live recording

In the old days-and when weren't the days old?- there was something called live performances and live recording. Can't imagine what listening to Marley's Exodus at the Rainbow must have been like. On LPs (what dem, boss?)you could hear Otis Redding or B.B. speak to you.."Take your shoes off, ..get soulful, y'know"

When it comes to live performances you guess these two must have been the cheese (to use an old Anglo word). 

Of course, in terms of smoothness there was Sam Cooke, Curtis..later, George Benson, Al Green and so many others. But if there was one singer, the man, it was Marvin (and no, not his 'What's going on?', beautiful though that is). More like:

I read a page of Marjorie Watt's collection of short stories and instinctively felt this has got it. Can't really say what "it" is, but if pushed I'd say it's a sound, a tone, a kind of background sadness. Charles (from CB editions) was spot on. 

Read twenty five pages of Buchan's Slide and have to say that it's not something I'm warming too. Hard to put this is in words and at the risk of being misunderstood I'd say it's too much of a white man's book. Wankerish.

Onwards and upwards. Renata Adler's Speedboat. Clever, vibrant, free-floating. Too early in to make any judgements but there's a sense of being too clever, too 'cool' by half. Still, will give it another go.

Exley. Started at least six or seven times. Last time made it to page 165. Don't know why there's a reader's block when it comes to this book. Got a bit claustrophobic, self-absorbed. But since Richard Ford rated it so highly must give it another go.

~

Another kind of writing, one that anton (flowerville) often points to: the quiet, ordinary dailiness of life. There is something of a leaning inwards, a sense of a life lived away from the glare..one has made accommodations, found a small, second space, a refuge, a blank page in one's private journals. All of which makes you think of Walser, Pessoa, the simple recording of a life. But also of the beautiful opening pages of Raymond's Dora Suarez. Is the only sanity today to take a step away (and down) from it all? 

'Betty, do you believe that apart from you, somewhere beyond all the people who only seem to be people, there truly are still some people left, real people?'

--Derek Raymond.