Chrome

I think Alexander really had it right about people type-casting him as "That Peanuts" guy ... the situation is different from him just doing any old soundtrack. Guaraldi wrote what has got to be the most recognizable tune from one of the most-beloved Christmas specials of all time, based on the work of one of the most widely known and loved cartoonists of all time. Does anyone have any first- or second-hand info on what Guaraldi thought about the whole thing?

The thread about cleaning jewel cases got me thinking ... what does everybody do with boxed sets that don't have jewel cases for individual discs? And that got me thinking about what everyone else does with all of the extras. I always end up buying empty cases and using them for the discs. This also gives me a chance to noodle around on the computer to come up with my "own" CD art, track listings, etc. Usually when I get a boxed set, I put the discs on the rack with my individual CDs, put the booklets on a "music-only" bookshelf, and let my kids use the actual boxes for school projects, storing toys/stickers, stuff like that. I know some of the packaging is pretty cool, but I just don't have the room to keep all the boxes around. Anyone else?

My home remedy is to always have some spare jewel cases around ... besides the "sticky residue" problem, a number of my used CD purchases come with cracked/damaged cases that I like to replace.

I'm looking to replace an older Aiwa unit I have and wanted to get some opinions on a new bookshelf-size system. I've only got about $300-$400 to spend and the only "must haves" are: it has to be a multi-disc system and it must have that function that plays back all CDs at the same level when more than one are loaded into the player at the same time, if you know what I mean. I'm not a big audiophile, but I do want to get the most out of my $$$. Thanks in advance!

Am I the only one who doesn't know what a "saxello" is? It can't be a combination of a sex and cello, can it?

I got one of those new $20 bills over the weekend ... what is that thing growing over Jackson's left eye?!?! I never noticed it on the old bills; although when I checked, it's there, just not so obvious. Yuck!

I went through much the same thing years ago when I decided that, regardless of my fascinating degree in "Socio-economic policy problems," I wanted to be a writer. The tips I can provide are: 1. Consider crafting your resume to focus on the specific skills you have that can be transferred to whatever job you applying for, instead of making the list of actual jobs the main thing; although, of course, you still need to include a job chronology ... I mean literally use a header that says "Job Skills" or something similar. This both keeps the focus on what you can bring to a company and makes your resume stand out from the rest. 2. In cover letters, always keep a positive spin ... never even write anything like "Although I don't have formal training in architecture, I can blah blah blah." Instead, it should be "My unique background allows me to bring a fresh perspective to blah blah blah." 3. Spend some real time thinking about ALL of the various facets of your past experiences and how they could help you at a different job. For example, you posted about grant-writing for a non-profit ... if you really wanted to pursue that, couldn't you truthfully say that your time w/the KC Symphony Chorus gave you valuable insight into the workings of a non-profity type organization? Of course! Good luck!

... and lest we think it's only rock bands:

What exactly is being "pixilated" here? That could explain a lot of things.

And I always thought the holes were round so you could hold 'em on your finger when you fumbling with jewel cases, etc.!

Thanks for the responses. Dan G.: Often a dilemma ... I'm usually more of a "start it all over" kind of guy.

Every time I get out of the car, even if I'm just going to pump gas, I carefully eject whatever CD I'm listening to and put it into its jewel case before getting out of the car. When my wife's driving, she often just shuts the car off while the CD is going. Before I continue arguing with her about this, I thought I'd get some feedback: Does turning off the car with the CD going somehow hurt the CD in any way? Or am I just being overly careful?

This has been driving me crazy all day, so I thought I'd share ... My wife and I were finishing up some holiday shopping yesterday at the local Toys R Us and when we checked out, there was this "guard" at the exit, who looked like every bad "rent-a-cop" stereotype you could imagine ... and he had a pistol! I mean, a real gun. I was just waiting for some kind of "Hokey-Pokey Elmo" riot to break out and the bullets to start flying.

Sorry in advance for the looooooooong post, but ... No Matter How Much You Promise To Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew it Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again. A Symphonic Novel Edgardo Vega Yunqué Farrar, Straus and Giroux 656 pages Size: 6 x 9 $25.00 Hardcover Pub Date: 10/2003 ISBN: 0-374-22311-4 An epic novel of jazz, race and the effects of war on an American family This sweeping drama of intimately connected families --black, white, and Latino-- boldly conjures up the ever-shifting cultural mosaic that is America. At its heart is Vidamía Farrell, half Puerto Rican, half Irish, who sets out in search of the father she has never known. Her journey takes her from her affluent home to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where her father Billy Farrell now lives with his second family. Once a gifted jazz pianist, Billy lost two fingers in the Vietnam War and has since shut himself off from jazz. In this powerful modern odyssey, Vidamía struggles to bring her father back to the world of jazz. Her quest gives her a new understanding of family, particularly through her half-sisters Fawn, a lonely young poet plagued with a secret, and Cookie, a sassy, streetsmart homegirl who happens to be "white." And when Vidamía becomes involved with a young African-American jazz saxophonist, she is forced to explore her own complex roots, along with the dizzying contradictions of race etched in the American psyche. Edgardo Vega Yunqué vividly captures the myriad voices of our American idiom like a virtuoso spinning out a series of expanding riffs, by turns lyrical, deadly, flippant, witty, and haunting. ----------------------------------------------- I read another review of this somewhere else that indicates the author actually weaves real jazz players into the novel, too ... For example, the character Billy Farrell was supposed to have played with Miles Davis before going to war ... and a number of other musicians are characters, too. This reviews makes the book sound a little lame, but other reviews I've seen (but can't find right now) play this up as a pretty gritty book that has a significant focus on New York jazz in the '60s. Here's some more stuff about the book/author: With a story that mixes Puerto Rican and Irish, jazz and the symphony, Edgardo Vega Yunqué’s new novel is as American as the city itself. "I edit in the morning, and then at night I write hot,” says Edgardo Vega Yunqué, who claims he works on six or seven novels at once (“You don’t get your relatives mixed up, do you?”) but until now has published only two, along with a story collection. For the 67-year-old Brooklynite (via East Harlem, the South Bronx, and Puerto Rico), the latest—which Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishes this fall—is the big one, both literally and figuratively. Right down to the title. No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again has a kitchen-sink quality—which isn’t to its detriment—even after being edited down from 1,200 pages to a meager 658. “I didn’t want to feel restricted by a straight line of narrative,” says Vega. “I wanted to go into the digressive mode of novel-writing. I used the idea of a symphony, but also of the mural. You see a lot of different faces; you jump around from one to the other and see the relationship between them.” The fleet-footed looseness of jazz improv and Nuyorican slam poetry pervades Vega’s style. The plot, meanwhile, is both simple (half-Irish, half–Puerto Rican Vidamía Farrell finds her long-lost father) and sprawling (wars are fought, musical movements die, racial conflicts erupt). “My life hasn’t been all that exciting, and maybe that’s why I write fiction,” says the writer, but he’s being a bit coy. “By the time I was 10 years old, before I left Puerto Rico, I had seen three people killed in front of me,” says Vega, who caught another eyeful after coming to New York at age 13 without a word of English. “Death has been a big part of my life.” He found respite on the Upper West Side during the sixties and seventies, throwing parties, helping draft dodgers, and raising a family that includes stepdaughter Suzanne Vega. Perhaps there’s a parallel with Barry, Vidamía’s benevolent stepfather in his novel—though, says Vega, “Suzanne is a wonder child. Vidamía was just a bright kid.” In the nineties, he ran the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, a vast Lower East Side visual- and performing-arts space. All of which makes him one of the city’s great supporting characters. Is he ready for more? “I don’t want much,” says Vega. “I live very frugally. I’m basically a schmuck. I don’t want to be a star; I just want the book to do well.” —Boris Kachka

If I just think about my BNs, the only one that really stands out in a negative way is John Patton's Understanding. I was expecting a typically groovy outing from Big John, but the sax player he's matched with on this date (Hugh Alexander) doesn't do anything for me (except irritate me) in this context.

Oops, thanks for the corr, Noj. I was focusing more on the "letdown" than the "BN" part of the thread ...

A New Perspective was one of the first jazz CDs I ever bought, but I had already heard "Cristo Redentor" (it still blows me away) and knew what to expect regarding the voices. The playing is pretty incredible, but I certainly understand how the other stuff might be off-putting for some listeners. My biggest let down has been with a Sonny Stitt two-fer I recently picked up ... "Goin' down slow." The strings on this seem so out of place ... I was expecting something way bluesier that more lived up to the disc's name.

Yes, I think it was the 69th amendment ... The thing that gets me is that the people behind this kind of idiocy always turn out to have more than their share of sexual kinks, a la J. Edgar Hoover. The hypocrisy is pretty amazing.

Does anybody have a satellite radio subscription? I do a fair amount of commuting and the concept seems tempting ... both XM and Sirius are supposed to have jazz-only stations. Does anyone have any input on this stuff?

Chrysler defends Lingerie Bowl, calls it legitimate athletic contest By MARY CONNELLY | Automotive News DETROIT -- Scrambling to avoid being tackled for a big marketing loss, the coaching staff at the Chrysler group is changing its game plan. Chrysler executives insist that the 2004 Lingerie Bowl is a legitimate athletic contest, not a soft-core ballet of scantily clad beauties trying to knock each other out of their halter tops. "They have been training two times a week for the past several months," Julie Roehm, the Chrysler group's director of marketing communications, says of the contestants. "They've got real coaches." Dodge is the sponsor of the Lingerie Bowl, in which models will play tackle football on pay-per-view cable TV during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl on Feb. 1. In video clips on the event's Web site, the players suggest that "clothes are going to be flying" during the game, and that "the worry is losing our tops." But Dodge's sponsorship - which comes soon after a Dodge ad campaign called sexually suggestive and in poor taste - has been criticized. Last week, the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group, began protesting the event. Dodge and Horizon Productions Inc., the Lingerie Bowl's producer, are working hard to tone down the game's racy image. The players "were chosen based on athletic ability, although they obviously were already beautiful people," Roehm said last week. "What (Horizon) presented to us is that it is an opportunity to show that women can play the game and learn the game." The game may be frivolous, but the marketing implications are not. The Lingerie Bowl will be played just weeks before the Chrysler group begins selling updated versions of the Dodge Caravan and Grand Caravan, minivans aimed squarely at soccer moms and the family-values crowd. The growing controversy over the Lingerie Bowl underscores the challenge facing Dodge marketers. They are trying to reach both minivan moms and men who desire Hemi-powered Durango and Ram trucks. Rebecca Harris, a Horizon spokeswoman, says that Horizon and Dodge have had "a lot of conversations about how we can market this so that all aspects of the event can be highlighted, including the athletic aspect." "The girls have been studying playbooks since the summer and have been practicing twice a week," Harris says. The players will wear "sports bra-type tops with lace over them and short shorts with lace over them as well," Harris says. "They will be wearing helmets, shoulder pads and kneepads." The game uniforms have not been revised, Harris says. But in announcing the Lingerie Bowl in June the two teams were identified by pink or blue lace-trimmed lingerie, and the players' statements on video clips suggest the models anticipated wearing garments that are easily torn. "Those were for an initial photo shoot," Harris says of the outfits. Dieter Zetsche, Chrysler group CEO, and Joe Eberhardt, the company's marketing chief, were caught off guard when Dodge signed to sponsor the Lingerie Bowl. "It is not about refusing responsibility. I am responsible," said Zetsche at a press event Monday, Dec. 8. "But neither myself nor Joe (Eberhardt) were involved." Roehm says she is responsible for the Dodge Lingerie Bowl sponsorship. Roehm says she presented the Lingerie Bowl to George Murphy, senior vice president of global brand marketing, the way the event was presented by Horizon Productions. Asked who signed off on the event, Roehm says, "I did. I also reviewed it with George." Proceeds from the event will benefit the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Genevieve Wood, spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, says, "Chrysler is selling sex, which is behavior that causes the majority of HIV and AIDS cases in America. Then they are trying to hide behind that by donating the money to an AIDS foundation."

THANKS!!!! That's a "thumbs up" for each CD I just ordered: Point of Departure Idle Moments Out to Lunch Wizard of the Vibes

Thanks!

Sony, Bertelsmann Sign Music Merger Deal Fri December 12, 2003 09:53 AM ET By Boris Groendahl BERLIN (Reuters) - German media company Bertelsmann and entertainment conglomerate Sony of Japan have agreed on a merger of their music units in the latest move to consolidate an industry grappling with a four-year crisis. The 50-50 joint venture, Sony BMG, would be the world's second-largest record label, combining the recorded music units of Bertelsmann's BMG and Sony Music, but excluding music publishing and CD production. "The foundation of a joint music venture with Sony is a clear proof of our commitment to the music business," said Bertelsmann Chief Executive Gunter Thielen in a statement. "The music business remains a core business for us." The creation of the joint venture, based in New York, should help cut costs as the industry grapples with weak retail sales, online file-sharing and fierce competition with other forms of entertainment. Sony BMG would combine the world's second-largest label Sony, which includes such artists as Beyonce Knowles and Bruce Springsteen, with the No. 5 contender, Bertelsmann's BMG, which is home to Britney Spears and Elvis Presley. The new label would rival market leader Universal Music's 25.9 percent share of global music sales, with a share of 25.2 percent based on 2002 sales. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know much about Sony Music ... do they own any significant jazz labels? I'm wondering if this will add to what the BMG Jazz Club offers in any way.

Dave Holland Big Band: I've been leery for some reason about checking out modern big band music, but I saw "What goes around" @ Borders Outlet for $6.99 and picked it up yesterday ... and haven't stopped listening to it since then. Very nice stuff.

Diana Krall marries Elvis Costello Thursday, December 11, 2003 Posted: 1:23 PM EST (1823 GMT) TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Jazz singer Diana Krall has tied the knot with her beau of one year, Elvis Costello, in a wedding near London, Costello's public relations firm confirmed on Wednesday. The couple married Saturday night in a ceremony at Elton John's mansion in Surrey, England, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported. "The wedding was a private event with close friends and family in attendance," Shore Fire Media, Costello's public relations firm, said in a statement. About 150 guests, including Paul McCartney and Canada's consul general to New York, Pamela Wallin, were sworn to secrecy, the newspaper reported. Krall grew up outside Vancouver, British Columbia. The 39-year-old jazz singer and Costello, 49, live in New York and have a home on Vancouver Island. Krall's management company, Sam Feldman and Associates, did not return a call, and her music label declined comment on the report. The marriage is a first for Krall. Costello's previous two marriages ended in divorce.