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Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Last April in Vienna, Claus Guth staged a remarkable interpretation of Handel's Messiah. Dusan Bogdanovic explains the storyline in comments at mostly opera...: For me it was very clearly a more or less straight forward story of a guy committing suicide, not being able to withstand the burdens poised by demands and pressures of the world in which we are all living. The only person knowing that this was suicide is a priest, who stages it like a murder, so that the guy can be at least properly buried. And the question arises whether this can be understood and whether there could be redemption for such a deed. The answer comes from an angel like figure, though speaking to us in a sign language. (Basically God speaking to us and us being â??blind and deafâ? or not open enough to understand his words). I found the scenes in which only the sign-language-speaking character is "singing" especially weird. The whole performance is well worth watching and listening to.
Many clips from this performance are on YouTube -- I have not figured out the correct order yet or I would make a playlist.
 Aha! No need: carosaxone already did it. Handel's Messiah, as staged by Guth.
posted evening of December 5th, 2009: Respond
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 Some thoughts about using a metronome when practicing music:
- I have to devote a fair amount of attention to the metronome, to really benefit from its clicking -- possibly not as much attention as I need to pay to a musician I am jamming with, but it is unexpected -- my impulse is to think well it's a machine, let it click away on its own.
- If I do pay attention and really think about where the click is supposed to come in relation to the notes I'm playing, it makes me sound a lot better -- my rhythm can range from fairly sloppy to quite crisp, but to be crisp I need to be thinking about it. The main purpose I see in using the metronome is learning how to think about that.
- So that's what I'm hoping will carry over into my jamming with other musicians, is the understanding of precisely where my notes should start and end in relationship to the song's meter.
This evening I played five songs with the metronome, moving progressively to slower songs. "Whisky Before Breakfast" was at 160; "Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine" at 140; "Old Joe Clark" and "Napoleon Crossing the Rocky Mountains" at 120; and "My Grandfather's Clock" at 108. I have never played that last one before, at least not as a serious song -- just sort of a clichéed musical joke to fill in space at a jam. But it's a song where rhythm is really vital -- the ticking of the clock is the backbone of the song -- and it actually has a pretty nice sound. The others I have been playing a lot of over the past few weeks, I'm actually working on developing a repertoire! Had been meaning to work on that for a while now...
posted evening of December 5th, 2009: Respond
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(Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.) Today at MobyLives, Tom McCartan has written the first installment of their series on Roberto Bolaño's reading habits -- this one is about Nicanor Parra, Chilean anti-poet of my dreams. Bolaño believed that Parra's poetry will "endure... along with the poetry of Borges, of Vallejo, of Cernuda and a few others.... But this, we have to say it, doesn't matter too much."Gives me a nice opening to mention that I read the opening pages of The Savage Detectives in a book shop this morning, and it moved several spots up on my priority list of what to read next -- just a hilarious book.
posted evening of December 5th, 2009: Respond
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Thursday, December third, 2009
 Turns out there is a name for the genre to which Codex Seraphinianus and the Voynich Manuscript belong; it is called "asemic writing", writing without semantic content.
Two resources: The New Post-Literate is an asemic blog, a gallery of asemic work by various artists, maintained by Michael Jacobson. (Thanks for the link, Edmond!) Have not looked around there a whole lot yet -- there seems to be a lot of interesting visuals but little in the way of links for further investigation of the images. And ASEMIC is an Australia-based magazine of asemic writing. The first three issues are available in electronic form for free, the more ambitious fourth issue you have to pay for.
posted evening of December third, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, November 29th, 2009
 Ellen's project for the last couple of months has been organizing with the South Orange/Maplewood Bicycle Coalition -- the goal is to make our towns a better, friendlier place for riding. The group hosted its first community ride today, from Meadowbrook Park in South Orange to Maplewood town center, and it went off without a hitch.
Turnout was huge, about twice as many people as expected -- Ellen thinks there were at least 50 people riding. It was a real kick to be riding down the street in such a big pack. This should definitely get us noticed -- time to push for more bike lanes!
posted afternoon of November 29th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, November 28th, 2009
Jim Cross and family were in town today; I brought a guitar for him to play over to Antonio's house and we played with Bob, Janis and Greg. Some of the songs were just great, sounding like we had been playing together for all this time -- like the thread of practice was unbroken. Song list below the fold.
- I Know You Rider
- Old Joe Clark
- Country Roads
- Saint James Infirmary
- I Threw it All Away
- Girl from the North Country
- How Long (Hot Tuna) -- I had never heard this song before; it would be a great one to work on. Sounded pretty nice just playing whatever I could come up with on the spot.
- Long Black Veil -- We batted this one around for a while but eventually could not agree on how to play it.
- Death Don't Have No Mercy/ West Texas Cowboys
- Mama Tried -- we played this straight, and then played a bluesy version Jim has come up with, then jammed from that into "Heart & Soul" and made a stab at playing "People Get Ready".
- Teardrops Will Fall -- another song I have never heard.
- Bonaparte's Retreat
↻...done
posted evening of November 28th, 2009: Respond
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We saw this video of Robert Frost reading his most famous (? -- I think) poem last night -- I had never heard Frost reading before and was really struck by the hypnotic, incantatory quality of his voice. Also he reads a little faster than I would have pictured.
posted evening of November 28th, 2009: 1 response
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Friday, November 27th, 2009
Speaking of set lists: I played music with John this afternoon (also his brother Vic was sitting in on piano). We played a number of songs we've done before, and also did some instrumentals out of my fiddle book (the misleadingly named but comprehensive Fiddle Fakebook) -- it was a new thing to play these pieces with an accompaniment, very enjoyable. We are going to play the open mic at John's church in two weeks! Song list below the fold.
- Meet Me in the Morning -- I've been listening to this song a lot lately and working out some fiddle parts to it. We didn't really get it the first time around, but later on we came back to it and it sounded very nice.
- Old Joe Clark
- California Stars -- this is one of our best pieces.
- Prodigal Son -- still needs work, definitely; we're not sure yet whether to play it in D or in E, we tried it both ways.
- Jockey Full of Bourbon -- I like this song a lot, but I need to figure out how the verse goes. Right now I follow along gamely but there's a key uncertainty about where the changes come.
- Louisville Burglar -- we played this in C (which the lead sheet I sent John is in) and in G (which is where I normally play it) -- G is definitely the better key for my voice.
- In Your Dreams (by Wilco) -- this is a brand-new song for me, I don't think I had ever heard it before. It's got a nice sound, sort of ragtimey.
- Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine and a little bit of Bonaparte's Retreat. These are such fun songs! Earlier today I started learning Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains, too.
- Up on Cripple Creek -- Band songs are a lot of fun but difficult. We did not have quite straight where the verse starts, where the chorus ends, etc. I want to learn the fiddle tune "Cripple Creek" and play these two songs together.
- Wild Horses
- Will the Circle be Unbroken -- again, G seems like a better key than C.
- Sloop John B.
- Devil's Dream -- this song is my downfall -- I try to play it very fast, and I can do it, but I lose track of where I am. Need to slow down and learn it.
- Someday Soon -- another Wilco song that I don't know.
- Praying Mantis (Don Dixon) -- I had never heard this song before, I fell in love with it first time around. It is pretty easy to play on violin, too!
- Hickory Wind
- I Shall Be Released
- Angel from Montgomery
- Can't Always Get What You Want -- John's guitar part for this is great. We played for a long time, attempting with mixed results to jam into various songs like "Nails in my Coffin" and "Up on Blue Ridge Mountain".
- My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains
- Meet Me in the Morning reprise
- Saint James Infirmary -- John played his arrangement of this, which is very different from the tune I know. Definite possibilities.
- Stagger Lee -- we both played guitar on this.
- Irene Goodnight
- Helpless
↻...done
posted evening of November 27th, 2009: Respond
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Hey look, I got linked from kindakinks.net! They linked some other reviews of the Wellmont show too:
- No Expiration -- a blog about timeless music. No set list, but many of the songs Ray played are named.
- Ken Schlager's review in New Jersey Monthly.
- Jonny Diamond's (kind of callow) review in L Magazine.
- ...Looks like Jon Mandle of Crooked Timber was there as well.
Thanks for stopping by -- if you'd like to read some of what I've written about listening to music, check out my archives...
 Excellent! Also at kindakinks.net (and thanks to commenter John for pointing this out), the set list from Tuesday:
Ray Davies and Bill Shanley
- I Need You
- I'm Not Like Everybody Else
- Apeman
- In A Moment
- Waterloo Sunset
- Hymn For A New Age
- Dedicated Follower Of Fashion (with partial verse of I Walk The Line)
- Sunny Afternoon
- A Long Way From Home (with Ian on accordion and Karin on backing vocals)
Ray with Band
- Celluloid Heroes
- Till The End Of The Day
- Where Have All The Good Times Gone
- After The Fall
- Alcohol (short version)
- A Well Respected Man
- One More Time
- Vietnam Cowboys
- Apache
- Walk Donâ??t Run (small guitar tease)
- The Tourist
- Come Dancing
- Moments
- 20th Century Man
- Encore 1-
Low Budget
You Really Got Me (with slow story intro)
- Encore 2-
Lola
↻...done
posted afternoon of November 27th, 2009: Respond
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This morning, the most recent installment of our home redecoration saga is complete; we finished painting the dining room, and have put the room back together. Look! The painting is "Autumn Rhythm", by Jackson Pollock.There are a couple of other views at the READIN Family Album, just click on the photo.
 (Later on:) ...Such a pleasure, moving through this room and the adjacent two rooms, now that they are back in a proper state, not all chaotic as they have been the past couple of weeks. It feels like a stubbed toe or a sprained ankle, healed back up.
posted afternoon of November 27th, 2009: Respond
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