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

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

John,

I bought the Remnick book this morning. Want to do a Buddy Read? We can work our way through it slowly.

Larry

John, I’ve had the Gottlieb book for perhaps 20 years. I dip into from time to time and always enjoy what I read. I didn’t know about the new book by Remnick. I’ll definitely look for it.

CH.6

MWF-009
Fire 009 seemed different. After one day it had grown by 500 times. It was 0 percent controlled. Melissa Blake, the mayor, turned her attention to Fire 009. She explained what was being done to protect the city and then turned her attention to the weather. Winds were coming. Bernie Schmitte (Alberta wildfire Division manager) and Darby Allen (municipal fire chief) speak. The fire is within one mile of the closest dwelling.

Forecast for May 3 is 35km winds blowing in the wrong direction. It’s drier than it had been in 50 years. The fire is now out of control. Fire 009 is visible 80 miles away.

Recounting the 2011 Slave Lake fire … not destructive but transformative… concrete burned … lawnmowers vaporized. The recounting of this past history should evoke some dire images of what is coming.

Cynda and John are reading Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon.

Just one comment, John, and it's not a negative comment at all. The GoodReads rating for the Plunkett book is 3.76 stars. I NEVER use these ratings on making a decision to read a book or not. The starred rating system is so broken for several reasons. Almost all books are rated somewhere in 3.25 to 4.00 range. If a book is rated below 3.00 or above 4.25, the rating probably means something. Otherwise, make your decisions on whether to read a book based on published reviews or trusted friends.

Allan wrote: "My general guideline is to stay out of the mainstream. Just like in the 60s and 70s, you have to seek out good music, it does not come to you. Today it's so much easier to access, but you have to be even more selective because of that. ..."


Every month, I look at Bob Bentley's monthly column. He usually has about 10 albums that he recommends, with some pretty extensive comments about each of them ... most are definitely "out of the mainstream." This month [May actually ... he hasn't posted for June yet.] he also looks back at a 1972 Little Feat album, SAILIN' SHOES.

https://americanahighways.org/2023/05...

Allan, your mention of the Aragon Ballroom ... and John, your mention of the Capitol Theater in Passaic makes me think of the redos of two theaters in Virginia ... the Beacon Theatre in Hopewell and the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesvile.

In 2018 we went down to the Beacon to see Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman team up with Marty Stuart and his band to recreate the SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO album. They started the concert with old Byrds songs, then did the who SWEETHEART OF THE RODE album, and then Marty Stuart played some o fhis own music. It was an amazing evening.

The previous year, we had gone down to Charlottesville to see Kris Kristofferson at the Paramount Theatre. He was solo and played 29 songs with a brief intermission. He had recovered from what had been a misdiagnosis of Alzheimers (it was Lyme disease). His guitar playing was a biut weak, but it didn't matter at all. Becasue the crowd loved him and he returned that love.

I think that the Paramount is back for good ... because it has the audiences that come from being in Charlottesville. I hope that the Beacon can make it ... it is still going but I'm not sure if it is sustainable.

Allan wrote: "My sister was a huge Rod Stewart fan, so I saw him solo 6 times. I loved his early solo albums (I have all up to Atlantic Crossing on vinyl). Gasoline Alley was my favorite."

I still have all those early Rod Stewart LPs also ... through Atlantic Crossing. And I listen to them (actually streaming them). Stewart has had so many recreations of his career. I actually like what he did with the Great American Songbook albums. I think that he sings these American standards very well ... better in fact than Linda Ronstadt did (those three albums of hers where she sings these classics are the only ones of hers that I don't listen to .) And then his Soulbook album also worked very well for me.

Maybe the biggest surprise for me was how good his autobiography was. I dug a little and found that it was co-written with Giles Smith, a British journalist. But Stewart chose well in collaborators. It was both a fun and revealing read.

Ron, I’ve read most of Nicholas Sparks’ recent novels. I agree that they can be great summertime reading.

John, what were once colleges and universities that were seen a secondary or tertiary tier schools have become some very good schools. I’m not sure but I think it often comes from focusing on a few key strengths and then building on those.

John, my love for some catalogs began as a young child in Japan when the Sears Christmas catalog would come. I would go through the toy section every day trying to figure out what I should ask for. In more recent times, it was book catalogs that held my interest. I miss those days.

John, it caught my interest immediately … and these days, we certainly try to “save what we can.”

Allan et al.

Some great "Best of" Lists here, e.g. The Greatest Rock Albums of 1970 ... or the 200 Greatest Jazz Albums [you have to go way down the page to get to the Jazz Lists.

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/mu...

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/be...

And the best rock albums from the 1960s

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/be...

Allan, we only have so much time ... I think that just looking for "good music" is enough.

""There are only two kinds of music—good (music) and bad (music)” is a saying associated with Duke Ellington (1899-1974)" But then this also: talian compose Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was credited in 1863 with saying: “My dear sir, there is no such distinction as you suppose between Italian, German, French music; there are only two kinds of music, good and bad.”

I listen to most genres of music. Rap, hip-hop, and heavy metal are genres I don't listen to. I just don;t have time to try that music, but maybe some of it is good. And so far, I haven't gotten into opera the dynamic range (really soft followed by some really loud passages just doesn't seem to work for me either... there are some arias I like and some overtures, but that's about it.)

But "best of" lists like that Chicago Sun-Times list of 30 Jazz albums is a great way to start. I've been working my way through the best of list of Robert Christgau, his so-called Dean's List that begins in 1971 and for some years has 50 or more albums. Almost all rock, soul, etc. I subscribe to Christgau's Substack and really disagree with some of his music criticism, but he usually enlightens me.

Carol wrote: "Rather off on a tangent provoked by the word meeow- Do many children in the US self identify as cats? There is quite a discussion going on about it here as children are forbidden to wear trainers e..."

Carol,

I have never heard of this. Fascinating. But so sad that a teacher would tell a young person that she was despicable over this ... or almost over any matter.

We've never had cats ... I am so allergic to them. While we were in Australia for a year, I can remember when we would visit the home of my clerk several miles out of Canberra. She had four cats ... and I can't remember the names of all of them ... but I can remember two ... Garbage and Madam Meow. I think that my clerk Audrey name both.

And I should have started with this ... a great choice of a poem for the day.

Both books look very powerful, Ron.

John wrote: "Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Their first album is such a great listening experience. Those harmonies…...."

I easily could have listed that album also. When it was released in August 1969, I had just returned for my Junior year in college. No album was played more in my dorm suite than that one for about two months.

John wrote: "Gosh, I have not been here a while. I love the album lists. Here are mine. I don’t know if I can truly rank them, so I will say they are all equal.

Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. Haunting and mesm..."

John, thanks for coming back here. Record company executives hate it when you do something really different. As you know, they were really upset with Springsteen over NEBRASKA ... just like Berry Gordy and the other Motown higher-ups thought that Marvin Gaye screwed up with WHAT'S GOIN' ON ... hist real masterpiece.

Yeah, I've listened to that Neil Young one a lot also. It is great ... I love his look at the coming of Europeans in the song here, Pocahontas, and elsewhere in Cortez the Killer on ZUMA. And I should mention here (for Allan and Eileen) that you're the reason that I subscribe to Neil Young's Archives. I'm still very happy with that subscription.

Eileen wrote: "I have wide-ranging music tastes so it's difficult to narrow to 3-5 albums but my #1 favorite may be Sting's album, "Fields of Gold". I liked "The Police" so I was looking forward to seeing what Sting would do as a solo artist. I find his work so thoughtful and well-balanced between the lyrics and music...."

Sting is so good. I think I've listened to almost all of his albums a lot. In the late 1980s my wife, for a birthday present, took me to his concert at George Mason University. It was great ... except, it really was the loudest concert we ever went to. No permanent hearing loss, but my ears were ringing for several hours. He had Branford Marsalis playing sax in his touring band at that time. I had listened to the Police a little ... but after I got deeper into Sting's music , I went back and explored the Police's music more.

About three days ago, we were watching Andy Summers (of the Police) on YouTube talking about how hard the breakup was. They agreed that for the first year that they really wouldn't say publicly that it was over ... and that took a toll on him. He was 10 years older than Sting and Copeland ... so maybe that was part of it. I also think he saw Sting moving on and leaving the other two behind ... and that was hard also.