Leeway

I have all the LPs, have the box for "back-up" . ACtually, I wanted it for the chron order. I find that's often illuminating.

When I go to something like the Winter Jazz Fest on an arctic weekend in New YOrk City with 5,500 other people, cramming clubs across Greenwich Village, it's hard to believe that jazz is dead, or even ill. When I go to an Anthony Braxton concert at a sold-out Roulette in Brooklyn, it's hard to believe people don't have an interest in avant music. Even his Trillium opera performances sold out. There's clearly an appetite for smart new music and smart new ways of hearing it. America's a Mass Cult and Mid Cult nation (check out Dwight MacDonald for that discussion), but it's so damn big and diverse, smaller forms (relatively speaking) can live and even thrive: jazz, poetry, progressive dance and theater, etc. There are things that need to be done (another discussion really), here I'll just cite a need to restore access to radio programs, arts and music education in schools, and more public performances. I can't think about whether jazz is dead simply by the numbers, only by the degree of life it has in itself.

I can never tell if you're joking, but I don't think there's any beating up going on here. Forgive me. I was distressed by the list of current discussions when I clicked on "View New Content". Go there now and see how many discussion topics advance the appreciation of music. The ratio is depressing to me. Endless number of trivia threads. I protested that in another thread, but more spring up every day. Do we really need 70 pages of posts on the Eiffel Tower? Content-less threads like that drive out the ones that have something to offer.

Couw Cow Belles Cowboys

It's not meant to be personal Jeff (or anyone else that feels this way). It's just a heads-up about a creeping (no, galloping) fetishism that seems to be taking over the listening experience, certainly the vinyl experience (but I also include endless remasters of CDs as well). It's a kind of kudzu on the music.

DOG SOLDIERS - Robert Stone - 1974 John Converse, a marginal writer hanging loose in Nam, scores 3 kilos of pure, high-grade Vietnamese heroin. The idea is to bring it to the United States and move it. Things go seriously, very wrong, as the double-crosses come in fast succession. It's fear and loathing in the underbelly of America. I found the novel gripping.

I get what Chuck's saying, but I would apply it more to the Vinyl Thread itself, which has also become rather more about ultra-cool obscurities than the music on the vinyl. Perhaps they are ultra-obscure because the music isn't very good? Just a thought that has flittered past me at times while perusing the posts. But even if it is good stuff, the thrust typically seems to be how rare something is, how hard to find, rather than what the music i about. I think Chuck's reminder is timely: it's about the music, not just some antiquarian indulgence.

I am seeing a Shipp surge around here lately? Hope so. Looking forward to the clips.

The internet bulletin board killed the jazz magazine, just like video killed the radio star. DB is no longer a primary source of jazz information. Artist websites are also more useful than DB's after the fact information. DB has some of the worst journalism, if you can even call it that. Cover stories are simply PR puff pieces. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the interviews are a form of disguised advertisement. Always thought it was kind of odd that DB and JazzTimes would run the same cover stories with the same puffery. The audience for jazz if very small; hence, small subscriber base and few retail outlets. The magazine is, ultimately, tired and dull (Xybert touched on this). It needs to dump the formula and get out in front, shake people up, make some noise.

Congratulations on making Jane's acquaintance. Additional pleasures await. I had a mind to read through her novels (it's been a while) after "Clarissa," since Austen was a fan of Samuel Richardson's writings, and I thought it would be fun to trace connections or influences. I may still do that, especially as I picked up a set of Austen's Oxford Illustrated pb edition of the novels at a library sale.

David Corn John Everett Millais Phillis Wheatley

Quentin Crisp Mr. Chips Marilyn Crispell

J.B. Priestley Sam Nunn Claudia Cardinale

THE GOLDEN CHILD - 1977- Penelope Fitzgerald Fitzgerald's first novel, an amusing satire on museums (or at least the British Museum), blockbuster exhibits (think Tutankhamen), and globe-trotting academics (think French deconstructionists), wrapped in a rather silly, certainly implausible, murder mystery.

Dawn Powell Peggy Noonan Eve Arden

Sweet Virginia Sweet Caroline Georgia on my miind

There's a shout-out there for Chuck too, nice to see that. Makes up for Jason Moran doing what he does best. Roscoe looks more than ready to get it going.

Indiana Jones Georgia O'Keefe Hannah Montana

Gerald WIggins Wegmans Richard Wagner

United Colors of Benetton Arnold Bennett Bennet Cerf

Censorship is always wrong and it always fails.

10:04 - Ben Lerner (novel) Lerner's 2014 novel is prefaced by a Hasidic saying: "The Hasidim tell a story about the world to come that says everything there will be just the same as it is here. Just as our room is now, so it will be in the world to come; where our baby sleeps new, there too it will sleep in the other world. And the clothes we wear in this world, those too we will wear there. Everything will be as it is now, just a little different." I loved that last line. It reminded me of the discussion here on the Org Board of MOPDTK's album "Blue," a note for note transcription of "Kind of Blue," around which the argument swirled, "same but different." Anyway, it's sort of the metaphysical premise of Lerner's metafictional fiction; deflections of reality that leave the story same but different, real but unreal.

Withnail and I Me and Bobbi McGee Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

Meg Griffin Jack White White Stripes

Ma Bell Ma Barker Ma and Pa Kettle