ejp626

This kind of reminds me of the "Are you a fraud?" thread on the Washington Post, though this could be read as a more positive question, i.e. "Will you leave a legacy?" I had the fortune (and misfortunate) of working on a few interesting and very innovative projects early in my career. They tangentially are used to support transportation planning in NYC (esp. getting federal funding), so indirectly, I have affected millions of people. But it has all been downhill from there, in terms of impact and innovation. And I've never been willing to settle, so have been progressively more unhappy with work with each passing year. I generally have an article or two per year appear in professional journals. I think for a lot of people, that would be plenty, but I just feel I could contribute more. I've been working on making the move into academics, and simultaneously working on a book. I can't really envision finding the time I need to work on the book while working as a full-time consultant. And as work has gotten more and more rote, I have been drawn (like a moth) back to the university. Where I get into trouble is having a lot of unfinished creative projects on the side. As Art Shay wrote about Nelson Algren - he was a first rate starter of projects and a very mediocre finisher of them. I have been able to finish a number of poems and have sent them around. I also have a couple of chapters of a novel done, and a couple of scenes from a play. All things considered, I will probably try to finish the play first, while I am still in Chicago (if I get this academic job, I will be moving). In fact, I think I'll go off and work on that a bit this afternoon. Ciao.

That's probably true. A lot of idiots have been buying second holiday-homes and buy-to-lets and leveraging themselves into the stratosphere. They will be well and truly shafted over the next few years. Someone was pointing out that on a per capita basis, the UK has already spent and/or committed considerably more than the US on bailouts. Iceland aside, the UK is probably the most exposed of Western European countries and has the least diversified economy to try to pull through this crisis. What I don't understand is with all the general unhappiness of following the US's lead (on everything) and how poorly this has worked out for them is that one of the political parties hasn't reinvented itself as an anti-US party. I think it would do quite well. The problem is that the natural party would be Labour, and its leaders continue to orient themselves towards the US and away from Europe.

I have been on a fiction jag, after slogging through some academic books on urbanization (some were good to be fair). I read Murakami's After Dark. I can see why it got lukewarm reviews. It is about two sisters, one of whom does nothing at all for the entire book, and could easily have been omitted. Except for the fact that nearly all of Murakami's books seem to contain dualisms and switch back and forth between times, narrators, characters, etc. The other thing is that of the Murakami I have read, it sort of peters out and there is no real resolution. This one was an exagerrated version of that with 3 or 4 threads left hanging. I still enjoyed the half about the active sister (and her budding friendship/romance with a trombone player!), but it certainly isn't top-rank Murakami for sure. Then I read Kramer's A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space. This came out in the mid 1980s under Vintage Contemporary, as part of a push to mainstream literary (as opposed to easy reading) fiction. Some of the other well-known books in this imprint are A Visit from the Footbinder and Clea and Zeus Divorce. Well, I finally got around to reading this one. This is sort of a fable about soldiers waiting for war, as well as about family secrets (and incest), but I just didn't care for it. It was too flat. Too many people acted in ways that were completely unbelievable. Generally not much happens until 30 pages towards the end, but then they pull short of any real resolution. I would probably have liked it more 10 years ago. Finally, I read Jesse Bell's Samedi the Deafness. This got raves in several book review circles. I was more like, meh. There are certainly echoes of Kafka, but only a handful of reviewers have picked up that the entire book is a riff on G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. I really dislike Chesterton, as I think he is a religious prig. So I didn't like the source material, and I generally am not that impressed by books that are that open about their source material. So really I only liked one-half book of the last three books I've read. It looks like I will be reading Oscar Wao pretty soon (borrowing this one from the library), and I hope this is the one to break the streak.

I don't know if the Cowboy Junkies are still active, but they were big in the early 1990s and played very restrained, etheral music. Maybe even a forerunner of mumblecore. But then live, they turned it up 11 notches. (I saw them opening for Bruce Hornesby). They weren't the loudest I've ever seen by far, but perhaps the largest gap in volume between recorded and live. I loved the live show, and if they put a fraction of that energy into their recordings, I would probably have them all.

Saw the first set on Sat. of Organissimo at Andy's. I talked to Larry Kart and briefly to Rachel and the guys in the band. It was a great set including -- Stomp Your Feet, Bleecker, Senor Buffet and ending with Groovadelphia. Glad to finally see the guys in person. Hopefully they'll make it out to Chicago more. Andy's is not known for serious jazz listening (compared to Green Mill for instance) but the guys really had the crowd in their hands.

I saw Camper Van Beethoven in Ann Arbor on their last tour before the break-up. This was probably 1989. My ears were ringing for a couple of hours after the concert, and that rarely happens to me. David Bowie in 2001 ? was also very loud, and the bass was boosted. I enjoyed both concerts but they were certainly loud.

How's the Armstrong? We might need an occasional reminder that some of these are still available elsewhere (I know I don't always check in time ). For instance Dizzy Cool World and Dizzy Goes Hollywood are both on the recent Mosaic box set, and Hobo Flats is on the Nelson Mosaic set. (I'm pretty sure Hobo Flats is one where the entire album shows up and not halfsies.)

Yep. TCM or bust.

This looks pretty tempting. I'll try to give a listen the next time I am at Dusty Groove: http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=g58...p;ref=index.php Their reissue program seems to be going strong, though as eclectic as ever.

Looks like I can make the Sat. show. I'll make sure to check in if I turn up a bit early.

I did order the book. I like it, but it certainly has shortcomings. The usual suspects, particularly Miles Davis and John Coltrane, get the most covers. Very few for Ellington for instance. As far as "early" covers go, there are a fair number from Norman Granz productions and not so much otherwise. Overall tilted towards Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, but plenty of unusual choices from lesser known labels. Certainly there are a number I would have included (Magnificent Thad Jones, for instance). I suppose my main complaint is that I couldn't tell what the criterion was for selection. Grouping by musician rather than label or designer undercuts the design aspects and basically leaves it as an interesting selection of jazz covers.

PM sent on Cole Transcriptions

Yep, we discussed this briefly. It has some great extras - an entire extra disc for In the Footsteps of M. Hulot. I believe that Jour de Fete is the only one not available in the US through Criterion; you still need a region 2 import for that. I was somewhat indifferent to Playtime the first time I saw it (on video). It has almost no plot and very minimal dialogue. But it sort of haunted me (in particular what was I missing that so many critics loved). And I was challenged by it in a way. A few years ago, when Criterion was prepping for the new release, a 70 mm print was making the rounds, and I managed to see it on the big screen. This time I enjoyed it a lot more, paying more attention to the visual and sound gags. However, I think Playtime (and perhaps Tati in general) really appeals to people who are attuned to two things -- 1) paying attention to film as a medium rather than looking for conventional plot and 2) people with a nostalgic, even melancholy nature. Tati is fundamentally a backwards-looking artist, examining how modernity is hollow and people are much better off retaining older (presumably pre-WWII) modes of life. Now this is oversimplifying a bit; nonetheless, modernity and consumption culture only serve to impede people's relationships with others. This is certainly what I find so fascinating about Tati, looking at his depiction of France's coming to terms with modernity.

aloc's everyday car has 200,000+ miles and a dozen years on it and he isnt looking. Well, that's one thing I do have going for me. I've always tried to live near transit and/or close enough to bike to work. We have a car that is probably 7 years old, and has fewer than 11,000 miles on it. (Most of this was my wife driving actually.) So we probably won't be getting a new car for years. While I've actually thought about getting a Prius from time to time, given how little we drive, we would never make back the up-front investment. (Our car is a compact anyway.) I haven't felt much yet, though I did notice that my college fund accounts for my kids were way off. That bums me out, but I'll just ride it through like most people. I probably ought to cut back a bit more, but I've never gone off and spent more than I earned. Like Jim, I insisted on getting a fixed rate mortgage (and we did buy less than we wanted but it was something we could afford), so am not too worried about a ballooning rate or going upside down or anything like that. Eric

Peter: Interested in these. PM sent. Eric

I should be able to make it, though I have to clear late night activities.

I did go ahead and order this, and it looks like a good transfer with very nice audio commentary. Criterion/Eclipse have an awful lot of Ozu's films in circulation. There's one called Green Tea that so far is still only available on a Region 2 Tartan box set. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the insert -- the middle pages were missing. While I could certainly return to Amazon, it seemed kind of wasteful, so I contacted Criterion and pointed out the situation. They are mailing me a new one today. On the whole, the customer service isn't quite up to Mosaic standards (based on other experiences), but it's awfully good for such a company.

I think his decisions in game 1 were really questionable, particularly expecting the pitcher to pitch his way out of a jam when he had control problems from the first inning. Just too old school for me. Now his real dilemma is the middle relief has pretty much sucked all season. So maybe he didn't feel he had a choice, but the grand slam really sucked the life out of the Cubs. Then when Z imploded the next game, they all tightened up, realizing it was all over. Given they couldn't get over the hump with a talented club, I can't see it happened any time soon.

I was only planning on getting the Three Sounds Soul Symphony of the recent Blue Note reissues, but at the local used store (the only one worth a damn anymore in Chicago), they had this plus Elegant Soul and Reuben Wilson's Set Us Free. While the price is still higher than YourMusic will be (if they get them), it was low enough that I sprung for them.

Well, this is hardly definitive, but a site called bowker.com claims that it lists 5.8 million books for the US (including some out of print, and obviously a lot of duplication between editions and variants). For the global version, they have 15.4 million books (including 5.8 from the US). In other words, the US has produced roughly 1/3 of the current books in print. Now the UK market may be roughly the same size as the US, but no way are they generating 5 times the number of books as they US. If you broke that down to fiction/literature, I think the relationship would hold about the same.

I saw them at Fez once, and it was quite good. I am sorry I didn't make it more while I was living in Brooklyn. I've seen them in other settings -- once in the Lincoln Center Plaza (where they weren't all that) and another time in Chicago, when they were very good again.

This could probably go in the Film Corner as well. Anyway, I remember we had discussed this a while back, but Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon was just released by Criterion. Amazon still has good prices on this, so I think I will jump. Another really interesting entry in the Eclipse series is this -- Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women. Four films on "the plight of women in male-dominated Japanese society": Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion, Women of the Night, and Street of Shame. While there are certainly gaps, this simply has to be the best time for film lovers (in the gap while DVDs are still a viable medium and almost everything is still in print).

Don't know if Ellington/Strayhorn have been on Composer of the Week, but this should be an interesting week. Possibly the first jazz-related composer to be featured. Anyway, several days still to catch the first episode (of 5). I'll probably listen to the whole batch this weekend. BBC Composer of the week

I've got a couple of the Joe Bataan's (hopefully the rest will crop up). I've got a really interesting Fania remix sampler, but it doesn't seem to be on eMusic yet. Another label that looks veeerry interesting is Emusica with something called Tito Puente Complete 78s and De Panama a Nueva York by Ruben Blades. I'll probably get me some dls from them as well.

JSP was once a great legit label that did superior remasterings of classic recordings, and also made new recordings. Now they are pirate label, and one of the worst. They ripped off the remasters of the Mosaic Bunny Berigan set and Revenant Charlie Patton set only months after they were released. Those sets required significant investments by Mosaic and Revenant, which were, in effect, stolen by JSP. Lonehill may be a bad label, but they sure have made available a good number of long lost older recordings that the companies with copyright never had any plans to release. So I have mixed feelings about Lonehill. And yet, I think that they (JSP) are still putting out good product mixed with bad. I'm thinking specifically of Django on the Radio from 2008 and their truly massive Fats Waller set (scheduled to be 24 discs).