Classroom Notes - 'Teach: Tony Danza' - Season 1: Episode 4, "Homesick"

"Stop me if you've heard this one. . ."

     What does Tony need?  Four episodes in, and I'm starting to get bored.  I'm not sure if the producers of the show get where the drama of the classroom really lives, although they've had a number of characters say it to Tony Danza many times: Put the focus on the students.
     Act One: Bobby G, Tony Danza's best friend and a longtime teacher comes to visit. "Teaching has always been a sacrifice," says Bobby G. "You're working with a lot of people and it's very complicated."  Origami-folding Eric is bored in class, tired of Hollywood Tony's digressions and gee-whiz exhortations. "I do it only in his class," Eric says about his paper-folding. "You're not supposed to have time to do it in class.  We're supposed to be learning. . . I get kind of bored when Mr. Danza gets off topic. Topics, so many topics."   David Cohen, Danza's patient mentor, makes it very plain.  "Change from thinking, What am I going to do? to What are the kids going to do?"
     Acts Two and Three: Danza has some success with helping the marching band, but fails in teaching a lesson on myths, as the class gets unfocused and out of control.  Teachers are supposed to control the students, Eric points out.  Yawn. Danza has a bit more of a positive experience again with the marching band -- his theatre training helps with the choreography.  And a light starts to dawn for Danza during their early morning rehearsals, "The man's commitment is unbelievable," he says, "It makes you think about your own comittment."  Danza goes bowling with a bunch of teachers, and his buddy Joe says over beers, "When I'm working, everything else goes away but family," his young friend Joe says.  Danza misses his family.  Maybe he will fly out and visit them.  The next day, after doing poorly on a test, Eric  breaks down, and Danza keeps saying, "Focus! Try harder!"
     Acts Four and Five: In a meeting with Eric's parents, Danza keeps saying, "Focus! Try harder!"  Finally (Finally!), young Joe of the Beers gives Hollywood Tony a lightbulb moment: "If I can design something for the students to do, I'm the man if I can just walk around."  The next day, Mr. Danza admits to his students, ""If I'm talking, we're not doing it right." Rather than visit his family, Mr. Danza goes to the band competition. His daughter comes to visit instead, and she arrives on the day when Mr. Danza's students get to "take the stage" in his classroom for once.
     The flatness of this episode results from the shift that needs to happen for viewers to learn about how schools really work: when the educators are really doing their jobs, the focus is usually not on them, it's on the students.  If the purpose of the first four episodes of 'Teach' is to introduce the half dozen students who are assume greater importance in narrative, then I'll keep watching.  But if the show is going to focus so much on Hollywood Tony's learning to teach, then the drama is going to fall flat.  What does Tony need? is not a dramatic question that will carry the series/  The really interesting stuff that happens in classroom goes on with the students -- you've got a score of life stories to unpack at least a little bit, and then you've got to get the kids to work as hard for you as will work for them.  And that means working in a smart and, most importantly, selfless way.
     As I've said before, Danza's got a great heart, but he's been wrapped up so long in the narcissistic world of Hollywood that he can't set aside his ego enough to shift the attention away from himself.  He's going to have to -- or the producers are going to have to -- very soon, because I'm starting to feel that I'm watching the same episode over and over again.  Let's get into the stories of Monte, Paige, Eric C, Katerina, Algernon, Stephanie, Howard, Tammy, and Daniel. What do they need?  As a teacher, I've been thinking about those kids from Friday to Friday -- just like most of us do in our real teaching jobs.

Notes on Season 1 - Episode 1, 'Back to School'

Notes on Season 1 - Episode 2, 'Tested'

Notes on Season 1 - Episode 3, 'Just Say No'

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PN 134 - Tim Dorsey - 'Gator A Go Go'

Tim Dorsey, on assignment.

Comic crime novelist Tim Dorsey talks about his latest Florida-themed book, Gator A Go Go.  A former Tampa Tribune reporter with almost a dozen novels to his name, Dorsey will be appearing at the Miami Book Fair  on Saturday, November 20, at 12:30 pm, as part of a panel with James O. Born (The Double Human) and James Grippando (Money To Burn). Dorsey's website is timdorsey.com.  For more information about the Miami Book Fair, please visit the MBFI website.


A longer conversation with Dorsey will be posted as Passing Notes Unscripted, and you can download the audio by noon on Saturday via Feedburner or iTunes.


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Review of Junko Onishi - 'Baroque'

     After a notable decade of work in the 90s after graduating from Berklee, Japanese pianist Junko Onishi took almost a decade off from recording and performing in public.  She makes a high-profile and ambitious return to recording and the stage with her new release on Verve, Baroque (Verve 2010)..
     Although Onishi has been performing in solo or piano-trio formats, she is given the opportunity to flesh out her arrangements and press the playing of a fuller band – Herlin Riley on drums, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, James Carter on woodwinds, Wycliffe Gordon on trombone, and Reginald Veal and Rodney Whitaker on bass – that’s right, two basses.  Baroque features a number of impressive Onishi composition, eclectic takes on Mingus and Monk, and a pair of surprisingly earnest chestnuts.

     Onishi’s “Tutti” opens the album, with Riley joined by Roland Guerro on conga, and the percussion drives the tune forward into a turbulent, percussive top that gives way to a warped solo from Carter, who wields the tenor with belligerence, leaving Payton and Gordon to clean up behind him.  Onishi’s own solo is almost in the spirit of a chordless ensemble, as her own statement is a vigorous hammering assault on the keyboard in which matches her percussionists’ pounding with her own. All together, they smash the hell out of the song – quite wonderfully.   Shifting moods, “The Mother’s (Where Johnny Is),” begins in a minor mode, almost as a dirge, and then shifts to a swinging number that offers Jordan a chance to display some real gutbucket chops.  And for all the smash-and-dash dissonance of the previous song, Onishi lays down a thoughtful, spare solo with space to breathe.

     Easily the most audacious composition on the album is “The Threepenny Opera,” which starts off with Veal and Whitaker going back and forth on bass for a couple of minutes until they reconcile their differences and settle into the bottom end of things.  Making the most of a full 17 minutes, this Onishi composition moves from section to section, some amusingly dissonant and disjointed, others a bit too slick, and all in keeping with the twisted humor of the Brecht/Weil musical.  In its loose playing and movement from theme to theme, it resembles nothing less than one of Charles Mingus’ extended works, but the solo piano section is like nothing Mingus ever did.  Onishi’s hands are fast, but her musical imagination is faster, and, in the liner notes, she is quick to credit Jaki Byard for some of the ideas in that passage.

The Mingus influence is articulated clearly on the ensemble’s take “Meditations for a Pair of Wire Cutters” by the Angry Man of Jazz, which doesn’t take too many chances and is all the more refreshing to hear.  Onishi’s solo is full of the uncompromising humor Mingus might have appreciated.  The Anderson-Grouya ballad “Flamingo” offers everyone a chance to be lovely and lyrical together, and each solo is full and dreamy.  No complaints here.   “The Street Beat/52nd Street Theme” is another tune that satisfies a certain playing-test that some tunes seem to offer here, as it’s Onishi’s take on the familiar chord progressions from “I Got Rhythm,” which underlie so many other standards.  Check another one off the list. Test passed.

     Onishi’s rendition of “Stardust” – featuring the pianist alone with a familiar standard – is baroque indeed, as it seems she has chosen a well-worn tune to show what might be considered her approach to playing: not trying out musical ideas from bar to bar, but trying on whole musical styles.  Just when you think she’s thinking about Art Tatum, she’ on to Thelonious Monk, and from there to Cecil Taylor.  On “Stardust,” the chameleon act is more obvious, but on “Memories of You,” the solo number which closes the album, Onishi seems to have a more integrated approach, and hence her personality comes through in the end.  In many ways, these two songs are my favorites on the release.

    The title of Onishi’s “return” album is likely slanted toward the ironic, as the pianist’s talent as a player and composer is so evident, and Verve’s presentation of her so luxuriant (Two bassists? You got it! Three horns? Say no more!), Baroque doesn’t miss any opportunity impress, and one can’t really help but be impressed.  Hopefully, the public won’t have to wait almost another decade for Onishi’s next album.  Something a bit more reserved  -- are you taking notes, Verve? – would be just fine.  I suggest  a piano trio format, without all the baroque commotion, just to give everyone a little more time to list to Onishi’s undeniable musical gifts.

Personnel

Junko Onishi, piano

Nicholas Payton, trumpet

James Carter, woodwinds

Wycliffe Gordon, trombone

Reginald Veal, bass

Rodney Whitaker, bass

Herlin Riley, drums

Roland Guerro, conga

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PN Video Jukebox - Son House

Today's Video Jukebox features blues artist Son House -- eight clips of various performances.



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PNodcast Archives - The DaVinci Code Sweepstakes

From the archives -- maybe I had just been reading too many rip-offs of the Dan Brown original, but something snapped.

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Review of Patrick Cornelius - 'Fierce'

     Fierce, the second release on Whirlwind Records from Patrick Cornelius, is a confident, interesting, and entertaining mix of compositions and playing from the New York based alto player. The most distinctive feature of Cornelius' music on this release is its chordless approach (no piano, organ, or guitars), which is not to be confused necessarily with a free jazz or "outside" approach.  Cornelius offers some of the most melodic and thoughtful playing heard on a new release all year.
    It certainly helps that Cornelius is backed by a first-rate rhythm section of Michael Janisch on bass and Jonathan Blake on drums, both of whom provide a solid sense of structure in what could be rather sparse musical space.  At no time do Janisch or Blake lose their collaborative framework in creating a rich, creative context both for songs and solos.  Janisch, in particular, has an assertive approach and often establishes the feel of the song, with Blake hanging back, a role reversal between bass and drums that works well.
     Trained at Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, Cornelius is as strong a writer as he is a player.  All the compositions on Fierce are his, starting with the title track and album opener.  Reminiscent from the top of Ornette Coleman's earliest tunes, "Fierce" quickly mixes tempos and phrasing, full of energy and never losing its sense of swing.  If anything, this performance is about the chemistry between the alto-bass-drums trio that will carry the load for the whole album, and it's a performance that serves notice: We have fierce chops.
     "Hopscotch," which follows, is a pleasant shuffle that features some excellent stop-and-start work from Janisch and Blake, whose snare pops with an authoritative funk in just the right spots to bring a smile to your face. The sweet and gentle "Maybe Steps" shows off Cornelius giving himself and his playing a bit more space to breathe, all the while staying firmly connected to a melodic line. It's the kind of tune a new father writes for his baby girl.  Cornelius may be fierce at times, but here, he's very sweet.  Tongue in cheek?
     Lest we get too mellow, "Two Seventy Eight" begins with Janisch digging into a tough groove -- you can hear his strings rattling on the fretboard -- and Blake working his toms under a dizzy melody from Cornelius and valve trombonist Nick Vayenas, who, after the head, turns in a brisk solo that winds down into some excellent unaccompanied drum work.  Tenor Mark Small joins Cornelius on the next track, "First Dance," a midtempo composition that has both horns moving through a slightly mismatched but nevertheless appealing duet at the top of the song, giving way to clear, well thought out solos from both reeds.
     'The Incident," which also features Vayenas, is a restrained tune with a Latin feel that rises and falls, a remarkable exercise in intensity that one keeps waiting to cut loose, but never does -- not to the detriment of the song, fortunately. The slowest moving song, and perhaps the least successful tune, is "Home With You," which never seems to pick up much direction or offer chemistry -- although it may be that, in contrast to the rest of the album, its distinct lack of melody is disheartening.  All this domestic digression is forgotten with the next track, the simple-but-charming "One Thing."
     Cornelius closes the album with "New Blues," an extremely strong tune that boasts an outstanding opening duet passage between Janisch and Blake that fools your ears outright at times, then drops into a joyous series of falling and rising lines from Cornelius and Vayenas, whose solos are pushed to take chances and move fast by the energy of the rhythm section.  It doesn't sound much like blues, if only in the sense that it lifts you up from feeling bad on the sheer personalities of the players. Janisch, who has been in the background or hunkered down in a groove for much of the album, gets the final solo of Fierce,  and he makes the most of it.  If anyone missed Janisch's 2009 Purpose Built, here's reason alone to go check it out.
     In the excellence of his compositions, and in the skill of his playing and the playing of those around him, Patrick Cornelius has made a truly notable album.  In the fact that he does this without the usual complement of a keyboard or guitar is all the more remarkable.  With the just the right tunes and an uncanny sense of harmonic space, Cornelius has returned to a musical sound that one doesn't hear very often. It's all the more rare to hear it played so well.



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Eater's Notes - Garibaldi, Wedge, Bomber, and Spuckie -- A Sandwich by Any Other Name

Beer Battered Catfish, Salsa, Purple Onions, Lettuce,
Tomato, Spicy Mayonnaise on a hero

I like sandwiches. I have a lecture on Saussure and structuralism that I give every year, and my primary example of the arbitrary nature of the relationship between signifier and signified is the wide variety of names for the type of sandwich served on a long roll found throughout the United States.  Call it a sub, hoagie, grinder, hero, or any one of a dozen other names, I'll call it delicious. Dave Wilton has an excellent article in Verbatim that discusses the variety of names for the "long sandwich."  I also include for the sandwich-lovers out there, a resource that might only be able to exist on the web, a collection of scanned sandwiches, deftly titled Scanwiches.  A sample image from Scanwiches is at left.  In my experience, as much as people enjoy food, they also enjoy looking at pictures of food.

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PN Unscripted - A Talk with Mitch Kaplan of Books and Books

Mitch Kaplan is the owner of Books and Books, an independent bookstore in South Florida, a past president of the American Booksellers Association, and a primary organizer of the Miami Book Fair.  We talked about the reading life, bookstores as community centers, and literary culture in the digital age.


Permalink for podcast of PN Unscripted - Mitch Kaplan



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Classroom Notes - 'Teach: Tony Danza' - Season 1: Episode 3, "Just Say No"

     The central dilemma for ‘Teach; Tony Danza’ is right there in the teaser: Hollywood Tony goes to the Phillies game to sing the National Anthem, but Mr. Danza admits it: He should be home preparing lessons.

       Act 1, the real resentment is starting to set in.  Hollywood’s talking about singing at the baseball game and how he has to play a date in Atlantic City, and one bright student, Algernon, has checked out.  When Danza’s mentor gives a warning about not pushing it too much, Mr. Danza listens, as he’s starting to do more often.  Mr. Danza says, as so many teachers do, “I gotta find a way to reach that kid.”  And when the mayor makes an official request for Hollywood to serve as master of ceremonies for a charity event, another distraction from the classroom is added.

     In Act 2, this theme of "reaching the kid" informs the discussions between some of the football players, as well as a chat between the head football coach and Danza.  Does yelling at the varsity players work? For some, and not for others.  This fundamental question is abandoned quickly, though, as Hollywood is drawn into rehearsals for the mayor's wife charity show.  Danza brings in a ringer from his showbiz connections to help direct the show, but the high expectations and long hours for rehearsal aren't going over well with the students who've been enlisted into the publicity stunt.

     When a veteran Geometry teacher stops by to deliver a gut check -- "Are you here to act like a teacher, or are you hear to teach?" -- Tony doesn't have a good answer.  Later, during a show rehearsal, Tony tries to explain to his showbiz colleagues, "I get up at 4:30 every morning."  Danza is stretched thin, he's not reaching his students, but he won't take the time to figure out what he needs to do make those little adjustments and accommodations to make a class work. It takes time.

     For most educators, teaching is not the kind of job where you can stroll through the door at the first bell and figure it out as you go along.  You have 40, maybe 50 minutes to get through your lesson for the day.  Preparation for that lesson might involve lecture notes, slides or transparencies for projectors, video or audio playback, handouts or worksheets, or even rearrangement of furniture or the setup of special equipment or materials.  When the students enter classroom, if they arrive on time, they have to settle, be counted, and get out their own materials. One of the subtle skills a teacher develops is how to get a quick read on the mood of the group and do a survey of each student should anyone be out of sorts or potentially disruptive or distracted.  Even if you’re good, you still lose the first five minutes of class to “getting started.”  Most teachers will have five to six sections a day, with 20 to 30 students in each section.  Most teachers will have at least a couple of preps, which means you have to prepare lessons for a completely different courses – 10th grade English, maybe, and Journalism.  If you coach a team or lead a student activity, there’s still more prep time.  Most experienced, professional teachers I know arrive about an hour before the start of classes every day.

     Although the school day might end at two or three, many teachers offer extra help, sponsor activities, coach, or simply stay in their classrooms doing whatever paperwork and prep they can manage before the exhaustion of the day creeps in.  The intensity of truly engaged teaching – putting out enough precisely directed energy to engage and manage the learning of scores of young people – is a tremendous rush.  It also takes everything you have, as the weeks and months mount up, to build a little model of each student in your head, and, based on that model, to tailor every encounter so that what you have to offer – content or skills – gets delivered to the student just as he or she needs to receive it.  Most of the time, you will receive very little feedback that you’re really reaching them at all.  But you are, though you don’t know it.  You must be patient, hopeful, full of faith, and diligent.  In a few months, you’ll start getting through.  Many people – including parents and the students themselves – are far too ready to give up.  Sometimes, all young people need is encouragement, but teachers have to pay attention.  Danza is simply too unfocused and tired to make his classroom work the way it needs to.

    After a marathon day in which Danza helped coach at a football game, MCed the mayor's show, and then finished up with a performance in Atlantic City, Hollywood Tony's had enough. It's a sequence of hero-making (or star-worship) which, the longer it continues, the more boring it gets.  The following week, Danza has a man-to-man talk with the head football coach and resigns from his coaching position.  He has to focus on the classroom.  And as for reaching his kids, there's a fine moment that closes the episode as Mr. Danza really is humbled by a hard-to-reach student's account of a fight he got into. "When you're teaching," Mr. Danza says, "you actually have to take into consideration what's going on in their lives."  And to make room for those lives, you have to leave plenty of space in your own.

     Hopefully, now that we're finished with Hollywood Tony's commitment issues, we can get on to the drama of the classroom.  That white-haired Geometry teacher had the right angle on the central problem: You can act like a teacher, or you can teach.

Notes on Season 1 - Episode 1, 'Back to School'

Notes on Season 1 - Episode 2, 'Tested'

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Barcalounge Skipper - The Rebel Black Bears of the University of Mississippi

I'm a bear.  I'm black.  I'm a rebel.  Grrr.  Please help me.

     I'm not sure there was any way for the University of Mississippi to find its way out of this historical mess.  On Friday, in announcing its new athletics mascot, the Rebel Black Bear, the university has made an awkward step forward from an even more awkward past.

     Now, before some of you start getting riled up about a Northerner (I'm from Maine, originally) offering his opinions on what is essentially a Southern matter, allow me to offer some credentials.  I spent a summer at both Southern Miss and the University studying nothing but William Faulkner.  I have eaten barbecue, fried catfish, fried dill pickles, hush puppies, Delta tamales, and I have drunk moonshine purchased out of the trunk of a 1982 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. I have gotten up in the morning and hit Highway 49.  My wife and her family are all from places in Mississippi named Duck Hill and Coffeeville and Itta Benna.  We spend a good hunk of time in Mississippi every year. In the tradition of the region, both my sons bear the obscure names of long vanished ancestors, a fact will be proud one day to explain to little Thomas Evan Sutpen Faulkner Sutpen Compson Sutpen Quentin Hayes and his older brother Ingram Compson Compson McCaslin Snopes Sutpen Coltrane Thomas Hayes.  My nephew attends the University.  I know a little about The Magnolia State.  For instance, its nickname is The Magnolia State.

Boys, go win one for the Colonel!

     If it wasn't problematic enough, given that the final stages of the Civil Rights Movement happened over fifty years ago, and given that the University itself was a site of one of the worst incidents of resistance for the Old South, the school held on to its previous mascot, Colonel Reb, until 2003. Let me repeat that: Until 2003.  When I looked through the 2010 football roster, I saw a majority of African American players listed, and I'm sure the phenotypical makeup of the team in 2003 was much the same.  The ironies astound me.  Then again, maybe they don't.  If you've read the Battle Royale scenes in Richard Wright or Raplh Ellison, you'll follow my drift. Sometimes, a gentleman lets others do his dirty work for him.  Dirty work, indeed.

    Then there's the matter of the school's nickname, Ole Miss.  Yankees like myself seemed to think that it's a corn-pone version of "Old Mississippi."  But I've had it explained to me that Ole Miss is actually a bit of an inside joke, running along these lines.  Slaves on the plantation used to refer to the white patriarch of the homestead as "Ole Massa," and his wife as "Ole Miss."  So, rather than use the Latin expression for the college you attended, alma mater ("nourishing mother"), students and graduates referred to the University as Ole Miss.  Because, you know, studying was really hard, as hard as it was for slaves on the plantation.  It's a sort of blackface in word-play.  And we all know word play is funny, especially in reference to 300 years of brutalization, economic exploitation, and dispossession.

     Which brings us back to the Rebel Black Bears.  Apparently, there are such bears in Mississippi.  There are also such bears in Maine (I've seen them).  Interestingly enough, the mascot of the University of Maine -- since 1914 or so, is a black bear.  He goes by the name of Bananas.  For me, the lack of originality from Ole Miss is a strike against them.  And, as a native Mainer, I'm offended.  Get your own damn mascot.  Keep your hands of my Bananas!

     Speaking of bananas, there is also the matter of William Faulkner, of course, whose famous story "The Bear," is read and not enjoyed by thousands of high school and college students every year.  The problem here is that, in part, "The Bear" is the centerpiece of a collection entitled Go Down, Moses, in which the main character, Ike McCaslin, in addition to hunting bear, discovers that somewhere in his past there might just be a dash of incest and miscegenation.  Strike two on the sensitivity count, Ole Miss.  That's why you don't read the Cliffs Notes.

     Now, the Rebel Black Bear is, well, black.  So doesn't that count for something?  Yes, but he's also a rebel bear, so, by some sort of adjective algebra, the rebellion and the blackness kind of cancel each other out.  More clumsiness, and that's strike three.  The Rebel Black Bear can come tailgate in his Grove attire, but nobody's going to talk to him.  He's a walking semiotic Frankenstein monster.  Hang your head, Mr. Rebel Black Bear Guy, and get yourself another branch and bourbon.

"I'll take the over on 'Bama!"

     There had been a movement on campus to name as the new mascot none other star Admiral Akbar of Return of the Jedi (Internet meme: "It's a trap!), but last month Lucasfilm declined to release the rights, no matter how much comeback sauce they were paid.  George Lucas has had his own issues with faintly racist characterizations in some of his films (Jar Jar Binks, among others), so this was probably a wise move on both sides. "Count meesa outta dis one!"



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Reader's Notes - Periodic Table of Super-Powers

From a few months ago, the Periodic Table of Super-Powers, from Comics Alliance.

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PN 133 - Mitch Kaplan of Books and Books

A talk with Mitchell Kaplan, independent bookstore owner and former president of the American Booksellers Association, about a life in the community of reading.

Passing Notes Uncut, the extended version of my conversation with Kaplan, will be available by noon on Saturday -- downloadable through Feedburner and iTunes.

In the meantime, you might surf over to Books and Books or the Miami Book Fair sites.

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Reader's Notes - Ridley Scott Meets 'The Man in the High Castle'

One of my all-time favorite science fiction books is from Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle.  Set in a parallel universe where the Axis powers were victorious in World War II, this provocative, intelligent novel absolutely blew me away when I read it in college, so much so that when I had a chance to teach a course in science fiction, it was on my reading list.  The seniors in my class, fresh off their European and US History courses, found the "what if" themes of the novel deeply engaging and wonderful grounds for many thoughtful discussions.  It appears now that no less than Ridley Scott will bring his own sense of style and intensity to this great dystopian novel in a BBC mini-series.

Here's the story from some days ago in the UK Guardian.

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PN Video Jukebox - Thelonious Monk

This week, the jukebox has a brief two-part documentary from JazzVideoGuy (Brett Primrack) about Thelonious Monk, and five performances from the mid-sixties.  If you haven't had a chance to check out my review of Robin Kelley's 2009 biography, here's the link.  In the meantime, enjoy the pictures and sounds.


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Reader's Notes - Float Magazine

Joan is really this cool.  You try this some time, smart guy.

A quick plug for a former student of mine and a young woman I never had the good fortune to teach -- Joan and Nadia, respectively -- who have started Float, a place for music fans by music fans.  Joan (see the cool pic at left) was impressed several years ago when some of her teachers suggested that yes, if she really wanted to, she could write about things like music and movies and television.  Just be obsessed and keep working at it.  So: remember: Float Magazine.  Why don't you float on over right now?  Here's your challenge: Find the cool picture of Nadia.

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Reader's Notes - National Book Award Nominees

To be brief -- Nominees for 2010 awards from the National Book Foundation have been announced.  See the list below, and read more about them at the NBF's website.




Fiction
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson & Co.)
Nicole Krauss, Great House (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That (Harper)
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)

Nonfiction
Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Spiegel & Grau)
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco)
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War(Doubleday)

Poetry
Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City (Princeton University Press)
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Viking Penguin)
James Richardson, By the Numbers (Copper Canyon Press)
C.D. Wright, One with Others (Copper Canyon Press)
Monica Youn, Ignatz (Four Way Books)

Young People's Literature
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown & Co.)
Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird (Philomel Books)
Laura McNeal, Dark Water (Alfred A. Knopf)
Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown (Amistad)
Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer (Amistad)

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Barcalounge Skipper - 2010 MLB Playoffs - League Championship Series

     Here were my picks for teams advancing all the way through the MLB postseason in the first round, the Division Championship Series.

Reds-Phillies - My pick: Phillies in 4.  Actual result: Phillies in 3.
Braves-Giants - My pick: Giants in 5. Actual result: Giants in 4.
Yankees-Twins - My pick: Yankees in 5. Actual result: Yankees in 3.
Rangers-Rays - My pick: Rays in 4. Actual Result: Rangers in 5.

     Watching last night's Rangers-Rays matchup, it was clear that Texas was prepared to take it to Tampa Bay almost from the first pitch, with Elvis Andrus scoring from second base on a quirky groundout to first base.  Texas scored two more runs on plays where the Rays -- particularly catcher Kelly Shoppach -- were caught flat footed.    Shoppach was booed ferociously by the Trop crowd when, with a runner on second, he popped out to short center in the bottom of the seventh.  All in all, the Rangers just went out and took the game -- and the series.  And Cliff Lee is scary good when he's on his game.

     My predictions worked out pretty well for the most part -- three out of four series.  I learned that the Phillies might just hop on Roy Halladay's back and ride all the way to the championship.  Doc pitched a perfect game in the regular season and only the second no-hitter in the postseason.  I don't think the Giants are going to derail that train.  As for the American League, with the unfocused Rays and the spooked Twins out of the running, it appears that the Yankees and the Rangers are pretty well matched.  If CJ Wilson and Cliff Lee keep pitching the way they have, and, more importantly, if Josh Hamilton finds his groove, I think the Rangers can give the Yankees a run for the money.  But there's no do-overs in the prognostication business, so I'm still going with the Phillies all the way to the ring.

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Listener's Notes - Miami Jazz Cooperative

Let me take Tuesday's space to promote the Miami Jazz Cooperative, an organization of musicians, educators, and jazz enthusiasts in the Magic City who have a very clear mission of promoting the music.  More specifically, the mission of the MJC is "to establish and operate a dedicated jazz facility in Miami for the mutual benefit of jazz students, jazz musicians, and their audience. To this end, the MJC is committed to supporting the appreciation of jazz in the South Florida community through education and outreach."
   You can read more about the mission, community, and organizational structure of the MJC at its website, http://www.miamijazz.org/.  You can also follow the MJC on Twitter and Facebook.  Many thanks to Frank "The Walking Encyclopedia of Popular Music" Consola from WDNA for first letting me know about this great organization.

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