections)
*Dave Bryant: The Garden of Equilibria
*Dave Burrell: After Love
*John Coltrane: Blue Train
*John Coltrane: 1958-09-25 Joe Brazil’s basement, Detroit (CDR)
*Joe Morris/Agusti Fernandez/Nate Wooley: From the Discrete to the Particular
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2015-08-24 “No Pressure, No Pleasure” (wav)
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2015-10-12 “A Froggy Evening” (wav)
*Ozric Tentacles: Erpland
*Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost: Most Materiall (disc 2)
*Sonny Rollins: Sonny Meets Hawk!
*Sun Ra: Detroit Jazz Center (1980-12-31) (disc 20) (CDR)
*Sun Ra: Hiroshima
*Sun Ra: Outer Reach Intensity/Energy
*Colin Blunstone: One Year
*Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Punch the Clock
*Bob Dylan and The Band: The Basement Tapes- Complete (disc 1)
*Roky Erickson & the Aliens: The Evil One
*Flying Lotus: Until the Quiet Comes
*Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (disc 2)
*Gong: You
*Hatfield and the North: Hatfield and the North
*Janel & Anthony: Where Is Home
*Matching Mole: Matching Mole’s Little Red Record
*Santana: Santana
*Super Furry Animals: Mwng (2015 reissue) (disc 1)
*Brian Wilson: No Pier Pressure

Reading List, Week of 2015-10-25

Reading List 2015-10-26:

*Fletcher, John, and William Shakespeare. The Two Noble Kinsmen (Arden 3rd series, rev. ed., ed. Lois Potter) (reread/started)
*Vollmann, William. Rising Up and Rising Down, Volume 1 (started)
*Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale (Arden ed., 2nd series, ed. J.H.P. Pafford)(reread/finished)
*Knausgaard, Karl Ove. My Struggle, Book Four (transl. Don Bartlett) (in progress)

New Ting Ting Loft gig this Saturday: Cheap Fest VI

Yes, of course we're not on the poster (nice poster anyway!), but New Ting Ting Loft is definitely playing at Cheap Fest VI at Strange Matter this Saturday, at 3 PM. You can see the full schedule here. For ease of setup, I think I'm just gonna bring snare and hi-hat. We'll be immediately followed at 3: 15 by Bushmeat, with Thomas Stanley, author of The Execution of Sun Ra. Should be fun!

Playlist, Week of 2015-10-18

Playlist 2015-10-19:


*AMM III: It Had Been an Ordinary Enough Day in Pueblo, Colorado
*AMM: Laminal (disc 2)
*AMM: From a Strange Place
*AMM: Before Driving to the Chapel We Took Coffee with Rick and Jennifer Reed
*AMM: 1998-04-03 Padova, Italy (CDR)
*Anthony Braxton: Past, Present, Future: Selections from the Tri-Centric Foundation Archives, Vol. 2 (mp3)
*Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet: 2013-11-09 Jazz Gallery, NYC (2nd set) (CDR)
*Rodger Coleman and Sam Byrd: 2015-05-14/15 Nashville (wav)
*John Coltrane: Fearless Leader (disc 6)
*John Coltrane: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (disc 4)
*Kris Davis: Massive Threads
*Alexander Hawkins: Alexander Hawkins Trio
*Dave Holland: Prism
*Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Lost Trident Sessions
*Roscoe Mitchell: L-R-G/The Maze/S II Examples
*Musica Elettronica Viva/AMM: Live Electronic Music Improvised
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2015-10-12 “A Froggy Evening” (wav)
*Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost: Most Materiall (disc 1)
*Max Roach: We Insist!
*Wayne Shorter: Super Nova (side 2)
*Sun Ra All Stars: 1983-11-01 Paris (CDR)
*Cecil Taylor Quintet: 1965-07-02 Newport Jazz Festival
*Various artists: The Hot Spot (original motion picture soundtrack)
*Beatles: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band (side 2)
*Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid
*Guided by Voices: Get Out of My Stations
*High Llamas: Lollo Rosso
*Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville
*Paul McCartney: Tug of War (2015 ed.) (disc 1)
*UYA: 1989-10-08 Urban Young Agitation (wav)
*UYA: Z (Blue) “Z (Blue) (pt. 2)”

Reading List, Week of 2015-10-18

Reading List 2015-10-19:

*Knausgaard, Karl Ove. My Struggle, Book Four (transl. Don Bartlett)(started)
*Kirwan, Peter, “Shakespeare Apocrypha and Canonical Expansion in the Marketplace,” in Philological Quarterly 91.2 (2012) (started/finished)
*Weiss, Larry, “William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays,” in Shakespeare Newsletter 63.3 (2014) (started/finished)
*Knausgaard, Karl Ove. My Struggle, Book Three: Boyhood (transl. Don Bartlett)(finished)
*Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale (Arden ed., 2nd series, ed. J.H.P. Pafford)(reread/in progress)

Sun Ra Arkestra, Richmond Folk Festival, October 10-11, 2015

Here's a small sampling of the glorious Sun Ra Arkestra cooking at the Richmond Folk Festival last Sunday, doing "I'll Wait for You" over "Discipline 27." They played both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, doing mostly unique sets each time save for a rip-roaring rendition of "Saturn" (with the syncopated melody line as featured on Pictures of Infinity) and a slow, slinky "Lion of the Heavens" (a.k.a. "Sunology" with vocals).

I have to say, before this I had not seen the Arkestra post-Ra, and I did have slight misgivings going in. I was halfway expecting, I don't know, lame repertory versions of the greatest hits and lots of chanting. Well, I was wrong. They plainly and simply kicked righteous ass. They did play lots of the "hits," but the arrangements were solid and inventive, the soloing was superb, and it was way more powerful and emotional than I ever dreamed it would be. Marshall Allen was in excellent form, both on alto sax (which he played way more than I'd hoped) and on EVI. The whole band cooked. And as a bonus, NRBQ pianist Terry Adams sat in on keyboards! I was blown away. The highlight of Sunday's show was "Dancing Shadows," which they played really, really fast, taking it way, way out. It was something else!!!

Reading Plan for the Next Few Months

I have come up with an extended reading plan for the next few months. As always, I will assuredly deviate from it, but I do want to get through most of this by the end of next year. I say this realizing that the Vollmann book alone is a seven-volume, 3299-page tome.

Reading Plan (in alphabetical order by author):

some Beaumont and Fletcher
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything
Garner, Bryan, and David Foster Wallace. Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing
Gombrich, E.H. A Little History of the World
Howlett, Kevin. The Beatles: The BBC Archives
James, Henry. The Golden Bowl
Knausgaard. My Struggle, books 3-6
some John Le Carré
Marias, Javier. Your Face Tomorrow, vol. 2, 3
Peace, David. The Damned UTD and Red or Dead
some Philip Roth
Rothfuss, Patrick. The Slow Regard of Silent Things
William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays
some Zadie Smith (White Teeth, N/R, On Beauty, Changing My Mind)
Turow, Scott. Personal Injuries
Vollmann, William. Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means

plus rereads:
Austen, Jane. Sanditon
Calvino, Italo. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Doyle, Arthur Conan. Sherlock Holmes stories and novels
Gaddis, William. The Recognitions
Hemingway, Ernest. Sun Also Rises, Farewell to Arms
Homer. Odyssey (Pope translation)
Milton, John. Paradise Lost
Nabokov, Vladimir. Laughter in the Dark, The Enchanter, The Gift, Real Life of Sebastian Knight, The Eye
Pynchon, Thomas. Against the Day
Shakespeare, William, and John Fletcher. Two Noble Kinsmen
some Shakespeare from Oxford Original Spelling edition
Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest

Playlist, Week of 2015-10-11

Playlist 2015-10-12:

*League of Automatic Music Composers: The League of Automatic Music Composers, 1978-1983
*Daniel Barbiero/Cristiano Bocci: Vόστος
*Tim Berne’s Snakeoil: Shadow Man
*Colla Parte: 2015-08-15 Auxiliary, Richmond VA (wav)
*John Coltrane: Fearless Leader (disc 5)
*Jack DeJohnette: Made in Chicago
*Mary Halvorson Quintet: Bending Bridges
*Ingrid Laubrock Octet: Zurich Concerts
*Sonny Murray: Sonny’s Time Now
*Evan Parker/Transatlantic Art Ensemble: Boustrophedon
*Plymouth: 2015-03-06 Amsterdam (CDR)
*Sun Ra All Stars: 1983-10-29 West Berlin (CDR)
*Apples in Stereo: The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
*David Crosby: If I Could Only Remember My Name
*Tyrone Davis: Greatest Hits
*FM: Black Noise
*Grateful Dead: Dark Star 1972 (started, 00:00:00-o1:07:00)
*Guided by Voices: Get Out of My Stations
*Kinks: Part One Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround
*Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies
*Replacements: Hootenanny
*Shangri-Las: Myrmidons of Melodrama

Reading List, Week of 2015-10-11

Reading List 2015-10-12:

*Bloom, Harold. “Measure for Measure,” in Shakespeare: Invention of the Human (reread/started/finished)
*Garber, Marjorie.  “Measure for Measure,” in Shakespeare After All (reread/started/finished)
*Truss, Lynne. Going Loco (finished)
*Knausgaard, Karl Ove. My Struggle, Book Three: Boyhood (transl. Don Bartlett) (in progress)
*Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale (Arden ed., 2nd series, ed. J.H.P. Pafford) (reread/in progress)

Playlist, Weeks of 2015-09-16 to 2015-10-05

Playlist 2015-09-16 to 2015-10-05:

*Lester Bowie Sho ‘Nuff Orchestra: 1979-02-17 NYC (CDR) (disc 2)
*Colla Parte: 2015-08-15 Auxiliary, Richmond VA (wav)
*Duke Ellington: Afro Bossa
*Lower Mid-Atlantic Improvisers' Orchestra 2015-08-15 Auxiliary, Richmond VA (wav)
*Roscoe Mitchell/Fred Frith/George Lewis/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: 2014-02-22 Glasgow (CDR)
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2014-03-19 Musicircus, University of Richmond (wav)
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2015-08-15 Auxiliary, Richmond VA (wav)
*Nino Rota: Original Music for the Movies of Federico Fellini
*Charlie Feathers: Get With It: Essential Recordings (1954-69) (disc 1)
*Kinks: Face to Face (Deluxe Edition) (disc 2)
*Supremes: I Hear a Symphony (selections)

Reading List, Weeks of 2015-09-16 to 2015-10-05

We now resume our program, already in progress:



Reading List 2015-09-16 to 2015-10-05:

*Knausgaard, Karl Ove. My Struggle, Book Three: Boyhood (transl. Don Bartlett) (started)
*Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale (Arden ed., 2nd series, ed. J.H.P. Pafford) (reread/started)
*Truss, Lynne. Going Loco (started)
*Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (reread/started/finished)
*Tanner, Tony. “Measure for Measure,” in Prefaces to Shakespeare (reread/started/finished)