Basel singers performing Taylor Swift songs at Mitten in der Woche on 8 May 2024

Last night at the Mitten in der Woche "swiftomenal" event at the Kaserne in Basel, I sang two Taylor Swift songs accompanied by Fabio Gouvea on electric guitar: "Champagne Problems" and "Never Grow Up" (with "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits). There were also four more riveting performances of rearrangements of Swift songs: Baschi Hausmann sang "State of Grace" to solo electric guitar; Jasmine Albash sang "Cruel Summer" and "... Ready for It?" to solo keyboards; Laine sang two unreleased Swift songs with solo acoustic gutar, "Need You Now" and "This Is Really Happening"; and Jenny Jans and Axel Rüst sang "Exile" and "Lover" with acoustic guitar and keyboards. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9 May 2024)

A nine-part blackboard on the last paragraph of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” (2005)

For today's discussion of the last paragraph of Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" (2005), the nine students wrote on one-ninth of the blackboard each: words or phrases from the paragraph; keywords for their ideas; concepts from criticism; links to our other two Ishiguro novels ("An Artist of the Floating World", 1986; "The Remains of the Day", 1989); links to literary history or theory. Each student presented their ninth of the board for discussion with the others, while I mostly remained silent until the end. With one student absent, I wrote a new idea of mine about "Never Let Me Go" in the empty ninth: "Il faut imaginer Kathy H. heureuse." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 7 May 2024)

Like it or not: A podium discussion on “Postcolonial Theories” at the University of Basel

The podium discussion on "Postcolonial Theories" in the Aula at the University of Basel this evening featured Professor Falestin Naili (Near and Middle Eastern Studies), Professor Erik Petry (Jewish Studies), and Dr. Henri-Michel Yeré (Sociology / African Studies) from the University of Basel, as well as Dr. Kijan Espahangizi (History) from the University of Zurich and Swiss writer Christoph Keller as moderator. In a wide-ranging discussion, one moment has stuck with me as a figure for those historical and contemporary conflicts dubbed "postcolonial": Dr. Yeré, a Swiss scholar who was born in the Ivory Coast, mentioned that his mother tongue is French, the colonial language, "whether I like it or not". (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 May 2024) 

Saxofour at the Tinguely Museum in Basel, 4 May 2024 (and memories of the World Saxophone Quartet in San Franscisco in the 1980s)

In the mid-1980s, I heard two incredibly memorable performances by the World Saxophone Quartet at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco: Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, and David Murray. Last night at the Tinguely Museum in Basel, I was reminded of the WSQ's wonderful combination of energy, arrangements, and humor by a performance by saxofour with Florian Bramböck, Klaus Dickbauer, Christian Maurer und Wolfgang Puschnig. Playing in front of Jean Tinguely's "Grosse Méta-Maxi-Maxi-Utopia", the Austrian saxophone quartet performed a wide-ranging set of original compositions (with jokes in between) and concluded their intense and entertaining set with an encore played while walking up the steps into that gigantic sculpture. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 May 2024) 

“I’m against …” – “So you’re for …?"

"I'm against diversity, equity, and inclusion." – "So you're for uniformity, inequity, and exclusion?" – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against critical race theory." – "So you're for gullible race superstition?" – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against antifa." – "So you're for fascism?" – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against decolonization." – "So you're for colonization?"  – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against being woke." – "So you're for being asleep?"  – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against identity politics." – "So you're only for your own identity?"  – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." – "I'm against the radical left-wing." – "So you're for the reactionary right-wing?" – "That's not what I meant!" – "Sorry." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 May 2024)

Jazz, Poetry, and Community

After listening to The Choir Invisible with Charlotte Greve (alto saxophone, vocals), Chris Tordini (bass), and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums) last night at the Bird's Eye in Basel, and then reading Sperrazza's thoughts on his blog about jazz and community on the way home (a community exemplified by that trio's interplay), I read a Facebook post by British poet John McCullough about my late Anglo-American teacher Denise Levertov, and then another by Canadian poet (and London resident) Nancy Mattson about how American poet (and Athens resident) A. E. Stallings mentioned visiting me in Basel in an article on Canadian poet Anne Carson, and I felt like part of an international poetry community. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 May 2024)

Durs Grünbein, Taylor Swift, and critics who say their works are too long

 In 1999, German poet Durs Grünbein published a 229-page collection of new poetry, "Nach den Satiren" (Suhrkamp). I read three reviews that all said he should have published a much shorter collection (80 to 90 pages). Each reviewer listed poems they thought were either definite keepers or obvious flops. I compared the lists and saw that one reviewer's keeper was always another reviewer's flop. I remembered this after reading many reviews of Taylor Swift's "The Tortured Poets Department" (2024) that list songs she should have cut – with everyone disagreeing about the keepers and flops. All this speaks for long collections of poems or songs that readers or listeners can curate themselves. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 May 2024)