Playlist Week of 2-19-11

* Miles Davis: Bitches Brew Live (Columbia CD)
* Roscoe Mitchell Transatlantic Art Ensemble: Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (ECM CD)
* Charles Lloyd New Quartet: Rose Theatre, Lincoln Center, New York, NY 1-29-11 (FM 2CDR)
* David S. Ware String Ensemble: Threads (Thirsty Ear CD)
* William Parker Quartet w/Leena Conquest: Raining On The Moon (Thirsty Ear CD)
* Myra Melford’s Be Bread: Image of the Body (CryptoGramophone CD)
* Grateful Dead: Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ 6-17-76 (SBD 3CDR)‡
* Grateful Dead: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO 8-30-78 (set 2) (SBD 2CDR)
* Grateful Dead: Manor Downs, Austin, TX 7-04-81 (selections) (SBD/AUD 3CDR)‡
* Bob Dylan: Bootleg Series Vol.7: No Direction Home (soundtrack) (Columbia 2CD)
* Van Morrison: Astral Weeks (Warner Bros./Rhino LP)
* Neil Young: Silver & Gold (Reprise CD)†/‡
* The Wipers: Is This Real? (Zeno CD)
* Sonic Youth: The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities (Goofin’ 2LP)
* Sonic Youth: Simon Werner a Disparu (soundtrack) (SYR9 LP)
* Sonic Youth + I.C.P. + The Ex: In the Fishtank 9 (Konkurrent EP)
* Dirty Three: Ocean Songs (Touch & Go 2LP)
* Wilco: Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch CD)†/‡
* Guided By Voices: Live in Daytron ?6° (Rockathon 3LP/FLAC>WAV>CDR)
* Lifeguards: Mist King Urth (Fading Captain Series LP)
* Lifeguards: Waving at Astronauts (Serious Business LP)

†=iPod
‡=car

Commentary:

It’s been a hard week.

After a long series of hospitalizations, my mom has finally been released into hospice care. So last weekend, Lizzy and I flew out to Kansas City to see her, where she has been living near my sister’s family in Olathe, Kansas. It was so awful to see my mother—who was once “The Iron Lady” of our family—looking so frail and she seemed more and more diminished every day we were there. Nevertheless, she was lucid and in remarkably good spirits and we had a nice visit. Thank goodness Lizzy was there to keep the conversation going and brighten the room with her innate warmth and genuine cheerfulness. As for me, I tended to get sad and quiet or distract myself by playing with the camera and taking photographs. Looking at the pictures now just makes me want to cry.

You see, I’m not handling it very well. I’m doing my best, but nothing in life has really prepared me for this moment. The range and intensity of emotion is overwhelming: not just the expected sadness and self-pity at her impending death but also guilt and shame and anger and bitterness—and also a deepened love and affection for my extended family and an impossible desire to make everything OK for everyone. But mostly I just feel helpless. Nashville is not as far away as Boston, but it might as well be. And nowhere is really “home.”

I try not to write about personal stuff on the blog and I am not mentioning this in order to elicit any kind of sympathy from the handful of people who bother to come here to read my drivel. But perhaps you will understand why I do not really feel like writing record reviews right now, at least not today. Instead, I just want to honor my mom and acknowledge these feelings, painful as they are. Please bear with me.