Dave Garrett

Wow, I have been looking for a copy of that book for years, to no avail. Just poked around a bit and ran across one listed at an online vendor in Brazil, but there's no mention anywhere of international shipping being offered. Guess I need to attempt to construct a semi-coherent inquiry in Portuguese and shoot them an email.

Yes, the Disk Union boxes are empty, although you will frequently find them sold along with the discs they were designed to contain - that's how I got the Sanders box. If memory serves, they're referred to as "promo" boxes because Disk Union offered them as an extra to customers who bought the complete set of discs they were intended to house.

I think there's more to Lewis than the lazy "the French love him" trope that usually gets trotted out whenever the subject of his films comes up, as if no thinking person could possibly find much value in broad comedies where subtlety tends to be in short supply. But both his solo films as well as those with Martin aren't well-known, for which blame can largely be assigned to their spotty availability on home video during the period when home video has been at its peak popularity. There have been two DVD box sets of the Martin & Lewis films, which went out of print and were later resurrected as manufactured-on-demand releases by Warner Archive, but those seem to be out of print now as well. Likewise, there was a 10-film box set of Lewis' films which came and went. Aside from THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, I don't think most people could name a Lewis film. A very different type of "Lewis film" (he wasn't involved in the production but is certainly the protagonist) that may be of interest is 2014's TELETHON, a behind-the-scenes look at what went on in preparation for the 1989 MDA telethon:

Just noticed that FLACs of the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz are available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Smithsonian-Collection-of-Classic-Jazz-lossless

Yep. These are status updates, not PMs. If you use the "new since last visit" option to view posts, they show up there with the notation " posted a status update to " (paraphrasing the language here from memory).

I hear you. I have unofficial DVDs of some of the Warner TV series of the late 50s/early 60s (Hawaiian Eye, etc.), and the quality leaves a lot to be desired (think multigeneration VHS dubs that have been converted to a digital format, with compression artifacts added in the process), but when that's all that's available, you make do. I am amused every time I run across comments from someone who swears that they just can't watch something if it's not available on Blu-ray or streaming in HD.

I'd be curious to know how these look when you get them. I wouldn't expect HD quality from a 70s TV show, but I've been on the fence about whether to get this (much cheaper) reissue or the earlier set released by VEI. The earlier one also contains the two pilot episodes, but more importantly, it has almost twice the number of discs, leading me to suspect that they used a lot more compression on the reissue.

Lon is correct - it's one of the promo boxes issued by Disk Union to house the Japanese Impulse gatefold mini-LP reissues in the "Pharoah Sanders Collection" series. There's a presumably complete list of Disk Union boxes here: http://www.minilps.net/japan-box-etc-authorised/disk-union-box

Quite a few that have been mentioned already, and a couple that haven't:

You don't have to sync your entire iTunes library to your phone - you can selectively sync only certain songs or albums. So you can maintain a large music library in iTunes but only load a small portion of it on your phone: https://www.lifewire.com/itunes-sync-only-certain-songs-1999555 Also, to add to what Scott said earlier about backing up your phone to iTunes on your computer, IMO an iTunes backup is preferable to an iCloud backup because an iCloud backup is not as complete as an iTunes backup is - I forget the details, but iCloud backups only capture key data like Contacts, Photos, etc. If you want to be able to reset your phone to factory settings and restore it exactly as it was including all app data and settings, you need to do an iTunes backup. I highly recommend doing an iTunes backup before every iOS upgrade as well, as I've had to restore a phone from a backup before when an upgrade bricked the phone.

IIRC the renamings were for legal reasons, a loophole that somehow allowed them to release MOFO, Lumpy Money, and Greasy Love Songs without breaching the agreement the Zappa trust had with Ryko/Warner.

Likewise, after a couple of hours of trying to reload the dead.net page punctuated with occasional swearing. I can't believe they weren't able to figure out that the site was going to get slammed as soon as this was announced, and at least temporarily scale up capacity to handle the demand beforehand. I'm still pissed off about the Europe '72 fiasco, and am not entirely convinced that I won't wind up empty-handed with this one as well despite having an order confirmation in hand.

(shamelessly stolen from Usenet) Funeral funeral!

Hail and farewell.

The complete-series Blu-ray set of the Dick Van Dyke show is a significant upgrade over the older DVDs. It looks amazing. It's been on Amazon (very) briefly in the past for as low as $49.99, but has more often been in the $100+ range. If you're a fan of the show and run across a used set at a bargain price, you won't regret taking the plunge once you've seen how good it looks.

I remember the pre-web days, when Usenet was the king of online communities. Soon enough, forums were the ascendant new kid on the block and Usenet had entered a decline that it never recovered from. Things have changed a bit since then.

The 2008 Taschen edition has 552 pages, measures 10" x 14", and weighs ~9 lbs. The earlier 2005 edition has 720 pages, measures 13" x 19", and weighs ~17 lbs. In addition to the deluxe edition, there was a "regular" version, which is unsigned, unnumbered, and does not have the clamshell case or prints. It's also considerably cheaper - $200 when first published, and it looks like copies can still be had for less than that. I haven't seen the 2008 edition, but I'm assuming that they reformatted or abridged the contents to fit into the lower page count. That's Taschen's usual practice when they republish one of their larger volumes in a smaller/less costly version.

FWIW, I've had reasonable luck in the past with Amazon UK marketplace sellers who didn't offer international shipping by contacting them and politely asking if they'd be willing to ship to the US while emphasizing that I had no problem with paying the additional cost. I think a lot of overseas sellers quit offering international shipping when costs went up drastically, and they got tired of explaining to irate customers that they were only passing along increased costs that they had no control over. Just a thought, in case you haven't already tried that approach.

Just saw this - I was there as well, and likewise wish I'd known y'all were in attendance, as I'd have definitely said hi. How many board members at a performance constitutes a quorum, anyway? Anyway, I don't have a lot to add beyond what's already been said. It was a truly remarkable performance, full of power and subtlety, in a perfectly matched room. Quite fitting that it is a house of worship (for those who aren't familiar with it, "Friends" = "Quakers" in the context of "Live Oak Friends Meeting"). It's unfortunate but understandable that they couldn't open the roof; if you've ever been in one of Turrell's other skyspaces, the combination of carefully-designed interior lighting and a changing sky at sunset really adds a whole other dimension to the space. We were sitting behind and to the right of Ran, in the back row. When he got up at intermission and turned in our direction, my wife, who works with seniors, said "I know that look. It's 'where's my walker?'" And after a brief pause, his assistant came out of the back room and wheeled it over to him. He may need aid to walk, but when he sat down to play, any perceived frailty vanished as we were immersed in the aura of a master in complete command of his instrument at close quarters.

You would be amazed (or possibly appalled) at the number of people on the Hoffman board who regularly admit to sneaking large music purchases into their houses. Such discussions often devolve to a comparison of specific strategies on how to do so.

Interesting piece from Medium on Brian Rust and the culture of record collecting in WW2-era Britain: Hot jazz and air raids

Finally got to go see the staggeringly comprehensive Degas retrospective at the MFAH today. It was fairly crowded even on a weekday afternoon, not too surprising given that this is its only stop in North America and there are less than two weeks remaining before it closes. May try to pay another visit if I'm able to squeeze it in, as the sheer size of the exhibit certainly lends itself to multiple visits just to fully digest the works on display. http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/the-degas-exhibit-at-the-mfah-is-powerful-indeed-8888722

This one is somewhat better (but you still shouldn't expect audiophile quality):