David Montgomery caught up with Trudeau and two contributors to the blog recently. It's a fine piece of writing.
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I read Slate primarily to catch my colleague Fred Kaplan's "War Stories" column, but whenever I read Fred, I also go to Garry Trudeau's "The Sandbox," a milblog that allows military personnel stationed in Iraq and Afganistan to "vent, rhapsodize, and [inform] the folks on the home front . . . what is going on from their point of view."
The casual interest soon transformed into an addiction and an obsession. Does obsession come before addiction, or after? I'm not sure. Either way, the salsa didn't seem to mind. It started in early August with two albums: Siembra by Ruben Blades and La Gran Fuga by Willie Colon. These two led me to several others which led me to more still. I read one pretty crappy Hector Lavoe biography, sent dozens of fiery e-mails to my family in Puerto Rico, devoured tons of liner notes, and watched a gazillion YouTube videos. I've now collected over 20 albums (all on CD), have lured one uncle into…
The first thing that strikes you about A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story—a 3-CD (plus a bonus DVD) box-set that spans the career of drummer Roy Haynes—is just how wide and varied a span it is. It opens in 1949, with Haynes as a sideman to Lester Young, proceeds to sessions with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, and Nat Adderley; moves into ‘60s avant-modernism with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, and Chick Corea; and cruises into the ‘70s and beyond (he is still very active at age 82) with bands under his own leadership.
The collection (…
Oscar Wilde's chief talent was appropriation, says Dr. Michèle Mendelssohn.
Joe Queenan gives good rant.
"Phil Collins is one artist that revisionism will not save. The argument canbe made—not here, but it can be made—that Paul McCartney's post-Beatles work is not uniformly execrable, that the Dave Clark Five, the Monkees, the Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Menudo and Rush deserved far better critical treatment than they got, and that Billy Joel is not the anti-Christ. But no revisionist approach, no matter how passionate, no matter how arch, no matter how clever will ever alter the fact that Phil Collins bites the big one."