After a series of grim days, brightened only by the occasional striking sunset and the election news from Alabama, today was nicely crisp and cold and I was able to restore my regime of a post-coffee mid-morning walk around Parliament Hill Fields and Hampstead Heath. [And since you ask, 3.12 miles, 6615 steps.]
Sometimes I’ll listen to a podcast of In Our Time, at others Private Passions or Desert Island Discs; or I’ll set my trusty little iPod on shuffle and see what comes. The sun had mostly cleared the paths of ice, save for one treacherous stretch beside the old boating pond, where the ice spread wide and long, invisible as glass. Up on the slopes, stumps of snow stood haphazardly amongst the grass like the stunted columns of some scattered Stonehenge. And this is what I heard …
- My Kind of Girls’ Night : Girlboy
- Useless Desires : Patty Griffin
- Hollywood Bass Player : Josh Rouse
- Hitting You : Loudon Wainwright III
- America : Paul Simon
- There’s a Light Beyond These Woods, Mary Margaret : Nanci Griffith
- I Saw Her Again Last Night : The Mamas & The Papas
- How Long Blues : Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
- Jack the Bear : Duke Ellington Orchestra
- I Can Hear Music : The Beach Boys
- Ko-Ko : Charlie Parker
- The Pretender : Jackson Browne
- Arcana (Varese) : Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
- Stabat Mater – Duetto: Grave, “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” (Pergolesi) : Margaret Marshall & Lucia Terrani w. London Symphony Orchestra
- Things Ain’t What They Used To Be : Charlie Mingus
