Larry Kart

Yes, but it was from a post office that's a clearing house for a great deal of mail in the Chicago area.

Thanks, Scott, and everyone else. I'm cool so far, I think, but my wife tells me I was a little edgy at times today. Took the postal inspector route this morning, but they haven't called back so far.

Amazingly (or not so amazingly) I'm fairly sure that last night I found the review on the Trib's digital archive. It's from 1981. Further, one of the people involved in the production has the initials K.C. If so, how dumb is that, to stick one's actual initials on the threatening letter? OTOH, if one wants to get psychological, some sort of cat-and-mouse game might be what this kook has in mind.

At first the sheer goofiness of the part that Xybert quoted left me inclined me to shrug this off, but I'm glad we went to the police. Thanks, Leeway, for the postal inspector idea. Yes, the length of time since my apparent "offense" is weird -- don't know what to make of that. The idea that something in the present has set this person off seems likely. Have begun to go through electronic archives of all my old reviews (at least 5,000, maybe many more, most of them not of theater performances though). Nothing seems to fit so far, though I could be fairly dismissive or worse in my salad days.

This morning I got a letter that threatened me with grave bodily harm for an unnamed negative theater review of some unnamed local original show that I wrote for the Chicago Tribune some time between 1977 and 1988. The letter is perfectly lucid for the most part but also quite goofy at times — e.g. “So why would Larry Kart take exception to our show and write such mean things about it? Well, it turns out you knew one of our cast members. You didn’t know him well. You just knew of him. So you decided that since you have no talent and could never do what he did, you were going to savage our show.” I have no idea to what show and review this person is referring, but in any case, after much more ranting, he/she concludes: “And here’s the thing asshole. I know where you live and there’s going to be retribution. I don’t like bullies and you are a bully. I’m going to find a time to make sure I inflict the same level of pain onto you that you inflicted on several hard-working, talented young actors, writers, and performers. I’m going to kick your ass Larry Kart. You won’t see me coming. But one day, a man is going to be walking in your direction and before you know what hit you, you will be on the ground in pain. And then you’re going to get hit some more, until you are barely alive and in the hospital. I’ll be seeing you soon, you piece of shit!” It’s signed “KC,” which also doesn’t ring a bell (assuming that those are in fact the letter writer’s initials). My wife insisted that we go to the local police, which we did, but aside from dusting the letter for fingerprints, they say there’s nothing they can do. Even if by some miracle I could go through the Trib’s archives and found out what review that was, I don’t know what recourse I might have. Any thoughts? I do know, as a friend has reminded me, that the person who wrote the letter already has committed a felony by writing it.

Dan Morgenstern (then my boss at Down Beat) and I had lunch with Boulez in Chicago in 1969. This was set up by a Columbia P.R. man (Boulez was in town to conduct the CSO) who thought we'd like to get Boulez's thoughts on jazz (don't recall what they were, except that they were few and dismissive). What I do recall is that he had a salad and carefully removed each leaf of the greens and salted and peppered them on both sides before returning them to the bowl. Retrograde inversion.

Gotcha. Though I don't think that Dan was saying get expensive free agents when you've got nothing else but move on very good ones when you're on the upswing but aren't all the way there yet. (I myself, would hesitate there because of the spotty track records of expensive free agent pitchers after they're acquired.) In any case, making such decisions is why guys like Epstein are paid big bucks.

It's "Propapagoon." (Don't know what if anything that refers to, but if that's a problem, what about "Klactoveedsedtene"?) The recording date, according to an online Argo discography, is 1958. It's Eldee Young, not "El Dee Young."

I agree, but if you were also referring in passing to my post above about Curtis Granderson, he was not a free agent but was acquired by the Yankees in a trade: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/granderson-goes-yankees-three-team-193000780--mlb.html

Dan -- I'm not an insider, but didn't the Yankees 2010 trade for Curtis Granderson pretty much pay off in 2011?

You make good points. Wouldn't be surprise if Epstein does what you think he should do. OTOH, if you can't precisely "time free agency to when your team is ready to compete," you can and probably should devote some careful thought to that matter. In particular, I think that determining the shelf-life of talented veteran pitchers is darn tricky -- e.g. look at Verlander's drop off this year. One would hope that there are stats freaks who are not in fact freaks who are sifting through all the available tea leaves for possible clues.

IIRC, the conjunction between the drive of John Williams and that of Gus Johnson on "Zoot" was something else.

I see that this Fresh Sound reissue: http://www.amazon.com/Burnin-Barry-Harris-William-Austin/dp/B008E612OA/ref=sr_1_10?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1408809087&sr=1-10&keywords=sonny+stitt+argo combines those two Argo albums, but it also lists the Harris trio as the rhythm section on both dates, which is incorrect. That's the one. Bought it when it came out, have loved it ever since. Associate it in my mind with a similarly excellent Zoot Sims date, "Zoot," on Argo from 1957: http://www.amazon.com/Zoot-Mini-Sleeve-Sims-Quartet/dp/B000060N5G/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1408813779&sr=1-4&keywords=zoot+sims+quartet Not to be confused with the tasty Riverside album from around the same time "Zoot!," with Nick Travis on trumpet.

It's a compilation. It's consists of selections from Burnin' (Argo, 1958, w/ Barry Harris), Sonny Stitt & Bennie Green - My Main Man (Argo, 1964), and Sonny Stitt & Zoot Sims - Inter-action (Cadet, 1965). The sucky think is that there is room left on the CD - they could probably have included at least one complete album. Because they've been issued with the same cover, "Burnin'" is often confused with Argo 629, "Sonny Stitt," which had no liner notes or listing of personnel, only the same photo of Stitt on both front and back. The rhythm section on Argo 629 has often been said to be the same as on "Burnin,'" (Barry Harris, Frank Gant, and William Austin) but in fact Stitt is backed there by the Ramsey Lewis Trio. The quite distinctive work of bassist El Dee Young is the giveaway; also, Lewis sounds nothing like Barry Harris. Finally, unexpected though this may be, Argo 629 is the superior album IMO, one of the best Stitt ever made.

About 1) -- Haven't the Yankees had a lot of prospects that they included in trades to get some of the players that helped them to win championships? If so, that's part of what you use a farm system for, and if those prospects didn't become stars for the teams that acquired them from the Yankees (or even if they did), that's part of how the game is played. In any case, I need more info there. About 2) -- I defer to your knowledge of the Red Sox, which is far more detailed than mine. Ortiz was a BIG piece though. As for Lester or Scherzer, I'd say that next year might be too soon for the Cubs to make such moves.

Rick Telander wasn't always a professional idiot, but he has become one. No guarantees that the Epstein regime will succeed, but it's quite different (in tone and baseball smarts; Epstein did put together the Red Sox team that won the Series) from any of its predecessors. Ricketts the owner seems to be something of a doofus, but at least he has had the good sense to leave Epstein alone to make the baseball decisions.

Ten worst free-agent signings in modern Cubs history: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/723320-a-waste-of-money-the-10-worst-signings-in-chicago-cubs-history I would say that problem with every one of those signings was that even if all those guys had done just what the Cubs had hoped they would, the team still wouldn't have been good enough to win. Either management was honestly over-estimating the overall talent on the roster or rather cynically throwing the fans a "Hey, we're really trying here" bone. I suspect a bit of both.

That's what the Cubs tried to do for many years, e.g. tying up $136 million in Alfredo Soriano: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2668465 Can't recall a single pricey Cubs free-agent signing that worked out very well, if only because there were so many holes to fill. IIRC, buying "whoever they like" has in recent times only worked for the Yankees, some of the time, and they have had the backstop of a productive farm system. The Cubs farm system for decades has been pretty awful -- thanks to a history of inattention, short-range thinking, bad drafts, would-be phenoms who flopped, and plain old bad luck (e.g. Mark Pryor and Kerry Woods' arms falling off while they were still young). The only way to turn the whole thing around, GM Epstein feels, is to rebuild/re-stock the farm system with lots of quality prospects, some of whom can be traded down the road to fill in whatever remaining holes there are in the major league roster. According to a good many outside reports --e.g. see the link in post #8 -- he is doing just that. Particularly exciting is the acquisition in a trade this season with Oakland of Addison Russell, who is said to be the best SS prospect, defensively and offensively, in a long time. We gave up two goodish pitchers -- Jeff Szmardia and another guy whose name I can't recall -- but Szmardia was close to 30 and will be a free agent next year, and the other guy has been a bust for the A's to this point.

I'm no Cubs fan, but they are said to have assembled perhaps the best group of young prospects in modern baseball history: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2149568-re-ranking-chicago-cubs-top-10-prospects-after-the-trade-deadline There is a plan in place and being executed, and that's to be consistently good and win the World Series ASAP, which would be a novelty for the Cubs. Of course they've traded away "several of their best players for prospects in mid-season" this year and last because those players wouldn't be here anyway when/if the team gets good. No guarantees that GM Theo Epstein's plan will work, but it's better than the old one, which amounted to patching leaks in a rowboat. I wish the White Sox (my team) could/would do much the same thing that the Cubs are doing. They made a start yesterday by trading Gordon Beckham to the Angels.

An on-line interview with Gold (see post #158) makes it clear that the piece was all his bright idea, not something that the New Yorker asked/assigned him to write. So he wasn't "merely doing his job" in the sense you seem to mean. That strikes me as a rather weak argument, Larry. His job IS to come up with pieces to write. It's the editors jobs to review/vet pieces submitted to them. Do they tell Borowitz what to write? Though, I do disagree with Captain Howdy that The New Yorker is at some kind of fault for not identifying the piece as satire. They've never identified The Borowitz Report as satire, as far as I know. And like any of his material, the Gold piece was so outrageous that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have figured it out. Of course that's Gold's job in the larger sense, Scott, but Captain Howdy's post implied to me that he thought Gold was assigned to write the piece, as a member of the New Yorker staff would/might be, when in fact Gold is a freelancer who sold the piece to the New Yorker. Maybe I'm being tedious but just wanted to make that clear. As for Borowitz, or anyone like him at the New Yorker, I would assume that longtime mutual familiarity between him and his editors would effectively shape what he wanted to write and what they thought he could get away with. Roz Chast doesn't (at least so far) draw cartoons about the state of her vaginal secretions, though I'm sure she has them and might have some thoughts about them.

An on-line interview with Gold (see post #158) makes it clear that the piece was all his bright idea, not something that the New Yorker asked/assigned him to write. So he wasn't "merely doing his job" in the sense you seem to mean. Sonicare versus gingivitis (gum disease) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9487840

A Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush is excellent for warding off gum disease, and you don't want gum disease, believe me.

Yes, indeed. Who took it?

Her speaking voice, yes! But the story (possibly apochryphal) is that a very young Andy Williams recorded the vocal tracks for Ms. Bacall... Anyone know for sure? The answer apparently is “no.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037382/faq http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/26/entertainment/la-et-mn-andy-williams-movie-lauren-bacall-20120926 If we believe Williams’ account, he did dub her voice for “How Little We Know,” but her actual singing voice was used in the film because his dubbed version did not match her speaking voice closely enough. Further: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/02/movies/l-dubbing-bacall-it-says-it-right-here-116548.html

Watched "To Have and Have Not" the night before last. A perfect movie. Slim and Steve.