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An interview with Tony Allen in the Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/19/tony-allen-afrobeats-master-on-hugh-masekela-damon-albarn-and-friction-with-fela-kuti It pointed me to a recording that he and Hugh Masekela did back in 2010, Rejoice, which has just been released for the first time today, wherever you buy or more likely stream music.

It will be a fascinating case study down the road to see if it really made a difference that the UK held off so long on closing schools (and pubs are apparently still open!). Australia is one of the only hold outs (where the government is actually threatening private schools that want to shut down!). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-19/coronavirus-why-is-australia-keeping-schools-open/12070702 It seems very clear to me (from a distance) that they have the science exactly wrong. Kids are largely immune, which is great for them and their parents, but they are near-perfect vectors of infection.

Just a small rant. I've found out yesterday that our accounts payable dept. will not process invoices without the original hard copy (I kid you not!). So I will have to come in and put the invoices into inter-office mail (which apparently is still also working) and then split. (At least I can bike to work and shouldn't run across anyone while at work.) Believe me, I have flagged this and elevated to the CEO, so they may see the error of their ways soon, but some people truly do not have any common sense! I've heard similar horror stories of judges not accepting electronic filings, though I am expecting there will start being some executive orders coming down shortly (and very likely all trials and judicial proceedings will be suspended in short order).

He is still playing, though I don't think he gets much outside of Toronto (and maybe Vancouver, pre-epidemic). It's a little frustrating as he doesn't have a very good website listing his sideman gigs (and he doesn't appear to lead his own groups any more). There are a few leaders he tends to gig with, like Kirk McDonald and Renee Rosnes, so when I see them, I click through to see if the whole band is listed.

Don't know about vinyl, but I've had it on CD for practically forever. Actually went to a gig Swainson was at last year and got him to sign it.

I realize the Olympics a bit further ahead and we hope to have things under control, but if this isn't an omen, I don't know what is -- https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/japan-olympic-committee-deputy-head-coronavirus-1.5500091 " the vice-chairman of the Japan Olympic Committee, has tested positive for the coronavirus..."

I've read that the Old Vic in the UK is extremely reluctant to do refunds for cancelled shows. Most the theatre companies here are processing full refunds, though most will at least ask you to consider leaving the funds with them as a credit (for future production some day) or an outright donation. If I'm asked very nicely, I will consider holding off on a refund, though it gets my back up when you assume that I will or make it hard for me to get said refund. I have encountered one company in Toronto that was very reluctant to do any refunds, but I decided not to press the issue. Given that my gym membership fee is very nominal, I will continue paying that for the time being. I'd like them to be able to keep the lights on and still be there whenever this blows over. Same with the arts/theatre companies for that matter.

Thanks for the update. From this list, I've read The Jokers, which was interesting and well-written, and Letter to Survivors, which is kind of a one-joke graphic novel. (I would definitely recommend borrowing from the library...) I own, but haven't read, Ride a Cockhorse and The Alteration. (One of these days...) I'm nearly done with Pale Horse, Pale Rider and will tackle The Plague next. I've heard that the newish translation by Robin Buss is the way to go. Since the libraries are closed here(!), I'll be going through the tall stack of books near my desk. Maxwell's Château and DeLillo's Cosmopolis and probably Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being and eventually Celine's Journey to the End of the Night (another uplifting tale...).

I ran by a downtown grocery store and they had just received a shipment of tp. They were rationing it to 2 large packages per household. While a lot of people had one in their carts, it wasn't universal. The panic, at least downtown, seems to have subsided. Still no tp in my neighbourhood stores. Where I think there will be a lot of grumbling and second-guessing is when the 2-3 week lock down goes into a full month and beyond. Especially because schools are closed and there is virtually nothing for children (who supposedly are less susceptible) to do. They can't go to spring break camp, rec centres, libraries, pools, museums, etc. And this is also the time we'll start seeing the first wave of bankruptcies.

I live near two groceries stores. Neither had toilet paper. Both were pretty much stripped of rice, beans and canned vegetables. One still had a moderate amount of fresh fruit/vegetables, while the other was stripped bare. Toronto is going into very close to full lock-down -- all public libraries, rec centres, pools and virtually all museums are closed. Schools were just heading into spring break (at the last minute Canadians were told not to travel, so we'll see who can and cannot cancel) and they will be closed for another two weeks after that. People are hoping the siege will be lifted in mid-April, though I am expecting mid-May. I will admit that I am glad we finally have the warmer weather, so if I am out and about (though that will be much rarer, since my employer is calling for essentially mandatory telecommuting and virtually everything else will be closed) I can ride my bike rather than take the bus/train.

Even Cafe des Copains has closed! There's the Jazz Bistro (which I don't like, given its layout) and very rare shows at The Old Mill. On the positive side, The Rex has jazz acts pretty much every evening, but it is very local.

Toronto has a lot going for it, but it has not been able to sustain a major jazz club (the Rex is fine for what it is, but it does not get major acts). Hugh's Room (which was completely off my radar) is shutting down at the end of the month, so things will be just that much bleaker for jazz fans...

As always, pretty underwhelmed - http://torontojazz.com/ Herbie Hancock is the biggest name, and he's coming through in Sept. long after the festival is over! I wouldn't see him anyway after the terrible concerts he gave during various Chicago stints. Of what is announced now, I'd probably check out Scofield-Holland and pass on the rest (that is if there is even going to be a festival this summer!). There may be some local and/or free events posted closer to the summer that will appeal to me more.

Just wrapping up the stories in The Word of the Speechless. A bit hit or miss, as many short story collections are, but on the whole pretty interesting pieces from a writer completely new to me (thanks again, NYRB!). I've decided to take a short detour into contagion literature, so will tackle Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider and Camus's The Plague (I've been remiss and never actually read this previously). While only a chapter of Ben Cohen's The Hot Hand is about Shakespeare and the plague, this excerpt was intriguing enough for me to put a hold on it at the library: https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/shakespeare-plague-influence-hot-hand-ben-cohen.html Whenever I am through all this, I will go back to Maxwell's The Château.

Guardian obit here - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/09/max-von-sydow-star-of-the-exorcist-and-the-seventh-seal-dies-aged-90 For me, probably his most memorable role was in Bergman's Winter Light, with Through a Glass Darkly as a close second.

First time watching Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest I found it incredibly dreary and not remotely compelling.

A few interesting titles to be sure (though sadly the sale is already over). The sale listings led me to David Jones's In Parenthesis. This in many ways is what T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land would have been like if it were 5 or 10 times longer, had more prose sections, and was focused on exclusively on life in the trenches during WWI. (It's not really a surprise that T.S. Eliot was a major promoter of In Parenthesis.) I think for most folks, including me, this is basically a curiosity that would be read once and set aside, but I'm sure for others it will resonate more strongly. I also wrapped up Hrabel's I Served the King of England. It had its moments, but didn't really do that much for me. Just starting in on the stories in The Word of the Speechless, and the next book after that should be Maxwell's The Château and some of his short stories as well.

RIP. Was fortunate to see him at least twice and probably three times at Symphony Center in Chicago (never in a true jazz setting unfortunately).

Had a very long Friday, spent largely on buses, getting to a meeting 2 hours away from our main office. (We decided to take the bus rather than trying to drive through some snow squalls. Then on the return leg, our train was cancelled due to frozen switches, so it was back on the bus...) On the positive side, I managed to read a large chunk of The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which I wrapped up on Sat. This was my second time through. It holds up pretty well (sort of a mix of Dashiell Hammett and PKD's The Man in the High Castle), though I'm not quite sure I can buy the ending. The Word of the Speechless turned up, so I'll be going through those stories and starting Hrabal's I Served the King of England.

Sincere condolences. That is a lot of loss to process.

I was in one Tower store in Tokyo, probably the one in Shibuya. I'm sure I picked up a couple of things, but there was a smaller music store in the neighborhood where I picked up a few more CDs (probably mostly BNs not available in the States). I didn't take detailed notes, however, and have forgotten the actual purchases.

About halfway through Dawn Powell's The Wicked Pavilion. It starts a bit disjointed, as she focuses on five or so different groups of people (who all occasionally dine at the Cafe Julien) but then the plot threads start to knit together. A lot of sharp commentary, particularly when a "respectable" woman gets rounded up with a bunch of prostitutes and ends up in a hospital ward and some notes on how artists are only appreciated after their death... I'm closing in on my survey of Powell's novels, with only one more major one (The Golden Spur) left, though one day I'll circle around to some of her earlier works, like Angels on Toast. On the near horizon, Hrabal's I Served the King of England and Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I also have a fairly recent (well, new in English) short story collection by Julio Ramón Ribeyro, The Word of the Speechless (NYRB) on hold at the library. It appears The Word of the Speechless is a pretty good sampler, 19 or so stories across Ribeyro's whole career, but is only a very small taste. Perhaps this will inspire a translation of the rest of the stories and possibly his remaining 2 novels (Chronicle of San Gabriel has been translated into English).

I went to the one on Broadway in NYC quite often in the early 90s (then there was a sister store about a block away that specialized in discount labels -- I picked up quite a few Vogue recordings there). I didn't go nearly as often to the one near Lincoln Center. Probably the weirdest thing I picked up at Tower was Randy Greif's 5 CD version of Alice in Wonderland. I think I still have it. (And while I certainly did my share of shopping at Tower, I probably spent more time/money at J & R Music in lower Manhattan.) After relocating to Chicago, I went to the store in the Loop from time to time, though it wasn't quite the same. And a few years after that, Tower started going under.

In the midst of a mini-Russian/Ukraine marathon. I just read Voinovich's The Life & Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and the sequel Pretender to the Throne. Both are amusing, though I thought the first was better, whereas the second one spends almost all its time tracking how others in the Soviet system are dealing with Ivan Chonkin. The library happens to have A Displaced Person, which is the last in the Chonkin trilogy. I'll read it soon, but need a bit of a break. Now I'm working on Andrei Kurkov's Death and the Penguin (which I read about 12-13 years ago) and the sequel, Penguin Lost, which will be new to me.

I got through a shorter selected version and thought many of them were quite interesting. I then ordered this complete version, though it will be a while before I tackle the essays again. I generally enjoyed The Good People of New York. I got 100 pages from the end of Maxwell's Time Will Darken It and finally bailed. The main character makes a couple of horrible decisions, almost entirely because he wants people to think well of him (and he's a pushover). That would be bad enough, but when his wife and close friend try to dissuade him from this path, and he just ignores them... I am no longer going to read fiction about morons or near-morons (and probably not about weak-willed pushovers either). Life's too short.