Domestic comedy

“Now that it’s warmer, it feels colder.”

Related reading
All “domestic comedy” posts

Van Dyke Parks at Daytrotter

From Daytrotter, five performances by Van Dyke Parks with Clare and the Reasons, recorded in Asheville, North Carolina, October 2010. The performances are killer, and the download is free and legit.

From the same tour
Van Dyke Parks in Chicago (1)
Van Dyke Parks in Chicago (2)
Van Dyke Parks and Clare and the Reasons, on the radio
Van Dyke Parks and Clare and the Reasons, on the radio again

George Shearing (1919–2011)

From the New York Times obituary:

George Shearing, the British piano virtuoso who overcame blindness to become a worldwide jazz star, and whose composition “Lullaby of Birdland” became an enduring jazz standard, died on Monday in Manhattan.

A Shearing sampler, via YouTube:

“Conception” : “I Cover the Waterfront” : “It Never Entered My Mind” : “Lullaby of Birdland” : A conversation with Billy Taylor

[Shearing on “I Cover the Waterfront”: “I think this was written by Marlon Brando.”]

Town-talk

Lady Dedlock’s questions caught my attention:

“Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried on the streets?”

Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)

The Oxford English Dictionary traces town-talk — “The common talk or gossip of the people of a town; the subject or matter of such talk or gossip” — to a 1654 speech by Oliver Cromwell: “If it be not folly in me to listen to town-talk, such things have been proposed.” I know the term from a local newspaper editor who has an annoying way of citing town-talk when referencing hitherto unreported news: “As many of you already know,” &c. I usually don’t, as I don’t keep my ear to the town ground.

A related post
Goodbye, local paper

Supporting NPR

A site worth visiting, right now: 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting.

Betty Garrett (1919–2011)

From the Los Angeles Times obituary:

Betty Garrett, a comedic actress who was a fixture in such MGM musicals as On The Town and Take Me Out to the Ballgame, a regular on the television series All in the Family and Laverne & Shirley and a star on Broadway and in Los Angeles theater productions, has died. . . .

In a 2009 interview with The Times, Garrett reflected on her long career. “People say, how come you’ve lasted this long?” she said. “I say I think it’s because all of my life I have gotten to do what I love to do.”

Betty Garrett was the last living member of the cast of On the Town. Her Brunhilde Esterhazy is my family’s favorite cabdriver.

Borders and bankruptcy

The Wall Street Journal reports that Borders is headed for bankruptcy:

Borders Group Inc. is in the final stages of preparing a bankruptcy filing, clinching a long fall for a company with humble beginnings that helped change the way Americans buy books but failed to keep pace with the digital transformation rocking every corner of the media landscape.

The troubled Ann Arbor, Mich., bookseller could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection as soon as Monday or Tuesday, paving the way for hundreds of store closings and thousands of job losses, said people familiar with the matter.

My recent visits to a local Borders have left me feeling embarrassed: fewer and fewer books worth buying, more and more trinkets, T-shirts, and empty space. (I get embarrassed in stores that are obviously struggling.) In the past thirty days, Borders has sent me twenty-two e-mails, hawking chocolate, coffee, flowers, the Kobo eReader, wine — oh, and books. It’s sad: everything the company has done to bring in more money seems to give the dedicated reader less reason to feel good about going to Borders.

Related posts
Borders Books and Music in trouble (2008)
Goodbye, Pages for All Ages

Virtual Typewriter

[Click for a larger view.]

Douglas Ewart and Stephen Goldstein

East Gallery
Krannert Art Museum
Champaign, Illinois
February 10, 2011

Douglas Ewart, alto clarinet, sopranino saxophone, didgeridoo, flutes, voice, percussion
Stephen Goldstein, digital percussion, handclaps, rainstick

Sitting down to write about this performance, I realize that I have no idea how long these musicians played last night — an hour? hour and a half? two? Someone said things ran late. All I know is that I was listening to a collaboration that was a delight to the ear, one that made time both fly and stand still, with Ewart shifting from instrument to instrument and Goldstein drawing an ever-changing variety of sounds and textures from two percussion pads (played with hands, sticks, and brushes) and an iPhone.

Like other musicians who came up in the AACM (Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), Ewart is an unassuming virtuoso, with an extraordinary command of tone and dynamics. Last night, he sustained circular breathing for longer than I would have thought possible, producing overtones, squawks, and whispers along the way. The most surprising moment though was a song, “BP They Making a New Dead Sea,” a solemn and fiercely satiric parade of long e rhymes: “BP means Bad Philosophy.”

Ewart is both musician and instrument-maker. In a pre-performance talk (whose topics ranged from the importance of water to the horror of plastic bags), he explained the importance of making, which for him began when he was a child in Jamaica, raised by a grandmother who pointed out that the toys on store shelves were likely to fall apart all too quickly. So Ewart began making things of his own. Last night he showed a group of Sonic Tops, made (in adulthood, for children) from found materials. The tops spun mightily on the gallery floor.

The most exciting moment for Elaine and me was the final piece. Ewart invited our son Ben and concert organizer Jason Finkelman to add their voices — banjo and berimbau, respectively — to the proceedings. It all makes sense, really: Ewart was a guest-in-residence for the week in Ben’s residence hall, where Ben (a Resident Assistant) spent a good chunk of time with him.

[Douglas Ewart and Ben Leddy. Photograph by Elaine Fine. Click for a larger view.]

You can see some of Douglas Ewart’s instruments and other artworks at his website. Note the Lab Coat and Crepuscular Stamping Stick in the above photograph.

Thanks to Jason Finkelman, who continues to bring the musical news of the world to east-central Illinois.

*

In March 2013, Douglas Ewart returned to Krannert for a performance with Wadada Leo Smith.

*

In November 2015, Ewart returned to Krannert for a performance with Quasar.

All Rabbits Must Die

Mr. McGregor would like this Flash game: All Rabbits Must Die. It’s fast and fun and Angry Birds-like and must not get in the way of work.