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I finished Pharr's S.R.O. Definitely an underground classic. Some parts are a bit repetitive, but it actually has some interesting echoes of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. I am trying to wrap up Ellison's Juneteenth for Black History Month. It certainly has some strong passages, but overall kind of diffuse and unfocused. I suppose that is what happens when a book is written and rewritten and rewritten. I can't even imagine reading the entire thing that came out a couple of years ago. It is supposedly three times as long. On the bus, I am reading Banville's The Sea, which won the Booker Prize in 2005. I find it very much in the spirit and perhaps even style of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

I certainly don't need it (such a huge backlog of classical music to get through), but I will probably pre-order the Toscanini. Here's another EMI box set that sort of slipped through the cracks for me: Klaus Tennstedt - The Great EMI Recordings. Still a pretty good price at Amazon.co.uk Tennstedt and decent but not quite as good a price at Amazon.com. In addition, there is another Munch box set with Romantic classics (Munch) and Bruno Walter conducting Mozart (mostly the Symphonies) - Walter/Mozart I'll probably eventually go after these sets as well.

Incidentally, this falls in that transitional period - Zorn to post-Zorn...

The world was spinning at the time, or so I have heard.

I am certainly no expert, but my impression is that Google has always been poking around in the Gmail accounts. That is why despite the convenience (and price!), I have never signed up for a Gmail account. I'll certainly still use the Google search function though.

Really glad to see MG back in the saddle. I've gotten a few interesting releases but haven't had the time to digest and comment on them. I'll try to get back to that within the week.

Ok, a bit of a one-joke piece, but still worth a few minutes of eyeball time: Mead review at McSweeney's This is my favorite excerpt:

Saw the Pacific Rim String Quartet perform Schubert's Rosamund Quartet, then Schubert's String Quintet (with Eric Wilson as guest cello). Quite nice. Some aspects of the quintet come through more in a live performance than in the recordings I have. There is this one section (in the 3rd movement?) where the key keeps changing. I also really liked the almost percussive use of the 2nd cello in the first movement. Jazz concerts are definitely few and far between here, so I'll probably have to wait until the Vancouver Jazz Fest to really get my fix.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Well, Michigan is usually about a day behind Chicago, so I suspect you'll have snow tomorrow. Anyway, I am certainly glad that I can skip winter in Chicago this year, even if it was freakishly warm the first week of Jan.

I really liked this one. Wasn't quite as taken by his next novel Too Late The Phalarope, which isn't nearly as memorable. I did read a few of Paton's short stories and thought they were fine. Anyway, I wrapped up Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go. It stayed pretty raw throughout. One thing that I wasn't crazy about is how unstable the main character seemed, not exactly in an on edge, near madness sort of way (though he was that way a lot), but how he would be in one frame of mind, then suddenly shift to another. Finally you thought he might be getting on a more even keel, then external events force him into a very bad spot. I think the person who wrote the introduction alluded to Camus's The Stranger, and that isn't a bad comparison. It is a bit of a period piece in the heavy reliance on dreams to comment on the action and (to my way of thinking) a weird mix of civil rights awareness and existentialism. The end certainly has a bit of a nightmare feel to it (Richard Wright's Native Son by way of Camus?), but the ironic denouement kind of salvaged the book for me. Just started Robert Pharr's S.R.O. and this is already a wild ride. The main character is a Black waiter who has fallen pretty hard (he's alcoholic) and he ends up at a Harlem S.R.O. which is populated almost entirely by junkies and prostitutes. The writing is really gripping. I will certainly look into Pharr's other novels down the road, including The Book of Numbers and Giveadamn Brown (this one looks like it is largely in line with Himes's Harlem novels). Both S.R.O. and Giveadamn Brown are on the Old School Books imprint. This (S.R.O.) may be the best of the bunch, though Man Walking on Eggshells by Herbert Simmons may be of interest as well. It is about a (fictional) jazz musician from St. Louis. Anyone heard of it?

I've given up on a number of disappointing books lately. I'm definitely doing that more now. Mating by Norman Rush and Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley. I'm just starting If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes. It is pretty raw and not really my cup of tea, but it is relatively short (and the prose is better than the much longer novels above that I have dropped). In the introduction, some commentator says this novel is more important than Himes' Harlem crime novels. Not sure about that, but the Harlem books are just so much more entertaining that I would always gravitate towards them (over this one).

Damn. Definitely seemed like an interesting guy. I just read through most of the essays in Talkin' Moscow Blues (generally either on jazz or on politics). I have many of his novels in translation and just picked up The Engineer of Human Souls (for the second time! -- first one lost in a move). I was definitely planning on reading Engineer this year, and I'll try to move it up to this spring.

It is strange how much higher it is for the Amazon.com pre-order ($200+). Had this come out closer to the Living Stereo set, I probably would have jumped on it, but I've tracked down many of the key Living Presence CDs (or at least listened to them at the library) and there are perhaps only 5 or 6 that are really calling to me (beyond the ones I already picked up), and I can't justify that cost. If it came down to $50 or so, I might still go for it, but I think I'll end up passing.

I guess the question is what are you looking to do. If you go with a laptop, then virtually all will have wi-fi (in fact I think they all would). If you get a desktop (which is the cheaper option), then you can either 1) just leave the computer plugged into the modem, 2) get a wi-fi router attached to the modem, but if you go this route, you would also need a wi-fi adapter for the desktop. Unless the modem is in a terrible location, you probably don't really need wi-fi. I recently bought an Acer desktop (and yes I would probably avoid Dell and HP) for $500 or so. I didn't bother with wi-fi. When I moved the desk, I just bought a slightly longer cable to hook it up to the modem.

I read one of his very first novels -- The Twenty-Seventh City -- which started out kind of promising, but then got increasingly implausible (and even absurd). I also wasn't quite sure if this was supposed to be set in a futuristic, somewhat distopian St. Louis or it was just a contemporary novel. I own a copy of The Corrections, but it isn't even on deck, so to speak. The earliest I might get to it would be 2014. As an aside, I am generally finding myself impatient and losing interest in books over 350 pages. I don't know if this is a temporary or permanent condition, or indeed if it is simply a function of reading several too-wordy books in a row.

I've been reading some of the writings of Josef Skvorecky, who frequently writes on jazz and Eastern European politics. I believe he was an admirer of Havel, though they probably had some differences. I'm going to see if I can track down this short piece by Skvorecky: - "I Saw Václav Havel for the Last Time", in Jan Vladislav (ed.) Václav Havel or Living in Truth, Fa ber and Faber, London, pp.274-277. BTW, has anyone actually seen any of the early plays by Havel? I've seen one in translation (The Memorandum), and while I'm sure it did lose a lot in translation, the satire was still quite biting. Slightly more absurdist than Bulgakov, but they (to me) seemed like fellow spirits. If you find it please let me know. I have most of Josef's writings that have been published in English but not that one. Actually, this volume is being remaindered and there are plenty of copies: Remaindered Truth I decided I would just try ILL, but I came close to buying it (probably only holding off because I went and bought the collected plays of Havel in 3 volumes -- and that will be of more long term interest than this particular collection).

Actually, I was thinking the other day about the Alice in Wonderland remix done by Randy Greif (in the late 80s/early 90s). I got the first reissue, and then they reissued it again in 2000: http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Wonderland-Randy-Greif/dp/B00004WJAD (Probably not something you would want to share with the kids.) I believe, but would have to double-check, that this set was the source material.

I've been reading some of the writings of Josef Skvorecky, who frequently writes on jazz and Eastern European politics. I believe he was an admirer of Havel, though they probably had some differences. I'm going to see if I can track down this short piece by Skvorecky: - "I Saw Václav Havel for the Last Time", in Jan Vladislav (ed.) Václav Havel or Living in Truth, Fa ber and Faber, London, pp.274-277. BTW, has anyone actually seen any of the early plays by Havel? I've seen one in translation (The Memorandum), and while I'm sure it did lose a lot in translation, the satire was still quite biting. Slightly more absurdist than Bulgakov, but they (to me) seemed like fellow spirits.

Most likely it isn't an issue.

Right, but why would they let people cherry pick through the catalog if there is a reasonable chance they can sell the whole thing (didn't 32 Jazz have the rights to the whole Muse catalog or something)? I can understand the logic at least. You could argue that one or two limited releases like we are talking about here might actually increase the visibility of the brand and make a sale more likely, but that is pure speculation. I guess it is the ratio of clinkers to the good stuff that determines if this is a reasonable strategy or not. Of course, anything they get in 2012 is going to be less than in 2000, for instance, just because of the consolidation/collapse of the music industry.

I think the e-tailers are going to give you the best price -- I would look at Amazon or DeepDiscount.com. DeepDiscount is currently running a sale on Criterions and that should include Blue-Rays.

Did you order it again? Have not ordered too much, though in the last month, I did order Roarin' by The New Don Rendell Quintet, Peace by Chet Baker, and today I ordered Lake of Perseverance by Dom Um Romao (which I believe is his last or next to last recording).

Not sure if this will last only until Tuesday morning or if it will be left up longer, but BBC Radio 4 has a 30 minute piece on PKD: PKD on Radio 4 Nothing terribly revelatory, but still worth a listen if you are a fan.

As soon as I hear E. Spalding is involved, I tune out. Not at all interested in her work after suffering through one of her concerts.