Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

The nominations for Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for September are now open ... please use this thread to nominate a book. Nominations will close on August 10, 2023.

More changes this month!

We will open up the nominations process and voting to all members ... I only ask that you nominate and/or vote for a book that you think you may read.

I would hope that the person who nominates a book that is chosen will actively participate in the discussion. You don’t have to lead that discussion, but if you do, that’s great.

Beginning on August 1, I will call for nominations for the Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for September. On August 11, I will call for votes among the books nominated from any and all members. On August 21, I will announce the winner. That book will be the September Members’ Choice Book of the Month. In case of ties, I will choose the winner.

Discussion follows in this thread

Discussion follows in this thread

John, I reserved Smith’s autobiography, JUST KIDS, at our library. And I pl an to listen to that music also.

But it is really worth noting how the warnings about CO2 have been around since the oil industry first began to be developed. Vaillant is really good about this!

Ch.19
Eunice Foote’s landmark CO2 experiment in 1856

1859 Colonel Edwin’s Drake drilled his first oil well in Pennsylvania.

1859 John Tyndall presented a paper to the Royal Institution on how certain gases could warm the atmosphere.

Aarhenius - research on global warming in 1896.

1938 - Guy Callendar determined that the mean global temperature had risen 0.9 degrees F between 1890 and 1935. He was the first to document the atmospheric changes caused by the Petrocene Age.

In 1957, Roger Revelle, the Director of the Scripps Institute, in a Congressional hearing warned of anthropogenic climate change. He said that a good part of Texas could become a real desert.

Ch.20
Keeping finds a baseline reading of atmospheric CO2 at 315 ppm in 1957, having risen from 280ppm in 1750.

In-house memos from Exxon, She’ll, GM, and Ford show an awareness of the problem of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. In 1982, Exxon released projections ofCO2 level increases through 2100 which have been very accurate.

NYT headline in OCT 1983 — EPA says Earth will begin heating up in 1990s.

In 1974, the API disbanded the CO2 and Climate Task Force.

In 1989, the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was convened. In response API and others formed the Global Climate Coalition to discredit the science behind climate change. Exxon and the Koch’s have spent $200 million on this. Since 1988, atmospheric CO2 has risen from 350 ppm to over 420 ppm.

Ron, I finished the book and thought it was great ... but it does have. a number of digressions that may frustrate some readers. It takes you back to the beginning of the development of the oil sand industry ... and back to the beginning of the oil industry ... and back to earlier period in our geological history when warming got out of control. So a quick summary of the fire itself first:

On May 11, the fire had been burning in the city for eight days. Smoke from the fire stretched 2,500 to the East Coast. It was hard to imagine that things could get worse, but they did. Refrigerators and freezers had pools CB of clotting blood in them. 20,000 refrigerators were declared biohazards and had to be thrown away.

By the time was three weeks old, it had burned a million acres of forest, more than 2,000 square miles. In the homes that burned, even toilets and sinks had vaporized.

Of the 90,000 people who left Fort McMurray on May 3, 20,000 never came back. The cost of materials to replace the houses jumped way up.

By mid-June 2016, the Fort McMurray fire had burned 2,300 square miles and was still burning. It was finally extinguished after fifteen months on August 2, 2017. It was the costliest disaster in Canadian history. It left many with PTSD and respiratory problems.

And there is this:

"Genius doesn’t owe explanations of itself. But perhaps the nearest Dylan came to explaining both his gift and its durability was in 2015, accepting an award from the charity MusiCares. Reading from a sheaf of papers in his hands, Dylan exploded the myth of sui generis brilliance.

“These songs didn’t come out of thin air,” he said. “I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth…It all came out of traditional music: traditional folk music, traditional rock and roll, and traditional big-band swing orchestra music…"

Remnick, David. Holding the Note (p. 267). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I think that the MusiCares speech was brilliant. I've read it several times. Here's a link to it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e...

John wrote: "I finished the chapter on Dylan. A good overview of his career. I felt when Dylan wanted a New Yorker cover that the magazine could have done a portrait by one of the cover artists. I guess that wa..."

I think he sheds light on some parts of the early Dylan ... as Dylan was becoming Dylan in NYC.

And I really like the part of the chapter about Dylan and Sinatra. There was a real controversy among critics about the value of the three Sinatra cover albums that Dylan put out. I thiknk that what Remnick says about this is important:

"Those Sinatra standards replenished him and fed his imagination. They helped bring him to the songs on Rough and Rowdy Ways. They allowed him to keep forcing himself forward."

Remnick, David. Holding the Note (p. 265). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

John wrote: "I have to admit that I rather skimmed through the Pavarotti chapter. For reasons I don’t know, opera has never worked for my ear. I just don’t care for it. So, although Pavarotti was always a large..."

I like opera overtures and a very few arias. But the reasons that opera doesn't work for me has to do with the wide dynamic range of the recorded works. If I turn up the volume to hear the quiet music passages, then the music is booming during the loud passages. I just don't like that. But I did like the Pavarotti chapter.

I sort of wish that I could have seen Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom ...

"As Steel Mill dissolved, Springsteen dreamed up a temporary lark: Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom, a kind of Noah’s ark carnival act, with two of everything—guitarists, drummers, singers—plus Garry Tallent on tuba, a baton twirler, and two guys from the Upstage who played Monopoly onstage. Then Springsteen got serious. He formed his own band. He called it the Bruce Springsteen Band.

Remnick, David. Holding the Note (pp. 193-194). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. "

"If Vini Lopez is the unluckiest drummer in American history, Jon Landau is surely the most fortunate of rock critics.

Remnick, David. Holding the Note (p. 201). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. "

I think that's true about Vini Lopez ... but the unluckiest drummer in rock history has to be Pete Best, the drummer who Ringo replaced in the Beatles.

John, I agree .., and Lester Young.

I loved both poem and Carol's comments.

The next chapter, BIRD WATCHER, not really about Charlie Parker but about Phil Schaap who had a show on WKCR, in which he did the deepest dive into all things Charlie Parker possible. I actually listened to one of the archived programs several years ago and it was just too much. Totally impressed ... but just too much.

Charlie Parker, though ... I started up CHARLIE PARKER WITH STRINGS ... as I read the chapter. I'm not sure that anyone could capture the beauty of a melody while he wove in and out with his skillful improvising.

Later he says this ... "No. I’m trying to get you to learn how to listen to Charlie Parker. Louis Armstrong is the greatest musician of the twentieth century. But name twenty musicians today who really listen to Louis Armstrong.

Remnick, David. Holding the Note (p. 168). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I'm not sure that Louis Armstrong really is "the greatest musician of the twentieth century" but he may be the most important musician of that century. Some people think he invented jazz ... he didn't, but as one music critic said, "he was the greatest popularizer of jazz." And maybe he was the "greatest musician of the twentieth century after all."

John, I loved the story of how when they were arrested, they were immediately released when the police captain recognized Pop Staples and said that his wife loved their music.

I don’t think that Dylan’s infatuation with Mavis would have helped his music over the longer run. I think that the comfort that a good marriage to her would have reduced the psychological discomfort that has aided him in producing that music. Just a guess with little to back it up.

So, with one vote each for three books, I’m going to exercise my Moderator’s power an declare ALI: A LIFE the winner. I’ll open up the voting to more members next month

I finished the Mavis Staples chapter and loved it. I had listened to a little Staples Singers over the years. I need to listen to more.

John, I read the McCartney piece with pleasure. The one revelation was that he had written the melody to IN MY LIFE. I always thought that was one by Lennon. But I believe it. Paul’s gift for melody was unsurpassed.

Lance, Diane S., and Ron ... please cast your votes if you wish to. I'll be away from home for the next week but will check in with my iPhone.

Larry