ejp626

Clark set is sold. Turrentine available but free US shipping is no longer an option for time being. Thanks for looking! Eric

I just finished up A Hero of Our Time. Interestingly, there is a contemporary novel by Naben Ruthnum by the same name! I'll get to it fairly soon, but it isn't the very next thing on my list. I'm currently halfway through The Decameron. This is in preparation for Shteyngart's Our Country Friends, which has a similar set up (retreat from the city during a pandemic) but not quite so many bawdy tales. 😜

Nothing wrong with the sets, but I just need more shelf space! The Sonny Clark I played through once, and Turrentine probably 3 or so times. Box and booklet are in good condition. I have a very short window to arrange to send them media rate to the US in the next few days. I'm always open to shipping (at cost) to Canada or Europe or Japan, but mailing costs from Canada are steep indeed, and they would have to be mailed out next week. Also open to other options shipping to the US (than media rate) but that would also be at cost... I am asking $75 for each set. I could do both for $140. I have a slight preference for mailing both to one address, since I still have the box that the Clark came in, but I understand that may not work out. Do let me know if there is any interest. Cheers, Eric

I have to say that line up does look pretty ace. I think I'll spring for it. I'm still on the fence about Vieux Farka Toure. I agree he's great. I just need to see how the rest of the weekend lines up for me and what else I am doing, if I can really shuttle off to Montreal. I'm pretty sure I saw Vieux at Millennium Park in Chicago. In terms of more intimate shows, I saw Tinariwen at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. I think Tinariwen is coming back through Toronto, and I'll try to make that. I've actually seen them a few times now, though it looks like they came through Vancouver (when I was there) and I missed them. 😢 But I did see a super intimate show in Vancouver: Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba. Still not sure how I managed to even hear about it, let alone find the place, since I was so fresh to Vancouver at that time. There is documentation on one song at least (so I know I wasn't imagining it...): https://vimeo.com/32016980

The Toronto Jazz Fest continues to underwhelm me. I would probably have seen Colin Stetson in mid-May, sort of a pre-Festival concert, but I have a conflict on that date that can't be moved. There is a fairly small chance I would check out Al Di Meola on June 25. I'll see about some of the free events as they are announced: https://torontojazz.com/ Not part of the Toronto Jazz Festival, but it was just announced Herbie Hancock is coming in early Oct. I've passed on him a couple of times now, but I might go this time around. Does anyone know what he is generally playing in concert these days? And specifically how much electric keyboard! I probably won't actually do it, but I am certainly tempted by Vieux Farka Toure on the last day of the Montreal Jazz Fest, July 6. https://montrealjazzfest.com/en/program/artists I have seen him before, but would really like to see him again. I don't believe he tours North America that often.

Saw two new movies over at TIFF on subsequent days. The first is Wim Wenders's Perfect Days. It is a very deliberate, essentially plotless film about a man who has found a level of contentment in his work as an outdoor toilet cleaner in Tokyo. In a sense, it is a homage to Ozu. It was ok but did feel a bit long. Not for everyone for sure. The next day I saw Problemista by Julio Torres at TIFF. I don't know if it's going to get a wider release, but it is a very entertaining fantasy about an immigrant from El Salvador living in New York trying to get sponsored for a work visa to become a toy maker! In many ways it feels like a movie by Michel Gondry. Tilda Swinton is this out of control, high-strung art critic, who says she'll sponsor him but only after he helps her curate an art exhibit. (However, you may cringe with flashbacks of some of the bad bosses you had, or at least I did.) Speaking of Gondry, I only just learned that he did a series of micro ads or super short films for Park MGM about 5 years back: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL29PD1z9x4FvSRNHp6el297kPP3AvyFBj There are six of them, all 31 seconds long, though that includes titles and credits, so each of these is basically one scene of roughly 15 seconds in length. I'd say 2 or 3 stand out, but they simply are too short to evoke much interest on my part.

That does look tasty. Did you ever see the film version equivalent (Marclay's The Clock)? I think this was at MoMA and San Francisco MoMA and probably a few other museums. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1308 I finished Shteyngart's Absurdistan and am just starting Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. I actually did seek out an older copy with the Edward Gorey cover, though it's certainly not one of his best covers...

I think there is a bit of this old man yelling at clouds going on here, but there have also been some serious studies showing that, in musical terms, the hits of the 2010s and 2020s are much less complex than those from the 1960s, 1970s or even 1980s. There is a dumbing down effect that is at play, and it isn't simply a case of "it was better in my day"... What's sort of interesting or ironic is that there is also a real fear of being sued for copyright theft (often wrongly) and that would seem to me to call for more complex, not less complex, songs in order to demonstrate originality.

Ragazze Quartet: But Not My Soul. String Quartets by Florence Price & Dvorák.

I don't think I've seen this before. I'll have to add it to the list. Currently working away at I.B. Singer's Scum. I'd say there are significant echoes of Joseph Roth going on in this one (which is a positive for me anyway).

Neil confirms it is him. He was playing with Woody Shaw on that tour. He had no idea about this release and isn't getting paid anything. It's probably legal (a radio broadcast or something), but it isn't right. Anyway, he knows about it now and get in touch with them if he chooses.

RIP - Also very sorry to hear this. Mostly interacted with him on the What are you reading? thread, where he was working his way through Graham Greene and had just started in on Eric Ambler.

Both look very interesting and I'll see about getting them through Dusty Groove. The bassist Neil Swason on the Shaw date is surely Neil Swainson, which makes this an even more compelling pick-up. He's been playing a fair bit locally these past few months, and I expect to see him this Wed. at the Rex and maybe again at the very end of the month.

Just starting Rushdie's Fury. It's entertaining so far.

👍 There was a comprehensive Motley exhibit that went around the States in 2014-5. I managed to catch it at the Chicago Cultural Center. It's documented here: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/archibald-motley#exhibition-catalogue I was just in Montreal checking out a well thought-out exhibit that pairs Georgia O'Keefe and Henry Moore. Really nice. It runs through June 2. https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/okeeffe-and-moore/