cheesy spaghetti on the side

Steve Coleman, Invisible Paths: First Scattering
Ron Miles, Heaven
Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Shamokin!

Today's contemporary jazz suggestions are brought to you by Alex Rawls' musings on the adventurous programming of the forthcoming CareFusion Jazz Festival in OffBeat and Ben Ratliff's post-mortem of the Undead Jazz Festival in the NYTimes, both riffing on not playing to the lowest common denominator and keeping things fresh. Both festivals will be and were, respectively, held in New York City. The first is cerebral solo alto; the second, congenial duets between the acclaimed trumpeter and Bill Frisell on guitar (dig their take on "Coward of the County") ; the last, a post-jazz-quartet jazz quartet with the requisite awesome band name. This past weekend, I almost bought that new Steve Coleman record (like from a store, with money) Mr. Ratlikff briefly discusses, and now I might have to.

Above, entirely different sort of ensemble found performing every Saturday the House of God Ministry near my house. The newest addition to the group, the fried catfish, is fixin' to upstage the ribs. Always get cheesy-spaghetti on the side if it is offered.

Not a blues album

Gustafsson & Stackenäs, Blues

Not a blues album. I mean, I'm sure the case can be made that it is a blues album and that it, in fact is a deeper embodiment of the blues, a bathysphere prowling the abyssal depths of the blues as opposed to a gaggle of half-knowledged historians huddled in a liferaft, bobbing on the surface of the blues. If that is your context, then Blues is a great blues album, maybe the only blues album, but if that is your context, I'd venture to say you don't like the blues as it is and instead only as what you can make it encompass. Like when you say hip-hop is the blues because you can't quite bear the presence of hip-hop unto itself.

Some of y'all might be hesitant to even call what's on this album music, and though I disagree, I'm more on your side than the other.

Told you these science museum pictures were funny.

Old Stackenäs does get bluesy on this number.

I sound a little drunk

Popul Vuh, Fitzcarraldo soundtrack
Sapat, Mortise & Tenon

In transcribing interviews today, I find that I sound a little drunk on tape. It is possible that I sound like this in person and what I assumed all this time to be a congenial aura I bring into a situation might instead be the piteous caution one exhibits around drunks. Just laugh politely and he probably won't beat us. Either way, it works for my part of the deal. Keeps people on their toes.

I took a bunch of (I think) funny pictures (the above is one) at the kids' science room at the museum downtown which I will be using to semi-ironically illustrate these missives. I needed to change things up; all the flowers are withered and heat-stroked and there are only so many interior shots I can take of my building before even I get bored with it. Also, my link system was getting too bothersome and brand-intensive for my tastes, so I changed that too. You got a problem with that? Well, do you?

Didn't think so.


Klaus Kinski going off on everyone on the set of Fitzcarraldo.

and if they hear thunder again

Josh Cohen, Witz

I started Witz this afternoon while waiting the thunder out to see if we'd chance the pool. The lifeguards have but a single directive: everyone out for 15 minutes if the hear thunder, and if they hear thunder again, the clock starts over. I am not sure if this is in line with an incident of anyone ever being fried in a pool by lightning; I've seen them let the kids have at it in a torrential downpour - in fact they have a rule about that as well: swimming is allowed as long as you can still see the lines in the 4ft swim lanes through the rain. So, two directives, then. Any child or parent of one can recite that rule as quickly as a kid with a joint in his ashtray can the vehicle search ordinances. It's all rules and rights and recitations thereof in this life.

Anyway, I am ludicrously barely into Witz, page 23 of 817 pages of Judaica-drenched, Joyce/Pynchon/DFW poem prose and I think I dig it without being really sure what's happening. I suspect the book is like the candle carried at the barmitzvah where my optimistic bookmark rests: "...a long, thick, threewicked taper, thricebraided then those braids braided, its unified flame illuminating a knot that can only be undone through its melting; wax dribbles, scorching the hand."

We all got to swim and right before they shut down for the night, some of us might have walked on the water.

what is what they call what goes around a nuculess?

what is what they call what goes around a nuculess?, originally uploaded by real_voodooboy.

1. Maya had a wad of Play-Doh in her hands when we went to Calandro's
to get snacks for the pool. Carol stopped her to asked if that was Silly Putty, then offered this piece of advice:

"You got to be careful with Silly Putty; it will take the faucets right off your walls."

2. Calandro's didn't have Tecate in the can, my favorite cheap poolside beer, so we went to the gas station next. A grizzled dude in a motorized wheelchair looked hard at the State Science Fair shirt (the logo is an atom) I was still wearing from work.

"Is that what you call a nucules on your shirt?"
"Oh... Yes, it is. A nucleus.
"I thought so. Now, what is what they call what goes around a nucules?"
"Electrons?"
"That's it," he shrugged. "I forget sometimes."

mystery spot

mystery spot, originally uploaded by real_voodooboy.

I, like the dog last night during our evening walk while we tested out
our hurricane kit LED flashlights, find myself in the mystery spot.

The video game design class I've been teaching to a sqad of high school boys all week is frankly draining but I see little glimmers in the little monsters. I'm being hard on them but ultimately, i'm thrilled they are giving an often Sisyphean ordeal like programming a shot. We all went out for pizza at lunch.

Following that was the first installment of the writing workshop which serves the instructor's ego by making him feel like he might have some wisdom to impart. They have to pitch stories to me next week and I
predict the gamut from sweet platitudinal thinking to the momentary precision focus of the Truly Mad. Again, glimmers.

The mystery spot is where I am safe in my happy home with the people I love dozing away in the dark as poor, sad OCD sufferers are being silently exploited - one lady is attempting to overcome to face her fear of running over children in parking lots by being made to plow her car into strollers pushed into her lane by her therapist - on the muted TV, in sharp contrast to a day of talking, talking, talking. I'm on the membrane splitting hyperfocus from the Void, if that's not too melodramtic a description.

I listened to no music today.

the future, and so forth.

Detail from a mural, Crowley, LA

William Brittelle, Television Landscape (forthcoming 2010)

Media Announcements: I extol the virtues of singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, old reliables Cowboy Junkies and warn of the deafening beauty of Mono in this week's Record Crate blog for 225 and the most recent issue of Sweet Tooth is up online at the Culture Candy site. Enjoy.

This class is beating me like a dog but I think they are learning. I believe the children are the future, and so forth.

William Brittelle, more like William Brilliantelle. Nobody makes modern soft rock this conceptually deep anymore. I wrote about him at the hopeful but ultimately short-lived Badasses of Contemporary Composition blog.


William Brittelle, "Dunes of Vermillion"

Also, I don't necessary advocate the watching of Late Nite Chat so much, but this from the warm-up for Ice Cube on whatever Jimmy Fallon hosts is badass infinity.


Ice Cube + the Roots, "Straight Outta Compton"