T.D.

My order placed 12/22 shipped today. All items were in stock and shipped.

If you want cheap cantata recordings, Berkshire Record Outlet has the whole set (60 CDs for $99.40) and various pieces (5 CDs for $14.95) thereof, with Leusink on Brilliant Classics. Warning: these recordings use mostly amateur performers, so may not be as polished... You can find more info at the Bach Cantata website.

In terms of ego/reputation, not necessarily so. Parcells can still claim some credit for the Cowboys' renascence. And if he manages to get the Fish to 9-7, say, it'll further burnish his genius tag. Granted, if the Pokes reach or win the Super Bowl this year or in the next couple, B. P. will have missed out. Gee, I wonder if the Dolphins will try and trade for T. O...

Waldenbooks is a subsidiary of Borders Group, which is a publicly traded company, ticker BGP. Earlier this year (March), BGP announced downsizing of the Waldenbooks chain. Here's a company press release, in which they call it "right-sizing". I didn't notice any recent news about "going under".

No need for such pessimism Al. There were quite a few teams who looked like they just packed it in: Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis. Shame on Dungy and his team for playing with a skeleton team: he gets a week off anyway with the bye. I don't know: I prefer Bill Belichick's way of playing every game for the win. People pay hard earned money to watch these teams on the field. Kudos to Tom Coughlin for playing to beat the Patriots. His team will go into the playoffs sharper than some others. I can understand Pittsburgh and Jacksonville and Tampa Bay packing it in because they have to play next week, but Indy and Dallas? Why? It was a very interesting week for point spreads, because the bettors' consensus was that certain clubs would pack it in. For instance, the Skins were favored by 9 to 9.5 points. So you can't say that the Pokes' showing was a surprise! Dungy has a history of resting players in the final week (this seems to have developed in recent years, motivated by many past Dungy-led playoff flops), and the Colts were 6.5 point underdogs to the Titans. And the Seahawks were only favored by 3 against the stinky Falcons, and proceeded to lose. Many props to Coughlin for having the Jints play hard. Leading up to the game, there was huge debate about him resting the players, but as the game concluded, it became clear that he "did the right thing" 100%.

Happy birthday and happy cycling! (Lon beat me to that...)

Think the Pats will be able to afford Moss after this year? I don't know enough about their cap situation to say one way or the other, but it seems questionable, especially if the club wins the Super Bowl. [Disclaimer: I don't know for sure that Moss signed a one-year contract, but have been under that impression.]

Great game. I haven't carefully watched much football this year, but last night's was a lot of fun to watch. Patriots did a good job of locking on to some weird/bad Jint pass coverage. Example 1: In the first half (iirc), LB Wilkinson (a fast guy, as evidenced by his stuffing of a running play in the Pat backfield, but c'mon...) was covering Moss (!) in the end zone. Fortunately for the Jints, the ball ticked off his helmet as he was attempting to face-guard Moss, and the pass fell incomplete. But later in the game, the Pats were able to provoke the exact same coverage (?!) with the predictable TD result. Example 2: In the second half, Moss was open on a long route toward the right sideline, but Brady threw a dying quail and Moss couldn't make a shoestring "Willie Mays" catch. Either on the very next play, or within the same series (I forget), Brady hit a wide-open Moss on a bomb down the right sideline for a sensational long TD. The NFL Network dynamic was also interesting. I thought their coverage was pretty good. Publicity-wise, the NFLN seemed like they were able to make chicken salad out of chicken s**t. They were almost forced to open the game up to free TV, because too few cable networks (OK, a pretty greedy crowd themselves) anted up for the NFLN surcharge. But the telecast wound up as very effective advertising for the NFLN. Personally, I can't see forking over 12 months of fees for a full-time pro gridiron network, but then I don't even have cable/dish...

Yes, I already read the Gann item some days ago. RIP. The only music of Otte's I've ever heard was The Book of Sounds, but I have the recording and enjoy it.

His opera Die Tote Stadt is pretty good. There's a decent recording, probably long oop. I think New York City Opera staged it in the early '90s.

I dug out my copy of the Nonesuch De Staat CD, and the liner notes have the Basie/Kenton allusion. From a 1990 Andriessen interview during the recording session: "It is written for musicians who are free to choose what they want to play. The Schoenberg Ensemble is made up of such players...In fact, De Staat requires a different approach to playing and a different sort of musician than the standard orchestra offers. For instance, the first non-Dutch performance of De Staat was in Warsaw in 1977, and that was done mostly with standard orchestra musicians. I had to sing every note for them because they articulated the piece like Bruckner and Mahler. And it should be articulated like Count Basie and Stan Kenton!" Seems to me like the influence may not be clearly evident from the score.

I've heard a bit more (though not that much) of his music, and it's pretty diverse. Also not sure re. the big band ref., but then I don't much trust Wiki... I also like De Staat, which I have on an old Nonesuch CD. Hoketus for percussion (iirc) is loud and fairly similar, but very simple. De Tijd is very different: really static (almost like the way Gann describes the music of John Luther Adams, with whom I'm not familiar) and lush-sounding, but quite beautiful. What sort of turned me off was M is for Man, Music, Mozart, which I found affected and quite lame, although there could be some big band influences iirc (no longer have the CD). Haven't really pursued Andriessen since, and didn't go into NY some years ago to see his Rosa (?) opera @ Lincoln Center Festival. Wouldn't mind hearing that, but never went so far as to spend $ on the CDs, either.

I asked for and received one CD, Japanese import of Al Haig Blue Manhattan. As a Christmas gift to myself, I placed a Concord order including (split the order with another person to get 10-CD discount): Bobby Timmons This Here is Sonny Criss Portrait of Gigi Gryce and the Jazz Lab Quintet Mal Waldron, Mal-1 John Hicks, Live at Maybeck Hall Roland Kirk, Kirk's Work Lockjaw Davis and Johnny Griffin, Live at Minton's

Chip Hilton Mari Holden Ed Ott

That happened to me (I ordered 10 and one was unavailable)--they still gave me one free. I had a similar experience during the "Summer Blow Out": some items were unavailable, but Concord still applied the whole volume-based discount.

Damn. I made (my first) 10-CD order last night (had to do Xmas shopping first), whereupon the posts re. disappearing stock promptly appeared! Hope I get a decent fill...

I got a copy of Ronan Bennett's Zugzwang (via interlibrary loan), and it's really good. Serious chess themes, as indicated in Chessbase's interview and event coverage. Nevertheless, I might not have ordered it had I known more of Mr. Bennett's bio (see the latter link above). He's from Belfast, and seems to have been deeply involved with the IRA, although he was acquitted of two serious charges. [i'm of Irish Catholic descent, but by no means down with the IRA...] That said, I strongly recommend the book to chess/fiction enthusiasts.

Well, at least he's not calling the QB gay, a la Garcia...

I once read a George Soros quote (unfortunately, I've never been able to find the exact source) about the importance of "riding the false premise as long as possible"...

Tony Hrkac Kent Hrbek Hristo Stoichkov

It blows my mind that shameless corrupt shill Henry Blodget actually has a column on Slate. Does anyone read that shite? [i couldn't bring myself to; skipped over the HB passages in above post.]

Good porn title. Exactly what I was going to say, but my PC antenna suppressed the post...

I hope you didn't lay the 26 points, or whatever the spread was. Re. the Miami victory, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy than Brian Billick.

Arnold Ziffel Lester Piggott The Empress of Blandings

Yeah, great stuff! Outstanding band, with Land, Perkins (little-recorded, one of my favorites), Butler and Sheldon. I rcommend Carl's Blues. I also have Sonority, which isn't as memorable but has three tunes with Gerald Wilson and Elmo Hope (another favorite).