Critique de la vie quotidienne

[Dr Dave]

I hate getting up and going to work every day. I hate sitting around at home and watching TV because I'm too beat to go out and do anything. I used to travel around the world. Now I commute to Newton. Yet the very idea of getting on an airplane and going to, say, Singapore just makes me tired. I may be having a midlife crisis, but if I am, it is the most boring midlife crisis ever. I don't want a sports car; I can't afford a trophy wife (don't want one anyway; the present Wife is just fine, thank you); I generally find overindulgence in booze and drugs is not nearly as entertaining as it used to be, and let's face it, it was always pretty stupid. I'm not particularly athletic, although lifting wine cases has given my biceps, which I never used to have. Having greater strength does not equate to athletic ability, anyway. I still stumble over my own feet. I will not go back to playing music professionally. The hours suck, the pay sucks, and I always end up being the bandleader, which I hate. Well, I hate what I'm like when I'm a bandleader: scold, nanny, cheerleader, the one who always has to deal with the club owner. Anyway, I'd have to practice again, and I hate to practice. Scales! Chords! A new teacher to miscommunicate with! Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Maybe I'll buy a gun. That will scare the bejesus out of me, and probably get me thrown out of the house, but it'll be exciting for a while. No, that's a terrible idea. Forget a gun.

Maybe a recorder. A recorder would be all right. It's small, you don't plug it in, it's not real loud so I could practice without driving everyone crazy. Or a flute. No, flute is too hard. I heard Jimmy Heath talking about flute, and the news was not good. A recorder. Maybe. You can play Bach or Telemann on a recorder. I suppose you could play jazz on a recorder, although I've never heard anyone do it. An electric recorder, with a wah-wah? No, I just got done saying how portability was essential....

I am falling asleep with quandariness. What to do?

[Monte Smith]

Dave, all your problems are illusory. They are the product of wrong and lazy thinking.

Unfortunately, so are all the solutions, probably.

L'chaim!

[Dr Dave]

I dunno, Monte. I think you are engaging in Cheap Nihilism, a practice at which I am already expert. Thanks anyway.

[Monte Smith]

Take it for what it is worth, Dave.

Also, where do I send my invoice?

[Dr Dave]

I already know about my wrong and lazy thinking, so you haven't actually said anything about what I might do about my pathetically lukewarm problems. So you get nothing! Nothing, you hear me? (I would shake my fist at the screen, but it's too much trouble.)

[Monte Smith]

Dang. Do you sell wine over the internet? Can I put a quarter in your tip cup to keep you happy and make you not waste your precious strength shaking the fist? I'll take a case of the cheapest Chilean red that doesn't taste like llama blood and raise welts on your throat.

[Sergio Zamora]

These are effective short-term solutions:

1) Get yourself a nice steak dinner
2) Go watch "Torque". Yes, spend the 9.50 to see "Torque" + popcorn and soda
3) Get some all-female, all-asian porn.
4) Stop your whining.

[moneyp]

Get a puppy!

[john williams]

Or a Kitty, and get a cranky arsed one like I've got or the one below.

[john williams]

Or, you could get a cute one

[Cem]

How 'bout a new hobby, Doc? Carpentry, cooking, some sort of artisan thing, or some new biz idea, volunteer work, social activist work, teaching young ones about music, write a book, a screenplay...? Much easier to give suggestions than to follow through. You seem to actually enjoy the work you do (wine related), right? That's a good thing. How about starting your own thing?

You should grab a nice bottle of Irish whiskey and go solo-camp in the snow. It'll come to you then, probably. If all else fails, you can always fall back on Omar's steak & porn combo...

[Dr Dave]

Sergio's advice seems sound, especially (4)

Monte: Does it have to be Chilean? See "The Wine Thread" for a fresh list of cheapies.

[Uli]

Open up, Dr. Dave! Try some of that eai and share your feelings!

[mke]

Originally posted by Dr Dave
Maybe a recorder. A recorder would be all right. It's small, you don't plug it in, it's not real loud so I could practice without driving everyone crazy. Or a flute. No, flute is too hard. I heard Jimmy Heath talking about flute, and the news was not good. A recorder. Maybe. You can play Bach or Telemann on a recorder. I suppose you could play jazz on a recorder, although I've never heard anyone do it.

http://www.benoitsauve.net/index_eng.php

[walto]

Buy a book! (It really has stuff in it about these sorts of "crises.")



Or, even better, get yourself a cute little Abbysinian guinea pig!!

[Chris D]

This sometimes works for me.

Go cold turkey on music for a couple of days, a week if you can stand it.

Plunge back in with fresh ears and new enthusiasm. It'll seem like everything is new again.

Or not.

[clinthopson]

Doc,

My suggestion for your malaise is to join me next week on La Ropa beach in Zihuatanejo.

We can sample the fine Mexican wines.

Ogle the babes in thongs.

Perhaps learn the raquinto.

After 17 days of that you will be a new man.

I know I will be.

[Jazzzoline]

Dave, your post looks just like my blog. But believe me, it's a feeling I get a day or two every month ...
Tell me, do you have a strong "feminine side" ?
( no pffense)

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Jazzzoline
Dave, your post looks just like my blog. But believe me, it's a feeling I get a day or two every month ...
Tell me, do you have a strong "feminine side" ?
( no pffense)

Jazzzoline, where's your blog? This I have to see.

[Jazzzoline]

Originally posted by mone peterson
Jazzzoline, where's your blog? This I have to see.

Nah, nothing for your eyes to see.
Plus, only to type the name would have me banned from this board.

[moneyp]

Originally posted by Jazzzoline
Nah, nothing for your eyes to see.
Plus, only to type the name would have me banned from this board.

Ah! A challenge, then!

Off to Google....

[crawjo]

In all seriousness, Dr. Dave, I recommend that you read "A la recherche du temps perdu" (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust. All 3,000+ pages of it. It will change your life.

[Tom Storer]

Crawjo is right. Proust is a fount of wisdom!

[SinginSumo]

Dr Dave - Many terrific possibilities here from your friends on the Corner. My "entry"? Give Edith Piaf's song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Pas Rien" a few spins.

(If I recommended "Tomorrow" I'd fear that I'd put you in a WORSE funk!)

[mke]

Originally posted by Jazzzoline
But believe me, it's a feeling I get a day or two every month ...
Tell me, do you have a strong "feminine side" ?

That'd be a hell of a feminine side.

[Jazzzoline]

Originally posted by crawjo
In all seriousness, Dr. Dave, I recommend that you read "A la recherche du temps perdu" (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust. All 3,000+ pages of it. It will change your life.

You read Proust?

and in French too?

[crawjo]

Originally posted by Jazzzoline
You read Proust?

and in French too?

I have read all of Proust...I read the entire thing in about three months, I was so engrossed and amazed by it. I still consider it the greatest artistic achievement in human history. And no, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic when I write that.

But I have yet to read it in French. I took French in high school, but after Proust it has become my goal to learn French well enough to read Proust in his original language. I will do it...it's moved onto my "life" list of things I have to do.

The thing about Proust is, you have to read the *entire* thing to get Proust's vision. Too many people give up after the first few hundred pages, and so miss out on an amazing literary accomplishment, in my opinion.

[Brian Olewnick]

How many English translations are available and which is generally considered the best? I know a recent translation of "Swann's Way" has appeared (reviewed glowingly by Christopher Hitchins in the Atlantic). I've always meant to get to this (yeah, yeah) but recently my cousin has been badgering me on it, so....

[Jazzzoline]

Originally posted by mone peterson
Ah! A challenge, then!

Off to Google....

wow, I "Googled" my own nickname,,,

And... I'm not sure I understand but here is what I found:
One comment, about Wynton Marsalis, I once posted on Jazzcorner SpeakOut, was now copied on the Jazzreview site. First, I thought someone used the same nickname "Jazzzoline". But then I recognized that comment I've posted on Jazzcorner. I've never registered on Jazzreview, neither did I post there. But obviously, on the profile I got on Jazzreview, I can see the profile I entered on Jazzcorner.

Questions come to my mind:
Who copied that comment about Marsalis?
Why THAT comment? ( which is rather unsignificant) and not all the others, who filters them ?
Am I the only one whos got things like this happeneing to them?
What's the process behind all this?

*a bit shocked*

[crawjo]

Originally posted by Brian Olewnick
How many English translations are available and which is generally considered the best? I know a recent translation of "Swann's Way" has appeared (reviewed glowingly by Christopher Hitchins in the Atlantic). I've always meant to get to this (yeah, yeah) but recently my cousin has been badgering me on it, so....

The classic one was done by Moncrieff. But the best one was the updated version of the Moncrieff translation done by Terence Kilmartin. After that, I think D.J. Enright did a revised version of the Kilmartin one. From what I know either the Enright or the Kilmartin are both very good (I've read the Kilmartin, and loved it.) The latest translation is one where they have a different translator for each volume, which doesn't seem like a great idea to me. But I haven't read it so I can't comment on it.