papsrus

Both arrived today. Completely absorbed by the Russell at the moment. Wonderful release and beautiful, brilliant sound. Just a delight to listen to. Smiling all the way through. I'd say I can't wait to listen to the Art Ensemble, but I'm enjoying the Russell so much, I am quite content to wait. Well done and thank you.

Dead board walking? Couldn't be further from the truth for me. This board and its members are invaluable to me, and have enriched my listening beyond measure. That's a fact. I could name a dozen members off the top of my head whose knowledge has had a huge impact on my listening. As for the particular issue that this thread addresses, it's really relatively minor. Housekeeping, basically. As for Facebook vs. bulletin boards: The depth of thought/knowledge here is far greater than anything I've experienced at Facebook, where comments seem rarely to go much beyond, "That's so cool!" Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but you have to weed through a lot of that kind of thing before you stumble across anything remotely thought-provoking. How many sunset pictures can a person look at? At least here you have the choice to enter or not enter the "Beautiful sunsets" thread, if there is such a thing. Really, the whole stream of consciousness format at Facebook is just confusing for me, and results in a kind of fuzzy, unsatisfying experience in the end, as compared to the more straightforward threads model used here and elsewhere.

The Harriott is wonderful. Did a DL of "Movement" after some Googling to get a taste and will be ordering the two-fer tomorrow.

$15 each in North America. I will quote shipping for elsewhere. Thanks. Thanks.

Prices?

Love the poem, Allen.

As always, hard to get interested in ranked teams opening the season against schools way below their level. Clemson-Auburn was a competitive game. Boise-Michigan State was another. But who wants to watch Oklahoma State win 84-0? Bama looks good. Oklahoma and Wisconsin may have some things to work on. Oregon can score, but the defense allowed 34 points by Arkansas State. USC looks good on offense. Don't see much on their schedule that can really threaten them. Cal might be better than they showed against Nevada, and USC has Oregon Nov. 3. Hopefully the USC-Notre Dame game to finish up the season will be a good one, too. Hard to judge a lot of the other "top" teams, with the soft opponents they played.

Just an observation: Because a given rule doesn't cover every possible transgression doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad rule, or one that is impossible to follow. I don't think the rules are meant to be legally bullet-proof, just a guideline. But, as always, I could be way off base.

Hurray for Louis!

I'm just here for the Australian track and field updates.

Brilliant!

Actually, living in the heart of the retirement universe, as I do, I think the vacancy rate for at least some retirement homes is relatively high because older folks who otherwise would move into these facilities, particularly at the mid- to high-end, are finding it difficult to sell their homes. Perhaps that tide is starting to turn.

Sad news. Condolences to Chuck and others here who knew and loved him. And thank you, Chuck, for introducing me to the man's music. I'll be listening.

ditto

Another observation overheard goes something like this: "The British are begrudgingly having a wonderful time." Or most are, anyways. It seems like it was a wonderful event, as these things go. Highlight for me was Andy Murray. From Great Britain. And Scotland. In the United Kingdom. Which encompasses the British Isles. Heart of the old British Empire. Currently referred to as the Commonwealth. And I was startled to learn that George Michael is alive and well. I had somehow confused him with Freddie Mercury, I think.

I immediately thought the fellow must have studied Churchill. I actually went to Wiki because I didn't think Great Britain was a country, properly speaking, but rather a geographical designation. Turns out it is a "territory of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and most of the United Kingdom's territory is in Great Britain." Which, I'm sure you already were aware of all that.

It would be nice if Amazon allowed sellers to redirect customers offsite to listen to sound samples, where Amazon won't provide them. I go offsite routinely anyways when no samples are available at Amazon.

I'll bet the person buying an MP3 makes the decision to purchase much faster than the person buying a CD. It's more of an impulse buy. And this is how they drive that impulse-buy traffic. I'd guess the MP3s deliver a higher margin for them as well. Plus, MP3s feed their cloud, and perhaps the sale of Kindles and other devices (which I notice a bunch of them are featured right at the top of their home page). It's all about sales metrics at Amazon, right? Faster sales. Lower cost of sales.

What I would really enjoy is playing WITH someone else, preferably someone at the same basic level. The instrument wouldn't matter too much. Just someone to play off of. There's a guy at work (a die-hard Red Sox fan, as it happens) who played trumpet in his high school band, and he still has one. I keep trying to nudge him to pick it up again so we can go out and busk on some street corner. He's more of a Maynard Ferguson, Doc Severinsen guy than a muted, soft-toned guy though. He'd probably blast me out of the room if we ever did manage to get together.

Acknowledging that you're making a serious point about strategy and competition, and forgive me if you're a badminton enthusiast, but that's a funny line. What's next, an international scandal in bicycling? ... oh wait.

Oh, sorry I missed this thread first time around. I play(ed) guitar. More so back in the day than now. I can strum a few tunes, pick a little blues, but it wouldn't entertain anyone beyond myself. And even that's a stretch after about 20 minutes or so. Took alto sax lessons about five years ago and had one for a while. Learned to read a bit, but not much. I'm fairly good at picking things up by ear, so I could fake my way through songs like 'Sweet Lorraine,' 'Over the Rainbow,' 'After You've Gone.' Could growl a little blues, too. And, of course, my Brotzmann imitations were classic. I now have a clarinet, which I've "played" for about three years since trading in the sax. It's a lot more fun for me to play and I can manage to fake my way through songs like 'When You're Smiling,' 'The Entertainer,' 'Sweet Georgia Brown,' 'Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans,' 'When the Saints Go Marching In.' Etc. As an amateur "musician," the problem I've always had no matter the instrument is that I hit a level of playing and that's it. The end. I know I won't get any better. So it's easy to get bored and let weeks, or months, or years in the case of guitar, go by without feeling the impulse to play. I'm a little better in that regard with the clarinet. As I said, it's just fun to play.

Exactly. I suppose part of the purpose of any punishment is to serve as a deterrent. Additionally, the victories were achieved while school leaders, Paterno among them, were covereing up criminal activities. Aside from the deterrent value of wiping them out, is it really a good idea to let the victories of what amounts to a criminal conspiracy stand? Doesn't seem so outrageous to conclude that they shouldn't be. And again, it's not unprecedented to vacate victories as part of sanctions. The scope of the vacated victories is unprecedented, but not the fact that victories were vacated. I don't think you could devise severe enough sanctions to fit the crimes that took place at Penn State. And I'm referring to the cover-up and enabling of a sexual predator, as well as the actions of the sexual predator himself. The victory totals in the record books seem the least of their problems now.

Erasing wins is a pretty standard component of sanctions. Ohio State and USC both forfeited wins and USC was stripped of national championship. Difference here is the nature of the violations -- and while not directly football related, clearly they are much more serious that your garden variety recruiting violations or pay for play schemes. In essence, the man is now viewed as being a party to a criminal enterprise/cover-up during the years he was coaching all those wins. While the criminal activity didn't have an impact on the field of play, neither arguably does exchanging player gear for tattoos (Ohio State). And the NCAA surely doesn't want the man holding what would be an untouchable winning record to be tainted by criminal behavior of any kind, let alone the criminal acts he was found to be involved in. These are schools, first and foremost, and I find it difficult to quibble with any punitive measures meant to "teach a lesson."