Said the Gramophone: J'ai dormi pendant 13 heures la nuit dernière

J'ai dormi pendant 13 heures la nuit dernière

Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.

I write this from Paris, and I do so slowly. Slowly, because this keyboard has forced me to revert to the two fingered approach to typing I favoured prior to grade nine keyboarding class. As I mentioned in my last post's comments, I'm here for a week and looking for suggestions for what to do (my interests include music and baseball).

Because I forgot to upload songs before I left Montreal, I will not be posting any today. I will instead refer you to the website of an artist whom I've long wanted to post, but whose music has eluded me (I'm Captain Ahab; the non-streaming music of Yellow Jacket Avenger is Moby Dick).

I particularly recommend "Moonlighter, Prizefighter," a masterful piece of pop counterpoint. The guitar work is elaborate and quick and the vocals clipped and energetic, yet the overall effect is one of delicacy and vulnerability. Interestingly, Rocky Balboa could also be described as quick and energetic, yet delicate and vulnerable, and he was, in fact, both a moonlighter and a prizefighter.

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I also recommend Paul Simon. And for those of you who like everything up to, but excluding Rhythm Of The Saints (I know you're out there), listen to "She Moves On," bracket out the highly dubious slap bass, and bask in the Americo-Brazillian sunlight.

Posted by Jordan at August 11, 2005 7:04 AM

Comments

I highly recommend spending a day at the Louvre. It's absolutely amazing (and huge - budget a solid block of time). It's not about music or baseball, but you won't find its equal anywhere.

Posted by dustin at August 11, 2005 1:32 PM

The Louvre's good, but it's more of a historical curiosity than a real art museum, like reading Democritus or Isaac Newton for the science. It's also too greedy. You could spend a week there and miss everything else in Paris. The better art options for a short trip are the Picasso museum (mind boggingly good), the Pompidou, and the d'Orsay. There's a Dali museum, but the selections are crap (like tiny pencil drawings, e.g.). There's the Rodin museum, which is quite nice (though, as they say, sculpture is what you bump into when you step back to get a better look at a painting).

The best thing to do in Paris is walk around, see the actually flesh and blood city. They don't tear down and rebuild everything every five years there, so you're seeing the real thing. The same damn streets, and buildings, and walls Votaire and Montaigne and Rabelais, etc, lived.

My god man, baseball and music? Have some priorities. Leave the baseball and rock and roll for home, you're in freaking Paris, the center of 20th century culture.

Posted by Yan at August 12, 2005 8:30 AM

"(looking at the art in the Louvre is) like reading Democritus or Isaac Newton for the science." - This is a very narrow minded and short sited view of art. Are you suggesting, Yan, that because Matthew Barney (for example) is choosing to express himself today in feature length music video format, portraiture or historical painting has no ability to impact the viewer anymore beyond historical curiosity?

Or maybe you argument is that, I don't know, something like abstract expressionism has rendered figurative paining obsolete? But then it would be hard to explain all the figurative work going on these days. What exactly do you mean when you suggest that the art in the Louvre is just a historical curiosity?

If you are still in Paris, I say go to the Louver and check out the sexy Ingres, Bouguereau. and Fragonard paintings. That stuff is fun!

Posted by n. at August 17, 2005 5:19 PM