Monthly Archives: April 2020

With A Little Help From My Friends

April 27, 2020 – 10:29 pm

Like so many other musicians, during this enforced quarantine I’ve been collaborating online with my pals. In my case it’s the group of talented players and singers I get together with every September for a musical retreat out in the Isles of Shoals. I put up a mix a little while back of one of […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (7)

Live And Learn

April 25, 2020 – 12:39 pm

I’ve been a bit neglectful of the blog lately. Life is beginning to feel a bit like Groundhog Day, with few new impressions to think or write about (other than the books I’ve been reading in the evenings the past couple of weeks, which I’m still digesting). I’ve been spending a lot of time down […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (1)

Musical Interlude

April 19, 2020 – 11:41 pm

Just to take our minds off the Wuhan Red Death for a moment, here’s some music you might enjoy. The piece is called Spirit Moves, and it’s the opening track from Vince Mendoza’s album Instructions Inside, which I recorded and mixed back in March of 1991. We did the sessions at Edison Recording in midtown […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (1)

Wuhan Red Death: The Boogaloo Scenario

April 17, 2020 – 12:39 pm

Our reader the indefatigable JK has introduced me to a blogger I’d never heard of: B.J. Campbell, whose posts are collected under the title Handwaving Freakoutery. The post that JK sent me today is about the possible consequences for social order of this ongoing (and, increasingly, arguably unconstitutional) lockdown. It begins with an amusing roundup […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (4)

When The Cure Is Fatal

April 15, 2020 – 7:37 pm

Former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey published a brief item today about the cost, in human life, of this indiscriminate shutdown of the American economy. A key excerpt: Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every 1% hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99% increase […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (4)

Separation Of Powers

April 15, 2020 – 6:21 pm

The criticism of President Trump’s response to the Wuhan Red Death has been all over the map; in general whatever he does is wrong, regardless of whether Blue politicians have done the same or worse in their own bailiwicks, and whatever he doesn’t do is a crime of omission. He’s been faulted at every step […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

The Devil Finds Work For Idle Hands

April 13, 2020 – 12:49 pm

I’ve previously mentioned the musical retreat I enjoy each September in the far-flung Isles of Shoals. I get together with an eclectic assortment of musicians (both pros and civilians), and we have a fine time as the house band for all the people enjoying Star Island‘s final conference of the year. With this global panic […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (2)

When I’m 64

April 13, 2020 – 11:57 am

When I get older, losing my hair Many years from now… Or, as it happens, today. My, how time does fly when you’re having fun. As always: natal salutations to Guy Fawkes, Thomas Jefferson, F.W. Woolworth, James Ensor, Butch Cassidy, Sir Arthur “Bomber’ Harris, Robert Watson-Watt, Samuel Beckett, Harold Stassen, Stanislaw Ulam, Eudora Welty, Howard […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Gonna Get You All

April 9, 2020 – 8:38 pm

Yesterday was this year’s “Pink Moon”. Here’s a lovely song by that name, from the long-departed Nick Drake.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (0)

Jesters Do Oft Prove Prophets

April 9, 2020 – 8:35 pm

From the Babylon Bee: Bernie Sanders Drops Out As Campaign Goals Of Locking Everyone Up, Destroying Economy Already Achieved Full story here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

John Prine, 1946-2020

April 8, 2020 – 1:05 pm

I was very sorry to learn this morning that John Prine has died of the Chinese coronavirus. He was a truly gifted songwriter, and made his gift a gift to us all. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I will never forget seeing him perform in Princeton’s Alexander Hall on April 1st, […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (1)

Casting Out The Devil

April 7, 2020 – 11:12 pm

Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of this Wuhan-virus emergency is how clearly it reveals the breadth and depth of the great fissure dividing the nation. In times of crisis, families set aside their internal squabbles: Me and my brother We fight with each other But woe betide The guy from outside. When the towers fell […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (6)

All Or Nothing

April 5, 2020 – 7:24 pm

Curtis Yarvin (whose erstwhile nom de plume “Mencius Moldbug” we will, for the time being, continue to mention), has posted a new essay calling for a temporary dictatorship to combat the Wuhan coronavirus. After a discussion of the many, many shortcomings, weaknesses, and debilities of our national government, and of democracy in general — which […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (12)

Sign Of The Times

April 1, 2020 – 12:49 pm

Just to remind you, readers, as you contemplate the millenarian tableau unfolding before us: yes, there is also a comet. (Of course.)

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (8)