Guy Berger

Agreed on this and the live album with Lloyd being really good. I also enjoy the studio recording Fiddler on the Roof.

Variolation “The procedure was most commonly carried out by inserting/rubbing powdered smallpox scabs or fluid from pustules into superficial scratches made in the skin.”

The opening track from Live in Seattle, “Cosmos”, showcases that band at its best. Like Sun Ship with extra, raucous horns. IMHO the biggest issue w/LiS is the diffuseness of the music. Not a problem with Kulu Se Mamá or Meditations.

Has been circulating as a bootleg for 15-20 years. if you have Live in Seattle you know what to expect in terms of the music. Coltrane is great but I have mixed feelings about the rest of the ensemble

One thing I recently learned is that, to improve the Continental Army's ability to fight British troops, George Washington mandated his soldiers' inoculation against smallpox. Vaccination mandates are as American as apple pie!

IMHO this is going to be endemic for the foreseeable future, plan accordingly. Vaccinated adults will be at low risk, unvaccinated at very high risk. Vaccination mandates on certain activities will make them much safer. You'll probably want to plan on visiting areas with high vaccination rates and avoid areas with low vaccination rates. Outbreaks will occasionally disrupt plans but will be much worse, on average, in low-vaccination areas.

My sense is depending on where you are, late October could either be a very good time to meet indoors or a very bad time - the Delta wave has seasonal patterns in different locations, and seems to have a short life cycle (of course, it hospitalizes and kills a lot of unvaccinated people during this short life cycle). It's already peaked in some of the earliest epicenters (in Missouri, Arkansas) and is in the process of peaking in Florida. But if I was in the northern US, especially in a low- or mid-vaccinated state (of which there are a lot up north) then I'd be at least somewhat concerned about late fall and winter. For unvaccinated people it's going to be really dangerous. It's more shocking how few vaccinated people you're probably seeing. While I'm in 100% favor of a temporary return of indoor masking mandates when and where cases are high and/or rising, I'm troubled by how reluctant governments and businesses have been to impose and enforce vaccination mandates. I'm happy to see this turning around at least somewhat. Masking helps; vaccination helps a lot more. Here in San Francisco people there's a specific initiative to give J&J vacinees booster shots. I think official announcements on booster shots to vulnerable people and health care workers are coming soon, and will probably be open to the public sometime during fall. I also hope that vaccination for under-11 kids is authorized soon, and that it's coupled with mandates for students (students over the age of 12 need to be put under a vaccine mandate too).

Do you mean that you think he had HIV/AIDS, or that he was clearly in ill and deteriorating health (with the rumors as an outgrowth of that)?

It’s Zooid!!! I was communicating with their Twitter account a few weeks ago and they mentioned October/November ad the release date but maybe it’s coming out early 🎉🎉🎉

Is this a legit release? Haven’t heard this. If it’s available on Spotify I will listen, otherwise don’t feel a rush to head a bunch of really great musicians getting together and falling well short of their potential.

IMHO enforced masking indoors makes sense temporarily in places where COVID risk is elevated. Whether that's a realistic plan, I don't know - most of the hardest-hit areas are also those with a stronger aversion to masking. Places where cases and hospitalization remain very low, especially in the presence of high vaccination rates, don't need mask mandates IMHO. Re your second point, it's hard to tell - immunity (both via vaccination and infection) clearly plays a role, and maybe also voluntary risk minimization. Each one of the prior waves burned out. I wouldn't assume that this wave ending means there won't be future ones. With luck they'll be much less harmful than their predecessors, as the British one has been.

I'm curious how folks are processing the delta wave that's surging through most of the places where we live. The "good news" is that for vaccinated this is much less dangerous than previous waves. (But more terrifying than before for those who are not.) The bad news is that COVID risk *is* going up for everyone... it is probably safer to be an unvaccinated person in a very low case area than a vaccinated person in a very high case area. (Of course, it's even worse to be an unvaccinated person in a very high case area... yikes.) I'm also feeling the challenge of psychological adjustment from "this is an extremely serious illness and I have to take an immense amount of precautions" to "vaccination provides powerful protection against the worst risks so I can do more than before". This was very easy when cases were super-low around here, but harder now.

So after a long time of being aware of this guy, I finally checked him out on NY Midnight Suite (Clean Feed, 2004). Really good, enjoyable music in the post-Ornette vein. I have a few of his other Clean Feeds lined up and am excited to dig in.

Not yet, but in prior cycles we would have seen the surge in hospitalizations and deaths happening by this point. Not something I would have said pre-vaccine but... we're sort of reaching the point where COVID really is comparable to the flu in places where vaccines are widely available. I think vaccine passports coupled with a differential restriction regime are a good idea (especially when/where there is a lot of community restriction), but the odds on this gamble are much more favorable than they were in the past. What are vaccination rates in the Netherlands?

For example Britain has seen a huge surge in cases but, unlike prior COVID waves, no meaningful pickup in deaths.

Cases seem to be rising across much of the country due to the Delta variant. Seems to be worse in relative low vaccination states though seasonal effects may also be playing a role. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, it’s a good idea to do it ASAP. The good news is in high vaccination areas caseloads should be lower and less dangerous.

IMHO the presence of relatively low key band members like Laird and Jerry Goodman is part of what made the 1st MO lineup the best one

Music from Another Present Era is solid, but I like Distant Hills and Winter Light better. Towner’s 1st album on ECM also features his Oregon band mates and is very good.

These guys have a new "single" - a 53 minute track titled "Solar Drone Ceremony". Enjoyable.

I didn’t realize he was 84!!!! Really interesting musician who creatively developed an important & previously undervalued strand in Miles Davis’s electric music.

Yup I think there are politicians trying to lever this question toward their agenda, unfortunately, and to some degree it is also feeding into anti-Asian-American racism here ni the US

There is a big difference between “it is possible that” and “almost certain”. (Worth reading this NYT article) Not unique… pre-COVID vaccine skepticism in the US was lower than in many continental European countries. Maybe it’s different this time, maybe not.

I’d worry less about that small Petri dish and more about the massive Petri dish of billions of unvaccinated people in developed countries that couldn’t afford to line up vaccine supplies early. Getting them jabbed is essential to reducing future mutations

My understanding based on Israeli data is that vaccine-based immunity is lasting longer than anticipated - ie at least a year. But that doesn’t take into account the possibility of increasingly evasive variants.

I think that's probably part of it - looking at vaccination rates only without considering prevalence of prior infection leads to underestimates of immunity in the population. This is true even if vaccination provides better immunity than prior infection. (Which I believe there is evidence of.) *However* - I'd be careful about drawing really strong inferences from the current decline in cases until more time passes. We have positive weather effects (maybe finally winding down as folks crowd into air-conditioned indoor spaces in the South). There has been a lot of unexplained variation in the ebb and flow of COVID that has defied explanation. Two more comments: 1) If you look at the states with relatively high and rising caseloads, they are mostly states with low vaccination rates (MO, NV, UT, AR, AZ). And if you look at the states where very low and falling caseloads, they are mostly states with high vaccination rates (VT, MA, MD, CT, DC). 2) The combination of vaccine and infection immunity is a partial "equalizer" in the near term. But over time, some areas of the country look set for very low caseloads (due to repeated vaccination) and others look set for endemic infection (due to immunity fading over time).