I’m generally not a huge fan of the National Review, but, well, I’m in an excitable mood these days, ready to let out a mighty cheer of affirmation at the drop of a hat, really, and the folks at NR dropped a lot more than that when they published an absolutely sensational piece by one…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Thelonious Monk—“I Mean You”
Monk in Paris in 1969 with Charlie Rouse on sax, Austin Wright on drums, and Nate Hygelund on bass. Monk composed the tune jointly with Coleman Hawkins, who gave Monk his first real job. It was first recorded, by Hawkins, in 1946. Posted by “Thelonious Monk”
Yo, Ross Douthat! William Jennings Bryan was no Donald Trump!
My God! Has it already been almost five months since I last insulted Ross Douthat? Well, time flies when you’re fightin’ the COVID, I guess (a very mild case, fortunately). But now I’m back, definitely, and loaded for bear! Not to mention smart-mouth conservatives! What got me a little ticked was a recent Ross confection,…
Moral, moral, who’s got a moral? Well, just about everyone, it seems.
Can we all agree on a few “facts”? Tucker Carlson is an unscrupulous, racist rabble-rouser. Tucker Carlson had nothing to do with the murders in Buffalo. Black nationalists and other “woke” folks frequently picture white, “capitalist” civilization as the worst and most oppressive in history, entirely worthy of violent overthrow and, quite possibly, only remediable…
Yo, SNL! We’re laughing at you, not with you!
Has it come to this? Saturday Night Live, America’s long-reigning arbitre de l’élégance1 is being laughed at by the great unwashed for its fat-assed bourgeosity and likely fear of offending “big stars”? That ’tis true ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true. Last Saturday SNL ran the “cold opening” shown above, banally riffing on the…
Jazz at the Philharmonic— “Sweet Georgia Brown”
“Interesting” rather than great, despite the incredible lineup, rendition of the composition that introduced the chord structure Thelonious Monk used to create “Bright Mississippi”. Charlie Parker! Dizzy Gillespie! Lester Young! Yet, for my perhaps eccentric ears, it is pianist Mel Powell who turns in the best performance. The tempo is way up, which I think…
Will the Dobbs debacle help liberals grow up? Well, yeah! In some universe! Probably!
It stands to reason, doesn’t it? If we live in a “multiverse”, containing an infinite number of universes, then surely there would be one in which liberals would respond “rationally” to Justice Alito’s leaked draft majority opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, right? Well, probably. It might depend on whether our particular multiverse…
Who is Nina Jankowicz? The Washington Post has forgotten.
Who is Nina Jankowicz? Well, she’s head of the new “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security. Politico provides a bland, just the facts summary of the kerfuffle/brouhaha/sinister plot, Small group, big headache: Inside DHS’ messy Disinformation Governance Board launch, giving DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas plenty of space to “explain” why something that…
Who got f*cked the hardest in the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation suit, the Washington Post, Elon Musk, or the ACLU?
Here’s the deal. Back in 2018, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece by Hollywood actress Amber Heard, I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change. The piece, which identified Heard as “an actress and ambassador on women’s rights at the American Civil Liberties Union,” features what…
Yo, American media! Yacht stealing is a crime!
I used to think that, of all the reasons I might have for disliking the American media, the celebration of the theft of super yachts belonging to super dick Russian billionaires—even those not named “Boris”—was pretty far down on the list. Well, once again, I learn that it is impossible for me to overestimate my…