Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 8hInteresting - Max's looks more like a proper club here, w/ decent stage gear and sightlines, than I'd imagined. I always pictured a barroom with the band set up in a corner. (CBGB's, I saw with my own eyes, though only in the '90s.) 130
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 07/10/2026The Ellerbe/Nix blend is fascinating to me, but I haven't always known which is which on record. I'll listen with the description here in mind. 000
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026David Neil Lee, The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and The New York Jazz Field. Uses Coleman's epochal 1959 club debut as a case study for Bourdieu's account of position-taking. Well-researched, persuasive, & dispiriting: to me, the theory's anti-aesthetic bent is deeply cynical. #readin26 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Gabriel Josipovici, Conversations in Another Room. Author was born in Nice but writes in English. Short 1984 nouveau roman, 80% terse dialogue between a dying matriarch and a niece, modeled on Beckett and Robbe-Grillet (w/o sadism). I have patience for the style, but the material is thin. #readin26 000
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Joanna Furhman, Data Mind. 2022; Prose poems (+ a few memes), meant to come to terms w/ the internet's excess and banality. A bit quieter, syntactically if not satirically, than flarf: if some results read as soft surrealism, blame the source, not the poet. Fave title "Chapstick Traces" #readin26 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Jeff Schwarz, Free Jazz. Matter-of-fact 2022 overview of the music since Coleman, w/ semi-technical descriptions of harmolodics & the compositional systems of Braxton, Threadgill, etc. Treats surrounding racial issues w/o polemics. Can't imagine anyone covering this topic better in 125 p. #readin26. 051
Reposted by Franklin Brunomeadow!! @meadowdetector.bsky.social · 24/09/2026the only cishet person from Boston I want to hear talking about lesbian bars is Jonathan Richman 0339
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Sorry to keep commenting on this post, but I just realized I played the Nite-Liters version of "Valdez..." as back-announcing music this summer w/o really knowing the tune's history. widgets.spinitron.com/KSPC/pl/2275...widgets.spinitron.comThe Manila Folder Mon Aug 3 with Wax Eloquent on KSPC Claremont 88.7FM 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026That's what's fascinating, they used similar means to get to very different ends, career-wise. You probably know it, but check out "Midnight Ramble" from KC's 1st LP, from '59, like Shape of Jazz to Come. It's a Bo Diddley groove w/ no functional chord changes, & 2 electric gtrs, like Prime Time. 110
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026This is amazing. More generally, I've picked up 3 or 4 King Curtis LPs on Atlantic/ATCO recently, w/ an ear toward the Ornette connection, but I didn't know there was a singles collection. 110
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026If there weren't 90,000 other things to read, I'd suggest you reconsider, but there are. Personally, I get curious every so often; I'm rarely entirely satisfied, but usually diverted. Her books mostly read quickly, so it's not a huge investment, and I'm a bit fascinated by her speed and volume. 110
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Yes, this is like a 1/4-length sketch for that. She often features preyed-on young women and depicts disordered minds, but there's more to her work, of which I've read a fraction. I appreciate her intensity, esp. in '70s/'80s short stories, but she's always pub'd too much, and the prose gets sloppy. 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Joyce Carol Oates, Beasts. B/B- 21st-c. Oates novella w/ standard equipment: New England academic setting, sexual power dynamics w/ violent climax, overt literary signposting (here, Ovid & Lawrence). Less hallucinatory and more calmly paced than her better work in this vein; pat ending. #readin26 230
Reposted by Franklin BrunoDouglas Wolk @douglaswolk.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I find that list entirely accurate and would not change the placement of a single item on it. 271
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I put "the cool side stays cool" in a song around 1994. 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Frank Kofsky, Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz. Posthumous sequel to his '71 book on Black nat'lism & jazz. Frequently plausible Marxist analysis, buried in reams of aggrieved score-settling w/ white critics. Sorry, -other- white critics. #readin26 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I haven't been able to follow his many releases closely, but this, A, and PREfection are astounding - I thought he was the best new songwriter I'd heard in years. 120
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Colin Bramwell, Fetch. Poems in English and in Scots, glossed like an edition of Burns, many in rec'd forms, inc. a crown of sonnets; themes of death, nature, impermanence are also traditional. Refreshing colloquial passages don't fully overcome an air of stiffness, too common in UK poets. #readin26 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Always gratified when someone knows the lore. 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Hmm, I could use more loyalists on your level - but then, I doubt I've saved as many lives. 111
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026No shade, but why did you order 3? Different editions, extra tracks? 100
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Robert Hewison, Under Siege, Literary Life in London 1939-1945. Cultural history of UK writing (also painting and music) during WWII: covers the Blitz, poets in combat, state/BBC arts funding. Informative, but broader than it is deep, outside a downbeat postscript on postwar prospects. #readin26 000
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Jennifer Higgie, Bedlam. Biographical novel on the English painter/murderer/inmate Richard Dadd (1817-88), in 1st-person. The style and diction, arch yet feverish, are hard to bring off, and there are lapses, but Dadd's descent into visionary madness is rendered with a harrowing lyricism. #readin26 000
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Iain Anderson, This Is Our Music; Free Jazz, the Sixties and American Culture. Narrates how post-Coltrane jazz used grants and academia to survive outside the market, at the cost of defusing some of its claims to political/racial radicalism. Flatly written, heavy on well-known background. #readin26 040
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Serendipitous, as it's what we could borrow, but it wasn't lost on me. 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026If you'd like to see a person who was not encouraged to learn to ride a bike attempt to do so well into middle age, AND hear "Still in Error," the first single from the Human Hearts' forthcoming album on Dromedary Records, pls check out our new video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8tn...youtube.comThe Human Hearts • "Still in Error"YouTube video by DromedaryRecords 1227
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026As shown by my not knowing heir names. At a glance (i.e., image search), I've registered more of Halverson's work than Raskin's. 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I saw a shelf of pbs w/ Ben Shahn covers in Brooklyn the other day. Seemed like a similar niche. 120
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026You really have all those different-sized cards? I get why, but I can't imagine myself taking the trouble. 130
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Arthur Taylor, Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews. 29 sit-downs, '68-'71, w/ jazz heavy hitters by expat drummer Taylor. Recurring topics include U.S. racism, white economic control of the music, and older players' distaste for free jazz & "electronics." Few punches pulled. #readin26. 060
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 01/09/2026U. Lindberg, et. al., Rock Criticism From the Beginning. Sociological account of the field's development from the late '60s on, by 4 Nordic scholars writing in English. The cultural distance shows, but I learned a lot about the UK music papers, & some writers I haven't read, esp. Landau. #readin26 000
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 28/08/2026By the way, I meant "Just Like a Woman," which has a bridge (U.S. sense), not "Visions of Johanna," which is a verse-prechorus-chorus structure (w/ some tricks like different rhymes in each chorus), with no bridge. 110
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I haven't analysed this music either, but my sense is that the suite-like additive form arises from having to give many number of members of a girl/boy band distinct features section. That said, there's precedent for multipart, less hierarchical pop forms in, e.g. "Planet Rock" or "Hips Don't Lie." 110
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/08/2026interrupts verse/chorus alternation, often after the 2nd chorus, and returns to another verse/chorus pair (e.g., "Visions of Johanna"), or directly to the last chorus or choruses ("Changes," "Since U Been Gone"). There are many variations and exceptions, but these are the basic formal ideas [5/n]. 350
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/08/2026-both- a pre-chorus & a bridge (or bridge & middle 8) if you like. 2 good examples are "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and "Wrecking Ball." In general, a pre-chorus/bridge (UK) can be thought of as a subsection of the verse that precedes and sets up the chorus, while a bridge (U.S.)/middle 8 [4/n] 130
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/08/2026they reserve "bridge" for what we in the U.S. call the "pre-chorus" (or "pre" or sometimes "lift"), which can be confusing if you don't go back and check the song being discussed. (3) Whatever terms are used, it's important that there be two -distinct- terms, because one song/record can have [3/n] 140
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/08/2026seems to be a coinage by UK jazz musicians; it became widely known when the Beatles used it in interviews, but as McCartney notes, they didn't know it meant eight -measures-, so a lot of Beatles songs have bridges of unusual lengths. (2) B/c some UK writers still use the term "middle 8," [2/n] 140
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 25/08/20263 points, quickly. (1) "Middle 8" comes from the conventional 8 measure B section in 32-bar pre-rock standards in AABA form (late '20s-'30s): "The Man I Love," "Blue Skies," "Ain't Misbehavin'," that kind of thing. U.S. songwriters called this the bridge (or, earlier, "release"); "middle 8" [1/n] 171
Reposted by Franklin BrunoMiss Kimmi Kitty Mama @miss-kimmi.bsky.social · 18/08/2026The Earl Carroll Theatre is a former stage facility at 6230 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It was built by showman Earl Carroll and designed in the Streamline Moderne style by architect Gordon Kaufmann in 1938. 0546
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Jan Murray, The Body Merchant: The Life of Earl Carroll. Source-free bio of B'way/H'wd revue producer (Earl Carroll's Vanities), Ziegfeld's main rival in the '20s/'30s, by a vaudevillian who worked for him later. Prurient and highly embellished, befitting this Barnum among flesh-peddlers. #readin26 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 19/08/2026Not radio, but as I think you know, many songs from the 20s and earlier were known to Gen X via cartoon reruns, and the odd "flapper" number, e.g., on variety shows. I always think of the tune to Thomas Moore's "...Endearing Young Charms" (1808) being used for the Looney Tunes bomb-in-the-piano gag. 010
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026A Flea the Size of Paris: The Old French Fatrasies & Fatras, trans. Ted Byrne & Donato Mancini. Eng. versions of 13th c. genres of carnivalesque 11-line poems that travesty courtly verse w/ paradox & wordplay. "Fart just once with your throat/& I'll love you perfectly." In a word, flarf. #readin26. 020
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Did you know that, according to Billy Rose, the composer/critic Deems Taylor, after whom a BMI award is still named, once called "Barney Google" "possibly the worst song in the history of the music business"? 240
Reposted by Franklin BrunoCoraline Jortay 喬海霖 @qiaoj.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Got a new google scholar notification, so I go check and find this very cool poem by Wang Jibing 王计兵, the recent Lu Xun prize winner, prefacing a PhD thesis on women migrant workers and the gig economy PhD students in all disciplines: more poems in theses please, we love to see them! ✨💫 81764490
Franklin Bruno @humanfranklin.bsky.social · 08/08/2026Saul Bellow, Seize the Day. Haven't touched him since reading The Dean's December far too young; lacking bandwidth for, say, Herzog, this 1956 100-pager was a fine way back in. The pitch of desperation reached is hard to credit, but the prose vaults over what one reads now. Maybe then too. #readin26 010
