1000 Awesome Things

Clearly, I am late to the party, but thanks to my awesome wife, I have discovered Neil Pasrichsa's brilliant blog, 1000awesomethings. As The Beatles said, "Sometimes the best things in life are free" and Mr. Pasricha is attempting to catalog one thousand examples of awesome experiences that are freely available to anyone who draws a breath. A selection of his first couple of hundred of awesome things have been published in book form by Amy Einhorn/Putnam. To date, he's only up to 515 aweome things, but I suspect there are more than a thousand awesome things to be celebrated if we just stop to notice. Mr. Pasricha's blog is, well, AWESOME!

Flowers & Cream

I was pleasantly surprised to learn Thurston Moore has a blog entitled, Flowers & Cream. Thurston has long been a big hero of mine, ever since I heard Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising album back in 1985. Later, when he started making overt moves into the free-improv scene in the early nineties (eventually even performing with Cecil Taylor himself), he validated for me the connection I’d felt between punk rock and free-jazz. I’ve never met the guy, but he comes across as not just the coolest person on the planet, but as a genuinely humble (and funny) musician who is just really into a lot of different stuff: art, literature, poetry, dance, and, of course, music and noise. Sonic Youth gets accused of being “pretentious,” but to me they simply embody the DIY ideal -- it’s just that what they want to do is make Art. If that’s pretentious, then so be it. “Punk” is not so much a set of rules, or hairstyles, or fashions but simply permission to do it (whatever *it* is) yourself, outside of any stifling, readymade cultural institution. Whatever you might think of their music, the fact that Sonic Youth has, over the past twenty-five years, become a cultural institution in their own right is a remarkable achievement and a testament to the righteousness of the DIY ethic. I’m looking forward to reading Thurston’s blog. I hope he keeps it up!

Under Construction

As you can see, I have been doing a little redecorating and the place is still kind of a mess. Having updated my template, the blog is now easily customizable and will allow for more multimedia content. I’ve also (finally) successfully installed Google Analytics so I can see if anyone (besides my friends) is actually reading this stuff. Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? More than that, I intend to devote more space on the blog to simply bookmarking interesting stuff – “Links Instead of Content.” I use my blog as my “homepage” and personal resource. If others are interested, cool!

Actually, I am inspired by my sister’s new book-related-blog and her ability to write so spontaneously yet also so eloquently. (Well, she is an English teacher.) Lord, how I can belabor these meager postings! Perfectionism is anathema to my continued blogging. Even so, I have pretty much kept my goal of averaging one post per week over the past year and I’m hoping the new functionality will allow for more frequent and more diverse kinds of postings in 2009. I’m also going to try to be more relaxed about writing stuff down, even if ultimately wrong-headed and dumb. I’m just a guy with a blog, you know? Who cares? Even though I have strong opinions, I also try to learn from my mistakes and reserve the right to change my mind. The truth is: much of the art I now most value initially repelled me. The friction inherent in the human condition is the source of what little wisdom can be obtained in this lifetime. So, I welcome comments and would cherish the opportunity to engage in dialogue.

I had the exquisite pleasure of spending an afternoon with Sam Byrd on Boxing Day. We had a lovely visit and recorded about an hour’s worth of music in the basement studio. Sadly, my days as a practicing musician are long behind me and my flailing away fell far short of the inspiration I felt to be reunited with my dear old friend and former bandmate. Nevertheless, like everything else, it is what it is and I’m looking into some way to put some tracks up on the blog, just for kicks. There’s tons of stuff in the “archives” that could provide some glimpse into my own music, for whatever it’s worth. Also, as you can see from the picture at the top of the sidebar, I am going to use the blog to host some of my visual artwork (such as it is). The internet is a wonderful (virtual) world. Here’s my little corner.

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Coming up: Sun Ra Sunday!

i-Pod Blog

Here’s a terrific blog that virtually writes itself: What I Listed To On My Way To Work Today. This pseudonymous NYC-area commuter has a forty-five-minute to one-hour one-way trip to work via mass transit. So he takes his fully loaded i-Pod, puts it on shuffle and tabulates what transpires, adding commentary as necessary or so inspired. Sometimes he posts camera-phone photos and random factoids about his journey. Brilliant! It helps that he has fairly catholic tastes, including jazz and other esoteric music amidst the indie-rock – he even admits to one-time Deadheadom. My kind of guy. But, what I really want to know is: what does he listen to on his way home?

I hope he keeps it up – over time it could make for a wonderful book.

--rgc