Almost a new year. Stop worrying so much about productivity and getting things done. Start worrying about things worth doing.
Austin Kleon
CB
Brian Eno
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit — all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
Brian Eno
Baby It’s You
Possibly my favorite musical period is the early sixties, just before The Beatles, say, 1960-63. The Golden Age of AM Radio. Because I hold my favorite songs from that time in such high esteem, I rarely like latter-day covers (most lose all the magic that was there; others are just putrid, like Grand Funk Railroad’s sledgehammer pummeling of “The Loco-Motion”). But for the first time in a while I heard the 1969 version of “Baby It’s You” by Smith – and damn, it’s good! They’ve turned it into a totally different song, but it’s almost as compelling as The Shirelles’ 1962 original. Shirley Owens’ plaintive vocal is a diary entry, set to throbbing reverb and echoplexed guitar (arranged by Burt Bachrach!); Gayle McCormick’s aching but self-assured delivery is face-to-face, over a punchy rhythm section and tough B-3 (produced by Del Shannon!). Lust and longing, served up perfectly for two very different times.
Chogyam Trungpa
Why can’t we proclaim that which is neither false nor true?
Chogyam Trungpa