Views are something I come to appreciate more as I get older. I'm not a photographer, a painter, or anything like that, but I do enjoy a few peaceful moments enjoying the beauty of the world. Water, in particular, brings me a certain internal peace, be it an ocean, a lake, a river, a creek.

Minnesota is bordered by North and South Dakota to the west. I've never been fond of that area, as it's basically flat prairies converted to huge farms since being settled in the 19th century. In the north we're bordered by Manitoba and Ontario, Canada, in mostly heavily wooded areas (known on the Minnesota side as the Boundary Waters area, a heavily protected natural site). In the east, Wisconsin, mostly woods and Lake Superior in the north and the Mississippi River and its accompanying valleys to the south. And in the south, Iowa, almost all farmland. (That's where I grew up, near the southern border.) It's a relatively diverse area in terms of the terrain.

As for bookstores, I'm afraid the big chain stores really forced many smaller or independent ones out of business ... and now are being driven out of business themselves by the lower prices at Amazon, etc. I prefer the independently owned stores that have some of the character of their owners or communities. Often that might end up as unfortunately showing the dull taste of the owner or community, but sometimes--like in Washburn at Chequamegon Books--you hit the jackpot. Many much larger towns than little old Washburn, Wisconsin, would be lucky to have that bookstore.

[1916]

Date of original broadcast is 1916. Features Jan and Dean, Beach Boys, all of the usual suspects.

They must have been quite young. 

Saw that. Lowe is one of the best.

I still think Chicago is building an offensive (80s?) juggernaut. Can they defend? Win? Those are questions to be answered. But as a Minnesotan, I do increasingly think the Bulls got the better of us in the Butler trade.

I’m afraid you’re projecting. But I suppose now that your original point has been laughed down, you haven’t got much else to say. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, pal.

By trying to claim (semi-) early fandom with your reference to first show, you’re appealing to longevity as some silly evidence of fandom. Credentials, you cutely called it. As if having seen your first show in nineteen-this topped someone whose first was nineteen- (or twenty-) that. But it’s certainly meant to imply that being there early somehow matters. Which a) it doesn’t and b) would indeed make you old.

At least you can rest comfortably in your mastery of message-board quoting. Except, awww.

It’s not a great day for you, real-name Gerry. But never fear, I’m sure legions of fans are clamoring to hear what you have to say over, y’know, a Beach Boy.

If you’re not old, you ought not use longevity for your claims to relevance.

And we’re not pals.

Credentials? There are no credentials. Being old isn't a credential, it's a biological misfortune. And in this case, it's no advantage over the person in question, who remains a Beach Boy.

David Marks: Beach Boy.

Gerry: real-name-using old person whose fandom means he met some Beach Boys.

Shall we change our calculus as to whom most people would rather hear from? Or does the point stand? Now granted, I could bolster my argument by noting the fact of which many a poster is well aware--that my name is Luther (gasp! His credibility grows exponentially by this irrelevance that apparently tickles oldsters!)--but I don't think it's especially important.

You're a random poster. Your opinion carries no weight beyond that of any other random poster (such as myself), which is far, far less that of a Beach Boy. Such as David Marks.

In this case, it's not what I'm reading but what I found to read, and where. This week we were in northern Wisconsin on along the southern shore of Lake Superior. While wandering around the area we stopped in an unassuming storefront in Washburn, WI, for a used bookstore--the sort of thing we enjoy checking out as a curiosity.

Chequamegon Books, for anyone passing through the area, is heaven. The main room has maybe 10 shelves along the two exterior walls (25 yards or so deep?), with maybe four or five aisles standing eight or nine shelves tall. There's a back room, and an upstairs in the back room that overlooks the lake. The proprietors clearly use some taste in acquiring books: an entire wall was dedicated to history (half of it to military history), far more than the largest Barnes & Noble I've ever seen. The fiction section was spotty in what it had, but what it had! Maybe 10 or 12 Willa Cather books, just as many Nelson Algren books, a depth even our local library system doesn't match. (Conversely, there were authors entirely absent. Such is life.) I almost giggled at the section dedicated to far leftist politics, a section bigger than a chain bookstore's section for all politics ... even politics + history (and maybe autobiography too). Then back to the music theory section, where I scanned Schoenberg's book on harmony. And to reiterate, the second-floor of the back room has lake views. Eden.

I picked up an early 80s pamphlet by Sen. Hatch about the ERA; a 19th century book linking pre-Exilic Judaism to zodiac cults; a study of the Reformation; some Schleiermacher; a comedic critique of G-Dub Bush; a 1960s analysis of the political change in America in the first half of the 19th century; and a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some books seemed slightly overpriced, but others were almost laughably cheap.

Their bookmark claims 80,000 books. It felt like 80 million. Chequamegon Books, Washburn, Wisconsin.

Does anybody really give a sh*t what Marks would have to say in a Q&A. He hasn't been with the group since 1963. He was only brought back into the group because Carl died.

I’d imagine far more people give a sh*t about what Beach Boy David Marks has to say in a Q&A than do what some random poster—you, for instance—has to say on a Beach Boys message board.

Took a midmorning walk to, partway around, and back from the closest lake. Pulled some weeds. Bought a twenty-five cent glass of lemonade from the little neighbor kids' stand. Put a pot of mixed beans (black, pinto, and kidney) on the stove with onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, a ton of garlic, and a nice bunch of herbs. I plan now to sit outside in the backyard to read away the sunny afternoon.

I can speak to both.

1. Internet has been one of those words that different stylebooks treat differently. But AP and New York Times--two of the most prominent English language stylebooks--both switched from capitalized to lowercase within the past couple of years. The way I understand the history, it had been capitalized to denote one specific internet (thus the proper noun Internet), but since it over time became the only internet, it wasn't necessary that it be identified as a proper noun anymore.

2. My own particular viewpoint: snobbery. Film in America has connotations of being serious. Movie is casual. So one finds people who want to impress, or people talking about the form as "art" rather than "entertainment," often say film. People who don't want to be seen that way probably will say movie.

Overpaid, probably. But with Parker especially it’s very low risk. I like what they’re doing.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that we're considering a world in which we have access to the artist's original (draft) versions and so we know what is being recycled. That's only true in the modern world where we get boots and the artist sticks around long enough for those to circulate. But in reality, without the booting of material, we'd usually have no idea what is recycled and what isn't. So at that point it's a whole different conversation: perceived quality of the released material in its released context only. If what turns out to be recycled is worse, we'd dislike it; and vice versa.

The only time I have a real problem with it is if we broaden the definition of recycling and rather than talk about saving songs for a rainy day, instead talk about artists reusing ideas and general aesthetics of music they have already released. Like "Song X did well, so we'll write Song X+1," which is a blatant self-ripoff. That's dull. But if Song X was written and not released, why not release it when the time seems right?

Would we rather never have the songs released?

[Requiem]

The soprano whom I used to help with her parts (she sings in a semi-professional choir) has resumed singing again after a bout of illness. One of the pieces I helped her with today was this incredibly moving Requiem by Herbert Howells:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hBco-7y6M

http://www.chicagochorale.org/herbert-howells-requiem/

Beautiful.

I was surprised to hear Psalm 23 ("the Lord is my shepherd") in there. Was Howells the first composer to use that in a requiem? I know it's in Rutter's, and thought that was an anomaly. Now I'm wondering how common it might be, and when it entered that context. (It is an obvious fit, really.)

What the f*** kind of nonsense is that?

Dude, you wrote the line, not me.

I know and stand behind what I said. If you're self-identifying and self-diagnosing, well, there's always help. It's never too late.

The Captain - Were you raised Missouri Synod? This denomination of Lutheranism seems very conservative compared to the more mainstream ELCA the other group that merged  with them in the not-too-distant  past. I know a Lutheran couple who traveled to Kansas and stopped in a Missouri Synod church on a Sunday morning. An usher came to them after they were seated and asked them if they were MSL. When they said no, but Lutheran, he told them that they were welcome but would not be permitted to take communion.

I was. But the amazing part is that's only because that was the closest thing to ELS in my (small, rural) hometown, which is out of which one side of my family came (and was quite prominent, actually, in the ministry and synodic leadership). And ELS makes Missouri look like ELCA. The positive side is, the experience has given me a lot of insight into conservative culture, an insight a lot of my friends never got.

What the f*** kind of nonsense is that?

I’m a little disturbed by a number of comments on here about the use of wheelchairs.  And this has nothing to do with Brian. For all I know a wheelchair might not help with brian’s health issues so that’s besides the point. But for those that do need a wheelchair, whether temporarily, permanently, or in specific situations, there’s nothing shameful or alarming about using one.  A number of comments here suggest that Brian might “not want to be seen” in one or that fans “might be alarmed” to see him in a wheelchair.  This kind of attitude perpetuates the stigmatization of people that use wheelchairs or mobility devices. 

The jazz giant Clark Terry was often in a wheelchair in his last years and, I believe, performed live while using a wheelchair.  Instead of seeing that and feeling uncomfortable for whatever reason, or worrying that he’s on the decline, we should all take our hats off to someone who has physical or mobility issues but uses whatever tools are available (wheelchair, walker, what have you) to allow them to do what they want to do.  That’s called kicking ass, and it’s not something to be ashamed of. 

Marcella, I was one of the people who made some wheelchair comments. I in no way meant that using a wheelchair is shameful or anything like that. But it's the way people react, and I was saying a real possibility that Brian or one of his staff thought people would react to a wheelchair. I wasn't saying it was correct to do so. People reacted when he had to be helped onstage. There's nothing shameful in needing help, either. I'm probably not explaining myself well, but I do apologize if I implied that using a wheelchair is anything to be ashamed of.

I completely understand what you're saying, and I wasn't calling out any one comment, just the idea that people could react negatively if they saw Brian in a wheelchair. I understand that the paparazzi will spin something like that into a story on Brian's decline or whatever, but frankly, so what? If B-list magazines and whatever "camps" want to suggest that Brian shouldn't be touring - well, as many have pointed out, that's been happening for years, and it doesn't seem to hold any sway with Brian. My point was just that people should be able to use whatever mobility device or medical assistance they need in order to let them do the things they want to do, without worrying about what anyone else thinks.

I agree with you, and I'm just saying that sometimes, people who work for celebrities ARE paid to look after the celebrity's image. I'm hoping Brian doesn't care. People speculate about him a lot-- he may slur his speech, not answer questions, be carried to the stage, whatever-- and people speculate, including some of the people here. I'm sure people have speculated about his health since at least the 70s.  I would hope Brian just carries forward without worrying and does what he wants. I think that's probably the case. The thing is, Brian continually defies the doubters. As someone said in this thread, how many 76-year-olds go on tour, months after back surgery?

Well, some might say, he is forced to go on tour because that's what his 'handlers' insist upon.

They might. And it would be an excruciatingly dull thing for everyone else to hear. Some topics just live on in the minds of oddly obsessed people who really, really need to find other outlets. The "wife and managers" crowd fits that bill. (Some who are negatively obsessed with the M&B band are similarly deranged and dull.)

The Captain - Now THAT'S entertainment! Seriously, whether or not Barker's tome is all accurate, I think that it would be very unlikely that the texts that we today consider essential to early Judaism and Christianity did not have antecedents that likely featured polytheistic frameworks, or, at least, in more monotheistic thinking, lesser gods. Many people seem unaware of the selectivity with which texts were used, altered, borrowed, synthesized and edited over the centuries into what we have today.

Religious history--and specifically the history of Christianity (and consequently, necessarily the history of Judaism)--is probably my main interest in the past few years, especially as someone raised as a pretty conservative Lutheran Christian who has become an atheist over time. It's an academic interest to me that I can't quite seem to get enough of. Ideas like this underlying polytheism, or Jesus mythicism, or the Jamesian-Essene ideas...absolutely fascinating, whatever is actually true. The puzzles have so many layers.

I think you are overrating people's natural ability to be truly individuals. Peer pressure is a well established reality in academic literature.

But with that said, obviously we can all see that some people are more susceptible than others to it: everyone knows someone who seems to fall into the crowd every single time about every single thing, and someone else who doesn't have such a problem being unique. Anyway, my point is just that it is clearly a real thing that some people simply aren't able to fight against to the degree that others are. To ask "why don't you just do what you want to do?" probably isn't a realistic question for those people, any more than it would be to ask someone with clinical depression "why don't you just cheer up?"

We have evolved to be social creatures on the whole, after all, so some degree of a need for acceptance by the group is natural. Different people just have different degrees of that need, and different levels of confidence in their own instincts or thinking.

It really is a difficult position for libraries. They need patrons or they would cease to exist. (No government is going to maintain a library for a tiny, tiny percentage of people.) So they can't be TOO nasty to people who are delinquent returning books, or people just won't go. But at the same time, if they have no punishment at all, people will abuse the system, and that doesn't work well in the grand scheme of things either. I sympathize. Really, people just need to be responsible in their behavior and consider the overall good.

I started reading Margaret Barker's "The Older Testament," which suggests and tries to describe a polytheistic core of what became early Judaism after the Babylonian exile, with some aspects of this earlier core showing through not only in the Torah but apocalyptic writing of the Maccabbeean era through the birth of Christianity, including the Qumran/Essene writing and some gnostic works. It's really dense stuff and hard to wrap the mind around in spots, but very interesting. I'm nowhere near far enough through it to say whether I think it's plausible, but it's certainly interesting.

Yep, we got forgiving day. It's the best idea, it weirds me out that Americans didn't think up sth. like that. I figured America is very creative country.

But American libraries are also often funded by their local governments, and usually not very well funded. They also have an issue with people simply taking and not returning books. So the mission isn't making things easy for the delinquent borrowers so much as maintaining the library's ability to stay open and serve. The fines are also both used to raise funds (though they can't raise much, being relatively small) and just to put a little pressure on the borrowers to keep them from being thieves. It is definitely a balancing act, though, because once fines become too large or books are too long overdue, people feel too ashamed to bring them back and instead just keep them.

Sorry, Ovi, I'm not your man on these. My jazz tastes really only barely extend back to bebop and even less before. (I think bebop is supremely interesting from a music theory perspective, but not especially interesting to listen to.)

I would say with Louis, find his earlier stuff, the Hot Five and Hot Seven music. With Charlie Parker you can't really go wrong anywhere. In both cases, you're really talking about the pre-LP era for the most part, so it's a matter of collections regardless. But I'm nowhere near familiar enough to give good recommendations.

I doubt it varies. Across cultures certain types of pressure may vary (more or less exposure to corporate or political messaging, for example), or the behaviors that are the subject of the pressure (maybe getting married earlier or later, alcohol abstinence or consumption, religiosity), but I’d wager human vulnerability to peer pressure is similar across cultures.

Then again, maybe there are differences based on whether a culture emphasizes or celebrates individualism or community cohesion? That might make sense. But then a person might guess the opposite: that people in the US should be less vulnerable rather than more compared to those in Russia.