Coffee, anyone? (Everyone?!)

Studio construction continues apace, with the foundation pour scheduled for tomorrow. With the summer heat being what it is—record-setting here in Austin, and, well, on the whole planet—the crew gets started at sunrise and heads out before the dangerous heat sets in. For the most part. So far, it’s Austin’s ninth-hottest summer on record. We expect that ranking to change by the end of the month.

Mala Nota’s first album, Los Peores Éxitos Vol.1, which will coincide with the band’s third fourth anniversary show at Sahara Lounge on August 25. The album title, translated: The Worst Hits Vol. 1. This is how we, and you, know that everything is falling into place, going according to plan.

Joining us for the festivities are Onda Stereo and The Cumbia Movement.

August 25
Sahara Lounge
1413 Webberville Road Austin, TX 78721(512) 927-0700
8:00 PM Onda Stereo
10:00 PM Mala Nota
12:00 AM The Cumbia Movement

Remember slide shows? Of travels (what some call “vacations”)? Involving dinner or a pot-luck? The heat of the projector and the sparkle of the screen? Making shadow animals? Maybe the bulb exploded. Kodachrome vs. Ektachrome. The stories and narration. The corrections. Your noticing of the dust floating in the beam of light.

Here’s the “Running Man” travelogue for your viewing and listening pleasure:

This month’s adventure in Things you think about when you hear a lyric:

Last week I heard Sam Cooke’s version of “The Coffee Song,” which was released in 1960. Recorded fourteen years earlier by Frank Sinatra, the song was about surplus and how people respond to the surplus condition. Or maybe it’s the other way around: how the human condition shifts behavior accordingly as supply and demand poke at our foibles and weaknesses.

Three-quarters of a century since “The Coffee Song” was written (thank you, Bob Hilliard and Dick Miles), its mildly caffeinated punch hits a little differently. The repeated line about the politician’s daughter being fined for drinking water points to certain forms of corruption with which we continue to be familiar. The line that caught my attention, though, was at the beginning of the song:

So they've got to find those extra cups to fill

In the song, “those extra cups to fill” come from forms of denying alternative beverages. But the line brought to mind the story of orange juice—once thought to be too acidic for breakfast, and how that story shifted via the lever of a marketing campaign. In other words, we witness the creation of extra cups through a shift in the culture, the shift being a specific manipulation.

Marketing is one of the main features of our media experience. Have you noticed how ads on social media platforms mimic “normal” posts, and vice versa? It’s a bit of a death spiral of bidding for attention. For sure it’s not adequate as social discourse, yet it seems to be a growing part of it.

So, try this one weird trick: keep noticing the difference.

To wit: “The Coffee Song”:

At the end of August, the brilliant Su Zi contacted me with an invitation to collaborate on a poetry-music production. We grew up in the same orbit, back in Naperville, IL, and enjoyed somewhat parallel teaching careers on opposite coasts.

Her poem “Heat Index,” was written in 2021, and even in the two years since, and when one can perceive the effects of climate change in one’s own garden, the sense of urgency grows.

So, here it is, in the poet’s own voice, supported by choirs of night insects and a piano improvisation. Please listen, and share this art.

Thanks again for reading. Feel free to send questions or topics you might like to hear about from me.

Peace, Love, and Art,
Ralph
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Ralph Manak
Raking Light Studio
Austin TX
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