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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.

The Alex Colville exhibit at the AGO just opened up. I intentionally went for a short visit and will soak more in another time. However, my overall impression is meh. Edward Hopper did it a lot better. I don't really understand why some critics are claiming Colville is one of the most significant Canadian artists of the second half of the 20th Century. I would say Mary Pratt actually has a better eye for composition, just keeping this to Canadian artists. Well, next year the AGO has a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition, and that will be a bit more exciting and to my taste. And I guess I will be bussing it to Buffalo in the last fall for a Helen Frankenthaler exhibit. So a few things to look forward to.

That is quite interesting. I really did not like The Good Terrorist for a variety of reasons, but probably boiling down to the idea that almost all urban dwellers of a liberal bent might get swept up into a radical position if the chips were down. Maybe that wasn't the main thrust but it is what I remembered and reacted quite badly to. But I did like The Golden Notebook, which others didn't (many preferring the Martha Quest books). It is sort of the same thing, multi-layered with a female protagonist struggling to "keep it together." I only read one of Lessing's SF books, and I didn't think it was all that great. She was working in the same general territory as Ursula LeGuin, but not as satisfactorily. Still, I am pretty sure I will get to the Martha Quest books one of these days. I'm back making slow but steady progress on Demons and enjoying it. I think I am about to get introduced to a bunch of additional radical characters. I might have to read at a faster pace to not lose track of them all. The politics of "The Good Terrorist" didn't bother me; it comes with the title. I don't know for sure, but I suspect Lessing's politics were Left, or at least anti-authoritarian, probably a by-product of her colonial upbringing in Rhodesia. In any event, right or left, she is fearless in scrutinizing the people who make up the various camps. I like that about her. It struck me as a very authentic look into radicalism, in the tradition of Conrad's "The Secret Agent." I thought the ending of the book was quite powerful. I too would like to read the middle books of the "Children of Violence" series, particularly for its depiction of life in the colony. Martha's transformation from an intemperate, lost young person in the first book to her translation into an esteemed figure in the last is interesting too. I haven't read "The Golden Notebook," which I think got her the Nobel Prize. I read that Lessing got a bit sick of (or professed to be sick of) all the praise for the book, especially it being labeled a "feminist" book. Lessing claimed that "The Four-Gated City" was a better book. Don't know if that was pique or her considered view but I thought it was interesting. I believe I heard that too -- that she preferred The Four-Gated City, so I will try to make sure to get around to it, but I have a hard time reading books out of sequence, so I have to wait until I have time for all the book in the series. Anyway, I nearly asked her a question at a reading about The Golden Notebook. Glad I held my tongue. BTW, The Diaries of Jane Somers are quite good (two books in one). It was this interesting experiment where she sent them to a publisher under a pseudonym. They were published but vanished without a trace until it was revealed that she had written them. I thought they were somewhat Pym-like, but it has been a long time since I read them.

That is quite interesting. I really did not like The Good Terrorist for a variety of reasons, but probably boiling down to the idea that almost all urban dwellers of a liberal bent might get swept up into a radical position if the chips were down. Maybe that wasn't the main thrust but it is what I remembered and reacted quite badly to. But I did like The Golden Notebook, which others didn't (many preferring the Martha Quest books). It is sort of the same thing, multi-layered with a female protagonist struggling to "keep it together." I only read one of Lessing's SF books, and I didn't think it was all that great. She was working in the same general territory as Ursula LeGuin, but not as satisfactorily. Still, I am pretty sure I will get to the Martha Quest books one of these days. I'm back making slow but steady progress on Demons and enjoying it. I think I am about to get introduced to a bunch of additional radical characters. I might have to read at a faster pace to not lose track of them all.

I thought briefly about it, but I am going to have to clear the shelves soon, and I just know this isn't going to get any play. I have a 5 CD Original Albums box of Boulez conducting and it basically is just gathering dust. Of course, you could say that about a lot of my collection.

Due to work getting really intense, I am suspending the heavy reading for a week or so. I'm midway into What Entropy Means to Me. I have to say, I wasn't digging it at all. It is sort of a fairly tedious meta-fictional riff on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. At the halfway mark the book apparently shifts into something closer to a dark, dystopian world, somewhat akin to Brunner's The Sheep Look Up. Not quite sure where it is going, but I haven't been blown away so far. I also recently acquired a remaindered copy of Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates. Now I had been pre-warned that Vowell is an acquired taste -- she mixes serious research with a pop sensibility. I found a few pages in that it wasn't for me. It was this exact sentence: "Of course there's a catch, Spider-Man." in the context of a discussion of one of Rev. John Cotton's sermons. I can't get with that. It is clear, I am not her audience. I skipped around a few more places in the book and found it was all of a piece. So this will get donated to the library this weekend. It would be best all the way around if work goes back to a manageable pace (and I can get back to Demons), but if not, after I wrap up Entropy, I will read one of the shorter NYRB books I've picked up lately, probably Mr. Fortune by Sylvia Warner.

Unbelievable. I spent a bit of time researching it and there was a fairly cool video/DVD store called The Film Buff East not too far from me (definitely bikable), and they are closing their doors Sept 2. Killed off mostly by Netflix (and they point out the irony of being forced out of business by a company that doesn't even do physical DVD rentals). Now there are a number of other places to go (including the Film Buff West) but nothing remotely near my house. Fuck. I may try to make it down to their massive closing sale over the next couple of weeks, but my heart's not really in it. Damn it all. Even Zip.ca is closing down at the end of August. I guess they just are asking for folks north of the border to turn pirate. I think we won't even recognize the media landscape in another 20 years, and it may well be next to impossible to get physical copies of any of the things we currently enjoy. Frankly, I'm not really looking forward to it.

To date I've only read Fathers and Children, though I have read A Month in the Country (a play) as well.