Piano Music CD's For Sale

I've made a public notice concerning my mother-in-law's piano music CD over at saintsteven's place. According to theory, linkage to and from this page will increase this information's visibility to certain search engines. We shall see.

My e-mail address is seen to the left under the Correspondence heading, in case you followed that link in order to contact me. Presumably, the CD can be ordered directly from CDBaby when they have stock on hand once again.

It occurs to me belatedly that I should mention the artist's name. Marjorie Bliese Gluckstein. CDBaby indicates you should go ahead and order a copy since CD's are "on the way", which roughly translates as lost somewhere between the receiving dock and the proper shelf in the warehouse.

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there usually is." - Robert Pease

Overcompensating

Jeffrey Rowland, creator of Wigu and CEO of TopatoCo has a cartoon blog that is very entertaining. Just thought you would want to know about that.

Fripp continues to crack me up. This is from Tuesday 23rd November 1999:

Rocco Farte (pronounced "Far-tay") has spent many years on the inside of the music industry, with varying degrees of success. He has worked with many of the most important artists of the last 30 years, such as pomp rocker Legs Blake, Blane Fury & Bari Neon (two bright lights of the glam-rock era), plus even more of the completely unknown, like Teddy Valiant. Regrettably, all of this has taken something of a toll upon his vital presence. But he continues to breathe, seek territory, food & sexual partners. On a clear day, his reminiscences are startling. On a day when his personal sun is obscured by clouds, even more so.

UPDATE: Bari Neon (like Brain One) is an anagram for Brian Eno. Whether Legs Blake and/or Blane Fury might be anagrams or obscure references to other musical luminaries of Fripp's acquaintance (Brian Ferry? David Bowie? Peter Gabriel?) is a matter for speculation. R.F. seems to have quite a self deprecating sense of humour, in any event.

Links Updated

Rearranged, added a couple, demoted a few... No other reason for this post, just wanted to make sure the Template didn't get hosed...

Oh Yeah, One More Thing

I don't quite have the time or motivation to produce a major post about the performances rehearsals of Jim Grimsley's "A Bird Of Prey" at Tosa West last night. I will note that the people who raised the stink about it are dopes, the "acting" school superintendents are invertebrate weasels, and Ms. King and the troupe did a tremendous job presenting a significant and moving piece of drama. So there.

What Happened To September?

Keeping busy, and out of trouble, I guess. I turned 31 (hexadecimal) last month, and it would have been my father's 90th birthday (decimal) two weeks ago today, as well.

Family news includes tidbits such as Matt's got his Learner's Permit and is taking Driver's Ed, and Sarah is a National Merit Semifinalist and is keeping busy with rehearsals for some play whose name I don't recall... Plus she's starting to learn music to play in the "West Side Story" pit orchestra in addition to UWAY and marching band and State Honors band. A busy little clarinetist, though she plays bass drum in marching band! Peter plays bassoon with the MYSO Junior Winds again this year, but he's the only 'oonist this year! (Last year there were three.) He's not the most active or merit badge motivated Boy Scout, but he did go camping once last month.

Matt and I finished painting the trim and windows last weekend, and Lora tried the sponge-painting thing on the fourth wall of our new enclosed patio / three season room (we haven't decided quite what to call it yet!). Results are very nice. We have some trim to install, but it's livable again. Lora may be planning to refinish the French Doors, too. We'll tile the floor next Spring or Summer, but until then it's a very nice space to sit of a summer or autumn evening or weekend morning... It'll be interesting to see how late into the Fall we end up using the room. Overnight temperatures are starting to dip, now that October's here...

A CD Review...

Through the graces of Blogcritics, I've been supplied with a few promo CD's for reviewing purposes in recent months. The first one to arrive proved to be a difficult nut to crack. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, and I felt I needed to study it pretty hard and educate myself a bit before putting my impressions onto pixels. And, quite frankly, I felt that it deserved at least a somewhat positive review, even though it didn't really excite me on first hearing. So, I've ended up listening to it a dozen or so times over the last month or two, and gradually pulled together the following. I'd probably call it a three star CD on a five star scale. (Or maybe 7 on a 1 to 10 scale... I think American Bandstand has a lock on the zero to one hundred "it's got a good beat you can dance to it" concept!)

Sir Roland Hanna - Tributaries (Reflections On Tommy Flanagan)

Detroit developed a burgeoning jazz scene following World War II, but like many midwestern urban centers, it's lasting heritage is the string of Jazz Musicians it fed to the gravitational pull of New York City rather than the fruits of its own indigenous scene. Consider the effect on the Big Apple music scene had Milt Jackson, Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, the Jones brothers (Elvin, Thad and Hank) and Kenny Burrell not gone East in the 50's...

Sir Roland Hanna (Unlike 'Duke' Ellington and 'Count' Basie, 'Sir' was not a nickname, but an actual title, bestowed on him by the President of Liberia in 1970 for humanitarian efforts on behalf of that country!) was another Detroit native who made his mark in New York. He approached jazz from the classical tradition, having studied at Eastman and Julliard, then served with both Benny Goodman and Charles Mingus in the 50's before concentrating on his own trio and a steady gig with the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis big band. A tenured professor at Queens College in New York, Hanna finished "Tributaries (Reflections on Tommy Flanagan)" just before his own sudden death in November 2002. (Flanagan had passed away the previous year.)

This Solo Piano CD begins and ends with Flanagan compositions. "Sea Change", the opener, begins in a George Winston mood, then segues into a march tempo with unexpected harmonies and syncopation, relaxing again to the contemplative by the end. The closing "Delarna" sounds like a song with no words, putting me in mind of Bryan Ferry's "These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)" for some reason. Lyricism may be the dominant characteristic of the CD, reflecting, perhaps, Flanagan's decade-plus spent as Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist, or Hanna's own time spent with Sarah Vaughan.

Hanna's take on Thad Jones' "A Child Is Born" seems to quote from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". If it's good enough for Mozart, why not a 20th Century jazz composer? I wonder if this is intended to evoke a Christmas mood? Not quite the Vince Guaraldi Trio, this feels more like sitting back with a glass of egg nog and rum at midnight after the presents are finally wrapped and under the tree. In contrast, another Jones composition, "'Tis", features considerable energy, syncopation and dynamics.

Gershwin's "Soon" has a nice angular, percussive feel under the melody. Further standards by Cole Porter and Mercer Ellington, and the chestnut "Body And Soul" are explored in a laid-back fashion, swinging melodically, with restrained dynamics, at medium tempos...

Illinois Jacquet's "Robin's Nest" is probably the most upbeat number on the disc. It's easy to imagine a Forties or Fifties tenor sax quartet ripping through this one. Sir Roland flirts with a boogie woogie beat and keeps my toe tapping throughout.

Overall, this is not avant-garde or especially propulsive piano music, but melodic and elegant, with subtle variations in style and texture. A relaxing hour of late evening or weekend afternoon listening. My usual taste in piano players tends more to Professor Longhair and Glenn Gould, and while Hanna shares few obvious characteristics with that odd couple, he also steers clear of the overheated pounding with the sustain pedal that used to pass for dramatic romantic dynamism in the days before heavy metal. Overall, a worthy recording, and a fitting tribute to the memories of two fine musicians.

Comments may be posted at Blogcritics.

Twyford Vitromant Update


Via Ben Turner, corresponding from olde Blighty, Twyford Vitromant is apparently a brand of Toilet fixtures over there in England. Thanks!

I remember being mystified by the neat blue text "K of K USA" on the urinals back in elementary school, eventually deducing that the fine porcelain items in question were probably manufactured by the Kohler Company up there in Kohler, Wisconsin. I never wrote a song about it, though.

The Thoughts of Chairman Bob

Part of the reason I find it worthwhile to check out Robert Fripp's online diary (link to the left) even when he goes weeks without uploading new posts (a common side effect of touring Eastern Europe, running a Guitar Craft seminar in South America, or other extended absences from internet access) is that they automatically revive postings from "this date in history", as well as a randomly selected entry. Recent postings concern the editing and preparation of a 21st Century Guide to King Crimson and his various dealings with home remodeling tradesmen as well as his small pleasures with his wife, his home, and his village. Interesting to me, if not of major importance. And once in a while an observation from the past feels useful in the present tense...

Wednesday 23rd. August, 2000

Part of my morning's reading & reflection: how help is always available, even though we are often not available for help to help us.

The centre of gravity of the act of redemption is love. How easily said, how easily typed. What can this mean? I don't know, and I don't believe it is possible to know redemption on its "own" terms.

The first paragraph resonates especially in my work life just lately. I must attempt to find a way to seek and accept "help" when I find myself spinning my wheels, in loose sand with no traction. Remaining "available" at home is a continuing challenge, as well. And redemption, I suppose, is a gift that needs mostly to be accepted, not necessarily understood.

And I think that's all the bloviation I have time for on that subject today. Now to work!

Happy 13th Birthday, Peter!

Well, as of yesterday, we now have three teenagers in the house. Yow. Good kids, one and all; I hope I can somehow afford to send them off to college in a few years.

I see all the text formatting buttons have disappeared since my last posting. I guess I'll find out what this looks like after I post it. Gotta put something up here before the month disappears, or so the contract requires...

Lots I could write about, but I have a tendency to get things out of my system in various e-mail exchanges, so they don't wind up here. Considering there are but infrequent clues that anyone may be reading this stuff (and that's okay, of course), I see no reason to change at this time.

The Gala BCHS 73 31st Classless Reunion was great fun a couple weekends ago, and if I saw you there, I hope you felt the same. If I didn't see you there, you may be hearing from me yet! My sunburn is nearly done peeling off my shoulders, the photos aren't back from the drugstore yet, and I hear Bruce's stereo is rebroken already. And I have lots of Work to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Till next month...

James Lileks, Michael Moore, George Orwell and Bob Dylan

The Daily Bleat pointed to Christopher Hitchens' response to Fahrenheit 9/11 over at Slate/MSN. Interesting reading, but if you don't make it all the way through his deconstruction of Moore's disjointed anti-Bush spew, don't miss the George Orwell quotation near the end:

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention ... is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

I'll try to remember.

On an unrelated note, an eminent poetry scholar has published a 500 page book about the poetry of Bob Dylan, and more or less misses the point. Good article if you're a Dylan fan, or especially if you're a high school English teacher subjecting the kids to a "Poetry of Rock" curriculum.

Cartoon Cat Commentary

Ray's Place is a bit short on advice today, but his analysis of (I guess you'd call it) Today's Alternative Rock sure strikes a chord. (How about G⁷?)

It is some hot heavy that you got a gig at Live 105... For those of you who don’t know, Live 105 plays alternative hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s, but they also spin the latest generation of alternative, you know, where a bunch of haircuts who are 20 play in a band that has the levels mixed essentially correctly and the lyrics are:

I’M A KID AND I’M KID KID YELLIN’
I’M KID KID YELLIN’
I’M A KID AND I’M KID KID YELLIN’
KID KID YELLIN’ AT YOU

So sometimes when Live 105 does “flashback lunch” or whatever, I can get meaty bones on old Iggy or also on an old Blondie track. But when they play Kid Kid Yellin’, I just feel like I have a big shit in my pants, and that Live 105 put the shit there with that type of tri-nozzle machine that fills up Twinkies.

Ray has a hella way with words. All hail, Chris Onstad.

The Daily Fripp

As an adult, in situations where there is no intention on my part to upset or disturb, the reaction of others is not, and cannot be, my responsibility. As adults we accept responsibility for our own emotional lives. If I hold a grudge over time, this is my responsibility, not the responsibility of the person who gave offence. The benefit of several decades of observing negativity closely held is a powerful argument to forgive, let go, move on.

Where someone is deliberately nasty, what registers is the intent. This is often, for me, like being pierced. It is an attack, and an attack does not take place by accident. The attack is not my responsibility. How I respond to that attack is my responsibility. In some situations, sometimes no response is a response, especially when past responses to the antagonist have been seized upon as an opportunity to engage in the dumping of more nastiness, or locking me into negative conversational knots.

Quietly sending goodwill, even when difficult, mysteriously changes something and sets up a series of unexpected & unanticipated repercussions. - RF - Friday 4th May, 2001.

That's some of his serious side, and this bit resonates with me somehow. The Quiet One. Hmm.

Previously, in the same post he queries: "Ian's English humour shines through throughout. The question is: why has he not written material before now?" My question is, why doesn't a literate, clever, insightful and intelligent (not to mention small and mobile) unit like the Fripp write any lyrics for King Crimson? I guess the short answer is that the singer must write his own words if he is to believe them and deliver them believably. With certain historical exceptions. Playing guitar is hard enough. What Belew does within the band is demonstrably miraculous. Still, a more overt reflection/incarnation of the Head Crim's remarkable outlook within their recorded output would be a cool addition to the KC fabric...

Recommended Download

The Master Plan - "Find Something Beautiful" from their new album, Colossus Of Destiny. The band is Andy Shernoff from the Dictators, Keith Streng and the drummer from the Fleshtones and another guitarist from the Waxing Poetics, who I haven't heard of previously. Yes, it rocks; intelligently, with good spirit and emphatically. Excellent quality complete song, 192kbps mp3, and the CD is available directly for $12 postpaid. Paypal accepted. Recommended.

Where To Find People

Langenberg.com has Zip code lookups, White Pages, Yellow Pages, etc. It's a meta-lookup thingie, if I'm using that technical jargon correctly, as it will submit your search info to a number of sites and link you to the results. Anyway, it works pretty good, and at home the other day I couldn't remember it and Google just seemed to point me to a bunch of frickin' pay sites...

Twyford Vitromant

That's a two word phrase that's been stuck in my head for some time. I have no idea what it means, other than it's Bonzo Dog Band related. A bit of Googling suggests it's a Neil Innes song, and uncovers an excellent Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band page. Educate yourself, and if you don't have a mess of recordings by these guys, you've only yourself to blame. Or maybe you had to be there. I never was, quite, myself, but your mileage may vary. Still, classic immortal British insanity in abundance, if that sort of thing appeals to you.

Stop Grovelling!


You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't know what my score was out of the twenty questions, but I can't argue with having Divinity bestowed upon my person, now can I?

Debra Niswonger Foote

So, right now I gotta go say goodbye to a friend who died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) a few days ago. At this evening's "Time of Rememberance", I shall, on the advice of my Spiritual Advisor (The Reverend Doctor Pastor Mojo Blarney), praise God and give thanks for the resurrected Christ in addition to sharing her memory with her family and friends. Peace, Deb.

Now, That's Writing!

I read Penny Arcade's "News" section as well as the webcomic itself every Monday, Wednesday and Friday... I seldom know much about the games that are their obsessions, but the sense of humor and skewed outlook is highly recognizable. Apropos of Nothing, as the saying goes, and somewhat out of context, this, from yesterday, made me laugh out loud...

Despite some comics you may have seen online, Gabriel and I are not gay and we rarely have sex with one another. Indeed, long ago we solicited the services of two young women for this exact purpose and eventually went about securing them in exclusive contracts. I chose the Brenna model and have thus far been reasonably satisfied with the purchase. There's only one facet of the union that grinds, and that is her acquisition of a nicotine addiction. She doesn't chew, I never retract from intimacy with any kind of mulch on my face. She smokes. I don't care if you smoke, as the odds are good I never have to taste the inside of your mouth.

It's a "hobby" she picked up during one of her bacchanalian summer drama tours. I asked her if it was accurate to say that she started doing it because the cool kids were, and she replied that, no, it was because everyone else was doing it. Apparently there are points of distinction between those two things that my apparatus doesn't have the magnification to detect. For a long time, I only suspected it - when I would kiss her during some college visit, it would taste as though she had been eating cats still crisp from a barn fire.

She has tried to quit before, but she clearly didn't mean it and I had no energy to support her in some grueling ordeal she had only nominal interest in. This worked out great for her, because then when she failed it could be my fault. It's a service that I provide people too lazy to take the reins of their own lives.

Photo Phunnies

John Kerry on the Campaign Trail

Google Spamming

Okay, if you found your name here via Google search and you know who I am, why not drop me an e-mail? (See the Correspondence address to the left?) Good. Here's a high resolution satellite image of what I looked like a year or two ago. Your mouse pointer can tell you the correct spelling of my name. Try it!



Glenn Weissinger Dave Marheine Kris Dugas Bob Bucci Mary Pat McKinley Mark Singel Dave Bradford Gary Wedemayer Glenn Emil Weissinger Robert Orlick Kristine Dugas Dan Gross Jeff Garland Jim Urban Dale Dolence Dean Dolence Jeff Gullickson Rick Olson Pat Furlan Don Kotek Frank Owen David Marheine Kristine Ann Joan Dugas Craig Liebel Dana Stonerook Rick Piel Les LaPhilliph Jerry Meyerhoff Lauren Bandler...

Man, this is hard work accessing these dusty memory banks. There are other names at the tip of my tongue that can't quite make it to my fingers right now. And some I don't feel confident enough about the correct spelling to put 'em in here... So, a general invitation to old friends from Walker School in West Allis, Linfield, Pilgrim Park, BCHS '73, UW Madison, Sellery Hall, Motorola, Eagle Monitor Systems, Square D, Oster, et cetera, etc... Let's Keep In Touch!

Spammity Spam Wonderful Spam

Spammers certainly seems to be adapting to anti-spam measures. I assume the "content" of this message (and probably the tracking of live addresses) was actually in the embedded graphics (not displayed). The text portion of the message, evidently intended to tempt me to accept free dog treats or something was as follows:

I was just thinking. I was just thinking. Suddenly, she wasn't there. Why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is?

Hi, I said to all the animals. I'll tell you what happened next. I want you to hit me as hard as you can. Are you getting pieces of this?

Just tell me your answer, even if it sucks. Why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? He extended his hand by way of introduction. (I'd seen something really weird. :)

Are there a lot of these types of accidents? You can't go up to the unit. Nobody's allowed up there. It was cold and sweet. I can never describe the walk back to my truck. Suddenly, he disappeared.

This is even more amusing than the "names" of the senders in a day's spam harvest, which today includes Marty Thurman, rigoberto rayside, Fletcher Dean and Ethel.

A Recent E-Mail

Hello mrdave,

Recently we became aware that your eBay registered account was involved in the following activity:

Posting material containing profanity, vulgarity, hate speech, or threats of violence.

which is not permitted at eBay.

This is a copy of your post:

Posted by mrdave (133) on Feb-26-04 at 10:01:15 PST

Today's Lileks: I think it’s a shame [Howard Stern] was reprimanded. I don’t think people understand what’s at stake here. We need to coarsen public discourse as much as possible as quickly as possible, because a free and open society depends on the right of Pink to flash her labia at the next Superbowl. I’m serious: if we don’t see a clitoris on the Jumbocam, this nation is OVER. (Breast, labia - what's the diff? Please don't tell me you're one of those bluenoses who thinks a boob's okay but explicit gyno topography is somehow unsuitable for prime-time. It's the HUMAN BODY, people; what's your hang up? ) I’m tired of people who think that it’s the role of large media chains to hit the panic button when a caller to Stern’s show calls him a f--ing k-ke, and bleeps Howard when when he says the caller a sh-head ch-nk. People! Come on! What is this country coming to when people can’t call other people sh-thead ch-nks on the public airwaves?

...And we'd be paying what for gasoline under President Gore's People's Green Petroleum Collective Distribution System? Call me a middle aged conservative white guy, but I don't think all the dishonest moron assholes are in the Bush administration. ...

We realize that you may not have been aware there was a rule against this activity. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to review our site policies, which can be found at:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-board.html

Please understand our goal is to help you understand our policies to ensure successful experiences at eBay. Therefore, we respectfully request that you refrain from this activity in the future to avoid the possibility of a suspension of your eBay registration.

Thank you for your cooperation in this important matter.

Regards,
Mary
eBay Moderation Team

*****

Okay, so I deserve 40 lashes with a wet noodle, as Dear Abby used to say. I guess I'm not as PG-rated as I should be sometimes. D'oh!

Hidden Text
Highlight by clicking and dragging:
Hidden Text !
<font color=#e0fde0>Hidden Text !</font>
A good subtle keyword spamming technique. Eventually, I'm going to salt this blog with names of (more) people I've lost track of over the years to see if they ever Google their own names. And if so, if they have any interest in sending me a damn e-mail. I'm not embarrassed enough about doing it myself to pretend that I don't! Googling my own name (in quotation marks, of course) doesn't point to any of my own web presences, so I guess I better take care of that in some subtle fashion, too. I think the surname by itself turns me up, just after lots of pages of distant relatives and genealogy results and junk. "Hazy Dave" and "MrDrDave" and even "mrdave" return some valid results, but that's of little use to anybody who doesn't already know any of my web aliases. So. Of course, I still live in the same metropolitan area where I grew up and went to high school, so I generally assume that the people who never call or write don't want to talk or correspond with me anyway. Well. Linkage and keyword spamming I can handle, the rest is up to you people. But it appears I need to update my "home page" now and then, or it disappears from the Google cache. "Further Clues" to the left! Whatever. Back to work...

Streaming Audio

Airchecks: Top 40 Radio Repository - RealAudio airchecks from the Golden Age of Top 40 Radio. Good amounts of classic Chicago radio (WLS and WCFL) and even some Milwaukee radio, mostly WOKY, with perhaps mention of WRIT and WEMP... And Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, etc. of course.

WMSE Archives - Also downloadable! Planet Prog at 9PM Sunday night, the Chicken Shack at 9 AM Friday morning, and Jerry Glocka's show Friday at 6 PM are all worth tuning in. If I had a high bandwidth connection, adequate hard drive space AND a CD burner in the same location, I think I'd burn a whole lot of these.

Shindig! Magazine

Oooh, reviews of obscure 60's psych & pop reissued on CD. Bookmark for post-lottery-win shopping spree...

The Real Kerry?

Following some links this morning (perhaps Vodkapundit, who I mainly read for the recipes - heh), I found an amusing article concerning the likely Democratic nominee from the New York Post, written by a talk show host / Boston Herald columnist... I assume he's not of the Left Wing variety since he writes about all the money and privilege Kerry married into, rather than his War Heroism and Devotion to Public Service. Well, I don't expect people to sneer at Bush about being a "child of privilege" if Kerry is nominated...

Note To Self
Read this Interview With Emmylou Harris later.

Odd Amazon Reviews

I first became aware of the subculture of spoof and parody reviews on Amazon with regard to various New York Times Book Review-style literary criticisms of Family Circus cartoon books...

Today I'm killing a little time with the demented mind of Henry Raddick. Some amazing stuff, here, if you're in the right mood. A few examples among 284 reviews:

Creative Healing : How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Hidden Creativity by Michael Samuels, Mary Rockwood Lane
A nightingale finds its voice November 26, 2001
Many thanks to the authors for helping me to tap into my boundless creative energy and thus tackle my morbid obesity. My poundage has remained pretty static but at least I have been able to detract from it by holding my friends and family spellbound with my beautifully crafted semi-autobiographical free-verse epic poems and impressed by my congealed lamb fat sculptures. Thank you Mr Samuels for allowing my spirit to soar.

The Ale Master: How I Pioneered America's Craft Brewing Industry, Opened the First Brewpub, Bucked Trends, and Enjoyed Every Minute of It by Bert Grant, et al
Excellent November 16, 2001
Despite the title sounding like something a barfly might slobber at you before he pitches into the details of his acrimonious divorce, this is a facinating and thought-provoking autobiography.

Don't Shoot the Dog by James L. Kopp
Tremendous November 16, 2001
Kopp's marvelous guide shows how to train a dog without resorting to desperate measures. Thanks to this book I have kept my spaniel Barry in line with a couple of mock executions.

Super Bowl Commercials

The Channel 4 morning news show previewed some Super Bowl commercials today. Don't let me ruin your weekend if you want all this to be a surprise Sunday afternoon/evening...

My favorite was Homer Simpson for MasterCard. I never knew the Kwik-E Mart accepted plastic, much less Moe.

Jimi Hendrix for Pepsi loses points because it features a Telecaster instead of a Stratocaster. C'mon, people...

Muhammed Ali for Linux/IBM loses points for comprehensibility, but gains points for incomprehensibility.

Parading Scotsmen for Sierra Mist is not bad, considering it is, as they point out, just Wrong. Is that some kind of Marilyn Monroe homage?

I hope it's a good game, cuz I sure as hell have no interest in the pregame hype or half time show. Anyway, Papa Murphy's pizza is on the menu for Sunday, so there's always that to look forward to...

Bootleg Series Volume Six

News about a forthcoming Bob Dylan double CD...

On March 23, Columbia/Legacy will release Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall -- The Bootleg Series Volume 6, a two-CD set documenting the all-acoustic, October 31, 1964, Halloween-night concert by Bob Dylan at Philharmonic Hall in New York City. The recording captures a 23-year-old Dylan at a transitional moment in his career, two months after the release of Another Side of Bob Dylan, the last acoustic album he would record before ... the electrified rock heard on Bringing It All Back Home, several songs from which he previewed at this concert.

Woody Guthry? Moe Asch?

Smithsonian Label to Sell Folk Catalog as Downloads

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Billboard) - Nonprofit label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is making its entire collection of 33,000 folk and world music songs available as downloads for 99 cents apiece. The service will debut April 1 on the label's own site, http://www.folkways.si.edu, and later this spring on the Smithsonian's http://www.globalsound.org site.

The Folkways catalog was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., after the death of label founder Moe Asch in 1986. The recordings, which date back to 1948, include material by Woody Guthry, Leadbelly, Brownie McGhee and Pete Seeger.

Reuters/Billboard

Well, typos notwithstanding, it'll be worth browsing the catalog in a few months to see if there's any more Ellen Stekert tunes available in addition to that Songs Of A New York Lumberjack CD-R we got for Aunt Etta last year...

Recent Playlists

Nth of Pril has been posting WinAmp playlists recently. Interesting to see what other people are listening to, especially when it's not completely unfamiliar stuff! I was unsuccessful in creating a new playlist yesterday, so instead, here's the track listings for a couple recent CD-R's.

Radio Dave - Twisted Mix 2004

1 Lou Reed - Perfect Day (demo)
2 Lyle Lovett - The Summer Wind
3 Pearls Before Swine - Wedding
4 Gene Clark - One In A Hundred
5 Flying Burrito Bros - Lodi
6 Souther Hillman Furay Band - On The Line
7 Mallard - A Piece Of Me
8 Lyle Lovett - Moritat (Mack The Knife)
9 Lou Reed - Hangin' Round (demo)
10 Flying Burrito Bros - Bony Maronie
11 Graham Parker & the Rumour - Pouring It All Out
12 Flying Burrito Bros - Pick Me Up On Your Way Down
13 Richard & Linda Thompson - Calvary Cross
14 Jorma Kaukonen - Song For The High Mountain
15 Pearls Before Swine - Did You Dream Of
16 John Martyn - Couldn't Love You More
17 Richie Furay - I Still have Dreams
18 Randy Stonehill - I've Got News For You
19 Leonard Cohen - Story Of Isaac
20 Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman - You've Got A Friend In Me
21 Flying Burrito Bros - Wake Up Little Susie
22 Flying Burrito Bros - One Hundred Years From Now
23 Flying Burrito Bros - Money Honey

Like a lot of my CD-R's over the last year, this was intended to free up a little space on the hard drive by making one last backup of some stuff that's been on there a long time.

Radio Dave 2003 - Mental Movie Music (Director's Cut)

01 Tornadoes - Telstar
02 Spooner - Feeling Good Is Gonna Come Easy
03 The Toys - A Lover's Concerto
04 People - I Love You
05 Justin Hayward - The Actor
06 Wild Man Fischer & Mark Mothersbaugh - The Way We Were
07 Spooner - Wild Winds
08 Graham Parker & Rumour - Pouring It All Out
09 Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride
10 Bloodrock - D.O.A.
11 Nick Cave - Time Jesum Transuentum Et Non Revertentum
12 Spooner - Fugitive Dance (House Mix)
13 The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
14 Dondero High School Choir - Fox On The Run
15 Eddie & Edie & Reggaebots - Some Velvet Morning
16 Van Morrison - Ringworm / You Say France And I Whistle / Have A Danish
17 Jorma Kaukonen - Song For The High Mountain
18 Hugo Montenegro - The Good The bad And The Ugly
19 GE Silicone Products - Sand
20 The Dictators - Kiss My Ass

Same deal applies here. The original version contains 100MB or so of movie files instead of the last three songs, but it made a pretty decent Road Movie Soundtrack when Paul and Michele and I went to Madison between Christmas and New Year's, so I assembled this version for distribution through the usual channels, if you follow me. Since I don't have the technology for visitors to leave Comments, you'll have to write me (e-ddress to the left) if you have any questions. I got a nice note from somebody once after I posted a Playlist with a couple obscure Cat Stevens songs on it. Hopefully those will continue to outnumber the cease and desist orders and threats of legal repercussions from the RIAA and other friendly entitities dedicating to Protecting The Rights Of America's Recording Industry.

Teleology and Solipsism

USS Clueless is the domain of Steven DenBeste, who works as some kind of a software engineer in San Diego. He's justly renowned for his lengthy essays on various scientific, intellectual and political subjects. I find "Teleology and Solipsism" to be very amusing and interesting, considering I couldn't define either term if my life depended on it.

in 1991, computer programmer Chip Morningstar and a couple of other programmers were invited to give a speech at a two-day "interdisciplinary" Second International Conference on Cyberspace.

Randy and I were scheduled to speak on the second day of the conference. This was fortunate because it gave us the opportunity to recalibrate our presentation based on the first day's proceedings, during which we discovered that we had grossly mischaracterized the audience by assuming that it would be like the crowd from the first conference. I spent most of that first day furiously scribbling notes. People kept saying the most remarkable things using the most remarkable language, which I found I needed to put down in writing because the words would disappear from my brain within seconds if I didn't. Are you familiar with the experience of having memories of your dreams fade within a few minutes of waking? It was like that, and I think for much the same reason. Dreams have a logic and structure all their own, falling apart into unmemorable pieces that make no sense when subjected to the scrutiny of the conscious mind. So it was with many of the academics who got up to speak. The things they said were largely incomprehensible...

We retreated back to Palo Alto that evening for a quick rewrite... Then we set about attempting to add something that would be an adequate response to the postmodern lit crit-speak we had been inundated with that day. Since we had no idea what any of it meant (or even if it actually meant anything at all), I simply cut-and-pasted from my notes. The next day I stood up in front of the room and opened our presentation with the following:

The essential paradigm of cyberspace is creating partially situated identities out of actual or potential social reality in terms of canonical forms of human contact, thus renormalizing the phenomenology of narrative space and requiring the naturalization of the intersubjective cognitive strategy, and thereby resolving the dialectics of metaphorical thoughts, each problematic to the other, collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm of the parable of the model of the metaphor.

This bit of nonsense was constructed entirely out of things people had actually said the day before, except for the last ten words or so which are a pastiche of Danny Kaye's "flagon with the dragon" bit from The Court Jester, contributed by our co-worker Gayle Pergamit, who took great glee in the entire enterprise. Observing the audience reaction was instructive. At first, various people started nodding their heads in nods of profound understanding, though you could see that their brain cells were beginning to strain a little. Then some of the techies in the back of the room began to giggle. By the time I finished, unable to get through the last line with a straight face, the entire room was on the floor in hysterics, as by then even the most obtuse English professor had caught on to the joke. With the postmodernist lit crit shit thus defused, we went on with our actual presentation.

That's taken from How To Deconstruct Almost Anything, which is worth reading in its entirety.

Rhino Handmade

Okay, just had to link this page. The Rhino Handmade Catalog. Limited Edition rereleases, $20 a pop. Good buddy Paul gave me the Television Live disc for Christmas, but I still need the Stalk-Forrest Group, and the Neon Philharmonic would be nice... Yeah, I could spend a lot of money here. Not as much as at Mad City Music, but on a par with Discipline Global Mobile, I'd say! (I'd make the preceding links, but the Mad City website doesn't do justice to the store, and uh, I'm too lazy to link to DGM. Click on the Fripp blog to the left and navigate to the store, okay? Cool. See ya later.)

"Johnny's Garden"

A song from Stephen Stills' Manassas double-LP. Here's a 1970 photo of Johnny the Gardener (Taken by Henry Diltz courtesy the Rhino Records website) in the garden with Stephen and Peter Sellers. Sellers evidently sold the house (and garden) - Brookfield House in Elsted, Surrey - to Ringo Starr, who later sold it to Stills...

Noel Harrison CD from Rhino Handmade

My old friends Pete and Carole Stultz should order up this CD: Noel Harrison - Life Is A Dream - from Rhino Handmade. It's a 26 track collection from the three Reprise albums, Collage (1967), Santa Monica Pier (1968), and The Great Electric Experiment Is Over (1969), plus "Windmills Of Your Mind" and something like 3 unreleased tunes.

Folky soft rock on the surface, this material often leans into psych with its daring orchestrations. Anyway, that's what it says here. Don't think there's any Dylan tunes here (he'd done some on a previous LP for London), but there's around three Leonard Cohen songs as well as Arlo Guthrie, Donovan, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins...

I wonder if I can find an e-mail address for Pete Stultz? I haven't heard from him for a while. But, I might have gotten a Christmas card from them again this year; I'll have to check. Good folks. I thought of them when I bought an Elgin Community Orchesta LP at Goodwill last Fall. Okay, that's enough keyword spamming, maybe Carole or Pete will Google their name and find this blog. Hi, guys!