Orange Crate Art redux

The Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson album Orange Crate Art, recorded in 1995, has now been reissued in 2-CD and 2-LP editions by Omnivore Recordings. I got my copy of the 2-CD set yesterday and listened all the way through over two days. The original twelve tracks, remastered, are newly vivid, like paintings after restoration. The standout among the three bonus tracks is “What a Wonderful World” — you can hear Brian giving his all, and the result is deeply affecting. The instrumental versions of the original tracks reveal countless details; I’d point to “Summer in Monterey” and “My Jeanine” as particularly great examples of Van Dyke’s art as composer and arranger. Oh, and “Orange Crate Art.”

Van Dyke is a friend, and I’m hardly an objective pair of ears. But I think the Omnivore description — “sounds like nothing before or since” — is objectively accurate. Orange Crate Art is music of no time and for all time.

Related reading
All OCA BW and VDP posts (Pinboard)

Music then and again

Jazz on a Summer’s Day (dir. Aram Avakian and Bert Stern, 1960) is an impressionistic documentary of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. I caught some of it on TCM Monday night. This great and joyous performance by Anita O’Day, which I’ve seen dozens of times, moved me to tears when I thought about how we’ve lost the happiness of listening to music together. But not forever.

What will it feel like to attend a concert again? I want to know.

Related posts
Anita O’Day (1919–2006) : Musician v. singer

[When the YouTube link fails, as it eventually will, just look for anita o'day sweet georgia brown tea for two.]

A dark thought, but I’ll air it

I can almost imagine Donald Trump*, several months from now:

“And we must never forget our great warrior seniors — and that’s what they are, you know that. They are warriors, giving their lives in the fight to save our way of life from the terrible plague. We love you. We will never forget you. We will always treasure the memory of your great sacrifice, so very great. And we must never forget our great young people,” &c.

The Trump* cult — No mask? No test? No problem! — really is a death cult.

Bumps

Like the Brontës, William Crimsworth’s new acquaintance Hunsden Yorke Hunsdsen appears to ascribe to physiognomy and phrenology:


Charlotte Brontë, The Professor (1857).

The Professor, published posthumously, is an odd duck. Of greatest interest: its principal characters (both teachers), its depiction of marriage, and, in the person of Mr. Hunsden, its barely coded presentation of a gay man.

Also from Charlotte Brontë
A word : Three words : Jane Eyre, descriptivist

[X—— is a mill town.]

The Lincoln Project

I’ve been impressed by their ads for a while now. But it’s this latest, snark-free one that made me decide to give some money to The Lincoln Project.

As Donald Trump* would say, these people are vicious. I wish that Democrats knew how to make ads this effective.

Jane Eyre, descriptivist

”There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things,” sighs Jane Eyre. In contrast, Jane herself, as she sets off from Thornfield Hall to mail a letter:


Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847).

And we can already figure out from the way novels work that something important is about to happen on this walk.

Descriptions of landscapes are what I like best in Jane Eyre.

Related posts
A word from Charlotte Brontë
Three words from Charlotte Brontë

Caramelized shallot pasta

[Click for a larger portion.]

Though I really want to call it caramelized-shallot pasta. Or better, pasta with caramelized shallots.

The recipe, made famous by Alison Roman, hides behind a New York Times Cooking paywall. I made this dish when Times subscribers without an additional subscription for NYT Cooking could read the steps, without a list of ingredients. Now everything’s behind the Cooking paywall. But go figure: the recipe is available to all via what appears to be an authentic Times Instagram account.

I used a small plastic container’s worth of shallots, a couple of cloves of garlic, some red-pepper flakes, salt and pepper, a can of anchovies, an almost full four-ounce tube of tomato paste, a pound of fettucine, and some Italian parsley. The result was glorious. I’d suggest less salt (Roman’s recipe calls for three applications). And you can save some money by remembering to buy a can of tomato paste, much cheaper than a tube.

There were no leftovers.

Fine’s Price

Fambly excitement: the violinist Augustin Hadelich has invited violinists everywhere to record themselves playing the violin part from Elaine’s arrangement of Florence Price’s “Adoration,” a piece for organ that Elaine arranged for violin and piano. Augustin will play the piano part, choose from various violin performances, and sync the results.

A related post
An Augustin Hadelich Tiny Desk Concert

The International Eraser Museum

An Instagram museum: the International Eraser Museum, focused on “non-novelty, vintage erasers.” For instance: a Pelikan eraser with what appear to be separate sections for pencil, colored pencil, ballpoint, and fountain pen.

Thanks to Ian Bagger for pointing me to this museum.

[I’m not embarrassed to acknowledge that OCA has a Pinboard tag for erasers.]

Trump* is not alright

"I don't want to get water on the tie" -- Trump is now whining that people noticed that he seemed to have a hard time drinking water out of a glass at West Point last weekend. He then drinks water with one hand to prove he can do it. pic.twitter.com/MC3u3FR7RT

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2020

Look carefully: he’s supporting the glass with his pinky.

I’m glad (sort of) that I watched again. I think it’s almost impossible to spot this trick on a first viewing.