nmorin

I recall seeing wish lists for Miles box sets that included shows from the 1967 European tour or the complete sets that Columbia recorded in June 1970 at the Fillmore East that were diced up for the Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat “Miles Davis at Fillmore” album (both of which I'd leap at). But has anyone heard about anything actually in the works?

I forget which take it is, but I find one of the two alternate takes of Miles' Hand Jive to be much better than the master take. It has much more energy, but perhaps it was too ragged to be chosen as the master. I like the alternate of Miles' Tout de Suite better, too (most of the time), but it is considerably more ragged, so I can see why the other take was originally released. Maybe it is because the local radio station played the alternate take of Count Basie's April in Paris all the time when the remastered CD came out, but I hear Thad Jones' solo from the alternate take in my head now rather than solo from the original take; I think I prefer the alternate's solo, too.

Are there any of these sorts of devices that allow one the choice of using (for the lack of a better term) a "folder view"? For example, on my PC, I have Ellington cataloged year-by-year (each year is its own folder within an "Ellington" folder) with master takes (from Chronological Classics and what have you) and alternates (from Neatwork, mainly) next to each other in recording order. E.g., "1933" would start out with 001a I Must Have That Man (master take) 001b I Must Have That Man (alternate take) 002a Baby (master take) 002b Baby (alternate take) and so on. Generally, I have my jazz collection organized on my PC as Artist->Year->Song (in recording order). But, given a bajillion titles, I didn't edit the "track number" or "album title" fields--just the MP3 name to get the right leading number for recording order before the song title (001, 002a, 002b, etc). So, will iPods and their kin always just want to look at the tags and sort by album title and so on, so I am out of luck with my Artist->Year->Song (in recording order) folder arrangement when imported into the portable device--unless I spend a year editing the "track number" or "album title" fields? Boy, upon re-reading the post, I sure do sound like I have OCD or something.

One thing that knocked me out is how, as things started disintegrating in the story, PKD wanted the movie filmed on progressively older film stock.

Excepting "Buzzard Song", you can assemble one for Porgy and Bess, too.

One can point to a play here or there as very important (the non-recovery of the fumble early in the game, David Tyree's final-drive catch that might well be the best grab I've ever seen in a Superbowl), but the consistent reason the Pats lost was that the Giants pass rush got to Brady a lot--well-timed blitzes coming from odd angles and, even more importantly, getting to Brady when only rushing their front four. What happened to the Pats' usually rock-solid offensive line? Secondly, while Belichick is lauded as one of the finest in-game coaches in the history of the game, I was quite surprised that he didn't seem to make successful adjustments to give Brady more time.

CD Universe currently lists each as "backordered since 2/1/08".

Am I missing something, or have the most recent Concord reissues not been showing up on emusic? For example, Trane's Fearless Leader is available, but the new Trane box is not.

And overnight from CD Universe.... Anyone else who pre-ordered from CD Universe get this?

Grrrrrrrr....CD universe sent me an email this morning saying that it is on backorder

The delay is truly odd, since the box set is available at online music sites, like iTunes and Yahoo Music. My wife is a subscriber to the latter, and while I couldn’t purchase the entire box set from Yahoo Music if I wanted to (all but a handful of the tracks were available), when working from home yesterday I was able to stream the entire box set from bow to stern. (And, man, it is goooooood and it sounded great.) Not to complain, but Pete Losin’s (terrific) website lists at least a few sessions from the 1972-1976 period that are not on the box set. Any ideas why some sessions weren’t considered as “On the Corner” sessions, while some were? I think some of these sessions showed up on the old “Unknown Sessions” series from Kind of Blue (that I hear about but can never find).

Ths Is Spinal Tap, where the commentary was done by the band members in character--damned near as funny as the movie itself.

It was hilarious. Obviously reading off the cue card, he introduced Gene Simmons as KISS' bass player--mis-pronoucing it to rhyme with 'class'. Then the very drunk Ace Frehley chimed in that in the band Ace played 'lead trout'.

Scanning the Hugo and Nebula winners and from what a couple of other folks have mentioned offline, names in addition to the ones you all suggested that I see come up from the 1990s to the present include Lois McMaster Bujold Kim Stanley Robinson Robert Sawyer Neal Stephenson Venor Vinge Connie Willis Any opinions about these folks?

Until I started grad school in 1991, I read quite a bit of science fiction. My favorite was Philip K. Dick (I still find PKD incomparable and read him often). I liked a solid share of what the 'critical consensus' was (such as it is) for the greats of the 1930s to 1970s. The stuff I liked a lot from the 1980s included William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Greg Bear. The little ‘new’ science fiction I managed to read from the 1990s that I quite liked was Greg Egan and Jonathan Lethem. Anyhow, two questions: What sorts of books or authors from the last 15 years or so are generally considered to be the top shelf stuff? What would you recommend?