BruceH

Uummm....having been born and raised in England? (Just guessing here.)

Thank God.

Any comments about the series finale? (I hope it was good.)

The Sound of Surprise remains my favorite (non-doorstop) Balliet book. I rather wish he wouldn't edit his old articles---reading the original the way it first appeared in print puts me more "in the moment" as it were. Sorry to be 3 years late with this, Bruce, but I highly recommend getting the Complete New Yorker DVD set, which contains all of Whitney's pieces in their original form. The price for this set has come down considerably, I saw it somewhere for about $50. Besides Whitney's prose there is a wealth of glorious writing (Thurber, Parker, et al), classic cartoons and nostalgic advertising--every page the magazine has printed since 1925. I've been thinking about it. Sounds like quite an amazing bargain.

I can vouch for that.

Yep. What ever happened to the British "Charly" label? Did they fold years ago or what?

On this one, Clem is right.

Yeah, I remember that one too. That was another memorable one, as Costello was in full early-anger form and freaked everybody out by changing songs midstream, starting "Less than Zero" getting a few bars into it, stopping abruptly, and then kicking hard in "Radio Radio". No idea if it was planned or not, the given explanation post-show being that Costello thought that the originally planned song was too British-specific so he called an audible, an yeah, ok, but planned or spontaneous it made for a riveting TV moment, and if you're old enough to remember that little window where all things "punk" (and how ironic in hindsight now to think of Costello as such) carried with them a genuine anarchy, hey, it was a moment. As I heard it, Costello was told NOT to play "Radio, Radio" because NBC had a lot of radio holdings, and felt that the song conflicted with those interests. Costello was banned from the show until 1989, when he performed "Veronica." Costello was inspired by Jimi Hendrix stopping in the middle of "Hey Joe" on the "Lulu" show and tearing into another song. Yeah, I heard that too. At the time they gave him a pile of shit for doing that, of the "You'll never work in this town again" variety. Also, weren't the early Talking Heads on SNL, circa '77 or '78?

"Moist" males?? You mean, sweaty ones?

I wish I had read this thread yesterday.

Of course - they're parodies of the real motivational posters that were popular a while back. Ah...so they should be called Motivational parodies. <sigh> Yes, yes they should be called motivational parodies. I thought that was sort of self apparent. Sorry to be such a drag.

Happy Birthday!

A variant: Custer: "Those drums, those incessant drums -- they're driving me mad!" Indian scout: "Trouble come only when drums stop." Custer: "Good Lord -- what happens then?" Scout: "Bass solo."

This was an article in (I believe) The New Republic by British journalist Johann Hari. Worth reading, a real eye-opener, and itself a nod to a classic Harper's article written by PJ O'Rourke in the 80s. O'Rourke went on a "peace cruise" up the Volga with a bunch of leftists, with hilarious results. "TITANIC Reshuffling the deck chairs on the National Review cruise."---by Johann Hari, July 2, 2007 New Republic Both funny and deeply disturbing. Norman Podhoretz kept berating Buckley with his wingnut hyperhawkish views on Iraq, while most of the people on the cruise seemed to think Buckley had gone senile.

I have this on Cassette , haven't listened to it in ages wasn't there a song on it called Big Big Love . Yep, that's the one.

This sounds absurd to me. 95 years???? That's worse than the U.S.

Just counted how many Getz albums I have (on CD): Seventeen. Not as many as some, I'm sure, but more than I thought, and I can't think of one that I DON'T like...

Thanks for sharing your memory of Varese, Christiern! Very interesting.

Yes indeed: I like #'s 25 and 29 about as much as any.

"Whatta maroon."

You know, I think that may have been the first thing I bought by Getz (as a leader) too...first or second, anyway, and still a favorite.

That was an article in The New Republic and I just read it recently. He was proposing that the Iraq war was not a total success and there were no WMD and getting grief for it.

I just found out that his father was from Texas and his mother from New Orleans, so he came by his youthful segregationist views naturally enough I guess. Still a dick, though. Stangely (or not so much perhaps) compared to some of his political descendents he seems like a model of sanity and restraint.

A footnote to the history, perhaps, but maybe not "jazz" in and of themselves.

Of course - they're parodies of the real motivational posters that were popular a while back. Ah...so they should be called Motivational parodies.