Christiern

A bit pricey, but...

Thanks—interesting photo, Conrad.

Damn, didn't have my glasses on so I thought you had come across an extreme Tampax!

Thanks, Moose, for requesting enlightenment. I thought this was something important, and I guess it is to some people.

Perhaps they can start the Steroid League for these con artists. It is a con, isn't it? I think so, a greed- and ego-based con that goes hand in and with the D.C.-based tarnishing of America.

There have been some pretty bad Grammy shows in recent years, but I thought this one hit a new low as far as music and production valu is concerned. Truly pathetic. The Grammy people have a knack for pulling artists from the shadows of obscurity and turning them into pitiful props for current non-talent. I felt sorry for Stevie Wonder. I like a modicum of rap, but what they had on this evening was terrible. At one point it looked like they had emptied the trailer park, turned to Goodwill for costumes, and let the lot of them loose on stage without rehearsals. I thought the recurrent teaming up "for the first time" never really worked, but Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (who ere not teamed up by NARAS) were a winning combination, in more ways than one.

Congratulations, Michael. I hope Pinetop Perkin s wins in the blues category. He is 95 and still working, sounding good.

I only met her once, when her close friends, Billie and George Wallington introduced us and we went out for dinner, but that a lifetime ago. Loved her recordings and sense of humor. Anyone who really knew her is, surely, suffering a great loss.

Not to mention two vocal duets with Cecil Taylor.

By now, I bet they know.

My childhood memories run the gamut from luxury to poverty, depending on who my mother was married to (there were four actuals and as many close-but-no-rings). Looking back, I think that ping pong of lifestyle extremes was beneficial to me. I came out with very little formal education, but I probably learned more from experiencing it rather than reading about it. Later in life, when I was on my own and my situation went from have to need, the joy or trauma fazed me less, for I had already been there.

I recall wondering if that train made it into the adjoining room. Much later, I recall hearing an Odetta album that suggested she had 12-foot long arms.

I gave myself a USB turntable last year and haven't been able to thank myself enough.

I recommend putting it up for bids on e-bay with a claim that Aretha Franklin sat on it. For added interest (and higher bids), you might add that she was wearing that hat at the time.

Many years ago, one of these sleazebags called me and threatened to hold a pubic sale of my property in my apartment. "Wonderful!, I said. "I've never had that happen to me. Should I serve refreshments? Would it help if I attached price tags? Please tell me what to di—this is just so exciting!" I never heard from them again.

A great job? Hardly.

Ditto thanks from me, Mark.

Thanks. It appears to have been dormant since 2006.

It has been a long time since I've had a call or letter from Martha Glaser. Is she still around? If not, who/what is the estate and why does the suppression continue?

The documentary that aired on PBS tonight is narrated by Cheadle and relies heavily on tapes of Greene's TV shows that pparently had been lost (and, they thought, destroyed) for 25 years. Very interesting man and a good film. Now I want to see the theater film and what Cheadle does with the role.

I can understand why they won't continue. This was a great magazine until Tina Brown all but destroyed it. The 1925-2005 issues are all you need to get a wonderful flavor of the "upper crust" NY scee as it once was, and the Whitney Balliett pieces alone are worth the $19. Hell, the ads are worth it.

I knew Brad McCuen and he was a true lover of jazz, a congenial man whose taste in music was well rounded and not as shallow as some of the day's RCA output might indicate. And he was definitely there in 1960, that's when I met him.

New Yorker is apparently discontinuing its DVD collection of complete scans. I bought this a couple of years back when the price was $99 (I found it for $79). This is a great set and nothing has been left out, it's all here, every page, ads and all. Don't pass this one up! http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/product_d...=TNYS-Customers

"All over the map" is a cop-out. The problem, I think, is a juke box mentality. They obviously have placed (imprisoned?) Aretha (and Mosaic, for that matter) in a constricted category. They should listen to the quality of her voice and what she does with it. Like they say, Aretha could sing the phone book... The pre-fame recordings she made in her father's church (issued by Riverside on the Battle label) would round such a box release out rather nicely. What, after all, is a mosaic?