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In the midst of Findley's Headhunter. Definitely an interesting read (or rather re-read). Findley imagines Toronto if Kurtz (from Heart of Darkness) was released from his book and ended up in charge of a mental hospital. Not sure how that came together in his imagination, but interesting. Just completed Carol Shields Various Miracles, which is a collection of short stories. Most of them didn't grab me. Still, I decided to pick up her earlier short story collection The Orange Fish when I saw it at the library. Happy Bloom Day everyone! There may be a thread devoted to it, but here is as good as anywhere. I've actually read Ulysses twice and may tackle it once again (in 5+ years). BBC Radio 4 has done a reading/dramatization of much of it (not the entire thing) and the podcasts can be downloaded for approx. 2 weeks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ulysses

I've basically given up on watching NBA (the last sport I did watch). But I really cannot stand JVG's commentary (even heard from the other room). Even he admitted that LeBron totally mugged Durant on the final play, but with 15 seconds was cheering him on for being such a force in the game. Yeah, quite a force when given virtually all the breaks by the refs... If Miami does win it all, it really isn't deserved in my book. The good thing about not caring about sports is that within 6 months of the hype dying down, I literally could not tell you who won any of the various national championships.

I'll send a contribution tonight. Thanks for the "space"!

Yeah, pretty terrible way to end a game when the refs blew quite a number of calls and ended up essentially deciding the game. Maybe it is selective memory that they all seemed to go against OKC (the goal tending call that wasn't etc.) but it sure left a bad taste in my wife's mouth. I don't quite understand why she keeps watching when she has such low regard for the refs, but I guess that's her business.

That's a pretty insanely low price. I have much of the repetoire already (though by different artists -- with exception of Tokyo String Quartet doing Beethoven quartets) but there are certainly quite a number of composers that would be new to me (Kuhnau, Sammartini, Stamitz, Tartini, Pergolesi), so it seems worth the 18 or so pounds to ship it cross the pond.

Cracked would on occasion run Howard the Duck in a 2 or 3 page story. Don't know how it was linked to the Marvel comic (same artists/writers?) and that didn't seem to be a parody. That was pretty cool, and I wish someone would collect those, but other than that I didn't really get into Cracked. Of course, I almost never bought either magazine. I do remember in the glory days you could find Mad and Cracked near grocery check-out counters.

One of those guys I can appreciate but have trouble reading. Too grand & maximalist for my taste. He was teaching in the writing program at Columbia my first semester in 1978, but being a rookie I didn't get my first choice of workshop instructor and was stuck with a total mediocrity named Hilma Wolitzer (whose daughter Meg has subsequently eclipsed her). I've not read all that much Fuentes, but I did like Christopher Unborn (wonder if I'd still like it).

Obviously, your experience may vary, but most of Auster's work is more like the New York Trilogy than Brooklyn Follies. Still, you might like The Invention of Solitude, or at least the first half which is about Auster's father.

That was such a tragedy. They left school because of greed envy and they wound up with no championships and still made plenty of money. There is still some value in staying in school especially when your team in on the brink of true greatness. The money will always be there. Too bad, now Howard is hooked up with Lebron, Wade and Bosh, and he still might not get a ring. Well, my understanding is that even if they had stayed in school, the NCAA would have wiped out those achievements because of UM recruiting violations (pretty much everything from 1992-99 was vacated). Fortunately, they left 1989 alone! But supposedly had UM prevailed in 1993, this would have been overturned. I personally think NCAA is fooling itself that they can make a pronouncement about forfeiting a national title and have the alumni just accept this (like excising the memories a la Men in Black).

I suppose people can do whatever they want with their money or to help them through grieving, but this seems seriously out-of-whack: Amy Winehouse statue planned for the Roundhouse in Camden "to recognise her contribution to music." Story here

Upon which all have now been built. Not. You can sidestep the rule sometimes -- "all of which have now been developed." As a rule, I don't get too hung up on such rules, but if it is nagging at me, I do try a rewrite. (In all these examples, the phrase is passive, which is also to be avoided... )

it's ok. just like everything else, language evolves. the article was no revelation. but this quote is, to me, suspect: 'Scholars recently analyzed more than five million digitized books, about 4 percent of all the books ever printed. Publishing their findings in "Science," the researchers discovered that, by their estimation, “52 percent of the English lexicon – the majority of the words used in English books – consists of lexical ‘dark matter’ undocumented in standard references.' am i reading that right? more than half of the words we read are "lexical dark matter," or neologisms? really? that seems a bit high to say the least. Was the reference not to ALL books, just to the 4% digitalized? Maybe they are the most-easily available for analysis, most recently-composed, and therefore are indeed "lexical dark matter" and neologisms. If even 10-15% of the scanned books are books for MBAs (Who Moved My Cheese, Good to Great, etc.) then this is plausible.

Agreed. I got the CD/DVD for $20 including shipping, and I thought that was very reasonable. $80 for either one more concert DVD or one more concert CD seems highway robbery.

One thing about the Toscanini Collection is that there is a pressing problem where the 1953 live version of Beethoven Eroica is repeated twice instead of the 1949 studio version (on CD1). Sony appears to be aware of this, so the Amazon.com set will *probably* be corrected. One can only hope. People who have already ordered from Amazon.co.uk are hoping that there will be a way to contact Sony (or possibly Amazon) to get the one disc fixed (as with the Glenn Gould set) rather than returning the entire thing. Not sure anyone else on the board was impacted, but I can post my experiences if I do find out how to get a corrected disc.

There's a pretty good chance that was Under African Skies, which included in these various packages. I'm not sure the market is all that robust for these sets, but I will be happy to listen to the bonus tracks as I never got around to picking up Graceland on CD.

I'm going to be honest and say that when they kept talking about his official biographer (some dude in Chicago) and how lucky he was that Ray really opened up to him, I thought Mr. Bradbury had already passed on a few years back. Anyway, he left quite a legacy. RIP.

No fooding?

I still remember the big kerfuffle about Graceland, particularly whether Paul Simon should have respected the boycott and recorded it somewhere else, i.e. not in South Africa. I took a bit of a hard line back in the day, particularly on whether he was exploiting Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Now a lot of those concerns seem pretty silly. I'm glad that the music came out and I listen to it every now and again. So it is 25 years on now. And the obligatory anniversary edition has come out. As far as I can see, there is a CD/DVD set, a 2CD/2DVD set and a 3 CD/1DVD Amazon exclusive. As far as I can tell, the 2nd CD in the 2 box sets contains only 5 or so bonus tracks. But all or nearly all of the bonus tracks are tacked to the end of the single CD in the CD/DVD set. The DVD in all three sets is the Under African Skies documentary (which includes the famous SNL version of Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes). The main difference in the sets is that the the Amazon Exclusive CD contains 5 previously unreleased live tracks recorded in San Sebastian, Spain from the Graceland/Rhythm of the Saints Tour of 1989. Whereas the standard box set has the DVD of Paul Simon: Graceland - The African Concert, which has been OOP forever. I think from a value perspective the CD/DVD release is the way to go (I actually only ever had Graceland on cassette, so I may be the only person in the world that could really use this release ). Some of the reviewers have said the bonus tracks are actually pretty interesting. If I was in the market for a box set, then I would definitely go for the one with the DVD of the African Concert in it. However, it seems pretty likely that this will be released as a stand-alone DVD within the next year. And maybe I will pick it up if it comes out.

Kings up 3-0. Looking like the writings on the wall. I wouldn't mind seeing the Devil take one, but not sure even that's in the cards. I certainly can't see the Devils turning this around. Shame that Brodeur has been so upstaged by Quick, esp. in game 3, but I guess he's had his time to shine etc. what with his 3 Stanley Cup victories and all.

Well, it's on my list but I definitely make fewer impulse purchases than I used to. Too many other priorities and trying to avoid too much debt (and I'm in better shape than many). I guess that's part of what is troubling the music biz. (Now if I could sell off my old CDs easily, then it might be a different story , but it's like pulling teeth some times.)

This is both very funny and very disturbing: Cat in flight Apparently after this artist's cat died, he decided to give him a new lease on life and turned it into a cat helicopter. (Hope the link works; I can try to fix later.)

I was also on some long flights this weekend. I reread Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, which I think is a solid novel about an artist thinking over her past and the traumas of childhood that helped shape her art. Somewhat curiously, her relations with her parents and brother were very solid, but she was tormented by a small group of "friends." It goes into other aspects of her life as well, and might fairly be called a feminist take on the bildungsroman tradition. Perhaps my favorite part of the novel is how she describes the outskirts of Toronto getting more developed. Even I experienced this in my little hometown where the open field we crossed to get to school turned into a whole bunch of houses the last time I was back. There was a "huge" woods behind the school where we would explore for hours. I assume much of that is also developed. I also can't imagine my wife letting the kids wander around for hours on their own, even in relatively safe Vancouver.

That's interesting. I actually paid somewhat more for this from Amazon.co.uk, though fortunately not drastically more. But it now seems to be OOP in the UK. Hope it actually turns up on Amazon.com.

So I came across this the other day, and I will probably digitize a couple of the articles and recycle the magazine. I'd be willing to ship it within North America or to Europe if someone wants it badly enough to pay postage. In any case, does anyone have any insight into Krasnow's Ululation? As far as I can tell, the vinyl release didn't happen after all nor are the MP3s available for sale.

Haven't looked, but I hear it's up on iTunes now. I saw it is on Amazon as an MP3, and I believe it is also on eMusic, so I will investigate tonight. Pretty exciting, though given the (short) length, I'd rather not pay an arm and a leg...