Guest post: Whitney. Our first adoption from Cocker Spaniel Rescue of Austin/San Antonio. Shhhhh…
She’s trying to focus.
My Dog Max: Guest Post, Whitney
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My Dog Max: Happy Meet Ya Day, 2023
8 Years ago today – happy Meet Ya day, Max. I’m not 100% sure he was 100% sure about us, but I reckon it’s worked out OK.
My Dog Max: International Cat Day, 2023
Shhh…I’z napin dad…
My Dog Max: Hungri Dawg
Iz hungri…
Great piece from NPR on what makes Jazz “swing.”
I thought this was super interesting.
As the Big Band era jazz trumpeter Cootie Williams once reportedly joked about swing, “Describe it? I’d rather tackle Einstein’s theory.”
Fittingly, physicists now think they’ve got an answer to the secret of swing — and it all has to do with subtle nuances in the timing of soloists.
Year of 1000 Poems | 11 – 20 | Robert Frost Selections
- The Pasture
- The Tuft of Flowers
- Blueberries
- Home burial
- The Witch of Coos
- Paul’s Wife
- A Woodward’s Gardens
- The Vindictives
- Wild Grapes
- The Bearer of Evil Tidings
Analysis Paralysis, Scrobble Edition
Several years ago, I read about a study that showed that people tend not to listen to new music as they got older.
The peak age for discovering new music, the [Deezer] results suggested, was 24. This is when 75% of respondents said they listened to 10 or more new tracks a week, and 64% said they sought out five new artists per month. After this, though, it seems people’s ability to keep up with music trends peters off.
Why we stop discovering new music around age 30
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-stop-discovering-new-music-around-age-30-2018-6?op=1
I was curious what “new” music I’d been listening to over the last decade and a half I’ve been tracking it, so I did a little analysis, looking at artists that I hadn’t listened to the years before; counting the raw number of new artists, and then noting the new artists that had 75 or more plays.
| Year | New Artists | New Obsessions | Notes |
| 2022 | 551 | Breadth, no depth | |
| 2021 | 175 | Larkin Poe, Rura | Blues, and a new Celtic band |
| 2020 | 339 | Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings | Great R&B |
| 2019 | 491 | Tyler Childers, Bothy Band, Lunasa, Dervish | Lots of Celtic this year |
| 2018 | 367 | Cachao | From the Complete Cuban Jam Sessions |
| 2017 | 615 | Tom Eaton | New Age; great Tai Chi music |
| 2016 | 398 | Savages, Early Rise, Baroness, Device, Godsmack, Die Antwoord | Experimentation with heavier rock than usual. And Die Antwoord. What can we say about Yolandi and Ninja? |
| 2015 | 386 | Lou Donaldson, Ike Quebec, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Jimmy Smith, John Renbourn, Brian Blade | This was the year I created my Blue Note Records playlists. |
| 2014 | 287 | Martin Denny | Exotica |
| 2013 | 235 | Civil Wars | Folk |
| 2012 | 420 | Luciana Souza | Latin vocal jazz |
| 2011 | 256 | ||
| 2010 | 58 | ||
| 2009 | 214 | ||
| 2008 | 223 | Jay Farrar, Alejandro Escovedo, Iron & Wine/Calexico | Folk/Americana |
I reckon one could argue that none of this counts as new music, since most of the genres were not unknown to me. But my dalliances with Metal in 2016, Irish Traditional music in 2019, Exotica in 2014 and Blue Note Records in 2015 were, by and large, new sounds for me. Certainly I would argue that this shows a willingness to expand beyond the Journey, Foreigner and Styx of my formative years.
Notes about the raw data: This analysis was done from the 300,000 record dataset of my music listening habits, going back to 2007. I have removed duplicate tracks from that day I accidentally played REO Speedwagon’s “High in Fidelity” 18 times in a row, or the two days worth of Wilco when I turned off the amp, but Spotify was still churning through the playlist on my PC. I’ve also normalized artist names, so that Pat Metheny Group, Pat Metheny and Pat Metheny and John Scofield are rolled up as Path Metheney.
Year of 1000 Poems | 10/1000 | Tool & Die – John Lyon
A poem I wrote about my father in 1994, shared here in recognition of his birthday. I’m not sure what he would have thought about this poem; he appreciated more the poetry of the long sloping lines of a 64 Galaxie 500.
Tool & Die
John Lyon
Calipers and micrometers, cradled by the red felt
lining the half opened drawers of the wooden toolbox that belonged to his father,
wait to measure the tolerances of parts that must work together without touching.
And his corrugated space smells of the sweet oil sliding down the bit,
smoking as metal bites into metal,
digging towards the core,
extruding the sharp helix that can tempt blood from my young fingers.
We hide behind masks, he and I,
as he draws a molten bead along the cold unparted edges,
the inscrutable panes protect our dark eyes.
We must not look directly at such couplings.
Even here, among the jagged edges and melting surfaces,
kindness lays down in the teeth.
The blade, oiled to cut softly through the angle iron
eases itself down under his sure fingers , chewing gently
through the 90º angles, 6″ at a time.
And there are no shadows here;
the cold fluorescent lights illuminate every square inch of my father’s workshop.
The only darknessess are the fears
lying beneath his clean work shirt,
beating against the pencils and rulers he carries in his breast pocket.
Year of 1000 Poems | 09/1000 | My Father’s Wedding – Robert Bly
My Father’s Wedding
Robert Bly
Today, lonely for my father, I saw
a log, or branch,
long, bent, ragged, bark gone.
I felt lonely for my father when I saw it.
It was the log
that lay near my uncle’s old milk wagon.
Some men live with a limp they don’t hide,
stagger, or drag
a leg. Their sons often are angry.
Only recently I thought:
Doing what you want…
Is that like limping? Tracks of it show in sand.
Have you seen those giant bird-
men of Bhutan?
Men in bird masks, with pig noses, dancing,
teeth like a dog’s, sometimes
dancing on one bad leg!
They do what they want, the dog’s teeth say that.
But I grew up without dog’s teeth,
showed a whole body,
left only clear tracks in sand.
I learned to walk swiftly, easily,
no trace of a limp.
I even leaped a little. Guess where my defect is!
Then what? If a man, cautious,
hides his limp,
somebody has to limp it. Things
do it; the surroundings limp.
House walls get scars,
the car breaks down; matter, in drudgery, takes it up.
On my father’s wedding day,
no one was there
to hold him. Noble loneliness
held him. Since he never asked for pity
his friends thought he
was whole. Walking alone he could carry it.
He came in limping. It was a simple
wedding, three
or four people. The man in black,
lifting the book, called for order.
And the invisible bride
stepped forward, before his own bride.
He married the invisible bride, not his own.
In her left
breast she carried the three drops
that wound and kill. He already had
his bark-like skin then,
made rough especially to repel the sympathy
he longed for, didn’t need, and wouldn’t accept.
So the Bible’s
words are read. The man in black
speaks the sentence. When the service
is over, I hold him
in my arms for the first time and the last.
After that he was alone
and I was alone.
Few friends came; he invited few.
His two-story house he turned
into a forest,
where both he and I are the hunters.
Year of 1000 Poems | 08/1000 | Eating Poetry – Mark Strand
Eating Poetry
Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.