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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.

I have this exact edition. Haven't cracked it though. I have kind of a long-term agenda of getting back to the Russian classics, starting with Anna Karenina this spring and then probably Dostoevsky next year. I've read many of his books but not in the Pevear/Volokhonsky translations. Definitely worth a peek in to their translation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Anyway, was 2/3 through Powning's The Sea Captain's Wife, which I was not enjoying that much, seeing it as high-toned chick lit, when she threw in a plot twist that was so incredible/unbelievable that I actually felt insulted. Decided I am not going to read another word. On to Malone's Handling Sin, which is a fun romp...

Yes, CTI put it out in 2011. http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Moses-Records-Anniversary-Edition/dp/B0057FWU3I/ref=tmm_acd_title_0 I actually paid a somewhat unreasonable price for a used copy of the import, only to find (a bit too late) that the last track was damaged. So I was quite glad when it was reissued.

Just became aware of this. I'll probably try to snag it one way or another soon. Cheaper for me to import it from the UK than apparently any other option.

You really don't see the problem in trying to force everyone to work to your notion of how office productivity should work? And that this is far more about upper management imposing their will because of their insecurity and inability to know who is productive and who isn't (and thus call for blanket policies with no exemptions). I am certainly opposed to rigidity and bad management practices, and this checks both boxes for me. Maybe Google does enforce a no telecommuting policy, but many/most tech companies do not. And the best people will probably walk. Anyway, I am not worried about myself, but it is quite obvious that in my company morale has suffered tremendously already and it will certainly negatively impact productivity. I feel badly for the coworkers that have fewer options that will be stuck in a bad situation.

I was happy with Fremeaux -- I have sets #6, 7, 8. But I am also not an audiophile.

This is probably too inside baseball (and about a company that is hardly relevant anymore), but I find the larger issue quite interesting. Marissa Mayer has decided to shake things up at Yahoo and says that because in-office collaboration is so critical to Yahoo's success that she is unilaterally cancelling previous arrangements that allowed a fairly high level of telecommuting. It actually strikes home for me in a lot of ways, since my office is relocating to a really shitty location (adding 25 minutes of commute time each way) and the managers have been told to really crack down on telecommuting. As it happens, I very rarely telecommute, but I was considering doing it more to make the office move a bit more tolerable, and then this is thrown in our face. Consequently, I am now in the early stages of bailing, and, not to toot my own horn too much, I have more options than the typical employee because I have technical skills that are far more in demand than the majority of my officemates. I would say there is a right way and a wrong way to go about this, and both Yahoo and my company seem determined to go down the wrong path. There are already some threads devoted to this -- here and here. The second link is Farhad Manjoo over at Slate. Personally, I find the actual column pretty reasonable. In short: not everyone does their best work in an office setting, and that, particularly for a tech company, some people really are vastly more productive working from home. A good manager should be able to tell who is delivering without requiring people to be chained to their desks. Oh and BTW, the best people are the ones who are probably going to be really insulted by this high-handed change and will probably walk out the door. And he (and the more reasonable responders) is not even calling for 100% telecommuting and for an end to face-to-face meetings, but that professionals be able to use their own discretion and telecommute up to 1-3 days week. But then you see the awesome nature of the internet (and I mean its awesome awfulness) and people are willfully misconstruing this or getting all offended and blowing things out of proportion. I was really surprised at the number of people who simply say: lump it or leave it, basically the enabling suck-ups that make it possible for CEOs to be so arrogant and out-of-touch. Then there are some that seem to be so offended that anyone can telecommute (because assembly plant workers can't work from home, you know) and that apparently no one should be able to. They are probably just trolling, but you never know. And just an overall inability to actually read what's in the post and then to consider a situation outside of one's own.* And an unwillingness to engage in any level with some of the research that Farhood does link to, showing the impact of telecommuting on productivity. Oh, and unbelievable pettiness/nit-picking and the ever-present typo crowd. (Honestly, give it a rest already. Maybe we can have Seth McFarlane sing a song like "You Spelled It Wrong" and finally drive this into the ground where it belongs.) What can I say? Regardless of how representative internet chat rooms are or aren't, this is depressing. I can see why the politics/religion threads get so derailed all the time (definitely not worth reading at WashPost in particular), but a thread on telecommuting policy? So much heat, so little light. * This really has to be the root of 80% of all flame wars. The unwillingness to consider other positions than one's own as valid at any level.

That's my feeling as well. I don't have a lot of the earlier recordings and some is of no interest to me (all the operatic stars) but I'm glad they are putting it out there. Probably my single favorite EMI box is the Melos Ensemble. It's interesting how much overlap there is between the Milstein and Steinberg sets. I am leaning a bit towards the Steinberg, just because I like a bit of orchestral variety rather than violin or piano concertos over and over. I probably will get the Fourier, but just program it so I only hear one disc at a time.