ejp626

Ask and you shall receive. This site has samples of every track apparently. DVD Brazil The samples are short of course, but it should be enough to allow me to make up my mind. It does sound like great stuff, but I'll probably still have to put it on a wish list rather than ordering it today. Eric

I'd consider myself a fan of Naxos. They are generally good quality recordings, sometimes very good. For obscure Baroque composers, they are usually the only titles in print at any given time. Right now I am staring at Naxos recordings of concertos composed by Locatelli and Geminiani. In any case, I just ran across something called the Naxos Music Library, where you can join and stream essentially any Naxos title. I'm going to sign up for the 7-day free trial and see how I like it. At least according to the website, the user has complete control over what is being streamed, unlike Blue Note radio for example. Naxos Music Library

Not sure if this has been mentioned above, but emusic has a handful of Baden Powell albums for download, including Seresta Brasileira. Also a place called calabash has four of his more recent albums. Calabash I'm looking for a place with working samples of the earlier material to see if I am ready to spring for the box set. I may have to hold off for a while. Eric

Interesting piece, though not without its own hyperbole -- that many if not most jazz lovers come to jazz through Armstrong, Bix or Morton. This has to be a generational thing. I came to jazz largely through Brubeck, Monk and Mingus and to a lesser extent Miles Davis. I suspect most people in their 30s came to jazz through Miles Davis and perhaps Coltrane or Cannonball. Some teens are probably coming to jazz through the remix projects that are played in Starbucks, etc.

Shoot -- it looks like another essential release to get (and my finances are tight this month), though I will be seriously pissed if they offer an expanded edition with all the music in six months. So is "Creation" as good as Guy says it is, and how come Verve didn't see fit to release that? Eric

Not a huge fan by any stretch, but I like some of their songs a lot (Take the Long Way Home in particular). On the other hand, I find it painful to listen to some of their "hits."

To be honest, I wonder that myself. My family has "good genes" or at least "old genes" with most family members reaching late 80s or 90s. My parents' generation seems to be dying in their 50s. I wonder if in the US we have created such a toxic environment, including the switch to an unhealthy diet, that our life expectancy is much shorter, along the lines of the really thin bird egg shells that are broken so much easier when the mother is exposed to pesticides. Are today's boomers more fragile, health-wise than their parents? So far, I guess the mortality rates aren't picking up on this, but I definitely wonder if there will be a wholesale shuffling off the mortal coil of the boomers before they reach 70.

Well, I hated dishwashing as a child (one of my main chores) and I hate it now. It generally falls to me, since my wife does more of the cooking. Sometimes I just wouldn't get around to it in the evening. So having a dishwasher removed a huge source of stress from my life and from our marriage.

I was one block east of City Hall when two panhandlers tag-teamed me and followed me for two blocks. That is by far the most menaced I have ever been by panhandlers, and yes I have been all over the US and lived for five years in both New York and Chicago. Also, three blocks south of City Hall on a weekend, a panhandler/vendor swore at me and called me a racist when I didn't buy an umbrella from him for $5 when it was 90 degrees out. People's experiences are always subjective, but my experiences, particularly walking on the east side of the downtown, tell me that Philly is on a downward skid.

The SIMS card thing is very specific to Europe. That's not how US phones are designed, though it used to be possible to have the number changed or turned back on. Maybe the GPS thing would be a problem.

Actually, I was just in Philly in Aug. and left far more depressed about the state of the city than I have in a long time. Any city that leaves it central core deserted on the weekend and running over with agressive panhandlers (much worse than the ones in NYC and Chicago) is not a healthy city.

Why do we always come back to killing people when this topic comes up? Sure most people agree it's a bad idea to go about killing people. That's one prohibition out of a thousand that civil society needs to function. And please don't come back and say that the humanist version of the Golden Rule is enough to keep society going. It ain't. I'm not saying that societies have to be religious to function, but I do think secular societies with a very diverse population (with very different background ideas on how to behave) are under a great deal of strain. I think we basically bumble along, making it up as we go along, and it is astonishing there aren't more social strains than there are. In any case, while most people agree that killing people is wrong, there are plenty of people (in the US and other societies) that carve out huge exceptions. Either they feel the State can kill people to punish them under certain conditions (particularly treason), or they feel that they can kill someone who murdered their brother or raped their sister. Or if their head of state declares war on another state. Or their territory has been invaded by another clan. The number of people who adhere to an absolute policy of no killing is actually quite a small percentage, even though the number of people who actually kill someone is quite low fortunately. I have pacifist leanings myself, but I certainly would have fought for the Allies in WWII, for example.

I agree with some of what Noj wrote, but I was responding to what appears on the surface to be an extremely weak article that seems to simply cherrypick data designed to make the US look bad (not that there's any shortage of that) and attribute it to religion. I think the problem with coming up with a moral system outside of religion is that when you consider the moral rules that *everyone* would agree on, there wouldn't be enough of a system to make society function. In general people fill in the void on a sort of ad hoc basis, drawing on their own traditions (generally religious) to give sufficient support to civil society.

Maybe, though I think one really has to stretch the definition of Godless citizenry to include England, where the majority of the population is nominally Christian though also pro-evolution. As for the reverse position, that the uniquely Christian nature of the US has led to more STD and other social ills, this seems like a completely spurious set of associations. The causal chain is much more likely to run something like the Puritanical strain leads to weak sex education in the US and thus to higher STD. There might be a connection to a particular brand of Christianity, particularly right wing Evangelical Christianity, leading to social ills, but a blanket statement about religion leading countries downward into chaos seems downright stupid.

I didn't see Dungeons & Dragons -- or other role playing games. Those had been around in the 1970s but really got big in the 1980s. I played a bit BUT I stopped in high school. Trendy clothes - OP (Ocean Pacific) - nothing more pathetic than kids from the midwest dressing like they are going to go hang ten. Izod - still around I gather Polo The preppy look was kind of a fad, though one that seems to have returned. Skinny ties I still like narrow ties, but not the extremely skinny ones. Tie-dies (from the 1970s). I've indulged in more than my share of fads, though I've never let one take over my life (well, maybe the internet).

Well, CD Universe treated me right. I had the Monk/Coltrane in the same order with the Cellar Door set (at the low price). I decided not to cancel the Monk/Coltrane, but they went ahead and shipped the it last night anyway. Still, annoying that the Cellar Door has been delayed. Hopefully it will be coming out at end of Oct.

Hmm -- too bad. Any idea of the resolution of the images? Better than the cartoon book, where people were griping?

Knock em dead, guys. Really sorry I can't make it, but let us know when you make your swing across the Atlantic.

That's very true. In fact, I recently cancelled my subscription to the New Yorker, since I really can't keep up with more than one weekly magazine at a time (and the Economist is the one I chose). In fact, I hadn't planned to keep it up at all after I moved away from NYC, but they gave me such a great "professional rate" that I really couldn't refuse. But with the second move, the shipping to England thing became the deciding factor. That said, I did pick up the National Geographic on DVD, figuring that my son could use it for school projects and such when he is older. Still, I am certainly tempted to get the New Yorker on DVD -- maybe I'll wait for some reviews here about the quality of the covers and the cartoons.

Re: the cartoons, that's actually quite interesting, since they are essentially undercutting their other product, which was a thick book of cartoons from the New Yorker with a CD (or DVD) containing all the cartoons. I was close to buying that, but this would be the better product. Too bad searching is limited. Maybe there will be a way to import the data into another program with full search abilities.

Wow -- glad you're ok. My very strangest driving experience was coming back from a concert in Detroit with friends. Started seeing stuff in the highway, which I was able to drive over, then a cushion or something. Then a loveseat in the middle of the lane, I kid you not. It must have all fallen off the back of a pickup. I have no idea what hitting that at 60 mph would have done, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I cheated into the other lane and fortunately didn't sideswipe anyone. I suspect someone hit it right after me though.

Someone loaned this to me -- in fact pushed it on me as I tried to demure. I feel it is every bit as bad as I expected. A total mishmash, with more than a little sounding new Agey. And on a few tracks, particularly the Santana and Johnny Lang, Herbie is completely buried under the guitar for long stretches. Not a good disc at all. Oh well, maybe next time.

Thanks - very helpful. Apparently then the Fresh Sounds CD has both albums in their entirety. I always wonder about this, since the release dates are not quite early enough for PD (in Europe). Did Fresh Sounds actually license this or not -- and would that make any difference to the people who can't stand Fresh Sounds, Definitive, etc? As I mentioned, there may be a US issue fairly soon, but it is hard to say. Dusty Groove link I'm more interested in a three cornered cat than a hat, myself.

Apparently, Something Else (Bethlehem) was left off (which is actually the same album as Something Else Again, apparently). Can someone let me know the tracks on that album? Dustygroove is offering a Definitive CD that pairs Something Else with Walk Softly Run Wild, though there is no indication if any tracks were left off. Conversely, there is some rumor that Something Else will be reissued by Shout! So that would be the more legit way to go -- if it happens of course. Thanks. I'm waiting for a bit longer but plan on getting the Richards Select. It sounds like something I would enjoy.

I see on Duets there is a track with Richard Marx -- twins separated at birth?