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Not sure that many folks from Canada have ordered from Mosaic in a while. Any advice vis-a-vis import duties? I very rarely have to pay them, but I have noticed that UPS is just about the absolute worst in adding $20 or 30 in import fees/handling regardless of the actual declared value. I basically avoid UPS like the plague and won't use vendors who insist on shipping by UPS. Of course, Mosaic ground is -- UPS. I'm not sure which shipper they use for air (I guess I can call tomorrow). Most likely I will use another work-around to get it shipped to a US address but that adds inconvenience and significant delay... I actually don't mind the $5 or $10 shipping to Canada during the sale, but just do not want to have to deal with the customs handling scam.

As long as you don't forget it's THE Ohio State University. Apparently it's a hanging offense in Columbus...

RIP

Sometimes used CD stores have blank CD cases (though not usually "doubles"). I used to occasionally get them from Dusty Groove. I am about to donate close to 50 to a local store myself, but shipping even from Canada is a bit pricey.

I think Constance Urdang is a bit of an under-recognized poet. I actually think she is in the same league as (and has some similarities to) Jane Kenyon, but Kenyon is so much better known. Of Urdang's 6 or so poetry collections, I think Only the World (Pitt Poetry, 1983) is the strongest. "Brazil" is from this collection. Brazil Preferring travel books to travel There will always be those who Will never visit Brazil Or set off with four natives in a canoe In pouring rain, paddling up savage rivers; Only in dreams They touch down amid exuberant foliage Sinking into the embrace Of those moist, ardent airs, Tuning their ears To skin-drum and nose-flute, Scenting at a distance "The authentic smell of danger." Blazing no trail, claiming no territory, Confronting the sublimities of nature On toothy peaks and boiling seas "Singularly unmoved," at ease Among companions forever congenial, For them all else can be dispensed with But history taken from Shakespeare, Geography from Robinson Crusoe, And the mangroves and swamps of Brazil Where they will never set foot.

So I finally got around to getting into this in a major way. Like other users, I found that I had to copy all the DVDs over to my harddrive in order for it to make it functional. However, I find that some of the DVDs were a bit scuffed and don't work as well as I would like. (I'm actually picking up a set on eBay for about $3 to see if those are any better.) Anyway, my question is if anyone went ahead and downloaded the missing issues (one from Sept. 1947 and then quite a few from 1989). Perhaps not surprisingly the New Yorker doesn't seem to support this functionality any longer (6 or so years on). I'm not sure if there are any other real options. Thanks.

I was just in Toronto and Chicago this past week. I managed to get to both AGO and the Chicago Art Institute. The AGO had some contemporary sound artist (Janet Cardiff with George Bures Miller) as well as a very focused exhibit on Sorel Etrog. Cardiff's material was hit or miss, but a few installations were riveting, including a room that was in a dreary rain storm ("Storm Room") and "Killing Machine" which was some weird mix of Kafka, Clockwork Orange and the ending of Brazil. I also thought her Forty-Part Motet in the room with all the Moore sculptures was a nice touch. I just missed the opening of the Ai Weiwei exhibit, which is worth seeing (I actually happened to catch this in DC in Jan.) The Art Institute has a pretty good exhibit on Fashion and Impressionism, focusing mostly on women's costumes in various portraits. They also have dresses from the era that more or less match those in the paintings. There were a huge number of paintings from the Musee d'Orsay, and in fact I suspect it is a joint exhibit.

I thought I would get around to posting a poem by Constance Urdang but am not quite ready to get that up (perhaps over the weekend). In the meantime, I ran across another fairly obscure poet -- Denise Duhamel. She is from the East Coast (born in Rhode Island, college and young adulthood near NYC) but now is teaching writing in Florida. She is a bit playful, maybe a bit postmodern in her outlook. In 2009, she came out with a collection (Ka-Ching) all about Money and its influence on Americans and American society. (And even some poems about how it is taboo for women in particular to seem too concerned about money or at least to talk about it.) Not all the experiments work, but some are fun; she perhaps tries a bit too hard at being clever and isn't quite as concerned about writing memorable poems. One interesting subset of poems (with the most gravitas) are about a fairly terrible accident that happened to her parents (on an escalator in a casino) and them deciding whether to sue or to settle. Denise reports on a far more positive windful that she experienced in the poem "$900,000." I think the poem in the collection I like the most is "$600,000," which is actually a prose poem. I'll just quote part of it here:

looking forward to that - I saw Dennehy in Krapp's Last Tape at the Goodman Yes, I thought he was very good as Krapp. Not entirely sure Godot will transfer, but maybe someone knows more than me. I was at first a bit sorry that he wasn't Gogo or Didi, but on reflection, I think that would have upset the balance of the play too much (he has just a bit too much star power). Dennehy really gets to chew the scenery in both faces/phases of Pozzo.

So I have been away for over a week with very limited internet access. Kind of good to unplug for a while (certainly worth remembering that I can get a lot more done when I don't obsessively check internet news sites). Anyway, I read 6 books over this span, as well as saw 3 plays at the Stratford Festival (the best was Waiting for Godot with Brian Dennehy in the Pozzo role -- definitely worth checking out -- wouldn't be surprised if this version transfers to the Goodman in Chicago). Probably the best book from a pure writing standpoint was All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones. I do find the stories very depressing. He also wrote Lost in the City. Also depressing. I was a little surprised that two stories depart from pure naturalism with one featuring the Devil. I'm not saying that a writer can't do whatever he or she wants, but this seemed a bit out of character. City of Marvels by Mendoza also has this weird mix where much of the novel is naturalistic (if maybe just a bit too much Ragged Dick with a twist) but then various saints and indeed the Devil come down and talk with the Mayor (of Barcelona) and the city fathers. I didn't really love it; I didn't really hate it. That's pretty much how I felt about all these books. Of course, I had chosen them specifically as books that I would read and discard upon my journey in various airport lounges and cafes. John Nichols' The Empanada Brotherhood was slight but entertaining, as he relates his early life and career in Manhattan (right before he became a published author and his life changed). He hung out with a random bunch of South Americans at an empanada stand in Greenwich Village in the 60s. While my post-college career was quite different, I can relate to how I hung out with some odd characters, who might well have made an interesting story (if not quite a novel). The least satisfying for me was a book that combined Hanif Kureshi's Intimacy (a novella) and Midnight All Day (short stories). I simply couldn't get past the idea that Kureshi simply detested all his characters, focusing obsessively on the fact that these couples were awful people who split up with no concern at all for their children. I honestly don't think writers should write stories where they detest all the characters in their stories. Leave that to the sociologists and modern anthropologists. I also just don't think Kureshi really got the details about class correct in Intimacy. Have just a small bit remaining for Klima's Love and Garbage, which I will wrap up as soon as I get home (tomorrow). The parts where he is on the city-cleaning crew in Prague are pretty good. The bits where he vacillates between his wife and his lovers are unbearably boring. So another novel that I can't imagine rereading. This weekend I should be able to launch into Faulkner's Light in August. I am a bit more hopeful I will enjoy this novel.

I can't remember all the details, but I recall there was a pretty amazing LP sale at the Chicago library many years back (when they really started purging LPs). It was a huge room just filled with crates (probably at least 5000 and maybe twice that). I didn't have the patience to actually look for something to take home, but it was fun watching for a while...

There is no question it is a hassle switching email when I switch providers, which I do every 2 or 3 years.* But I decided a few years back that I simply didn't want the folks at Google browsing through my email, which they admitted back then though they generally aren't too open about it. I may be mistaken, but I think literally the only thing I use my Google account for is to anchor my blog. * There is one upside is that I get far less spam than people I know with long-standing Google accounts.

I read Absurdistan. It was fun. It was probably a little over-rated when it debuted. I kept thinking of The White Tiger, which was also a bit over-hyped for at least my reading pleasure. For a slightly different take on East-West relations, I would recommend A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.

I actually wasn't that crazy about The Imperfectionists. I particularly didn't like the last two stories. I don't think it was solely because the troubles at the paper have piled up and that influences the tone. Maybe I just thought Rachman was trying too hard by the end. Just about the only story that I could really relate to is that of the corrections editor who realizes that this friend who he has looked up to his whole life is kind of an empty shell (though not quite a fraud). Anyway, I had a lot of time on the bus to and from Seattle, so I read almost all of Mahfouz's Children of Gebelawi (there's actually a competing translation titled Children of the Alley). This is pretty didactic stuff, retelling the stories of Adam, Cain and Abel, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as lived by villagers on the outskirts of Cairo. It has its moments, but it is definitely a novel I won't be rereading. I should wrap it up today. But I am looking forward to the next two on the list: Love and Garbage by Ivan Klima and Faulkner's Light in August, which I've never read. And then for the first time ever, I will tackle Proust...

Everything mailed out. Thanks so much, everyone! That's probably it for me. Remaining inventory going to local shops. I'll post again if/when there is something new.

Probably a decade ago and maybe even 5 years ago, I would have gone for this. Now I realize it just one more thing that will sit on my shelves unheard. Somewhere along the line I picked up Flood and that's really the only newish thing of interest (to me), so basically I'm out.

Two days to go and 3 more items to be listed: 7 Art Pepper Laurie's Choice (Fresh Sound 1992), 5 tracks from 1978-81, light marks not affecting play 7 Freddie Redd/Hampton Hawes Piano East/West (Prestige OJC - limited), light mark not affecting play, light fingerprint not affecting play HOLD 16 Mal Waldron Evidence (Dark Light 1991) rare CD, like mint, literally played once since removed from shrink wrap.

Am I seeing/interpreting this correctly? Two women on the cover, and the one on the left has a wack drawn-on mustache?

Yes, I should have written when. I was reading that it took about a year for Stockton to be judged insolvent and allowed to enter bankruptcy, and I imagine it will take at least as long here, given the additional twists and turns of MI state law. To me the really worrying thing, is that I still don't see what Detroit is going to emerge into. Even say that they completely shed these pension obligations (a replay of Umberto D, I guess), what is the city going to diversify into? The retirees will probably just up and move completely abandoning more neighborhoods now that they have no hope. There really are only a handful of hipster art enclaves. I still don't see any employment opportunities for the remaining population, and the bankruptcy isn't going to encourage more firms to come to Detroit. How much can they really shrink the city? And what if Wayne County refuses to take back the newly disincorporated land?

While it is very unclear what will happen with the DIA (and I am not at all sanguine that it will be untouched -- all bets are truly off if Detroit is judged to be insolvent in the federal bankruptcy proceedings), I actually tried to schedule a trip in Sept. to visit Detroit and specifically the DIA. That won't happen, but perhaps I can make it in Oct. However, I am not planning on spending like a drunken tourist, so I don't think my visit would help all that much...

Mostly agree with you there, but from a Keynesian perspective, it really doesn't matter all that much what you spend funds on if you keep people employed. For whatever reason, politicians (including GOP politicians) will open up and give funds for sports stadia and conference centers and pretty much nothing else. (Nowadays you can't even get the GOP to reliably fund the Interstate Highway System!) So I figure they ought to take what crumbs they can get.

I have really mixed feelings about this -- I read about it a few days ago. My gut is pretty sickened. On the other hand, local merchants (whoever are left) will benefit by spending during construction season. And depending on how the new stadium is configured, it might bring in new suburbanites to spend money in Detroit. Quite frankly, that is about the only way Detroit is going to get any new revenues, since it can't count on anything from its own residents. Newark followed a fairly similar strategy (or rather N.J. pushed for this) with NJPAC and a minor league stadium and then the Devils stadium. It seems to be a strategy that is starting to pay off, though you could argue that 1) Newark never fell quite as badly as Detroit (arguable -- I was there during some very dark years and its murder/crime rate is still sky-high) and 2) Newark simply has a better location and won't ever be left to wither the same way that Detroit (or Camden!) was. But if Detroit never comes back in any way, shape or form (and I think this is probably the case), then it is a poor use of tax-payer money. I certainly worry about Chicago as well. It has a much better base and still has a more diverse (particularly economically diverse) population. However, my understanding is that if you combine Chicago (and its various subsystems) and then the Cook County share of Illinois' pension obligations, it is $50 billion short! See here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130521/BLOGS02/130529975/city-halls-pension-spiral-worsens The pension liability that caused Detroit's mess was less than $5 billion, though there were plenty of other things that had been borrowed for. Just looking at the pensions alone, Chicago seems in a worse position than Detroit. So we'll see...

Thanks so much, everyone. Have pulled titles and am getting packages together. I have just a few more titles to add. 7 Dutilleux Correspondences Cond. by Esa-Pekka Salonon (DG) - this has been discussed at some length in the Classical threads 5 The Unsupervised Elevator (MAPL) CD-R this is a self-produced effort by a Vancouver-based band -- give 'em a try! And a bunch of Avis 2-fers -- $6 for any one, $5 each for 2+ Harry Edison Tubby Hayes Victor Feldman Humphrey Littleton Vic Dinenson Sammy Price Stan Tracey Buck Clayton Joe Newman Louis Bellson As ever, thanks for looking!

Speaking as a former journalist, that's the best novel, maybe the best book period, about journalism I know. Sad, touching, hilarious. Every character in that book is damn close to a person I know or knew. Great. Looking forward to it. In a totally different life I was the managing editor of a poetry magazine (an undergrad one). Very different culture than a newspaper, but yeah there were some characters... I actually managed to climb up to editor in about a semester. Didn't seem so odd at the time, but I imagine there were a few people that were a little put out... I did that for two more years, then quit when the integrity of the editorial board was impugned. Probably not the best response (though I thought maybe some fresh blood wouldn't be a bad thing), but I was also a senior and starting to really fret about what I was going to do for a living...

Read through (quickly) Constance Urdang's book of poetry Only the World. I enjoyed it, particularly the first section which was mostly about travel and tourism. I'll probably post a poem from the collection in the Poetry Cosmos thread. I've just started Sugar Street, the final book in Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy. Yea! After this, I will read The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman [a novel about a struggling newspaper in Rome].