You know you're getting old when...

... this makes you titter like a guilty high-schooler...

“I think people underestimate cannabis,” Mr. Browne said. “You wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and say, ‘I’ll have the wine.’ So why would you assume people would do that for cannabis? In the same way that pinot grigio and pinot noir may sound similar but are completely different, names like Lemon OG and Lemon Skunk are very different strains with very different flavor components and completely different highs.”

Adolphe Sax probably never imagined this...

... but he surely knew he was onto something good when he stuck a vibrating reed onto the end of a conical brass tube. Here is jazz in later Coltrane take no prisoners mode. But whereas Trane's sound had a clean, cold-steel edge to it no matter how "out" he went, David S. Ware's almost always retained a fat Ben Webster warmth. Perhaps the greatest of the post-Coltrane sax players... gone way too soon. With his first solo, Matthew Shipp almost steals the show. Almost... until Ware channels some alien heavy-metal version of "Angel Eyes" starting around 28:00.

Still celebrating Mr. Sax's birthday...

Cooling things down a little after yesterday's Parker speed-fest...

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sax!

Your strange creation, in the hands of its greatest master...

Tom Magliozzi, RIP

Truly there are two kinds of people (at least NPR people): those who love Car Talk and those who hate it. Count me among the former. It always puts me in a good mood. Tom's ridiculous but sincere snorting guffaw was a big part of it. Their love of science and wonder at the mysteries of the human heart and the aging, ailing automobile. The puns.

Postscript: A degree in economics, among other things, from MIT. That ain't shabby.

Little worlds

Our pitiful rain showers last week were enough to refresh some lovely, tiny things.

Birdman

I quite enjoyed it. Our auteur Iñárritu drops you right into his little New York theatrical alternate universe, and from that moment on you barely have a moment to stop running and catch your breath, struggling to keep pace with the maladjusted non-superhero, played superbly by Michael Keaton. In fact, the movie suffers somewhat from its hyperactivity... enticing plot twists are introduced, then never to be heard from again. What seems at first to be an ensemble is in the end a supporting cast for Keaton. But that's OK... you can't take your eyes off it... nor your ears: The soundtrack, by Antonio Sanchez, is worth the price of admission.

Move along, nothing to see here...

"U.N. Panel Warns of Dire Effects From Lack of Action Over Global Warming"
Thank goodness the GOP will be taking over the government soon and we can finally get something done about climate change... such as accelerating it...