Jarrett House NorthSecond verse, same as the first.

I saw Max and his band play in the early 1990s at UVA, when the university was still putting on tremendous jazz festivals that brought everybody who was anybody in the jazz world in. The jazz fan that I am today would love to be able to remember who was in Max’s band that night. [...]

The presence of the third Beatle’s solo catalog on iTunes (the holdout at this point is the sublime George Harrison, whose estate one must imagine is going to take some time to process the question of moving to new formats) is old news at this point. In fact, John’s solo catalog generally is old news [...]

Let me count the ways: Trying to track down the authors of a Microsoft code sample which essentially disappeared when Microsoft pulled down the GotDotNet community site. Being gobsmacked by this article about “Conception Day” in Russia—a state holiday set aside to reverse the population decline, for exactly the purpose that you might imagine. Gotta [...]

…the Turd Blossom is out. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out, pal. But I can’t help but watch to see where he shows up next. Rove has always seemed to me to be the Zelig of the cynical right… which means that he might serve a cipher of a candidate [...]

Notes about undemocratic, non-representative findings aside, the victory of Mitt Romney in this weekend’s Iowa straw poll is heartening and troubling. Heartening, because it positions as the Republicans’ leading hope a man with no discernible positions, whose chief political experience is four years spent running away from Massachusetts while running for President. As Talking Points [...]

For this weekend’s Tanglewood residency, I am staying at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge. It’s a ramshackle monster of a place, in continuous operation since the late 18th century (with sloping floors et al to prove it); has a prominent place in an iconic Norman Rockwell painting (“Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas”); and bills [...]

No, I’m not planning another project. I’m referring to Pete Brown’s Blog, one of the funnier and more observant blogs I’ve read about beer, pub culture, and other related matters. Pete is the author of several books on beer, none of which I’ve read; sounds like a trip to the library is in order. I’m [...]

The only thing worse than having to work through a day off, is doing it on a rainy day. Of course, there are those who will tell you that this is the best way to work on your day off, since you wouldn’t be having any fun anyway. To those misguided souls, I say: nah. [...]

Bad timing as AT&T tries to convince Congress that net neutrality legislation isn’t necessary: it blocks some lyrics critical of the President during a Pearl Jam webcast from Lollapalooza on Saturday. When pressed to explain, it aid it was the fault of an overzealous “content monitor.” A what? Folks, I believe that’s called a censor. [...]

Early start to the morning today, with a presentation that ran from 8 to noon Pacific time (I have been in Seattle for a business trip since yesterday afternoon). And then? Driving back into Seattle with KEXP on the car radio. A relatively leisurely afternoon spent checking email, working on proposals, catching up on status [...]

I continue my work on researching the early history of the Virginia Glee Club. Google Books has proved invaluable, both in sourcing the birth year of the group and in providing a reference to a famous alumnus about whose membership I was ignorant: Woodrow Wilson, who sang tenor in the Glee Club during his one [...]

I’ve been digging into my archives this weekend, prompted by a contact from an old Glee Club friend. I have quite a few things to scan and post, but that will wait for another time, when I’m not getting ready to fly across country early the next morning. In the meantime, I’ll post a teaser—a [...]

Because I am woefully behind in my posting, and because it is Friday, and because I am listening to music: Jeff Buckley, “Calling You” (Live at Sin-é) Low, “Silver Rider” (The Great Destroyer) David Byrne, “Don’t Fence Me In” (Red Hot + Blue) U2, “Party Girl” (Under a Blood Red Sky) Sonny Rollins, “Blue 7” [...]

I have been struggling with Windows Vista for a month or two. Regularly the system ran out of resources, regularly reboots were required to re-enable functionality. The symptoms were eerily reminiscent of classic GDI resource heap exhaustion: windows would refuse to open, pop-up menus stubbornly stayed closed, applications reported an inability to save to disk [...]

A blogging great, Doc Searls, is off the Manila platform, on which this blog is based, and onto WordPress. I have been wanting to make a similar move for a long time, ever since I used WordPress for the Sony Boycott Blog. One of my readers last year offered to migrate my Manila content to [...]