Dave Garrett

"Boston Charlie" appeared many times in Pogo over the years around Christmastime - here's a Sunday strip from 1971:

Jerry Seinfeld pays tribute to Bob Einstein - Twitter video

New daily photoblog that just kicked off on January 1, tracking events in jazz that took place during 1959: The 1959 Project

Yeah, likewise, I sit in front of a computer often enough that I don't watch movies on one unless there are absolutely no other options (which is a very infrequent scenario). But you do know that there is an official YouTube channel for Roku, right? My recollection is that they originally had one, then had to pull it from the Channel Store after some sort of dispute with Google, then there wasn't one for a long time before they finally resolved everything and it was once again made available: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/837/youtube Even better, if you have the YouTube phone app, you can search for videos using your phone, select one, and play it directly via the Roku channel. Beats the hell out of trying to search for a video using the Roku remote and on-screen display.

Why non-YouTube? The first hit on a YouTube search is an HD version (720 instead of 1080, but close enough to HD) apparently ripped from Netflix. I don't have a Netflix account, but if you go to the official Netflix site for the film, A Final Cut for Orson appears to be streamable from there: https://www.netflix.com/title/80085566

The shorter doc is called "A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making" and is just under 39 minutes long. I think Janus Films has the domestic rights to all of the Ray films that Criterion has released on Blu-ray/DVD (The Apu Trilogy, THE MUSIC ROOM, CHARULATA, THE BIG CITY, and several others). I don't think they circulate prints for these, but they do offer bookings for DCPs for several of them. They can be contacted at booking@janusfilms.com. I could swear I read something not too long ago about an impending Blu-ray release of JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY, but I can't seem to find any mention of if anywhere now. If true, that would obviously provide a path forward for some inquiries as to who the rightsholder is. Unfortunately, determining the copyright status of motion pictures is frequently an undertaking that's complicated enough to require retaining the services of professionals who perform such research for hire. If I had a need for such services, the first person I'd contact would be Eli Savada at the Motion Picture Information Service. https://www.facebook.com/mpisonline/

Charlie Morton (or "CFM", as he's known among Astros fans) will never pay for another meal in Houston for the rest of his life. His performance over the last four innings to clinch the victory in Game 7 of the Series ensured that. I really thought he'd be back, but I guess the Astros didn't feel comfortable enough to offer a deal comparable to the one the Rays put on the table given his age and medical history. His family's set for life now, and I wish him nothing but the best going forward. He will be missed.

Longevity. CD-Rs have a dye layer that is modifiable, which makes it more susceptible to degradation than a "regular" CD pressed from a glass master. There are all sorts of competing claims out there from manufacturers who cite accelerated aging tests to "prove" that their brand will last for X number of years, but in general it seems that CD-Rs made from higher-quality materials (like the ones with a gold substrate and more stable phthalocyanine dyes) are the ones that can compete with pressed CDs in terms of how long the data remains readable. From a use standpoint, I'd think there would be very little difference as long as the discs remain playable. Of course, the problem is when you're purchasing music on a CD-R, you often don't know if the vendor/publisher/replicator used good-quality blanks, or the cheapest ones available, which is why many people avoid them whenever possible. A few links of interest: https://www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/cd-r_dvd-r_rw_longevity.html http://www.mam-a.com/phthalocyanine https://www.mediasupply.com/dye-layer.html

I've been using these for more than ten years and have been very satisfied with them. In fact, I think it was someone recommending them here that first drew my attention to them. I'm sure there are better computer speakers to be had, but you're probably not going to find them at this price point.

I was wondering why I'd never heard of White Lily before, then saw the bit in the article claiming that "Dallas and Houston both lack any vendors". Looks like White Lily's store locator info on their website may not be 100% accurate (I tried searching at the broadest setting of within 100 miles, and struck out). At any rate, my grandmother and many other relatives in rural East Texas never had any problem baking damn fine biscuits, White Lily or not.

Sealed, no less: MOSAIC SELECT COMPLETE 38 VOL. SEALED LIMITED EDITION SOLD OUT SET!!! Not mine, and I don't know the seller, but it caught my attention in the manner of "now there's something you don't see every day." Asking price comes out to about $68 and change per title, which I guess isn't too bad, but the target market of people with both the means and the desire to pick up a complete set has got to be pretty small.

I saw the film first and then the docu. I definitely think seeing the docu first would color how one views the film - I was already aware of bits and pieces of the backstory but you can't "unsee" certain things that are pointed out in the docu once seen. Someone coming to the film cold will most likely be trying to piece together the context and meaning of the rapid-fire bits of information that come and go. Also, much of the film is "meta" stuff - someone who has no idea who Huston, Bogdanovich, or Welles himself is will see the film very differently than someone who is familiar with them, their relationships with each other, and their place in film history. Same goes for the numerous other actors and other well-known personalities that make appearances in the film, either as themselves or as thinly-disguised avatars for other real-life film industry players.

I liked it quite a bit, but I can see where a lot of people are going to think it's a dated, confusing mess. Hard to escape the sense that those steeped in Hollywood history are the primary audience, especially when the accompanying feature-length documentary and the shorter behind-the-scenes one on the film's reconstruction are integral to the full appreciation of the film itself.

OK. Then for the sake of argument let's exclude premium paid services. You seem to think that Spotify has the only ad-supported streaming service out there, but off the top of my head there's also Pandora, Soundcloud, and Google Play Music (the latter of which recently introduced a free ad-supported service). A bit less than half of Spotify users pay for the premium service; with Pandora, the number of paid users is far lower, under ten percent of the total user base. That's a lot of people that ads are being delivered to, somewhere in the neighborhood of 170 million users just for those two services alone. And it's pretty clear as to what the endgame is, even if the tools and processes are still being refined: GDPR Data Exports Reveal Spotify Tracks Absolutely Everything About You AD TECH STREAMS INTO AUDIO

No argument that the paid versions of streaming services as a rule don't have the intrusive ads of the free versions, but as Jim pointed out that doesn't preclude lots of data collection that can be used in plenty of other ways. And apps can and do access lots of data on phones, some of which most people would certainly object to if the scope and nature of such data collection were more transparent than it typically is. How many people really read the terms and conditions for use of a given app and actually understand what rights they are granting in terms of data access when they use that app? Those T&Cs damn sure aren't written to benefit the consumer. It would probably be a bit extreme to claim that every single streaming service is a sinister, monolithic data-hoovering colossus hell-bent on pushing ads directly into people's brains, but I also don't think a lot of their practices can necessarily be regarded as benign. At the end of the day, it's all about the money, and the currency of the online realm is user data, one way or another.

Food for thought (particularly the bit about streaming being essentially a surveillance-based ad delivery system, something that is often glossed over): The Last Format

There was some speculation that the Astros were interested in Paxton. I would've been happy if they'd managed to reach a deal for him, not least because he's been like kryptonite to our lineup, but I assume Seattle was somewhat less than interested in seeing him go to a division rival.

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but earlier this month "Live in Boston 1968" was released on iTunes in the UK. It was only available for about 24 hours before it was removed, and speculation is that the hit-and-run release was only intended to maintain copyright, similar to the various "copyright collection" releases in Europe from Dylan. Of course, now that it was out there, someone put it up on YouTube, which was also taken down in short order. Having heard it, it's absolutely worth seeking out if you like Van. The text from the now-deleted YouTube post has more details on the recording:

I posted that in another forum, and after a bit of discussion, someone finally responded "You guys are burying the lede! The important takeaway here is that Dana Delany's a fan of THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST!"

Not to advocate for the wholesale bypassing of paywalls, but http://archive.is/ is your friend if you don't want to screw around with resetting cookies or incognito mode. Drop the paywalled URL in, hit Save, and wait a bit for the article to appear after the archive genies do their thing. It doesn't work 100% of the time, and when it does, formatting may be a bit off and some graphics may be missing, but those are minor quibbles for what is generally a useful tool. And yes, it does work for the Boston Globe. There are also some Chrome extensions to neutralize paywalls, but those generally require sideloading as they tend to get yanked from the Chrome App Store.

Something you don't see very often: a short clip in color of the Polo Grounds in 1963.

Spot on. It's not any technical limitation that will cause streamable/cloud-based music and movies to suddenly disappear, it's the whims of fewer and fewer huge multinational corporations who suddenly decide that something isn't profitable enough to bother with anymore. Consider: when AT&T acquired Time Warner, there were plenty of indications that this would not be a good thing for TW. The attached screenshot is but one data point of many similar ones. In short order, the new sheriff put in charge of the newly-reorganized WarnerMedia has pulled the plug on the highly-regarded video streaming service FilmStruck, which was home to not only Warner's huge library of classic movies but also the Criterion Collection. Oh, they say they will be rolling out a "new, improved" streaming service in the near future, but given the well-documented arrogance of AT&T, no one will be surprised if the more obscure and less-popular stuff has been pruned, because who really needs niche product that's only marginally profitable, anyway? Meanwhile the Criterion folks are left high and dry and trying to figure out next steps to rehome their streaming catalog elsewhere. All of which is not to say that one should completely forswear the cloud (or technology in general for that matter). But use it with clear eyes and no illusions. Anyone who advocates completely discarding physical copies under one's own control in favor of digital files on a remote hard drive owned by someone else is going to eventually wind up very, very upset. Such an argument reminds me of people who use "it's all on the internet now" as a straight-faced rationale for decimating library holdings. No, it's not, and even though it may well be in the future, your access can still be instantly revoked as the result of a business decision, and if you don't have your own set of backups, there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Yeah, I saw that yesterday, and the revelation of his blindness confirmed my earlier suspicions. Although I subsequently saw an exchange of comments with someone saying much the same thing, to which a blind person responded that he didn't think impaired vision should be an impediment to writing about baseball, as baseball lent itself more than any other sport to listening to games on the radio. While true, I think that's sort of missing the point. Angell has certainly earned a well-deserved retirement, and I'll be glad to read the occasional piece from him for as long as he continues to write them.

That is a great book for anyone with even a passing interest in automobiles or auto racing. She was a fine writer who had seen a lot and done a lot. I've been a subscriber to AutoWeek for over 30 years, and her columns there were always a must-read, but I was still glad to have many of them collected in one place when the book was published.

I saw him when he was touring with Crisol to promote Habana. The show almost didn't happen as several people in the local expat Cuban community got pissed off and pressured the promoters to back out, as detailed here: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/the-insider-6570802 I don't recall how it ultimately got resolved, but the show did indeed go on eventually, and was sublime and magnificent. RIP