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I could basically take it or leave it. I actually didn't have a TV when Seinfeld was really big, so I never watched too many episodes, maybe caught a couple in reruns. My wife became a fan, and I got her Season 1 (or maybe it was a Season 1/2 combo). Anyway, this was right around the time that Michael Richards went on that infamous rant, and she decided flat-out she didn't want anything more to do with the show and that watching Kramer's antics was now so spoiled, so I ended up selling the set. Don't think she would appreciate getting it under the Xmas tree this year, even if it is super cheap... I see that the regular price of the complete MASH has dropped to about $100. I'm just not sure I would get around to watching all of these. But this practicality is in direct conflict with my hoarding instincts (it's such a bargain and bonus features you can't get anywhere else!). I think I will hold off for a while longer.

As it turns out, I am seeing him tonight!

Picked up a few CDs (as gifts): Ella in Hollywood Haden-Paredes Dialogues Then for me: Cal Tjader plays the Music of Mexico and Brazil Curtis Counce Exploring the Future I'm leaning towards a Integration by Amancio D'Silva, as well as Ghana Funk, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Picked up a few CDs (as gifts): Ella in Hollywood Haden-Paredes Dialogues Then for me: Cal Tjader plays the Music of Mexico and Brazil Curtis Counce Exploring the Future I'm leaning towards a Integration by Amancio D'Silva but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

A Street in Bombay - Amancio D'Silva This is from an album that went unreleased for ages and then came out as Konkan Dance. There may have been some unaddressed rights issues, as it has vanished and fetches over $80 used (well, sometimes the LP can be had for more like $30-40). Too bad! It's sort of in the same vein as Miles in India, but actually I think this works better. I'm listening to it off the Impressed 2 CD mixed by Gilles Peterson (itself on the rarish side).

All CDs out. Thanks again! Some price drops above, probably more by the weekend. A few more clear-out specials. 15 Oscar Pettiford First Bass -- some light scratches that do not affect play 8 Patrick Lenoir Sans Transition (Doron) 8 Julien Pinol Le Banquet (Doron) 8 Julien Pinol Trio We Free (Doron) Doron special - all 3 for $15 6 Antoine Roney The Traveler (Muse) 6 Wallace Roney Seth Air (Muse) Both Roneys for $10 - free shipping 5 Charles Lloyd Jumping the Creek (ECM) 7 Charles Lloyd Rabo de Nube (ECM) Both Lloyds for $10 - free shipping

Hmm, I never had a problem with FreeRip, which I used on a bunch of the cactus discs.

I wrapped this up the other day. It is probably the best novel about NYC post-9/11, though the bar is kind of low. (If I recall, O'Neill's Netherland is sort of about a parallel universe version of post-9/11, so that might be a contender as well.) Anyway, imagine a fusion of Langewiesche's American Ground and PDK's A Scanner Darkly with a few dashes of The Wire. The lead character is a NYC cop who is recruited into a shadowy agency that is tracking down the documents that were blown out of the Towers. A key plot device is that the lead character keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, and then will find himself in a completely new situation and will have to come with grips to find out what he is supposed to do. This happens every few pages. It does get a little wearing. There are certainly some strong passages, but I am unlikely to read it again. I also read some more short stories. Self Help by Lorrie Moore, which kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and Self Storage and Other Stories by Mary Helen Stefaniak, which I liked much better. So as 2009 comes to a close, I feel I did a pretty good job of going through books on my shelves that I wanted to read once before selling or giving them away. A couple threw me for a loop and I kept them (Yiddish Policemen's Union; My Present Age by Guy Vanderhaeghe). 2010 is going to be a time for more enduring fictions that I want to make sure I read (not that I am planning on checking out anytime soon). I actually had a plan like this almost 20 years ago and I stuck to it pretty well. I read one book a month by Barbara Pym, Saul Bellow, Graham Greene and got through their works. My plan for 2010-11 will be first to read the two competing new translations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (I've heard both editions are better and more faithful than the version I read). Then one book a month by Nabokov (probably skipping several of his "Russian" novels), Narayan and Mahfouz. However, I would end with the Cairo Trilogy to read in one chunk. After this, Dos Passos' USA Trilogy. Rereading Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. John Fante's Bandini Quartet. And finally Proust. I think I'll probably be exhausted of high-brow lit for a while after that, but I'll have hit all the "best" books on my shelves and make sure I crack the spines at least.

What's "risky"? Annoying, maybe, but no risk at all. The discs themselves play perfectly in any CD player - the copy protection is not audible. Cactus Shield's copy protection technique is so easily avoided that it's laughable. All you have to do is shut off "auto start" or hold down the shift key when inserting the CD into the PC. I have been able to copy and rip every "copy protected" CD I ever bought, including the infamous Sony CDs with the rootkit. Kevin Well, the rootkit did affect some people's computers and it was highly invasive and in fact illegal in several EU countries, at least according to some interpretations of the law(s). One of the other rootkit ones was Art Blakey Drum Suite.

A handful added. 7 John Surman Rain on the Window (ECM) 7 John Surman Stranger than Fiction (ECM) 5 John Surman Private City (ECM) ECM special - all 3 Surman CDs for $15 20 Oscar Pettiford First Bass -- some light scratches that do not affect play 7 Oscar Pettiford Big Band Studio Recordings (Lonehill) 8 Lucky Thompson I Offer You (Beast Retro, 1997 edition) one of Lucky's last sessions 5 Febian Reza Pane Dreams of Ganesha (Denon)

Gerald Wilson shipped. Thanks! Discounts on the remaining 2 sets will be in place for 4 days, then off to eBay.

This is actually the same source material as Ella In Hollywood. I've never heard that album but apparently it had a bunch of extra applause which this of course does not. NPR was playing it today and I was blown away- I'm not even that big of a fan. But like everyone else here I've heard like a gazillion Ella albums, comps and box sets but this is probably the best one. Ella's Verve material is often so weighed down with orchestration and heady concepts that it's a joy to just here her as a jazz singer. The sound quality is really great, too. I'm not really that big a fan of Ella, so I will pass on the box, but I may be in the market for Ella in Hollywood as a present for my mother-in-law. I know that Yourmusic still has it. Can anyone comment if, in the remastering of Ella in Hollywood to put it out on the Verve Elite series (I believe), they cut back on the applause levels? Thanks. Eric

Absolutely. Mine showed up in pristine condition, though I've only listened to a small fraction of it so far. I tipped off a friend, and he ordered one as well.

How would you organise an auction, with this kind of money at stake, without ebay? MG Well, to be honest, if it was really worth this (which I doubt highly), I would take it to a real auction house (after telling people in the collecting community where I was taking it). I don't know what the fees are for a transaction this size, but quite possibly less than eBay and you wouldn't get so many flakes.

Well, perhaps but if s/he was asking a fair price, why wouldn't s/he go directly to this community and not have eBay take an arm and a leg? It certainly seems out of line to me, but it also isn't anything that interests me.

I thought the early paperbacks started from the beginning; am I wrong? Just wondering as I still have the first few. Well, sort of. The first paperback had a few of the pre-Bloom County strips, but also skipped around a bit. The first volume really goes into this pre-history and there are over 100 pages of strips that weren't included in the first paperback. Also I actually clipped the strip for over a year when I was in high school and a handful never appeared in the middle volumes like Billy and the Boingers, Tales to Ticklish to Tell, etc. So this is definitely the way to go if you are a completist, though it isn't clear about how far they will extend the series.

I got my first Ellington quarter today! (Anyone else?) It's going in the keepsake drawer. But it sure took a long time to get to Chicago if they indeed released them in Feb. I was getting Guam pretty regularly before this...

This annoying coyness pisses me off more than anything. That said, looks pretty huge. I think it would be a real slap in the face if it is these 70 CDs (again) plus a handful of unreleased discs.

David "Fathead" Newman - way back in Jan. Hank Crawford basically a week later I was so sorry to find out about David Newman; I was supposed to see him that Dec. but obviously his health forced him to cancel the gig.

To my surprise, they are putting out a supposedly complete run of Berke Breathed's Bloom County, which is very heavy on the early strips that have not been published before. Some complaints about print quality, but I plan on getting this, which is a 5 (perhaps 6 if they get around to Outland and Opus) volume set. http://www.amazon.com/County-Complete-Libr...d_bxgy_b_text_b

Well, I regret it, but the time has come to sell a few Mosaic sets. The rest are off on eBay, but I thought I would offer the Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions here first for a week or so. The price does not cover shipping. I'm estimating it at roughly $10 within the US for first class mail, shipping supplies and insurance. Other services are optional, and you can decide to ship it media rate if you would like. I will insist on insurance, however. I'll have to go to the post office first to get a quote for Canada and overseas. $200 Columbia Small Group Swing Sessions The box and booklet (#1751) are very good. Discs 1-6 look near mint. Very minor marks on CDs 7 and 8 that do not affect play. The CD cover to the jewel case holding CDs 7-8 is cracking, and I have temporarily repaired it with tape. I would have replaced it, but the sides are non-standard. So let me know if interested or if you have questions. I'll be going by first PM received. Thanks for looking! Eric

More CDs sent out, and a few holds lifted. I'm adding a handful more, as below: 3 Cha Dancante Donato e sue Conjunto 6 Jacque Loussier Trio Baroque Favorites 3 Angélique Kidjo Fifa – light scratch does not affect play, back cover missing 3 Oscar Peterson Soul Espanol (Verve) 8.50 Gwilym Simcock Perception (Basho) 6 Various Artists (Art Farmer; James Moody; Django Bates; Andy Sheppard) 12 Jazz Visits to Copenhagen 1996 (Stunt) – 2 CDs Thanks for looking! The Mosaic listings will be added as soon as I check the disc conditions. Eric

Yeah, but who mastered it first?

Clearly there is no top 100, but I do like these lists to the extent that they do lead me to try works (and composers) I've never heard. I do like Discovering Music on BBC where they break down the piece into its component parts and explain how it functions. I think it is fairly unique on radio for trying to really explain classical music beyond the most superficial gloss. To be fair, BBC 3 also has a program called Hear and Now that focuses on contemporary chamber/symphonic music and they often have 5 minute intros to these various pieces, sometimes including an interview with the composer. While many would argue that Bernstein's interpretations are idiosyncratic, there is some very good music here and it usually can be found for a good price: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Jacket-Coll...3619&sr=1-2 This was something I wanted for a while when I was just out of college, but the prices then were too high. I'm glad it stayed in print and the prices eventually dropped. I will also put in a plug for Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time which has been discussed elsewhere. I do think this is a piece that any relatively well-educated classical music fan/aficionado ought to know. Edit: I'm actually missing the bridge between Discovering Music and Bernstein, which was that one of Berstein's greatest achievements was his concerts for young people where he also explained but did not abridge or simplify orchestral music for younger listeners. Many of these concerts are out on DVD, and I'm about to start showing them to my son to see what he makes of them.

Ok, now I have to apologize for thinking the Miles Davis set was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. Really?!? 90CDs, nearly $800, in this economy? It appears to come in 3 shoeboxes, instead of the normal 1. The price is moving much closer to $600 (or $500 used). But still... However, I would disagree with the reviewer. I can't imagine that many people would have 90 CDs by Yo-Yo Ma just laying around. 20 or 30, perhaps.