Reader's Notes - Passing Strange

I've heard Martha Sandweiss, the author of Passing Strange, explain the outline of the story of Clarence King's double life -- that is, King was a well-known white citizen of Gilded Age America who, for the sake of love (and other thrills) led a double life as a Pullman Porter.  For those of us interested in the cultural construction of race, this is a fascinating read -- and the feature of a recent author interview on NPR.


If the theme of negotiating the color line is interesting, a reader might check out Nella Larsen's Passing or even Mark Twain's The Tragedy of Puddin'head Wilson.


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Reader's Notes - The Death of E-mail?

     In an age of rapid change -- I suspect we're in one of those ages right now -- experts love to predict the rise of this phenomenon and the death of another.  Even better when one kills the other.
     Late last year, for instance, Ross Storey wrote on his blog about the death of e-mail, claiming that text messaging and its related platforms are the preferred medium of communication among young people.  Storey provides some convincing statistics to back up his argument.  Of course, in 2007, I remember reading this "death of e-mail" story in Slate.
     I work with young people every day, and I have to explain to my bosses that I yes indeed do text my students when I need to get in touch with them.  They will respond to a text, almost to a person, within an hour -- most of them within 10 minutes.  To many of them, w-mail, which often requires sitting at an old fashioned computer keyboard, seems formal and old fashioned.  Forget the handwritten note.  If the art of letter writing was elbowed aside by email, its been positively decimated by text messaging.  But who was writing long, literary letters anyway?  Aren't writers going to write, regardless of the medium?
     Rather than bemoan the death of the paper-and-ink letter or the e-mail, let us instead embrace the form of the tweet and the text -- all 140 characters of them -- despite the awkward SMS shorthand and l337isms, as a form of composition that rewards the concise, the clever, and the well-timed.  If you want to see fine Tweeters at work, go pick up the feed from film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) or the disturbing and hilarious @eddiepepitone.  You don't know what you're missing if you won't dip just a toe in the waters of the Twittering sea.
     Readers, where have you found your most artful texts?

Review of Sunday Morning by Randy Klein on eJazzNews

This just in -- my review of Randy Klein's excellent album of jazz duets, Sunday Morning, has been posted on eJazzNews.  This gets me up to date in working through my pile of CD's and into the August releases.  Coming up, CD reviews of Suresh Singaratnam, John Escreet, Mike Mainieri, and Ethan Mann, as well as a book review of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original and the return to the airwaves of Passing Notes.  I've added a collection of videos on YouTube, and as soon as my technical genius Shawn Adderly returns to town, we'll follow up our broadcasts each week with a "Passing Notes - Uncut" podcast available through iTunes.  And I'm off to enjoy the rest of Sunday!

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Passing Notes Video

Not that there's being any video produced right now from the home office -- I hope there will be one day -- but I've set up a YouTube channel as a place to collect video that might be related to any of the artists whose names pass through. Right now, PN Video offers jazz and blues videos from all over, interviews with authors, and a playlists of a few of my favorite web series -- Chad Vader and Wainy Days.

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Listener's Notes - Jazz Cafe with Ed Blanco on WDNA

Give my buddy Ed Blanco a listen Sunday mornings on WDNA's Jazz Cafe.  In Miami, tune your radio to 88.9 on the FM dial or listen online via the WDNA website.  Ed and I hosted a new music show in 2007 called "Straight, No Chaser," and Ed reviews jazz regularly for eJazzNews and AllAboutJazz.  WDNA is one of the last all-jazz stations on the air in the US, and it plays a wide range of straight ahead jazz, latin jazz, world music -- and none of the smooth stuff.

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Reader's Notes - What's Your Superpower?

The magical 'Dial 'H' for Hero," er, dial.

I came across one of those great Wikipedia entries the other day -- a labor of love, clearly. If you've ever needed a carefully constructed canonical list of superpowers, sorted by type and with concise descriptions, you'll enjoy this page.  If I had to pick a superpower that I might actually possess, it would be echolocation -- which is kind of lame.

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Reader's Notes - Adrian Beltre Facts

As a Red Sox fan, I've had the pleasure of following the Sox on TV or radio and reading Gordon Edes real-time tweets from wherever he may be, at the ballpark or watching NESN.  On Thursday night, over the course of the game versus the Blue Jays, a wave of tweets concerning just how tough Adrian Beltre is -- along the line of the "Chuck Norris Facts" of a few years back.  No doubt there's some copying from one meme to the other, but here are some of my favorites.

• They wanted to name a street after Beltre. He said no. Nobody crosses Adrian Beltre.
• Beltre doesn’t get caught looking. He allows baseballs to live.
• When Jays wanted to open roof, they asked Beltre to hit popup in batting practice.
• Adrian Beltre hasn't made 15 errors, the official scorers have.
• When Brian Bosworth was flattened by Bo Jackson, he said, "I'm just thankful it wasn't Beltre."
• Adrian Beltre has never hit into a fielder's choice. The choice is up to him.
• When Adrian Beltre does a postgame interviews, he asks the questions.
• Sly Stallone offered Adrian Beltre the lead in "The Expendables." He declined, saying he prefers tough-guy movies.
• Adrian Beltre used to bench-press Ichiro before Mariners games.
• The last time Adrian Beltre took BP, Tony Hayward resigned as CEO.
• Adrian Beltre can touch MC Hammer.

Rob Bradford at WEEI wrote a story last month about how Beltre got so tough, and he collected another list of  Adrian Beltre facts -- sorry for the repeats. Enjoy, but don't laugh too hard.  Beltre will hear you.

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Review of Blues Vignette by Gwilym Simcock on eJazz News

Up now on eJazzNews is my review of UK pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock's new release Blues Vignette.  Although in the past, I've been a bit of a stuffy purist about what defines jazz or blues -- in the manner of Stanley Crouch -- I've heard so much multi-tradition music over the past few years, I've changed my mind.  Sometimes -- in fact, most of the time -- good music is just good music, aesthetics and categories be damned.  As to Simcock, he is a gifted musician who has very intentionally and gracefully blended jazz and classical music on a number of levels.  The more I listen to Blues Vignette, the more impressed I am.

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Reader's Notes - Miami Book Fair 2010

On Connie Ogle's Between the Covers we find a concise rundown on the bigger name authors slated for this fall's Miami Book Fair: Jonathan Franzen, Ann Beattie, Pat Conroy, Nora Ephron, and E.O. Wilson, to name a few.


The festival's official website is up and running -- check it out!


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Reader's Notes - DeLillo Interview

An interview with one of my favorite writers, Don DeLillo, appeared in The Guardian this past Sunday.  More talkative than in the past, DeLillo is notably open about his process and even reveals some personal details.  His latest book, a slim novel in a recent string on slim ones, is Point Omega.


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Reader's Notes - Comics are good for you

Saturday morning Watchmen, anyone?

Over the transom today came two excellent articles extolling the unique virtues of comics: one from Greg Burgas at Comics Book Resources, and another from none other than the Canadian Council on Learning.  Does this mean we can read Watchmen in English class now?


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Reader's Notes - Kerouac-Ginsberg Letters

There's a fine piece by Blake Bailey in the New York Times Book Review on the new release, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters.  For two Beat writers known for sharing so much of their private selves in their work, the directness of the letters between these two friends seems all the more remarkable.


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Fighting Shape for Yankees-Red Sox

Listener's Notes - From the CD Stack: Gold, DPOQ, Brooks

     It's time to pick my favorites from the stack of CD's that's been piling up over the summer.  Week-to-week, I receive an awful lot of music to review, so here's the deal.  Any new release gets a quick hearing on the stereo in the study, which might lead to a full rip onto my laptop, which is followed by a sync to my iPod.  If a new release makes it to the iPod, it means I'm going to be listening to it everywhere.
     The one album I queued up most often was organist Jared Gold's Supersonic (Positone 2010). Gold -- the musician, NOT the goth fashion designer -- has played with Dan Pratt, Randy Napoleon, and Avi Rothbard, but many people will likely know Gold's work from guitarist Mark Stryker's excellent 2007 release, The Chaser.  On Supersonic, Gold roots himself in the classic organ trio combo, with Ed Cherry on guitar and McClenty Hunter on drums.  Every track on the album has its rewards: uptempo numbers are clever and funky, ballads are cool and soulful, and interplay between band members is balanced. I'm sure I'm not alone in my deep appreciation of the opening track, a brisk reworking of John Sebastian's theme from Welcome Back, Kotter. With an opening like that, Supersonic grabs you from the start and doesn't let go.  A thoroughly groovy time.

     Gold provides support in the second release from the Dan Pratt Organ Quartet, Toe The Line (Positone 2010) , a thoroughly confident second release from the saxophonist's group, which is rounded out by trombonist Alan Ferber and drummer Mark Ferber.  Powerful and precise, both Pratt and Alan Ferber carry every tune forward with a clear sense of working together, then playing off each other when the moment calls for it.  Gold and Mark Ferber fill the remaining sonic space masterfully -- no easy task given the challenging nature of Pratt's compositions.  The excellent playing aside, what is most remarkable about Toe The Line is the writing.  Aside from the Ellington tune, "The Star Crossed Lovers," every song is a Pratt composition.  From the angular bebop opening of "Minor Procedure," to the Monk-ish "Doppelganger," to the whimsical "Uncle Underpants,"  and to the souful, gorgeous "After," Pratt has put together a range of songs that leaves little doubt as to the prowess of his songwriting skills. Toe The Line gets better each time you listen -- on the strength of the songs.
    Finally, we find a release from saxophonist George Brooks and his group Summit, a blending of jazz and classical Indian forms entitled Spirit and Spice (Earth Brother 2010).  Brooks and his core group -- Kai Eckhardt on bass, Fareed Haque on guitar, and Steve Smith on drums -- are joined on various tracks by Frank Martin on piano, Swapan Chaudhuri and Zakir Hussain on tabla, and other musicians on bansuri, violin, mrdingam, moorsingh, ghatam, kanjira, and konnakol.  Spirit and Spice, as its title might suggest, works effectively along two lines.  When the music cleaves close to American traditions, as in the driving "Monsoon Blues" and the outstanding "Sri Rollins," the playing is familiar enough.  When Brooks moves the group into clearly Indian territory on tracks such as "Spice," "Silent Prayer - Madhuvanti,"  and "Peshkar for Hamza" his playing in non-Western time signatures with the sitar and tabla works as well.  The three remaining tracks don't really have a clear idea of what they are and where to go, and wander into a slightly too smooth feel for this listener.  Overall, Spirit and Spice offers just what its title suggests -- some music that is familiar and tasty, and some that will challenge and stimulate. 

Louis (2010)

Trailer for this new "silent"film can be found here.

Review on eJazzNews - Naima by Meg Okura and the Pan Asian Jazz Ensemble.

My review of Naimaby Meg Okura and the Pan Asian Jazz Ensemble is up on eJazzNews. I haven't listened to a great deal of what Okura calls "chamber jazz," but I have enough listening background in "classical music" -- really, 20th century composers -- to appreciate what she's doing in this release.  Some of the music is through-composed, much of it is improvised, and all of it is worth a listen.

Reader's Notes - Pops by Terry Teachout

     Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout had been sitting near the top of my reading pile for much of the spring, and I finally had a stretch of time to catch up on my reading this summer -- a little sleepy time, perhaps, to luxuriate in the printed word. Teachout is a critic up to the task of constructing a narrative of the life of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, a genius whose story, oddly and understandably, has been told none-too-well over the years.  Like Mark Twain, the other great cultural figure to whom I would compare Louis Armstrong, the body of work is hugely important, frustratingly inconsistent, and the product of a person often misunderstood.
     Teachout is fully mindful of the problems inherent in creating a biography of Armstrong: the worldview of a man from Satchmo's origins as a street kid from segregated New Orleans, of a purely confident virtuoso who creates the foundation for jazz in a country that took decades to recognize what he had done, of an African-American whose career longevity unfairly appeared to put him out of step with the Civil Rights Movement.  Teachout, whose research left no bit of Armstrong material unexamined, fairly addresses these usual problems. Armstrong emerges as a man who was grateful for the opportunities and gifts he had, who demanded the musical freedom to do as he pleased, and who maintained a public persona through which a full awareness of the problems of race and place would certainly emerge.  Through the remarkable arc of his life story, Teachout makes sure we know that Armstrong was always about the work - playing music for the people.
   Pops is notable, as well, in what it is not.  It is not a psycho-biography.  It does not delve deeply into musical analytics.  It does not meander sentimentally into evocative summary of New Orleans in the 1910s, or Chicago and New York in the 1920s, and so forth. If anything, at times, Pops moves too briefly over periods in Armstrong's life: his work on the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, his work on State Department cultural tours, and his friendships with other entertainers like Bing Crosby.  But Teachout quite clearly wants to clear the decks of some misinformation and to build a more fair, balanced, and concise account of Armstrong's life, leaving much of the detailed (perhaps over-detailed) work to others.  Pops succeeds in this sense -- as a confident, entertaining, mainstream book that most readers will enjoy.  Armstrong would have approved.

Reader's Notes - Barnes and Noble for Sale

One finds reports today in the New York Times, The Guardian, and elsewhere that Barnes and Noble is up for sale, after seeing in-store sales continue to slump and a 45% decline in its share price.  The sale of books online, of e-books, and the general migration of the written word from the page to the web is killing those industries associated with printing in one way or another.  From personal experience, I can tell you that many of my friends who used to work in newspapers and publishing have themselves left the business or moved to electronic media. Likewise, as a freelance writer, it's harder and harder to find paying print work.  I'm not complaining, mind you, just pointing out what now appears to be an inevitable trend.  With Borders going out of business in Britain and BN being sold, where will one go for that bookstore experience?  Did one ever really have a bookstore experience in Barnes and Noble?  Thank goodness for independent booksellers like Coral Gables' Books and Books, who have turned themselves into cultural institutions as much as they are retail stores.

What it's really like to work in a music store

Reader's Notes - Higher Education?

From NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday comes a discussion with Andrew Hacker, emeritus professor at Queens College in New York and the author of Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It. With co-author Claudia Dreifus, Hacker calls into question the inefficiencies and dead-ends of the undergraduate experience -- poor instruction, bloated class-sizes, largely vocational degree tracks, and the tenure system -- all of which devalue the increasingly expensive four years of college. Combined with the PBS Frontline investigation of for-profit colleges, College Inc., Hacker and Dreifus should give students, parents, and educators reason to reconsider just why one should value going to college at all. A link to both the audio and a transcript of the discussion are here.

Reader's Notes - Jazz Video Guy

Bret Primrack is a writer and video journalist who works mostly in the world of jazz, and he regularly posts excellent interviews, profiles, and archival footage from around the world of jazz on his YouTube channel, JazzVideoGuy. Featured of late have been interviews with Sonny Rollins, features on the latest work from Lee Ritenour and John Scofield, and the usually erudite and articulate Billy Taylor. With scores of videos and over 12 million views so far, Primrack's channel is one of the absolute best places for old and new highly watchable material about the music.

Melon, Baby

MH

Reader's Notes - Breezy in the Back

My friend Samara Siskind blogged on Let's Talk Style about the relatively limited options for hospital couture from the patient's point of view. Having spent three days in the hospital myself, I have to agree that those little napkins-with-snaps, while practical, are nevertheless chilly and prone to bunching and creasing in the most uncomfortable ways. I'm feeling much now, thank goodness,

Reader's Notes - Hark a Vagrant!

I post a sample and will say no more. Follow the link.

Reader's Notes - Do Not Disconnect

Jonathan Liu has a thoughtful and fundamentally sound article on the perils of parenting in the digital age. If one is going to take the information plunge, how much is too much? The paradox reduces to this: while technology enables us to have more immediate and rich relationships with those far from us, it sometimes impoverishes those relationships with those who are physically closest to us. As always with parenting, there is such a need to be mindful and intentional about so many things, and so little time and energy left over to be so diligent and careful.

Alumni Notes - Looking for Blong

In my mailbox this week arrived the latest alumni magazine from my alma mater, Amherst College. On its cover and in its pages one finds stories of graduates far more distinguished and noteworthy than I would consider my own work -- although that I do, occasionally, some things of distinction and note. Our class rep, Susan Banki, mentioned this blog as offering "regular posts," by which I can only assume she means "not very regular at all." I do my best of late to write -- in and around changing diapers being all husbandy and teaching full time. But now I suppose I will have to become a somewhat regular blogger. I owe as much to my classmates. Go Jeffs!

I promise I'll get into the swing of things, blogwise. Blog swing. Blong. That's your word of the day, free of charge. Anyway, best thing for you to do is sign up for the Passing Notes RSS feed.

Reader's Notes - PN 2.22 - 1000 Jazz Albums

Over at the jazz blog Groove Notes, Kevin Kniestedt is plugging away at what I initially thought was an ambitious, daunting, and possibly insane project. Maybe not insane, but certainly out there. What Kniestedt proposed was the construction of a list of the 1000 jazz albums you should hear before you die. I like the parameters of this list -- you just have to hear them, maybe not even listen, and by no means are you required to purchase or download them. Pft, perhaps even the notion of the album is an antiquated one for all I know. Good luck to you, Kevin I thought. That first list of 20 albums is easy-peasy, but good luck picking 980 more.

Right now Kniestedt is sitting at 340, with another 560 to go, and on each list I find a few albums that I've not only listened to, but actually own. And I'm not going to embarass myself by indicating how many albums and/or CDs and/or downloads I've got in my jazz library. It is a large amount. But even on the latest list, three are in my collection: Sun Ra's Atlantis, Wynton Marsalis' Black Codes (From the Underground), and Joshua Redman's Wish. Another eight I've listened to (at least a few tracks) and I would agree that they're pretty good.

So, if we might offer Brother Kevin our interest and support, I think he could use it. So far so good, but there's another 28 lists to go. Let's hope that when he reaches 1000 -- after much thought and debate -- we might be able to find another 1000 albums to listen to as well.

Barcaloungue Skipper - PN 2.21 - Plotting for Spring Training

I recall a glorious time in March during the mid-90s when I managed to see four baseball spring training games in two days – at the old Devil Rays’ field in downtown St. Petersburg, at the old Phillies’ park in Clearwater, then the next day at the Blue Jays’ field in Dunedin and the Yankees’ place in Tampa. There couldn’t have been more than two hour’s total driving to all those parks, my total for tickets didn’t crack 40 bucks, and there was much beer and sunshine. And the world was good.

These days, spring training is a bit more swanky here in the land of the Grapefruit League, but it’s still a wonderful way to see baseball in a more raw form. Plus there are guys playing who have three digit numbers on the backs of their jerseys. “Let’s get on base, number one-hundred-and-twenty-one!”


I’ve got the Mets and the Marlins/Cardinals a short drive to the north. I can tolerate the Marlins, and the Cards are fine, but the Mets just suck. What I really do is look for the Red Sox – who train on the West Coast in Fort Meyers -- to come through the area for that rare away game here on the East Coast. And I have my game in sight – March 9 – with Marlins tickets going on sale very very soon. In the meantime, maybe I’ll grab myself some actual Sox tickets. They go on sale this coming Saturday at 10:00 am. I’ll have my redial button ready.

I include a photo of the 1912 Red Sox, who trained that year in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The many pleasures of Arkansas aside, it does not appear to have been a particularly hot spring in Hot Springs.

I could go MLB's official website for all my spring training gumbo, but I prefer Spring Training Online, a blog which does away with much off the razzle-dazzle and garbage.

Reader's Notes - PN 2.20 - Kids: Doing Too Much, Doing Nothing At All

Today's book blogging concerns parenting books -- or maybe "kidsing" books.


Cool Mom Picks had high praise for a book satirizing the competitive parent in many of us, the wryly named "Perfect Baby Handbook." From thingamababy, musing on a memoir, "Where did you go? Out. What did you do? Nothing," that suggests, first, that kids these days really wouldn't know what to do with themselves without all the high-falutin' gadgets and, second, that you should all go and buy your child a knife.

Reader's Notes - PN 2.19 - Trolls in the Astroturf

Trolls are everywhere online, and they are creeping more and more into the mainstream of media discourse in politics. In the online arena, the evolution of the commenting provocateur has led to a more understated approach to trolling -- if you're obvious, someone's going to call you on it -- but in the political discourse, trolls abound. The general rule, of course, about trolls is this: DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

It would be dishonest of me not to disclose my political perspective at this point -- I suppose you'd call me a secular progressive. I'm not particularly impressed with the general run of Republicans and Democrats, but I do think Barak Obama is impressive at times. Nevertheless, the depth of Republican trolling in the form of the Tea Party "Movement," the anti-Obama "Birthers," Sarah Palin's "death panels," and the vociferous and purely disruptive trolling at the Health Care Town Halls these days seems to steer the political debate in a direction that's just plain pointless. It's a matter of saying or doing outrageous things to create a false, wobbly center of gravity in what should be a more grounded debate.

All the more irritating is how all these trolls purport to be part of some grassroots movement, when it appears they're often coordinated attempts by partisan think thanks to create the appearance of a "just plain folks" appeal. I'm sure organizations on both sides of the political fence do this type of "astroturfing," but can we please do away with the outright reactionary and, frankly, racist stupidities?

Passing Notes - PN 2.18 - Review: Five Peace Band Live

Not much to post here today, as my review of Chick Corea and John McLaughlin's Five Peace Band Live is up over at eJazzNews. Those of you who have (or had) a taste for Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Return to Forever might like to check it out. Many thanks to my buddy Ed Blanco who has been so helpful and encouraging in my starting up Passing Notes after two years off.

Reader's Notes - PN 2.17 - Overrated Jazz Musicians?

In a silly exercise in trolling that, in his words, "will almost assuredly enrage or alienate segments of the readership by concentrating on who is overrated," Canadian journalist Rob Vanstone has taken it upon himself to name what he judges to be the most overrated jazz musicians in history. While I might agree with Rob Vanstone's assessment of George Benson, Kenny G, and even Diana Krall and Chet Baker as a too "poppy" for my undying admiration, I can't say I agree with his dissing Ron Carter, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, and Bud Powell, much less Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis. All right, Ron, so you don't like Bitches Brew, but what about the previous 50 albums from Miles? Did you give those a listen?

Rob Vanstone does much better with his unsung artists column that appeared two weeks earlier. You see, his is a biweekly jazz column that appears in the Regina, Saskatchewan newspaper. Ron writes this when he's not covering sports in the provincial capital and Canada's 24th most populous city. Anyway, first and foremost among Rob Vanstone's unsung artists is Oscar Peterson (A Canadian! I call Canuckery!), a choice that I would agree with completely. Oscar Peterson is truly great.

I'm disappointed that Rob Vanstone's editors at the Leader-Post didn't discourage such an obvious troll as his "overrated" column. I'm not sure that it really engages debate when you lump Kenny G into the same category as Miles Davis. Is this how you troll in Regina, Saskatchewan, Rob Vanstone?

I know I'm not supposed to feed the trolls, Rob Vanstone, but you had me from the phrase "designed to engage and enrage." I'm in.

I mean, I might not be one of the seven people who read your magnum opus on the 1966 Roughriders, but I feel pretty confident in writing that even you, a prominent journalist in a city that plays second fiddle to Saskatoon -- even you could do better than your conservative grumblings about free jazz, commercial jazz, and fusion. But I suppose coming up with lists like this is something to pass the time when you're stuck indoors at the Ramada Inn bar, trying to remember what sunlight feels like on your skin, yearning for the hijinks of Gainer the Gopher and grousing with the local musicians about Ornette Coleman.

And, Rob Vanstone, if you're going to write a trolling column like your "overrated" broadside, at least let readers respond with comments on your work.