ejp626

So there was a bit of a discussion on the box set bargain thread about the 60 CD Living Stereo series: box at Amazon I believe I found it slightly less through a different seller, but even $150 is an excellent price for this set. We were trying to track down what was not in the box and still in print, and I have some further notes on this, which I will share shortly. But then I came across this discography, which put my efforts to shame:Discography I don't think the author of this is actively maintaining this website, but this is a very neat resource. My general finding is that nearly all the LS Reiner and Munch made it into the box, but they were very stingy on the poppier conductors like Fiedler and Morton Gould. They also included many of the 2-CD operas and vocal works, but drew the line at the 3-CD sets, like Beecham's Messiah and Leinsdorf's Barber of Seville. Here is a good resource on the Living Presence series: Discography I guess I would have to say being a completist is within the realm of possibility for the Living Stereo series, but it probably so far out of my range for Living Presence that I don't want to start. I did pick up some of the Dorati and Hanson CD sets and some individual Janos Starker CDs.

Exactly what Moose said. I somewhat foolishly congratulated Sen. Mark Kirk on his vote to end Don't Ask Don't Tell and urged him to act like a moderate Republican (no dice so far). Anyway, I now get emails from his office, including a poll that said something like Should we be cutting the budget more than President Obama called for in his recent proposal? Yes, No or Don't Know. My real answer would be something "yes, but not in the ways you want to cut," but that was way too nuanced, so I just said Don't Know, which is sort of akin to No Opinion.

I buy relatively little fiction, which is pretty much the only thing you can count on being in stock. I've found that of the academic books I do buy (which would have to be special ordered in any case), Borders either doesn't carry them at all or only the hardcover version whereas Amazon would have the paperback version. I don't know how they got locked out of this admittedly narrow market, but time after time I would see if Borders could come even close to the Amazon price and they never could. Chicagoland is losing half of its Borders stores, but as far as the ones I went to, I think they are all gone except the downtown one on Michigan Ave. and maybe the one across from the Apple store at North & Clyborne. Still, this doesn't hurt as badly as when all the Tower Stores in Chicago closed.

I've been worried about that for a while. I have two $20 cards, and I have been trying desperately to find them for a couple of weeks, but to no avail.

I basically agree with Larry. I don't particularly like Spalding's recordings and I thought she was awful in performance. Same as I don't like Norah Jones. Why should I celebrate the fact that they won, when in fact I think this actually makes jazz even more irrelevant, pushing major labels into releasing more smooth jazz and boring cross-over artists?

I really did not enjoy Spalding's performance the last time I saw here. In fact, I found it excruiciating. But I'd still rather she get an award than Bieber. While the Biebster was thrust into this situation through no (or little) fault of his own, he is quickly becoming quite a twerp in his own right. (And his fans are even worse -- they've gone and vandalized Spalding's wiki page -- that'll show her!) I think my biggest question is how does one qualify to be a new artist? She's had three albums as leader, starting from 2006. I guess the industry finally got the promo copies in the mail... One of these days, the Onion should do a piece on James Taylor or an equivalent being nominated for best new artist.

Well, in the end I didn't care too much for The Financial Expert. Essentially none of the characters felt worth investing any emotional energy in. While that isn't the only criterion for a good novel, if you have no sympathy for any of the characters, it can be really slow going. Ironically, that is also at least part of my problem with Nabokov. Most of his characters are either cyphers or complete shits. Most of the way through Invitation to a Beheading, which is perhaps the most Kafkaesque and least Nabokovian of his novels, and I still can't get into it. He just leaves me completely cold. I think I will just read Lolita, since I am this far in -- and then sell off the Library of America set, since I just don't care at all for his work. Anyway, I was able to borrow the newish Library of America set of H.L. Mencken's Prejudices. He has some sharp writing no doubt, but probably at least 3/4s of the essays are devoted to completely obscure literary and cultural figures of the day. I'm not going to spend the time to find out about them in order to "get" his jibes at them. So I can't really see investing in buying this set or doing much more than skimming it actually. But it's nice it is back in print at least.

I thought this was a pretty good deal. Munch Berlioz L'Enfance du Christ on 2 LPs for under $10 (eBay). I was the only bidder. Seller claims it is still in shrink wrap. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of vocal classical music, but I have been gathering up a fair bit of Munch because of his heavy representation in the Living Stereo box set. Anyway, I just loved the cover, which looked like a page out of an illuminated manuscript (don't know how long the image will be kept up).

Jim, if the Super Bowl visitors were to have problems with the ice, etc., Dallas would be remembered in newspapers for decades as the city that clusterfucked the Super Bowl. Surely that bad reputation would hurt the economy worse than the business lost due to lack of productivity for a week, don't you think? Are you serious? There's no in between? The NFL/Super Bowl should be empowered to totally shut down the lives of millions of people lest we offend the Sports Pimps and get bitch-slapped for our self-respect? You're talking to the wrong person if you think that even begins to make sense to me! ... So yeah, absolutely - fuck Jerry Jones, and fuck the NFL. Sounds like anyone that ever lived near an Olympics or World Cup since about 1990. I'm done with the whole thing. Mega-sports events are an abomination on every level, and I'm just not interested.

More to the point, he could he possibly travel between all these cities to run marathons, let alone going to both European and American ones, as claimed, without missing a day? My impression is that there is not a marathon run every single day somewhere in the world. They take quite a bit of planning. Plus there are very, very few run in the middle of the week because of the impact on traffic. Now if he claims he runs 20+ miles a day, well maybe, i.e. he runs a marathon-equivalent. But frankly it sounds like BS to me.

Enjoyed Shamsie's Broken Verses quite a bit. Wasn't that taken with the last quarter or so of Narayan's Mr. Sampath. I found the first third of Narayan's The Financial Expert kind of hard going, but it has picked up midway. I think my favorite of his books so far is The Bachelor of Arts, but I also enjoyed The English Teacher. On deck - Shamsie Burnt Shadows Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading and finally Mahfouz Cairo Trilogy

Yeah, I would just contact them and see what they say. Depending on their response, say you'll follow up on 2/15.

My order was never shipped. They just didn't have what they listed. It took me badgering them to find that out. At least they've now taken it down from their site. I've had pretty good luck with BlowItOuttaHere, so I just placed another order with them. It helps that I am looking for easy to find stuff. I wouldn't particularly trust them or MovieMars with the really rare orders. I've noticed lots of Furtwangler boxes (too many to mention) and am waiting on a Membran box of his live recordings. I'll post back if it's any good. I am slowly working my way through the Living Stereo box (and ripping for back up). Oddly, the only one that seems to have serious production flaws (to the point I would try to get a replacement copy had I ordered through Amazon) is Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. As it so happens, this is one I ordered (as a stand-alone) a few years back. It would have been the only duplicate from the box with my other CDs (well, possibly also Heifetz Double Concertos). So I guess that means karma was watching out for me...

I just had perhaps the worst burrito I've ever eaten. In fact, I could only eat maybe 10-15% of it, when I had to stop. Now I am looking for something else to take away the taste. I've been to this taqueria once before and it was fine, so I decided, post-concert, to go back and not to the greasy late night Thai place when I often go after concerts (indeed it is literally called Late Night Thai). Anyway, the vegetable burrito had pico de gallo, which I'm not super fond of, but I let it ride. Somehow the proportions of everything were way off. There was little rice and essentially no beans that I could see, and I guess instead of chunks of avocado, they used watery guacamole. I'm not even sure there was any cheese, which might have helped a bit. Then the whole thing was overwhelmed by the pico de gallo and sour cream. When you looked inside it was mostly white! Yuck. Don't think I'll be back. There are a few other Mexican restaurants around, and I'll go to one of them next time I have that craving.

Or maybe package downloads with PDFs of the cover art and liner notes. It really does burn me up that I don't get any of that with eMusic and essentially never off Amazon downloads either. Small issue, but I think it would help at the margins.

I'm not even a particularly big fan of Bruuuce, but that is one amazing deal. Well, of course ignoring the fact that all of it is in the etherways already...

Yeah, I really like that gallery. Anyway, I saw the Jim Nutt exhibit that just opened at the MCA. Interesting approach is that half the 4th floor is given over to artists inspired by Nutt and the Hairy Who more generally. And that was ok. But the other half is all Nutt, all the time. Just not that impressed with his work overall and frankly bored with his recent work.

Sure, that would be terrific. Let me know. Merci beaucoup! Several Vogue/BMG CDs turned up recently but not 'Tilt'. I still have that album in mind and will grab it for you as soon as it shows up! Much appreciated. Have PMed you a couple of days ago but did not get an answer. I have on hold a copy of Tilt. Please let me know if you still want it. Very strange. I don't see anything in my messenger. Sorry. I will PM you and see if that works. Thanks! Eric

Thanks brownie, I'll consider it also. That looks very promising (according to one Amazon reviewer at least some of the music, including the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies have been remastered). This looks even more interesting (to me -- given my general lack of interest in opera): http://www.amazon.com/Great-Emi-Recordings-John-Barbirolli/dp/B0031IHBCS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1296238918&sr=8-1-spell

Really? I thought the highlight was the Isle of the Dead, which I am picking up paired with Symphony #2. What else must I not miss? Ok, Imma gonna have to stop, but it looks like there is one more that arguably would have fit and that is Rodgers: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (actually a number of dance pieces, including some by de Falla, Shostakovich and Copland). This was done by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops. It actually looks like a lot of fun, so I think I'll spring for it too.

At least one more not present in the Living Stereo box: Rachmaninoff: Concertos Nos. 1 & 3 Pianist Byron Janis, conducted by Reiner and Munch. Looks like Janis was more frequently on Living Presence, but this was in the Living Stereo series. I suspect they left it out because they already had #3 performed by Van Cliburn. And Reiner conducting Beethoven's 5th and 7th Symphonies also seems to be missing.

Doesn't look like the original Living Stereo Beecham Messiah (distilled on 1 CD) is available, but there is a entire Messiah (on 3 CDs) presumably from the same recording session. I'll probably pick that up as well. I find it interesting/amusing that there is a spacer included in the 60 CD box, as if they knew they skipped a few and that completists would pick the missing ones up and try to stuff them in the box. I'll probably do that

No Spain is there but it has a weird listing. CD 55 - Alebeniz: Navarra ... Leotyne Price Popular Classics for Guitar is CD 54 Heifetz Double Concertos is CD 53 I don't see the Copland or the Handel Messiah, so I'll keep an eye out for those.

There appear to be at least 3 more that "ought" to be in there: Khachaturian: Masquerade Suite; Kabalevsky: The Comedians (conducted by Kondrashin) Khachaturian: Concerto for violin in Dm; Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky (conducted by Reiner) Reiner Sound - a quasi-sampler with Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead I could be wrong of course (that they are included in the box), and of course there could well be more missing CDs. Still an incredible, incredible deal. I can't believe I was hesitating (in general my interest in classical music is on the rise). I am leaning towards ordering the Mysterious Mountain and the first two, whereas there is a better RCA that pairs Isle of the Dead with Ormandy conducting Rachmaninoff's Symphony 2.

I believe I have a ticket for this; if not, I will get one, as I am a subscriber to the CSO. Also, it looks like Jason Moran is playing with Ken Vandermark (WTF?) in two weeks at the Green Mill. I will try to make that as well.