Haven’t had your morning coffee yet? Well, too bad, because I am playing the Hitler card this morning, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I will do Mr. Ponnuru the favor of quoting him according to the letter rather than the spirit, to wit: DeSantis lacks moral clarity on Ukraine. His critics lack…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Yo, “conservatives”! Haven’t you heard? You’re totally f*cked!
Yes, it’s schadenfreude time around the Literature ‘R Us corral once more, and, yes, it is morally lazy in the extreme to snicker at the other side’s weaknesses without considering one’s own, but life is short, after all, and we’ll soon be in the clay, so before we submit to the clammy embrace of viscous…
Duke Ellington—“Monk’s Dream” Times Two!
No video, but the music is what counts. The first version features the Ellington band playing an arrangement by Billy Strayhorn, from the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, with Monk himself at the piano. The second, more interesting, from my perspective, is a “private collection” recording from 1962. The second arrangement, which may or may not…
Why, oh, why can’t we have better UCal Berkeley Economics Professors?
I agree with UCal Berkeley econ dude Brad DeLong maybe 75% of the time, though I almost always confine my comments about him to the 25%. Well, this is one of those times. Like so many of the cool kids, Brad has a substack blog, Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality and recently he took what struck…
Osher School of Music University of Southern Maine—“Monk’s Dream”
Featuring Gary Wittner, Chris Oberholtzer, Chris Klaxton, Bronek Suchanek, Barry Saunders, and Les Harris Jr, but no information as to instrumentation. Sorry! Posted by Osher School of Music University of Southern Maine
Slow, Boring Matt Yglesias writes smart, tweets stupid on D.C. criminal code rewrite
I hear there’s a theory that Twitter makes you stupid. That certainly seems to be the case with substack blogger Matthew Yglesias, who has written an excellent post and a stupid tweet on the Washington, DC city council’s rewrite of the District’s criminal code, passed over Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto and now almost surely going…
Jan. 6? That was so 1,146,049 minutes ago!
“Mike Pence’s Immunity Claim Sure Seems Frivolous” snorted the National Review’s Andy McCarthy a few weeks back after it was alleged by some presumably well-informed personage that former Veep Michael Pence would be rejecting any subpoena from the grand jury investigating the efforts of former aspiring caudillo Donaldo del Trumpo to reverse the outcome of…
Notice to a Random White Dude: Next time, try NOT acting like a complete *sshole.
I was recently in, well, a liquor store. The tall, fit young man ahead of me (white, obviously) looked like he might have played lacrosse for Georgetown, though for all I know he could have been a high school dropout. He was speaking to a thirty-something black guy behind the counter. Further on down the…
Annalisa Marianella— “Man, That Was A Dream” (“Monk’s Dream”)
Vocal version of “Monk’s Dream” with lyrics by Jon Hendricks (of course). Vocal by Annalisa Marianella, with Vittorio Solimene, pianoforte, Giuseppe Talone, contrabbasso , and Antonio Marianella, batteria. Recorded in Rome, 2021. Posted by Annalisa Marianella
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party? Part II Part 2: Matthew Continetti and The Right
A few years ago, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, in response to a couple of engaging (relatively) meas culpas—Matthew Continetti’s The Right The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism and Tim Miller’s Why We Did It—I began preparing an update. I originally planned to…