riddlemay

I assume it's less complicated than that. They're actors looking to self-promote. Or "influencers" looking to go to the next level of "influencing."

FWIW, I picked up that book years ago when it was just a normal price, started it, and didn't find it worth continuing on with. I no longer remember why.

I'm thankful that the family and friends who had it required no hospitalization. But I'm freaked out by the serious cases you hear about where "they did nothing wrong." Only two possibilities exist. 1) They really did do "something wrong," only that something was of short enough duration that they thought they were safe, and aren't being completely truthful when they say they did everything right. 2) They really did do "nothing wrong" and it's possible to get a serious case even if you take every precaution known to man. The second possibility is what scares me.

It's funny, because I skipped over clicking the link in the first post, and read the whole thread-to-date, only then going back and reading the Guardian review. From the forum discussion, without the benefit of seeing the review, I somehow concluded that the book excoriates Armstrong for selling out. Now, having read the review, I see that it does pretty much the opposite, rejecting the accusations of selling out. I just ordered the book for my Kindle, because the scope of the book, Armstrong's big band years, fits in perfectly with my favorite way to hear him--with a big band. The small group recordings of the twenties and thirties are too old-timey for me. I know that Armstrong was a true revolutionary, but I know that in my head, not in my ears or in my nether regions. As for mid-1960s Armstrong, that was too square for me. But I love him with a "larger aggregation," as they used to say in Downbeat. One of my desert-island discs is the one on which he's accompanied by Billy May--"Bing & Satchmo." Crosby is great on it too.

Yeah, I'm reading it on a Kindle, and the photographs reproduce well enough. Sometimes they don't on a Kindle. But in this case, they're satisfactory.

Leaving aside in which period Phil Woods' playing began to change, I'm loving the book. I'm only up to the early 1950s but he puts you right in the middle of that scene. He's a terrific writer and he doesn't pull his punches. He also comes off as a very likable guy. (I don't know what those who knew him would say about him, but that's the persona that emerges from the book.) I shouldn't necessarily be surprised what a good writer he is but our stupid preconceptions tell us that someone who is a complete master of one art is unlikely to achieve excellence in another. Anyway, a pleasure to read. Now, not leaving aside the period in which his playing began to change, all I can say is that I love him on two 1962-ish albums: Benny Goodman in Moscow (on the Tommy Newsom tune "Titter Pipes") and Gary McFarland's The Jazz Version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

One reason I liked it was that the title was misleading! I don't mean that I like misleading titles, but that the actual contents included some upbeat swingers, along with America the Beautiful. The album had as little to do with "rainy day lovers" as the album cover did. The charts were by Fischer, and were hip, as those things go.

Clare Fischer, Songs for Rainy Day Lovers

That's a smart idea. I've had CDs refuse to play. But I've never had one that refused to play on all the players in my house. Whenever it's happened that one machine can't handle it, another one can.

In the background on the right is the London House.

Someone came within inches of running me over in a strip mall parking lot and threw up her hands in that "WTF, Man?" gesture we love so much.

Fortunately, Benny Golson's Free got free. Domestically, even.

Was there a few times every decade starting in the 70s. Besides everything else, Joe's intro speeches were always a hoot. They were kind of always the same, but somehow that was a feature, not a bug.

I think to get at the original writer's meaning, you need to add the words "discriminated against" to the sentence that currently ends with "for these former to become." The writer is saying that if blacks are to cease being discriminated against, it is necessary for whites to start being discriminated against--because fairness is a zero-sum game. I'm not sure I agree with him (could we not achieve a world in which no one is discriminated against?) but I do understand his meaning.

I had a Webcor stereo reel-to-reel with detachable speakers in my room as a teen that beat the sound of the family Admiral console in the living room all to hell.