Julius Eastman – Monday Evening Concerts
I’m so excited about this, tonight. I haven’t been this excited about a concert in a while.
Please read Alex Ross’ recent appreciation of Eastman from last week.
The radiant Davóne Tines will be singing, and pianists include a quartet of some of new(er) music’s best.
Really can’t wait!
“The Impossible and His Cabal of Demon-Jackals”
Son of Baldwin, as correct as can possibly be.
The only thing I wish to add is my own affirmation of the importance of not uttering that man’s name. I have been in the practice of so doing since late in 2015, and I’m gratified to find that a few other people place a similar level of importance on the gesture.
The only difference is that I’ve been referring to him as The Unnameable.
Julius Eastman, Captain Beefheart
Compare and contrast:
News Analysis ®
Post Women’s March.
You know what I especially appreciate about yesterday? That within less than 24 hours of the inauguration, in a span of time in which the Unnameable should have enjoyed the uninfringed glow of victory, he and his mission were stripped of that; displaced from the top of every page and from the head of every news story; displaced and replaced by a picture of a maximally plural and inclusive vision of this country and the world.
Put it another way: he and the GOP were denied their golden optic. Their balls were barely done and all of a sudden, millions of ordinary Americans wrested the spotlight away from them and amplified that spotlight a hundred times.
Put it another way: their first morning waking up in power, and they’re already playing defense.
Desperate, angry, dissembling defense.
That’s a powerful message.
And it burned their ass.
Bigly.
Madeleine Thien
Artists: time to work.
What can we do on our own? What can we do in small groups? How do we enlarge a creative culture which recognizes common cause even without coordination?
What can we do to work with other agents of change from completely different backgrounds, with completely different skills? How can we work together?
I’m not talking about abstract ideas. I’m talking about concrete work.
What the products of that work will be is up to us.
But I have to do something more than what I’m doing, and art is what I’m good at.
If you’re reading this, and you feel this, then let’s start with this question: how can we help?
Thus begins the work.
A Meditation on Post-election Unreality
This essay by Hawa Allan is outstanding.
It hits all the right notes for me, in this post-election crisis of reality. It is searching, reflective, and utterly correct.
Rage against the dying of the light.
Rage.
Call. Again.
I’m tired of calling.
I just called Sen. Feinstein’s and Harris’ offices. Harris’ no answer; voicemail full. Feinstein told them that these hearings have to be stopped. This proces has to be stopped. “Slam on the brakes” I think I said, like McConnell shut down Merrick Garland’s nomination hearings.
I told them they’re not doing enough. It must be stopped.
Wasted breath I’m sure, but what else do we have?