Jazzcorner.com's Speakeasy - THE ALLEY

Lennon�s Killer Is Denied Parole for the 6th Time

lonely-at-the-top — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:34:37 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/ny..._david_chapman

Not that I would want this guy back on the streets but wondering what, if he had killed a random - say - shop vendor, milkman, cable guy and not John Lennon

What movies have you watch so much you know the lines?

clinthopson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:17:13 GMT

For me:

Casablanca
Young Frankenstein
Godfather 1 & 2
Bridge On The River Kwai
Lawrence Of Arabia
The Great Escape
Treasure of Sierra Madre

The General ::D

CD players

BlueMiles — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:49:22 GMT

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good CD player. My current one has gone down, and with a limited amount of searching I haven't found a good one to replace it. I had a carousel type--it could play 5 CDs.

It seems like a whole new world--and indeed it is, with DVD, MP3, etc. For that matter, I'm sure these days a lot of people hook up really nice speakers to their computers.

How do you pick what to read?

rollhead — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:19:43 GMT

For years, I was in the habit of buying books "I had to have," which were generally books that had great reviews or were on topics that I had a serious interest in.

But I always found it was a crap-shoot in terms of their readability. Even if I found them less than desireable after a quick scan, I would tend to buy it, anyway, thinking that once I got momentum going I could get through the book.

Today, I would rather not take a gamble on spending $15 (for a paperback) or $25 (for a hardback) for a book that I might not read.

The bottom line is this: I just don't have a good track record at selecting books that I eventually ENJOY reading.

I have found that a good review rarely makes a book a good risk when it comes to readability.

I came pretty close to picking up Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" this weekend, but I resisted. What little I have seen of his prose seems overwritten and ponderous to me. I wasn't at all confident I could get through 600 pages of it.

Curious what other people's book buying experience has been. What percentage of the books that you buy do you eventually read? 100 percent?
75 percent?

How do you pick them?

Pope coming? Meh!

baksheesh — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:34:22 GMT

Survey just out reveals that the Brits aren't exactly overcome with enthusiasm about the Pope's visit. Of course the Catholics beg to differ. How surprising! :rolleyes:

The Beeb had this to say.

Morrissey in trouble again

baksheesh — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:33:31 GMT

For making these remarks. Now, most of us know already that the Chinese have some pretty beastly policies regarding how they kill dogs. But still - using the term 'subspecies' is always going to cause a huge furore. And coming from Morissey, a man with a proven track record of racist remarks and lyrics, well he's not going to have to many defenders on this one I think. :rolleyes:

U.S. Open

rollhead — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:17:45 GMT

Wildlife in the suburbs

baksheesh — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:42:12 GMT

A few moments ago I heard a vixen's call outside my window, and had to go take a look. There she was running 'round the central green cheeky as you like. Freaky fucking sound she was making! I live in an estate in city suburb - very built up - and there's tons of foxes around at night. I've seen 'em several times from my window while sneaking a ciggy (no-smoking rules in my gaff), from midnight on, usually just trotting through, and the cats leave well alone.

Anyway, that's all we gots around these parts, but I'm sure Ron for one has a cool story about a cool regular who's beyond the pale.

technical issue--external hard drive

BlueMiles — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:23:37 GMT

I just received an external hard drive from my wife. It's something I realized a while back I really needed: jazz (and other music) was really sucking up my space. I've got one TB, which (to my mind) is huge.

However, when I play music on the drive, I can't find a way to play more than one track at a time. I would also like to create "playlists" on the external hard drive. But the first is the bigger issue. If I have a full Paul Motian CD on the external, why won't it play through all the tracks?

By the way, I run my music through Windows Media Player.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

The Recommend Memoirs (or Autobiographies) Thread

steve(thelil) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:43:32 GMT

I thought that it might not be appropriate to start a separate thread for this, but then realized it doesn't really work within the What are you Reading Thread, since that one focuses on what we are reading now (or read recently).

I'm on a big memoir kick. (I don't really know the difference between them and autobiographies, but I think I prefer memoirs :eek::eek::eek::rolleyes::rolleyes::confused::confused: - Maybe memoirs are more selective and autobiographies more complete historically?)

Among favorites that come immediately come to mind:

House of Happy Endings, by Leslie Garis: Here's an excerpt from NYTimes review, which was titled "Uncle Wiggily at Amherst" At a very early age Leslie Garis began to be aware that there were disturbing discrepancies between her real-life family and the idealized ones portrayed in the uplifting juvenile fiction written by her grandparents. The fragile but magnetic father whom Garis adored, and whom she depicts memorably in “House of Happy Endings,” was at times strangely remote and distracted, even when he managed to speak the right lines

Brother Ray, by Ray Charles. Very good read. A surprisingly candid autobiography. Both raunchier and more thoughtful than I expected. Ray emerges as very likable, with a fascinating mind.

The Know-It-All, by AJ Jacobs: Basically a journal following the author's project of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and trying to learn as much as possible. AJ Jacobs, the author, is a funny guy and a good writer, so it's a fun read. He's reading the encyclopedia in alphabetical order and he cleverly intersperses summaries of and riffs on Britannica entries (topics) with what's going on in his life as he's reading the volumes from which the entries appear.

Born Naked, by Farley Mowat. The Never Cry Wolf author's memoir of his childhood. A modern sounding writer/mind discusses his experiences in a family that traveled a lot and moved to the wilderness during the Depression. Fascinating and inspirational. And the guy can REALLY write.

New David Simon Project!

baksheesh — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:06:00 GMT

Details found here.

Looks like its going to be a real stomper - absolutely brilliant! :cool:

David Gitin's New Book of Poetry live audio

David Gitin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:59:18 GMT

http://frankshome.org/DavidGitinMp3.html

This was a reading in Ellsworth, Maine on August 11, 2010 of my new book, THE JOURNEY HOME, to be published by Blue Wind Press in late Fall 2010. The poems were written between 1962-2010. There is a page on Facebook that that the publishers created called David Gitin (Poet) which will keep you up to date on all this. Hello to those I know here and an introduction to those I don't.

Auto-Tune The News

Dr Dave — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:43:37 GMT

Sometimes the intertubes are just astounding.

The Official Glenda Update for August, with Photo!

Jazzooo — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:21:57 GMT

August 16, 2010

Hola Friends and Family,

Well, the end is near. Don't panic--I'm not talking about my lifespan. I'm referring to the fact that our nine-month stay in the Central Valley is drawing to a close.

I have completed 25 of 33 radiation treatments, with very few side effects.
A little rash, a few shooting pains, and some episodes of fatigue-but so far its been easy, despite my fair skin.

I still have numbness in the tips of my toes from the last round of chemo, but aside from interfering with my late-life aspiration to become a prima ballerina, if it never goes away, I'll be fine.

So we are beginning to dismantle the Cancer Bubble�the alternate world we have created for ourselves since December 5 of last year. It has been a long, hard pull, but we are emerging with optimism and hope.

All of this has taken its toll on Doug, of course. When he was explaining to his Weight Watchers leader how hard it was for him to eat less, he said �I have Cancer of the Wife.� But he is emerging from this stint with not only a new bod, but a new skill-playing the trumpet.

A long time ago a customer at Abbott gave us his trumpet-he could no longer play due to blowing out his lip. It was one of the things that Doug brought up in December--and a few months ago he met a local player who has been giving him lessons every Saturday, in exchange for piano lessons.

Of course it is not easy to sound like Chet or Miles right away. The other day he asked me �How is it that when I was working I was really good at things, but that since I have retired I have gotten really bad at things?� (He was referring to learning Spanish, adapting to a new culture, and now studying the trumpet.) He joked that he was going to write a book titled �Sucking At Everything� with the politically incorrect subtitle �From Retiree to Retard.� I congratulated him on being in a permanent learning posture.

As for me, I've been working out with trainer Bobby twice a week (weights) and doing regular yoga classes to try to stretch out the stiffness from my surgery. I've also fallen in with a group of Saturday afternoon Scrabble fiends (you know who you are, Jeanine and Beth) and am training myself by playing Scrabble on Pogo obsessively. Did you know that �turkois� is an acceptable spelling for �turquoise�? Or that �stealage� is an alternative word for �theft�? Well now you do. (Don't get me started on �windage.�)
I've stopped wearing my wig and have a little bit of my old hair again. For those sanmiguelenses among you, it is now officially longer than Kathleen Cummings' hair. So of course I look very chic, as she does. We've attached a photo so you can see for yourself.

Dismantling the Cancer Bubble will involve lots of decisions-in our nine months here we have had to accumulate some things just to live with a basic level of comfort and functionality. Some of it we borrowed from dear friends, so we will have to return that. Some of it we bought, and don't need to take back, so we will give it away or toss it. But some of it we acquired and want to keep.

So we're juggling all this with the fact that when Doug drove up here in December, our little Rav-4 was bursting at the seams with worldly goods and the dogs-and now we're driving that same car back, but with me inside it. We may enter San Miguel looking like the Beverly Hillbillies.

(When I look at some of the stuff I see here-like the flowered bag I bought at Target to take needed items to each chemo session-part of me wants to burn it, and part of me wants to keep it forever.)

My last radiation treatment is on September 1st, so we will probably pull away from the curb of our wonderful rental house the following week and begin the
four-day trek homeward.

I've been referring all along to our nine-month stay here-without a trace of irony-until Doug reminded me the other day that it was also nine months from the time of our first visit to San Miguel to the return visit where we bought out house there six years ago. That first gestation period yielded remarkable results for both of us. We will see what kind of rebirth this gestation period will bring.

As always, we send our love and gratitude to all of your help, gifts, emails, phone calls, emotional support, prayers, positive thoughts and beams. Maybe we could have done it without you-but I'm glad we didn't have to.

Love,

Glenda

P.S. There is one area in which Doug definitely does not suck-and that is being a husband. So he will have to leave that out of his book.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85132913@N00/4905158907/

Roll Over, Beethoven

Pete C — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:26:56 GMT

Most US students think Beethoven is a dog

by Karin Zeitvogel Karin Zeitvogel � Tue Aug 17, 10:10 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) � Most young Americans entering university this year can't write in cursive, think email is too slow, that Beethoven's a dog and Michelangelo a computer virus, according to an annual list compiled by two academics at a US college.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100818...hildrenoffbeat