Alexander

Her acting in "PHC" was fine, but I thought her singing was completely unremarkable. I'm shocked that she actually has a career as a singer. She sounds like a high school kid in a school play.

Unlike many Holywood glamour gueens, Marilyn was actually MORE beautiful in candid photos where she wasn't dressed to the nines...

It has been said that nobody knew how to make love to a camera like Marilyn Monroe. It was absolutely true. The pity of it is that she was so screwed up in real life. The shit that poor girl survived... Goodbye, Norma Jean...

Marilyn in "Some Like It Hot," one of the funniest films of all time. "Oh for God's sake, Osgood, I'm a man!" "Nobody's perfect."

"The Misfits" is one of my all time favorite films. So beautiful and so tragic! It's probably one of Gable, Monroe, and Clifts finest moments in three careers that were full of great moments...

I think it's the effect of the homeless boom of the 80s and 90s. During those decades, the number of panhandlers and other street people increased sharply and people developed a habit of ignoring them. I remember when I first moved to Boston in the early 90s. I'd never seen so many people just hanging out on corners in my life, many of them begging for change. Now I know that there's a big difference between panhandling and being a street performer, but I think a lot of people no longer see the distinction. I also know that many cities all over the world have been cracking down on street performers (a friend of mine who spent a lot of time in England in the late 80s and early 90s remembers posters in the Tube that said, in effect, "Don't throw money at buskers...it only encourages them").

Tower Records has been in a state of steady decline for several years. Stores have closed all over the place. I'm still getting over the fact that Tower closed their Boston store on Newbury and Mass Ave.

It's an excellent album. Highly recommended.

I see that nobody has mentioned Costello's two latest releases: My Flame Burns Blue and The River in Reverse. My Flame... is Costello's first "offical" live album. It is an interesting experiment in scoring several of Costello's old songs (and some new ones) for a big band setting (the Metropole Orkest). "Watching the Detectives" sounds like something from the "Anatomy of a Murder" soundtrack! The River in Reverse is Costello's collaboration with Alan Toussaint. It is simply incredible. Can't get enough of it. My only regret is that Toussaint doesn't sing on it (except for one track). Instrumentally outstanding (hearing Steve Neive teamed up with Toussaint on keys is amazing), wonderfully written, and beautifully sung (check out "Freedom for the Stallion"). Costello's best in years, and that's saying something.

Ooh! Ooh!

I think Kruschev's due there...

I don't own any Tintin books (although I'd love to get some, both for me and for my daughter) but I did read a bunch of them when I was in high school. My friend Henry is a serious Tintin fan and he lent his books to me...

I love that bit!

There's actually a REALLY good song by Zamfir on the soundtrack to the first "Kill Bill" movie.

Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a big fan of Jack White's. I love the White Stripes and White's new album with the Raconteurs is fantastic.

The pic above is a Teres Audio 265. THIS one here is the 360. It's around $17,000. Sigh. A fella can dream...

Holy crap, that thing is gorgeous. Maybe *I* need to start playing the lottery...

I watched the show religiously as a kid. Had one of those guidebooks to the series, so I had every plot memorized. All I had to see was the first minute of the episode and I'd be able to say, "Oh, this is the one where..." I also used to be able to tell which season the episode was from by watching the opening. I've forgotten all of this, of course, but members of my family STILL talk about the little boy who'd seen every "Twilight Zone" epsiode... My favorites are "The Eye of the Beholder," "The Masks," and "Time Enough at Last" (although any episode with Burgess Meredith is a favorite). I also love the Christmas episode with Art Carney where he becomes Santa Claus after he discovers a magical bag that produces anything people wish for. "The Masks" is the one about the New Orleans patriarch who makes his greedy relatives wear grotesque masks that reflect their inner-selves. At midnight, he dies and they remove their masks, only to find that they've BECOME the masks. Scared the HELL out of me when I was a kid. The episode alluded to earlier with the little Devil machine is called "The Nick of Time" and also starred William Shatner. Great episode. Another good one was "Printer's Devil" (with Burgess Meredith) about a small town newspaper that hires a strange man who prints out headlines about disasters...before they happen!

That is one *nice* looking record player, man...

But...but...if we remove the "cultish" atmosphere of indie record (not to mention book and comic) stores, how will we maintain our sense of superiority?

Sinatra's long-time pianist dies Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 12:57 p.m. EDT (16:57 GMT) SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Bill Miller, the pianist who accompanied singer Frank Sinatra for more than 40 years and played on many of his greatest records, has died at age 91, his daughter said Sunday. Miller had been hospitalized in Montreal, where he had been performing with Frank Sinatra Jr., after breaking a hip and then suffering a heart attack. He died Tuesday. Born in New York City, Miller started his long partnership with the elder Sinatra in 1951, and played on hit songs such as "My Way," "Strangers in the Night" and "Young at Heart." The partnership was so strong that even when Sinatra recorded with jazz piano legend Count Basie, Miller still played on some of the album's ballads. Miller stayed with Sinatra except for an interruption of six years starting in the late 1970s after a spat, and played at the singer's last concert in 1995. For the past eight years he had been working with Frank Jr., who recently told The Washington Post that Miller was "the greatest singer's pianist there ever was." Miller's daughter Meredith, who lives in Berkeley, California, said her father was a whiz at reading music and helped Sinatra translate the notes on the page into memorable songs. "It's not that (Sinatra) didn't read music at all, he didn't read it particularly well," she said in an interview. "That was one of the things my dad really did. He kind of interpreted -- he could read anything." Meredith Miller said her father, who lived for the past half century in Burbank, California, was easy going, a quality that served him well with the sometimes tempestuous Sinatra. "He kept a low profile," she said. "He never insisted on anything. He didn't seek out fame. He was very low key and I think that was one of the reasons that he and Frank Sr. and Frank Jr. -- but Frank Sr. in particular -- got along so well. "My dad just sort of went through with the flow and had an easy-going way except when it came to the work, when I am told he was a pretty strict task master." Miller often conducted Sinatra's band and did stints as musical director. "I've been his accompanist for those years," Miller said in a 1970 interview with jazz critic Les Tompkins. "And I also conduct from time to time ... "I play on the necessary songs, like the ballads, where there's a good portion of piano alone; and possibly two or three of the rhythm tunes, so that I can sit down once in a while!"

I agree with Chuck's first statement. Hell, things have improved steadily since I started buying jazz in the early 90s. Almost every major OOP Blue Note album that I wanted in those days has come out in some form...in some cases more than once!

Let's see...I've bought most of Costello's albums at least twice...three times in some cases... Funny thing is, I'm not angry or resentful in the least. No one held a gun to my head and told me that I *HAD* to get the new reissue of "Get Happy!!!" It's important to me, so I got it and sold my old copy. Simple as that...

I used to have that Woody Allen album you're selling. It's a great one. Too bad I'm broke, or I'd go for it.

Yeah! I got into my dad's comedy albums when I was young and played them to death! I memorized every Bill Cosby routine off of those great 60s LPs. I also loved the Tom Lehrer he had (and I now have). He also had some Bob Newhart, Smothers Brothers, and Mel Brooks LPs (the 2000 year-old-man material with Carl Reiner). Hilarous! Funny how comedy used to really well represented on LP. I know they still sell comedy on CD, but do people buy them? I know my daughter thinks it's a little odd when I sit down to listen to a Monty Python album ("Matching Tie and Hankerchief," which I have on CD)...