maren

Another solstice/yuletide/Jesus-week baby!!! Hope you get your just desserts and have a great birthday, Alexander!!!

Speaking of inequity, you're the one who decided to bring it to everyone's attention what an "outspoken born-again homophobe" White allegedly was. I am sure there are millions who appreciate your little gesture of "equity." Oh, and one other thing: none of the folks you listed have passed on. I suspect that when they do, you'll be just as "equitable" to those folks as you are to White. I hope I'm not reopening a can of worms here, but... Christiern is hardly the only one "who decided to bring it to everyone's attention what an 'outspoken born-again homophobe' White allegedly was." I saw this mentioned in every newspaper and TV story I saw about his passing. Maybe that's because I live in New York -- and maybe also because I'm originally from Wisconsin. He DID make those homophobic remarks in front of the Wisconsin state legislature! If he has found himself in an afterlife, I imagine he'll have to reconsider whether the following dearly departed were "killing our people" -- or whether in fact he himself was contributing to a threat:

Now that's an odd combination... Well, actually, people have been publishing obscure genetics papers from time to time saying that Scandinavians (Swedes in particular) have some striking genetic similarities to some Africans. Autoimmune/inflammatory diseases like sarcoidosis and lupus are a similarity. Not so strange to me if you believe that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and populated the world from there. Then for a long time the Scandinavians were more isolated, as a gene pool, than other Europeans. So they probably retain a distinctive genetic profile closer to their "founders" than do people that "got out" more! Anybody here ever hear of Alva Rogers (actress, singer, performance artist)? She had a track on an early Knitting Factory compilation that was a kind of sung "press conference" including this question and response: Q: Are you from Africa? A: Isn't everybody ?

Well, I'm still mulling over who the woman was who thought of Charlie Parker "as a musical god" -- was she a musician? Billie Holiday? Jutta Hipp???????? If she was a writer, it sounds like something Hettie Jones (mother of Lisa, ex-wife of Amiri Baraka) wrote in her autobio How I Became Hettie Jones. As for the guy who said "the 80s should be great and I think I'll be at the center of it" -- everyone who comes to my mind who's still alive has recorded SOMETHING since 81: Keshavan Maslak????

Paul Desmond.

"...Chet was striking looking. That was the era of James Dean, you know. When I came off the bandstand, Chet wanted me to talk to someone who had just come in. 'I'm the greatest writer in America,' this fellow told me. And I was a big 23, so I said, 'I'm the greatest pianist in America.' Then I went up again to play, and when I came off, Jack Kerouac said, 'Well, you are!' And he gave me a manuscript and a wonderful walking stick." But of course!!!

Who told THIS story? "I had a wonderful time, talking to Chet [baker] -- I was there when he first played with Gerry Mulligan, who asked would I consider giving his wife piano lessons? Well, you know the answer to that. Chet was striking looking. That was the era of James Dean, you know. When I came off the bandstand, Chet wanted me to talk to someone who had just come in. 'I'm the greatest writer in America,' this fellow told me. And I was a big 23, so I said, 'I'm the greatest pianist in America.' Then I went up again to play, and when I came off, Jack Kerouac said, 'Well, you are!' And he gave me a manuscript and a wonderful walking stick."

Jimmy Lovelace Mark Ledford Edit: posted before I looked at the JazzHouse list...

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edit: No, I don't know who that is in front of the moose below -- party crasher!

You said it!!! And bring us some figgy pudding!!! "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Good luck, Scott! Sounds like a couple Christmases when I was a kid, traveling from northern Wisconsin to grandparents in southern Wisconsin -- and occasionally, to the grandparents in Texas! I remember all the interrupted-by-snowstorm ones as being adventurous, with a heartfelt "just thank God we're all okay" vibe -- so I'm guessing your kids feel the same. And Mark, continued happy mending...

I took the LSAT about 4 years ago (not that I ever did anything with the results, though they were good): I bought one of those study guides beforehand and believe it helped a lot, particularly in practicing for the essay (the thing that scared me the most beforehand). So I second Eric's recommendation to get an up-to-date GRE guide. Good luck!

Yay!!! (now I just have to get my own computer back from MIS which is scrubbing my hard drive.... and they don't have any snowstorm excuses...)

McKinley Morganfield???

Silence, cunning, exile?

Michael Moore (no, not THAT one, THIS one: )

Gilberto Gil Miriam Makeba (if "Fred Frith" is jazz, I'm sure he'd say the above are, as well!)

Paging Dr. J for confirmation -- but IMHO that was the goofiest line of the whole story. Funny how this story is refuted simply by referring to the newspaper in which it appeared. But isn't a stopped clock right twice a day? Isn't it possible this could occur? There's nothing in the snopes piece to refute the possibility of a blunt object hitting someone's head in just the right way to cause death. Remember that there are documented cases where athletes-or just young people engaged in athletic events-have died by being struck in the chest by a hard object (a baseball, a hockey puck) just in the split second between heart beats. The compression of the chest disrupts the heart's rhythm and the kid dies very quickly. This is serious enough that some little leagues have considered switching to softer balls. So, on the face of it, I don't think the story is simply impossible. I'm not an MD but know a bit more than "lay person" about this stuff -- the DIFFERENCE between the brain and heart is precisely what made the quote appear so bogus. And the specific terms that the "doctor" used just seemed off. If "bone fragments" pierced an artery supplying the brain, conceivably that could "kill him instantly." (Although a blow to the skull doesn't seem likely to produce shard-like "fragments" -- more like a crack.) But "piercing" brain tissue behind the ear, while not a GOOD idea, just wouldn't kill someone INSTANTLY. Certainly a massive blow to the head that causes massive internal bleeding can be quickly fatal -- but that's not what "medical examiner Dr. Max Krause" said, is it?! Those freakish perfectly timed blows to the chest fatally disrupt cardiac conduction -- the natural "pacemaker" that sends electric signals telling the heart to beat -- if someone was on the scene with a cardioconverter and instantly recognized what had happened, conceivably they could shock the heart back into action.

Yeah, and since at least 1996!!! See "TROMBONE OF CONTENTION" at http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/trombone.asp What was it that tipped me off? Oh, maybe "Weekly World News"? And maybe Paging Dr. J for confirmation -- but IMHO that was the goofiest line of the whole story.

Good for you, Big Wheel!!!

How to put a positive spin on "to wash out the flavor of the mud"?

Looks like he's already seriously planning how to live up to his impressive moniker!

You said it!