4:33 PM EST November 22, 2023:
Jack Bruce - “Over The Cliff”
From the album Things We Like
(1970)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm
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Tis the season for tea! A disaster is one of the times when we most need sources of comfort and grounding.
When we prepare consumable disaster supplies, like food and drink, if you can, pack things that edible and drinkable bring you comfort.
This month, don't forget to add some.
What are some comfort food and drink items you want to add to your disaster preparation supplies?
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Oct 11, 1968: Jack at the New Haven Arena [Photo: Steve Potter]
Bruce
Jack Bruce is an incredibly serious musician. His face is young and calm but up close it hardens around intense eyes. During performances, he sings with that intensity of his eyes and then retreats to a corner while Clapton takes his solos. His conversation was the most egocentric of the three. But, after all, the man can hear four-part harmony in his head. His is unquestionably the unifying force of the group, writing most of the songs, doing 90 per cent of the singing and responsible for harnassing the explosive energies of Clapton and Baker.
While Clapton and Baker are entirely into their own virtuosity, Bruce's musciality is inexhaustible. At present he is working on the Bach Cello Suites ("the most perfect music ever written.") His art on the cello is well documented in "As You Said" on the last album. He may have the most extraordinary taste of any rock musician. "My favorite of the contemporary composers is Olivier Messiaen. I have this tape of the 'Turangalila Symphony' that I made off a radio broadcast and I keep returning to it. It's great music. I went to some of his (Messiaen's) lectures in Brighton. He's very much underrated."
Bruce also spoke of a new record he had just finished cutting called "Things We Like." All the selections on it are compositions of his written over the last five years. Bruce plays string bass. The other players are relatively unknown. "The whole album is serialized improvisation. I've written all the tops and bottoms and provided serialized rhythms and pitches for the others to improvise upon." Influences of Schoenberg? "No, probably more Webern than anyone else, especially since many of the cuts are so short. One is fifty seconds long. Webern, man, he was too much! Years ahead of his time. People still haven't caught on to him."
Bruce doesn't feel that rock will change greatly. "Rock depends very much on certain cliches. They're the essential vocabulary of rock. When-ever you add something new like, for instance, electronic sounds, you always risk destroying it." He is also anxious about whether he will be recognized apart from his Cream identity. "I had a terrible hassle just trying to find a company willing to produce my new disc." Meanwhile, Bruce continues his struggle to increase his musical powers by writing inventions in the style of Bach. "Two part inventions are hard, but it's the three-part ones that are a real gas." He does all this without the help of a piano. His songs are always conceived as total entities. Most of the cuts on "Fresh Cream" were written out in full score, again without the aid of a piano. I asked him the meaning of the title to one of these songs, "N.S.U." "That stands for nonspecific urethritis which is a disease of the urethra you catch from women... from fucking. We dedicated it to a mutual friend."
~ Interview by John C. Adams for 'The Harvard Crimson', Oct 18, 1968
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hey since it's coming up again: no it's not a good thing that the government wants to ban tiktok. no you should not be glad that the government might ban tiktok. no you should not respond to this with "good riddance" or "hurry up I hate that app". I should not have to explain this to you but the government banning a social media app is still a bad thing even if you don't like the UI or booktok or having to say "unalive" or how you think it's killing the very notion of attention spans. It's still bad. It's bad.
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the amount of ways we have to qualify the geoncide in gaza in order to get people to care is actually sickening to me. “it’s a feminist issue!” “it’s a disabilities issue!” “it’s an environmental issue!” like i’m sorry but even if this was happening solely to able bodied men and was causing no harm to the environment, it would still be wrong because it’s a genocide and these people are being bombed and killed and starved every fucking day. you shouldn’t need an extra label to give you a reason to care about people that are dying.
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9:06 PM EDT September 28, 2023:
Jack Bruce - "Born To Be Blue"
From the album Things We Like
(1970)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm
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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become
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