One of the reasons—maybe the main reason—I find the built environment in Europe more charming that in the U.S. is the relative lack of billboards and overhead power lines.
I realized the other week that I didn’t own a copy of a recording of Rhapsody in Blue. That felt un-American, so I went shopping. I listened to the following eleven renditions in search of one to buy:
- Leonard Bernstein / Columbia Symphony Orchestra (Sony, 1959)
- Eric Robinson / Pro Arte Orchestra / Larry Adler, harmonica (Digital Gramophone, 1959)
- Arthur Fiedler / Boston Pops / Earl Wild (RCA, 1960)
- Leonard Slatkin / St. Louis Symphony / Jeffrey Siegel (MMG, 1974)
- Michael Tilson Thomas / Columbia Jazz Band / George Gershwin, piano roll (Sony, 1976)
- Michael Tilson Thomas / San Francisco Symphony (RCA, 2004)
- Jeff Tyzik / Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra / Jon Nakamatsu (Harmonia Mundi, 2007)
- Marin Alsop / Baltimore Symphony Orchestra / Jean-Yves Thibaudet (Decca, 2010)
- Steven Richman / Harmonie Ensemble / Lincoln Mayorga (2010)
- James Judd / Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Benjamin Grosvenor (Decca, 2012)
- Eric Jacobsen / Virginia Symphony Orchestra / Béla Fleck, banjo (2024)...
Kitchen towels are much more effective at soaking up water if, instead of constantly moving them around, you let them rest. My attention is a kitchen towel.
I don’t feel at work the stress I feel at home, where stress accompanies not only the drive to get things done, but even the desire for recreation!
Why the difference? I’m not certain. But my surmises are several:
- For one, I’m explicitly working for other people. That relieves me of the kind of internal pressure I feel when I’m working on my own stuff.
- It also helps that those other people for whom I’m working are trustworthy and trust me. That means I basically have liberty to do as I please.
- I have liberty to do as I please as long as I color within the lines a distinct mission: To maximize the security, resilience, utility, and accessibility of DiamondBack’s information. That unity of purpose helps.
- Finally, five days a week I enjoy eight-hour expanses of time in which do the work.
- Oh, and I’ve largely managed to avoid working under deadlines.
Might I import those circumstances into my non-DiamondBack life? Yes. And in :
- I can view myself as explicitly working for God.
- God is...
I tend to hold in tension my intentions with your own ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I make lists. Here’s one: “Scriptural snippets that may indicate everyone makes it to The Party.”
Here’s my latest working definition: “forgive”
“Hold fast to reproof, don’t let go. Keep it, for it is your life” (Proverbs 4:13, Alters). Lord, may I cherish correction.
Just re-listened to Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins. Classic and therefore at this point entirely unsurprising tenor sax-led hard bop that maintains its faculty to please. It might have been better titled Saxophone Colossus with Drum Titan.
I do what I can
I can what I do ✏️ 🎤 🎵
(h/t Carla)
Carla: Oof, Sully’s YouTube video made me nauseated. Is that a thing? Can a YouTube video make you nauseated?
Scott: Carla, anything can make you nauseated.
Crosby, Stills, and gnashing of teeth
Wanna keep the young away
It’s not that I don’t wanna fight no more,
It’s just that I had a bad day. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
One step closer to nowhere ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I don’t feel sad like I did in 2016. I just feel angry and perplexed that the majority of American voters selected a unabashed narcissist, mythomaniac, sexual predator, and otherwise very well-established heel as their leader.
L’État, c’est lui ?
Just watched: La Haine (1995) written & directed by Matthieu Kassovitz. A memorably stylized, scalding French portrait of three young fictional residents of the Parisian projects. A perfect film. In conversation with Do The Right Thing (1989). A borderline must-see for the sake of humanity. Borderline and not a shoe-in probably because I’m classist and racist. 🍿
Just listened to: Young Liars by TV on the Radio. For as much as I prize chordal playfulness and generosity as the prime musical virtue, I can really get into your endless chordal repetition if your vocals, fuzzy walls of sound, and/or rhythmic loops are striking enough. Which they are on all five slightly post-apocalyptic tracks here. Easily takes its place with Chronic Town, Kindred, and Magical Mystery Tour as one of my favorite EPs ever.
Holy smokes. Beloved is not remotely a Christ figure. Claiming as much amounts to literary malpractice.
So far, Potts’ Forgiveness: An Alternative Account seems beautiful…and spurious.
“I just don’t picture myself as a secretary.”
— Carla, substitutes and budget secretary at Delta, to Heather, other secretary at Delta, standing in the Delta office considering a recent College Township job opening for a secretary
Name a movie in which there’s a disagreement between child and parents and the parents turn out to have been unequivocally right.
I’ll wait.
The difficulty in answering this question is representative of a major cultural problem. Filial piety is miles better than whatever it is we’re doing now (just-try-to-keep-the-kids-safe-and-happy-ism?), but it stands zero chance of ever working if it gets zero support from culture machines.
Crucifixes > crosses.
Idea for a novel: Upon His arrest, Jesus goes ahead and does appeal to the Father to send twelve legions of angels. Then what happens?
In response to Brad East, Tyler Hummel, and a baptism I attended today, I feel compelled to say that I, for one, currently detect zero indication—in scripture as well as in observation—that there is magic at work in baptism and the Eucharist. That is precisely why they need to be attended by high ceremony.
O, for hymnody that combines awe, piety, and moral effort.