Alvin Fernald forever

The Wacky World of Alvin Fernald is a website devoted to the work of Clifford Hicks, writer of the Alvin Fernald series of children's books.

Alvin's Secret Code was the crucial book of my childhood (see here), so I'm happy to see Alvin's web-presence growing. The Magnificent Brain rules!

3 strikes against Sony

An idiosyncratic list, but mine own.

Strike 1
Sony's execrable handling of its 2000 boxed-set cd reissue of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. The sound -- dismal, dull, lifeless. The packaging -- a disgrace, with the cds in flimsy cardboard holders that leave glue on the playing surfaces. A small collage of just three Amazon.com reviews:

The reprocessing on this compilation is among the worst in years: thin, harsh, and (on the first two CDs) with nearly overwhelming surface noise. . . . Incidentally, all four CDs had glue on the playing surfaces . . . . the glue adheres to the CD edges, even making their way onto the surface . . . . This collection is an inconsistent sonic mess.

You can read more at Amazon. And if you care about this music, buy the JSP set of the same material, less than half the price and infinitely better sound. That Sony would treat Armstrong's music -- a national treasure; no, a world treasure -- as it did already says everything about its understanding of art and commerce.

Strike 2
The rootkit scandal. Need I say more? Boing Boing provides a detailed history, starting here.

Strike 3
The witty, throwaway line in Nellie McKay's song "Clonie" -- "Should've signed with Verve instead of Sony" -- now seems sadly prophetic. Sony-Columbia has dropped McKay and refused to release her album Pretty Little Head (which was supposed to be out yesterday). A New York Times article has the details. McKay, to my ears, is one of the brightest, smartest people in music right now. You can read about her in Orange Crate Art, here and here, and you can read much more at this fan site.

What does this idiosyncratic list add up to? A company with contempt for past performers, present performers, and customers. Sony, you're out.

Misheard

Half-listening to a Vytorin ad on TV Land, explaining the causes of high cholesterol:

"It's not only from that buttered crap . . . "

Oops. Buttered crab. But I misheard what I misheard.

Related post: Misheard

Homer in Art

News of an art exhibition:

The Legacy of Homer: Four Centuries of Art from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, October 8, 2005 – January 15, 2006

Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, NY, October 11, 2005 – January 22, 2006

Link: The Legacy of Homer, with links to download thumbnail images

Link: The Legacy of Homer, exhibition catalogue, from Yale University Press

123456

My wife Elaine mentioned yesterday an observation of Leonard Bernstein's in his lecture-series The Unanswered Question -- that audiences inevitably hear tonal patterns in atonal music. We are indeed pattern-seeking and pattern-finding creatures.

Our loyal Toyota today displayed the sequence 123456 on its odometer. Elaine and I took a photo, with a disposable camera whose film won't be developed for some time. You'll have to take my word for it.

This milestone in driving made me recall an anecdote from the great literary critic Hugh Kenner, who once recounted his car's odometer displaying a magically appropriate sequence on June 16 -- Bloomsday, the day on which the action of James Joyce's Ulysses takes place in 1904. What were the numbers on Kenner's odometer? 61604? 16604? I can't recall. But I remember that there was a pattern.

While we're waiting for the film to be developed, I'll share some magically appropriate numbers that rival even those of Kenner's odometer. My copy of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire is a library discard. The card in its pocket bears a single date-stamp: "OCT 18 1979." The poet John Shade, one of the novel's two principal characters, has a heart attack on October 17, 1958. Charles Kinbote dates his Foreword to Shade's poem Pale Fire October 19, 1959. The card-pocket itself bears seven stamped due dates, one of them in red -- "JUL 5 '78." John Shade was born on July 5, 1898. What's it all mean? Nothing. But I wouldn't trade my Pale Fire for another.

Related post
Bloomsday

Happy New Year

[Marty (Ernest Borgnine) and Clara (Betsy Blair) sit side by side in the dining room. Marty has tried to kiss Clara; she's said no.]

Marty: Well, I'm old enough to know better. Comes New Year's Eve, everybody starts arranging parties. I'm the guy they gotta dig up a date for. I'll just get a pack of cigarettes and take --

Clara: I'd like to see you again. Very much. The reason I didn't let you kiss me was because I just didn't know how to -- handle the situation. You're the kindest man I ever met. The reason I tell you this is because I want to see you again, very much. I know that when you take me home I'm just going to lie on my bed and think about you. I want very much to see you again.

Marty: What are you doing tomorrow night?

Clara: Nothing.

Marty: I'll call you up tomorrow. Maybe we'll go see a movie.

Clara: I'd like that, very much.

Marty: The reason I can't be more definite now is because my Aunt Catherine is probably coming over tomorrow. I may have to help out.

Clara: I'll wait for your call.

Marty: I better take you home now. [They stand.] It's getting late and the busses only run about one an hour.

Clara: All right.

Marty: I'll just get a pack of cigarettes. [Marty walks to the dresser, gets the cigarettes, comes back. He and Clara now stand face to face.]

Marty: What are you doing New Year's Eve?

Clara: Nothing.

[They kiss.]

From Marty (1955), directed by Delbert Mann, screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky

What am I doing New Year's Eve? Transcribing this dialogue, before sharing a bottle of wine with my wife.

Happy New Year.

"Serious pencils indeed"

I have a piece of writing (with photographs) at Pencil Revolution, a wonderful site. "Serious pencils indeed" is the story of some A.W. Faber Castell 9000 pencils that I found in an office-supply store, some 45 years or so after their manufacture.

It's appropriate that this piece has appeared before 2005 is over -- as Pencil Revolution points out, 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the Castell 9000.

My son: "Points out. Ha ha. Please write no pun intended."

Me: "Okay."

No pun intended.

Link "Serious pencils indeed"

Taste in apes

Overheard:

"Personally, I'm more willing to believe the puppet-apes than the computer-generated apes."

Food for thought

My local newspaper has changed its format to focus on infotainment -- a neverending series of articles on dieting, shopping, budgeting, and so on. But what about the second ad below, from today's paper? Is its presence in the "Foods" category better explained by carelessness, or by a journalist's desire to bring value-added amusement to every corner of the paper? (And while I'm asking questions: who shops for "foods" in the classifieds anyway?)



My friend Joanna Key spotted this ad. Thanks, Joanna, for sharing.

Hark

Seen on the television screen this evening, on a PBS station, no less:

Hark The Harold Angels Sing