Halo Episode 2: "Unbound"

I rarely watch shows on the day that they are released. But neither Joe nor I could wait another day for episode 2 of Halo, so even though we had already watched episodes of FBI, FBI: International, FBI: Most Wanted, and Moon Knight, we still had to see Halo TODAY. (Yeah, I know. But  a man's got to do what a man's got to do.)

And shortly after it started, I ran into a big disappointment. Seems like every science fiction show, be it big screen, small screen, or really small screen, sooner or later feels the need to send a spaceship through an asteroid field wherein the pilot has to put his, her, or their skill to the utmost test to avoid crashing into asteroids which are so close together that it's not uncommon for scrapes (and concomitant sparks) to occur. Which always causes me to cast my gaze heavenward and ask, "Don't they understand how much fucking space is between asteroids?"

By the way, I had a little look around, and here are two things I found reference our very own asteroid belt:

"The average distance between the asteroids would be about 100,000 miles." (https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/a10537.html)

"Due to the low density of materials within the belt, the odds of a probe running into an asteroid are now estimated at less than 1 in 1 billion." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt)

Fortunately this scene was pretty brief, but still...so irksome. Get a new meme, motherfuckers.

The rest of the show was, I am happy to say, quite interesting, and there were some twists that were quite unexpected. I actually have no idea where this storyline is going, and no certainty as to who the Good Guys and Bad Guys are. I like that in a show.

Also this episode we had the first appearance of Bokeem Woodbine as Soren-066. At least I'm pretty sure this was his first appearance...though IMDb says he's in all 9 episodes, which would mean that he was in Episode 1. Pretty sure that's their fuck up, though. If you don't remember the name, Bokeem previously played Herman Schultz (Shocker #2) in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and a good villain he was indeed. Here he's definitely on the better side of the equation, though I can't definitively say that he's on the Good side yet.

So despite the stupid asteroid dodging scene, I have nothing but enthusiasm for the next episode of Halo, and once again bemoan the fact that I have to wait a week for that to happen.

Be there or be ▢.

The Book I Read: The Worlds of Jazz André Hodeir

I've been interested in jazz music for some time...which probably explains why I picked up André Hodeir's Jazz: Its Essence and Evolution from Half-Price Books when I saw it on the bargain shelves. No doubt * I thought that it would give me some insight into the music, because I certainly did not understand it. 

And then the book sat on my shelf for a long time, untouched. 

But when I'd finished reading Ian W. Toll's Pacific War Trilogy, I knew that I needed to read Something Different, since I'd had all of the WWII that I could stand, at least for the nonce, and for some reason I picked up the Hodeir book, which I'd never completely forgotten about.

As I read, three things became clear: (1) Hodeir knew music, (2) Hodeir loved jazz, and (3) Hodeir was a supercilious son of a bitch. So I continued to read. It didn't take long for me to decide that I really enjoyed the book, both content and style, and I looked to see what else Hodeir had written vis-à-vis jazz music. I found two items: Toward Jazz and The Worlds of Jazz. Both were available at reasonable prices at Thrift Books ($8.69 and $6.29 respectively, plus $1.05 sales tax and $2.58 shipping, for a grand total of $18.61), so I went for them.

Toward Jazz was even better than the first book...less supercilious, more scathing, and more specific and technical. Alas, my knowledge didn't allow me to follow all of the technical aspects of Hodeir's discussion, but I still appreciated it because it seemed to be solid proof that the man wasn't just shooting from the hip. Reading this book inspired me to look for early recordings by Louis Armstrong, including the things he did with King Oliver, and also to start listening to Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and others.

So when I got to the third book, I was stoked. I was looking for some serious insights into Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, maybe even Lee Morgan (who I'd happened upon and enjoyed immensely). 

I was in for a rude awakening. Hodeir decided to take a less direct route in his approach to writing about jazz with The Worlds of Jazz, and instead of writing personal essays, he wrote fiction. Mostly short stories, but there's also a play at the end. Which sounds interesting, and maybe it even could have been...but Hodeir just didn't have the writing chops to bring it off. There were a few pieces here that managed to pique my interest and even bring some brief moments of illumination to my understanding of jazz, but they were lost in a welter of bad writing. How bad was it? Well...the aforementioned play is a straight rip-off of Waiting for Godot. It even steals lines directly from Beckett at times, but it's more the rhythms of the speeches and the tone that pervades. But where Beckett is witty and insightful, Hodeir is superficial and sophomoric in his humor. I really had to force myself to read this piece. In other spots, Hodier seems to think that the way to create a character's voice is to repeat a phrase 5 to 6 times per page. I'm not exaggerating there, by the way. In  "Lecture in Jazz History Delivered by Professor Deadbeat at the University of B," Hodeir repeats the phrase "don't you know" at least 55 times...in a thirteen page story. It is very much like Chinese water torture. (And yes, I have.)

This is a terrible book, and I'm sorry that I spent my time and money on it. I would recommend both of the previous books, but would heartily suggest that you avoid this one.

* It's been awhile, so I surmise rather than remember.

DDR: To Be or Not to...Bop by Dizzy Gillespie & Al Fraser

Day 10 (Jazz Day 32 / DDRD 1,610) March 29, 2022

Day 10 because I started reading this on a per diem basis at the same time that I was slogging my way through The Worlds of Jazz. Which means that my DDR days won't seem to add up properly, but I doubt very much that anyone but me would notice that, right? Anyway, Days 1 through 9 for To Be or Not...to Bop are HERE. 

And awaaaaaay we go.

It's funny. I got up this morning after a bad night--woke up a bunch of times because my cat kept pounding on the door--and was kind of staggering around the house, turning the lights on, and I happened to glance over at my copy of To Be or Not...to Bop, and immediately thought, "No more Hodeir! I get to read Dizzy today!" And I actually felt as if a weight had been taken from my shoulders. I guess I hadn't realized how much Hodeir was wearing me down until I was finished with it.

ANYway....

Read to page 330, and really wanted to read more, but (1) I'm just so tired and (2) my daughter is keeping me running today. Might have a chance for some more later, though. In today's reading, my favorite moment was when Dizzy was onstage playing with his band and suddenly jumped off the stage, ran out of the theater, and didn't come back for fifteen minutes. When a band member asked him about it later, Dizzy told him that the band was swinging so hard that he couldn't stand it!

I'm really getting to love Dizzy, man.

P.S. Couldn't resist reading a little more, so I hit another twenty pages and read to 350. And just to show that You Can't Escape The Matrix, check this out:

Day 11 (Jazz Day 33 / DDRD 1,611) March 30, 2022

Read to page 390. Didn't really mean to, but I was babysitting and baby went down for a nap, and the pages just kind of flew by. This is a pretty awesome book, actually. I'd have to say that it's one of the best biographies I've ever read. if this keeps up...and I'm not saying that it will, mind you...I'm going to be finished this book in a few more days. Let's see...139 pages at 30 pages a day would mean less than five days. And I've actually been averaging a little over 37 pages per day...and most of that was while I was reading 20 pages a day in the 3rd Hodier book, so...might be less than five days before I finish this one.

Day 12 (Jazz Day 34 / DDRD 1,612) March 31, 2022

Read to page 430, even though it was a pretty hectic day. This story really pulls you along. In fact, I would like to read a bit more tonight if I can catch a free minute. I also looked at the post-text material...SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY, FILMOGRAPHY, HONORS AND AWARDS, AND INDEX...enough to satisfy my need to say I "read" them, at least, though it really wasn't the kind of material you could read read. One interesting thing I found was that in the DISCOGRAPHY there were two entries for Dee Gee records, which indicated a total of ten songs which had been recorded. Yet online I found a 2 LP set entitled Dizzy Gillespie Dee Gee Days: The Savoy Sessions which had 24 titles...and a note that one of the songs included in the DISCOGRAPHY wasn't included because Dizzy didn't actually play on it. So I'm wondering why the very detailed 21 page DISCOGRAPHY failed to included 15 songs which Dizzy recorded for his own label (hence Dee Gee)...and why it included a song that Dizzy didn't actually play on. Strange.

And yes, as a matter of fact I am thinking about buying that 2 LP set. It's on eBay for $6.99 + $5.00 shipping, and is described as being in excellent shape. And I do like vinyl.

So we'll see about that.

I may have another look at that post-text material, but for the record, the text actually ends on page 502, which means that I have a mere 72 pages left to read. Hell, that's probably only two more days. I think that just goes to show how good this book is, because that would mean I would have read it in 14 days, when according to my usual goal it "should" have taken me 28.5 days. Plus keeping in mind that the first 9 days of my reading this book were concurrent with reading The Worlds of Jazz. 

I also watched about half of Bird (1988), Clint Eastwood's box office bomb attempt to tell the story of Charlie Parker, and Dizzy has quite a presence in the story. At one point, Charlie Parker (played ineptly by  Forest Whitaker) even says, "I owe Dizzy everything." I'm going to try to finish watching this thing, but it really is pretty bad. 

Day 13 (Jazz Day 35 / DDRD 1,613) April 1, 2022

Read to page 482. Again, didn't really mean to. And, again, it just pulled me along. One of the stories that Dizzy told made me laugh out loud...even though it's definitely not politically correct. He tells about how Louis Armstrong was allowed to stay in hotels that other Black people weren't, and how this upset some White guys. So they got a raccoon and snuck it into Louis's room while he was out. When Louis got back he saw the raccoon and went down to the front desk, telling them that there was a coon in his room. The clerk responded by saying, "Don't worry, sir. Just one minute, Mr. Armstrong, we'll get that nigger out of there." (446)

There was also a story about Dizzy going back to his hometown and going to visit an old white man for whom his mother had once worked. When the man saw Dizzy, he said, "Boy, we're mighty proud of you. You've made it, you've conducted yourself like a gentleman, and you've made us so happy and so proud...." Dizzy responded by saying, "Thank you, Mr. Power, I appreciate that." And then proceeded to joke around with the old guy. 

Keep in mind that Dizzy was a world renowned musician at this point --and had met with several presidents as well as other heads of state all over the world.

Yowza.

So now I've only got 20 pages of text left in this book, and I have to admit that I am not ready to be done with it. That's about the best review you can give to a book, though, isn't it?

Day 14 (Jazz Day 36 / DDRD 1,614) April 2, 2022

Read to page 502, which means The End for me. The last parts of the book were slightly less engaging that the rest of it for two reasons: (1) there wasn't as much of the inserted interviews with other people material and (2) when Dizzy was speaking it was mostly in a philosophical way about what he thought--especially about his religion--rather than about things that had happened...and it got more than a little bit preachy. So the book didn't end on a very strong note. But despite that, I'd still say that this was probably the best autobiography / biography I've read so far. And I'd definitely recommend it to anybody interested in Jazz, music in general, or in Black / White relationships. Too bad it took me 43 years to get around to it, but hey, we do what we can, right?

BTW, I ended up buying Dee Gee Days: The Savoy Sessions. I'd been thinking about it for some time, but when I saw that it was listed on Amazon for $95.55 (used) and on eBay for $6.99 + $5 shipping, that was all she wrote. Also, poking around on the internet it proved to be difficult to find these recordings, so I figured I'd make an honest man of myself.

Next up: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn. 

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue __ days, 224 pages

Halo, Spaceboy

 

I know almost nothing about the Halo Xbox game. I know that there's a character named Master Chief. I know that he wears armor. Well, actually, I didn't even know that--I didn't know if he was a guy wearing armor or a robot. 

So that's it. 

But when I saw the ad for the Halo series on Paramount+, I thought that it would be something that my #2🌞 would like, since I was pretty sure that it would involve a bunch of guys shooting the shit out of some other guys.

So we tuned in to Episode 1 ("Contact") last night.

I was kind of put off from the get-go. The rebel miners on planet Madrigal seemed way too much like the Belters in The Expanse. And I was still mourning the ending of that show, so I surely did not need an inferior version of it. And you know, that Halo armor looks a lot like the Martian armor that Bobbie and her pals were wearing, too.

But of course I kept on watching, because Joe is an in for a penny in for a pound kind of guy.

The next scene shifted the focus to a bunch of the miners' kids, who were searching for something out in the wilds. Turns out they were looking for a plant which they could use to get high on. And then allofasudden they were being attacked by weird giant armored creatures. And then...kids were getting blown to pieces. What the fuck? 

And then the Halo guys arrived. And at first the miners were thinking, "Shit, now we have to fight BOTH of them!"...because the Halo guys were their enemies, too. But this time it turned out that the enemy of my enemy was kinda sorta my friend, and the H-Men started laying waste to the weird giant armored creatures. 

You know, it would sure save me a lot of trouble if I knew a little more about the background of this show.

ANYway...turns out that the real battle for the H-men wasn't these pissant miners at all, but these other creatures. They didn't so much rescue the miners...in fact, let's just say (without any spoilers) that that clearly was not their main goal...as destroy these other creatures. 

Okay, I couldn't take it any more. The weird giant armored creatures are a group called the Covenant. And they were on planet Madrigal looking for an artifact, which the Spartans (the Halo guys) then find. 

From there, let's just say that things took some unexpected turns, and that I found myself totally absorbed in this Nothing Like The Expanse tv show that I didn't think that I would care about at all. In fact, as the credits rolled I actually found myself thinking, "I have to wait a WEEK for the second episode??? That's not okay!"

So who knows if this show will hold up over time. All I can say for now is that I knew nothing about this material before I watched this show, and I am now really anxious to see the next episode.

P.S. "Hallo Spaceboy" is a song from one of my favorite David Bowie albums, Outside. The fact that I feel the need to explain the pun in my title is probably a good indication of how obscure this album is, I'm sorry to say.

Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings

I've spent a few hours watching the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings today and tomorrow. I think this pretty much sums  it up:

More Song About Balloons and Burl Ives

In case I haven't mentioned it enough times yet, my cat (Burl Ives) REALLY likes balloons.

The Fisher Wallace Stimulator

We (wife / now ex-wife) and I have tried a lot of different things over the years to help our youngest son deal with autism. We've done gluten and casein free diets. We've tried adding various vitamins and supplements. An audio therapy thing where various frequencies were played through a headset for many sessions. Speech therapy, occupational therapy, behavior therapy. Many different drugs. (We've finally come back to Risperdal after trying to ditch it for other drugs.) Some things have helped a little bit. Most have had no effect upon him whatsoever or have worked to his and our detriment.

And now we're trying the Fisher Wallace Stimulator. 

I decided that I would test it on myself before I started him on it.

It was not an easy decision to purchase this device. "On Sale"--whatever that means these days--it's $499. And to be honest, it doesn't look like a $500 machine. It's small, made of plastic, and is powered by two AA batteries. Nevertheless, I stepped into the breach once more.

I thought it might be useful to take a diary approach to the experience.

Day One: March 18, 2022

Morning Session: I had trepidations. But once the session got underway, it was pretty uneventful. Sometimes I felt like there were little pinpricks on my body, mostly on my lower right leg, but that might have been my imagination. Other than that...nothing, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. I read while the machine did its work.

Evening Session: No trepidations this time. 

Day Two: March 19, 2022

Noticed in both morning and evening sessions that for at least some of the time...at the beginning of each session...I became very aware of my heartbeat. To the point where I could hear every beat without making any effort to do so. During the morning session, I put down the book I was reading because I felt so fatigued...but since it was preceded by a hard night, I don't think that had anything to do with the FWS.

Day Three: March 20, 2022

Morning session didn't notice the heartbeat unless I shifted my focus to it. Seemed to have a slight feeling of "fullness" in my heart...not uncomfortable, but not good, either. Could have been my imagination, though. Evening session uneventful.

Day Four: March 21, 2022

Hardly noticed the morning session, and the twenty minutes passed by quickly. Ditto for evening.

Day Seven: March 24, 2022

This has just become a regular part of the morning (post-breakfast) and the evening (post-dinner). No ill effects whatsoever, but thus far no discernible benefits, either. 

One thing I have learned: taking the sponges out of the holders is a bad idea. Even after they dry out, they remain much larger than in their original desiccated form, and it's hard to get them back into the holders. I've found that if I put the sponges (in their holders) upside down on top of some absorbent material, like a napkin or plain paper, that they dry out pretty well between usages.

Days Eight through Thirteen: March 25 through 30, 2022

Had several times when I thought I would give up on this, since I've felt no benefits whatsoever, but I'm still hesitant to use it on Joe, so I've kept at it. Theoretically two weeks deliver the goods, but I'm on the cusp of that and have nothing, so.... Well. We'll see.

Day Fourteen: March 31, 2022

So far as I can discern, I've obtained no benefits whatsoever from using the FWS. I'm not feeling any better and my sleep patterns have not improved--I sleep 6 to 6 1/2 hours and wake up one or more times every night. I went back to the webpage and found this:

"Yellow light number two is the setting we recommend starting with to treat depression, insomnia, and anxiety. If you do not experience results at level two after two weeks, increase the setting to level three or four. If you use the device at level three or four, you may notice some flashing lights in your peripheral vision. This is a normal stimulation of the optic nerve and is perfectly safe. You can use the device while you work, read, relax, or use the computer.

"The device will stay on for 20 minutes, after which you will hear an audible beep sound, turning the device off and ending the session. The device should be used on a daily basis, ideally twice a day for at least 30 days before making a decision to keep it or return it for a refund. If the device completely relieves your symptoms, you may start using it on a maintenance basis, two or three times a week."

So I'm going to start using at level 3 today. We'll see how that goes. I'm wondering how I will be able to assess this for Joe, though. I'm going to have to rely completely on observation of his mood and sleep pattern, since he won't have the language to tell me if he is feeling better or sleeping better. I don't like that uncertainty.

Day Fifteen: April 1, 2022

Didn't notice anything different.

Day Sixteen: April 2, 2022

Noticed a couple of things. First off, I seem to be feeling a slight, pinprick-y sensation in my left temple when I turn on the juice. It's not painful, just something I am aware of. Second off, after turning this on I noticed that the lights in the room seemed to be strobing a little bit, kind of in a gentle pulse fashion. It was a little disorienting. After a minute I looked down at the FW Device and saw that it was on 4, not 3...even though I had set it on 3. I realized that I had noticed yesterday that when I turned it on, it was slow to come up to level 3, so I'm going to have to be a little more careful about the setting, give it a chance to power up before I set it aside. I dialed it down to 3 and the pulsing went away. It wasn't painful or anything, but it was a little weird and disorienting, and I didn't like it a whole hell of a lot, so I'd like to avoid that sensation in the future.

Day 22: April 8, 2022

It's been a week at "3"...which is what the Fisher Wallace people suggested...and I'm still discerning no change, so I'm dialing it up to "4" today. Feeling a little nervous about it, I suppose because of the whole strobe vision thing from earlier on, but we'll see how it goes.

Day 29: April 15, 2022

Still no results so far as I can see, so I'm writing to Fisher Wallace to ask them about it. 

Here's the email I wrote:

I've been using the Fisher Wallace stimulator for over a month now, and have proceeded according to directions twice per day from two weeks at setting 2, one week at setting 3, and have since been on setting 4. So far as I can discern, there have no changes in my sleep patterns or any aspect of my mental state / behavior. At what point should I conclude that the device doesn't work for me? I am not interested in returning the device, as I have someone else who wants to try it, but I would like to know if I should discontinue its use on myself. Also, do you have any information vis-a-vis common factors in people for whom the device does not work?

Thank you.

Should be interesting to see what they have to say--assuming they respond on point.

And a mere four hours later I got a reply! It said that I should continue at Level 4 for 3 to 4 weeks, so I guess I'm not off the hook quite yet.

Wrote back to the FW people to clarify whether I should stop using the device once benefit had been achieved or when it was apparent that no benefit was being achieved, and got an answer back almost immediately telling me that I could discontinue, but that many patients continue to use the device on a maintenance basis (3-5 times a week) for its additional benefits such as increased focus and concentration.  So there's that.

Online chat says change sponges every two weeks.

Burl Ives comes marching.

This cat is not normal. I like that in a pet.

Mayor of Kingstown

I remember seeing that there was a show called Mayor of Kingstown coming out, and since I love me some Jermey Renner, I thought I'd seek it out. Then I found out that it was on Paramount+, and to be honest, I kind of immediately lost interest. I actually do subscribe to Paramount+...since they blackmailed me into it by moving Evil and SEAL Team off of CBS and onto the streaming platform. But I just had it in my head that any show produced specifically for the platform (which neither Seal Team nor Evil were) couldn't be very good.

But I was wrong.

I was real wrong.*

In fact, I wasn't even through with the first episode before I had drawn three conclusions:

(1) Ten episodes of this wasn't going to be enough.

(2) Jeremy Renner is even more awesome than I thought he was.

(3) I truly love Tobi Bamtefa. As awesome as Jeremy Renner is, I still look forward to every scene which includes Tobi Bamtefa...and feel like cheering when he comes onscreen. He perfectly captures the guy who is a criminal, for sure, but who is also a good guy, and not just Deep Down. He is also funny as hell. And this show is really dark, so it needs that.

I've only finished the first six episodes, but I'm already thinking that this is one of my favorite shows EVer. In fact, one of the reasons I'm not in a bigger hurry to finish it is because I don't want it to end...and even though Season 2 has been approved, I know it's going to take a while for that to happen. Of course, with my teflon brain I can re-watch season one...maybe even a few times...but it's still not the same.

Here's the puzzle, though:

"Rotten Tomatoes reports a 32% approval rating with an average rating of 5.8/10, based on 25 critic reviews. "

What the actual fuck is that about? I read a few reviews, and all of them seemed centered on the idea that the show was "too dark" and that it had "no sense of humor."

Well. As to the first objection, it's a show that's primarily centered on prison life, so yeah, it gets dark. As to the second...did they NOT watch any of the Tobi Bamtefa scenes? Geeze, wake the fuck up, motherfuckers.

They also don't say anything about the intelligence of the writing behind this show. Here's something that will either hook you or insure that you never watch this show:

In the fifth episode, there's a scene where a guy is being processed into the prison. The usual stuff that you've seen many times before. But the scene is intercut with another scene in which vicious dogs are taken from a crime scene and transported to a vet's office where they are castrated. And the castration is shown in vivid detail. Start to finish. I'm pretty sure it's the real thing. And after that the dogs have cones placed on their heads and then they are taken to individual cells. 

It's a big of juxtaposition that cuts in two directions at once.

And it is horrible to watch. In fact, it was all I could do not to turn it off. But it hit home.

And this series keeps hitting home.

It might as well have been executive produced by Michel Foucault.

* See Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports album. It's worth the seeking. 

The Fiery Trial

According to Grammarphobia (specifically https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2006/08/why-isnt-there-a-fire-in-fiery.html):

"The Old English word 'fyr' (fire) was transcribed into Middle English as 'fier.' (The Old English letter y, representing a long 'i' sound, was written as 'ie' in the Middle English version of the word.) The Modern English spelling 'fire' didn’t become firmly established until about 1600, but a trace of the old spelling survived in the adjective 'fiery'.”

So there's that. The reason that feels relevant to me is because I think it that it would be reasonable...not to mention logical...to think that FIERY was spelled FIREY. In fact, you might even look at the word FIERY and see FIREY. (Of course I am implicitly confessing here.) But you'd be wrong. What "you" saw would be what you expected to see...not the reality. And The Reality is trapped in a bit of nonsensical history...a prehistoric mosquito trapped in the amber of archaism. 

I just finished reading The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner. Winner of The Pulitzer Prize. 

I have to confess that I had no interest in reading this book at all. I was talking to a friend and mentioned that I was going to read Moby Dick with my daughter-in-law, and friend immediately said, "I want to read a book with you, too. Let's read something about Abraham Lincoln. I'd like to understand how he came to end slavery." Words to that effect, anyway. Then she suggested one of the Lincoln biographies, and when I looked it up it was over 500 pages long. So I had a look, but I looked specifically for a book about Lincoln and the abolition of slavery. And found The Fiery Trial. The fact that it had a Winner of The Pulitzer Prize sticker on the cover made me think it would be pretty okay. And the fact that it only had 326 pages of text was a clincher. I told my friend about it, giving enough detail that nudged her into choosing it. 

Pretty much from the start I knew I was in trouble. Foner's writing is so devoid of any hint of an interesting style caused me to just plod through the first couple of dozen pages. If my friend had been tearing it up I might have been able to push myself, but when I checked, she wasn't even as far as I was.

Well. I've been in more than a few reading groups in my time. Most of them have pooped out before finishing the book. Part of me was hoping that that's what would happen here...that Friend would say, "I just can't do it. Let's call it a day." But every time I talked to her, she'd say that she was still working on it, that she liked it but it took a lot of concentration, etcetera. So I kept bearing down. Kept getting farther ahead of Friend. Finally I just thought, "I'm not going to be the one to poop out on this," and I buckled down and pushed through. Just finished it a couple of hours ago.

I can't not recommend this lowly enough. I often felt that I was reading the same words over and over again, because there was so little progress in the book. I'm sorry to say it, but Eric Foner is just not my kind of writer. He almost never shifts into a story telling kind of mode, it's just a shitload of overview and context and then a dry recitation of facts. If you went to college and had a really boring professor, then you know how bone crushing an hour of that can be. And this book was like that...times 18. (The audiobook lasts 18 hour and 7 minutes.) 

And it was just so disappointing, too. It's obvious that Lincoln had no respect for Black people for most of his life. He called them "niggers," he supported laws that worked against them at times, and he talked about their ontological inferiority and had no intention of making Blacks the social equals of Whites. It really wasn't until the last few years of his life that he moved off of this racist perspective. 

I guess that you could say that it's good that a racist man like Lincoln grew to the point where he could be (seen as) The Great Emancipator, but the truth is that it was primarily political necessity which caused Lincoln to move in that direction. He even said that if he could save the Union without freeing a single slave he would do it. 

So there's that.

I suppose it's possible that there's another story out there...one in which I don't end up feeling like Lincoln was just another lousy fuckin' political...but I'm probably not going to be reading it, as I've had enough. If you haven't, good luck to you. I strongly suggest that you skip reading this book, though, as your make your journey down that road.

This Week's Comics: March 13, 2022

Slim pickings today--just two comic books. And it would have only been one...Detective Comics #1056. But sometime in the past week or two I saw that a compilation of the first six issues of The Nice House on the Lake was up on  hoopla , and for some reason I checked it out, and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, I started reading it. And it was good enough to keep me turning the pages until allofasudden I was finished. And I really wanted to know what came next. Turns out my timing was excellent: the compilation had just come out on 3/1/2022...and was on   hoopla  on that day as well (!)...and this was after the monthly title had been on hiatus for five months. Even more better, the 7th issue was due to (and did) come out on 3/2/2022. So instead of having to wait five months between issues #6 and #7, as regular readers did, I would only have to wait as long as it took  hoopla   to get it up on site. 

And you know, I was thinking that it was a pretty good chance that it would be going up pretty soon...just a feeling (a feeling deep inside)...but it wasn't up YET, and when I stopped in at The Great Escape and saw #7 on the shelf, I didn't even try to stop myself, I bought it. Yep. This is not a thing which happens very often, but I realized that I did not have the slightest bit of interest in waiting for even another day before reading issue #7 of this rather fascinating story.

And?

Well, first I've got to say that there was an aspect of the story that was extremely disorienting. I don't do spoilers, but let's just say that that Walter was acting kind of strange...or maybe I should say acting in a way that didn't seem congruent with his behavior in the previous issues. It puzzled me so much that I thought, "I must have missed something," and planned to go back and re-read the first six issues to see what it was. And then all became clear. I really like it when that happens. That moment of disorientation which then dissipates and clarity is achieved. Yes. Good book. And more good news: since I was a week late buying #7, I only have to wait three weeks until #8 comes out. And yes indeed I will be buying it.

Detective Comics churns towards the conclusion of the 12-part weekly epic, and it is still a very exciting read...as is the back-up feature. Another must buy, for sure.

Next Week's Comics:

Detective Comics #1057: The Penultimate chapter of "The Tower" 😢 (And btw...Batman's back! Actually he was back last issue, so this isn't a spoiler if you've been reading the book.)

Usagi Yojimbo #27

Two Weeks From Now:

Action Comics #1041

Detective Comics #1058

Icon and Rocket: Season One #6

Saga #57

DDR: The Worlds of Jazz André Hodeir

Well, this will be the end of the Hodeir Jazz thing--since he didn't write any more books on the subject. Though maybe not the end of the Jazz reading thing...as there are a couple of books I've been considering as a way of pushing deeper into this territory.

For instance...I've been thinking about a Dizzy Gillespie's autobiography To Be, or Not--To Bop pretty much since I started on this Hodeir jag. I remember checking it out from the Baltimore library when I was just a little feller...but never finishing it. I'd checked the Louisville Free PL and they didn't have it, so I was looking for a reasonably priced copy at the usual suspect places...and then for some reason I checked the library again, and guess what? They'd just ordered a copy. 

I think they heard me crying. So I put in a request, and it just came in a minute ago, and when I checked my account it was shipped to me yesterday. Sometimes the universe answers, man. So maybe I'll do that after I finish Hodeir. I'll test the waters and see. I'd also like to read a bit about Miles Davis, who strikes me as an extraordinarily interesting fellow. Though from what I know, he was also kind of an awful person, so maybe I should stay away from that. Finding out your heroes have feet of clay is one thing. Finding out that they're vicious motherfuckers who like to hit women is another.

Anyway....

So many choices. What a wonderful world this is for people who love to read, isn't it?

Day 1 (Jazz Day 19 / DDRD 1,597) March 16, 2022

Read to page 20. And it's immediately apparent that this is going to be a more difficult book that my previous Hodeirs. For one thing, it's Jazz criticism written in the form of creative prose of varying sorts--the first piece, which is primarily about Thelonious Monk, is written as a short story, with various narrative approaches...one of which is a stream of consciousness thing which really takes some careful steps, akin to walking a path through a minefield, I think. It's actually quite effective, but it also takes more time and more concentration. Also, I'm pretty sure that the number of words per page is far higher here, just from eyeballin' it. And lastly, it's a longer book page-count-wide: 279 of them. Oh, wait a minute...that's actually shorter than Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence. Well, I guarantee you that the word count is quite a bit higher for Worlds. So even though I'm enjoying it so far, I'm already wondering if I can keep to a twenty page per day pace, and I KNOW that it's unlikely that I can do more--whereas with Worlds I was packing down 30 and sometimes more pages per day. S'okay. I didn't have anything else on the schedule. 

Two things I wanted to remember: 

(1) Hodeir has Monk thinking about how he develops his music by way of "mistakes," and at one point he is trying to remember or re-find a mistake he had made previously. As he searches the keyboard, he comes upon something, then thinks, "No, I made the wrong mistake." I think this should be applied to any reasonable theory of education.

(2) This:

I think this is one of the keys to life, actually.

P.S. Speaking of Jazz...look what the Library Cat just dragged in:

And that Dizzy Gillespie book is brand fuckin' new, too. Very exciting!

Day 2 (Jazz Day 20 / DDRD 1,598) March 17, 2022

Read to page 40. The reading was less difficult this time. For one thing, that first story, with its stream of consciousness bits, ended, and the second story was written in a more conventional / accessible style. For another thing, I think I'm getting used to Hodeir's prose style at this point...which is quite different from his critical style. In fact, I've kind of stopped a couple of times to think, "You know, this Hodeir fellow can actually WRITE."

At one point in the second story...which is science fiction (!) and involves a trip to the world of Jazzinia, Hodeir sneaks this bit in:

Well. There's no indication of it (not even in the footnote at the end of that sentence), but this is straight off the pages of Waiting for Godot. It made me happy. So happy that when I was heading home from dropping #2🌞 off at work I stopped in at Half-Price Books and picked up these beauties...which I had been thinking about picking up for about a week. 

I had talked myself out of it, despite the fact that one was selling for $3 and the other for $8, which is pretty much an outright steal. I think the full set (in a cardboard thingie) cost $100 when it came out, and it now goes for $450 to $639.22 on Amazon. So I guess I owe Hodeir for that, don't I?

Anyway, I finished the second story and started the third. The first two were dominated by the ghost of Thelonious Monk, for sure. Which doesn't surprise me, as toward the end of Towards Jazz it was clear that Hodeir saw Monk as THE breakthrough guy of the day. 

I'm also thinking that when this Jazz Reading Festival is over it might be a good idea to go on a Samuel Beckett jag, hmmm?

Meanwhile...240 pages, and I think 20 per day is do-able, so 12 days before I decide whether To Dizzy or Not to Dizzy. And if Not to Dizzy, I am thinking it's Beckett Time.

Day 3 (Jazz Day 21 / DDRD 1,599) March 18, 2022

Read to page 63...a little extra because I was finishing up a story. This one was written two columns per page, and it took me several pages before I realized that they were two separate stories running simultaneously (as opposed to a story just running in two columns). Oh well. 

Day 4 (Jazz Day 22 / DDRD 1,600) March 19, 2022

Read to page 80. 

Day 5 (Jazz Day 23 / DDRD 1,601) March 20, 2022

Read to page 88, then skipped to page 100 and read to page 112. 

I'll go back for 89 through 99...maybe later today, maybe tomorrow... but I just couldn't take any more of it today. The "story" "Outside the Capsule" started on page 79. And at first I thought it was pretty inventive...told in a poetic style. Of course, I only read two pages of it yesterday. Today when I started on the third page, there was a sub-section entitled "ANALYSIS BY THE F.B.I." and I thought that was kind of funny, especially as the writing was still in poetic form. The thrill wore off quickly, however, as Hodier continued an "analysis" of Jazz music which was tedious and at times incomprehensible. With respect to the latter, that might have been in part because my understanding of music and musical terminology is so limited, but part of it was also due to the fact that Hodeir was constantly using neologisms (at least I think they were), apparently for comic effect--E.g.: "Yelb! Yelredda! Yenracyrrah!"--which I just found childish and tiring. I tried to hang in there, especially since the end of this "story" would coincide with the end of Today's Twenty, but I just couldn't take it anymore. So I turned to the next part (Pat Two: THE SENSE OF VALUES) and picked up there. Much better.

There was one line in the second part of my reading today which I thought was worthy of preservation and comment:

"Familiar surroundings are the best shield against fear." (108)

Not that it's particularly insightful, but that it encapsulates something which I have to think about all the time with my autistic son. To him, being in unfamiliar territory is a cause for panic and despair. Even going home by a different route can induce fear in him sometimes. A change in the weather is disastrous. A change in the television schedule or, even worse, a disruption in electricity to the house, is pretty close to being the apocalypse. And I understand it. I get really depressed and anxious when things change, too. But my fear is a pygmy to Joe's. 

So there was that.

Also, page 111 was folded down...

...and no other page in the book is. 

I conclude that that was the end of the line for whoever read this book before me...and maybe for the only other person to have read this copy. If so, I'll be you that it was "Outside the Capsule" that brought them down.

P.S. I haven't taken much of a look at To Be or Not--To Bop yet, but I am feeling a little averse to it because of its length. On the other hand, I did find this little beauty--

--on my bookshelf, and at 200 pages I'm thinking

that it might be a perfect follow-up to the Hodeir Trilogy. 

News as it happens.

Day 1 (Jazz Day 23 / DDRD 1,601)

To Be, or not...to Bop 

I probably shouldn't put it in writing, since I'm not

at all sure that I can or will sustain it, but I started 

reading To Be, or Not...to Bop by Dizzy Gillespie

with Al Fraser today. It's got 19 pages of pre-book 

and 552 pages of book (grand total of 571 pages),

so we're talking about a month's worth of DDR...

and I'm really not sure that I have it in me to do that.

But I read the pre-book and 23 pages of book today,

and I found it pretty interesting (despite the fact that 

Dizzy hasn't gotten anywhere near his being a Jazz 

musician yet), so Just In Case, I thought I'd make 

it official and start keeping track of things now. If I

poop out on it, I'll fess up and move on to something 

else. One thing that impressed me right off the bat 

was the way that the book runs straight from Dizzy's

mouth for the main thread, but then the narrative breaks

and we hear from other folks who were interviewed

for their side of the story. Makes for a very interesting,

3D kind of approach...and I don't think I've ever seen

a biography take that tack previously. So surprise, 

surprise, surprise...we're off, you know. 

Day 6 (Jazz Day 24 / DDRD 1,602) March 21, 2022

Read pages 89 to 99, then 113 to 120, so back on track. The first set of pages was a real struggle, as Hodeir determinedly pushed further and further into imbecility. The second set of pages was a little better, but still.... Let's just say that I'm hoping the next "story" is a little more straightforward.

Day 2 (Jazz Day 24 / DDRD 1,602)

To Be, or not...to Bop

Well, Dizzy is getting paid to play trumpet at gigs

at this point, so  we're getting there. There being

Dizzy's Jazz Life, which is what I'm interested in.

I guess all autobiographies / biographies start too

early on for me. I mean...who cares what your 

grandparents did or, for that matter, what you did

before you started doing whatever it is you did

to make you worthy of notice to the world at large.

Ironically, I'm reading Isaac Asimov's autobiography

(volume I) right now, and he starts with his  grandparents

and allathatstuff, too. It's still kind of interesting with 

Isaac, but that's because he's a writer, and it's a  writer's

job to make mundane things interesting. Still, I have to

say that Dizzy / Al are holding their own with the early

moments of Dizzy's life, too. Even though I'm not 

yet reading the stuff I wanted to read in this book,

I'm having no problem reading it, find it interesting,

look forward to reading more when I stop. So there's

that. Still, I'm ready to hear about the Jazz Life, y'know?

And since I read to page 66 today--how did that happen?--

I am on the cusp of just that. I think we're going to hit

the big time tomorrow.

 

P.S. I've also been listening to King Oliver's Creole Band: The Complete Set and Lee Morgan's The Sidwinder. The King Oliver stuff is interesting in a historical sense...first recordings with Louis Armstrong...but the Lee Morgan album is just pure listening delight. I am especially enamored of the title tune and "Totem Pole"...which reminds me a bit of "A Night in Tunisia"--written by none other than Dizzy Gillespie. It's a small world after all.

Day 7 (Jazz Day 25 / DDRD 1,603) March 22, 2022

Read to page 140.

Snooty Hodier makes a comeback in a big way in Today's Twenty:

"'The lower a jazz musician's aesthetic ambition, the better his chances of successful accomplishment.' If there is any truth in this law, it means that there is little risk of failure on the aesthetic level of Louis Jordan or Fats Domino." (121)

Hodeir then goes on to talk about the "lower reaches of our system of values" and the distinction between art and entertainment, the latter of which he regards as "background music."

One of the things I find both amusing and puzzling about this is that my most recent music purchase...and I don't buy a lot of music these days...was this beauty:

I'd never heard of Louis Jordan until I caught a glimpse of an interesting album cover on  hoopla , looked into it and found that the music was very energetic and made a pleasing scent in my nostrils, and after giving the tunes I found online numerous spins, I decided to throw down my 1/4th of a hundred dollar bill on this set. I'll confess that I haven't listened to all 5 cds yet, but I have listened to the first one a bunch of times, and I find the music pretty irresistible. It's exuberant, it's joyful, and it makes me want to dance. And I really don't dance. And when I listen to it, I'm not calculating how it measures up against A Love Supreme or Kind of Blue or Green Dolphin Street. I'm just enjoying the music. So I guess I'm just a philistine. Oh, well. Okay, gotta go pray in the streets. Loudly.

Also...the part that I finished today, a play-like-thing, was pretty hard to bear. I'm starting to think that this book is not worth reading, I'm sorry to say. I'm going to see it through, of course...but at this point I'd have to say that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. News as it happens.

Day 3 (Jazz Day 25 / DDRD 1,603)

To Be, or not...to Bop

I picked this up immediately after finishing Today's

Twenty in Hodeir, and it felt like taking a breath of 

fresh air after being confined in a well-used and ill-

maintained public restroom for several days. There's

a straight-forwardness to Dizzy's writing (or perhaps

that's "Dizzy's writing," as it's impossible to say how

much Al Fraser had to to with the actual words on the

page) which is very refreshing.  

Also, check this out:

So it looks like the whole When My Professional

Career as a Musician Started thing that I was  

waiting for has officially started. And then some.

 So I had a look for those songs.

And, of course, it being the 21st Century, it 

took about three seconds to track them down:

"King Porter Stomp" is at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihWQYPtCikQ

and "Blue Rhythm Fantasy" is at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhyIVNQNs4.

They seemed like pretty standard 40s (-ish) Big 

Band stuff to me, but since I like that sound, that

was quite alright with me.

Anyway...read to page 91.  

Day 8 (Jazz Day 26 / DDRD 1,604) March 23, 2022

Read to page 160. This was the beginning go PART THREE: THE MAN WHO WRITES JAZZ, the first chapter of which, "Lecture in Jazz Aesthetics Delivered by Professor Tie at the University of A," was the first section of this book that I would actually say was worth reading. Despite the obnoxious title, it was a pretty straightforward essay on Jazz...with a minimum of the cutie-pie shit which has festooned the rest of the pieces in The World of Jazz. I had hopes that this would continue into "Lecture in Jazz History Delivered by Professor Deadbeat at the University of B," which occupies pages 153 to 166, but at the halfway point it doesn't look so good. In this "essay," Hodeir takes the point of view of a smarmy professor who mocks the previous essay, then evokes the writings of André Hodeir and mocks them. It gets to the Too Much point pretty quickly. For one thing, Hodeir seems to think that excessive repetition of certain phrases, like "don't you know," has something to do with establishing tone and character. He repeats this phrase up to six times in a page (thus about 60 times in the essay), and it became Chinese Water Torture for me. 

Well, what can I say? About 120 pages to go. At least I have To Be or Not...to Bop to buoy me up.

BTW, I listed to a little Thelonious Monk whilst reading today. I don't think I've ever listened to him before, but since Hodeir has been talking about him I wanted to check him out. (So I guess I should at least give AH credit for provoking that.) Got

                                 from the library...the only Thelonious Monk they had at the Northeast Branch...and it is primarily just Monk on the piano. It's a pretty nice, relaxed album...though to be honest it doesn't sound particularly noteworthy. But I'm no doubt missing something. I'll give it some more spins and see if I can figure anything out.

Day 4 (Jazz Day 26 / DDRD 1,604)

To Be, or not...to Bop

Read to page 127.  You know, I'm not making

much of an effort to put down 30 pages a day on

this book, but that seems to be what is happening.

If this continues (no promises to self or anyone else),

by the time I finish Towards Jazz I won't have all that

much left of To Be.... Like about a week.

Hmpf.

Meanwhile, here's something Dizzy had to 

say which I think deserves to be recorded for posterity:

"Man, I was so scared, I was nervous as a sheep 

shitting on shingles." (102)

I know the feeling, Diz. I know the feeling.

Day 9 (Jazz Day 27 / DDRD 1,605) March 24, 2022

Read to page 180. This time we went from fake lecture to fake student commenting on a conspiracy theory to a fake musician commenting on the fake student's conspiracy theory. Too much fake for me. Also, this

continued. Sheesh.

Two things of interest:

Hodeir mentions Neal Hefti, a name I only knew as that of the guy who composed the Batman theme song. Apparently he was a Jazz guy before movies and tv lured him into that no doubt lucrative field. He also wrote the theme song for The Odd Couple, which you have to admit is a pretty catchy little tune. I'm going to try to remember to look up some of his earlier, pre-soundtrack stuff.

Also, Hodeir refers to three pieces of music--"Bag's Groove" by Miles Davis and Milt Jackson; "Parker's Mood" by Charlie Parker; "Misterioso" by Thelonious Monk-- as "three of the most remarkable jazz records ever made." He also says "it is doubtful that they have ever been surpassed or even equaled by written music" and that "jazz achieved its highest form of beauty" in these songs (174). So I guess I need to give them a good listen.

P.S. Found "Coral Reef" by Neal Hefti. It was actually pretty groovy, but sounded like what Hodeir would call entertainment rather than art. Which in this case I kind of agreed with, so I started thinking that maybe Neal Hefti was a pretty lightweight fellow...kind of to Jazz what Jimmy Buffet is to rock. (Inspired by the "coral reef" thing, of course.) But then I saw another tune, "Cute," which had been covered by Count Basie. Hmmm.

So I kind of like to hear and read more about this Neal Hefti fellow. I'll bet he had an interesting life.

Oh. I found a full album on YouTube: li'l darlin'. 

Track listing:

1. Cute

2. Shuld I Or Shuldn't I

3. Duet

4. Late Date

5. Li'l Darlin'

6. Scoot

7. Pensive Miss

8. Sunday Mornin'

9. Nice To Be With You

10 Rose Bud

11. Repetition

NH's version of "Cute" certainly wasn't as artful as Count Basie's...and there were some really schmaltzy moments in it. This definitely got me to thinking that my original conceptualization of NH was probably correct, unfair as it might have been of me to think that way. The second track definitely confirmed that. From the cutie-pie spelling in the title to the Living Strings approach that dominated the tune, this was really pretty hard for me to bear. (And to think that my initial impulse was to buy some Neal Hefti albums...since the library was devoid of such matter.) The next track was even worse--garrish and flashy. I had to bail out at that point. I went back to Wikipedia to look up this album--so I'd have a better idea of who to blame...is that a harpsichord I keep hearing? And if so, why? --and found this:

"What has become known as The Atomic Mr. Basie was one of the Basie Orchestra's most successful recordings of the 1950s. Formally titled Basie and subtitled 'E=MC²=Count Basie Orchestra+Neal Hefti Arrangements,' the album features eleven songs composed and arranged by Hefti, including the ballad "Li'l Darlin" and "Splanky," now standards." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Hefti)

Um...what? Okay, enough of that.

Day 5 (Jazz Day 27 / DDRD 1,605)

To Be, or not...to Bop
Read to page 161. Hmpf. Almost "caught up" to
Worlds of Jazz, then. Of course, this book is actually
enjoyable to read, whereas Worlds has become a real
chore. I guess there's a slight chance that Hodeir will
redeem this mess in the last 100 pages...but it doesn't
seem very likely.
Here's something that caught me by surprise:

Startling in and of itself, of course, because racism 

racism is always startling, but also personally startling,

 because I've been to the Circle Theater in Indianapolis

 several times (to see My Brightest Diamond). 

It's not logical, of course, but it just feels like it hits 

closer to home, you know?

Day 10 (Jazz Day 28 / DDRD 1,606) March 25, 2022

Read to page 200. More tiresome antics. There was a brief allusion to Franz Kafka's The Castle, which alleviated mehness for a moment, but that was about it. One of the antics here made me think for a bit, though. Hodeir posits a band of young musicians whose task is to recreate the sound of old Jazz records. I began to think about why I usually do not like cover versions of songs--because for the most part they seem like bad versions of the original songs--and then thought about what life in a tribute band must be like for a serious musician. Can you imagine going onstage and pretending to be another musician for an hour and a half or two hours? Can you imagine all of the time you'd have to spend practicing in order to sound as much like the original as possible? I'd think that that shit would get old fast, but maybe that just depends on how little creativity you have. I was talking to my #1🌞, who is a professional musician, and he told me that it was sometimes hard for him to play things which allowed him no creative freedom, no room for improvisation, and how more and more he found himself wanting to move in that direction exclusively. (He began as a classical violinist, became a bluegrass fiddler, and is now what for lack of a better term I'd call a popular music fiddler--though not in the anemic way that that might sound.) I sometimes do my own versions of songs...Bob Dylan mostly...and invariably I am happiest when I find room to take the song in a different direction than the original. And I'm a very shitty musician. If I had real talent, I would be doing all kinds of strange shit (which, unfortunately, I can hear very clearly in my hand, but have not the skill to create in the real world)--reggae versions of Beatles songs, that kind of thing. Not to be cute or anything, just because the song seems to fit that form better in my mind. Anyway...80 pages to go. I can do that.

Day 6 (Jazz Day 28 / DDR Day 1,606)

To Be or Not...To Bop

Meanwhile, back in DizzyLand....

Read to page 201. I have to admit that I have two

reservations concerning this material. (1) is that with

the interpolated interviews, there are times when the

speakers' thoughts are so chaotic that they become

senseless. That's easy to do when you're speaking,

of course, and perfectly understandable on their part.

But I think it's the editor's job to clean that stuff up,

otherwise the interviewees end up sounding like idiots

at times, which is not fair to them. (2) is that there are

times when Dizzy comes off as more than a bit

thuggish. Like when he stabs Cab Colloway. There

are a few other things as well. And some occasional 

bits of racism...something about "all white people

are good for" and references to ofays and crackers.

It's understandable, for sure, especially given the 

times--the 40s where I am now. But still...I don't

think that Dizzy was a thug or a racist, and I don't

like to see things that indicate that he is. That stuff

certainly doesn't add anything to the story, you know?

Anyway...I'm still enjoying the book, as I suppose is

obvious, since I've read about 33 pages every day

since I started it. 

Day 11 (Jazz Day 29 / DDRD 1,607) March 26, 2022

Pages 200 to 201 to 213 were occupied--and I mean that in the sense of an invading army--by a chapter entitled "Architect of a Dream." It was primarily an examination of the role of the composer and the arranger, ground which had been covered previously, but which Hodeir felt the need to go over again. It was tedious but not unbearable...until the Second Voice began to chime in. At first it just interjected a word or two, like "[No!"], but then phrases began to jump into the narrative, and then the interruptions became longer and more and more bombastic, until we were being beaten about the head with things such as "[Why hast thou freed thyself, if thou willst succumb to the charms of this Prince of Darkess....]"(213) Oh my aching balls. 

And once I'd dragged myself through that chapter, the next title loomed up before me: "A Sermon by the Reverend Mr. Sunrise." Is it possible that André Hodeir, who was 51 when this book was published, so he's neither young enough to excuse on the count of youthful exuberance nor old enough to excuse on the suspicion of incipient senility. I can only conclude that he is a very bad writer, at least so far as fiction is concerned...which necessitates my retraction of an earlier comment I made, I think. But 220 pages into this book, I can safely conclude that it is not worth your time, that is was not worth my time, and that it is only my innate masochistic tendencies and a pathetic OCD disorder which compels me to read the last 60 pages.

You have been warned.

Speaking of...read to page 220. And then as I was thumbing through the rest of the pages, hoping that there'd be some kind of a break...maybe an illustration or a chart or SOMEthing?...I saw that the last piece in the book is written in play format. It's PART FOUR ETHURE AND CULTICS A Play in One Act, and it runs from page 255 to page 279. I started to look at it just to see if I could look forward to some relief. It was immediately apparent that Hodeir was attempting to do a riff on Beckett's Waiting for Godot...but a riff that was so superficial that it read like the first draft of a high school sophomore who had just finished reading his first full page of the play. Or her. Nevertheless, I persisted. I started thinking, "At least there are fewer words per page. And if I can finish this off, I'll have shaved a full day off of my DDR time on this shitty book." But I couldn't maintain, and had to stop at 266. Well, at least it's a dent. And maybe I can persuade myself to go back to it later today. That would mean only two more days before I am finished with The World of Jazz...a consummation devoutly to be wished. It's even possible--since the text of the last chapter in PART THREE ends on page 253--that I could finish the book in one day, since that would only be 33 pages, and I think I could choke that down if it meant I'd be finished with this.

News as it happens.

Now I'm going to read some Dizzy Gillespie so I can feel better about the universe.

P.S. Two more things. (1) The title of Part Four--Ethure and Cultics--says a lot about Hodeir's sensibility--or lack thereof. It's the kind of cute shit that a callow writer evinces. It's the lowest order of wordplay, in that it doesn't add any meaning. In fact, it subtracts meaning in favor of a faint attempt at mockery. It's sophomoric at best. (2) Speaking of sophomoric, here's how the speaker in the Sermon piece refers to the development of recording technology:

I can't even begin to tell you how tired I am of this Hodeir motherfucker at this point.

Day 7 (Jazz Day 29 / DDRD 1,607)

To Be or Not...to Bop

I knew that Dizzy Gillespie had recorded a song

entitled "Brother K"...and, in fact, I remember trying

to find out if there was a way to embed that song on

this blog so that it would begin to play when you 

opened it up (but was unsuccessful in this)...but I 

had kind of forgotten about it until this Dizzy Book

began to work its way into my brain. It's a groovy

little song from an album, The Source, which is not

highly regarded. In fact, I saw one comment about it

that suggested that it was on this album (released in 1973) 

that Dizzy's prowess on the trumpet was visibly in

decline. What I didn't know until yesterday was that

the Brother K. referred to was Dr. Martin Luther King,

Jr. So that's pretty cool, ennit? 

Meanwhile...I read to page 230 today. Kind of funny,

Dizzy (and the other folks) spent a fair amount

of time talking about arranging songs, about how

difficult it was, and how when you arranged

for a Black band you had to write for specific

musicians and how each band had to have a different

sound...and emphasized how difficult it was, 

what an art  form it was. Funny, because Hodeir

has spent quite a few pages talking about what

bullshit arranging is. Well, whose words weighs 

more in your scales?

Also funny...but ha ha funny this time...was a little

Miles Davis interview in which he said that 

he asked Dizzy one time, "How do you play 

that chord?"--and Dizzy responded by saying, 

"Muthafucka...learn how to play the piano."

 (227) I just thought that was HIlarious...in part

because Miles Davis seems like such a bad tempered,

scary guy, and Dizzy seems like a big teddy bear. 

In a larger sense, though, it goes to show how 

important Dizzy was in the history of Jazz music.

I mean...he was teaching MILES DAVIS how to

play the trumpet at one point!

Speaking of Miles Davis...I went to a book sale at

Locust Grove today, and one of the many cool 

items I spotted was Miles Davis' autobiography. 

In hardback and cheap ($4). I wanted it, but

I talked myself out of it...in large part because I

don't know how much Jazz reading I have left in

me. Of course that feeling is primarily engendered

by the antipathy that Hodeir has generated in Worlds of Jazz.

But I didn't want to buy another book that would then

sit on my shelf unread. Of course ever since leaving the

place I've been thinking about going back to get it. 

The sale is still on tomorrow...so we'll see how that

plays out.

Day 12 (Jazz Day 30 / DDRD 1,608) March 27, 2022

Read to page 240. Alas, I didn't have the strength or will to go back and finish the play yesterday, so that means I still have pages 241 to 253 and pages 267 to 279 (total: 26 pages)  left. But I'm determined that I will finish that off tomorrow and say good-bye to Mr. Hodeir. Though I'm thinking about writing a review of Worlds of Jazz for GoodReads...just to get it off of my chest. That said, today's reading, which was the first part of "The Last Will of Matti Jarvinen," was actually one of the better parts of this book. I didn't have high hopes for it when I started reading. It began with a mock biography of one Matti Jarvinen." I checked to see if there actually was a Jazz composer (or should I say arranger?) of that name, and came up with this: 

That was it for Wikipedia, but a little more Googling around found "...the Juvenalia Choir. Founded in 1989, the choir has been conducted by Matti Järvinen from the start." & "FINNISH MUSICIAN

MATTI JÄRVINEN." I'm guess that that Matti Jarvinen is the same one described on the SVART Records site thusly: "It’s one of the many unfortunate events in Finnish pop music that Matti Järvinen released only one solo album. Järvinen stepped out of the music scene soon after Matin levy (Hi-Hat, 1976) was released and hasn’t released anything since."

So I'm pretty sure that Hodeir's Matti Jarvinen was not a real person.

Still, the story about this Matti J. was pretty interesting, and I'm not feeling any great angst about finishing it tomorrow. 

Yes. I will finish this tomorrow. Heh heh. Finish. 

Day 8 (Jazz Day 30 / DDRD 1,608)

To Be or Not...to Bop

I don't often watch college basketball, but when 

I do, I prefer Kentucky teams in the Final Four. 

However, I had heard about the Cinderella team St.

Peter's, and so I watched them. And that led to  

me watching another game. And then I found myself

watching Villanova play Houston last night. Just a  few

minutes into the game I became aware that one of

Villanova's star players was named Collin Gillespie.

So there's that.

Also this: a minute after I started reading today, 

Dizzy made reference to an early recording 

he did with Charlie Parker, "Groovin' High." 

Funny, because yesterday I was looking for a 

vinyl copy of The Source, got frustrated and just found 

the four tunes that comprised the album on YouTube, 

and when I opened iTunes to give them a listen, 

I was surprised to see that I had another Dizzy 

Gillespie album in there. It was Groovin' High. 

It's small world, after all.

Had a pretty busy day with a 3 hour coffee klatch

followed by an hour and a half walk in the park 

followed by picking up #2🌞 and getting him home

so we could check out the St. Peter's vs. UNC game,

with not a whole lot of read time in-between,  but I still

managed to read to page 260...and it didn't even feel

like an effort. This is a good book, and I'm glad

that I went for it. 

P.S. Had a hard time sleeping, so I read another

ten pages...to 270.

Day 13 (Jazz Day 31 / DDRD 1,609) March 28, 2022

Read to page 279, aka The End. And I'm glad of it. That's all the Hodeir I need in this lifetime, thank you.

I did find this Proust quote interesting:

Or at least that's what Hodeir says, as I was unable to find anything that actually links this line to Proust. But it's an interesting thought.

And that's it.

Day 9 (Jazz Day 31 / DDRD 1,609)

To Be or Not...to Bop

Read to page 300. Among other interesting things, 

Dizzy made mention of a book entitled Black English: 

Its History and Usage in the United States by 

J. L. Dillard. I looked for it, and funny thing: the public

library has a copy, but it's non-circulating...and located at

the branch farthest from my house. And since I don't get a 

whole lot of contiguous hours and am not the world's 

fastest reader anyway, looks like if I want to read 

this book, I'm going to need to buy it.  And that wouldn't

be so bad...because my good friends at Better World

Books & Thrift Books both have copies available for

reasonable prices.

Okay.  Obviously I still have a ways to go in this book.

But since it is now taking its rightful place as Lead

DDR book, I'm going to shift it over to its very own

posting, which can be found HERE.

Thanks for your support.

 

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz  13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop __ days, 571 pages