looking glass

"it is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry." /nikolai vasilievich gogol

kraftwerk - hall of mirrors

what a drag

"i wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. you'd know what a drag it is to see you." /bob dylan

the horrors - i only think of you

nothing but obscurity

"this is what i see, and what troubles me. i look on all sides, and everywhere i see nothing but obscurity. nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet." /blaise pascal

sorcerer - algorhythm

top three

"if you were to secretly ask the most praised hip-hop producers, if given a top three, who they fear the most, dilla’s name would chart on everyone’s list, hands down." /?uestlove

j dilla - mash

innovation always builds

"creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
the past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
ours is less and less a free society."

/larry lessig

the gaslamp killer - part 3

eating the air

"who lin'd himself with hope,
eating the air on promise of supply."

/will shakespeare

bullion - long promised

strongest suit

"i have had a 'call' to literature, of a low order--i.e. humorous. it is nothing to be proud of, but it is my strongest suit...seriously scribbling to excite the laughter of god's creatures." /mark twain

lyrics born - callin' out

learn to ride

"i began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all learn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. that which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure of success in life -- it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed. and so i found high moral uses in the bicycle and can commend it as a teacher without pulpit or creed. she who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life." /frances e. willard

cool kids - black mags

beyond happiness

"it's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how...and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss." /henry miller

madvillain - great day

footfalls echo

"footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage we did not take
towards the door we never opened
into the rose garden."

/t.s. eliot

fool's gold - surprise hotel (phaseone remix)

stimulant and sedative

"stimulant and sedative, original, repetitive, violently competitive--a school unaccredited." /mos def

raekwon ft. ghostface killah + method man - wu ooh

weapons of reason

"never let the future disturb you. you will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present." /marcus aurelius antoninus

beck - dark star (dave sitek remix)

whose world

"what thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.
what thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
what thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
whose world, or mine or theirs or is it of none?
first came the seen, then thus the palpable
elysium, though it were in the halls of hell.
what thou lovest well is thy true heritage."

/ezra pound

david grubbs - the world brushed aside

maturity

"i live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." /albert einstein

peter sarstedt - where do you go to (my lovely)

my passion

"i figured out that my passion is not really for music. my passion is actually for people. so the exploration into different musics of different times has to do with trying to figure out who these people are, what this music represents and what context do we want to give it, and 'what does it mean to us right now?'" /yo-yo ma

the books ft. jose gonzalez - cello song

city to the stars

"in rome you long for the country; in the country--oh inconstant!--you praise the distant city to the stars." /horace

chad vangaalen - city of electric light

three sides

"if triangles had a god, it would have three sides." /baron de montesquieu

leo kottke - three/quarter north

when i am filled with music

"i think i should have no other mortal wants, if i could always have plenty of music. it seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. life seems to go on without effort, when i am filled with music." /george eliot

michael manring - the fire sermon

glorious starry firmament

"how hard to realize that every camp of men or beasts has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! in such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make--leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone--we all dwell in a house of one room--the world with the firmament for its roof--and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track." /john muir

dinosaur jr. - the backyard

linked sweetness

"and pomp, and feast, and revelry,
with mask, and antique pageantry,
such sights as youthful poets dream
on summer eves by haunted stream.
then to the well-trod stage anon,
if jonson's learned sock be on,
or sweetest shakespeare, fancy's child,
warble his native wood-notes wild,
and ever, against eating cares,
lap me in soft lydian airs,
married to immortal verse
such as the meeting soul may pierce,
in notes with many a winding bout
of linked sweetness long drawn out."

/john milton

r.e.m. - sweetness follows

in retrospect

"the less one makes declarative statements, the less apt one is to look foolish in retrospect." /quentin tarantino

panda bear - i'm not

my track

"i do not see why i should e'er turn back,
or those should not set forth upon my track
to overtake me, who should miss me here
and long to know if still i held them dear.
they would not find me changed from him they knew--
only more sure of all i thought was true."

/robert frost

karen o and the kids - capsize

sad songs

"when i am dead, my dearest,
sing no sad songs for me;
plant thou no roses at my head,
nor shady cypress tree.
be the green grass above me
with showers and dewdrops wet;
and if thou wilt, remember
and if thou wilt, forget."

/christina georgina rossetti

lcd soundsystem - someone great

dreamers of dreams

"we are the music-makers,
and we are the dreamers of dreams,
wandering by lone sea breakers,
and sitting by desolate streams;
world-losers and world-forsakers,
on whom the pale moon gleams:
yet we are the movers and shakers
of the world forever, it seems."

memory tapes - treeship

books

"the true university of these days is a collection of books." /thomas carlyle

animal collective - college

beauty in the abstract

"i begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. --praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works." /john keats

bonnie "prince" billy - easy does it

patiently through time

"africa has always walked in my mind proudly upright, an african giant among the other continents, toes well dug into the final ocean of one hemisphere, rising to its full height in the graying skies of the other; head and shoulders broad, square and enduring, making light of the bagful of blue mediterranean slung over its back as it marches patiently through time." /laurens van der post

charles spearin - mr. gowrie

man in the wilderness

"the man in the wilderness asked of me
how many strawberries grew in the sea.
i answered him as i thought good,
'as many as red herrings grow in the wood.'"

/anonymous nursery rhyme

the beatles - strawberry fields forever

something we can trust

"the key to the mystery of a great artist: that for reasons unknown to him or to anyone else, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another inevitably...the composer, by doing this, leaves us at the finish with the feeling that something is right in the world, that something checks throughout, something that follows its own laws consistently, something we can trust, that will never let us down." /leonard bernstein

led zeppelin - white summer (paris, october 1969)

be quite still

"you do not need to leave your room. remain sitting at your table and listen. do not even listen, simply wait. do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." /franz kafka

kaki king - close your eyes and you'll burst into flames

friends we love

"we're tenting tonight on the old campground,
give us a song to cheer
our weary hearts, a song of home
and friends we love so dear."

/walter kittredge

phoenix - love like a sunset (animal collective jam)