People bring up his paintings again and again. I consider them a premier realism-about-an-unrealism, esp;. the ones from the ’40s and ’50s. The top pick is “Nighthawks at the Diner” but my fave is “Office in a Small City.” There’s nobody out there. It’s real quiet. Nothing is going to change. The main threat of tomorrow is Endless Peace.
Yeah, right. I don’t think the paintings prophecy this, but they incarnate why upheaval was inevitable.
Must lead with the work that changed how I listened to music and thought about sound — I Am Sitting in a Room (my copy is the third recording, vinyl, on the Lovely Music label). Here’s what the piece is and its history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room
Now, in the abstract, it sounds like this has to be some eccentric stunt. Probably too tedious to play even as a novelty. But listening to the actual recording is like having a spell cast on you. The way words, language, and even vocal sounds drift away from what you are hearing is hypnotic and irresistible. (I always have to play the record from start to finish.) You come to understand the metabolism of sonics in a way you did not before.
I also highly recommend Vespers and Other Early Works (New World Records). Any serious music collection, however, must include I Am Sitting in a Room.
Met him once after a reading. Poet as Rock Star. Highlight: Silence in the Snowy Fields. Utter lowlight: Iron John. I often remarked I wished it had been about steel toilets. Hope the earliest books will somehow endure, but I gotta lotta doubts these days.
Can’t add anything to this superb obit. Except I think it presents a very clever and invnetive selection of photos.
Depressing to read through the definitive Charles Addams collection of cartoons The World of Charles Addams and note the sprinkling of horrid ones about “Africans” (and a few with Asians) being monsters, subhumanss, utter savages. Slows down and stops after the early 1950s (I’m also enjoying the new TV series “Them”), but it reminds me it persisted into the work of Robert Crumb and while the hefty World of Crumb I got a couple years ago includes a lengthy (not very convincing) defense of Angelfood McSpade-type characters, it features none of them in the reprints. I’m in the school that you show the images and let people decides for themselves.
“Mighty Mouse Meets Jeckyll and Hyde Cat”
Very strange and early (Mighty’s costume is Superman colors rather than his later yellow outfit). Also waaay out for kids — drug-use theme, altogether too scary and violent overall. I like it.
I don’t think recorded stand-up comedy works for anybody (except maybe Jonathan Winters), but understanding Sahl and his effect on both American humor and protest is essential. This is a very fine book:
Yeh, I’ve been listening to it for 8 months, but decided it holds up well enough to share with the world:
DISC ONE
DISC TWO
Seems to me that collections devoted to a single label — no matter how attractively packaged and well-selected — amount (ultimately) to an advertisement.
However, collections devoted to a style, a period of time, or even the output of a potent studio, can be profound enlightenment and endlessly repeatable entertainment.
Finally got around to it today. He plays the hero role in the quite violent and scary “Outer Limits” episode from 1963, “It Crawled Out of the Woodwork.” (Most certainly one of my Top 10 selections from the whole series.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Crawled_Out_of_the_Woodwork
Miles To Go 