We’re occupying the streets of Los Angeles; our demands: bring us stories…
“Pilgrim Land” (2005 / 0:43 excerpt) Tom Russell
“Old America” (3:32 excerpt)
“Bukowski #2 on the Hustle=” (2:08 excerpt)
“Honky Jazz” (4:14)
“Swap Meet Jesus” (4:21)
From the album Hotwalker: Charles Bukowski & A Ballad for Gone. An Americana ode to old L.A., the music, the culture, from beat outsiders to religious revivals to long gone radio sounds; with stuntman, circus midget, and actor Little Jack Horton.
“Hotwalker is the best Sam Peckinpah movie since Peckinpah died. It’s a ghostly jubilee, an audacious slab of Blue America. Narrated aby noir cowboy, Tom Russell, it is a singular recording, bound to be controversial — it’s not only going to ruffle feathers, but leave feathers scattered on the ground.”
—novelist-poet Luis Urrea
Today is the 100th birthday of writer/composer Paul Bowles (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999). Here’s a celebratory sonic survey of his audio efforts…
From the Library of Congress album Folk Music and Song, “Chorus and Dance,” rung and played by Rais Mahamad ben Mohammed and ensemble, musicians of the Haha tribe in Tamanar; recorded by Paul Bowles in Essaouira, Morocco, August 8, 1959 (1:11 mp3): More…
“I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street.” —Langston Hughes:
“Same in Blues / Comment on Curb” 1:46 Langston Hughes with Charles Mingus and the Horace Parlan Quintet mp3):
Lucky Psychic Hut has posted the entire Weary Blues album, Langston Hughes‘ 1859 spoken-word/jazz collaboration — among the musicians: Leonard Feather, Milt Hinton, and Charles Mingus. Poets.org has more on “The Weary Blues” book and record.
DREAM INTERPRETATION
Simplified.
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex
LILAC TIME
The lilacs are flowering, sweet and sublime,
with a perfume that goes to the head;
and lovers meander in prose and rhyme,
trying to say --
for the thousandth time --
what's easier done than said.
Reading One Art, a huge collection of poet Elizabeth Bishop’s letters. I notice this, written
from Key West in l938:
“I have a little Victor record player that attaches to the radio. It is quite good; and a lot of records I got from Sears, Roebuck… the Negro ones are the best: “That Bonus Done Gone Through,” “Riding to Your Funeral in a Ford V-8″… but it is almost impossible to find anything about who is composing them. (They appear all over the South within three days of any major news event, it seems.)”
Sounds like an early version of twitter. I’ve never heard of this before, have you?
For an upcoming HV hour on Lincoln and Civil War (for July 4th), here’s a couple poets mixed with music from Lincoln Shuffle (by Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National and Clogs, for the great bicentennial site 21st Century Abe, used with their re-mixing blessings).
UPDATED AGAIN VERS “Lincoln Langston Carl” (4:27 mp3):
Voices: 1- Langston Hughes performing his poem “Lincoln Monument, Washington” (1955 album: The Dream Keeper and Other Poems of Langston Hughes). 2- Poet Carl Sandburg addressing the U.S. Congress on Lincoln’s 150th birthday (2/12/1959; excerpt). 3- “A Visit with Carl Sandburg” interview on NBC-TV Wisdom Series: Conversations with Elder Wise Men (2/8/1953; excerpt). Music: Bryce Dessner “Long Summer” (2008: Lincoln Shuffle for 21stcenturyabe.org). Production: Barrett Golding HearingVoices.com.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
055 WordshakerS: For Poetry Month
Host: Andrei Codrescu of NPR / Exquisite Corpse
Airs week of: 2012-04-04 (Originally: 2009-04-01)
Hearing Voices from NPR®
039 Portrait of a Plague: For AIDS Awareness Day
Host: Joe Richman of Radio Diaries
Airs week of: 2011-11-30 (Originally: 2008-11-26)
W.H.O. World AIDS Day
The 1st of December A Day Without Art
Sister Agnes Ramashiga makes her rounds at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto; 2000 patients check in daily, half are HIV positive. It’s “Just Another Day At the Biggest Hospital In the World,” a Radio Diaries by Joe Richman & Sue Johnson (Picture-Projects).
HIV-Positive teenagers, Tanya, Mark, and Tenisha, record audio diaries about living “The Positive Life”; produced by by Stephen Smith & Stephanie Curtis for American RadioWorks (photos and journals at ARW).)
Poet Lisa Buscani is “Counting” on her mom’s health advice, from the book Jangle and the CD Word Up
And Trouble Came: An African AIDS Diary (CD at Arkiv Music) by Laura Kaminsky is a compositon for viola, cello, piano, and for a narrator, reciting poems, biblical verse, and stories of Tamakloe, a warrior, tailor, and AIDS victim.
AIDS once meant death. Now improved treatments keep HIV-positive people alive for decides. So what’s that like, being brought back from the dead; as when Jesus revived his dead friend “Lazarus;” by Krandall Kraus from his book Book: It’s Never About What It’s About.
“Letters to Butchie” are a dying mother’s writings to a son she’ll never see, produced by Dave Isay Sound Portraits (music: Nick Drake).
Post-Madonna Prima Donna (2001) is a one-act opera. The subject is language, sepcifically, in this excerpt, the Minnesota vernacular. “Post-Madonna Prima Donna: Recitative 1 | Aria” (1:01 | 3:02 mp3):
Also on the CD is an 11-part Odi et Amo (2006), a cantata inspired by the love poems of the ancient Roman poet Catullus.
Audio aritiste extraordinaire (and USA Fellow) Susan Stone’s new project is IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK “Inside Youth Speak Out: testimonial writings by the youngest members of America’s prison system.” Lots of poetry and audio there, some w/ music by Malcolm Marshall. A couple of my faves…
Gregory Deloatch and Daniel Canada dreamed of being writers, but normal life—marriage, jobs, paying the rent—always got in the way. To pursue their dream, the two friends embarked on an unusual experiment. Lu Olkowski tells the story of how it turned out.
I’m a sucker for Emily Dickinson, and for Sean Cole‘s radio pieces, including his latest in which Billy Collins seduces poor Emily and Sean gets misty-eyed over a piece of string. From Studio 360‘s American Icons series, Sean Cole “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (13:24 mp3):
The Third Coast Festival conf is having a live broadcast party at :Vocalo, ChiPubradio’s new station. You can contribute pieces to this on-air extravaganza (how-to: start a user acct, then upload audio w/ tag “Third Coast Festival”).
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