David Kirby was on the Bob Edwards radio show this week to talk about his new book on Little Richard and how Tutti Frutti changed musical expression forever.  The St. Petersburg Times has a nice review of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Little Richard is one of my favorite musical characters. Little known tidbit: At the 2001 Madison Blues Festival, I was asked to dance up on stage with him. Midway through another supersonic number, he picked up a little girl who was dancing her heart out and booty off, placed her on top of his piano, and went right back to performing. It was a sight to behold – her beaded braids flying while Little Richard’s flamboyant energy, encapsulated in thick, shimmering velvet, yoyoed everywhere from his central spot in front of the piano. I didn’t get too close to the center of the action owing to a crazy certainty that had he banged on that baby grand any harder, the whole thing would have gone crashing into Lake Monona.  Velveteen Richard, the piano, the kid on it, and all.  Everyone who has come into contact with Little Richard has a story and David Kirby sounds like he has many. I can’t wait to read this book.

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I’ve heard enough of Thelonious Monk’s music to consider him one of those musicians who get dictation from another plane. Pianist Vijay Iyer says it isn’t so in his loving Ode To A Sphere (thanks, Mimosa). There was a lot of logic, practice, and purpose – actual human craft – to the transcendental. Again, I stand ignorant about a lot of jazz, but appreciate Iyer’s passion for Monk’s passion and that his nerdspeak makes this topic accessible to someone like me.

The idea that music that feels good might require craft, discipline and hard work runs contrary to prevailing wisdom about Monk. Many people still harbor a false and uncharitable image of an untutored, unpolished, intuitive savant. But close attention to Monk’s music reveals the result of decades of purposeful experimentation, discovery and refinement.

… Cecil Taylor once spoke in reverential tones of Monk’s different combinations of notes in different registers, as if that quality were somehow the key to it all. And indeed, this is how sound works: Overtones of a low fundamental start out sparsely in the lower octaves, and become gradually denser as you climb up to the high register. Monk displayed intimate knowledge of this physical law, and he put it to the test.

If you haven’t yet listened to Historicity by The Vijay Iyer trio, give it a whirl.  Their version of MIA’s Galang is a quiet riot.

The only question I have about the healthcare bill any more is: What is being passed after all this noise? For in my book, if it looks like crap and smells like crap, remember not to step on it.

Cousin Bina has the most coherent answer so far: “They are watering down the principles they started out with (universal health care, public option markets for individual insurance to increase competition).  They are now voting on a bunch of amendments — most recently about subsidies for Medicare — and it still has to be conferenced after the final vote.”

Some liberal friends contend that it is important to get anything passed, however warped and contrary to the original intentions of the bill, just to prove to constituents that the Democrats can pass something.  They’re passing something, alright, but let it not be termed healthcare legislation.  How does this bill help the growing number of uninsured Americans get access to affordable healthcare?  How does it decrease the chokehold enjoyed by the insurance cartel?  It doesn’t change a damned thing!  Between the Republicans, who don’t know the meaning of the word “bipartisanship,” and insurance-company-bought and centrist Democrats, we don’t need foreign enemies, y’all.

I’d go on but Cliff does such a nice job of laying out the entrails:

… Now you don’t want to seem bipartisan so you are willing to do anything he wants to get to the official 60 votes on the health care bill. That means the public option, Medicaid buy in and any single payer system is dead. That’s funny because the insurance mandate is in there which means that not only will insurance companies keep getting paid, we will all have to buy it from them or face the consequences. That’s enough to make me want to join a tea party. I say this while for the third time in the last two years my employer searches for a cheaper insurance plan that won’t cripple the agency. That’s okay though. We still have our freedom to hire all new employees part time so we don’t have to give them any benefits. I would like to thank Senator Lieberman and the rest of my government for preserving that privilege.

It’s all fun and tea parties and special interests until you lose your job and your kids get sick.  Won’t you be glad then about what your activism accomplished.

Reading:
Ezra Klein | What Lieberman Has Wrought

Random Florida beach | February 2009

The quarterly technical and planning committee meetings of the Open Geospatial Consortium are held at interesting global locations without fail. Like Athens (Greece, not Georgia) in March, MIT’s Stata Center in June and Darmstadt, Germany in September 2009. I just returned from the December meeting which was held at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Those of you who follow me on Twitter may remember a particularly incisive tweet from last week: “This Google building has butt-warming toilet seats! Midwestern offices NEED this tech.”

That’s how they lure you in. Lo and behold, Current reveals the true intentions of The Google Toilet. Damn. I feel punked.