From the AP:
“PORTLAND — Authorities say Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s, has been found dead in his Portland hotel room.
“Erin Patrick, a deputy medical examiner in Multnomah County, says Mitchell was found dead a little after 3 a.m. today in his room at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland. “
She says Mitchell apparently died of natural causes at 62. An autopsy is planned.”
All members of the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience are now dead. Noel Redding, the bass player, died in 2003 of complications related to cirrhosis of the liver, and Jimi himself of a drug overdose in 1970.
Perhaps someday the confluence of time and place will create an environment as successfully musically experimental as the late 1960s, and the world will see another band as great as the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Man, I love the animation style of this. Despite the different aesthetic, it reminds me of Samurai Jack, but with more grit. Someday I’ll have enough time to explore animation again. Things like this really inspire me.
Design Observer has an eerie and fascinating essay about a suitcase full of photographs found eight years ago in a pile of garbage at the side of the street.
The images are haunting, and provide a look into the heart of a perpetrated tragedy that killed more than 110,000 civilians and left a lasting umbra reaching out over the 20th century.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore – 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they’d been feeling.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T’was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind
When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it’s too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it’s been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed, ‘til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.
33 years ago today, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all hands in Lake Superior.
I would like to thank everyone who helped me move my piano last night:
- Tim, for giving up half of your day to help your bass player move a rig that’s heavier than your drum kit.
- Jo-Dee and Brent, for missing a good chunk of the Leafs game to help carry a century old piano up the stairs.
- Shaun and Carrie for living so close and being so supportive of us. And also for sitting Charlie at the keyboard last night and starting him early!
- Auntie Donna and Richard, you two are just too nice. Thank you for the time, the love, the understanding and the caramels!
- My Dad, for being amazing – and amazingly strong!
- My son Jake, for holding doors, moving carpets, and asking a million questions.
- Sarah for the hundred million things you had to do to make room for us to maneuver the piano into its spot, for driving Tim and I to get the truck, driving with me to return the truck, for the moral support, and for the apple pie!
It is so nice to live in a house with a piano again. Even more so that it’s the piano of my childhood. Next step is to tune it! It’s been out of tune since I was a child, but it’s gone slightly more so over the intervening years.