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I wrapped up We Need New Names. I enjoyed it. It was sort of in the same vein as Teju Cole's Open City, though focused on a slightly younger girl from Zimbabwe who eventually makes her way to the U.S. I just read Clarice Lispector's Água Viva, and really disliked it. I know this is probably her most avant novel, but I am now wondering if I should go ahead and read any of the other novels. (5 were recently published in new translations by New Directions.) Still, she is a bit of an acquired taste to be sure. I'm currently reading a few collections of short stories: Russell Smith Confidence, Stuart Dybek Ecstatic Cahoots and Ivan Vladislavic 101 Detectives. It's kind of nice to switch between them.

There is some fine writing in Urquhart's The Night Stages, and some people will like it very much, but I did not like the book for a number of reasons. I've just started Neil Smith's Boo. It is quite interesting. I can't quite tell if the audience is actually YA or adult (it's about an afterlife devoted solely to 13 year olds from the US!). I am finding it to read very much like a mix of Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead. I have a general sense of how it will turn out, but I definitely want to read this first to decide if it is appropriate for my son (and if not this year, then at what age level). As an extra bonus, Smith counts as a Canadian author, so I can add him to my pile to be reviewed for the 9th Canadian Challenge.

Actually I'm not really digging The Night Stages. I just can't quite understand the logic behind the book. It is mostly about this woman who gets fogged in at the airport, so she has lots of time to think over her childhood. But then the narrative keeps shifting to her lover's younger brother, when there is no reason for either the woman or her lover to be able to get into his mind (he vanished without a trace years ago, but here we go working through his childhood as well). And then we find out about the painter who painted the mural at the airport. There doesn't seem to be any logical correspondence between them. I'm finding it like watching one of those jugglers who juggles an apple, a wrench and a chainsaw. Ok, you can do it, awkwardly enough, but it's actually not as graceful or compelling as watching someone juggle 5 or 6 balls effortlessly. (It probably doesn't help that I am not a fan of novels that are almost entirely composed of flashbacks.) I'm kind of surprised at how positive the early reviews have been, though I will press on for a bit longer.

Recommended. Enjoying it so far. I thought her A Game of Hide and Seek was well written from a technical perspective, but not actually particularly compelling, as I had no real interest or sympathy in the main characters. I like this one better. Through a weird glitch in the library reserve system, I am about to get 12 books all at once. The ones highest in demand (and thus that I can't renew) will be read first. That includes Urquhart's The Night Stages and Bulawayo's We need new names in addition to Neil Smith's Boo and Barbara Comyns' The Juniper Tree. I did enjoy the Taylor, though it is still hard to get over these quickie marriages. I think there was one in Bowen's To the North as well, though I am probably confusing it with another book. I would say Taylor is better in capturing wry ironies than deep passions... (Definitely more influenced by Austen than Bronte, whereas some critics felt that Bowen more successfully fused these two threads.) I also finished Comyns's The Juniper Tree. Quite interesting. Probably her least characteristic book. I don't think there was a single feckless character in the novel, perhaps because we met a handful of art dealers, but no artists... A lot of sadness throughout, but also some hopeful renewal here and there. I think this and The Skin Chairs have the happiest endings of all her books, if I am remembering correctly (well, perhaps The House of Dolls, though that is more of a farcical ending). Just starting Urquhart's The Night Stages. I've generally heard good things about it. Here's hoping.

Recommended. Enjoying it so far. I thought her A Game of Hide and Seek was well written from a technical perspective, but not actually particularly compelling, as I had no real interest or sympathy in the main characters. I like this one better. Through a weird glitch in the library reserve system, I am about to get 12 books all at once. The ones highest in demand (and thus that I can't renew) will be read first. That includes Urquhart's The Night Stages and Bulawayo's We need new names in addition to Neil Smith's Boo and Barbara Comyns' The Juniper Tree.

Yes, it is fixed! I am just about to launch into Elizabeth Taylor's A View of the Harbour.

I think I remember hearing that he might have expanded this into one more trilogy, though he didn't complete it obviously. It does appear that Now Reading is still broken. I did finish Moby Dick, just before the play. I gave up on Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond. It seemed like it would be a combination of Barbara Pym and Graham Greene, but it just didn't work for me. At this point, not likely to read more Macaulay. Currently just about to wrap up Robert Walser's Jakob Von Gunten.

Just stopped by the Milwaukee Art Museum. The main collection is all being reinstalled, but they have a pretty great special exhibit from the Albright-Knox Museum. It runs through Sept. 20.

All I can say is that the resale collections of our collections is falling fast, and it is only getting worse in the next 10 years. (Don't be expecting this to provide a nest egg to your children.) If Amoeba or Princeton Records will still hop on a flight to check out a collection, more power to them. I don't believe they will be in a position to do that in 10 years, perhaps not even in 5. Time was Jazz Record Mart would be all over this, but they are just barely holding on in my opinion. Dusty Groove will eventually make it up to Wisconsin when they have a chance.

All material to US addresses was mailed out this morning. Thanks and please let me know if it doesn't arrive within a week or so. The list will be left up for a while, but I will start taking part of it to local shops and probably listing a few items on-line elsewhere, since the point is to get stuff out of the house. Go ahead and contact me if there is anything of interest, and we should be able to work something out (even at Canada Post's extortionate rates...).

Personally I'd probably go with Dusty Groove. I sold quite a few jazz LPs and CDs to them over the years and thought they were fair. I don't quite know how the Princeton Record Exchange would get the material, but if it involves you having to ship the collection to them, it would be a huge drag.

Sorry for the delay. Here are the single CDs. As mentioned before, if you want to try to put an order together for the States, it would be best to have it complete by Monday evening. I've tried to price reasonably, but that's always relative... Jazz $14 Blue Notes (McGregor/Pukwana/Dyani/Moholo-Moholo) Before the Wind Changes (Ogun) digipack $5 Alan Broadbent You and the Night and the Music (Paddle Wheel) $5 Bob Brookmeyer Kansas City Sounds (Fresh Sounds) $5 Bob Brookmeyer Traditionalism Revisited (Pacific Jazz) $4 Bob Brookmeyer & Zoot Sims Tonite's Music Today/Whooeeee (Poll Winners) $8 Bob Brookmeyer The Blues Hot and Cold/7x Wilder (Lonehill) $7 Ray Brown Jazz Cello (Verve) very light marks on CD not affecting play; digipack $5 Dave Brubeck/Braxton/Konitz All the Things We Are (Atlantic) $7 Giorgio Buratti Jazz Forms for Export (Italano Jazz) CD with slipcase $12 Jaki Byard Freedom Together! (Prestige/OJC) $9 Don Byas w. Mary Lou Williams Trio and Beryl Booker Trio (Vogue) very light marks on CD not affecting play; digipack $15 Don Byas 1952 (Chronological Classics) $8 Bill Carrothers Armistice 1918 (Harmonia Mundi) 2 CDs light marks on CDs not affecting play; digipack $6 Bill Coleman Live! Americans Swinging in Paris (EMI) light marks on CD not affecting play; digipack $6 Walter Davis Jr. Davis Cup (Blue Note) TOCJ-6457 no obi $7 Teddy Edwards Sunset Eyes (Pacific) inked out promo label on CD $14 Curtis Fuller Images of Curtis Fuller (Savoy) $8 Bud Freeman Chicago/Austin High School Jazz in Hi-Fi (Mosaic Singles) $5 Von Freeman Good Forever (Premonition) $15 Don Friedman A Day in the City: Six Jazz Variations (Riverside/OJC) sticker residue on liner $4 Getz/Stitt/Navarro Opus de Bop (Savoy) $12 Dexter Gordon Settin' the Pace (Savoy) digipack $8 Bennie Green Soul Stirrin' (Blue Note) TOCJ-1599 light marks on CD not affecting play; no obi $12 Bennie Green Glidin' Along (Jazzland/OJC) HOLD $12 Barry Harris Breakin' It Up/Sonny Stitt Burnin' (Jazz Beat) digipack $5 Hawkins/Sims/Woods Saxes Inc. & Trombone Scene (Lonehill) $6 Vijay Iyer Mutations (ECM) HOLD Milt Jackson & Ray Brown Fuji Mama (West Wind) very light marks on CD not affecting play $8 Willis Jackson Bar Wars (Jazz Society) $12 John Lewis (w/ Dolphy & Woods & Jim Hall) Orchestra USA (stereo & mono versions) (Lonehill) $6 Quarteto Edison Machado Obras 2 (Whatmusic) digipack $12 Shelly Manne and His Men Vol. 2 (Contemporary/OJC) $8 Howard McGhee and Milt Jackson (Savoy) $20 J.R. Monterose The Message (Prevue/Xanadu) hole drilled in CD case $8 Paulo Moura Hepteo Fibra (Whatmusic) digipack $8 Famaoudou Don Moye & Baba Sissoko Bamako Chicago Express (Around Jazz) $6 David Murray Trio 3D Family (Hatology) digipack $3 The Hot Trumpets of Joe Newman and Henry Red Allen (Prestige) $3 Arturo O'Farrill 40 Acres and a Burro (Zoha) hole punch through UPC $7 Charlie Parker South of the Border (Verve) light marks on CD not affecting play $6 Big John Patton Got a Good Thing Goin' (BN Rare Grooves) spine cut on CD case $5 Big John Patton Boogaloo (BN Rare Grooves) light scratches on CD not affecting play $8 Art Pepper Laurie's Choice (Fresh Sounds) very light marks on CD not affecting play $15 Ike Quebec The Strong Tenor of Mr. Quebec 1943-46 (Jazz Archives #153) $8 Freddie Redd/Hamp Hawes Piano East Piano West (Prestige OJC) $14 George Russell Stratusphunk/Stratus Seekers (Riverside/Jazzplus) $9 A.K. Salim Blues Suite (Savoy) $9 Shirley Scott Trio Classics vol 1 (Prestige) $8 Shirley Scott Trio For Members Only/Great Scott (Impulse not 2011 reissue) light marks on CD not affecting play $9 Archie Shepp True Blue (Venus) $16 Sahib Shihab and the Danish Radio Jazz Group (Oktav) digipack $20 Sahib Shihab Complete Sextet Sessions (Fresh Sounds) 2 CD $8 Jimmy Smith-Kenny Burrell Blue Bash (Verve) digipack; light marks on CD not affecting play $6 Jimmy Smith Bashin' (Verve) light marks on CD not affecting play; most plastic teeth missing from digipack $6 Jimmy Smith Six Views of the Blues (BN Conn) promo label on CD $2 Sonny Stitt/Barry Harris Stitt In Style (Muse) very light marks on CD not affecting play; no back tray inlay $5 Taylor/Wess/Coltrane/Quinichette/Waldron/Watkins Wheelin' & Dealin' (Prestige/OJC) $7 Tommy Turrentine (Time) $12 Rene Urtreger (and Aldo Romano) En Direct d'Antibes #3 (Carlyne/Universal) digipack $9 Valdambrini Piana Quintet Afrodite (Scheme/Rearward) digipack $7 Randy Weston Tanjah (Polydor) very light marks on CD not affecting play; promo stamp on liner; hole through UPC $15 Presenting Joe Williams and Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra (Blue Note) $7 Mary Lou Williams Zodiac Suite (Smithsonian Folkways) $12 Mary Lou Williams w. Ben Webster Zodiac Suite - Town Hall Concert 1945 (Vintage Jazz) light marks on CD not affecting play Classical $2 Kurt Masur Shostakovich Symphony 13 'Babi Yar' (Teldec) no back tray inlay $6 Charles Munch Brahms Symphonies 2 & 4 (RCA Living Stereo) $3 Misscha Maisky Schubert Songs without Words (DG) light marks on CD not affecting play $3 Alan Rawsthorne Practical Cats (EMI Classics) $2 Fritz Reiner Ravel Rapsodie Espagnole/Valses Nobles et Sentimentales' Debussy Iberia (RCA) sealed Thanks for looking!

Time to get serious about clearing out the shelves (in the new house). I'm going to start off with the box sets. Tonight I hope to list 30 or so single CDs. In all cases box sets are complete. Unless otherwise noted, CDs are VG+ to near mint. Most have been played 1 or 2 times. The cardboard boxes often show some crimping and signs of being boxed up and moved. If that is a concern, please let me know and I can be specific about condition of the box itself. I'm open to offers if you see something that intrigues you but the price is a bit higher than you think is fair. Larger orders will involve some discounts and/or free shipping. Prices are in US $. I'll probably have to check shipping before we settle up as it is so unpredictable at the moment. Now if you are in Canada or EU or elsewhere, it may make the most sense to arrange for shipment when I am back in Toronto at the end of August. However, I will be leaving Tuesday morning (8/18) for a week-long trip to the States so I can arrange for much cheaper shipping if everything can be arranged by Monday evening. (Again, sorry for not listing everything all at once, but it has been a busy week...) For the US orders, I'd say $2 for up to 2 single CDs or a slim box, and I'll have to see about the larger boxes. That would be media rate, so let me know if you want something else. It's probably best to PM first and then leave a message below on items you are interested in (or have questions about). Thanks for looking! Jazz box sets Louis Armstrong Satchmo at Symphony Hall Decca 2 Cds $16 Louis Armstrong Integrale Louis Armstrong #5 (Fremeaux) 3 CDs $18 Louis Armstrong Integrale Louis Armstrong #6 (Fremeaux) 3 CDs $18 Miles Davis Live in Europe 1967 Bootleg Series #1 3CDs/1DVD Davis $18 Miles Davis Miles at the Fillmore Sony 4Cds $18 Duke Ellington "The Collection" 1946-47 (Hindsight) 3 CDs scratch on CD3 not affecting play $6 Billie Holiday on Verve 10CDs box a bit battered $40 Billie Holliday Decca 2 CDs Long case, very light marks on CDs $6 Billie Holliday Complete Commodore Recordings 2 CDs $10 SOLD John Patton Mosaic Select 3 CDs near mint, some bends on cardboard slipcase $40 Various Debut Story 4 CDs $10 Various Jazz Noir (NOt Now) 3 CDs $6 Classical box sets Earle Brown a Life in Music Vol. 5 (Wergo) 3 CDs - slight bend to liner notes, bends on carboard slipcase corners $20 Clifford Curzon Complete Decca Recordings 23 CDs + 1 DVD $40 Alfred Brendel Complete Vox Solo Recordings (Brilliant) 35 CDs $60 Philippe Entremont Complete Piano Concerto Recordsings (Sony) 19 CDs $25 Claudio Abbado Brahms 5 CDs $15 Caludio Abbado Mozart 8 CDs $15 Gary Graffman Complete RCA and Columbia Album Collection (Sony) 24 CD - slight bend to cardboard slipcase of Manhattan soundtract $60 Pierre Hantai Bach, Bull, Corelli, ... (Naive) 8 CDs OOP $50 Marriner and the Academy (20th C. repertoire) (Decca) 10 CDs $30 SOLD Masterworks of the 20th Century (Sony) 10 CDs $15 Boulez conducts Bartok (Sony) 4 CDs $10 Itzak Perlman 5 Classic Albums (Warner) $10 Cortot Icon (EMI) 7 CDs OOP $20 Antoni Wit/Bernd Glesmer Tchaikovsky Complete Symphonies and Piano Concertos (Naxos) 7CD $30 Boulez and Others Anton Webern Complete Works 3 CDs (Sony) $10 Maurizio Pollini 20th Century (DG) 6 CDs $18 George Szell Conducts Haydn Symphonies (Sony) 4 Cds $8 Jascha Heifetz plays Great Violin Concertos (Sony) 6 CDs $12 Emanuel Ax plays Haydn (Sony) 4 Cds $8 Murray Perahia plays Mozart (Piano Concertos) (Sony) 12 CDs $30 Arthur Rubinstein plays Chopin (RCA) 10 CDs $12 Arthur Rubinstein plays Brahms (RCA) 9 CDs $11 Henri Dutilleux 1916-2013 (Erato) 4CDs $15 Musica Amphion Telemann Musique de Table (Complete) (Brilliant) 4 CDs $20 Richard Kapp/Pro Musica Prague Locatelli L'Arte Del Violino (Brilliant) 4Cds $20 Eugen Jochum Bruckner Symphonies (Brilliant) 10 CDs $24 Jazz single CDs HOLD Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band Live at Newport II (BMG Japan) LP-style slipcase $20 Classical single CDs Aki Takahashi plays Morton Feldman Feldman Edition 1 $6 World music CDs AfroLatin via Dakar (Syllart) 2 CDs light marks on CD1 not affecting play $15 Le Mystere Jazz de Tombouctou (Kindred Spirits) $10

I realize there is a lot of baseball left to play, but how utterly stunning it has been watching both the Cubs and the Jays make a solid run at the post-season when normally they are collapsing around now. The Jays in particular have decided they are all-in this year with some fairly brilliant trades that seem to be paying off. It would really be something if it ends up Cubs-Jays in the World Series, though I don't actually expect that to happen.

I don't feel the need to be fair. I will wait for the official publicity blurbs, but if it is indeed about Miles stealing back his music from some white musician, the premise is so unbelievably stupid that I have no problem in dissing it sight unseen.

I have seen a lot of plays this summer, many of them by Shakespeare. I also participated in a 24-hour play-writing festival/competition/marathon what-have-you. That was definitely different. After 6 hours in, you start to get a little weary and wonder why the characters just don't come to life and carry on by themselves, like most authors will tell you happens... Anyway, the prize for the longest play goes not to Shakespeare, but to Tony Kushner, whose play The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide To Capitalism And Socialism With A Key To The Scriptures is playing at the Shaw Festival (through early Oct. for folks in Michigan or New York who want to make the trek out). It's not as good as Angels in America, but it is still an impressive play (just under 4 hours) and worth checking out.

I'm off to see an adaptation of Moby Dick in Chicago in a couple of weeks. It's been getting great reviews, and I've seen other great work by Lookingglass, so I'm pretty excited. Anyway, I have read the novel but it was a long time ago, so I've decided to try to tackle it again, though I suspect I will skim parts of it...

I suspect the problem lies in that traditional labels are doing far less promotion than they used to, expecting the musicians to do all the blogging and twittering and Facebook. (This is absolutely the case in the publishing world and seems to be the case in the music industry.) And just in general the contacts with the music press and the radio stations just seem to matter less as there is less and less of a connection between the promotion that the labels know how to do and sales (or really downloads). So WSIII and others are asking where is the benefit of signing up when most of the scuffling is going to be on the artist's end anyway. I think one will end up following artists and perhaps their friends if they happen to have a boutique label. I really can't think of a major label that I have a positive attitude towards that would inspire me to look at their new offerings and buy something I wasn't aware of. And I suspect that many people fall in this camp. Maybe music or rather the music industry didn't die in 2000, but as far as I am concerned it is dead now...

Sounds terrific. Wish I could make it, but know that I can't. I did, however, see a massive Caillebotte exhibit in 1995 or so. I have to admit, the current exhibit at the AGO (Picturing the Americas) leaves me cold. I found very little of interest until the last room or two where it moves away from traditional landscape painting. On the other hand, I was just in Ottawa and saw Marc Chagall: Daphnis and Chloe at the National Gallery, which I thought was pretty fascinating. It appears they managed to put all the plates from a complete edition up on the walls: http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/exhibitions/current/details/chagall-daphnis-chloe-8754

Next week there is a chance to see the Borromeo String Quartet (never heard of them) doing a concert of all 6 Bartok String Quartets. I'll probably go.

A few look good and then there also is the Guardian Not the Booker prize (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/27/the-magnificent-70-guardian-not-the-booker-prize-longlist-announced), but I know I won't get to any of these this year. I'll see which ones seem to have some staying power and add a small handful to my reading list next summer. Nearly done with Bruno Schulz. Both books are good, but I liked Street of Crocodiles aka Cinnamon Shops a bit better. I'm about to start Gabrielle Roy's Street of Riches.

Not jazz, nor a single track, but you could get four and a half hours of Bach and still have a penny leftover. http://www.amazon.com/Big-Summer-Box-Bach-Guild/dp/B008J7FEK2/ Those are some truly incredible values (esp. Big Guitar Box and Little Big Debussy Box). I'll have to check it out one of these days.

There are a couple of Coltrane live recordings of My Favorite Things that crack the 20 minute mark for $1. Or Samadhi State by Pharaoh Sanders at 16.5 minutes.

I agree. While I did sell off a few, I still have 7.

I'm pretty sure they don't charge your card until it is ready to ship, but you could call and ask.