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I saw the Rene Magritte exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Unfortunately, it closed this weekend (or perhaps technically today), so if you missed it, it's gone. Not surprisingly, it was quite crowded, though I was fortunate enough to slip in during a slight lull, so the wait to get in was only 15 minutes. Had we waited another half an hour, it looked like a 45+ minute wait and the lines kept stretching out all day. I had my children with me, and my daughter basically said she wasn't going in until I picked her up to see the paintings, so I had to do that, while dodging the crowds. I really think that they didn't think crowd control through or they decided it just didn't matter to have some really uncomfortable small rooms that would be nearly unbearable when it got crowded. From a pure layout perspective, the first half of the show is probably the worst I have experienced at the Art Institute. It got a little better by the midway point, and they did have a kind of nice layout where they had perhaps 6 or 7 dividers with a single painting on each and the crowds could flow past on both sides. It's a little hard to describe in words. After that point it wasn't bad. By far the most amusing moment was when I held my daughter up to the famous Cici n'est pas une pipe and told her it said This is not a pipe. "But it is a pipe" she piped up. And everyone in hearing distance laughed. It was a pretty solid show. Surprisingly, I think they actually left out one piece that is in their collection (The Banquet) and left it up in the Modern Wing. Not quite sure they would do that, although I guess this exhibit supposed to focus on his early career through 1938. I'm sure if they really wanted to, they could have justified including it (or at least reminded people to go off and look for it with a little informational plaque on the wall).

I ultimately didn't care for The Double and am finding The Gambler a little less compelling than I would like. While this worried me a bit (that my outlook on life has changed to the point that I don't care as much for Dostoevsky), I did like Demons a lot. I guess the acid test will be next year when I read Crime and Punishment in the new translation. On a recent trip, I finished Morley Callaghan's More Joy in Heaven, which is a fine but slight morality play about an ex-convict who struggles to reintegrate into society when his sponsors and the public lose interest in him. I also read Margaret Laurence's A Jest of God, which seems to have a number of parallels to Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell, which I am now going to try to read pretty soon. But it is ultimately a bit more restrained, since Laurence is Canadian after all.

In the end, I found this really disappointing. Not so much due to the ending, which I found awfully obscure, but the main character (the "hero") seems so vacillating and really unappealing. Also, he had these same characteristics even before he encountered his double. Ultimately, I didn't really care whether he triumphed or not. I will press on with The Gambler, and then turn to some of Tolstoy's novellas.

Wrapped up Dostoevsky's Demons (The Possessed). I enjoyed it a lot. I may do a proper review or just link to the one on my blog. Currently in the middle of Dostoevsky's The Double. Entertaining, though I do agree with the critics who said it was shamelessly derivative of Gogol's short stories (at least the set-up).

Very sorry to hear. I too enjoyed his posts and his blog. RIP

And after 50 years or 75 years or 90 years you could go grab the architect's plans and build your own house, riffing off those plans. For most of time, the law has understood that "culture" is something that requires a great deal of cross-polinization and building off others' work in a way that today's corporations want to completely squelch, ignoring 500+ years of cultural history. If people perhaps had been more reasonable about licencing and sampling and keep things in print, maybe there wouldn't be such a backlash and resentment against those corporations that have eviscerated the public domain. People are going to have strong feelings about it no matter what, and I am on the side of those that thing today's copyright laws are unjust.

Same here. I think I would only be getting 2 CDs worth of material I don't already have.

Hmm, the Golson looks like something I might want to investigate/acquire.

Thanks for the tip. I enjoyed Happy Birthday Duke CDs, though I eventually parted with them. I was surprised there was somebody selling this for a penny in Canada (usually prices are higher than that!), so I have placed an order.

Just back from seeing the TSO (and I believe the Mendelssohn Choir) doing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I don't see it that often (this may be the 2nd time I've seen it live). I had a strange seat that was sort of to the side of the stage, basically overlooking the symphony, though the sound was still decent and not too unbalanced. (Fortunately, the other seats in my subscription are a bit further back.) However, being that close to the choir meant being just surrounded by voices in the 4th movement. It's really hard to describe how overwhelming it was (but in a good way). I doubt I will ever feel the symphony that viscerally again.

Just finished another one, The Waterfall. Powerful interior monologue - a good read. It's so sad that it is clear in the past I read too fast, particularly in the mid 90s. I look over lists of books that I read and can remember very little about them. AFAIK, I read Drabble's trilogy (The Radiant Way, A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory) and that's it. There is one fairly powerful image I remember from The Gates of Ivory and that's about it. Maybe someday I will make a dedicated run through her novels (a second time in some cases), though it is not a particularly high priority.

I will also wait and see, but I am leaning away from purchasing this. I think I must have 70-80% of the material, and I am not really feeling like a member of the cult of Mosaic any longer.

I guess they really don't like the cold. Well, maybe next year they'll do another summer tour.

I've managed to see Tinarewan twice in Chicago. Both shows were fantastic. I wonder if they will make a swing through Canada on this upcoming tour.

I'm fairly sure I never saw him live, but heard him on a number of BBC Radio 3 jazz programs. It sounds like this album will be a fitting touchstone to his career. I'll definitely be checking it out.

What does a "Modern Jazz on Dial" set mean? I gather that was a label? When? Who was on it? Charlie Parker, most famously. It was Ross Russell's label. I'm basically not in the market for the Condon, but I'm quite interested in the Jazz on Dial. Depends a lot on the details of course.

That's a very tall order. I suspect that little of what I read from second half of 20th C. or early 21st C. will be discussed at century's end. Probably Don DeLillo (esp. White Noise), Thomas Pynchon, probably Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro (but only in the context of a few stories that get anthologized), maybe Salman Rushdie. I suspect there are some who maybe shouldn't be (Jonathan Franzen). It's just so hard to say, given that the literary landscape is so fragmented. And it depends if we are talking about authors being read in the context of a university course or being more generally popular. In my view, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and sometimes Faulkner still have a pretty wide readership, i.e. not just English lit. students. Probably Dostoevsky and Kafka as well. Not as sure about Tolstoy -- his books are just so long.

Now, I've read a lot of Elizabeth Taylors, but not that one. Do you recommend it? I do. It's a very good collection of stories and the first Elizabeth Taylor book I've read. I'll be reading more. NYRB has decided to reissue a handful of Taylor novels and a collection of short stories. I'm tempted but it looks like an awful lot were in the New Yorker, and I still have the Complete New Yorker on DVD. So... not sure. Oops - forgot the link: http://www.amazon.com/Youll-Enjoy-When-You-There/dp/1590177274

Nope, I've never had a mobile phone, as I said a few posts back. Don't intend ever to have one, either. Someone wants me, I've a phone at home. If I want someone, I'll wait until I'm home and phone them. All our calls to real people from the house are free 24/7, if we don't take longer than an hour on them. Why should I pay for something I already have free? MG Well, that's how I felt until I ended up missing important connections when I was out and about. For instance, waiting for close to an hour for someone who had fallen ill, and of course couldn't call or text me. And so forth. More recently, after I did have a cell phone, my wife was able to contact me to pick up my son who had been more or less abandoned at school when an after-school program was cancelled and we hadn't been notified. And so on. It isn't for everyone, and I certainly barely use my phone, but connectedness is important in emergencies. The Millennials for the most part will only have cell phones and won't have land lines at all.

After having it hidden away for years, I found an iPod mini. It is so difficult for me to get it all to work. I don't have the patience to figure out how to add new files to it, but maybe I'll look up something on-line later. I doubt I'll ever use it that much, but it's so retro it will probably be coming back soon.

I wouldn't say I was particularly aware of Gerald Wilson (a bit off my radar) but when he was playing the Chicago Jazz Festival (this was probably the 2008 edition) some folks on the board said to make sure not to miss his orchestra. So I went. It was a fun set, which ran a bit long, and they even brought out a cake at the end, as it was his birthday. He had composed a Chicago suite for the festival, though I don't think he recorded it, the way that he did for Detroit. I could be wrong there. RIP

I get where you're coming from. I'm not that familiar with NPR or what the expectations of them generally are, but i get the 'more harm than good' angle in terms of how jazz is generally presented to the public in the mainstream media (the press but also fictional movies, TV etc), and that it unfortunately gets no coverage elsewhere. I've often thought that there is a lot of contemporary jazz/improv/whatever that has the potential to appeal to a much wider audience, especially the 'alternative' audience, if only it was covered in a matter of fact way amongst all the other types of music. As it is it's not reported, at all. But then jazz is lousy at promoting itself, let alone anyone else.... But it is this way about everything, not just jazz. I'll stumble across some blog and it is quite interesting, but the exact same thing will blow up if some celebrity posted it or eve just pointed to it. While there are few official gate-keepers anymore (in the sense that anyone can publish writing or put music out for free nowadays), taste makers matter even more than before. I think it is having a strong hook (or schtick) and a willingness and knack for self-promotion (and that I certainly don't have).

Yes! Now I can sign up as @thereallarrykart A few incendiary tweets later, and I'll land a book deal. (Sorry -- Chicago inside joke.)

Maybe Caputo's A Rumor of War? Going After Cacciato is also by Tim O'Brien.

This is a bit of an issue for me. I find that while the Toronto library system has a copy of almost everything I am interested in, for a surprising number of novels, they have one copy and stick it in reference. That strikes me as very odd, and it certainly isn't the way the Vancouver system operated. Fortunately, the University of Toronto library has perhaps an even better collection, and fewer novels, plays or poetry collections are tagged as reference. I just need to get my act together and register for my alumni card over there.