HBMF

Today, while I work, I am listening to:

Duke Ellington, "Money Jungle," w/ Charlie Mingus, Max Roach

Wayne Shorter, "The Soothsayer"

Schubert, String Quintet, played by the Alban Berg Quartet (w/ someone else)

Beethoven, "Grosse Fuge," also played by the Alban Berg Quartet. They are my favorite quartet. They make everything sound modern. The first piece of classical music that spoke to me was a Dvorak piano quintet, opus something, played by the A.B. Quartet. I got it out of the 42nd St. library in New York City. I put it on, along with John Coltrane’s 1963 "Coltrane" (there’s another one from the 50s), when I want to hear something seminal to me.

When I lived in Paris, my friend, a trained classical pianist, turned me onto classical and jazz and such. Before that, I told him that I would "never" get into classical music. He’s a hyper-masculine, energetic, Neal Cassady type, a mentor. He smoked a lot of hash, we drank wine and played backgammon, talked about books. Walked around the city high on a French pharmaceutical downer called Palfium that he got from a woman with one leg named Babette. Now he’s translating my novel into French.

I am a high-brow motherfucker.

(via the ego)