Category: Musicology

  • A novel a day keeps the doctor away

    So far, so good. B and I went away for the weekend to celebrate my birthday but I’ve posted two installments of my daily NaNoWriMo effort today to make up for it. There’s a lot to be said for writing fast without fear or favor.

  • Happy NaNoWriMo

    I took the plunge this year and signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I’ll be “doing it” over at A Supposedly Staggering Infinite Work of Heartbreaking Illumination I’ll Never Read. I also have a profile page over at the nanowrimo site. The novel I’m working on is called For You, The Stars Wish me…

  • Eight years before the blog

    One thing about starting my first online journal on my birthday back in 1997 is it makes it pretty easy to keep my blogiversary straight.

  • Blogging from Flock

    This is a test post from Flock. So far, so cool.

  • The inquiring enquirer asks

    When, exactly, did ‘nads become nards?

  • Go see Cecil next week!

    Next Tuesday night (October 18th), Cecil aka Dan aka Cecil will be reading various poems and poem-like shtick at C’era Una Volta, located in the heart of The Island City (aka Alameda). Says Dan^H^H^HCecil: They’re even being nice enough to provide free appetizers, for reasons I can’t quite figure out. So maybe I just dreamt…

  • Play that funky music, white boy

    I gave my love a Cherry. It had no bone.

  • New Orleans will rise again

    I even think there will be a Mardi Gras, but this is some good news (from The Times-Picayune): The 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will go on by Zack Smith “There will be a Jazzfest. We are committed to putting on the 2006 Jazz and Heritage Festival, whatever that may take,” said Quint…

  • Charlie Parker jams

    Driving back to my office on 101 North from Santa Clara I hit the button for KCSM and caught most of “Jam Blues” by Charlie Parker and an all-star crew. I’m going to have to get me that record. It was a perfect California moment, sailing up the freeway with Bird blowing in my ear.…

  • Escalation

    If only my minor email lossage of the last week had been the end of the story, but through superior advanced dimwittedness, I managed to lost my entire personal computer archive (email, desktop wiki notes, and all documents) since roughly December of last year. It feels a bit like having a house burn down. You…

  • Minor email setback

    I managed to wipe out all the mail in my inbox since August 9. (Don’t ask.) If you’ve emailed me in the last 12 days and you don’t hear back from me about whatever you emailed me about, that’s probably why. Feel free to contact me again. Thanks.

  • Another productivity sink

    Check out this very very very very very very very cool Flickr Related Tag Browser.

  • Thirty-six years ago today

    One small step for a man, one giant leap for moonkind. Be sure to zoom all the way in.

  • As PNH calls it: The book meme that ate blogdom's brain

    OK, OK, I’ll play (I guess you can call this entry the final straw, although I wasn’t “tagged” by it, so this is kind of a bastard-child in terms of meme lineage): Total number of books owned: No idea. At least 2000. Possibly double that, counting boxes of books in the basement. Would be a…

  • This doesn't surprise me

    Quoting from More Alan Furst Blogging: More Alan Furst blogging, this time from Unqualified Offerings: Unqualified Offerings: Henry Farrell got me into a to-do for novelist Alan Furst at GWU this evening. The food was fabulous and the author did not disappoint. Controversial GWU President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg did the introduction, and it was good…

  • Bloggers trying to have it both ways with the FEC?

    I read Chris Nolan because she makes me think and she teases out subtleties that ordinarily might escape me. In The Man Behind the Curtain she takes Kos to task for promoting a future in which bloggers have all the exemptions of journalists and all the freedoms of partisan hacks: The idea of getting money…

  • By the reefers of Bobby-lawn

    Ed Ward reminisces about Bob Marley and the Wailers and the rock music journalism scene of the mid 1970s, a reverie triggered by an old photo sent to him by an old friend. Great stuff.

  • TPM Cafe launches

    Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog has spawned a group weblog experiment called TPM Café. Like other popular political community blogs such as Daily Kos, MyDD, and RedState.org, TPMCafe runs on Scoop. For more information about participating, see the site’s Frequently Asked Questions.

  • The Power and Mighty, live at the Bowery Poetry Club

    So xourmas and I debuted our duo last night (May 23) in New York at an open mic at the Bowery Poetry hosted by the O’Debra Twins (aka, Your Psycho ex-Girlfriends). There is a lottery to perform and each act gets seven minutes. We went on around 12:45 and did our arrangements of two standards.…

  • Jazz Fest, Day Three

    Jazz Fest, Day 3 Originally uploaded by xian. iPhoto choked out while trying to upload my 91 photos from Sunday, but I’ll get them all up to flickr eventually. Here’s a shot of (some of) Don Vappie’s Creole Jazz Serenaders with Michael Doucet (of BeauSoleil) sittin in on violin – or is that fiddle? Oh,…

  • Jazz Fest, Day Two

    iced coffee and four (huge) beignets large rosemint tea one nacatamal (b) one seafood gumbo Big Sam’s Funk Nation (congo square) Charles Teony of Recife, Brazil (heritage stage) New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra (economy hall) Fishbone (congo square), they started late, only heard 3/4 of a song large cochon de lait po-boy (en route to…