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So I guess this belongs here, and not its own topic, but Bloom County is coming back. It looks like it will be in the daily format, which may work better than the Sunday-only format of Outland or Opus (I did think Opus got better towards the end). Unfortunately, it seems you need to read them on Facebook, so I may have to hijack my wife's account, since I am not about to sign up... Anyway, some details here: http://www.wired.com/2015/07/bloom-county-is-back/ Let's hope that 3rd time around is the charm and that he remembers what made the original strip so great.

I agree it is a fine thing that "the State" cannot deprive Bill of his liberty without being found guilty in a court of law. That doesn't mean that the rest of us in the public have to slink around the matter and pretend that he is innocent until he is actually brought up on charges. That is an impossible standard, particularly as the statutes of limitations have passed on all but one or two of these cases. As long as we remember to say that Cosby is only an alleged rapist and that dozens of women have come forward with stories that accuse him of non-consensual sex, but that none of these have been proven 100% I really don't see what the problem is. We can boycott him to our heart's content. It is the same distinction between the State suppressing free speech and a corporation muzzling its employees. If Bill really wants to clear his name, he has options to offer up his sworn testimony on his side of the story. I'm expecting he will have plenty of opportunity in various upcoming civil cases. I guess we'll see how he responds.

In the end, I found Molly Keane's Good Behaviour frustrating. I can see why a number of people would find the turn-around satisfying, though I certainly didn't, mostly because I found it improbable. I can't go into details as it would spoil too much. Just starting Cossery's Proud Beggars. I'm probably going to tackle some Robert Coover next. I haven't read anything by him in quite a while.

Back on Molly Keane after a long break (mostly reading Russians). I'm starting Good Behaviour, which maybe believe to be her best novel of all. After that (assuming it has turned up) it will be Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery.

But if an entire generation grows up without ever being inside a CD store or even having more than a handful of actual CDs (and thinking that the ones in their parents' collection is just old fashioned), then why would they migrate back to CD? I just don't see it at all. Generation Z or whatever they will be called certainly won't be buying CDs.

That's great news. Please let us know when anything concrete can be posted/shared.

I was actually recommended to go here from Chuck's link. The 20th Century Masterpieces box is a bit more to my own taste, and I only have a few of these specific performances. http://www.amazon.com/20th-Century-Masterpieces-16-CDs/dp/B001DCQJUY/ref=sr_1_6?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1435601598&sr=1-6&keywords=warner+twentieth+century There are a few Amazon re-sellers offering this for around $25,which seems like a pretty good deal.

Agreed. There is quite a bit still to be collected, but this is a nice set.

So sorry to hear this. RIP

I've been there! I made a trip to Manchester more or less solely so that I could then make a side trip to Salford to see that museum.

I have wrapped up The Restless Supermarket. It is quite an interesting achievement. I would definitely recommend it for fans of word play. It doesn't quite rise to the level of Nabokov or Joyce, but not too far off. However, it is somewhat difficult to stomach the main character (a retired proof-reader of all things) who is a very conservative stick-in-the-mud, who is fairly racist as well. Curiously, the novel I've just started is Gabrielle Roy's The Cashier, which stars a man in his late middle ages, who largely disapproves of society and modernity in particular. It's like they are both contenders in the get-off-my-lawn derby. Nonetheless, it is a useful corrective, as I have been a bit crankier than usual of late (moving will do that to you!) and this is a reminder that it is not a characteristic that is particularly appealing to others.

I wandered into the HMV tent at the Toronto Jazz Fest. They had a fair number of CDs for a fiver. Reminded me of the good times at Fopp in Cambridge. There was a pairing on Gene Ammons's The Soulful Moods with Nice an' Cool. But the real surprise was George Russell's Stratusphunk paired with The Stratus Seekers for $5! Curiously, this is just as cheap at Amazon.ca (http://www.amazon.ca/Jazzplus-Stratusphunk-The-Stratus-Seekers/dp/B0090UH6TO), though quite pricey on Amazon.com. This is in the Jazzplus reissue series from Universal. Probably limited to the EU and Canada. The booklet contains the full art of both albums (though obviously shrunk) and the back cover of each LP is also reproduced. A nice touch. It reminds me a bit of the Mosaic Selects, though I don't think they ever provided a reproduction of the LP back. I'm trying not to add much more to my collection, but I might pick up one or two more of these.

I love a good long browse too but browse less these days because of the temptation to actually buy books and read them at home. Re the Guardian article, I've been to 3 of those stores: Strand (I'll go back when I'm in NY next month), Shakespeare & Co. (a purportedly American literary bookstore that [shock!] didn't have WC Williams' Collected Poems) (it has been said that there's a superior English-language bookstore elsewhere in Paris), and City Lights, a disappointment, a tourist trap. As compensation, not far away, there's a very good second-hand bookstore in mid-Berkeley, don't recall the name. New Yorkers - are any bookstores that specialize in poetry trucked away somewhere in some of the boroughs? How about second-hand bookstores that have a lot of good old noir / hard-boiled / golden-age sf paperbacks? I wonder if the Berkeley book store was Moe's or Pegasus. To be honest, I usually only go into Half Price Books, which is right near the campus, but I can browse for a long time when in the mood. It looks like Mercer St. Books is still there in Greenwich Village (206 Mercer), but I haven't been in there in ages, so I don't know if it still holds up. It used to be my 2nd favorite bookstore in New York after the Strand.

I'm kind of bummed about this, as I had purchased the set at a rock-bottom price ages ago, but the seller didn't have it in stock after all. After waiting for a long time, I bought a different copy. It was still a good deal, but somewhat more than this price from Amazon.co.uk. Sometimes timing is everything.

Ivan Vladislavic The Restless Supermarket I've been meaning to read this for ages. It's about a man in Johannesburg who has retired from proof-reading telephone directories. He spends a fair bit of time in and around Hillbrow. He is sort of struggling with all the changes that happened to South Africa over that period. I'd say he reminds me a bit of some of Nadine Gordimer's characters (the ones that were less politically active naturally). There seems to be a bit of wordplay, but I've just started. Anyway, so far so good.

It was tempting to go for the Carter/Bradford Select, but I know I won't listen to it enough. Instead, I ordered the Bud Freeman Chicago/Austin HS single and the new live Louis Armstrong box. (I also cleaned up my addresses with them. I had 3 or 4 old addresses on file!)

Speaking of mixing politics and literature, I am generally sidelining the PEN authors who felt it was in bad taste to give the Charlie Hebdoe staff an award for courage. I will make a few exceptions on a case by case basis, but generally only if the book was still in my queue at the library or something similar. One of these authors is Teju Cole, and sure enough the library told me last week that I had Open City waiting for me. I hadn't really been that gripped by Every Day is for the Thief, though it turns out he actually wrote this before Open City (but Open City was published first). Open City has become quite the novel of ideas, and I find myself drawn in more and more. It's pretty good actually.

You have a stronger stomach than I. You are the second person in this thread to express their distaste for the book. I haven't found anything in it so far to explain why this should be so. What's the story? Ayn Rand is considered the patron saint of a certain brand of libertarianism. While she was never a full-fledged follower of Nietzsche, she shared the belief that superior individuals shouldn't be shackled by lesser men. Generally, her work is noted for its hatred of collectivism, its love of individualism, and its admiration for American capitalism (taken from here: http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/deeper-dive-blog/4444-response-by-william-thomas) My personal animus towards her followers makes me completely unwilling to ever crack open one of her books.

Finished up Bleeding London. It was ok, not great. I was able to guess one significant plot point from almost the beginning. Am partway into Open City by Teju Cole. It's pretty good, though it reads a fair bit like a diary and not a novel.

You have to go into the .bios file and edit this. I don't recall all the details off-hand, but a quick google search should give some instructions.

I mentioned it to a friend who lives in Queens. He's thinking of dropping by.

I don't think anyone's posted on this yet. The 2015 schedule is out for the Toronto Jazz Fest, which runs the last two weeks of June. More info here: http://torontojazz.com/sites/default/files/calendar.html BTW, I guess this is not until 2016, but I saw the SF Jazz Collective is going to be doing another tour, but this time they are presenting the music of Michael Jackson. I'm really having trouble getting behind that. It reminds me of all those terrible LPs of jazz musicians interpreting the Beatles or what have you. I'll have to hear back that the tour is really incredible to convince me to go. Back to the jazz festival, it isn't amazing, but there are a few interesting shows. I am likely to see Chris Potter/Dave Holland/Eric Harland. I'm still debating the Christian McBride Big Band, but I'll probably go. Curiously, there is a free show just a bit earlier at Nathan Phillip Square with Chelsea McBride and her big band. (Pretty sure no relation.) And Ikebe Shakedown is another free show that I think I'll be checking out. The most amusing is that Morris Day and the Time will be performing for free early in the festival. I'll probably skip this, but my wife might go if I can get home in time to watch the kids.

Wasn't sure I would make it in, but saw Tafelmusik doing a free show on Friday. Was very entertaining -- and hard to beat free! Highlights were Telemann's Wassermusik Suite and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3.

I saw the play version of Of Human Bondage, and perhaps not surprisingly they played up the Mildred angle to the hilt, even increasing the conflict above and beyond what was in the actual book. They completely eliminated Philip's uncle and that whole subplot. They killed off a couple of characters and switched around who committed suicide. They made one of the shop assistants into an imitation of Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served, and kind of changed that plot slightly. The Persian rug was actually spared and brought into the happy ending. I guess most of these are relatively minor revisions, and the emotional core of the plot remained, but I was a bit taken aback (and spent much of the play just thinking of where they had made these changes). I generally could only abide the novel when Mildred was not in the picture, and of course she was around most of the time in the play, so I didn't really enjoy myself. I finally finished The Burn. Didn't like it. I know he was often attempting this novel to be a contemporary update of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, but I found it far more reminiscent of Moscow to the End of the Line (another book on contemporary Moscow that I found exhausting, though that was considerably shorter). I've just started Geoff Nicholson's Bleeding London. It strikes me as a mainstream writer slumming a bit and writing genre fiction, specially the crime/revenge story. While it came out well before, the plot seems a lot like Kill Bill. I think I'll finish it, but it isn't doing a lot for me at the moment. Unlikely to read any other Geoff Nicholson. I guess the good news is that the next stack of books looks a lot more rewarding.

Yes, I remember this discussion from before on a different thread. I bought the Ralph Ellison-themed CD just for that cut. Not sure where it is at the moment, however...