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I've kind of lost track of what I wanted and didn't want and what I actually ordered. I think I had it narrowed down to the new Louis Armstrong set and probably the Clifford Jordan. The Bee Hive material will have to wait until next sale apparently...

How is the Blake book? I've been dying to read it, but it's incredibly expensive in the USA. I'm 60 pages in and very much enjoying it. There's a big section of plates in the middle that are linked into the text and help you understand his early work as an apprentice engraver (that might explain the expense). Very good on the origins of his worldview in the Dissenting tradition. I've never quite 'got' what Blake was railing against but it's starting to make sense now. I knew he was deeply suspicious of industrialisation and 'reason' but the text makes clear how this was rooted in a general mistrust of authority both civil and religious. Thanks for your initial thoughts, I keep looking for a cheap, used copy here. From what I can see online, used copies in the U.S. are far from cheap. Good luck with your search, Matthew. If you act fast, it looks like the copy from Better World Books is a pretty good deal: http://www.amazon.com//gp/offer-listing/0300089392/sr=/qid=/?condition=used&tag=bkfndr76-b-20 I've had pretty good luck ordering from them over the past 5 years.

Haven't watched in forever, but I used to watch 3 or 4 shows at a time on Adult Swim. Still have a weak spot for Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Not sure if The Venture Bros. was on Adult Swim, but I used to follow that to some extent. It's not quite as fun when it starts going mainstream though, like Archer.

So no one is commenting on what is going down re: FIFA in Switzerland? I guess it may be too political...

He didn't offer to cut it on wax cylinders? That would make thematic sense...

Probably already discussed above, but if you don't have to have everything, here are a few focused Boulez bargain sets (especially through secondary market): (Bartok) http://www.amazon.com/Conducts-Bartok-Pierre-Boulez/dp/B00GZHRFDC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432649441&sr=8-2&keywords=boulez+Bartok (Webern) http://www.amazon.com/Anton-Webern-Complete-Works-1-Op/dp/B00EC0VW3S/ref=pd_sim_15_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0AZ9HEK6V50CFCFPK1P6 (Schoenberg) http://www.amazon.com/Pierre-Boulez-conducts-Schoenberg-Arnold/dp/B00AK3X3U6/ref=pd_sim_15_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1APP6ZH2QN0X6QW8ZT2H I believe that quite a few of the Columbia albums can now be released under the Sony budget imprint, though I may be wrong. (I saw a number of Bartok titles in the Columbia box, for instance, but he could have recorded them twice for instance.)

I've finally gotten reasonably deep into The Burn by Vasily Aksyonov. I have to agree with the reviewers that say it comes across as a Russian version of Pynchon's V or Gravity's Rainbow. If anything, I am having more trouble keeping track of characters and what is real vs. what is imagined than I did with Pynchon. I should try to dig out my copy of the Golden Years of Soviet Jazz CDs and play them while reading this. It would probably help me get in the mood a bit better.

I did go, and the first half with Don Byron and the Gryphon Trio was enjoyable. To me, the standout composition was Byron's piece "Basquiat." In the somewhat unlikely event he records it, I would go ahead and track it down. (I mean if he records this particular arrangement for clarinet and string trio.) I do believe this is the first time I've seen Byron without dreadlocks... The second half was alternating between the Gryphon Trio playing a trio by Ives, which was ok, and several contemporary pieces played by the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM), which I strongly disliked. Had I known how it all would have unfolded, I would have left at intermission, but I guess you just never know.

I don't mean to nitpick, but Divine Days came out in 1992 and Forrest died in 1997. I do agree it is in dire need of editing down. Forrest was all but finished with Meteor in the Madhouse when he died and that came out in 2001. That's sort of a novel composed of novellas -- and I believe set in Chicago. There is a quirky novel about someone trying to blow up the Harold Washington Library -- Instant Karma by Mark Swartz. I also have a soft spot for Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago by James Conrad, though part of it takes place in Nevada. Finally, if you are open to short story collections set in Chicago, I would highly recommend Stuart Dybek's I Sailed with Magellan and especially The Coast of Chicago.

I finished Ben Lerner's 10:04, but it didn't do much for me. The combination of a really self-absorbed New York writer (how many times do we have to hear how big his advance was?) and postmodernism fell flat. I've just started Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai, which is much more to my taste. It is a coming-of-age story of a gay boy in Sri Lanka. It is quite different from most, as it starts out a fair bit like Narayan's Swami and His Friends, though the boy wants to play with girls, but gets far more serious as the boy grows older and as ethnic tensions erupt in Sri Lanka. The author and his family ultimately fled to Canada. It is not yet clear if that same fate awaits the protagonist of the novel.

I'm tempted, but I'm sure I would only listen to it once or twice. It should go to a more worthy household.

Haven't entirely decided but will probably be seeing Don Byron on Friday, though it isn't really a jazz setting. It looks like one of those Stravinsky pieces written for Benny Goodman, if you recall those and others on the same lines. http://performance.rcmusic.ca/event/21C/illusions Still, it looks like an interesting concert and tickets aren't outrageously expensive. It would be a no-brainer if I wasn't supposed to be at home packing...

The person on the right is Mitch Miller I think. He played oebo on the first Bird with strings date. Bird is the one on the left I can't recall Bird ever having had a beard like that in any of the known photos. .. It is just a mustache, since the "goatee" is just the mouthpiece of the saxophone. I wouldn't say Parker sports even a mustache all that often, though I did see some footage of him with a scraggly looking one, nothing quite as luxurious as this...

I believe if you have the 2 Decca sets this covers all the Phase 4 recordings, but I don't really have the patience to check: http://www.amazon.com/Leopold-Stokowski-Recordings-1965-1972-Original/dp/B0000B0A0P http://www.amazon.com/Original-Masters-Stokowski-Recordings-1964-1975/dp/B00067R3BQ/ref=pd_sim_15_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WM0P44JGTTK3557HV3Z (The second one has gotten kind of pricey, so if you don't already have it, the Phase 4 box may be the better deal anyway.) The new box has new and probably better mastering, but I thought these were fine. I'm not sure if there is a single box just covering his Phase 4 recordings.

There's a nice but not life-changing exhibit of Emily Carr on at the AGO. I've seen a lot of Carr in my time, mostly out in Victoria and Vancouver, and it was nice that not every single painting in the exhibit was from collections out west. On the other hand, it all looks exactly the same -- tree forms and occasional totem poles. A much more varied exhibit on American Modernism, drawn from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, is on at the Joslyn Museum, but you have to be in Omaha to see it. Probably not worth it for most of us...

Oh, that's right. Copyright protection covers only recorded works, not written works. Thanks for reminding me. I can't tell if either of you are just being snarky, but of course copyright covers written works as well. So whenever they finally got around to publishing the First Folio, Shakespeare would have been covered (if copyright had any meaning back in his day, which it did not).

Perhaps so. There are several books I liked in my youth that I don't care much for now. I kind of shudder to think what I'd think of Catcher in the Rye now. Perhaps my experience is tainted in having had one or two of those hopeless love affairs, but I had at least a bit of dignity and managed to move on (even if it took a bit longer than it should have). I can't have any respect for a spineless character like Philip, and yet I don't take pleasure in thinking how much better I am than him (that's what I meant about car crashes and reality TV).

I don't remember if I dissed Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl here, but certainly also thoroughly disliked that novel. Now that I am far enough into Of Human Bondage, I can see that Vargas Llosa pretty much cribbed the entire thing from Maugham, making me dislike The Bad Girl even more!

I have to say I am not enjoying Maugham's Of Human Bondage. It is very hard for me understand why it is often considered one of the top 100 books of the 20th Century, aside from the fact that there are lots of people who like watching car crashes -- but only if it is sufficiently high-minded (i.e. they wouldn't be caught dead watching reality TV but they'll read books like Madame Bovary or Anna K. or Of Human Bondage). I really don't like Philip Carey as a character. He is portrayed as a thoroughly unpleasant young man, who goes out of his way to snub his uncle and generally only hangs out with people he can look down on. Maugham seems to justify everything because Carey lost both parents as a child and has a physical handicap as well (a clubfoot). The only section of the book that was bearable (so far) was when he was off in Paris trying to become an artist. Now he is back in London, doing a fairly poor job of studying to be a doctor. And he falls hard for a waitress, essentially only because she snubs him. She instantly becomes forbidden fruit. I know the heart wants what it wants, but anyone with a smidgen of self respect would have broken things off after only one or two of the times she makes it clear just how little she thinks of him, not the 10 times we are up to so far. It is really hard to fathom how Maugham is going to keep this going for another 300+ pages. I find it tedious and not at all compelling. I am kind of dreading it actually, and would not finish the book except I am going to be seeing a play based on the book in a few weeks. Though if this ends the way I think it will, I should probably skip it (the play) and try to get my money back.

As with most things in life, there are "good" estates and "bad" estates, and the changes in copyright law seem to favor rent-seeking behavior by "bad" estates that seem to act pretty much like patent trolls. It is interesting that the movie thread discusses Vivian Maier, since there are two distant relatives coming out of the woodwork and putting in their claims on these negatives, when they certainly had no actual connection to Maier during her life. Estates like this -- screw them. I think they should lose their rights and have the material go into PD. But I'm not going to have my mind changed just because "think of the children" nor do I expect to change anyone else's mind. I guess it was a good thing that I have built up my collection when I did, since I think the changes in copyright law are definitely detrimental to the culture as a whole and specifically to music fans that follow niche genres. If you think the music scene is bad now, just wait another 10-15 years after the majors stop bothering to reissue most jazz artists (and they are no longer allowed to fall into PD) alongside the related issue of these ridiculous "sounds like" copyright infringement suits. Lawyers and music are never a good mix.

I haven't been really following these series, though it appears the Cleveland-Chicago series is better than I would have thought (perhaps wouldn't have been so evenly matched if Love hadn't gotten hurt). Anyway, with 3 seconds left, Cleveland hits a 3 pointer to tie the game. Anything can happen in overtime. Cleveland seems to have the momentum... Anyway, Bulls draw up a play and Rose hits a 3-pointer (I think the only one he made in the game) with basically no time left on the clock. Unbelievable. Bulls need to come out a bit stronger in game 4 if they are going to hang onto home court advantage (which they have stolen away from Cleveland). I'm sure my wife is happy and so relieved that they don't have to keep going tonight.

It should, though it has occasionally been known to happen that the coding on the label is incorrect. Still, music DVDs generally do play in all regions, so it's probably worth a gamble.

I'm most of the way through Satin Island by Tom McCarthy. It is a little hard to describe, but basically it is partly a satire of trendy corporations that have succeeding in selling blather, so they have excess funds to hire anthropologists (I think he is imagining an ad agency with the resources of Google) and partly this anthropologist then musing about contemporary culture, oil spills, creative destruction and so on. There are vague connections to Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Lethem and David Foster Wallace, but this is much flatter, almost affectless writing. It is basically plotless, so it is definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea. It is certainly not going to make my top 10 novels of the year, let's put it that way. I should wrap this up tonight. Then I will return to Of Human Bondage. I've finally reached the point where Philip is in London and the real action is about to begin.

I still think it was an over-reaction, esp. as it was a day game (and they moved it up even earlier), but it is a moot point. Game over. Baltimore won it 8-2. Some of the other cancelled games will be made up in May.

Hmmm. I seem to remember some quite pricey Fontana Tubbs set that DG was pushing. Now presumably all that will be reissued in much better sound, and some folks here will gnash their teeth -- but eventually buy it. I actually didn't buy it last time around, though I might now, depending on final price.