Saturday, January 16, 2010

Grace Note

When life becomes less about logistics and figures and checkboxes, then our eyes are light, our hearts tickle, and our day becomes a vision of the beauty that surrounds us, and indeed that is within us, and indeed the music of all that we are a part of, and indeed playing.


"Grace Note" by W. S. Merwin

It is at last any morning
not answering to a name
I wake before there is light
hearing once more that same
music without repetition
or beginning playing
away into itself
in silence like a wave
a unison in its own
key that I seem
to have heard before I
was listening but by the time
I hear it now it is gone
as when on a morning
alive with sunlight
almost at the year's end
a feathered breath a bird
flies in at the open window
then vanishes leaving me
believing what I do not see

Friday, January 15, 2010

Record Club

Beck, the living legend, has an amazing little thing going on called "Record Club", which his website describes as "an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens."

The album which is the object of the latest installment is Skip Spence's "Oar". We've got a team of Beck (of course), Wilco, Feist, Jamie Liddell, and others lending a hand. (Sweet!!)



Monday, January 11, 2010

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Proof of Love

I expected that Christy would have posted this long ago, but she hasn't...so I will do it for her. A few months ago Milo spit up on Christy's pants. It was clearly some sort of theophany, like the virgin appearing in the browned face of an unbuttered toast. Doesn't it just melt your heart?


Wednesday, January 06, 2010

The Best Button

Someday I hope to write beautifully, like Ada Limón does here in The Best Button.

Now, off to listen to some Van Morrison.

Colouring of Pigeons


Could it be possible that the best song of the year has already dropped? Check out the eleven minute monument...


The Knife: Colouring of Pigeons (streaming live from their website)