around which was formed the pearl

Flowers!

Bill Callahan, Apocalypse (twice, streaming at 3Voor12)
Dean & Britta, 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests
David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights, Left By Soft (streaming at Paste)
TV on the Radio, Nine Types of Light

Media: Country Roads teased my forthcoming story on the hidden world of local delis, thus teasing the rest of the story out of me, and in the 225 blog: Crystal Stils, Bass Drum of Death, Beass Bed/Feufollet, and Earth Day activities this weekend. Wet Willie is playin', y'all!

Speaking of media, the first of the expert reader comments for my book are in and they don't hate it! They serve to make it stronger! It's a delicate balance, this culture writing thing, especially when the subject has a stake in the depiction. I personally hope to get it as well as Gimme a Break did  in their Mardi Gras episode. (embedding verboten, ff to the 10:00 mark)

What gorgeous things are Dean & Britta's soundtracks for the Warhol screen tests. They are some of those things that are nothing and in that, are everything.


"Ann Buchanan Theme"


"Herringbone Tweed" (Dennis Hopper)

And Jeez Louise, David Kilgour is forever, similarly, ephemerally good. His late-70's New Zealand punk band the Clean was the grain of sand around which was formed the pearl of Galaxie 500 and Luna and Yo La Tengo and the cough syrup rock in general by all those bands that were supposedly influenced by the Velvet Underground but were secretly influenced by the Clean.

Speaking of cough syrup...and National Poetry Month...

Three loofah poems
by Shiki, 1902. Loofah was a sap ingested to aleviate coughs. These were the last poems that Shiki would write. From Japanese Death Poems.

The loofah blooms and
I, full of phlegn
Become the Buddha

A barrelful of phlegm -
Even loofah water
Will not avail me now

Loofah water
From two days ago
Left untouched