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Yeah - but the "fine print" says that the single purchase has to be an item of list price $20 or more. Even at 40% off, it is rarely worth my time going in to one of the stores. They don't carry academic books anymore (in my field at any rate), and you can't use these coupons on items that you order on-line. Most fiction trade paperbacks are still hanging in at $19.99 (or a bit less) so most of their coupons are no good. And if I am buying a hard cover fiction book, you can usually get them for 75% or more off used. So that leaves you looking at CD or DVD sets. Borders in Chicago doesn't have any of the Jazz Icons DVD sets. However, I did check and they had the Fats Waller vol. 6 from JSP. There was one in stock at the Michigan Ave. store, so I scampered up there after work and picked it up.

PM sent on:

Sensible policy, fine with me. I just got my wires crossed somewhere, and as the only serving moderator, now that MG is on hiatus, my wires need to be uncrossed at all times. I hope/assume you mean to prevent the discussion of illicit mp3s, and we don't have to go scrub the forums of all our iTunes and eMusic recommendations.

Well, if you buy books that nobody reads, you're golden. Do you mean Sally Struthers?

I've never seen anyone actually buy manga at Borders; they just have a bunch of pimply kids thumbing through the books for half an hour at a time. With this kind of thing, I'd much rather buy on-line than pay full price for something that is essentially used.

If you look at the fine print, a handful of stores are left out, including some in Manhattan and the two downtown Chicago stores. I don't know... I can certainly imagine people showing up and then leaving in a huff. Are they trying to give people reasons to stay away? The weird thing is that the bigger Chicago stores were part of the 20% off CD/DVD event from a few months ago. Even if they lost some revenue, I would think that a promotion that was 30% off most stores and 20% off at the remaining downtown stores would be a lot more palatable than what they've got now.

All I know is that I am not so thrilled that the new coupon are in-store only (some earlier ones I had included the on-line store). Anyway, I was walking home from the symphony and stopped in to try to use a coupon. Well, actually it was an impulse buy and I didn't have the coupon, and the clerk refused to look up my account (which they often offer to do even as I am getting my card out of my wallet). And gave me some attitude. (I thought the whole point of the in-store coupons was to get people into the stores and be a bit grateful we are in a brick and mortar in the first place. So even if I was scamming them by using a coupon twice (which I wasn't) then I would still be inside the store twice, right?) So I won't be going back to that store (on State St.) and the one on Michigan Ave. in the Magnificent Mile is slated for closing within the year. So pretty soon I won't be bothered at all by Borders, and I will go pretty much 100% on-line shopping. I'll survive. But it won't be much longer for Borders.

I still feel pretty much the same way at the halfway mark. I'll finish the book but it doesn't grab me. It took roughly a month (and I was getting a tad nervous), but Kalahari.net came through with my books, saving me literally over $200 from what US bookstores wanted for the 4 books I ordered. They seem to sell music as well as books. Maybe MG should check it out. I read Vladislavic's Missing Persons and Propaganda by Monuments so far. Both are short story collections, and Missing Persons is the earlier and somewhat less mature one. Missing Persons tends to lean on slightly surreal situations, maybe in part to avoid writing about the racial politics/situation at the time (a bit of escapism? or just feeling that Nadine Gordimer had already cornered that part of the literary market?) I think Propaganda by Monuments is the stronger collection. It's certainly enjoyable.

I was contemplating a road trip tonight or tomorrow to see Vijay, but I'll probably stay close to home this weekend. Chicago-based "Charlie Love & The Silky Smooth Blues Band" is making the trip here, so maybe I'll go check them out. I think this will make the 4th (maybe 5th) time I've seen him live. Usually at the Green Mill. So it will be interesting to see how much the vibe will be different at the Showcase. Before I found out about this show, I was seriously considering a trip to NC to catch him in Chapel Hill (April 3) -- and my dad lives in NC also so it would have made a good time to visit. Anyway, April 4, he is supposed to be playing in Asheville, NC, so anyone in NC should think about checking him out.

*&%$#@ it. The Crolla already sold out, and I didn't get one. At least they've started actually getting these in stock, and there should be more soon. Nonetheless, the tiny, tiny orders that Dusty gets in (5-10 copies at a time) may drive me to Amazon after all.

Vijay Iyer Trio at the Jazz Showcase (Chicago) tonight! Sorry I missed him with Rudresh a couple of weeks ago, but this will partially make up for it.

Heads up, esp. to Greg, that Dusty just got the Crolla in. I supposedly have one on hold, though this won't be official until morning. I wish the other 2 (and of course the Grappelli) were in, but it might be the following week. Price was definitely reasonable -- a few dollars less than Amazon actually.

Judging by the number of returns/rejects I get when I deal with Reckless, I think this is going to end up "A Study in Frustration," probably on both ends. I see that you do have to submit the list of CDs before you send them, which will help a bit, but people often tend to be a bit optimistic about grading their own CDs. I probably wouldn't bother.

My mom used to live in Ferndale, probably walking distance to Baker's maybe 15 years ago. I was a little into jazz at the time, enough to go to the Detroit Jazz Fest, but not enough to seek out Baker's. Too bad. If she was still living there, I would definitely make it in at least once.

I agree, and yet it seems with this series you take the good with the bad: for every vintage (Terry Gibbs) there's another re-issue of another Coltrane album. I'll never understand it either, and since I can't really do anything about it, just keep buying the ones that interest me in hopes that the record company gets the message (put out more stuff that hasn't been issued previously, quit bombarding us with endless Coltrane repackages!) Well, I certainly agree with you, but almost all record companies, even jazz oriented ones, still pitch to the middle. Despite all the many reissues, Coltrane, Monk and Miles Davis must continue to outsell all the obscure artists that are on their first go around. If they really aimed at the Mosaic niche for instance, most would go under. Frustrating I know.

That's a terrible thing. And inconceivable to me. I sometimes have very dark thoughts, but anytime I get in such a deep funk I think about my children (4 and 2) and think about how much joy they bring into my life and how I need to be there for them. I wouldn't quite go so far as to say they saved my life (I was never that down), but they have brought much more light into it.

I think that's right. I remember being particularly pleased that the JiP's hadn't duplicated the Mosaic and vice-versa. Did Django record for any other labels (and yes, this is probably a pretty dumb question) that are represented on any other boxes, or do the JiPs and Mosaic pretty well cover it? Seems like there were some sessions he did in Britain that weren't on either one. greg mo Yes, the JSP have 2 CDs worth ? of material from London (they are at work and I can't check right now). The last set called Django on the Radio also seems to be largely distinct from the JiP, although this may have some of the Belgian material as well. If you are looking for a single comprehensive source, then JSP is probably the way to go.

I wonder if there were two Crazy Magazines, as there was definitely one in the late 1970s that ended in 1983. This was largely notable as it was edited for a while by Steve Gerber, the guy that came up with Howard the Duck (not the movie version). I'm positive I had one of the issues with Howard in it (might even be worth something now but it must have been tossed out). It isn't clear that these early origin stories got collected in the HtD Omnibus from last year.

Maybe we have another thread on the death of newspapers, but here's more somber news: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business...tml?_r=1&hp When you look into the details it gets far more depressing. They are laying off 145 reporters and keeping 20 blogging-types and auditioning others to provide free blogs. (yikes) And the big unknown because of the way costs and expenses were pooled with the Seattle Times is whether they take the Seattle Times down with them. People have different reactions to this, but I think it's a fucking tragedy. Bloggers are never going to keep politicians' feet to the fire (and as little accountability as we've had, imagine American life with the muckrakers all the way through Woodward and Bernstein). I don't think the next business model will prove remotely satisfactory.

I'm guessing that if you can find it for less than $10 now, it won't ever be worth more than $25 sealed or not.

I definitely enjoy Frog and Toad and so on, but I don't put them in the obscure category. If you do get a chance to look at The Great Blueness, you should. The illustrations are just incredible, very detailed and fascinating. This page doesn't really do it justice.

I thought that I would share some of the non-jazz related children's books that I've run across lately. I'm generally focusing here on books that I think are notable or hold some interest for me above and beyond the rewards of reading to my children. I'm also not covering the obvious kids' books: Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Paddington and so on. Probably everyone that reads to children is aware of Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day, but he actually wrote many more. In fact, I don't know exactly how many he wrote about the urban world of Peter and his friends, but I have roughly 12. The background art gets very complex in some of these, with perhaps the ones with the most visual interest being Apt. 3, Dreams and The Trip. Another book with a somewhat simpler story line but absolutely stunning pictures is The Night Eater by Ana Juan. I went ahead and ordered this just for the gorgeous illustrations. I'm a little more on the fence with The Goodnight Train by June Sobel. The rhythm is cathy and the pictures are nice, but this is one that is more for the kids than for me. Several of these are books I checked out from the library and decided that the kids enjoyed them so much, and I got something out of them, so I ordered them. The Great Blueness by Lobel falls into this category. It has the added advantage of teaching kids about the primary colors. Finally, The Great Alphabet Race by Campbell is one that I remember well from my childhood, but nostalgia aside I think it is actually a pretty interesting book. Here's a recent review: Alphabet Race review It is out of print, but it isn't very hard to come by. So those are the books that I thought I would start with. If there is interest, I might add a few others that I have enjoyed (these tend to be the ones I steer the kids towards).

I tracked this down and I didn't like it. Bluntly it is a book for adults masquerading as a children's book. The text has no real rhythm to it and the "directions" to the different elements can't be adequately verbalized. Stuff like watching a square (the square stands in for Tyner I think) squeeze up and down. Now supposedly this is watching them practise Giant Steps, but how many parents are going to be able to translate these images into sounds, particularly given the limited verbiage and no rhythmic cues. I sure can't. Possibly I could have done it with Naima. But anywhere there isn't much at all that a child would like here, so I don't quite know who this is marketed at. Far too hip for its own good. On the other hand, I did like The Penguin Quartet by Peter Arrhenius. It still doesn't have rhythm that matches the goings-on in the book, but at least the story is engaging, though thoroughly silly. Basically four penguins decide to start a jazz band, fly to New York and immediately get their big break. Now the Bebop Express by H. L. Panahi does have a pretty good rhythm going on, and I thought it has been the best so far of matching pictures and words to jazz.

Probably doesn't hurt that it is one of the smaller sets in terms of CDs. I really had to convince myself to get the Chu Berry (I believe 7 CDs) and it will be a similar struggle with the Armstrong, though I am sure I will buy it. By the way, the Chu Berry is currently on back-order which suggests it is selling reasonably well.

Excellent points. Just because you don't "get" someone, it doesn't mean that there is nothing there to "get". “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Well, we certainly get to make aesthetic judgements, but we should be prepared to back them up. I'm not a fan of Braxon at all. That doesn't mean I don't understand he is trying to do something, but it doesn't interest/move me. I've come to understand that I don't enjoy free jazz much at all, and I've largely stopped buying it to see if it is one of the few albums that I might enjoy. I guess some would say this is my loss... but I think it is just as silly to say that just because some people appreciate a certain style of music, then there must be some "there there" and the rest of us ought to keep working at it until we get it (this is not what Rob appears to be saying here, but this argument certainly comes up). Anyway, to me the metaphor that works is comparing jazz to contemporary art. If it is something that I could execute (whether or not I thought of it), then I think it is not art (my artistic abilities are pretty meager). However, if I know that an artist has considerable technical skills, but I know they are intentionally doing something ugly or childish, then I may cut them some slack. So if I hear someone blowing loud and fast, but basically just noodling around at the level I could achieve (I'm a marginally better reeds player than I am an artist) or conversely playing almost no notes and letting the "silence" carry the piece, then I will certainly suspect they are frauds who don't have any technical playing abilities and they have glommed onto free jazz as a way to obscure this fact. And again, if I know this is a technically proficient player doing something to make a point, I will be somewhat more responsive... but I still would be unlikely to enjoy the music or to listen again.