“Monk & More”, aka Riaz Khabirpour, guitar, Stefan Schönegg, bass, and Leif Berger, drums, play one of Monk’s lesser known tunes at a REAL LIVE JAZZ concert in Cologne. Posted by Love Music
Author: Alan Vanneman
Left and Right: The Ugliness of the Antipodes
Extremism on both the left and right have emerged with startling immediacy and intensity this year, as an entirely unintended result of the presidential primary process, which was largely “intended” to produce a near re-match of both the 1992 and 2000 elections, featuring Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Apparently, that was just too goddamn boring…
Ragin’ Republicans: Rich Lowry explains why it’s wrong to criticize Republicans for supporting a moral idiot
It’s all the Establishment’s fault, Rich explains: “Few politicians in memory have so powerfully tapped into and expressed the conservative id, which has long yearned for a Republican politician willing to heap the verbal abuse on the Clintons and, especially, on the media that they so manifestly deserve. “Except on cable and talk radio, the…
The Americans: Flying Home on a Wing and a Prayer
I don’t know if you follow The Americans, F/X’s intense if implausible take on deep-cover Soviet spies in the U.S. during the Reagan Administration. There are several things in the show that are particularly entertaining for me—for example, the spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Mathew Rhys and Keri Russell) live with their two kids in…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “You say you feel you’ve been used. That must hurt.” “Okay, as a banana maybe you don’t have anything more to contribute. But as a banana skin, I mean, it seems like there’s a whole new realm of possibilities.” “When you put it that way, he does sound like…
Paul Ryan prepares for his rearing
If you’re in the mood for unintentional hilarity, then hurry on down to “PowerPost”, where Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis ever so earnestly interviews former George Bush advisor Peter Wehner on the ever-so-delicate topic of whether Paul Ryan, aka “Jesus”, will ever endorse Donald Trump. Intones Pete “Paul Ryan in many ways is the antithesis…
Brilliant Corners Times Two
First up is Marc Sabatella’s brief, elegant arrangement for string quartet, featuring Sandra Wong, Ben Blechman, Enion Pelta-Tiller, and James Bailey.1 Next up is this intriguing take from the Landscape Trio, whose personnel I am unable to obtain. This isn’t a straight video, but a take of Brilliant Corners featuring voice, vibes, and percussion is…
Glenn Reynolds now officially a cantankerous old fart
It seems like it was only yesterday that I was devoting a withering (so I hoped) footnote to some recent balderdash emitted by Glenn “Stay Off My Lawn, Negro” Reynolds, who’s now topped his previous balderdash by a very wide margin, a margin that, in fact, tends towards infinity. The gist of Glenn’s latest outburst…
Nick Gillespie’s journée de folie
A stopped clock is right twice a day. Nick Gillespie, Editor in Chief, Reason.com and Reason TV, is wrong once a year. This year, Nick’s journée de folie fell on May 23, when he came up with less than scintillating thumb-sucker, “This Used To Be a Helluva High-Trust Country, But Our Leaders Are Destroying That”….
Wall Street Journal editor in chief “reminds” reporters to be fair to Trump (but not, presumably, Clinton or Sanders)
Over at Politico, Joe Pompeo writes that Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerry Baker saw fit to “remind” his editors to be “fair” to Donald Trump. And indeed we should be fair to Donald. We shouldn’t forget that he rose to prominence by promising to build a “great wall” between the U.S. and Mexico…