josh blog

Ordinary language is all right.

One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.

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21 Sep '02 05:37:43 PM

First thing I remembered upon putting on Mingus' Black Saint and the Sinner Lady: me, playing it on air, and someone calling up about half an hour later and asking, "what was that crazy orchestral shit?"

21 Sep '02 04:58:40 AM

A "cross-sectional" Masada discography.

21 Sep '02 04:24:42 AM

There are how shall we say unpleasant associations with Jeff Beck, he being a studio guitar guy and having released a crap 80s fusion album that I was led to believe would be great but which I was unaware of the crap 80s fusion part of and so which I only listened to once but: when I have Talking Book on repeat one of the many places where my ears perk up again and I start singing along (well actually I am singing along most of the time but it's a different kind of singing - oh and for example I say whistle sometimes instead at these times) is good ol Jeff's little solo on "Lookin' for Another Pure Love". How about that. Plink plink plink plink, whistle whistle.

21 Sep '02 01:13:39 AM

Yes I know that's not a very original or creative idea. "Reminder" is a better word for it.

21 Sep '02 12:54:10 AM

Idea I had while listening to a talk on "emotional articulacy": take more seriously improvisation in music (jazz in particular) as a model (like a language game if you like) with which to understand improvisation in non-musical contexts.

21 Sep '02 12:52:42 AM

Someone in the vicinity of my house is playing a brass instrument very badly.

21 Sep '02 12:46:21 AM

I heard a John Lennon record the other day. I thought it was Imagine but looking at the tracklist now I'm not so sure - maybe it was a comp or something. But though I recognized some of the songs, I'd never heard the whole thing before. It was the coldest, most bitter thing covered by a sheen of something... more positive that I've heard in a long time.

21 Sep '02 12:04:30 AM

I don't know why I put (yesterday) it so that it sounds like a flaw that I don't know how the songs get into the author's head, because I don't think it is. It's just something I'm always curious about.

20 Sep '02 05:46:49 AM

I think the comparatively sparser songs (and that's saying a lot) on fixed::context make the too-familiar harmonies and modulations on Labradford's E luxo so sound more trite (a criticism I would normally be resistant to). I'm not so sure I want to think this.