Ping Pong & Double Solitaire
“Justice? What is justice? It's a mere word. It's an abstract word with no universal meaning. To different classes of people, justice means different things.”― Nien Cheng
We are on day 5 without internet up here in the mountains. We are very thankful for the cell phone hot spotting that is allowing me to write these words to you…but the hot spot is spotty and there are times in the day that we are truly alone up here in the trees, unconnected. It really has not been all that bad. Without any television to watch or on-line games to connect to, we have played more games of ping pong, double solitaire and rat-a-tat-cat than usual…and things just feel a little slower in the best of ways. And guess what: books don’t require the internet and records only need some electricity and a good sound system. Being somewhat off-line is not the worst experience after all.
There are those people in this modern world of ours who have done experiments about leaving the plug-ins behind. While writing The Circle, author Dave Eggers took a tech holiday, without even an e-mail address to reach him on. Musician Gabriel Kahane is releasing a record on Nonsuch in March with songs he wrote after being completely off-line for a year, only venturing onto a zoom for a family Shiva (the first single of his record…which he made into a very moving video, is called Sit Shiva).1
I know people who have found ways to distance themselves from the modern plugged-in world…and for me, it is an enticing concept…something worth striving for. None of them are able to do it without support, however…often having their significant-other or close friend taking on the load of fielding e-mails and texts from friends trying to connect in the usual modern fashions. The truth is: the Internet brings us a lot of goodness…beauty…enlightenment…joy, and because of these reasons that we allow all the other crap to make a home in our daily existence. It has been nice getting to remember what it feels like to not always be connected (and we still have cell phones…I mean…we are still pretty damn connected!!!).
We have a meeting with the internet provider on Monday…they are going to attempt to plug us back in. Until then, it will be a slower weekend…and that feels just fine.
Shabbes!
Suicide announce career-spanning box set
It is great to see this honoring of Suicide, while at least one of the members is still alive. With Henry Rollins helping put this boxset together, this will be an incredible and important artifact of a band that was so punk rock….that even the punks often did not know what to make of them. Their synthesizer-meets-50s infused sound is so damn influential; there was no other band that came close to doing what they were doing when they were doing it. Don’t know them? Then go to your local record store or streaming service immediately and check out Dream Baby Dream or Ghost Rider or Cheree.
Previously Unseen Parts of Manet’s Eva Gonzalès Portrait Come to Light During X-Ray Analysis
“The National Gallery in London has put an Édouard Manet painting that it owns under the microscope and come away with new and surprising revelations about it. The analysis of the painting, titled Portrait of Eva Gonzalès (1870), came ahead of a small show dedicated to the work, its sitter, and women artists of her era that will open first at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin this June and later travel to the National Gallery.”
Music Biz Has Deteriorated Not Because Of Musicians, But Because Of...Extreme Capitalism
I reached out to Howie about interviewing him after the 415 Records book came out. But this article really says it all. It is funny…he was only 53 when he left Reprise Records, where he had been my boss. He seemed so damn old at the time. And now here I am…52 (reality hits in every direction). Howie’s take on the industry is tough to read…but I am afraid mostly correct. There is the good news of the ecosystem that has been built out of the wreckage…with bandcamp currently leading the artistic democratization movement…but there was a time when being part of a major label like Warner Bros. Records was the coolest of the cool.
Oh, humanity….thank you Roger Minick for celebrating the collective. “Roger Minick didn’t mind the wait. He would sit at national park overlooks, camera in hand…more attuned to the comings and goings of his fellow travelers. The result is a kaleidoscopic archive containing thousands of photographs taken between 1979 and 2000 at popular destinations, from Bryce Canyon and Grand Teton national parks to Cape Canaveral and the Statue of Liberty.”
BREAKING DAWN: David Graeber and David Wengrow’s new history of humanity
A long yarn about looking at prehistoric history in a whole new way, thinking about our cousins from long ago as more complex creatures than we have given them credit for: totally inspired stuff.
WEEKEND LISTEN: MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS By Charles Mingus
One of the first Jazz records I was ever introduced to was Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. Scott Booker handed me 5 records as a “starter pack” (which also included Chet Baker Sings, Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Thelonious Monk’s Underground and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue) and as soon as Mingus came on…with the record starting out with that signature solo Mingus beat-ific bass sound thumping, soon to in conversation with the alien percussions of Walter Perkins…I was hooked. The record in general is so warm and groovy…with Mingus reimagining past songs (renamed because of copyright reasons) as well as hitting a killer cover of Ellington’s Mood Indigo (note: the fable tells that he was kicked out of Duke’s band years before for being difficult). Mingus brought together a twelve piece ensemble to put this beautiful work to life (with Perkins masterfully arranging) including the great Eric Dolphy taking time on sax, clarinet and flute. His voice along with Mingus’ foundational beat is just a perfect thing. There are many many Mingus records out there, but the two he cut during the same sessions for Impulse, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and Black Saint and the Sinner Lady are by far my favorites and of the two, the former is closest to my heart. It was my first, and the best.
Clouds
by Philip Levine
1
Dawn. First light tearing
at the rough tongues of the zinnias,
at the leaves of the just born.
Today it will rain. On the road
black cars are abandoned, but the clouds
ride above, their wisdom intact.
They are predictions. They never matter.
The jet fighters lift above the flat roofs,
black arrowheads trailing their future.
2
When the night comes small fires go out.
Blood runs to the heart and finds it locked.
Morning is exhaustion, tranquilizers, gasoline,
the screaming of frozen bearings,
the failures of will, the TV talking to itself
The clouds go on eating oil, cigars,
housewives, sighing letters,
the breath of lies. In their great silent pockets
they carry off all our dead.
3
The clouds collect until there's no sky.
A boat slips its moorings and drifts
toward the open sea, turning and turning.
The moon bends to the canal and bathes
her torn lips, and the earth goes on
giving off her angers and sighs
and who knows or cares except these
breathing the first rains,
the last rivers running over iron.
4
You cut an apple in two pieces
and ate them both. In the rain
the door knocked and you dreamed it.
On bad roads the poor walked under cardboard boxes.
The houses are angry because they're watched.
A soldier wants to talk with God
but his mouth fills with lost tags.
The clouds have seen it all, in the dark
they pass over the graves of the forgotten
and they don't cry or whisper.
They should be punished every morning,
they should be bitten and boiled like spoons.
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO ROBERTA PETERSEN (it was yesterday). I miss you, Bert. This newsletter is dedicated to you.
The next two paragraphs I originally wrote were erased when my hot spot failed.