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Some columnist for SI was predicting that they wouldn't beat Argentina (which was favoured to win -- and might have done so by now), but I think it is pretty shocking that they couldn't beat Greece. Kurt Hinrich at least knows how to play defense -- WTF is going on with the rest of them?

So where can we buy the Complete RVG collection? There was a thread about this, but I'm too lazy to search. Complete RVG Of course, they call this the complete collection, but if they come out with new RVG Editions in the future, are they going to send them to you? I think not.

You're asking this question on a board where 45% of poll responses are from folks with more than 21 Mosaic sets? Yeah, but this is also the board where people gripe about Mosaic including all these albums they already have. I just think most people that might possibly be interested in this set would already have 10-30 of the individual DVDs already. I do.

Well, maybe we could start a pool with everyone claiming one or two of the films and then we have a lottery to determine who gets the book and runner up getting the t-shirts. Anyway, it still a bit much, given how many of the films I already have.

I know I have bought some enormous box sets in the past (Jazz in Paris comes to mind), but this box set (and the complete RVG Edition) spring to mind as really weird marketing decisions. Who would possibly shell out this kind of money when if they were that much of a film buff, they would have been buying the films individually? Granted the box set comes with a fancy book, but really ... I think of the 50 films, there are probably only 5 that I don't have that I might pick up. Only $850 ($650 if you pre-order) • ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938), Sergei Eisenstein • ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958), Andrzej Wajda • L'AVVENTURA (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni • BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (1959), Grigori Chukhrai • BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946), Jean Cocteau • BLACK ORPHEUS (1959), Marcel Camus • BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945), David Lean • THE FALLEN IDOL (1948), Carol Reed • FIRES ON THE PLAIN (1959), Kon Ichikawa • FISTS IN THE POCKET (1965), Marco Bellocchio • FLOATING WEEDS (1959), Yasujiro Ozu • FORBIDDEN GAMES (1952), René Clement • THE 400 BLOWS (1959), François Truffaut • GRAND ILLUSION (1937), Jean Renoir • HÄXAN (1922), Benjamin Christensen • IKIRU (1952), Akira Kurosawa • THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1952), Anthony Asquith • IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART II (1958), Sergei Eisenstein • LE JOUR SE LÈVE (1939), Marcel Carné • JULES AND JIM (1962), François Truffaut • KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), Robert Hamer • KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962), Roman Polanski • THE LADY VANISHES (1938), Alfred Hitchcock • THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • LOVES OF A BLONDE (1965), Milos Forman • M (1931), Fritz Lang • M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY (1953), Jacques Tati • MISS JULIE (1951), Alf Sjöberg • PANDORA'S BOX (1929), G.W. Pabst • PÉPÉ LE MOKO (1937), Jean Duvivier • IL POSTO (1961), Ermanno Olmi • PYGMALION (1938), Anthony Asquith • RASHOMON (1950), Akira Kurosawa • RICHARD III (1955), Laurence Olivier • THE RULES OF THE GAME (1939), Jean Renoir • SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), Akira Kurosawa • THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957), Ingmar Bergman • THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973), Víctor Erice • LA STRADA (1954), Federico Fellini • SUMMERTIME (1955), David Lean • THE THIRD MAN (1949), Carol Reed • THE 39 STEPS (1935), Alfred Hitchcock • UGETSU (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi • UMBERTO D. (1952), Vittorio De Sica • THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), Ingmar Bergman • VIRIDIANA (1961), Luis Buñuel • THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953), Henri-Georges Clouzot • THE WHITE SHEIK (1952), Federico Fellini • WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957), Ingmar Bergman • THREE DOCUMENTARIES: THE GREAT CHASE (1962), THE LOVE GODDESSES (1965), and PAUL ROBESON: TRIBUTE TO AN ARTIST (1979), Saul J. Turell Criterion 50 film box set

Well, I can't list all the bonus features, but basically season 1 spreads the 36 episodes over 5 DVDs -- generally 7 or 8 to a disc. Most individual episodes have a bonus feature such as audio commentary or the isolated score. Walking Distance also has a bit of a classroom lecture by Rod Serling. Some of the episodes have interviews with the actors, but they aren't contemporary interviews, such as a 1978 interview with Burgess Meredith. Generally, if it is recent commentary, it is writers, though there are exceptions such as Leonard Nimoy and Don Rickles. There are a fair number of historic interviews, however. Disc 6 is all Bonus Features. There is the original pilot of Where is Everybody, a couple of Rod Serling bloopers, a sales pitch featuring Rod (no idea why this was filmed), and a Twilight Zone radio show. Season 1 also should be bundled with the book The Twilight Zone Companion, which has details on all five seasons. That's one reason Season 1 is usually a bit more expensive. Seasons 2 and 3 are much the same with audio commentaries on many episodes, a few radio shows and some promo shots. Perhaps most interesting is an alternate ending (written but not filmed) for A Game of Pool. Some time next year, I'll pick up seasons 4 and 5. Since you asked, the episodes are arranged chronologically by air date. According to other reviews on Amazon, there are actually video interviews for Season 5. I am a bit disappointed that William Shatner does not do a commentary for Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Season 5 also has a Bonus DVD that appears to focus on Serling and his career. I would certainly recommend this set, since it has cleaned-up versions of all episodes and a pretty good amount of bonus material. I think it is pretty good value overall. Don't know how much it matters to people, but the cases are the slimline cases, so the whole set doesn't take up an entire shelf the way it used to. They are dual-layer but not double-sided DVDs (some people really don't like 2-sides DVDs as they get fingerprints everywhere I guess). I suppose I wouldn't buy these if I already had a fair number of the episodes in other formats, but I certainly thought this was the best way to go to get the episodes. Eric

They're worried about rising rent and they're considering south loop? Yikes. Of course, a trifecta of HotHouse, the Velvet Lounge and the Showcase all within a cheap cab ride of each other isn't a bad idea at all... Well, at the moment rent in the south loop is almost certainly lower than River North. There still isn't quite as much foot traffic in the South Loop.

Tower Japan is a separate operation from US Tower with completely different ownership. Apparently they are doing very well and an IPO is planned in the near future. By the way, did you check out the Disk Union in Shibuya? They have several of the TOCJ 1500 series on sale at 1000 Yen. HMV Shibuya also was selling them at 20% off recently. This series seems to be widely discounted. I had a few hours on my last day to do some more CD shopping. I tried to find one of the CD stores in Shinjuku but a lousy map and bad directions did me in. I made it to the Shibuya Disc Union about 15 minutes before they shut and did pick up 3 of the TOCJ 1500 series for 1000 Yen (yes, quite a bargain) and a few used CDs, including Freddie Roach's Down to Earth and Shepp's Deja Vu. What I found quite odd was that artists are alphabetized by their first name, which took some mental energy on my part to find things. I wish I had had more time, but I think I did pretty well for two days, filling in some gaps in my BN collection, mostly Duke Pearson, Lou Donaldson, Freddie Roach's Down to Earth and Baby Face Willette's Stop and Listen. Best of all, work paid for most of the trip (not the CDs though).

Actually, the interview I point to is a fairly balanced affair (wanted to be fair) but it mentions the controversy surrounding Reed. The book that caused me to lose all interest in Reed was Airing Dirty Laundry, where his basic argument is that the media celebrates only those Black female writers who have the worst things to say about Black men. There are a number of responses one can make, but it essentially devalues large numbers of writers and makes them out to be pawns. It also posits that art should only contain positive images of Blacks, which I think is hogwash. Ironically, the interview has a short quote from Stanley Crouch --and worse I actually agree with him -- to the effect that Reed peaked with Mumbo Jumbo and it has all been downhill since then.

It looks like I will be back in Chicago by early spring. This looks like one more reason to head to the South Loop -- now if the furor over HotHouse settles down by spring I will be set.

I like his earlier stuff, but around the mid to late 1990s, Reed started saying some awful things about Black women and writers in particular who went around dishing the dirt on Black men. He also seems to hate the fact that Black female authors sell better than Black male authors in the US. Frankly, he strikes me as an unreconstructed male chauvinist. Here's a bit of an overview: Reed interview So I don't have any time for his recent work. I do like The Free-Lance Pallbearers and Flight to Canada, which are both quite interesting.

Could someone report back on the 160 bit-rate files? If they sound reasonable, that's probably the route I will take. Thanks. Eric

I think Tiger now needs a trophy room bigger than my house. Just think that a couple of years back people were writing about Tiger's slump and how he was beatable, and now they're all terrified of him again, which gives him at least +3 in the head games that are a major part of golf.

This one really intrigues me - a solo piano album by a UK artist who draws heavily on classical composers. It isn't out just yet, though some critics on BBC radio have it and are talking it up a bit. Apparently, it was recorded while she was pregnant, hence the title. I'd say from the sound clips it is a bit heavier than the ECM style (which is to the good). Here's the link: New Life I've liked several of the releases on Babel a fair bit (Polar Bear especially), and they often put their releases on emusic, so that's probably how I'd get this. Anyway, if anyone knows more about this release or Julie Sassoon, do fill me in. Thanks.

I have 13 and some time next year I will pick up the Nelson and Gillespie bringing me to 15. This doesn't count the number of sets I have replicated because I came onto the scene a bit too late, particularly the Andrew Hill and Jackie McLean sets, which would have been far more convenient than gathering the material piece-meal as I did. I also don't often just pick up one of the sets and listen to one disc (when I do it is usually from the Farmer/Golson set), but I am trying to listen more regularly now that I have moved my Mosaic collection to mp3 format. On the whole I like Mosaic a lot, but find that on the whole I tend towards the Selects than the big boxes. Maybe it has to do with really wanting to see the LP covers. That's the one thing that I just don't understand, that they couldn't reproduce the covers and at least some of the original liner notes in the Mosaic booklets.

I saw Maynard live once. He was the featured guest at a high school marching band competition held in Soldier Field in Chicago. It was probably 1985, maybe 1986. He was on after the finals. Anyway, he was in good form and could still hit those high notes. During a Brazilian-inflected number, the band I was in started doing a congo-type line dance and pretty soon we were snaking through the stadium. At the very end of the show, there were fireworks. What a night! We were so jazzed to make it to the competition and to be in the big city. If I recall correctly, we came pretty close to making the finals that year and made the finals the following year. I never really thought about seeing him live again, as nothing would quite live up to that.

Worth noting that eMusic has just added this but it is listed under David Newman only and that a search for Fathead misses it.

I have to admit, I thought Herbert was going to be writing about the Bush administration ...

I'd say things do look bad for Tower Records in the US, but I happened to be in Tokyo this week, and I stopped in at the one in Shibuya. It was hopping, and well stocked. So perhaps there will be a liquidation of the US stores and a spin off of the international ones. Who knows... Anyway, the prices were a little bit better than typical Tower Record prices, but I tried to refrain from going crazy. I'm trying to only get Japanese pressings where there is a significant savings. Perhaps the coolest thing is that a fair number of the Blue Note TOCJs in the 1500 series are being sold for 1500 Yen, which is a bit under $15. I picked up three Duke Pearsons which don't appear to be widely available. That was it, though I was tempted by a few other things, including some hard to find Archie Shepps. I may still go back.

Interestingly, there is a pretty big push for this in the Tokyo Tower Records, which I visited today. Bunches of copies and it's CD number one in one of the listening stations in the front of the jazz section. It's still a bit higher than I want to spend (2400 Yen, which is around $23 I think). Actually there might be a 10% sale on, but it's hard for me to tell. I guess if I was going to get it, this would be the time. But I already have the cut with Sanders from the 12 inch.

Exactly. I'm also Raja - too short and too heavy for my position and average at just about everything (basketball-related that is). But just think, even the suckiest NBA player gets a couple hundred thousand a year just to stink up the court, even if it is only for a year or two. Man, I wish I had that gig!

I think generally it is under Getz's name. Here is a link from CD Universe. CD Universe I'll probably pick up a copy, but I might as well listen to a few tracks first.

I hear you. I don't like football either. Of course, I don't consider myself a native Chicagoan either. The only sport I willingly watch is basketball. Don't like the others much. I'm glad the Bulls are starting to pull it together again, and it was great living here during the Jordan years. But I don't have particularly deep loyalties. Oddly, the one team I really really hate is the NHL Blackhawks. I mean I think it is stupid to have hockey teams in the South and that has serious degraded the long-term prospects of hockey, but I don't hate the teams in the south. I always root for the Redwings.

Am rereading The Pickwick Papers slowly. I'm also going to take Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland with me on my trip to Japan. I only read one Murakami from early in his career, and want to see how he developed.

You learn something new every day. Looking ahead to next Friday, they will be playing the tracks off Stan Getz's Focus and discussing them. Focus is still in print, so that in itself isn't so fascinating, but they are playing three tracks off Mickey One, which is a follow up pairing of Getz and Eddie Sauter. Never heard of it, but it sounds like something I'd like to know about. Here's Kevin Whitehead's take (from Amazon): Anyway, in about a week, I can listen for myself and see if this is something I would pick up. If it is anything like Focus, I will, since I think Focus is a great album. Anyway, here's the link:BBC show details Then go to the Jazz Legends home page and click listen to the latest program. You'll need Real Player. Also, the show can be listened to for a week after it airs.