T.D.

Nothing at all new for the J-E-T-S...I remember Richard Todd going after Steve Serby in 1981! A lotta stuff got covered up in the old days. Sportswriters played more "buddy-buddy" with athletes, and coverage was more adulatory.

I have to agree, although surely the NHL realizes what a stupid move it was to try to bring the sport into the sunbelt. At the very least they have to move some of these teams around. The Toronto area could easily support a couple of additional teams, and areas like Pheonix and Florida just aren't going to be hockey towns no matter what. Maybe it's just my own private delusion, but I think Portland could support a team... I agree that Phoenix and Fla. are bad ideas. But the LNH seems weirdly obsessed with them. This past year, the league could have moved the Phoenix franchise to Québec City (damn, that would have been cool! I loved the old Nordiques), but they insisted on a solution that kept the team in Phoenix. Good luck with that...

I have a food item on automatic reorder every month. A one week delay from the "shipping soon" message to shipment is pretty much standard. That's actually my record longest delay (though frequently tied).

Agreed on the second point, though I think it's more economics than talent (the 4th-line type guys on the end of the bench today seem to have pretty decent ability, more so than for the past 30 years or whatever that I can recall). The Economist magazine's "Game Theory" [sports] blog has an NHL article today. Here are some excerpts: "...Players may have to lump it. The latest annual assessment of team finances by Forbes concluded that 18 of the NHL’s 30 teams lost money in 2010-11, and 13 lost more than $5m. The most profitable teams, meanwhile, made a killing...Indeed, hockey's main problem may be geographic overreach...One idea would be reducing the league's size to perhaps 24 teams, and shifting the league north by replacing Sun Belt teams with ones from chillier, hockey-friendly Quebec, Seattle or southern Ontario, say. For now, though, neither the players nor the owners are calling for anything as radical. Each side seems happier to have no hockey at all in 2012-13 than to face up to economic reality..." But I can't imagine "contraction" (dropping franchises) ever happening.

You could see this coming a long way off. After "caving" to end the last stoppage by allowing a hard salary cap, the NHLPA was determined to play hardball this time, hence Mr. Fehr. I expect a long stoppage and agree with you re. lost season. But I'm not such a big NHL fan any more - the 2004 washout showed me that I could live without the sport, and I've followed much less closely since.

They renewed the sale, now expiring Sept. 20. Not exactly the same titles (I didn't notice Braxton's Charlie Parker Project this go-round), but a lot of overlap afaict.

Not an original thought, and previously mentioned above, but I'm very eagerly awaiting the October round of Black Saint / Soul Note boxes (Abrams, Lewis, Adams, Douglas).

Thanks for the heads-up. I took the easy/low-risk way out and ordered it via Interlibrary Loan... I like most of the Chabon novels I've read - this one seems to have potential to match The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is perhaps my favorite.

No. In solidarity with the locked-out refs, the NFL can suck my d**k. I won't be paying attention.

More on the Vaughters follies: UCI suddenly develops interest in Garmin trio after Jonathan Vaughters’ online revelations ...Danielson, Zabriskie and Vande Velde are all said to have given testimony to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in regard to Armstrong, who abandoned his fight against wide-ranging doping charges in late August...

Thanks. I had seen the NYT story, but the stuff on Tilford's site was very interesting. For a while in the "oughts" decade, Danielson was seen as a "Great White Hope", possibly the next LANCE. Reputedly a great climber, but his Euro career never took off. Still a fan favorite of sorts in the US, though.

Funny story: Vaughters outs Garmin riders for past doping in online forum Not surprisingly, "All three riders raced as teammates to Lance Armstrong during earlier parts of their careers: Vande Velde at U.S. Postal Service from 1998 to 2003; Zabriskie at USPS from 2001 to 2004; and Danielson at Discovery Channel in 2005." [Added] Another funny story: Museeuw calls for doping confessions from past riders "Doping and EPO were established in the peloton in the 1980s and 1990s, says Johan Museeuw, who has called on his former colleagues to confess their doping. The Belgian has in the past acknowledged his own doping use during his successful career. 'I am the first to admit it openly, and perhaps many people will blame me that I break the silence, but it must be: virtually everyone took doping at that time,' he told the Gazet van Antwerpen. 'We must break with the hypocrisy. The only way to come out of that murderous spiral is to break the silence, the silence that continues to haunt us.'" Like that's gonna happen!

Report: USADA in possession of positive Armstrong samples My guess is those are the frozen samples from 1999 TDF, which several years ago were reported (albeit by the nasty anti-American French media )to have been thawed and tested positive for EPO.

FYI, I used to read this blog on "the future of classical music". Sandow discusses a lot of marketing approaches, but I don't recall anything as extreme as your example. I recall him talking a lot about jazz and popular music, without much deep insight (perhaps a reason why I no longer follow the blog...).

Damn, Vince Young couldn't make the sorry Bills...

Here's a good one: Livestrong donations skyrocket in wake of Lance Armstrong’s decision to stop fighting charges On one hand, P. T. Barnum and H. L. Mencken seem to have flattered American sports fandom; On the other hand, I suppose the money's going to a good cause (I'd like to see Livestrong's expense/management fee ratios, though).

I noticed that Berkshire Record Outlet (!) had a bunch of Hat cut-outs, so binged on: Ran Blake and Anthony Braxton, A Memory of Vienna Joe McPhee Po Music, Oleo Stefan Wolpe, Enactments Archie Shepp, I Know About the Life Jon Lloyd, Four and Five John Law, Abacus Ellery Eskelin, Forms

They might have go down to 3-10th place finishers to find someone. Here's just one example (from Yahoo! finance, so likely not totally accurate): Armstrong will likely be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, despite the fact that he passed every test given to him at that time. Fine. If it happens, the logical victor of the 2005 Tour is Cadel Evans. Evans finished 8th in the part of the race in which people actually pedaled, but the seven riders in front of him are all proven cheats. Congrats to Cadel.

Does GoodSpeak follow cycling?

With my usual suboptimal timing, I ordered both the Monk and Mingus sets from UK-based Amazon sellers in the 10 days leading up to Lon's posting!

Tobey Maguire to star as Bobby Fischer in new film

+1. I also enjoy Tipo's Bach, but that is a politically incorrect stance that will likely get me flamed...

Recently picked up this weird microtonal accordion + electronics disc, which is pleasant to nod off to...

This just in: Kasparov arrested and beaten at Pussy Riot trial

Nastia Liukin Brutus Beefcake Nigel Short