Pogo and Calvin
And Hobbes his companion
Eliane Elias
And Zane's sage filled canyon
Patrick O’Brian
How Lester Young swings
These are a few of my favorite things.

2012 marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day.
For its second year in 1971, Walt Kelly provided this as their poster.

Remember-clicking on image will (hopefully) enlarge it...then close window (click x upper right corner) to return to page.



I’ve written before about Bill Watterson and Calvin and Hobbes, but I can always say more. When my boys were young and sleeping in the same room together, I would often tell them bedtime stories that I invented about a talking Sea Lion named JoJo. JoJo was the classic outsider who by virtue of being of a different species, was able to observe and comment on the nature of humanity with the kind of disinterested objectivity that strikes a familiar chord with children. Seems to me that children (especially between the ages of about 3-8) instinctively understand the dilemma of living in a world over which they have no control, but yet makes constant demands of them in ways which often make no sense to them. Their virtual powerlessness combined with their endless curiosity makes them natural philosophers, and that’s what lies at the heart of the Calvin and Hobbes stories and the stories I told about JoJo and his friend Mikey.
I wish I had written down some of those tales, but alas, I never did—but Watterson did and did it as well as anyone.









Eliane Elias has given me some of the greatest musical pleasures in my life. And it just so happens that my cousin Bob, who is a first rate Jazz pianist, Brazilian music scholar, (and genuine rocket scientist), has been similarly swept off his feet for years by the great Paulistana.(woman of Sao Paulo) I first became aware of her when she joined the Jazz group Steps Ahead (That's them on left: Michael Brecker, Mike Mainieri, Eddie Gomez, Eliane and Peter Erskine) back in the 70’s—and her playing on their first album knocked me out. She grew up a child prodigy in Sao Paulo Brazil, where she had a classical training which quickly turned into an obsessive interest in Jazz. She was teaching at a prestigious music academy at 15 and at 17 working with Brazilian singer/songwriter Toquinho and the great poet and Jobim collaborator Vinicius de Moraes.

Like Nat King Cole and George Benson, she has evolved from virtuoso instrumentalist to popular song stylist which in many ways obscures the power and beauty of her art--which for me is best represented on the album pictured here: Paulistana. My sons finally convinced me to listen to something else in the car after I had it playing there for more than a year.
She's recorded quite a bit including a Duets album with Herbie Hancock (which I didn't like much) and rarely sang until she released her all Jobim album, on which she sounded tentative and breathy, but as always, wonderfully musical. Her singing chops have grown enormously and her shows are now almost all songs with just a few instrumentals. But she still swings (and Sambas) hard as ever and her sense of time and melodic imagination are a constant joy. We've (Ellen and my boys are big fans too) seen her live many times, and years ago when my son Will was just starting out on guitar, we took him to hear her, and chatted with her after the show. About a year later we caught her again and stopped by her dressing room (where she was sitting with her mother) and she remembered Will well, and asked about his studies and couldn’t have been more gracious and attentive and thoughtful. I loved her before then, but that put me over the top and ever since I’ve considered her a goddess. And just for the record, I was digging her for years before I even knew what she looked like...in fact, I got a friend to come see her once and when she came on stage, he turned to me and said " You didn't say she was Bridget Bardot!". That's right, I didn't.

more at: http://elianeelias.com/eliane/long-bio


Two clips: First is Samba Triste instrumental (from Documentary Calle 54)

And second is a classic with a vocal.

In both clips The Bassist is Marc Johnson, a veteran master with a long and distinguished career of his own--and he also doubles as Eliane's husband.





I think I mentioned Zane Grey before too.
Seems this post is revealing that I’ve run out of material and am well on my way to a future of posting semi-altered re-runs.

Riders of The Purple Sage is the famous classic. I read it last year and fell under its spell right after the awkward opening chapter. The story is terrific and terrifically told, though to some the dialogue can sound wooden and often tone-deaf--but that may be due to an unfamiliarity with that time and place and how folks used the language. I know some people felt that way about True Grit (both book and movie) but in fact if you read material from that era, there was a unique blend of the formal (almost classical ) and the local countrified in speech patterns and you can hear it in a lot of Mark Twain as well. But what really got me with Grey was the descriptions of the physical world. I often lose patience with descriptions of places and things in novels, but Grey takes it to a level that is rich with passion and fresh perception. Just a brief example--and that's Grey himself in the photo overlooking the canyon.

Venters looked out upon the beautiful valley—beautiful now as never before—mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird in the quivering, golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces were tipped with glimmering lights; the aspens bent low in the winds, as waves in a tempest at sea; the forest of oaks tossed wildly and shone with gleams of fire. Across the valley the huge cavern of the cliff-dwellers yawned in the glare, every little black window as clear as at noonday; but the night and the storm added to their tragedy. Flung arching to the black clouds, the great stone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. It caught the full fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown to meet the lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their lofty nest in a niche under the arch. A driving pall of rain, black as the clouds, came sweeping on to obscure the bridge and the gleaming walls and the shining valley. The lightning played incessantly, streaking down through opaque darkness of rain. The roar of the wind, with its strange knell and the re-crashing echoes, mingled with the roar of the flooding rain, and all seemingly were deadened and drowned in a world of sound.

My brother Dan turned me on to Patrick O’Brian.

I had heard of his Aubrey/Maturin series before, but Dan was so effusive in his praise and love for the books that I had to give it a go. And though I’m only little more than halfway through the 20 volume saga, I can only wonder why the series isn’t more celebrated than it already is. I started watching the movie Master and Commander that was made a few years ago based on an amalgam of a few of the books, but didn’t get all the way through. It was one of those instances where it felt like the characters and richness of the writing was getting short changed by all the cinematic theatricality—and since I haven’t read all the books yet, I didn’t want this visually literalized version to interfere with the images that I had formed in my mind from the reading. The sea-battles and British Navy stuff is great—but it’s the relationship between Jack and Stephen that cements it all and some of the recurring on and off the ship characters are fine as well.



“Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat” was the haunting song Mingus wrote in his memory—and Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics to it many years later. Prez. Lester Young. Nobody else like him. And nobody else accompanied Billie Holiday (she dubbed him Prez -for President of the Sax—while he was the one who pronounced her Lady Day) with such like-minded sweet ethereal sadness. Whenever I listen to him, I don’t hear a sax, I hear a singer.