![]() Irene less than expected, but still a bruiser for many. Hurricane Irene: Wall Street planning to open Monday. U.S. Authorities: At least 19 killed as a result of Hurricane Irene. Irene Adds to a Bad Year for Insurance Industry. I'm so grateful the news headlines aren't what they could have been, and Boston's experience of Hurricane Irene was not nearly what it was for North Carolina. Or Virginia. Or Pennsylvania. Despite our less intense version of the storm, there were numerous reports of downed electrical wires and uprooted trees in and around Somerville (and Boston proper). So far, this is the only reported damage in my area due to Irene's wrath. My roommate Anita and I spent some time watching the driving rain and quaking trees from the relative safety of our enclosed front balcony. The sounds of the storm were absolutely fascinating. There were these wonderful moments when the wind sounded like a supersonic stalling engine. Here's sixty seconds of what we experienced. THE SUNDAY SOUND: August 28, The Roar of Hurricane Irene. For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece.
1 Comment
![]() I never know how to artistically deal with the topic of slavery. I often feel compelled to comment on it in some meaningful way, but what can I really say? My difficulty with it isn't a white guilt thing. Not that I don't recognize white privilege. No. My reaction is more of a "how the hell did that even happen?" thing. Same goes for the Holocaust. And Apartheid. My brain cannot even process how one group of people somehow gets (takes?) enough power to keep another group completely powerless. HOW. DOES. IT. HAPPEN. This commentary feels trite. I don't know. I can't even begin to analyze it. Today's sixty seconds of sound features snippets from a recording made in 1941. An 85-year-old man named Isom Mosely is interviewed after a lifetime of being a slave in Gee's Bend, Alabama. THE SUNDAY SOUND: August 21, Isom Mosely. For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece. ![]() The National Poetry Slam was held in Boston this year. I was blessed (yes, I am using the word blessed here, people!) to attend the Finals at the Berklee Performance Center. Over 80 slam teams from all over the country competed for the top spot. The final four were from Denver, New York City, Columbus, and Providence. I heard twenty original poems last night. I love spoken word performances of all kinds (I'm assuming you know that by now considering my body of work), but three of the performances really stood out for me. I related, I was moved, I was nearly brought to tears. One. About being a soft woman. "Is it so much easier to make us monsters than to simply make us dresses?" Two. About being the child of divorce. "You watch the sunset too often, it just becomes 6pm." Three. About being a determined believer despite it all. "Never asking is easier to deal with than never being answered." You'll really just have to listen for yourself. THE SUNDAY SOUND: August 14, The 2011 National Poetry Slam. A special thanks to my dear friends Rori and Amy for making this post possible. I needed this bit of raw inspiration. For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece. ![]() I had the privilege of seeing Bon Iver play at Boston's House of Blues on Friday night. Justin Vernon, the main musical brains behind the Bon Iver outfit, is easily my favorite emergent artist of the last couple years. I was absolutely thrilled to be at the sold-out show. My friend (and hopefully new show partner) Kristy purchased SRO tickets for the upper mezzanine. We were pretty well set for the evening. Had I known our bags would not be checked, I would have brought my big girl field recorder. I wanted to capture every. single. song. But Kristy and I only had our perma-gear on us: our trusty cell phones (hers much more technologically advanced than mine). While I was trying to capture all the audio I could, she successfully captured the picture to your right. Throughout Bon Iver's set, there were nine musicians on stage. NINE. And all were playing at least three different instruments each. EACH. The amount of talent shoved onto that stage was overwhelming. The best performance of the night was a sped up / more drum-filled version of "Blood Bank" (click through for a rad fan-made video featuring the studio version for comparison). Already one of my very favorite songs, this performance thrilled me to no end. As Kristy said, it was a spiritual experience. Today's sixty seconds of sound is a bit more than sixty seconds. Forgive me. I could only cut so much! Still, this sampling will never do it justice. THE SUNDAY SOUND: August 7, Bon Iver via cell phone. For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece. |
|