Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Something/Someone Old
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I thought I'd send a post-mortem shout-out to Hilly Krystal.

It's been my impression, growing ever stronger in this ugly age, that we have paid too little attention to the people who create the venues for good things to happen. You notice the act. You don't notice the stage. That's the way it should be--assuming a working civilization.

You only start noticing the stage--or the record label, or the club, or the festival, or the gallery, or the publisher, or the theater, or the production company--when it's no longer there. Hell, it could just be a restaurant, where the owner feeds local musicians in exchange for them playing some blues:

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That goes for the organizers of political events too. You don't notice--much--the coffeehouse where you're having the discussion or the park where you have the protest. That doesn't hold true for persistent protests, like Standing Rock or Occupy (at that point, the ground of the protest is a second home, because you're living there). But otherwise, people's attention tends to fall on what's happening, not where or how. It rarely ever falls on the people who organized the event.

That's all to the good, except that it presumes a working civilization, where you don't have to cherish and protect those spaces from the constant danger of oblivion--if one space does go under, another will arise. That's the theory, anyway.

Well, I think that was a miscalculation, and I'd like to send a shout-out to Hilly Krystal, who simply opened his NYC club--by all accounts, a pretty ratty place which neither killed its roaches nor, generally, paid its bills--to original acts. He gave musicians a place to play their own work. He gave them a chance. It was as simple as that.

He ended up with the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith, the Police, and many others getting their start in his club. Established talent like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop played there too. And I just found out that the Beastie Boys played a show there in 1981!

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So here's to Hilly Krystal, who dedicated a large part of forty years of his life to providing venues for musicians to play--from his founding of the Rheingold Music Festival in 1966 up to the closing of CBGB in 2006.

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Here's the Talking Heads, at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, honoring Hilly Krystal. Their tribute begins at 6:57.

"Hilly is the reason that we're here, that the Ramones are here, that Blondie is here. He kept us alive."

Something New
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I know I just inundated y'all with blues last week, but I ran across this and couldn't believe it. Blues seems to attract musical prodigies. This kid has supposedly been playing with this band since he was nine. This was recorded in 2011, at the Riverfront Blues Festival. I guess 2011 isn't *that* new (usually I only go back to 2014) but this one was too good to miss.

This is Joshua King and the James Cotton Band, singing the Muddy Waters blues.

Something Borrowed
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Something I didn't know: apparently William Shakespeare, er, borrowed the plot for his play The Comedy of Errors.

The plot of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was taken from the play The Menaechmi, written by the ancient Roman dramatist, Plautus. At the time of writing the play (earlier than 1594), Shakespeare did not have access to a translated copy of The Menaechmi -- the first being published in 1595, so he probably read the text in its original Latin. In The Comedy of Errors, the main plot is very similar to the work of Plautus, but Shakespeare deviates from his source by adding a second set of twins, and excluding three of the main characters. Shakespeare keeps the Menaechmi, Mulier , Messenio , Erotium , and Medicus, and renames them Antipholi, Adriana, Dromio, the Courtesan, Dr. Pinch, respectively. Of course, it is Shakespeare's additions and embellishments that make The Comedy of Errors so memorable.

Of course!

Wink

Actually, I haven't read Plautus' original, so I wouldn't know. Maybe Shakespeare's additional levels of farce and his turn of phrase are what make it a good play. But apparently The Menaechmi was Plautus' most celebrated play, so I do wonder if perhaps it had some merit previously.

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I guess ultimately it's proof that farce based on mistaken identity just doesn't get old.

Something Blue
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Today's Something Blue is Ardea herodias, the great blue heron.

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It's the largest of the North American herons, large wader birds that frequent, well, wet places. They don't seem particular: saltwater or fresh, beach, river, marsh, swamp, pond, creek--anything will do!

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Perhaps this flexibility is part of why they have such a large habitat:

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The purple area represents year-round habitat.

An assortment of cool facts about them:

Thanks to specially shaped neck vertebrae, Great Blue Herons can quickly strike prey at a distance.

Great Blue Herons have specialized feathers on their chest that continually grow and fray. The herons comb this “powder down” with a fringed claw on their middle toes, using the down like a washcloth to remove fish slime and other oils from their feathers as they preen. Applying the powder to their underparts protects their feathers against the slime and oils of swamps.

Great Blue Herons can hunt day and night thanks to a high percentage of rod-type photoreceptors in their eyes that improve their night vision.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Blue_Heron/lifehistory

They are beautiful:

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They are also stone-cold killers. That beak is nothing to mess around with! They like fish, of course,

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But they don't object to other prey,

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even mammals!

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I once had this brought home to me viscerally, in my last house, when a great blue heron landed on the roof. We had a beautiful screen porch room off the back of the house, which was in a little copse of trees, making it seem like we were isolated in a forest. I went out to the screen room one day, and looked up--into the eyes of a great blue heron, looking down.

I'd never looked at a great blue heron from that angle before.

That's quite an angle from which to observe a great blue heron.

It's an angle that inculcates respect, and that's all I'll say about it.

How are you all today?

UPDATE: I have been diagnosed with pneumonia, so I won't be around much for this week or the next. I just came on to let y'all know--and saw that Ursula Le Guin had died. A great woman and thinker, though she wouldn't like to be called so.

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A great social / sci-fi writer. I know Can't Stop is familiar with her works.

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riverlover's picture

@QMS Placing them on other planets somewhere made it safer but still edgy.

I am re-reading A Handmaid's Tale. It seems congruent with LeGuin.

I need traffic cones in holes on my driveway. Bad time of year for an open-door theft of such on the highway. The propane truck made it up yesterday and presented me with a bill for over $1K. My car is still down there. Cognitive difficulties (Dr presented) make me ponder 3X, making it all harder than it should be. Getting to not second-guess myself.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Lookout's picture

Another beautiful day here in the deep south. Speaking of something old...
I recommended a spy series to you long ago that popped up on my recommended youtube list thanks to their algorithm this week.
Secret State is a 2012 British four-part political thriller, starring Gabriel Byrne, Charles Dance and Gina McKee, and inspired by Chris Mullin's novel A Very British Coup. It delves into the relationship between a democratically elected government, the military and big business...

In the run up to a general election, a devastating industrial accident on Teesside leaves 19 people dead and raises questions about the safety procedures of a US petrochemical company, PetroFex. The British Prime Minister claims to have secured a compensation package from them, but on his return from PetroFex HQ, his plane crashes in the Atlantic under mysterious circumstances. Deputy Prime Minister Tom Dawkins (Gabriel Byrne) takes command, and during his quest to find the truth and justice for the victims, he uncovers a conspiracy at the heart of the political system.

So links to the other 3 episode will appear to the right (each one is about 45 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0LgcsJQpM

Anyway thought I would post the link so if anyone had an interest they could watch it.

Another good spy series is Reilly ace of spies, also currently on youtube, that delves into the way arms dealers run so much of the world's foreign policy...

Sidney George Reilly MC (c. 1873 – 5 November 1925), commonly known as the "Ace of Spies", was a secret agent of the British Secret Service Bureau, the precursor to the modern British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6/SIS).[1] He is alleged to have spied for at least four different powers.[2]

Reilly's growing fame during the early 1920s (before his capture and execution by Soviet agents in 1925) was due in part to his friend, the British diplomat and journalist Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, who publicised their thwarted operation to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in 1918.[3] The London Evening Standard published a serial in May 1931, headlined "Master Spy", imparting his exploits. In his novels of the 1950s and 60s, Ian Fleming used Reilly as a model for James Bond.[4] Some historians today consider Reilly to have been the first 20th-century "super-spy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_State_(miniseries)
the first 5 episodes
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1G-M-L-XBqfU-qhdGzdmwQ
the last 7 episodes
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5S-xmCXzaxPD0e9zP5jfxg

So enough espionage for the day and enough video to binge on for a week or two.

As a last thought on the heron...

The Peace Of Wild Things -

A Poem by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout that is what the Secret State tube link opens right now. shhh Biggrin
Thanks, I did enjoy Reilly Ace of Spies, watched all of 'em. Reminded how much Sam Neill gave me the creeps all over again, but it was a good tale.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

She will likely be more remembered for The Left Hand of Darkness, though.

I thought I would feel more sad when this happened, but, instead, all I feel is: what a remarkable and praiseworthy life.

She's been with me since I discovered her work in my teens, and has grown with me.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal OK, now I'm sad. I guess it just took me a few hours to feel the loss. I still feel less loss than I would have expected, though. I carry her words with me; perhaps that's why.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I have pneumonia, and won't be around much this week or the next. I just came on to let people know. I have no idea whether I'll even be well enough to drive five hours' round trip to a Meetup in a couple weeks.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Rest as much as possible, take it very seriously.
I am feeling fairly well this morning, but will continue to expend as little energy as possible.
A relapse would probably just kill my ass.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@on the cusp Yeah, I have been. Sorry to hear you're down with it too.
I had hoped I could get by without going to the doctor, but yesterday finally bit the bullet and went in. Was diagnosed with pneumonia.

I hope I'm well in time for the meet-up.

Keep resting, and every so often, let me know how you are, OK? I'll do the same.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

hope you get well soon.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@irishking Thanks, irishking. Smile

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

orlbucfan's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal That can always be re-scheduled, CStMS. Smile Your good health is more important. Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Speaking truth to power...

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orlbucfan's picture

@QMS May she Rest In Peace!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

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Coffee Love

It is cold, rain is coming. A cold rain is gonna fall. There are so many rain songs, Ann Peebles is always the first to fall from my lint trap. This made me LMAO, I am so very odd. The Odds, they are my people:

VERY ODD VINTAGE EARLY 1960's MAXWELL HOUSE COFFEE COMMERCIAL

Oo oo that smell Smile
Maxwell House Coffee - Just Listen - Vintage Commercial - 1950s - 1960s

Ann Peebles I Can t Stand the Rain

hey windowpane
Around here the flu epidemic is landing people at "pomonia"'s door before they get well, it seems relentless. There is a lot of "walking pneumonia" clerks on the job right now, what a great economy. NOT

Please all take care of your immune systems first, the other systems can wait. First things first.
LOVE and {HUGS} inject it

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@eyo

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
doctors order, rest + liquids + protein, iirc. do, do, do get better, but there is n rush to do anything else, other than get better. Be sure to wait unti yu are really better before going and doing.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

Something old - the sand on the beach and bay shores
Something new - the current locations of each and every grain
Something blue - the waters beyond and sky above
Something borrowed - the place I stayed; the place I sit, for none of us ever really own any of the earth.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

I thought it was hilarious when I was 13 -- is a movie called Start the Revolution WIthout Me, in which Donald Sutherland and Gene WIlder play switched-at-birth twins. one pair is born to a noble, the other to a peasant -- after the switcheroo, we end up with a noble Sutherland/Wilder pair, and a peasnt Sutherland/Wilder pair.

I once watched, from a high vantage point, a GBH "turning and turning in the widening gyre" -- it had taken off from the shore of a small lake, and slowly, repeatedly circled the lake as it flapped its way up to "cruising altitude", then wandered off westward.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Mark from Queens's picture

Those kind of patrons of the arts truly did exist all over the country back in the day, him being an exemplary one. And because of Hilly's vision CBGB's was able to become the live venue to nurture a scene that would become internationally famous. David Bryne's quote is pretty profound, isn't it? Remember his 2013 piece in the Guardian, "If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent, I'm out of here."

Yeah, it was everything everybody said about it: dingy, weird-angled stage (that had worked though), graffiti-covered, broken chairs, etc. But was also known for having incredible sound. I played there a few times.

CB's was one of many vibrant live music clubs that began to be blown out during Mikey Bloomberg's post-9/11 "Let-em-eat-cake" b/c "I've got my own private army in the NYPD" reign. From small clubs for bands to start out at, such as the Continental and Kenny's Castaways, to large classic venues, such as Roseland Ballroom - all gone. Now we've Nikon this, Best Buy that, Billionaire scumbag/Real Estate rapist/Trump crony "Icahn" this, etc.

So glad the last time I played CB's was with a guy unafraid to speak his mind politically (and paid for it). In the late 80's/ early 90's he was directly calling out Trump, Bush and the Repugs in his songs. Bad-ass, and super sharp dude, Kory is.

Here's us back then in 2004:

Check out these lyrics, indicative of his brash, punk/metal with a conscience, style:

Go with the flow
Ya just let it ride
We don`t care if ya live or die

We suck off the companies
We suck like a whore
If we need oil, we just suck some more

We define success
And we don`t sin
Got the nation in debt
About four trilion

Infrastructure is wasted
And we`re deaf to the crowd
Nothin` left for the children
It`s ok, we won`t be around

Welcome to the party
The republican party
Ya havin` fun at the party
The republican party
We`re havin` a party, right now

We stack the courts
And we tax the poor
Got Johnny Lunchbox
To fight our wars

Tax him to his knees
And make him love the flag
We get corporate freedom
He gets a body bag

We`re makin` a killin`
You know we kill so well
Cut the country to pieces
And we`re havin` a sale

We take it all
Just like ya knew we would
Hell we even got Nixon
Lookin` pretty good

Welcome to the party
The republican party
Ya havin` fun at the party
The republican party
We`re havin` a party, right now

In The Wasteland (which was filmed at the Limelight, another great unique venue that was a former church, but during the Bloomberg Neoliberal orgy had been turned into a shopping fucking mall), he's ranting, "Donald Trump is just a money whore." Often the show opener was this overture, chanting over and over "We Are The Government, We Are The Government..." A good bit of Kory's stuff (though another bunch of it was mindless R&R partying/ debauchery) is just as potent today. I'd like to see him team up with a reunited Rage Against The Machine and put some revolutionary hard rock angst back into the air again.

Please get better, CStMS. You really shouldn't fool around with this. Bed rest, completely. Sure and simple. Your body needs to rest, without temptation to do anything. Read, watch films, etc but doze off, stay under the blankets, eat soup and get taken care of.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut