Hopkinson Smith Early music people tend to be musical polyglots, and such is Hopkinson Smith. A founding member of Hespèrion XX, Smith plays lute, vihuela (see below), theorbo, and for all I know, electric guitar. I’m recommending him not as a specialized interest, I hope, but as a delight for anyone who enjoys soulful instrumentalism […]
Archive for 2013
Laurie on Lou
Here is Laurie Anderson’s farewell tribute to Lou Reed, in Rolling Stone. So beautiful, so sweet.
Weekend recs
A Night with Lou Reed (live at the Bottom Line, 1983) Here’s a full hour of Lou Reed in great form, not long after The Blue Mask was released, and featuring (as the album did) Robert Quine. There’s so much good stuff here, but it’s best just to think about this as 40-year-old Lou, back […]
Weekend recs
Hidden things on hills, San Francisco, California San Francisco gives up its secrets slowly, but they are fabulous. Relying on Google map directions to visit friends-of-a-friend, we ended up climbing the Filbert Steps up Telegraph Hill. They rose through an improbable fairyland of Victorian cottages and exotic plants, some kind of vertical Shire tucked right […]
Who wants to go for a damn hike?
Are you sitting at a desk right now? Doing a little Internet surfing in between bouts of Candy Crush, or checking your Facebook page, or maybe even some work? Do you want to stop doing those things and go for a damn hike? Come on, dammit! It’s time for some fresh air. Here’s a view. […]
Twitter redux
The fact that Twitter remains less mainstream than Facebook is, frankly, a big part of its appeal. An interesting piece from HuffPo in advance of the platform’s IPO.