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I forgot to list it above, but Miles Davis Live in Europe 1969 Bootleg Series v. 2 is also for sale. CDs are near mint, played twice each. DVD played once. This upcoming weekend only, it can be yours for $17 U.S., including shipping to the U.S. To other destinations, I would need to get a quote on shipping.

I really don't think anyone's mind will be changed at this point. You basically either agree (with the Founders) that there is a meaningful place for a robust public domain in the U.S. or you side with Disney in their efforts to establish a perpetual copyright. I believe that our culture today would have been irreparably harmed and impoverished had the musicians and writers of the 1920s-1970s operated under today's copyright regime, and there really isn't anything anyone could say that would change my mind. While I am sure it won't last (and there have been attempts to change it), at least at the moment, Canada is operating under rules roughly equivalent to pre-1978 U.S. copyright law.

Ok, the same deal applies as in post #1, free postage next weekend to US only. I will be leaving for the States on Wed. actually, so all transactions must be completed by Tuesday evening. $1 off all the prices in post #1. In addition, the following Avid 2-CD sets ($5 each) Stan Tracey Three Classic Albums plus Buck Clayton Three Classic Albums plus Joe Newman Four Classic Albums Victor Feldman Four Classic Albums Don Byas 1952 Chronological Classics $20, no marks/scratches on the CD but some discoloration Don Byas featuring Mary Lou Williams and Beryl Booker (Original Vogue Masters) $12 digipack, recordings from 1953-55 Junior Mance Touch (Jazz Lips) $8 Barney Wilen Dreamtime (Nocturne) $8 Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray Citizens Bop (Black Lion) $18 Dexter Gordon Sophisticated Giant (Columbia 1997 reissue) $12 I have some of the SF Jazz Collective sets, complete 2004, 2005 and 2007 tours. PM if interested Classical CDs Viktor Tretiakov Edition (Historic Russian Archives-Brilliant) 10 CDs $20 Mstislav Rostropovich Edition (Historic Russian Archives-Brilliant) 10 CDs $20 Thanks for looking.

As much as people are dragging their feet and saying that hate it, there will be a day niche labels stop pressing CDs and go download only. Naxos apparently has an agreement that allows them to sell mp3s of reissued material (some from EMI even) but they are not able to sell CDs of the material. At least in some cases, the source CDs seem to be OOP (if it was ever out on CD in the first place).

I think under certain circumstances there are duties (really the collection of PST or HST) but certainly FedEx and esp. UPS are ripping Canadians off by charging the pre-collection fee and then a "convenience" fee on top of that. Seems to be no way to get the "duty" back from them. Basically if a store forces me to use FedEx or UPS I won't order from them. I haven't faced this (yet) with Mosaic, but I suspect in the end I will ship to a friend or family member in the US for my next order. Yeah, I do some arbitrage with Amazon.co.uk shipping. I don't think the relatively low shipping will last, however. We really did have it good, and now we can watch the simultaneous decline in CD manufacturing and super steep increases in shipping basically put an end to the fetish for physical delivery of music. I pretty much only buy CDs as a last resort now, and if Amazon.ca would get off its ass and figure out how to licence and sell mp3s, I would be a happy camper.

FTW = For the Win, i.e. Winning the Internet

About the only good news is that Amazon.ca has finally gotten a bit closer to Amazon.com in price -- and some European sellers, esp. from the UK, now have joined up as resellers. Otherwise there are quite a few purchases I would have passed on completely due to the new shipping rates. But it is true that Canadian shipping rates, esp. internationally, have been really high for some time, and now the U.S. is catching up (sadly).

The sellers won't be "winning" much if they get reimbursed $14.00 for a CD that cost them $12.75 to ship. That's what the cost to ship a single CD to Europe from the US went up to. Add in the cost for that padded envelope and that $14 is pretty much gone. As far as I can tell, the rates certainly went up, but they are still less for Canada than for Europe, and it is ridiculous that Amazon lumps Canada (and Mexico) into a generic International category. Anyway, Dusty Groove has managed to find some service that cuts the price for shipping to Canada considerably. Assuming it works out (I have a couple small orders outstanding), I will see if Jazz Loft and some other firms will look into using it.

I thought the international rates for books were always unreasonable, DVDs slightly less so, and CDs fairly reasonable. There was one previous round of adjustments where CDs still were within a somewhat reasonable range. Now minimum international shipping for anything, including CDs, is $14, which is totally out of line, even with the USPS increases. So I will either not shop Amazon.com anymore, or in very rare cases, ship to a family member in the U.S. But it is totally sucky and upsets me, so I spend a lot less time on Amazon.com, that's for sure. I know when I'm not wanted...

Thanks! If I don't have the LP (might have snagged it in an eBay lot sale), then I'll track it down soon. I really do like the Select and this period in her discography, though I also enjoy her later work, including the really hard-to-find Monopoly Game.

I wonder if some of these folks were "made" by MMC, i.e. molded and shaped into performers, or if Disney really was that great at scouting talent among the tweeners. (Now that sounds risque!) I guess it is one of those unknowns, but there are quite a few child stars and only a relatively small handful become breakout talents as adults. Kind of interesting that the Wahlbergs have kept their careers going and most of the rest of New Kids/Funky Bunch have slid into obscurity. I suppose it is a combination of lucky breaks, connections, talent and pure drive that allowed them to make that leap. But best to never underestimate the fickle nature of fame. Life definitely became easier for me after I realized I didn't actually want to be famous... To be published was ok. But not to be famous famous.

Pretty sure I have Tanuki's Night Out as well but not sure I ever transferred it (my turntable is dismantled at the moment ). Anyone have any insights into or a review of Farewell to Mingus? Did it ever make it to CD*? This is something that I might try to track down (even if I can't listen to it for a while in its LP format). * Looks like it is available as a fairly pricey CD import. Might still want to stick to the LP which costs about half as much. (But actually even more important is to double check and make sure I didn't get Farewell to Mingus before ordering a copy!)

To a certain extent, "it's all been done before." That itself is a story as old as the Bible. But in the past, a typical artistic response was to come up with more complexity, more mash-ups from different places and traditions, more complexity in the rhythmic schemes or chord sequences. And this does happen in the alternative music world to some extent. But contemporary pop has really retreated back to music for infants essentially. I guess a couple of the Nicky Minaj songs do have some weird changes in them, but it is pretty crude, like being put through a blender. Anyway, I was just thinking of the song "And the Angels Sing" from the 40s and how that is so much more interesting than almost anything you hear on the radio now, in terms of tempo and chord changes. I have plenty of other music I can listen to, but it is a shame for the younguns who grow up with this and don't know any better.

My thing is -- clearly the guy does have talent and yes, he is pretty funny and willing to poke fun at himself. This all goes a long way. But then he goes and performs this drivel -- that he knows is drivel -- just because that is what the market is all about. I don't hate him for it or even fault him for it really, but I do hate the pop that is being regurgitated at us constantly, so I'm not going to listen to it and certainly not buy it, even if JT himself is an ok guy. It's just depressing what mass pop is today. It is cruder (both musically and content-wise) than what was going on 15, 20, 30 years ago. Why is pop music regressing (even if there is a bit of interesting alternative music here and there)? I know this is the standard get off my lawn rant, but studies have shown that pop music is less complex and challenging than it was in the past. It's not just my imagination or rose coloured glasses.

I saw the Ashkenazy box. A bit tempting, but not enough of a bargain yet for my tastes. I imagine the prices will drop further down the road. I think this one counts (barely) as it is just 3 CDs, so barely a box: Rozhdestvensky Conducts Shostakovich (from Brilliant). Generally can be found for $9 from Amazon resellers. Haven't listened to it yet (ordered it last night), but it looks promising. Apparently all live performances from the USSR State Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra and USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra from 1968 to 1982.

They can be yours -- just $2000-3000: http://www.thepinballcompany.com/classic-arcades.aspx . I imagine there are kits you could put one together for less.

It's definitely more than that to Canada, at least for what I was looking for. I have more box sets than I need, but I learned never to say never. I may get a few of the "missing" EMI sets from the Presto Classical sale (have to decide fairly soon). At least at the moment, I am doing a much better job working through classical box sets and identifying favorite recordings than I am listening to jazz. I'm probably 70% classical, 10% jazz, 10% rock/pop, 10% world music in my listening habits at the moment.

Probably going to pass on this, but here is more info on the set: Vivarte. Looks like it ships in March, and probably prices will stabilize around then. I just took the plunge on this. Preordered from CD Universe for $85.89 shipped. 30€ from amazon.es http://www.amazon.es/Van-Cliburn-Complete-Album-Collection/dp/B009EJSUBY/ I don't know about shipping to other EU countries or even US vs. Canada, but the shipping prices from Amazon.es to Canada are so outrageous that I no longer bother to look there. They're really out of line with the other Amazon companies.

This has got to be about the worst foodchart I've seen in my life. Brought to you by the Beef Council, perhaps? Red (and white) meat is untouched when that was always what gave me the most digestive problems back in the day I still ate meat. Not trying to pick on omnivores, but a diet where you actively avoid fruits and vegetables is just stupid.

Wrapped up Malone's Handling Sin in about a week. It is a long book (about 600 pages) but a very entertaining one, and actually a product of a humane view on those who depart from the straight and narrow. Malone has a very generous outlook on the foibles of his main characters, though some of the secondary characters are literally thugs and criminals and some of them are not "redeemed" in any way. It is quite an epic road journey with Raleigh Hayes sent on a quest (by his father) from North Carolina, to Charlotte, Atlanta and then to New Orleans with many memorable stops along the way. A few times things go over the top, and there is one somewhat odd section at the end of the second part of the book where Malone spells things out to his "challenged" readers who can't guess the relationship between Raleigh's Aunt Victoria and the bitter (& Black) musician Jubal Rogers. But highly recommended anyway. (Wonder if this exuberance and good-natured tolerance will rub off on this fiction piece I am working on.) Definitely finding that the road trip books are generally the best things I've been reading over the last year or so, and decided I would reread On the Road. My dog-eared paperback is kind of buried at the moment and I was too lazy to find it, so I went over the library. All were checked out (I guess the movie version inspired people to pick it up?) but oddly the original, original version (not the Visions of Cody version) was in. It is called "The Original Scroll" version. I decided to take borrow that. Maybe I will try to compare versions and see if this is a case where the editor really did salvage something out of nothing -- or if the editor just had no idea what Kerouac was getting after and just got in the way.

Hope it is great. Haven't seen Rudresh in quite a while. Don't think he heads this way that often... I am off to see Mahan Esfahani play Bach's Goldberg Variations on harpsichord. Mostly I hope they don't stick an intermission in there.

I was fortunate, and my library does have the Czech New Wave set. What is interesting is that there is a bit of overlap with two DVD (Daisies and The Joke all had previous release in the US) but the rest are pretty new, certainly to R1-land. I find it intriguing how Criterion kind of spreads itself thin all over the map and into all genres (though pretty deep into Kurosawa and Ozu), whereas Second Run Films (a R2 company) really focuses and goes pretty deep into Central and Eastern European releases. So for instance, I have a R2 version of The Report on the Party and Guests (well, it's actually R0, as are many of Second Run's releases ). The booklet is much more informative. I realize it isn't fair judging an Eclipse release the same as a standard Criterion release, but in this case the Second Run version is definitely the better one. I found from the notes that Joseph Skvorecky has a bit role in the movie and that his wife had a fairly substantial part. There is quite a bit in the booklet on the subsequent history of Nemec.

I had two cats, and while they definitely didn't like car rides (or being caged more generally), they would settle down when they heard my voice and could see me. But I had two times they had to travel apart and they created a ruckus the whole time (I was told).

For me the whole having to pick up after a dog is a total deal breaker*, which is why I find urban dog owning so peculiar. And I realize most urban dog owners are responsible, but it doesn't take but one or two jackholes to spoil it for everyone, and everyone knows how jackholes somehow are always drawn to the most interesting neighborhoods... * And the dog kisses. And I guess basically everything there is about dogs.

Fortunately, even from pretty early on some of the Marketplace sellers on Amazon had better prices, so I didn't feel too burned. But I have to admit, this set just isn't doing much for me, and I'll probably be selling it off within a week or two.