WE PLAY YUCKY NOISY AWFUL MUSIC

spent the whole day researching rhetorical contrasts among supporters of & detractors from the patriot & affordable care acts.  a whole lot interesting there, so stay tuned for future extrusions.

for now, tho, here are some of the merry distractions that've been briefly bursting onto the scene:

here's a really delightful must-watch for Henry Cowell fans, fellow grouch-travelers, & humanoidanity at large.  it turns especially great about three & a half minutes in:

Lang Lang is pretty likable, huh?

here, the unfortunate history of our diplomatic failures is retold via chipper death foods & lively splatch noises.

I listened to some Don Byas.  I listened to that new(ish) Action Bronson mixtape, he's really great & I guess not surprisingly he doesn't like being mistaken for Ghostface.  Charles Ives's 4th symphony, which is so beautiful & gray-weather & paradiso that sharing it feels like practically the reason having a blog was invented.  I listened to a song called deddy oh deddy by Grace Simon, an indonesian froth-bubble that is horrid, yet beguiling.

I got a little nostalgic for early-90s rapping cartoon cereal commercials:

I wished a few times I was reading Anne Porter.  David Shapiro wrote that she "reminds us that the idea of the holy is still possible for us."  that's so sweet.

Fire, And Torrential Rain
It's midnight, I'm alone
My house is suddenly sheathed
In a thick tent of rain
These sheaves of throbbing water
This quenching cold
This dark poured into dark
Are the pure opposite
Of fire, and yet this night
Is whispering and singing like a fire. 

   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 

Fire, most beautiful of flowers,
Whose only perfume is brightness,
You have no season, and you bloom
On the highest of high altars
And under the vagrant's pot.
Through centuries on centuries,
Like Christ you are everywhere,
To kindle the half cigarettes
Which the homeless find in the gutters,
And the tall paschal candle.

love that.  so, c'mon out there -- you reading this?  do this poor Blechtoven the grace of some comments!