maren

Here's what Dewey Redman said in a 2003 AAJ interview:

...easy for the guy to say! Not sure about that. On balance it leads to a less painful birth, and the birth date can be controlled. In countries like Thailand, most births are done by c-section. It's the default method. I'll try not to get too graphic here, but I will second (or third, or fourth) the advice not to freak out if a c-section is necessary. I mean, I know that some unnecessary ones have been done, but "uncontrolled" tears or ruptures elsewhere can be far worse.

Good to hear from you, Johnny. All my best to Melissa, and good luck tomorrow.

I know a number of women who have worked as strippers/go-go dancers. Also some in various other levels of the sex industry. Quite varied family backgrounds and results. I'm not judging the women who make money this way, but I think NONE of them would want some CEO type guy recommending it as the obvious career path to their 12-year-old daughters! (The power issue particularly applies to this GUY -- apparently he doesn't want these girls growing up to be management types who compete directly for his job! He'd prefer to patronize them as dancers, however lucratively!) One friend in particular earned a lot of money dancing, while at the same time commenting on the "profession" as a performance artist (one striking show of hers was called "Go-Go Girls Seize Control"). She also used the money to put her daughter through a private school that sheltered kids from mass culture... Quite Marxist of her (and I mean that in a GOOD way), to recognize and exploit the contradictions like that!!!

The school's namesake must be rolling in her proverbial grave:

Nice.

Yeah, I don't care for that drone. Even when the poem's good, the drone surrounds it with the aura of a mocking send-up of "the Beats" (a la Maynard G. Krebs -- I'm sure you remember him, JS ). But Allen Ginsberg didn't read like that! I guess the rationale for the drone is to minimize the normal inflections (pitch, rhythm, accent) of speech in order to reveal other rhythms or allow words to be highlighted that usually aren't? To allow for poly-meters and rhymes to be heard, to avoid tyranny of the most obvious meters and rhymes that are also present in the poem (beyond normal speech)? Kind of reminds me of being instructed to practice Bach keyboard passages (in preludes, fugues, suites, etc.) with shifting accents (the second note of every group of triplets or four 16th notes, the third, etc.) and then with no accent at all -- aiming to develop a fluid even tone and the ability to suggest internal voices, counter-rhythms -- an important practice technique, but ultimately you want it to sound fluid, not stilted. Some poets get there -- melding the weirdness of the drone with the familiarity of speech, able to trade off between the expected and unexpected and thus surprise and move the listener -- but too many just sound like the drone is the be-all and end-all.

Hey, I found it: there really is a 12-step Clutterers Anonymous with a meeting a block from my job (where some friends already go to other meetings). Maybe it's time to check it out. Now if I could only remember where I put that meeting notice!? That's why I love Google!

Shouldn't that be funf "Stucken" (plural) ein Stuck, fünf Stücke Edit: Tjobbe beat me to it! (I had to type those umlauts in a Word document and then paste them in here.)

aesthetic idiom of great latitude This bears repeating. Perhaps by the writer himself, to himself, daily. "We [might all be] the better for it."

Various phrases from Brahms German Requiem since singing it Monday night... But after reading this, "Gee Officer Krupke" and "Betcha By Golly Wow" are fighting their way in!

Yikes. It's awfully foggy here today, too. I'd better say a prayer (someone I know has to drive from Westchester to NJ).

Hey, I found it: there really is a 12-step Clutterers Anonymous with a meeting a block from my job (where some friends already go to other meetings). Maybe it's time to check it out.

YES to everything except: Do you rent storage space to house items you never use? Do you believe there is all the time in the world to clean your house, finish those projects, and read all those piles of old magazines? SO, WHERE DO I SIGN UP For HELP???????!!!!!!!!!

THIS INTERVIEW gets into some gear details:

Don Byron -- Ellington (under Mercer), and Mario Bauza

Well, you can't always guarantee that! Who knows? Imagine, in the year 2030, the daughters of SOAW berating JohnnyE-Jr and "Marensson" about the need to de-privatize and re-create Social Security!!!!

Eager for more news -- hope you're all resting blissfully!!!

Think it through, Aric -- you can't really mean you want to keep income out of the hands of widows and orphans, can you? I'm not being melodramatic or far-fetched here -- I literally personally know two widows (of recently deceased musicians) in their forties with children under the age of 5 to support...

Ah yes, one of the big divides between Catholics and Protestants -- IMO, it was all to uphold that Virgin Mary thing -- not enough that she conceived Jesus with only the assistance of the Holy Ghost, she herself had to be "conceived without sin" in order to be a pure enough "vessel" and then -- over the centuries -- she had to be "pure" in perpetuity and could never have had another child! Even the Catholic translations of the Bible (KJV wouldn't do) said "James, the brother of Jesus" -- but we spent endless hours in grade school being told "that doesn't really MEAN brother -- it means cousin." Um, yeah, right -- so why didn't the translator just say "cousin" ???

Congrats to you too, Minew!!!

My thoughts are with you -- and especially with your wife -- Johnny. Congratulations (and "Kinna Hurra -- puh, puh, puh")!!! I'm already over here on the other side! Come on in, the water's fine!

I remember Tadd Dameron saying something like that ... Artie Shaw. Just read it in his obit the other day.