Thursday, December 31, 2015

New Years Poesy Party Pre Game Show

While the pictures from our New Years Poesy Party is developing down there at the drug store, I am going to partially recollect things from the blog from the year in non-chronological ordeal.

In January I summoned a drawing memory brief of Soulville, the place on Main St., between the Rialto (where I saw King Kong vs. Godzilla) and the barber shop (where I saw George Wallace get a haircut). On the left was Jack, on the right was Norman. Norman on the right hipped me to blues.

L to R: Jack, Norman.


In February I ventured West. Good idea as the snow was piling ever higher in the East. T'wern't long after the passing of Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. There in the sybaritic city by the bay, Jeff DeMark sang his ode to Ernie Banks, "Does that sound like work to you?"



On same trip me and the boys had a night on the town. We didnt dance, you know, but the bluegrass dancers of the evening did make an impression, of which I am still mindful. "Did you see that girl?"
"The one in the flowered dress?"




Books read this year were A Friend among Spies, Inherent Vice, and Player Piano. So surprised to discover (redécouvre ce que je savais?) Player Piano's homages to cybernetics.

EPIAC XIV, though undedicated, was ... at work in deciding
how many refrigerators,
how many lamps,
how many turbine generators,
how many hub caps,
how many everything America and her customers could have and how much they would cost.

The topic of cybernetics arose this year - as I was able to meet with the author (Eden Medina) of a book on Allende's cybernetic experiment. I wrote about her book on the sister blog, DataDataData.

The last great king of the blues died during the year. BB King. After him, the Deluge. I had to recall how he grabbed me away from the other kind of musics, and again, had to node to Norman, who used to give me BB 45s as the bonus for buying an LP.

Much of year was about Pinterest, and Tumblr animated gifs , and Twitter, and so-on. If you go to the image below you go to a never changing Pinterest widget, that shows where my head is at any given day. It's like LIFE magazine as a stream of consciousness. A window into some kind of reality that the Internet has enabled. Curious.



In New York in the summer, I saw what I'd seen before, but 'wrote it down' anyway. Even embrace the nostalgie. (what was it Gomez said? "Tish, I love it when you speak French?") Project for a Revolution in New York, by Robe Grillet, came back to me in a flash. Did I ever tell you about the time I went to one of his lectures at BU. He spoke in French "unfortunately" and I had to slink out in front of the rest of the class (more than half of which I am sure could not speak French either, but who stayed, as they were taking the course 'for credit').

What a year huh? We have stuff in the refrigerator. I can stop blogging anytime the entropy hits me. Does that sound like work to you?  Got somewhere to go five days a week. Hey, this sounds like a Facebook post. Time for my  bootheels to be wandering... but check out the archives in the column to my left your right.
                                                                        - Jack Vaughan






Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Simple Hamburgers Lyonnaise

Simple Hamburgers Lyonnaise














I found something a bit closer to meatloaf than hamburg in a Craig Claiborne tome. It called for 2 pounds of hamburg, to make 6 burgers (yikes!) - it was not terribly hard but it was not hamburger simple either. Julia Child had a similar recipe (but I think she called out wine instead of cream). This is an Americanized version, maybe something Howard Johnson's could have swung with.
                                                                                                          -C. Bogle, 2015

1 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 pound ground beef
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoons cream
some oil (for pan)
some flour (to sprinkle meat)
1 garlic clove chopped (optional)


1. combine.
2. shape into 4 patties, flatten, should be about > 1/2-inch thick
3. heat oil in skillet. add patties and brown well on one side; then turn and brown - about 10 minutes on the second side.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Hoffa

"Hoffa" is a remarkable movie, an original and vivid cinematic work, but is that enough? I think it is. Others will have legitimate objections to the ways the film operates. - V. Canby, NYT, 1992


Jimmy prowled the dark road - a highway man
looking for members to sign - Hoffa's ethos was to help the
working man - dealing with the mob - that was just a practical matter - in this quest.

And, yes - this can be faulted. But let it resound:

When the rhubarb had begun, and with blood it was
in flower -when the fisticuffs ensued - and the fruit packer depots were amok, alit and mad like a Brughel -
Jimmy Hoffa jumped in with resolute punches.

Trust that smile? He wouldn't ask you to -
But to trust the man fighting along side?
Well that's up to you.
                                                       - Jack Vaughan



Saturday, December 19, 2015

Jack's top of the pops for the year of my sweet lord 2015

Actual specific Top of the pops - Fabulous Negrito via Oakland and Jim Haasero!


My year in song - Folk with mad slides rule - Big Rock



Pop Staples' Return Best from the Vaults- [I heard a chord when I was 22, on a high tremolo bawling guitar by its inventor Roebuck Pop Staples. The family sang a song about Christmas. The 25th Day of December (Last Month of the Year). This chord – for now I will say was in the vicinity around an E-flat-minor 7th – was transportational – deriving a bridge out of the ether that made a path from sorrow to heaven. It led me to composition of my own - which puts it high on the inspirational meter.] Not long before he died in 1999, Staples went in the studio with Mavis and sisters Yvonne and Cleotha. This year with embellishment the resulting tracks saw light of day. Just Pops' voice and guitar and Mavis on "Better Home" which tells the greatest story ever told. A fantastic Staples Box Set also appeared in 2015.



Roots of the Velvets - Wolf Hall days



Giving Bob Dylan and A for effort,and for coming down off the pedestal so

 

 Courtney  Barnett from Australia rocks like the best ever - Elevator operator (always a fascination)

 


 Klezmatical - Cocek Brass Band There Goes Schlomo - Only Charles River separates me from these Borsht drinking stompers



Still boppin - Charles Lloyd - released in 2015 - recorded in 2013




Style breakthrough Kamasi Washington

High falutin: The Wind in Hight places - John Luther Adams

 

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2014 thing I missed: Xs and Os : Taking her home to see momma but not this Christmas
 


Didnt Find Sam Burckhardt's "FlyOver" on YouTube..but here is the ace in the place!

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2014 thing I missed: Elvin Bishop returns to Maurice: The dude cant even do wrong right (apt description of my live as a blogger). Happy New Year, Dreamers & Streamers. - Jack Vaughan

 

Golden days of Soul