Archive for Music – Page 6

Nashville: Skyline and All

“If you’re travelin’ in the north country fair

Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline

Remember me to one who lived there

For she was once a true love of mine.”

Both Bob Dylan and the Nashville skyline have changed since he wrote those words for the Nashville Skyline album in 1969. I loved the record (yes, it was a record in those days), and I loved his surprising shift from folk-protest to traditional country music including an off-pitch duet with Johnny Cash. Beyond that I didn’t know much about the city except that it was the home of the Grand Ole Opry. I had never been there and neither had M, but a chance meeting with a young couple at a Peter Cetera concert in Seattle got us thinking about a visit to their hometown. So, on impulse, with an Alaska Airlines companion ticket to burn, we booked the flight as just the right destination for an escape from our long wet winter in Seattle. read more

Tears in Heaven…

M.C. Escher’s lithograph, Convex and Concave, 1955

In Franz Kafka’s short story Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, the traveling salesman, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The rest of the story deals with his attempt manage his new condition and explain it to his family.

In The Trial, Kafka’s Joseph K finds himself mysteriously on trial for no discernable reason.“Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” Traduce is an arcane, seldom used verb, that means “to tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation.” It should be in current usage, for sure. read more

Timing is Everything…

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This came in the mail yesterday. It’s wildly misleading.

Well… I did pay my dues for 50 years. That must have been a factor. “Service” is another matter. Does it count if I only practiced (keyword) for 9 months?

Last week I noticed my old firm’s name roll by in the credits of Woody Allen’s latest film, Café Society. Yep, Loeb & Loeb is Woody’s legal counsel. How fitting. My experience at the firm was like something out of one of his films. On my first day, Goldie Cohen, a secretary for one of the senior partners, told me that as a goy I would never understand what was going on at L&L unless I knew a little  Yiddish. She offered to provide some informal tutoring, so whenever I passed her desk she offered up another Yiddish morsel. Meshuga, eh? read more

Bikes, Brews, and the Blues

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It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon along the Burke-Gilman Trail, Seattle’s 50-mile-long Rails to Trails bike path. The trail is packed with runners, walkers, young couples on beach cruisers, mothers with strollers, kids bikes with training wheels, and accountants on $6000 racing bikes dressed for the Tour de France.

M and I live on the trail and ride several times a week. Sometimes it’s a maintenance ride to Woodinville (12 miles roundtrip). Sometimes it’s for lunch at University Village (20 miles) and every August it’s down to Madison Park to watch the Blue Angels’ Seafair show (30 miles). Lately, however, our favorite ride ends up late on a Sunday afternoon at the 192 Brewing Co. read more

Competitive juices…

There is an apocryphal story about the writer Joseph Conrad whose ability to concentrate was so fragile that he had his wife lock him in their spare room, furnished with only a bare table and chair, and not let him out until an appointed time. Writing is hard. Writers are easily distracted.

For the past several days I’ve been trying to write a piece about two legendary jazz players and watch the Masters golf tournament concurrently. I can identify with Conrad. Hard as I tried I couldn’t write and watch the Masters at the same time. I defaulted to golf and for five hours on Saturday and five hours on Sunday I watched 22 year-old Jordan Spieth confidently stride the narrow fairways of Augusta National until he became surprisingly human and dumped two balls in a water hazard, botched a sand trap shot, shot 7 on that par 3 and donated his 5 stroke lead to the eventual winner, 28 year-old Danny Willet. I couldn’t look away and my resolve to finish the jazz piece dissolved like Jordan’s lead. read more