an infrequent repository of mostly new stuff
Vector Trio Live
Here is video from the live performance of Vector Trio on August 15, 2015. This is 24 minutes of improvisational Jazz, from musicians who have played together for 3 decades. Performed at The Auxiliary, the basement of a contemporary art gallery in Richmond, Virginia.
The crowd was full of dancers, musicians, artists, who all clearly “got it.”
Awesome stuff. More of their music at Music | Vector Trio
Previous post of photos here:
Live Jazz in Richmond VA | Marginalia
A bunch of folks got together to make some noise for a totally amazing and totally illegal show in Richmond, Virginia last weekend. Two bands came down from DC, one from Richmond. Friends from way back, and some new. Continue reading “Live Jazz in Richmond VA”
The Ballad of Holland Island House from Lynn Tomlinson on Vimeo.
This is a lovely piece. You’ll remember last year, while sailing near Deal and Crisfield, I wrote up the story of Holland Island. It has been one of my most visited and favorited posts.
This animation on the same story, made with clay on glass and set to music, is really well done, and the medium lends itself well to the subject.
A nice post on Colossal is here, with additional links:
This is Colossal: Holland Island House
the quietest places in the US, mapped
Note that even slightly offshore isn’t even on the map.
Nice.
I’m down with that.
Nettles a.k.a. Guion Pratt
It’s been a long winter already. There’s still a lot of wood left in the pile, which means Spring is not near; but today was 70+ degrees and breezy from the South. Orion is overhead before bedtime, and it’s there’s now a little light in the sky when I leave the office. Thank goodness for the relentless spinning of the spheres. It’s a good time of year to spend with friends.
A few nights ago we stopped in town for a show, an album release party for a friend. A poet, a musician, an all around nice guy named Guion Pratt had an album release party at The Southern in Charlottesville.
He’s one of several of talented musicians in the area we’ve followed for years. They mix and match through multiple permutations under different names. When Sam Bush writes and leads, they’re called The Hill & Wood, named for an iconic funeral home in town. When Guion writes and leads they’re called Nettles. Etc., etc..
This is the sort of show when you arrive you find other friends are already there, people who were in the poetry writing classes with Guion in grad school, or used to jam with him in the little Model A single-car shed next to the funeral parlor that they’ve rented out for years, where they all got started, and still use as a multi-purpose art and performance space.
It was a great show. Lots of fun, lots of laughs, and great music. I grabbed some low-fi recordings, which Guion was gracious enough to let me to post:
And “Brando” based on the Tennessee Williams play “Streetcar Named Desire”
You can buy the album here:
Brando, Locust Avenue, and Annuals are some of my favorites.
As a bonus, here’s a recording of one of my favorite Hill & Woods songs recorded at the same venue last year. Somehow the ambient bar sounds and boot heel steps only make it better:
The Disciple – Live at the Southern
Blue Penny Quarterly – iBooks Edition
Finished up another big project last week. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Blue Penny Quarterly, a digital literary magazine my friend Doug Lawson started not long after we met. We made a little splash this time with a special edition.
We’ve collaborated on the publication for a few years now. He does all the promotion and reading of submissions, winnowing down to four or five of the best per issue. I put it all together in a hopefully attractive package, and a downloadable format.
This time there are two formats. As before, in addition to stories there is photography and video commentaries from the authors. New is the iBooks version, which is available on the iTunes Bookstore for free. It’s formatted for iPads, iPhones and even iBooks on a Mac:
As in the past, there is also a universal PDF format, with embedded links to the videos. Both versions can be downloaded directly from the Blue Penny site here:
Blue Penny Quarterly Summer 2014 – 20th Anniversary Issue
This is something we both do in our spare time. There’s no money involved, either for the writers or for us. Just something we do to provide a venue for interesting new writers, some of whom have gone on to win awards and publish novels.
If you have any interest a small submission fee for stories, please have a look. If you have a story, submit it. We would love to see it:
Submissions for Blue Penny Quarterly
