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The main Newbury site says this is back-ordered, but the deal is still up on Amazon. I figure it is worth a shot.

O'Brien's A Way of Life was good. I particularly liked the details of how the narrator started acting like a heel during late adolescence, often even knowing he was out of line but seemingly helpless to stop himself in time. I can relate to that. A very fast read Anyway, I am starting this, which is going to be a bigger investment of time, but has been entertaining so far: I wonder how it will compare with Davies' Deptford Trilogy, which also features a magician. This is the opening of chapter 2: I can relate to this as well. It isn't quite as extreme with my son, but he does pretty much follow me from room to room unless I use extreme diversionary tactics (playing TMBG videos seems to work).

And perhaps redownload some of your favorite OJCs to try to get the better bit rate (would be nice to know for sure). I wonder what will happen to the ability to redownload once they move to album pricing. I'm thinking probably you will "lose" your old dls. I've been sort of hanging in there after the changes, but once they move most of the jazz CDs to album pricing, I think I will be done with them. It was a nice ride.

Tipped off to a free gig by Brad Shepik, my son and I went and saw him play selections from his Human Activity Suite. It was nice, particularly when we went up afterwards and talked to Brad, Ralph Alessi and and Tom Rainey after the show. They were extremely gracious and nice to my son (he's only 5 but seemed to enjoy the music). Anyway, H.A.S. is on emusic as well as a bunch of other places. I put Shepik's Places You Go in the queue for next month. Prior to this, McPherson's Mood and Jimmy Forrest's Out of the Forrest. I almost got something from the Clusone 3, but it looked to be a better deal going through Amazon, so I'll probably do that tonight.

Well, at the very least Niall Ferguson is a jazz fan, so that excuses a multitude of sins! This audio essay will be up for another 4 days or so at BBC 3: Historian Niall Ferguson recalls with fondness his days as the double-bass player in a jazz quartet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n6vks

That sounds like fun. I managed to get to the Manchester once and saw the Manchester Art Gallery and also the Lowry in Salford that was having a bigger than usual exhibit on Lowry. I think I missed out on the Whitworth. Too bad. Some of Stuart Davis' works are really quiet jazz-inflected and he is towards the top of my personal favorite list of artists. I actually shelled out for his Catalogue Raisonne (still around on Amazon for slightly less than I paid). Funny story. I was in City Lights Bookstore with a friend and saw one behind the counter. I mentioned it to my friend that I owned a copy, and he asked the clerk if he could take a look. The guy pretty much sneered at us and said he didn't want people pawing through it! Hell, we weren't that scruffy. But yeah, the odds of my friend buying a copy were awfully low.

Here is the second. Here in Chicago, Around the Coyote has somewhat stupidly decided to leave Wicker Park. I went to the subsequent art show in the FlatIron Building (Around the Coyote in everything but name) and after some thought picked this up. Sometimes I make a decision in an hour or so (especially if I am at Art Chicago and the paintings are only on display for a weekend). Other times I really agonize over it, but of course a lot has to do with the price.

Ok, here is the first of two small pieces. I'll probably have to take photos of the larger pieces. These are both collages.

Holy cow! Maybe should not have let the cat out of the bag on that... I have quite a few framed posters (mostly transit/train related) but also a framed poster of Stuart Davis' Super Table (from right around the time the Terra Art Museum went out of business and they were giving them away for free. * I don't have anything that is strictly jazz-related on the walls. I also have a few original paintings, mostly abstract. I'll try to get some of them posted. * They were giving away unframed posters for free, just to be clear.

I think I'll be able to make that matinee -- it's at the Chicago Cultural Center at 2 pm. Sweet! Thanks so much for the head's up.

What an annoying, navel-gazing review. No point in hating the book reviewed -- not the writer's fault they picked such a ditz -- but I will obviously need to find another source to find out if it is any good. Review continues

I guess actually 4 days (Jan 20-23) at the Jazz Bistro, but still that's pretty decent. I am partly waiting to see if he manages to get Chicago date around then. Anyway, I'll post in the appropriate thread closer to the time.

Ya know... I had my music spending under control until I came back last month. I bet I've spent more on music in the last month or so than in the previous 7 - 8 months combined... On the plus side, I have co-workers randomly stopping by my office just to chat and see what's playing. Too true. On the flip side, when I feel the need to part with some CDs (and I am very close to that now), this is a good place to offer them before practically giving them away at Reckless (or Dusty Groove). Totally unrelated, but Vijay Iyer is going to be doing a week-long stand in St. Louis in January. If you haven't heard him live, you should check him out. I'm trying to come up with a plausible reason to make the trip down...

Thanks for bringing this to our attention (at least those of us who don't have it). I read through the entire related thread and while I trust Chuck that the K2 monos sound better, it seems both are now out of print so for $4.30 this seems like a no-brainer (for someone who doesn't have any previous versions). I wasn't planning on getting this at all, since I have the Riverside box, but at this price it is worth it for the two extra tracks (also curious about the Monk-less jam). Of course, while I was at it I got one of Newbury's Art Pepper Hollywood boxes. I gotta stop coming around here.

Congrats!!!

My son really likes the ABCs and No. Not quite as grabbed by 123s. I find that I can listen to the Science songs over and over, moreso than the other albums, so I will try to put this one on heavier rotation. Barenaked Ladies also have a children's CD called Snacktime with some good songs on it. Yeah, it's a real trend, though some of the best collaborations were back in the day on Sesame Street.

Maybe mentioned in another thread, but I didn't see it. TMBG have been keep very busy, releasing several children's albums. I am particularly fond of some of the songs on Here Come the ABCs. Anyway, they've just released Here Comes Science. I suppose it might be controversial in that they take a strong stand for science and a bit of a swipe at ignorant people (sort of like the same people that would be offended by the new movie about Darwin: Creation). Here is the opening of Science is Real: Anyway, leaving this aspect aside, I think this is a very catchy collection. For my taste, it is the best of their four children-oriented CDs. If one does order this, I would definitely get the version with the DVD (same with Here Come the ABCs). They have a new recording of Why Does the Sun Shine that leaves the refrain more or less alone but stretches out the rest of the lyrics (making them a bit easier for children to follow). More interesting is that this is immediately followed by Why Does the Sun Really Shine In the video, John Flansburgh tries to keep out the original song from playing while singing this: I also really like Meet the Elements and What is a Shooting Star, both because of the lyric contents and the music. I would definitely check it out if you are at all interested in TMBG (or are a middle school teacher )

Well, I see that there is a current eBay listing with an listing price of $150 but no bids so far (this is listed as a cassette version and for local pickup only, so I suspect not going to do so well). Over on AAJ, they seemed to settle around $400 most of the time, but that was 5 years ago, so pre-Recession. It would probably go for somewhere in the $200-500 range unless you can interest a Japanese buyer...

Strange title, never heard of the author, not very impressive cover. Therefore it far exceeded my expectations, & I endorse it highly. Compelling writing IMHO. I'm happy a friend suggested that I read it. There's already a sequel of sorts called The Gourmet. BTW, the UK cover is nicer. I don't know how much more I would pay for that, but between the two, that's the one I would opt for.

Agreed. I managed to miss out on a used copy at a (long-gone) record store on Belmont (I think I was doing something daft like waiting until I had written a paper to reward myself). Fortunately, they still had a new copy at a fair price, and I thought about it for a day or two and bought that. This was around the time they were being phased out. A few months after this, I noticed the Borders on Michigan Ave. had one, but that was the last I've ever seen in a store.

Let us know how this is. It's one I'm definitely thinking of picking up (in about a year when there are scads of remaindered copies ). I finished Kirn's Up in the Air. Not a deep book by any means, but pretty entertaining. A bit of a twist at the end which doesn't feel total gratuitous. I imagine that's in the movie version, but it will be a while until I find out. I gave up on Jeter's Noir. It was ok for what it was (sf written as noir), but I am really trying to clear out a lot of books out of my house, and have started dropping books that aren't grabbing me, particularly if they are long (this is nearly 500 pages). Jeter was actually the guy called on to write sequels set in the Blade Runner universe (the film far more than Dick's vision). So I started this instead. A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien It is a lightly fictionalized story of a boy growing up in Hollywood with movie star parents, who are fading and unstable (are there any other kind). This is how the first paragraph ends: "Oh what a world it was! Was there ever so pampered an ass as mine?" The voice is detached, ironic, jaded, etc. As I've gotten deeper into it, it reminds me of Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries. If you liked that, you will probably like this.

Yeah, I used to really like OmniPage, but Caere was bought out and the buzz is that the newest versions are buggy and when you need to download a driver or something you are out of luck. Oh, and they charge you $20 to speak to anyone in customer service when this happens.

Well, AbbyyFinereader Express (which I will probably order) cost about $50 and runs on XP. A bunch of these OCR software packages give you a 15 day free trial, but you can only OCR one page at a time -- which sounds exactly what you are trying to do, so you might go that route. I still don't understand the GOCR well enough to try it, but there is surely a way to get that working on your system as well, and it should be fine for text only -- and it is free. Main bit of advice is to save often (not as big a deal when doing one page at a time).

This is a little out of my comfort level. But I do have a question about GOCR. Does it handle tables at all? Or allow part of a page to be saved as an image (and then embedded into the resulting document)? Those are things I absolutely need before I start monkeying around with learning a new OCR software. If not, I'll just stick with some of the commercial versions. Thanks. Eric

You've got a few choices. Do you still have the page proofs? If so, I would use those. If not, if your scanner supports multiple pages in a scan, then I would probably scan 10 pages at a time -- to avoid losing data due to crashes, etc. I'm in an unfortunate situation, since the scan settings reset for every single job, so in my case, I actually make a copy of the thing I am scanning, then automatically feed them through (this counts as a job). Make sure the settings are at least 300 dpi - 400 dpi is better if the output files aren't too large for your available storage. If you have page proofs, or have already copied the book, I think converting to a TIF file will take 30 minutes, running batches through the scanner (this assumes you have a copier/scanner. Again, do this in installments (no more than 35-40 pages at a time). If you are scanning the book page by page, it might take 2-3 hours (or more if you have the software attempt OCR on the spot -- better to just save the files out and process later). Then you will run the OCR software. If you mostly have text and few or no footnotes and pictures, then maybe 1 day of going through and cleaning up. It could be more. That's a lot of pages. If the scan isn't clean or you have tables, footnotes, etc., then I'd say 2-3 days of intense work. That's my general experience. Yeah, pretty much my advice. This does assume Allen has a multiple page scanner and not a flatbed!