It is common wisdom that presidents tend to concentrate on domestic policy when first arriving in office and then pivot to foreign affairs, where they can act without having to worry, too much, about the reception their ideas will receive on Capitol. It can be said of Joe Biden that he’s making the switch in…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Joey Alexander and Gábor Bolla—“I Mean You”
With Mattias Svensson, bass, and Morten Lund, drums. The Standard Jazz Club, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2014. Posted by Mister Red Panda
Donald Trump not a nice person, Jack Shafer discovers
I don’t mean to dump on Politico columnist Jack Shafer—well, actually, I do mean to dump on him, but I’d prefer not to admit it—but his latest column, Trump’s Alternate Reality Hits a New Crazy Note with Dr. Oz all too accurately describes the very real menace that Donald Trump presents to American democracy and…
Thank God for the National Review!
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…
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…