Tom Storer

OK, so the younger sister is a TV star. I'd just been seeing headlines saying she was pregnant and thought she was only newsworthy because of her sister. But she's a TV star. I'll try to work up an opinion on this matter, then. On second thought... no.

I have a similar experience to Jim's--my son has his own firm tastes which don't fit any particular profile but his own, and he listens to the details. So I figure I must have raised him right, since music is a source of pleasure and discovery for him, despite the fact that he "hates jazz" and listens to all kinds of stuff I find unlistenable. What you basically have to accept is that your children's taste in music is none of your damn business.

As slogans go, this is a great one! Worth printing on T-shirts!

Yup. But not just the iPod--I've been using portable audio devices of one sort or another since the days of the Sony Walkman for audio cassettes. Always with earplugs, I find over-the-ear headphones inconvenient. So it was a long and gradual slide, and I hasten to say that I don't have serious impairment of hearing, just somewhat accelerated loss in the upper frequencies in relation to my age. Basically, the doctor said, "Nip this in the bud or you'll be sorry." So I did.

You sound like too much of a cold hardliner! Life is life, people take risks, sometimes they fail. People who have grown old or ill sometimes can't bow out gracefully, for whatever reasons. As fans you take risks, too--who knows if the concert you're going to next week will be a revelation or a flop? Sure, on a professional level, you can criticize musicians for being unprepared; as a disappointed fan, you can be angry that you didn't get enough enjoyment for your dollar. But big deal, really. I'm just speaking for myself, but the sort of consumerist indignation you express doesn't have much to do with how I feel about music. The generosity and vulnerability that performing artists demonstrate (regardless of the fact that they're getting paid for it) merits generosity on our part, too. I agree with you, though, that critics have every right to report disappointing concerts accurately.

Many are the trails I have discovered and travelled down based on comments from people here, and many are the deep thoughts, fruitful reflections, little-known facts, and assumption-challenging, horizon-opening notions that I have benefited from encountering here. A message board is only ever as good as the people participating in it. Organissimo has a unique combination of individuals who are smart, funny, knowledgeable and quirky, but the sum is greater than the parts, since there's also a group dynamic that gets all those insights flowing out of people's minds and into the pixels on screen. Long may Organissimo live!

Stockhausen's son Marcus plays trumpet and records for ECM. Meanwhile, a friend of mine sent me this quote from "The Rest is Noise" about Stockhausen: "Henry Flynt (one of the downtown hipsters of the New York 60s scene) once picketed a 1964 Stockhausen concert as, by that time, the German avant-gardist was considered a reactionary, establishment figure. Flynt's slogan: 'STOCKHAUSEN - PATRICIAN THEORIST OF WHITE SUPREMACY: GO TO HELL.'". Nothing like a bit of perspective, eh?

I rarely feel the need to listen to Mel Tormé, and all I have by him are some Concords that I got from eMusic, sitting on my hard disk. But when I do listen to him, I always enjoy it. When someone can sing that well, it's hard for me to hold his hipster thing against him. On the other hand, Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling give me the creeps. I think Tormé just has better taste.

I think we need to define "flirt". If flirting just means to playfully demonstrate that you find someone attractive and wouldn't mind them finding you attractive, without any intention to follow through, then yes, I flirt sometimes. If I ever got the sense that the other person thought I was seriously hitting on them, I would stop. My wife doesn't hesitate to harmlessly flirt, either. Sometimes we end up making each other jealous this way, and that's not necessarily a bad thing either, since it can lead to memorable reconciliations. Flirting can help you remember not to take each other for granted!

I plan to start listening to music again. Of course, I haven't stopped listening altogether. Here's what happened: I get home from work usually around 7:30, cook dinner (my wife gets home later than I do so I've become the cook), then we eat dinner, then do the dishes. This brings us up to 9 PM at the earliest. Then my wife and I sit and talk about our days, often there are then practical matters to tend to over correspondence or the computer... plus I try to go to bed early, 11 or earlier if I can. So I rarely have any time in the evening to sit and listen. Therefore I used my iPod--a 35-40 minute commute to and from the office gave me 70 or 80 minutes of uninterrupted listening time per day. Then I had a hearing test about 11 months ago, and the doctor told me to give up that iPod at once--incipient hearing loss. And I did, from one day to the next. This left me completely nonplussed. I just sort of gave up, and now I can go for a week at a time without listening to any music whatsoever. But it has to stop. I'm going to rearrange my life somehow so that I can listen to music daily.

Just read that article today--very interesting. I'm thinking I might go vegetarian again. Did it once and backslid--I have no lofty moral principles about eating meat (or about anything, for that matter) but hey, it's cheaper to be a vegetarian!

I have it, and it's very good indeed! Good diversity of content, great sound, great music. Real roots jazz. I recommend it. Keep it on your wish list!

P.S. On JC, the "fixed" ruse as shown above is often used to hilarious effect. I believe it was invented by Larry Nagel.

Fixed.

That's the point! It was a harmless joke--but one that lots of women wouldn't find funny at all. So it intersects the point that had been made (be careful with casual comments because you might be pressing someone's button) and the question that had been asked (wonder why more women don't hang around here). And Chris, I'm not saying you're a despicable misogynist driving women away from Organissimo. Rachel, for example, took it as a joke and replied in kind. But that's just it--anybody can toss off a joke or a little bit of sarcasm without bad intent, you or me or anyone, and it's no big deal for most people, but there might be collateral damage. Maybe I'm being too earnest.

Now here's an illuminating series of posts, presented here slightly out of order: One: Two: Three: Food for thought, catesta!

Old posters never die, they just fade away. It won't be the same without you, brownie, but I know how to get in touch. And we are both in Paris, after all. So give me a call when all your admirers pass through town looking for wine and second-hand CDs!

Very insightful comment. It's the "insider" problem that often happens with successful forums. Posters get to know each other (or at least each other's online persona, posting style, and general opinions) very well; it becomes easy to joke around, and sometimes it turns to needling. Friction can turn nasty when there's that degree of familiarity. "Familiarity breeds contempt" as the old saying goes. When viewed from the outside by newcomers, a forum at this stage seems full of a strange combination of aggression, silliness, and inside jokes, which is an obstacle to getting new blood. And yet new blood is vital. EDIT: On the other hand, I agree with Old Don Clementine that if your feelings are easily hurt on message boards, or if you are truly disturbed by people being rude and childish, then you are destined to be truly disturbed and have hurt feelings forever, for people are just like that, especially on the net. On a message board there are no real consequences to flaming, acting out, being insulting, etc. so anyone who doesn't mind other people frowning and disapproving will just go right on doing it. Unless they get no response, in which case they stop. I think a message board is like a bar: if somebody is going overboard, chuck 'em out and don't let 'em back in until they're sober.

I'm basically with you, as I say in the edit I added to my post while you were writing your last one. I appreciate civility and it's my natural mode, but you have to have some neurosis and weirdness and associated rough edges for a forum to really be interesting. As a matter of fact, I think it's possible that I started frequenting Organissimo as much as JC only when Org. started sliding down the path of looser conversational morals. What everyone seems to be complaining about here now seems to be what many Org. posters don't like about JC--and are now producing themselves! I think the real problem, not just here but anywhere these all-too-common message-board crises occur, is not the bickering and flaming, but the proportion of bickering and flaming. There are two ways to change that proportion: reduce bickering and flaming, or increase substantial discussion. One way to do the latter is to ignore flames, avoid long sequences of one-line silly exchanges, and just generally talk about other things than each other. Easier said than done, for all of us.

Personally, I'm surprised that there seems to be a consensus that the Organissimo forum has become such a terrible, uncivil place that it requires moderation as a matter of urgency. I've never seen a long-lasting message board that does not descend into bickering and flame wars from time to time. I've been living the message board life for years and years, and Organissimo is among the best behaved I've ever seen, including right now. Some random thoughts: it is true that moderators need to have rules they can point to, or else it is 100% certain that they will be accused of favoritism, arbitrariness, and tyrannical censorship. Even with rules in place, however, they will be accused of enforcing them for some people and not with others (since 100% consistency is impossible), and the rules themselves will be the object of regular criticism from people who want them to be more general, more specific, include this one but not that one, etc. Also, moderation takes a lot of time and is a commitment for every day of the week, which is a lot. Volunteer moderators typically start with enthusiasm and good will and are quickly burned out. My two ideas to throw into the pot are these suggestions of the most effective way to stop flaming and rudeness: 1. On the part of the board administration: throw out or suspend the worst offenders if clear and public warnings go unheeded. Usually when the general atmosphere of a board is felt to be worsening considerably, there's an unhealthy synergy going on among a few people who can't control their animosity to each other. Nip that in the bud and flaming will decrease to livable levels... for a while. It will always start up again eventually. 2. On the part of posters: DON'T FEED THE FLAMES. Use the Ignore function. And when you no longer believe that good faith debate with someone is happening, simply stop--let the other party have the last word and move on to another thread. It's the only sure way to stop a fight on a message board, but one that is surprisingly hard for many to do.

(thelil) on organissimo?? Hold on to your rodents! Big Al, do you also post on that other site?

Good for you, aloc! As for me--I can't remember what happened to me this morning, let alone all year!

Great post, John.

I'm going to have to check out Craig Taborn--my only real experience was a concert when he was with James Carter's band, and I hated that concert so thoroughly I haven't gone back to either of them. But apparently that was an unfair conclusion to draw, since he gets a lot of love from a lot of people. I'll check this album out.

OK, you're saying if music is from your native culture, so to speak, there are layers of meaning for you that are inaccessible to others. I can recognize that. But how am I supposed to "deal with it", accordingly or otherwise? I don't know what you mean by that.