Matthew

Antonio Carlos Jobim: Wave

Why would Lebron stay with the Cavs? they had the best player for eleven-years and had such an incompetent front office, that they only won one championship. Why stay with a team that has no chance of ever beating the Warriors? (and I say that as a Lakers fan). Cleveland got their banner, the debt has be paid, time to move on

Howard McGhee: West Coast 1945-1947

Way Out Wardell: Wardell Gray

I hear everyone about the pro-Strasburg stats and everything, I get the love, but maybe it's that I perpetually think the Nationals are going to win it all, and then they bomb out of the playoffs -- sort of like the Braves all those years. I still don't get how you have three Hall of Fame pitchers on your staff, and only one World Series win.

Strasburg's never reached the heights that I though he could coming out of San Diego State. Pitching, the most unnatural action in sports.

Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life by Jack Deere. Deere is famous in the charismatic world, at one point in his life working with John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Church movement in Anaheim, CA. Not your typical memoir that goes from "glory to glory"; well written, but one of the saddest accounts I've read. Comes from a family background where his father committed suicide, and his mother had a difficult personality. Deere marries a woman, who turns out to have serious emotional issues stemming from being sexually abuse by her father (he did not find this out until later in the marriage, after she tried to commit suicide a number of times), and to top that all off, his son committed suicide at the age of 23. Numerous times in his life, he tells us, he put himself first, and everyone else second, and comments he used "proclaiming the gospel" as an excuse to hide the damage he was doing to family and friends by his actions from himself. His account of his relationship with Wimber is heartbreaking in this regard. He writes of coming to be aware of all this, and I get a heavy sense of sadness and regret as he looks over his life. "Knowing yourself," it turns out, is not as easy as it sounds.

Stan Kenton: Sophisticated Approach

Shorty Rogers & Bill Perkins: Live at the Royal Palms Inn

I loved those Pirates teams of the 1970s, so many interesting personalities. I think that's what I miss most, the personalities from the days gone by, nowadays, there seems to be only the cookie cutter mold of no emotion while playing, unwritten rules galore -- strangely enough, some those old-time managers like Danny Murtaugh seemed to be pretty chill about things, unlike today's over controlling managers. Edit: Yeah, I know, the above is really old geezer talk, but really, get off my lawn!

Shorty Rogers and His Giants: Echoes of Harlem

I was on the old BN board, as JuJu. Hard to image that many years...

For some reason, I looked at the join date on my profile, and I cannot believe it's been 15 years?!?! Where does the time go?

So, I'm sitting down for dinner with someone from the East Coast across from me, and he puts salt on his watermelon. Deal with it!

Chihei Hatakeyama: Mirror

Josh Garrels: Love and War and the Sea in Between:

Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey with Depression and Faith by Monica A Coleman.

Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant by Alan Jacobs Even Alan Jacobs' apologies off his website are witty: Apology Several times a week, on average, I get an email from someone I don't know asking a favor. Most commonly, a person wants me to read something she has written: an essay or article, a story, even an entire book. Sometimes the writer wants me to visit his blog and make comments there. I am pretty regularly asked to blurb about-to-be-published books or in some other way to promote them (it's often suggested that I assign them to my classes). High-school students write to solicit my opinion about this or that — well, usually it's not "this or that," it's C. S. Lewis. People want reading recommendations on a range of subjects. I am very often asked, especially by my fellow Christians, about graduate school in English or the humanities more generally. Sometimes people ask me about Anglicanism, or present me with general theological conundrums. (These I feel absolutely unqualified to address.) Folks, I just can't keep up with all these requests. I have classes to teach, I have writing commitments, I have work to do at my church, I have a family to care for — and often I get the same kinds of questions from people I know, usually former students, people to whom I think I have some legitimate obligations. There simply are not enough hours in the day for me to answer all these questions. I have tried for years to keep up, in part because I know that C. S. Lewis, that admirable fellow — who even in the days before email got ten times the requests I get — answered all his mail, even when it took him hours a day to do it. But I have to to wonder how he ever managed to get through all his correspondence, even with a brother willing to serve as secretary. And I even wonder whether he was wise to devote as much time to answering letters as he did. But in any event, I have too often promised to read something that I ended up not being able to find the time to read, or I have read and commented on strangers' work only to let something essential fall into the cracks as a result. So the only conclusion I can come to is this: if I don't know you, I'm not going to be able to read your manuscript or answer complicated questions at length. Of course, I try to answer all my emails, but I often end up disappointing people by replying briefly on subjects that deserve more detailed scrutiny. I wish I could do better, but I hope you will understand if I don't. I can't resist adding that Edmund Wilson's version of the above is wittier and more pointed — and also stricter! — than mine: And one more thing. Dear reader, the statistics I’ve read suggest to me that there's a very good chance you are an extravert. I am not. You may not only like the thought of corresponding with strangers, but think it fun to meet with them as well. For me, that kind of experience is, well, un-fun. If I decline your friendly suggestion that we have lunch or dinner or coffee, please do not take it personally. I would probably decline a comparable offer from Bob Dylan or J. K. Rowling or Pope Francis, at least unless I had a friend to accompany me to lessen the social pressure. I know most of you think of introversion as a disease to be cured, but there's no cure yet. Call me when one is developed — wait, strike that, write me. But don't expect a response right away....

It's been about equal the amount of time I've lived in NoCal & SoCal, so that I'm attached to both teams, plus the Padres, who I grew up with, and none of them are looking that good this year.

Dexter Gordon: BOPland

Hey! I ain't dead yet, but the SF Giants sure are.

Andy Sheppard Quartet: Romaria. Very nice, I enjoyed it very much.

Bob Cooper: Group Activity

Happy Birthday!

Sad loss of a true rock legend: Chuck Berry RIP