I’m sorry, but science sucks all the pleasure out of music.
So the brain abhors a vacuum, and works very hard to pour its own percolating predictions into perceptual gaps wherever they occur. At the same time, without these gaps—without some moments of stillness in the confusion of life—the brain would be hard-pressed to properly process the concrete details of the world. What a temperamental, contradictory creature inhabits our skulls.
As a musician I’ve always been aware of the beauty and power of silence. I can think of very few songs I’ve written that haven’t included a pregnant pause or two. Why did I include them? Because they felt right . . . and that’s what music is all about. Emotion.
Let’s keep it that way; we analyse things way too much. Sometimes it’s nice not to think.
Like today.
Congratulations to Sharon Hage for her James Beard Foundation Awards 2008 nomination as Best Chef: Southwest.
Back in Dallas, we lived five minutes from Sharon’s restaurant, York Street; I ran into Sharon all the time at Whole Foods on Greenville as we were both doing our daily grocery shopping (I miss daily grocery shopping). Besides friends and family, York Street is one of the things we miss most about Big D. We’ll be dining there on our April visit. (How about your lamb’s tongue salad for a returning fan, Sharon?)
A city overrun with chain restaurants and steakhouses, Dallas is extremely lucky to have a chef like Sharon who prefers to use local and seasonal ingredients and prepares them with subtlety and restraint to let their flavours shine through. She’s a jewel in a scene with too few.
I turned off a Liverpool match for the first time today. Being humiliated by your enemy does not make for a pleasant morning.
From the New York Observer:
You know that funny Web site Stuff White People Like, the one with the jokes? The Canadian guy who runs it just sold a book to Random House for an advance that publishing insiders said had reached at least $350,000 when it was at auction last week. . . . Earlier this month, the person behind http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com signed a contract with Gotham Books, and before that, so did the person who runs LOLcat emporium I Can Haz Cheeseburger.
I wish this were a joke. Who wastes their time going to these sites? (Or am I the only one who hasn’t? . . . Am I the only who doesn’t know what a fucking LOLcat is?)
If this is entertainment, I am not amused.
Obama’s speech, to paraphrase Chuck D, didn’t mean shit to me.
Then again, neither did Elvis or John Wayne. And, yeah, none of my heroes will “appear on no stamps.”
This can’t be over soon enough.
I landed in the United States of America for the first time on 31 October 1975. In Miami, to be specific. My dad believed a weekend in Florida would be nice before we flew to Los Angeles, our final destination for the next six months (ha!).
The first thing I did when the taxi dropped us off at our hotel was to turn on the boob tube to see this magical thing I’d heard so much about: American television. (At that time in England there were three channels; America was some sort of 24-hour entertainment Shangri-la to this 10-year-old’s eyes.)
The first show I saw? Hogan’s Heroes. A WWII comedy with smart-aleck Allies and clueless Krauts? What more could I ask for from this wonderful country?
Today I read that Ivan Dixon, Kinchloe in Hogan’s Heroes, has died. Thanks, Ivan, for making the transition a little easier.