1 mar 2011

Manic

I feel a bit manic today, so if you want me to post my absolutely brilliant thoughts on some subject of your choice, I will.

11 comentarios:

Thomas dijo...

The romantic idealization of Lorca's "genius" by North American poets. (This will be useful to me for a post I'm writing tomorrow morning.)

Jonathan dijo...

How about something I didn't already write an entire book about?

Clarissa dijo...

I'd like to know:

a) what you are reading these days and why;
b) how do you prevent students' bad Spanish from contaminating yours (after reading "estudio a la universidad" 60 times in a row, I started wondering whether this was the right version);
c) which strategies do you use to prevent colleagues and administrators to steal valuable time away from you.

As we say in my culture, one idiot can ask so many questions that no genius will be able to answer them. :-)

Zed dijo...

James. (Rather open-ended I know...)

Jonathan dijo...

James? The apostle or Henry James?

Zed dijo...

Yes. (Would also settle for William. Or the king.)

Thomas dijo...

How about just the idea of genius quite generally, then?

Jonathan dijo...

Ok.

Thomas dijo...

Okay, wait, I got one:

What's your opinion of Andrew Hills "Limbo" (track 4 on Compulsion).

Extra credit: How does it compare to Coltrane's "Nature Boy" (first version) (track 6 on the John Coltrane Quartet Plays Chim Chim...)

Is there an "anxiety of influence" there?

Jonathan dijo...

That's an oddly specific request. I like both of them, but the point of comparison is a common style / epoch.

Thomas dijo...

Maybe I can put it this way: why does the first version of "Nature Boy" seem to have more in common with "Limbo" than the second version of "Nature Boy", which made it onto the album?

There is something very complicated and insistent about the rhythm in NB1 and L. (Interestingly, whatever it is, it seems to me that Hill (and I guess McBee, Chambers, Qamar, Simmons) pulls it off where Coltrane (Davis, Jones) don't quite succeed. It doesn't really affect my enjoyment of it, but NB1 does stumble at times, it seems to me.