Michael Van Lane

This is what I want for Xmas.

Jimmy Scott is an easy hang, and these two albums are reviewed by Will Friedwald in his book on great vocal albums, but I’ve never met a Scott album I didn't like.

My friends freaked out when I played The Source for them because that voice does not present as male.

Larry Norman, the original Christian rocker, writes songs that are less about the Gospel’s message of relief from and easement of suffering, and more about manipulation by withholding love.

He was the master of negging for the Lord.

Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here, published in 1935, reflects almost exactly the current American political experience.

I’m surprised it isn't mentioned more.

Fabulous album! It sets a day up for success.

I don’t know much about Peggy Lee. I have a few of her records, including this gem from 1956 (reissued in 2020).

Will Friedwald reviews (praises, loves) it on page 214 of his book Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums.

One of the comments: “Holy crap if he does this and two more he's a saint.”

From reading the article, it’s not clear to me how the reforms “disband” Opus Dei.

A comment in the source material supported Opus Dei but said any reform that separates it from Christian Nationalism is welcome.

I’m slowly developing a weird crush on MTG.

What is happening to me?! This is worse than puberty.

I’m struck by the similarities between QAnon and the Bolsheviks.

The House of Government is changing my POV of the Russian Revolution and the Soviets. It’s no wonder the world’s leftists broke with the USSR.

QAnon is just so depressing, I want to throw myself off the edge of the flat earth.

No one today remembers Dick Haymes, but he was a big thing once upon a time. His 1956 album Rain or Shine is a classic cigarette-and-whiskey-on-the-rocks crooner.

It is reviewed in Will Friedwald’s book Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums.

I believe I have some choices available to me when it comes to eyeglasses.

The Cambridge Street Record Club met last night, had dinner and wine, chatted, discussed, and listened to vinyl until 3:30 AM. These are some of the records we listened to and some of the books we discussed.

I rewatched Annie Hall to acknowledge Diane Keaton’s death, and that film has not aged well.

It’s 90% cringe.

This may be the saddest album ever recorded (Dennis Wilson has a contender in that category).

June Christy’s Something Cool is the song of a lonely, anxious, broken woman in a bar looking for love.

The album is brilliant reviewed on page 50 of Will Friedwald’s book of great vocal albums.

What a great photo!

I love this album so much. Recorded in 1953, it features a mature Fred Astaire covering the song catalogue he made famous over his very long career.

Astaire is the quintessence of charm

Norman Granz pulled together an amazing band for this project.

Reviewed on page 11 of Friedwald’s book.

Ribbit!

LOL.

I’m reminded of that frog in a top hat and cane in that cartoon.

Give her an Emmy too!

Louis Armstrong meets Oscar Peterson is reviewed on page 3 of Will Friedwald’s The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums.

During COVID, Stanley Park was closed primarily because of emboldened coyotes. Predators like coyotes often nip at potential prey, like humans. These are called exploratory bites.

Today someone asked where are we at in fascism?

I suggested we are at the exploratory bite phase of fascism.

I always feel like an adult listening to Nat ‘King’ Cole.

St. Louis Blues, W.C Handy songs by Cole, is reviewed on page 76 of Will Friedwald’s book.

Will Friedwald’s The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums is a great tour of some of (almost entirely) American vocal albums. He writes about music with intelligence and taste.

I have at least half of the albums he lists.

This is a reminder that the Chair has one vote in Federal Reserve policy decisions and that the candidates must be drawn from sitting members of the board.

I’ve resigned myself to living in interesting times, but I don’t think I’ll stay sane if the US Federal Reserve system collapses.

Starting my (long) day with a sip of tea and Debussy. I am reminded of Max Ferguson’s memoir story of the radio station he worked at as a teen, which filed L’Apres Midi in the Spoken Word section next to Bambi.

“Slezkine’s thesis is provocative: Bolshevism was a millenarian religious cult. The early revolutionaries behaved like Puritans or apocalyptic sectarians — convinced they were living at the turning point of history. Their “promised land” was socialism; their scriptures were Marx and Lenin.”

World’s first mushroom-powered toilet debuts at UBC Tucked away in a forest in the University of B.C.’s Botanical Garden, a first-of-its-kind toilet is ready to turn human waste into nutrient-rich compost using the power of mushrooms.

This is the kind of shit I want to hear about your these days.

www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

Listened to Althea Raj’s podcast about the New Democratic Party leadership race.

Sigh.

I might start using heroin to get through the coming days.

Watching it, all those years ago, I kept superimposing images of Gregory Peck’s Mengele into the story of To Kill A Mockingbird. “The Aryan race, Scout, must remain pure.”

The film is meh. The novel is better.

I am wistful for the yesterdays when Nazis were the bad guys, though.