my friends call me 5 @sj5@witches.live

been reading this excellent work of modern philosophy... it's intense so breaks for musician biographies & mystery novels but... well worth a look!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/arguing-for-a-better-world-how-philosophy-can-help-us-fight-for-social-justice-arianne-shahvisi/18427045

#Books #Bookstodon #BooksOfMastodon

spent today in La Conner, WA
for TOM ROBBINS DAY

wasn't sure what the turnout would be
as several baristas we met there a few months back
had um never heard of him?

(he's lived there since the 70s)

anyway it was awesome.
91yo Tom was KING FOR A DAY
& led the parade flashing peace signs.
💕

#TomRobbins #PNW #Writers #Literature #Books #Bookstodon

just 30pages into Henry Threadgill's book
& already
this one is CRUCIAL.

run do not walk
& absorb this essential tome.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/easily-slip-into-another-world-a-life-in-music-brent-hayes-edwards/18793958?ean=9781524749071

#Music #Books #MusicBooks

Alexandra Billings as Ainsley Lowbeer is by far the best part of The Peripheral. For me anyway.

Read the book twice when it came out & adored it both times—Lowbeer in the show is not at all how I pictured her in the book‚ but still a VERY legit presentation. Pure delight.

(I read the sequel as well—less brain-shattering but very enjoyable. I read much of it aloud to Z, just purely for the language. It's been amazing to watch Gibson grow as a writer since the 80s!)

#Books #TV #ThePeripheral

50 pages into a book by Walter Mosley called MERGE and

I was not ready for this

#books #BooksOfMastodon #WalterMosley

Finally reading Lou Reed's "Art Of The Straight Line", the new book on his Tai Chi practice that Laurie Anderson helped put together.

Just a few chapters in but it's one of those books that you can feel realigning you as you go.

#LouReed #Music #TaiChi #Books #BooksOfMastodon

been reading S. A. Cosby's RAZORBLADE TEARS and watching TRUE DETECTIVE season 3 & friends it is a wild combination

#Television #Books

OK so Szwed slightly fumbled the chapter on blackface, erring a bit on the side of 'helping white people feel better about a shameful chapter in history'—I'm not even entirely sure why that bit was included?

For those with an interest in this important topic, I suppose I would point you to LOVE & THEFT by Eric Lott. I read the first 1/4 & it was revelatory. Szwed attempts to make similar points but lacks the nuance.

HOWEVER the sections on Holiday's singing style, on the very concept of singing itself, & the challenges faced by improvising vocalists, are very good & occasionally great. Inspiring.

#Books #Jazz #Music

Szwed's book on Billie Holiday is fascinating, infuriating, as nuanced as one could hope for...

none of which is a shock since his book on Sun Ra is such a classic.

but it IS a relief.

#Books #Jazz #Music

Alright now the author is REALLY getting on my nerves...

It's fine with me if he dislikes Ayler's album of spirituals (Goin Home/Swing Low Sweet Spiritual), but I really don't like that he presents his low opinion of the music as a fact about the recording:—that it is in some way lesser.

It's a gorgeous album, for me, from start to finish;—& I'm happy to tell you that & also to understand that others might feel differently.

It feels disrespectful to write someone's life story & then grade their work with a red pen, for posterity, as though you know better than they did what they were about.

#Music #Books #FreeJazz #AlbertAyler

trying to read the new Albert Ayler biography & the descriptions of the music are so painfully Eurocentric. I'm gonna slog through for the history but, arrggggh. Dammit Greg Tate the world needs you 💔

#Music #FreeJazz #AlbertAyler #Books #BooksOfMastodon

Still reading Dylan's "The Philosophy Of Modern Song" (POMuS).

Here's 2 more thoughts:

1) "MODERN" is an odd choice given most songs discussed here are not recent. Then again there's Bob's MODERN TIMES lp which shares a title with Charlie Chaplin's film & thus invokes a sense of "I wasn't made for these times" or even "no country for old men". (The MT album is surprisingly mellow. 'Love & Theft' lite. I love it).
Additionally Bob may mean "modern" as opposed to "post-modern".
All of which is in keeping w/ Bob's persona since the 90s.

2) The notes from Harry Smith's Anthology compare to this book's approach.

#BobDylan #Books #BooksOfMastodon #Music #Songs

hey digital witches, @ADHDefy posted this & I feel like it's the actual ether from Psychonaut/Liber Null...

https://apps.amandaghassaei.com/gpu-io/examples/fluid/

#ChaosMagic #Witches #Books

now toying w/ p22 — "Malkauns" — from this book:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/learn-how-to-play-indian-raga-scales-on-your-guitar-a-complete-look-at-raga-scales-fret-board-patterns-and-techniques-with-examples-rajan-mirchandani/10646250

#guitar #practice #books #raga #BooksOfMastodon

More on the new Dylan book ("Philosophy Of Modern Song" aka POMuS)

Bob quotes & alludes to his own lyrics & past throughout the text in a way that I don't recall him doing before. Sometimes it's a phrase from BLONDE ON BLONDE, other times a line like "neighbors giving you the stink-eye every time the wind shifts" that alludes to a 2009 story about honey buckets on Dylan's Malibu property. (& then again, knowing which way the wind blows).

The lyrical nods are familiar from folks writing ABOUT Dylan. The mark of a BAD Dylan writer is the need to pun off his lyrics at every opportunity. Very odd to see Bob do it himself!

#Dylan #Books #BooksOfMastodon #Music

Maureen Mahon is a national treasure. Her book "Right To Rock" on the BRC is fantastic.

https://www.newblackmaninexile.net/2020/12/left-of-black-s11-e6-black-women-rock-n.html

#Music #Books #BooksOfMastodon #Podcasts #Women

new Dylan BOOK that is...

"looking at music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass" as John Coltrane once said of his own work, though in this case it's looking mainly at LYRICS through that desrever lens.

#Dylan #BobDylan #Books #Lyrics #BooksOfMastodon #Songwriting #Songs

I'm about 1/4 into the new #Dylan and so far I'm thinking that if he hears all that in a song like "You Don't Know Me", no wonder his own songs have so many verses!

#Books #Music

I finished reading Kōtarō Isaka's BULLET TRAIN & will be thinking about not just the story & characters but the form of the novel, its themes, & how he tied it all together, for a long time to come.

The movie—while easily the best action movie I've seen in [checks watch] forever—chose to pare away the thought in favor of the action. This is somewhat counter to the author's expressed themes. It would be interesting to see a film that tried to capture it all, preferably by an Asian or Asian-American director &/or w/ mainly Asian cast. In the post Crazy Rich era that ought to be possible!

#Books #Reading #BooksOfMastodon #FilmCommunity #Movies

Reading BULLET TRAIN (original Japanese title: Maria Beetle) &—

1—page turner. not relentless but close.

2—philosophical thriller. part of the author's intent involves exploring the characters' psychology. (this aspect did NOT make it to the movie intact)

3—the translation is not great. this is very much too bad

4—the author is concerned with books & the role they play in people's lives.

5—book 2 in a series, tho I don't think they are 'direct sequels'. there is a 3rd.

5—author is prolific, has won many awards, but it took a movie w/ Brad Pitt to get him in front of US readers.

6—all characters in the book appear to be Japanese.

#Books #Bookstodon