Wednesday, February 9, 2011

To grease her wooden leg


A leaflet posted around the scene. Do it. I dare you. I don't really care much about the Scientologists (the subjects behind each of those searches) one way or the other but I will note that Jack Parsons, books about whom I have just quit reading, was good friends with L. Ron Hubbard who married one Sara Northrup, half-sister of Jack's first wife Helen. Evidently Jack was carrying on with Sara (as high-minded rocket science occultists are wont to do) while she lived with the young couple and L. Ron swooped in for the kill.

Fieldswork, Door
McCoy Tyner, Echoes of a Friend
Nico Muhly, I Drink the Air Before Me
George Harrison, Electronic Sound

Boards of Canada, Music Has the Right to Children

Media Announcements: The Dirtbombs, Alejandro Escovedo review, Marc Olson, and up, up, up with GIVERS in this week's Record Crate blog for 225 Magazine. I had to untweet this to make it semi-legible here.

Fieldwork - the trio of pianist Vijay Iler, drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and saxophonist alto saxophonist Steve Lehman - continues to kick my ass. This McCoy Tyner tribute album to John Coltrane is one of my favorite jazz albums ever, but there is anoth Coltrane tribute, maybe Pharoah Sanders, that I heard once. It was a deafening full-band manifestation of suffering and loss, bellowing tears, but I've never found exactly it. This Nico Muhly album is amazing but is wearing me out; it's a workout. I checked out this George Harrison curiosity while procurring more Beatle product for the wee one. resistance is futile. when at the counter, the most passive-aggressive impromptu library checkout training session unfolded in a cascade of sighs before me. It was kinda beautiful how put upon all parties were and how it spread to us patrons in line; it was like we shouldered the non-existant burden together. But anyway....Fieldwork...

I can't think of the last time a jazz trio hit me right where I live as they do. Also W. C. Handy's autibiography is a wellspring of poetic prose, though I'm not sure I'm down for the whole thing. I love the way he has things boomerang around a sentence:
Brute strength and plenty of it was required in the pipe works, but I was not very strong.
and then song lyrics included, like this for "Little Lady Goin' to the Country" played on the fiddle by his Uncle Whit while the young W.C. tapped on the strings with knitting needles to provide a rhythm
Sally got a meat skin laid away
Sally got a meat skin laid away
Sally got a meat skin laid away
To grease her wooden leg every day.
I can think of no better reason to lay away a meat skin.


George Harrison, "Electronic Sound (Part One)"

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