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

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

I'm working on Chapter 5 myself ... it's just okay ... I'm ready for the story of the BIG FIRE itself.

So here's my top 5 ... I couldn't stop with 3,

MILES DAVIS - KIND OF BLUE (1959) Probably bought this in about 1982 … as one of the first jazz CDs that I bought. It led me to other jazz albums by Miles Davis, but more importantly to many other jazz artists. I had listened to jazz at night in the DC area for years while I was in high school but hadn’t bought anything until this album. These days, I listen to more jazz, American, and baroque music than anything else.

BEATLES - RUBBER SOUL (1965) One of the first two albums I bought .. the other one was the Tijuana Brass’ THE LONELY BULL. And Rubber Soul remains my favorite Beatles’ album. I have the original American version on LP … and I bought the British version on CD as soon as it was put out.

BYRDS - YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY (1967) The re-release is even better. One thing I’ve never liked about this album is David Crosby’s Mind Gardens ….the worst Byrds’ song ever .. but then it leads into My Back Pages, the best Byrds’ song ever. The album is sort of the best representation of what the California Folk Rock sound was like at its height.

NEIL YOUNG- AFTER THE GOLD RUSH (1970) - Perfect when I heard it the first time … still perfect. I’m not sure what else I need to say

ROD STEWART - EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY (1971) - “All five members of the Faces (with whom Stewart at that time was lead vocalist) appear on the album, with guitarist/bassist Ronnie Wood and keyboardist Ian McLagan on Hammond B3 organ being employed most.” It has Maggie May on it. I saw Rod with the Faces before this album came out and a year after … he put it out when he still knew he was Rod Stewart instead of something else he evolved into … and evolved into .. and evolved into …

Allan, This deserves a thoughtful reply. I'll share mine, but it may take a day or two. I love your personal comments.

Ron, the smoke was bad indeed, but the continuing high temperatures you’re facing in Texas, including high temperatures at night, may well be worse.

Allan wrote: "I just joined earlier today, thinking it will be interesting to supplement my main areas & I'm always trying to find great books. I'm 66 and primarily a sci-fi reader, although historically my othe..."

It is so great to see you here, Allan.

And Allan, I'm so glad you picked up this thread ... your comments have brought it back to life.

Allan wrote: "Regarding Linda Ronstadt:
She is one of those singers with a beautiful, powerful voice, but who needs to choose her songs very carefully to make the most of it, and not sound screechy. I didn't car..."

This week, I was listening to archived shows on Dwight Yoakum's BAKERSFIELD BEAT Sirius XM channel ... specifically Chris Hillman's show. He was listening to the second interview he did with Bernie Leadon, who was talking about the fact that Linda Ronstadt didn't write her own songs but whenever possible she would sit down with people (usually guys) who offered her their songs. He told about how she got "Long, Long Time" from a songwriter ... just sitting with him and asking him to play it over and over on a guitar until she got it in her mind.

My eight-year granddaughter had her usual weekly piano lesson yesterday with her teacher ... a woman about 80 who grew up across the street from the Ronstadts. She knew them all very well but especially Linda's brothers.

Allan wrote: "Let me throw one out there if I may. Give a listen to Southeastern by Jason Isbell. I've been on a kick listening to his back catalog, and this is his highly praised personal catharsis album."

Allan, it's great.

Of recent albums, I have listened to two more than once. I've listened to Paul Simon's SEVEN PSALMS three times and Isbell's WEATHERVANES twice. Here's a link to an NPR review of the latter, with an audio interview of Isbell.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/16/118285...

Ron, we probably had the worst smoke--and air quality--down in the DC area that we've had for about 40 years. A lot of outdoor activity, like PE/recess for my granddaughters, got cancelled for a few days.

It's a good time to read this book about the monster fire in Western Canada (Alberta) while so many fire in Quebec and Ontario are ravaging Eastern Canada.

"Back at the base, Commander Mossé said, “If anybody in New York is wondering why there’s smoke there, it’s because the fires here are unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable,” he repeated.

A group of 109 French firefighters arrived in northern Quebec about a week ago to assist nearly 1,000 Canadian firefighters and soldiers, the first foreign reinforcements to help the province tackle the extraordinary outbreak of forest fires that sent smoke to New York and other cities across North America, forcing millions indoors because of hazardous air quality.

More than 400 wildfires have burned all across Canada. But much of the smoke over Manhattan drifted from Quebec, a province that is unaccustomed to so many enormous fires, and that has already suffered its worst wildfire season on record, with more than two months left to go."

Source: NYT 6/17/2023

Just to conclude/summarize, the voting turned into a conversation, which makes me more than a little happy. The results were that Washington's Secret War by Thomas Fleming will be the first Member's Selection ... the July Book of the Month - Members' Choice. And Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future will be a Buddy Read.

We hit 400 members (June 19, 2023) ... I love looking at the books shown that new members are reading.

And smoke is off in the distance ... fire is coming.

Some reviewers have criticized the book for being too digressive, but I think that Vaillant gives us a great feel for what the Fort McMurray area is like. A few of my notes:

In 2016, Fort McMurray had about 90,000 people living in 25,000 dwellings. About another 50,000 sometimes inhabitants nearby. About half of American oil imports come from here Canada. And 90 percent is from Fort McMurray.

The median household income is $200,000 annually. At site, there are 25 men for every woman. Two big companies: Syncrude and Suncor. Good jobs … but big responsibilities… overtime and weekends.

Albertans feel alienated from the National capital. Oil there starts with bitumen, tar or asphalt. Just below the forest floor, there is a bitumen deposit the size of New York State. This is the Alberta tar sands, or the Alberta oil sands. A typical deposit is 10% bitumen, 5%water, and 85% solids. The solids are mainly quartzite. Removal starts often with a Caterpillar D11 bulldozer. Haulers then carry the bitumen to a crusher.

The work goes 24 hours a day year round.
Development was delayed because of how easy it was to extract oil elsewhere … Texas, Oklahoma, even southern Alberta.
Turning oil sands into sweet crude requires a lot of heat and pressure.

Ron wrote: "I know absolutely nothing about the oil industry. I've heard of petroleum and methane, but not enough to know what it is exactly, how it works, how it's produced, pretty much I don't know anything like I just said.

It's been pretty neat to learn about those things within the past several chapters ..."

It's really a good introduction to the petroleum industry. I know a good bit about the industry, but don't have a professional knowledge of it. And I learned a lot, because so much of my earlier reading had focused on the liquid petroleum industry and not oil sands.

Ron wrote: "Okay, just finished ch. 3. Hadn't gotten around to reading these past couple of days, but I'm back at it.

I found the history of "The Company" to be quite interesting.

I know absolutely nothing ..."

The Company is of course the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), one of the major factors in the forming of today's Canada. The Hudson Bay Company. Granted a charter in 1670. By Charles II. Beaver pelts became unit of a currency. A muzzle loading rifle cost 40 beaver pelts.


So what happened to HBC? Here's the Wiki: "Until March 2020, the company was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "HBC.TO" until Richard Baker and a group of shareholders took the company private.[14] HBC is, as of 2022, the majority owner of eCommerce companies Saks[15] and Saks Off 5th,[16] both established as separate operating companies in 2021.[16][17] HBC wholly owns SFA, the entity that operates Saks Fifth Avenue's physical locations;[18] O5, the operating company for Saks Off 5th stores;[19] The Bay, an eCommerce marketplace and Hudson's Bay, the operating company for Hudson's Bay's brick-and-mortar stores.[19][20]

HBC owns or controls approximately 3.7 million square metres (40 million square feet) of gross leasable real estate[21] through its real estate and investment arm, HBC Properties and Investments, established in October 2020"

Chosen by Jeffrey ... my own thoughts here about this book.

I was first exposed to Vaclav Smil's works about 25 years ago by my boss at the time who told me how great his work on energy was. I'll pull this from Wikipedia: "Included among Smil's admirers is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,[12] who has read all of Smil's 36 books.[13] "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie," Gates wrote in 2017.[4] "He's a slayer of bullshit," says David Keith, an energy and climate scientist at Harvard University.[4]"

Put simply, I think that Smil takes really different and often difficult topics and explains them as simply as possible. That's easy to say and really hard to do.

Cynda,

If you decide to subscribe, the annual plan works out to $12/month, much better than the monthly plan of $18/month.

Larry

The one odd thing about Perlego--maybe this is not so odd because I think a lot of businesses are like this--is that it was set up to be according to their own statements a place where college/university students could find a lot of their textbooks. Oh, they have a lot of textbooks, but I think that it's usually not the most commonly adopted textbooks. But they are wonderful for academic books and serious works. So it would be a great place to go to write almost any term paper that is assigned ... or to find another book to help you understand something that your main textbook doesn't explain very well. I do think that Scribd is the best source for most people, but Perlego is amazing. There have been three books that I've found there that are available before their formal publication date. And they now have more than 1,000 college/university presses contribution books. I didn't even know that there that many college/university presses. I like searching just on a particular press, e.g. Yale University Press, to see what they have published recently.

Cynda wrote: "Larry does Perlego also have audiobooks?"

Cynda, they don't. That's one shortcoming.