cih

Sometimes I'm sure it's simply a matter of good manners, and the people who were around, say, Son House, who were not criticizing pointlessly his deteriorated playing or rambling monologues, perhaps were partly just employing common sense and showing respect**. On the recordings, if the applause and respectful laughter sometimes sounds a little patronising today, it’s easy to understand in view of the conditions these people were often ‘discovered’ in. Then getting to the actual truth involves more than leaping in the other direction, as happened with (for obvious example) the Steve Calt books where everyone involved is thrown in the mud. With Bunk Johnson, long before hearing him I’d read that he wasn’t really worth hearing - similarly with later Billie Holiday, the people who liked her deteriorated voice were ‘ghoulish’ and an appreciation of any ‘accidental’ qualities were pandering to a myth of the tortured artist or something **this sounds like I'm saying his rediscovery stuff is poor - but I didn't intend it, I like it

this one's real:

I'd find that too stressful - & asking "is Dizzy in?" all those times would start to sound weird. Definitely best to leave it more than a couple of minutes between attempts.

Radiohead TV Smith Evil Edna

Alphonso Trent

I think I was expecting the Monk book to be more centred on the Great Black Music thing than it was - I mean, because I knew that Kelley had worked with Franklin Rosemont (and he's mentioned in the dedications at the front) I thought it might resemble his own essays on jazz & blues which are very ideological (or they were in the 70s anyway). I thought the Monk book was level headed, I suppose I was after the facts (I read the Leslie Gourse book a few years ago, which now seems like it was about a different person)

In ancient times the Pruitt twins (Miles & Milas) backed a few classic blues singers on guitar & banjo

Eubie Blake! Gary Davis! Thomas Dorsey!

Hip Linkchain Robert Night Hawk Bobbie Cadillac Meade Lux Lewis Doug Suggs

Dodo Marmarosa

Fate Marable Baby Sneed Papa Lord God Sharkey Bonano

Bill Du Bois

This intro..

That's funny, because the book I said had some of those pictures in, actually hasn't! I can't see them in any book I have here so I'm flummoxed

Monk's 'Evidence'

That's a great film! - they used to show all those movies on tv on a Sunday afternoon when I was a kid. I like Lionel Jeffries - sometimes I call people 'Soapy Stevens' from that movie.. (they don't take any notice of me)

Buster Keaton I find more beautiful to watch than actually funny I think, similarly the Marx Bros kind of beautiful to listen to (aside from Harpo who is beautiful to watch..), and Laurel and Hardy I find beautiful to watch and actually funny too. And Police Academy 5 obviously.

Miss World 2011 Miss World 2010 Miss World 2009

Dennis Hopper Skip James Jump Jackson

that's a great series of photos - if only there were more sets like that. I've seen an abridged version before, I think in this book published by Skira - which is a nice book but only shows a small sample from that set iirc

Hop O' My Thumb Gaetano "Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese The Black Fingernail

The Laughing Policeman George W Johnson George W Bush

Went last week to the Picasso & modern British painters show at Tate Britain - great stuff though so much to see I could have done with more time. Some of the most interesting things weren't there(?) - Wyndham Lewis' vorticist paintings which didn't make it out of the vortex - and Francis Bacon's pre-crucifixion work which he set out to destroy - what survives in both cases makes it frustrating. There was a drawing by Picasso of a ballerina which was so perfect it was unbelievable - simple lines, but not quickly drawn (you could see a slight tremor) but incredibly confident and correct - he knew exactly where to take the line on the blank white sheet - apparently the girl requested that his wife be present when he visited her. On the same day went to the Barbican to see the Bauhaus show which was equally great

Don King King Dong Donkey Kong