Category: Uncategorized

some pictures were taken for a new album:

The title above has nothing to do with the post below; I just saw that sentence yesterday and thought it should be shared.

The Great Empty (from the NY Times) provides a fairly consise visual of where we are as a species in the short term. For millenia, we have constructed environments to suit our biologies and societies, and much of this architecture is now void of human life due to a new virus that is infecting us on a global scale.

I just spent 150 minutes with Béla Tarr’s film The Turin Horse and am at once depressed, impressed, staggered and resigned. (and unsure if that is in order or not)

The cinematography is amazing. There is not a single bad frame in this entire movie. The narrative reminded me of Camus’ bleakest, darkest stories from Exile and The Kingdom but without all the frivolity, senseless joy and optimism.

Finbarr O’Reilly is a photojournalist that I’m just becoming aware of. Reuters has a nice introduction to his work here.

This week wasn’t all doom and gloom: a weary nation missed the news, but will soon rejoice when it realizes: it is finally over.

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If you look very closely, you may notice the seams of paper combined to make this view. This watercolor, View of the Bay of Naples, done by Giovanni Lusieri, spans almost nine feet in width. The amount of detail Giovanni put into this is staggering. Here is a link allowing you to take a long look up close if so inclined.

Seriously – check out the detail!

Frederick Brosen has an enlightening lecture on the youTubez discussing his top ten list of watercolor artists, which is where I learned of Lusieri. Also, the work above is housed in the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles if you’re ever in the area.

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Notes from the Underground by Medeski, Martin & Wood is super strong and you should listen to it if you haven’t already. A considerable time ago I added this to a list of albums to listen to later, then promptly forgot it. Last night, amid a great culling of ‘saved albums’, I took a moment to listen to a track — which immediately became the impetus to sit with the full album. It was time very well spent. (Spotify link here)

Two (+) weeks into our physical distancing regime, I find that music is taking a more central role in my daily. At the start, I suspected I would be reading a lot but I have read less than 25 pages from books in the last two weeks. Any reading is either online or from the Sunday paper. Instead it’s mostly banjo, piano*, learning how to read music and learn [music] theory, and–of course–listening to albums.

Over the course of the week, I came across this piece on getting outside of one’s comfort zone, musically, and recommend it. Ed Jong (author of I Contain Multitudes) has a piece in The Atlantic: How the Pandemic Will End which i highly recommend. I also stumbled across an interesting page on shipping Honeybees (and live Scorpions) through the mail: it seems there are rules.

Jamil Hellu has something going on he’s calling 24 Variations for a Stoning Rock and I can’t really say that I understand the presentation in the .gif format. It did get me thinking though. In 2010, a photojournalist for the AP, Farah Warsameh reported on a stoning in Somalia; that work–reportage–necessarily left a lot less to the imagination. No links will be provided here. If you want to find it, be forewarned that it is just dark.

and on that note….

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This opinion piece from Admiral William H. McRaven (Retired, USN) is more of what we all need, I think.

These daily breifings by Drumpf are beyond unhelpful.

As of the 23rd, the NYTimes reports–and all apparent evidence from statements by POTUS and his underlings support–that Drumpf wants to stop the social distancing strategies and call for everyone to just go about their business, go back to work, commute, etc, amid the ongoing pandemic. This is a ridiculously bad idea.

Leaving it here as a time stamp: On the morning of 24 Mar 2020 there are a reported 6,077 deaths in Italy due to a coronavirus infection. At the same time, in the US, there are 591 deaths from the same. Drumpf has spoken of returning back to normal after March 31st.

I’m glad I live in a city with a Mayor who has shut things down through April 7th at least; my hope is leaders in more cities will provide this sort of leadership and take the tough choices required to help us move forward with the minimum amount of irreplaceable loss.

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Because it’d be just weird to pretend we’re not all thinking about it:  VOX has some good pieces on the Coronavirus. The Atlantic has a good piece on Anthony Fauci. I liked this from the NYTimes on how to shop for groceries these days.

And the rest of this post is videos for your shelter-in-place enjoyments:

because you didn’t go to church today (here’s what you missed):

because you can’t go to the concert tonight:

because you (actually) prefer the violin:

because it’s hard to concentrate right now:  (can you keep track of the passes?

Because Keith Carter is just a national treasure:

Because Booker T can play:

Because this is what Cycling should look like this year:

Because guitar:

Because other:

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from the NYTimes, this was Times Square Wednesday Night.

The piano is an instrument I’m working on this year; originally, to learn how to read music (so much more to say about that later!) but increasingly I’m interested in the instrument of its own accord. To that end, lately I’ve been focused on the first few episodes of The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works, presented by Robert Greenberg. As part of The Great Courses, the 24-episode series isolates a particular solo piano work and not only breaks down the piece but contextualizes it amid the life and times of the composer. If one is ever interested to know what makes a Toccata different than a Bagatelle–which I admit is not something I was desperate to have answered a week ago–or perhaps learn new ways to spot and understand what is going on within classical compositions, this may be of interest. If you prefer books to lectures, he seems to have you covered there as well.

The lectures on Bach have me revisiting J.S. Bach, to the point where I can’t leave it to listen to other things. Not covered in the course listed above, but particularly ridiculous, magnetic and magical, is Bach’s Partita in D minor for solo violin – played here on piano (Spotify link). 

Working from home during this first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (West Coast, USA) has allowed me to play banjo and keyboard mid-day, which is a real treat, and also to spend those commuting hours getting more sleep in the morning and playing more music (or more Playstation video games just as often) in the early evening. I also find myself paying less attention to podcasts, twitter and news throughout the day now that my routine is altered; I suspect I’ve been using those more as entertainment during commutes than as the intentional choices I previously would have held them to be.

Turning to photography, we and the color recently turned me on to Ludwig Favre who is killing it with color and composition. This pastel palette he’s using turns the everyday into something that’s —

— really, quite something. Check him out.

currently reading: Agency by William Gibson
last full listen: Bach by Helene Grimaud

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A week after most technology companies in the Bay Area mandated work from home (WFH) protocols, my (non-tech company) employer followed suit. I am happy to not be commuting via public transit for the forseeable future and look forward to marking off 14 days on the calendar now that the largest exposure factor I had to COVID-19 is not a weekday routine. Plans for the extra two hours/day that were usually spent in commute include solo bike rides and learning how to read music for the piano (as I continue learning to play the banjo). Maybe indoor cycling… idk – I might re-up that Zwift account.

Also organizing/decluttering the house–since it will be our sole lived environment for a while–seems like a good plan.

If anyone reading this wants a FREE resource for the coronavirus outbreak, The Washington Post offers a Free Newsletter mailed to your inbox daily.

Ok. enough COVID, already…

I saw The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh, last week. It was everything it had been hyped to be, and probably more. Of all the reviews I’d seen, I suspect I like Roger Ebert’s the best when he calls it:  “…a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.”

What else… ?  This used to be interesting… prior to my focus on virus-related and social distancing concerns, I was enjoying the thoughtful and entertaining work from Danya Tortorici on Instagram. (but not on Instagram) She’s a talented writer and I look forward to reading her prose more.

There is apparently still a debate tonight – I hope this will be the last one. I’m not sure why Bernie* is still pretending to be in tbe hunt for the Democratic nomination. Unlike the other major party during the previous cycle, in 2020 at least, the {Democratic} Party decided.

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*or whatshername from Hawaii