I would have been listening to the new Diamanda Galas records all day if it weren't for Joyce.

Today's listening:

A mix I made the other day for Britt (in order to ingratiate hip-hop to her) but then didn't give her when I remembered that she sold her car with the CD player in it for like twenty dollars to the insurance people. It contained:

1. Killer Mike - A.D.I.D.A.S.
2. Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks On Me
3. Shel Silverstein - If I Had a Brontosaurus
4. Jay-Z - 99 Problems
5. Biggie - Ready to Die
6. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Summertime
7. Kardinal Offishall - Maxine
8. De La Soul - Ooooh
9. Kelis - Milkshake
10. Nas - N.Y. State of Mind

She didn't want it until she found out 'Milkshake' was on it. I think that means I win, somehow. But probably all I win is that she will use my CD to play 'Milkshake' over and over.

Then, there were actual pre-recorded records:

Mobb Deep - The Infamous
Joyce & Banda Maluca - Just a Little Bit Crazy
Thelonious Monk - Monk in Tokyo

I think I'm forgetting something but I don't feel like going to check. This might be because I've been listening to the Joyce record all night and it's made me all limpid. Well, partially limpid. Moderately. It's Brazillian; it has flutes and Bugge Wesseltoft and stuff on it. Bugge Wesseltoft is not Brazillian. He is Norwegian. In a stunningly corny turn of events, his name is apparently pronounced 'boogie'. Oh yes. Also, he's apparently one of those four million guys who all think they have a new conception of jazz because they play it with a Fender Rhodes and have 'electronica' in it. Which I am not surprised to find; I think I must remember him from that Erik Truffaz remix record. It's been a long time since I worked at KURE, though, so I don't remember if his remix was one of the good ones. Anyway, not that he's the main attraction here or something. He's nice, and he makes some wooshy noises. Very tasteful. Joyce, now, I can say this about: a) she was named after James Joyce, b) she's been making Brazillian music for like thirty years, back when it was apparently a big deal to write songs in the first person (this may only have been the case for chicks who wrote about being chicks, which is of course a perennial no-no - if I remember right we didn't start allowing that sort of thing in the US until like the mid-nineties), and uh c) eh, I guess that's all I've got. It's a very nice record. Happy-making, like Since I Left You only, like, different.

I actually only slept for four hours. And I didn't say, oh, my head. I'm a bit disappointed.

Britt, last night, upon (brace yourself) turning off 'Make It Funky': 'this isn't upbeat enough... it's bringing me down'!

I am as appalled as you are.

Tomorrow morning I think I will say: oh, my head. Let's see.

('Morning'.)

Hmm. Apparently something is wrong with my post editor.

Ron Silliman is reading Proust one sentence a night. I would like to say that I would try this just to see how it can be other than totally agonizing (kind of like eating a pie one bite a day, or better yet, fucking one, er, fuck? per day). But after just one sentence like this one the pull is too much and I have to keep going, which is probably why I haven't touched Swann's Way in weeks:

'Finally, continuing to trace from the inside outwards these states simultaneously juxtaposed in my consciousness, and before reaching the horizon of reality which enveloped them, I discover pleasures of another kind, those of being comfortably seated, of sniffing the fragrance of the air, of not being disturbed by any visitor, and, when an hour chimed from the steeple of Saint-Hilaire, of seeing what was already spent of the afternoon fall drop by drop until I heard the last stroke which enabled me to add up the total, after which the long silence that followed seemed to herald the beginning, in the blue sky above me, of all that part of the day that still remained to me for reading, until the good dinner which Françoise was even now preparing and which would strengthen and refresh me after the strenuous pursuit of the hero through the pages of my book.'

(The prize is 'of not being disturbed by any visitor'. Of course.)

Today's listening:

Group Home / Livin' Proof
Mobb Deep / The Infamous
Bill Evans / Portrait in Jazz
Miles Davis / Birth of the Cool
Mobb Deep / The Infamous
Low / The Curtain Hits the Cast
Steve Reich / Music for 18 Musicians

Today's listening:

Group Home / Livin' Proof
Mobb Deep / The Infamous
Bill Evans / Portrait in Jazz
Miles Davis / Birth of the Cool
Mobb Deep / The Infamous
Low / The Curtain Hits the Cast

I wonder if the sample of 'we real cool' on this Group Home record really is Gwendolyn Brooks reading 'We Real Cool'. I'm going to pretend that it is even if it's not, though, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.