Three Photos: Las Vegas

Here are three more photos taken on my last trip to Las Vegas. The first is the scene at the Peppermill Restuarant at about 3:00 am (the place was hopping!). By the way, the place really does have a reddish/purplish glow to it-- that's part of its charm.

This is the futuristic walkway outside of Bally's Casino, leading down to the Strip. I think this is the only place that I've ever seen a moving sidewalk outside of an airport.

The blur of traffic on Tropicana Ave. racing by New York New York and Excalibur. This was taken around 5:00 am-- another example of the city that never sleeps (the the sidewalk is suspiciously empty).

Quote of the Day

The World Series starts today, so I chose this line from the venerable poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) for today's quote:

"I see great things in baseball. It's our
game - the American game. It will take
our people out-of-doors, fill them with
oxygen, give them a larger physical
stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being
a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these
losses, and be a blessing to us."

A Video Followup

Well, lo and behold, the song composed by Jeff Tweedy and performed by Mavis Staples which prompted the quote I posted earlier today actually has a video on YouTube. So here it is:

This Week's Top Five

There's a fairly lengthy introduction to this one on the recording, so without further ado...

Today's Quotation

Sometime back, I featured a week's worth of quotes about music, and today I read something that deserves to stand with any of those comments artists and philosophers who spanned the centuries. This was something Jeff Tweedy of the great contemporary band Wilco said in a recent interview with Mojo magazine (it was actually a dual interview with Tweedy and Mavis Staples, whose new album he produced), and it really rings true to me:

"... my theory [is] that all music basically says
the same thing, which is: you're not alone. Even
a kid in his room listening to the most abrasive
punk rock or heavy metal, what they're really
getting out of it is, 'We're in this with you.' Some-
where down deep there's a communication
happening that's sustaining..."

Battle of the Bands Tune

I have to admit that I'm not really much of a Yes fan. But this song is kind of catchy, and it did win a Round One contest on the Battle of the Bands unfolding on Dr. John's Record Shelf, so here they are...

Doonesbury Anniversary

Doonesbury is one of my favorite comic strips, and in fact one of the greatest strips of all time (I know it made the top ten in the poll conducted by The Comics Journal a few years back). This year Garry Trudeau's creation is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and various tributes are starting to pile up. I thought I would mention that you can find a list of the strips 200 greatest moments ( the best, most significant, most memorable of its long run-- including the classic seen above) at this site. If you are as big a fan as I am, you'll probably remember most of these from when you first read them; if you aren't familiar with Trudeau's work, then this will serve as a wonderful introduction.

Battle of the Bands Update

The Guess Who

Round One of the Battle of the Bands on Dr. John's Record Shelf continued last night, with The Guess Who (seeded no. 3) knocking off Genesis (14), while Yes (11) scored an upset over T. Rex (6). Our goal is to ultimately determine the greatest British (or Commonwealth) band of the era 1960 to 1974, and we're more than halfway through the first round.

Yes

The songs in competition last night were "No Time" by the Guess Who, "Roundabout" by Yes, "Bang a Gong" by T. Rex, and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" by Genesis.

This week's winners join the Kinks, Badfinger, the Bee Gees, Jethro Tull, the Band, the Troggs, the Easybeats, Buffalo Springfield, Free, Manfred Mann, the Rolling Stones, Mott the Hoople, The Who, Sweet, the Moody Blues, and the Tremeloes in moving into the next round. If you'd like to cast a vote for upcoming pairings, you can find the full brackets here, here, here, and here (just leave a comment here with your selections-- you can vote for some or all of the pairs).

Thought for the Day

I know many people would prefer that actors and musicians and other artists would just butt out of politics. I happen to think we should want to hear the views of creative, talented people. It doesn't mean that you always have to take them seriously. But in this instance, I think Orson Welles (1915-1985) was on to something with this comment:

"Popularity should be no scale for the election
of politicians. If it would depend on popularity,
Donald Duck and The Muppets would take
seats in senate."

Classic Country

The Stanley Brothers, Ralph and Carter, were giants of country music, though they were never big stars in terms of mass market success. Hard to believe in light of the success enjoyed by the various "hat" acts out there today. But this stuff is the real deal:

The Last Book I Read

I tend to lean, in my personal tastes, towards the alternative side of things: alternative music, independent film, abstract art, maverick journalism, etc. It never occurred to me, but the roots of that may be in my formative years as a sports fan, since I grew up on the American Football League and was a big fan of the American Basketball Association when each was challenging the hegemony of a more established league. In the case of the latter, it was kind of hard following teams like the Kentucky Colonels and Virginia Squires while living in what, at the time, was an NBA city (Buffalo-- though I was a Braves fan, too). It just seemed, from basketball cards and the few brief glimpses I got of their games, that the ABA was much more colorful, and not just because of their red, white and blue ball. I was intrigued by players like Artis Gilmore, Willie Wise, Mack Calvin, Zelmo Beaty, and Louie Dampier-- I mean, those names alone made them seem flashy to me (more so than more dully-named NBA stalwarts like Bob Kaufman, Walt Frazier, and Dave Cowens). But when the ABA folded in the mid-seventies, it was like they disappeared forever, though several of the teams were absorbed into the NBA, as were virtually all of the league's best players. So when I spotted Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA, Loose Balls, I was excited to revisit those years when I actually cared about things like the three-point shot (invented by the ABA). The book is good, not great, and doesn't quite live up to the cover blurbs promising a broader traipse through the cultural landscape of the seventies. But one certainly gets a good idea of what it was like to play in a rebel league, and the machinations the owners and managers went through to keep the operation afloat for about ten years. In fact, the greatest strength of the book is in how it reveals the incredible risks inherent in running a professional sports team on the cheap (one indication of this is that only three teams played in the same cities every year the ABA was in existence). The other, more inspiring, message is how the players pulled together-- many of them denied a shot at the NBA for arbitrary reasons (too small. too young, etc.)-- and took great pride in proving themselves the equal of their NBA counterparts (which was very evident the year after the merger, when the NBA All-Star teams were dominated by former ABA players). In the end, it's not a great sports book-- it never transcends it's narrative, making it a likely tough go if you don't already have a fair amount of affinity for the subject. But for me it was a revealing trip down memory lane, and I'm glad someone made the effort to collect and share these stories.

Sunday Funnies

Doonesbury is pretty good today, and timely with the upcoming election. I know (and understand why) voters are frustrated, but I wish they'd actually think about how things got this way instead of being swayed by those who just want to fan the anger. Change can be a good thing, but it doesn't guarantee anything-- especially if it's motivated by ignorance.

A Sunday Quote

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) was an American minister from the pre-Civil War period. Mostly remembered now as the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin), he was a pretty influential figure in his own time. Here's a line of his that gives an idea of his thinking:

“Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and
it will run itself to death. I can work
out a good character much faster
than anyone can lie me out of it”

Cool Song

This was my favorite song off the last album by the New Pornographers, Together; and here they are doing it live. Check it out:

Three Pictures: Fall Foliage

I drove up to Bozeman today to do some shopping, and stopped along the way to get a few pictures of the autumn leaves changing along the banks of the Jefferson River.

These were taken just south of a little crossroads called Silver Star, looking east toward the Tobacco Root Mountains. It was kind of overcast, which accounts somewhat for the bluish tinge in the mountains (the sun was just rising up from behind them).

By the way, the new logo at the head of the blog is also from this sequence of shots, looking upriver from the same spot where I took this last one looking downriver (the Jefferson is one of the three rivers that converge about forty miles from this spot to form the mighty Missouri).

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Directed by the inimitable Tex Avery (those of you old enough will recognize his over-the-top style even if you don't remember that name), here's a classic Droopy Dog cartoon from the 1940s-- so classic that this was still popping up frequently on the cartoon shows I watched on TV 20-30 years later:

Saturday's Quote

One of my favorite novelists is the Chilean Roberto Bolano (1953-2003). This line will give you some idea of what makes his work so compelling, but certainly has broader implications than that:

"But every single damn thing matters!
Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves
that art runs on one track and life, our lives,
on another, and we don't realize that's a lie."

A Great Movie

It's got plenty of competition, but this may be the best sequence from my favorite movie of the past thirty years, Local Hero, directed by Bill Forsyth. It's the story of a mid-level Texas oil executive (played by Peter Riegert) who goes to a remote part of Scotland to buy a scenic bay where a processing terminal is to be built. Of course, that description only hints at what the movie is really about, but you'll get a strong sense of its richness from this five-minute clip-- hopefully it will make you go find a copy of the whole movie to watch:

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

Continuing our Rosiek theme, here's a nice picture of Sara and Tom that prompts two questions: where was it taken, and who was standing behind the couple before I cropped this? Place your guesses in teh comments section.

Two weeks ago I wondered where a picture of Gerik was taken, and his mom nailed it: Theresa and Dan's backyard. Congrats to Lizzie. But let's see if I can get more than two guesses this week, huh?

Soup Diary 101022

A few words about buffets: they are almost always disappointing. The appeal, of course, is that you can really fill up on a lot of different dishes-- you really don't have to decide on just one thing to eat. In Las Vegas, all the casinos have buffets, some of which are pretty fancy, offering all kinds of exotic items. But in the end, they are almost always disappointing. The reason is because it is virtually impossible to just stick to the good stuff, as the temptation is too strong to try a bit of everything and inevitably very little of it lives up to expectations, and by then you're too full to go back and have a little more of the stuff you liked. In fact, my experience is that the salad bars tend to be the best part of the buffet, because they're hard to mess up. After our visit to Red Rocks Canyon, Bill and I stopped at a new casino/resort on the western edge of the city to check out the buffet. It certainly had a nice clean atmosphere, and as usual, a couple of things were pretty good (the roast turkey, for example, was fresh out of the oven, and they had some really nice calzones in the Italian section) but while I left full, I wasn't really all that satisfied-- not like the Ellis Island dinner I wrote about yesterday. Actually, one of the highlights turned out to be the soup. They had New England Clam Chowder (which I don't like) and Chicken Noodle, which, under the circumstances, had every reason to be very ordinary at best. But in fact it was very hearty, with huge chunks of chicken (bigger than any I spotted in the chicken enchilada from the Mexican station) which were more plentiful than the noodles, a real (positive) oddity. You know, that soup might just be enough for me to give in and go back to a buffet next time I'm down there, even though I usually find myself swearing them off immediately after every visit.

More Friday Family Blogging

Here's another shot from that aforementioned New York trip (last post). Here are Tom, Sally & Natalie on the ferry to Ellis Island.

Friday Family Blogging

Back in the summer of 2007, I traveled to New York City with the Rosieks, and we had breakfast in this bright cafe somewhere on Sixth Avenue in midtown. Do any of you in the picture remember this?

Friday Philosophy

This comes from a fella named Theodor Geisel (1904-1993), though many of you might recognize him instead by his pen name: Dr. Seuss:

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living,
it's a way of looking at life through the wrong
end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and
that enables you to laugh at life's realities."

Classic Luna

Here's a video of the late lamented band Luna, who broke up about five years ago, but certainly linger in my memory. Luckily Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips still perform (I just picked up their new CD 13 Most Beautiful, comprised of tracks to back some screen tests shot by Andy Warhol, which is pretty good too). Check it out:

Soup Diary 101021

You know that, with the wide array of restaurants at our disposal in Las Vegas, that I was going to sample some of the local soups, right? On our first day we went to Ellis Island Hotel and Casino, a kind of a divey place off the strip that seems to cater mostly to locals. Despite it's less than glamorous facade, it houses one of the best restaurants in the city, renowned for both the quality of the food and the extremely low prices (maybe they figure on people saving enough on their meal that they'll be tempted to hit the gaming tables afterwards-- that did not work with us, by the way). One of their primo deals is a full steak dinner for like six bucks, and it is a steal. It comes with soup or salad, and naturally I went with the former, which on this visit was chili bean. Now in most places, chili bean is just watered down chili, but at Ellis Island, it's actually something of a treat. True, it was more brothy than a true bowl of chili, but that broth was outstanding, rich and beefy, so that you hardly noticed the relative absence of beans or veggies to thicken things up. Followed by steak, mashed potatoes and gravy with green beans, and some peach cobbler for dessert (ala mode of course), this was a truly first rate meal-- not exactly gourmet, perhaps, but I can't imagine enjoying the fare at some fancier place any more than this.

Three Pictures- Black and White Vegas

These three photos were taken on the plaza in front of the Bellagio Hotel. The Bellagio is famous for its water show-- loud music with coordinated jets of water shooting into the air. It's cheap entertainment, and draws a big crowd, some of which you see above.

If you can ignore the lights and traffic of Las Vegas Blvd, just a few feet away, you can sort of imagine you are hanging out near a pool in some fancy Italian garden on a warm summer evening. But, frankly, it's pretty hard to maintain the illusion for more than a few seconds.

Okay, I know this isn't actually black and white, but I'm thrilled with the way it turned out. These are folks strolling through the plaza with the streetlights casting some great shadows.

Thought for the Day

Something to keep in mind as the election season heats up over the next couple of weeks. This is courtesy of that noted political commentator Groucho Marx (1895-1977):

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble,
finding it everywhere, diagnosing it
incorrectly and applying the
wrong remedies."

Funny Scene

I got a lot of laughs out of the TV show Cheers over the years it was on (originally, and then again in syndication). I don't think any were bigger than those elicited by this classic scene, when regular Cliff Claven returned to the bar after a brief stay in the hospital:

Red Rocks

On our recent trip to Las Vegas, my friend Bill and I spent about half a day wandering around Red Rocks Canyon, just west of the city. Here are a few pictures I took while there.

There's some starkly beautiful landscapes in the park, which is mostly desert in the center, by ringed by the titular rocks, as seen in these shots. The interplay of light, shadow and color make it a great place to take pictures.

One of the interesting things about Red Rocks is that it is close enough tot he city that people bike out to ride its trails. We passed dozens of folks on their two wheelers as we drove out, but once we got there, it was easy to wander away from any crowds to just enjoy the natural wonders.

I'm still in the process of going through the hundreds of pictures I took on the trip. No doubt I'll eventually post some more from Red Rocks as I get a chance to review them all.

The Last Movie I Saw

I can trace my interest in film as something more than mere entertainment back to a series produced by the critic Richard Schickel for PBS back in the early seventies called The Men Who Made the Movies. In that series, Schickel interviewed a number of the greatest directors from Hollywood's Golden Age (a few of whom were still active at that time), including Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Raoul Walsh, John Ford, and several others. Each episode traced the course of one man's career, with plenty of clips and attention to the common themes that ran through their work. Later, I would learn this was an auteurist approach to the subject of movies; that is, a strong director, whether he actually wrote the script or not, exercised the greatest influence over how a film turned out and their work could be recognized by certain signature elements that were somewhat consistent from one project to the next. Not every filmmaker was an auteur, but those who were, were largely responsible for the greatest movies ever made. It's easy to see how such a series could emerge from the early seventies, as that was in many ways the second Golden Age of strong directors. Guys like Ford and Hawks made their reputations in the thirties and forties; the 1970s saw a younger generation of guys like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Bob Rafelson, and lots more reassert that strong directorial voice in the best films of their generation. Sadly, the movie industry has moved away from a system that promotes that level of artistry-- not totally, but in large measure-- and so today's auteurs, especially in relation to big budget studio projects as opposed to small independent features, are few and far between. One of the exceptions is David Fincher, the director of The Social Network and before that, movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Fight Club, and Seven. If you know those movies, you know that each features a character or characters struggling to figure out how they fit into a world that is largely alien to them. The Social Network, based on the story of the founding of the Facebook internet community, may be Fincher's definitive statement on that theme. What's most remarkable about the movie (and a mark of Fincher's other work) is how the strong characterizations propel the story forward. In this case, that's essential, since the narrative "action" revolves largely around guys sitting at a computer terminal and typing. Yet the film is nonetheless exciting, because Fincher has mastered the art of depicting the inherent tension and conflict that exists in so much interpersonal communication; or, in the absence of such communication, the even greater skill of visually depicting the internal struggles of his characters. It helps that he has access to talented actors like Jesse Eisenberg here, but the fact that these traits are in evidence across his body of work strongly suggests this as the defining characteristic Fincher's autuerism, as much as Frank Capra's commitment to homespun individualism or Hawks' to his characters focus on getting a job done (not their only traits, of course, but certainly among their strongest). It's gratifying to know that it is still possible for someone working in the mainstream to aspire to and actually create great movies that reflect such strong personal visions, no less than what we expect from a a great painter or novelist. I may have written this before (after seeing Benjamin Button), but Fincher has solidified his spot on my very short list of directors whose work I'll go see regardless of what it's about, since I know he's going to make it both compelling to watch and intellectually stimulating.

A Wednesday Quote

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, a contemporary of Shakespeare's (and one of the candidate's offered as the actual author of the latter's work). Here's something that he produced under his own name:

"He that gives good advice, builds with one
hand; he that gives good counsel and example,
builds with both; but he that gives good
admonition and bad example, builds with
one hand and pulls down with the other."

Boy, Do I Like This Song

When Sleater-Kinney broke up a few years ago it was a sad day for rock and roll. But now Corin Tucker has returned to recording after taking time off to raise her kid, and the results make the long wait seem almost worthwhile (Janet Weiss continues to make good music with Quasi, while Carrie Brownstein apparently has something coming out soon too). This is just one of my new favorites off the album 1,000 Years by the Corin Tucker Band:

Another Captain Renault Moment

I'm shocked-- shocked!-- to find out that another Tea Party gasbag is nothing but a sniveling hypocrite. Matt Taibbi reports on the details here.

A Classic Top Five

On this week's Dr. John's Record Shelf, we had no Top Five list (mainly because I only returned to Dillon a few hours before I went on the air and didn't have time to come up with something). The feature will return to the airwaves next week, but for the blog I thought I'd go ahead and share an old edition of the feature, which originally aired back in the late summer of 2008:

Today's Quote

Today's quotation is from the eminent art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), and relates to how tastes are often shaped by something other than aesthetic concerns. Funny that he picks on Raphael here, since Greenberg was most famous as an advocate of modern movements like abstract expressionism:

"One of the afflictions of art and of taste is the untruth you may tell yourself about the operations of your taste, or let's say, the results of your taste and the untruth you may tell to others. You're told that Raphael was a great painter and you can't see it yourself, but since you've been told it, you've read it everywhere and so forth, you look at a Raphael and you may look at a failed one and say, "well, it's got to be good because Raphael is so famous, the authorities say he's so good." That's one of the worst ways in which to begin or to continue looking at art."

Battle of the Bands Winner

Jethro Tull was one of the groups that will be moving on to Round 2 in the Battle of the Bands unfolding on Dr. John's Record Shelf. This is the song that helped them squeak by Thin Lizzy:

Some More Vegas Photos

I've been going down to Las Vegas once or twice a year for over a decade now, and I don't think I ever saw as many street musicians as on this last trip. I wonder if some local ordinances have changed, or if the casinos are looking for any kind of cheap entertainment to draw gamblers close.

The buskers were mostly on the walkways crossing the major streets (mainly Las Vegas Blvd.), and frankly, they did not seem to command much attention from those strolling past. I remember back in New York that many of these performers could draw a little crowd, but in Vegas they seemed as ignored as the Mexicans handing out strip club tickets.

By the way, all of these photos are of the "hip shot" variety, where I was just walking around with my compact snapping things without actually framing the shots. It's a real hit or miss way of taking pictures, but sometimes captures interesting composition and lighting that one would never employ consciously. Even though the percentage of good images is extremely low, it's a lot of fun, especially in a place as busy and active as Las Vegas, where everything is on the move.

Battle of the Bands Update

The Kinks

We had a double dose of Battle of the Band contests on Dr. John's Record Shelf last night, determining four groups that will advance to Round 2. The goal, you may recall, is to determine the greatest British (or Commonwealth) band of the era 1960 to 1974. The winners, all from the Empire Bracket were the Kinks (seeded no. 2), the Bee Gees (3), Jethro Tull (6), and Badfinger (7)-- all favorites in their respective match-ups.

The losers, in order, were the Creation (15), the Mindbenders (14), Thin Lizzy (11), and King Crimson (10). The only one of these matchups that was close was Tull over Lizzy by a 4-3 margin; the Bee Gees and Badfinger posted cofortable 5-2 margins; while the Kinks scored a perfect 7-0 victory. Here's the list of songs played this week: "Living in the Past" by Tull; "The Rocker" by Lizzy; "Lonely Days" by the Bee Gees; "A Groovy Kind of Love" by the Mindbenders; "Baby Blue" by Badfinger; "The Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson; "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks; "How Does It Feel to Feel" by the Creation.

These results mean that Jethro Tull will meet the Bee Gees, and the Kinks will meet Badfinger, in Round 2 sometime next Spring. As of this week, we are halfway through Round 1, which will finish up sometime before Christmas.

Badfinger

This week's winners join the Band, the Troggs, the Easybeats, Buffalo Springfield, Free, Manfred Mann, the Rolling Stones, Mott the Hoople, The Who, Sweet, the Moody Blues, and the Tremeloes in moving into the next round. If you'd like to cast a vote for upcoming pairings, you can find the full brackets here, here, here, and here (just leave a comment here with your selections-- you can vote for some or all of the pairs).

Monday's Quote

Here's some good advice from our old pal, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (6th Century BC):

"In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present."

Remember This One?

Here's a really great song by Graham Parker and the Rumour off their first album, Howlin' Wind. After hearing this one, I'm looking forward to digging out the album to hear the rest of that fabulous collection of songs, which I haven't listened to in quite some time.

First Vegas Pictures

Here's the first set of pictures I'll post from my recent visit to Las Vegas. We arrived, after driving all afternoon and evening, around 1:00 am. This meant that when we came over the hills north of the city, we were greeted with the somewhat stunning valley of lights that you see above. We stopped at the top of Las Vegas Boulevard and took a view shots like the one above-- the skyline of downtown in the distance, and the streaming rear lights of a passing car headed down to the city.

Our first stop in town was the Peppermill Restaurant, one of my favorite Vegas places. It's very garishly decorated, and the food is outstanding. I captured some of the decor in the reflection of the window above (including me taking the shot). I had a Lorraine Omelet which was just the first of several great meals while there.

After the Peppermill, Bill and I headed over to Bally's, where we set up our tripods in the plaza out front to get some night shots. Above you see the view looking across to what I always think of as the Barbary Coast, though the name changed some years back to something else.

Those palm trees sit in the mall that divides the Strip in front of the Bellagio. The red streak across the botton is actually passing traffic, rendered mostly invisible by keeping the shutter open for several seconds. That also makes the trees look particularly colorful.

I like this ghost effect on Bill. Since his camera was stable, sitting on his tripod, it looks really sharp, while he was moving a bit and comes off as a specter. This is my favorite picture of those I've looked over so far. More to come tomorrow, including perhaps a new favorite.

Sunday Funnies

It's been some time since I posted some of the great Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley strips. So here are a few.

This is one of those classic strips that creates a wonderful little world, populated by uniques and compelling characters. Last time I put a few of these up, I believe I focused on some of the more well-known characters like the Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang and the Powerful Katrinka.

This time, I'm going with some of the less well known denizens of Toonerville, like the Professor and Suitcase Simpson, though I had to include at least one with the Skipper.

Doesn't Toonerville come across as a place you'd like to visit, if only to see what other wonderfully odd folks inhabit the place?

A Sunday Quote

Today's word of wisdom come from the great British statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797). I wish those who advocate freedom above all else will keep this in mind:

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and
without virtue? It is the greatest of all
possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and
madness, without tuition or restraint."

On the Road Again

I'm off school for a few days and heading down to Las Vegas to enjoy some warm weather before winter hits, and to take some photographs. So posting here will likely be sparse (and probably nonexistent) until Sunday. Hopefully I'll have both images and stories a'plenty to share once I return, so check back in at the start of next week.

p.s.-- this will give you extra time to get guesses in on last week's quiz!

One of the Greats

Here's Van Morrison with a song from his masterpiece Astral Weeks. This is one where the video is merely the album cover, so you can close your ideas and just allow the music to wash over you. I doubt you'll be disappointed:

This Week's Top Five

What with the baseball playoffs, the start of the NHL season, and so forth, we were in an athletic frame of mind on Dr. John's Record Shelf this week. Hence, the topic of our Top Five List: