mills

When the Saints Go Marching In - The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

This mid-1960s recording is a concession to the fact that last night’s victory over the hated Patriots was one I’ll never forget; only the post-Katrina reclamation of the Superdome against the Falcons -also a Monday night game- exceeds it, in my view. If you’re familiar with our team’s history I’m sure you’ll forgive a bit of sentimentality.

I’m trying not to contribute to the hype, but it’s not easy. Previously.

Rapper’s Delight - Sugar Hill Gang

I was under the mistaken impression that this song’s long verse on a disastrous meal was Thanksgiving-themed. My mom is a phenomenal cook, so I suppose I’ll just hope that this doesn’t describe your experience today.

Have you ever went over a friend’s house to eat 
and the food just aint no good?
I mean the macaroni’s soggy the peas are mushed 
and the chicken tastes like wood.
So you try to play it off like you think you can 
by sayin’ that you’re full, 
and then your friend says, “Momma, he’s just being polite, 
he ain’t finished -uh, uh- that’s bull.”
So your heart starts pumpin’ and you think of a lie, 
and you say that you already ate,
and your friend says, “Man, there’s plenty of food,” 
so you pile some more on your plate.
While the stinky food’s steamin’ your mind starts to dreamin’ 
of the moment that it’s time to leave,
and then you look at your plate and your chicken’s slowly rottin’ 
into something that looks like cheese.
So you say, “That’s it, I got to leave this place, 
I dont care what these people think.
I’m just sittin’ here makin myself nauseous 
with this ugly food that stinks.”
So you bust out the door while it’s still closed 
-still sick from the food you ate-
and then you run to the store for quick relief 
from a bottle of Kaopectate…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks

Posted by Filmosophy-founder, master of the mind, and man-about-the-Internet Sometimes a Great Notion; shared mainly for Abs-the-gym-rat.

Rebirth Brass Band - When the Saints Go Marching In

I’m starting to get used to very nearly not winning and then winning. Not really: every time I’m certain we’ll lose. Previously.

Sidney Bechet - When the Saints Go Marching In

Last week I made explicit my wish that Saints games not be so heart-stopping as the victory over Miami was; once again, the universe has demonstrated that at best it is indifferent to my desires. Last night, Abs even got into the game, experiencing roughly the same palpitations during the final quarter that I did.

As happy as I am for the Saints to be 7-0, I’m happier to share some Bechet.

Lachrymarum - Stan Douglas

This, from the re-imagining by Stan Douglas (with John Medeski and Scott Harding) of the soundtrack for the Italian horror film Suspiria, is scientifically-proven to be the scariest song ever.

Feel free to use it to keep trick-or-treaters away.

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - El Matador

This has been a truly wretched day; Abby said, in reference to the various people who helped make it so, “Fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em in the neck.”

When the Saints Go Marching In - Eddie Bo

I know I promised Bechet the next time the Saints won, but that will have to wait until next week; Sazerac had the inside line on a great version of this song by Eddie Bo, whose music has also been posted by Liz, twice.

On the other hand, another game like this will certainly kill me. (Previously!)

Louis Armstrong- When the Saints Go Marching In

With apologies to my estranged but fondly-missed sister Katiebakes, I think I’ll begin posting a different version of this song every time the Saints win; I should hope to exhaust my reserve of covers by the end of the season, but one never knows with this team from the City that Care Forgot.

Up next: Sidney Bechet.

György Ligeti - Continuum (for player piano)

The wonderful Noise for Airports posted this, and wrote:

Following up on the barrel organ version and the original harpsichord version (as seen at acousmata), here is Continuum, arranged for player piano.

Again, it is fascinating to hear how the different mechanics of these instruments change the acoustic effects of the piece so dramatically. The percussive hits on the piano (then damped), don’t quite seem to blend together, but I think that works well for this piece, which is all about lingering at the edge between the discrete and the continuous.

Elsewhere he noted an impressive violin orchestrion; I didn’t know the word, but it refers to a machine that sounds like an orchestra or band. The violin orchestrion in question seems to me to be a “remarkable piece of apparatus,” a futuristic yet cumbersome robotic contraption that would seem at home in Brazil. Look at those string-depressors!

Funkadelic - Hit It and Quit It

As is my habit, I will briefly drape some quasi-intellectual dross over this post before letting it stand on its own bitchin’ merits (which are ample). “Hit It and Quit It” presumably refers to an amorous liaison of the most superficial sort -though who am I to disparage pleasure, which can be profound- but it also reminds me of how a hero of mine toyed with addiction.

William Vollmann, about whom I’ve posted before, is one of my favorite writers. In addition to the essentially flawless Europe Central, he’s written extensively about life among prostitutes and the poor, and in researching and experiencing their lives he decided to use crack cocaine. He’s asked about it often since, as Mr. Show so memorably demonstrated, people who haven’t used crack can’t believe anyone who has isn’t a crackhead:

Interviewer: I gather you often used drugs with people in the Tenderloin to get a better sense of the life there. Did you ever worry you’d get addicted?

Vollman: I don’t know, not really. I probably used crack over 100 times in my life, but I never found myself craving it. But there’s a really nice coffee shop down the street from my house, and I go there sometimes to get a coffee and a cookie. And sometimes I find myself waking up really wanting that cookie. That never happened with crack.

So take it from National Book Award-winning genius William Vollmann: good cookies are more addictive than crack, which you can pretty much hit and quit at will.

Hildegard of Bingen - O tu suavissima virga

Sydney’s child Vera was born on September 17, and because I’m fond of coincidence -though not credulous about its purported meaning, numerological or astrological or otherwise- I was eager to learn what resonances that date might have.

As it happens, it is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, a venerated and polymathic mystic, composer, scholar, artist, and theologian who died in 1179. Particularly for a woman in the Catholic church of the 12th century but indeed by all standards, her life was remarkable.

Hildegard in the Liber Scivias.

Among other distinctions, she is the earliest known composer whose music we possess, making her a mythical figure in the classical canon which would soon exclude women. In addition we have much of her writing, an invented language (possibly the first constructed language, alphabet below), illustrations, and stories of her spiritual intensity and strong will.

I first learned of Hildegard of Bingen in a class I took on Julian of Norwich, the 15th century English anchoress and mystic. For many Christian women of the Catholic or Anglican churches, they are among the most beloved figures, alongside Saint Teresa of Avila and Mary. In her life, Hildegard corresponded with popes and men like Suger, considered by many the main source of the Gothic style in architecture; she is even listed in the Roman Martyrology, the 16th century list of Catholic saints published by the Church, although she has not been officially canonized in the current process.

“Universal Man” illumination from the Liber Divinorum Operum.

While I share a birthday with Joseph Goebbels, Vera’s birthday is intertwined with Hildegard, whose music I listen to on occasion and who wrote that

“Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.”

Happy birthday, Vera, and congratulations, Syd and Q!