Music In, 2024, Batch 3

Featuring, some big collections from "black" female singers of the 1920s-1950s.

I was going to do a post of all the ("black") female singers I have discovered. I wondered, where are the "white" female singers?

OK, 1 of the 1st artists I discovered from the 1920s-1940s was Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985). I heard a song of hers ("would you like to take a walk") on NPR on the car radio waiting for someone at an airport. I remember the song from a Merry Melodies cartoon where a bear is singing the song trying to persuade prey animals to go for a walk with it (not in the video). I bought a CD of hers. I do 3 songs off of it:

1. "let's fall in love" 1933
2. "would you like to take a walk?" 1931
3. "i've got a feeling i'm falling", 1929

I think I read that she retired from music in the mid-late 1930s &, with her husband, purchased & managed an hotel in upstate New York. That's not in her wikipedia article, not sure where I got that from - probably the album notes. I gave the CD to my mother-in-law after I ripped it.

Interesting, "would you like to take a walk" was composed by Harry Warren, who had no playlist on the Jaz Dumoz YouTube channel. Turns out he wrote 5 of the songs in the Jaz Dumoz book. I have updated the metadata & given him the proper props. I did the same for a frequent lyricist of his Al Dubin.

Another "white" female singer, Ruth Etting (1896-1978), has furnished 2 intros to songs I do. She was played by Doris Day in the fictionalized biographical movie "Love Me or Leave Me", 1955. Songs we overlap on:

1. "all of me", 1931.
2. "whose honey are you?", 1935

I've run across Jo Stafford (1917-2008) too, but we seem to overlap on only 1 song, "i remember you", 1941.

A couple years ago, based on a recommendation of my friend & fellow performer Tom Cool (Yolton), I bought a couple of albums by Blossom Dearie (1924-2009), both reviewed in this blog. She was a great singer & pianist, but her singing style, very soprano and warbly, sadly approached being self-parody.

I think I was soured on "white" female early pop singers by Julie London (1926-2000). I loved her 1st album, "Julie Is Her Name", 1955 - I worked up "easy street" and "cry me a river" from that album - both hard songs, Barney Kessel guitar parts. But, I bought her 2nd album and her producers had had her do this very overly breathy ("sexy to somebody apparently") singing style, which I found very cheezy & offputting - it was way too close to self-parody. I'd forgotten about it, I was thinking about buying "Julie Is Her Name, Volume II", 1958, I listen to a track or 2, it is the breathy delivery, ugh.

She was a calendar/pinup girl during WWII. Also nurse Dixie McCall on the TV series "Emergency!", with her husband & arranger/ producer/ pianist/ songwriter (& composer of the song "(get your kicks on) route 66") Bobbie Troup, who played a doctor. Her 1st husband was Jack Webb of Dragnet & several equally execrable cop shows (and "Emergency!").

I've recently encountered some tune overlap with Peggy Lee (1920-2002) "i cover the waterfront". I think I might harvest some good tunes from her.

So when I do my post on early female pop singers, I will include all "races". I am undecided, should I mention the artist's "race"? The opportunies available to them were definitely affected by "race".

---

That certainly was a long aside. On to Batch 3:

• Lake Street Dive, "Good Together", 2024, 11 tracks, BandCamp. Nice tunes, a couple may be a bit trite, but, this band is now 20 YO, & most of the tracks work. The duets between lead singer Rachel Price & the keyboard player since 2017 Akie Bermiss definitely work. I liked "Seats at the Bar", this was my wife & my dining strategy for decades. We now follow the old folks' canon of going out to eat dinner at 5:00 pm.

  4 stars. This song is a bit of a stretch, but I could so hear Donna Summer singing it: "Dance With a Stranger".

• Asher White, "Home Constellation Study", 2024, 11 tracks, BandCamp. Very high & trebly vocals, very unthreatening. Catchy tunes, great beats. 4 stars. Here's "Theme From Leaving Philadelphia":

• Una Mae Carlisle And Her Jam Band, "Irresistable Masterpieces (Live)", 1944, 5 tracks. I am so enamored of Una Mae - she died of cancer, age 40, in 1956, I was 5 YO.

  In late 1932, Fats Waller moved his family to Cincinnati, so he could perform on clear channel radio station WLW, which pretty much reached coast to cost. For his 1932 christmas show, he recruited 17 YO singer/pianist Una Mae Carlisle, from nearby Xenia OH, who had won a talent contest. She became a regular on the show through 1933. Una Mae was a force of nature. She tried to steal my review of the 1st Fats Waller biography I read.

  I recorded my 1st Una Mae song December 16, 2024: "t'ain't yours", a snarky, feminist manifesto, FTW! Meanwhile, of these 5 tracks, 4 stars, I will be working up 4 ("hangover blues" didn't make the cut): "i would do anything for you", "love walked in", "mean to me", and the 1st track "don't try your jive on me":

• Pond, "The Weather", 2017, 11 tracks. Recommended by my young friend Chris Cooper. Australian, the co-band of Tame Impala, a definite fav of mine. A lot of the same sound == production values. I realized that their musical DNA probably goes back to Electric Light Orchestra by way of The Flaming Lips. I was concerned when the 1st track had kind of whiny glam rock vocals, but the vocals got better. 4 stars. Here's the title track.

• Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "High and High and Mighty", 2024, 2 (long) tracks, BandCamp. As much as I am fan of this Louisville favorite son, I could not get traction with these 2 very long songs. 2 stars.

• Criibaby, "when i'm alone i feel weightless", 2024, 12 songs, BandCamp. I was having trouble finding videos because I missed the "ii" in the name. One of those internet things, lots of "crybaby" and "cribaby". Very chill, high vocals over laid back instrumentals. The website states, gender neutral. I have 2 earlier EPs, this is the 1st LP. 4 stars. Here's the title tune.

• Allysha Joy, "the Making Of Silk", 2024, 11 tracks, BandCamp. Apparently her 2nd album, I blogged her 1st here. Neo-Motown from Melbourne, OZ, but more jazzy & world overtones. Very good stuff, 4 stars. Here's the 1st track, "your touch".

• "Ina Ray Hutton and her Melodears", eponymous, 1944, 24 tracks. Ina Ray Hutton was a female singer, tap dancer, and band leader. She led bands with male members, but this album is mostly her and her Melodears - an all-female big band. Weird, she sure looks "white", but her Wikipedia article says she was listed as "mulatto" in the 1920 census & as "negro" in the 1930 census. Whatever. She knows how to swing. She was married 5 times. 4 stars. Here's "truckin'" - note, this was really a popular song, I also have recordings of it by Fats Waller, Adelaide Hall, Duke Ellington featuring Ivie Anderson, & Jaz Dumoz.

• "Jelly's Last Jam", from the Broadway musical, which was a vehicle for Gregory Hines? 1992, 22 tracks. Reading Fats Waller biographies turned up some references to Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941), the New Orleans pianist who claims to have invented "jazz". This musical is somewhat of a biography, heavily themed around his denying he was "black" in favor of being "creole".

  Gawd, I so forgot how, for the last 4-5 decades, Broadway musicals have totally sucked. My wife & I were watching a movie about Bob Fosse which caused us to remember, we walked out of the theater 1/2-way through "Chicago" - we both got tired of waiting for a decent song. & we saw a production of "Hamilton" in Cincinnati, neither of us cared for it - so trite & formulaic. So, 2 stars for this album, & I will endeavor to remember, 0 love for Broadway musicals.

• Redeyes, "Slow", 2024, 11 tracks, BandCamp. I previously had 1 EP & 1 LP of theirs. Techno from Toulouse, France. This LP has lots of guest vocalists, a nice mix of tunes, all slow - the title was not a joke. 4 stars. Here's the last track, "Butterfly feat. Saint Harmony".

• James P. Johnson, "1921 - 1926 (Remastered)", 1926, 11 tracks. As I discovered in the 1st Fats Waller biography I read, James P. Johnson was Fats' mentor. He is considered "the father of Harlem stride piano". These songs are so easy to listen to. 4 stars. Although this blog has already linked to it, once again, here is his signature tune, "Carolina Shout":

• Kate Bollinger, "Songs From a Thousand Frames Of Mind", 2024, 11 tracks, BandCamp. It looks like I have 2 EPs of hers, this looks like her 1st LP. Laid back, dreamy female vocals over nice, catchy alternative rock tunes. I am, as always, a sucker for this stuff. Here's the cute 1st track, with what looks like the only "official video".

• Adelaide Hall, "A Centenary Celebration", 1945, 52 songs. I 1st encountered Hall in the Fats Waller biography: she brought Art Tatum to NYC as part of her band, where he blew away Fats Waller & his mentors James P. Johnson & Willie "The Lion" Smith.

  Her singing style is, soprano with LOTS of vibrato - warbly, maybe? So I load up these 2 CDs, start listening, the 1st 3 tracks ("creole love call", "this blues i love to sing", & "chicago stomp down") are all her scat singing in a soprano, warbly growl (with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1927-1928)?!?!? Somewhat reminiscent of a kazoo, which is definitely an instrument of which one needs only very small doses. I'm like, OMG, did I just buy 52 tracks of this? :-O

  But she does thereafter start singing more normally - if very high & warbly. Some of the songs are less warbly, & maybe more enjoyable to me.

  She moved to London in 1938 & never returned to the US. Included on these CDs are 2 tracks recorded in London in 1938 with her accompanied by Fats Waller on organ & smartass patter. She was definitely part of the crowd with which Fats hung out during his 1938 London soujourne.

  The album is historically interesting. There are BBC tracks in which she is introduced. There are a few short tracks recorded as promos for a German radio station.

  1 thing that was odd, she does "sophisticated lady", & does a 2nd verse & bridge with completly different lyrics than the canonical Ella / Sarah Vaughn version?!?!?

  So, 4 stars. Here's 1 of the tracks with Fats, "that old feeling":

  Quite a bit of music, FTW! Meanwhile, 12 albums in Q4 so far, 12 days left to go.

3.1

3.1 books read.

1st up, "Usurpation" by Sue Burke, 2024, 314 pages, 97k words. Book 3 of the Semiosis series. I enjoyed the other 2 OK, with some reservations. This 1 was a bit slow starting, then once it got moving, a 15 year jump to the future. The author says the pacing is odd due to the main narrator being a very long-lived, immobile, intelligent plant.

Next, our 0.1 book: "The Wood at Midwinter" by Susanna Clarke, 2024, 64 pages, 3k words, illustrated. A tiny, cute little story about a saintly girl whose best friends are dogs, a pig, and a woods. A very simple story, I completely forgot how it ended. So i took 10 minutes & read it again. At $10.99 for the eBook, not much of an entertainment value.

3rdly, "The Mercy of Gods" by James S. A. Corey, 2024, 385 pages, 119k words. Book 1 of The Captive's War series. Incredibly powerful aliens with various client races show up and overrun a human world, taking prisoners to see if a use can be found for humanity.

These guys write well, but I must take exception with some of the chapter endings early on.

Chapter 1:

Later, when he stood in the eye of a storm that burned a thousand worlds, he’d remember how it all started with Else Yannin’s hand on his arm and his need to give her a reason to keep it there.

Chapter 4:

Later, it would seem like a premonition.

I would characterize this as cheesy, heavy-handed foreshadowing. These guys are better writers than this. This is an editing failure. Both those sentences could be deleted & everyone would be better off for it.

Lastly, a novella set in the world of the previous story: "Livesuits" by James S. A. Corey, 2024, 70 pages, 21k words. A different take than the novel, with humans fighting back. It has a very "Starship Troopers" kind of feel. Kind of an "Oh no!" ending. I liked how these authors used these shorter works to flesh out their universe in The Expanse, I think this is a good technique.

Well as short as that last 1 was, the post title probably should have been "2.4" instead of "3.1".

IslandWalk Birds, 2023-2024 Season

The wood stork flew in, landed ~15' from the great egret, &
started walking toward it.
The great egret didn't want to hang & flew off.

My overall birdwatching strategy for IslandWalk is posted here. I have made that post kind of the home page for my Birdwatching in IslandWalk project, and will update it whenever I do a new post on IW Birding.

This is my 4th report, here are the 1st 3:

1. 2020-2021;
2. 2021-2022 - the 1st post chronologically, it contains discussions of things I found interesting about a lot of the species - 10 seasons worth;
3. 2022-2023.

For the 2023-2024 season, I was in IslandWalk October thru April, less 1 week in Martinique in February, & 2 weeks in KY in March.

I manually entered this season's data, 32 bird lists, in this spreadsheet. It doesn't take that long, and it gives me a good review of the data.

I will be reporting for all observed species the following 4 datapoints:

1. % of days seen;
2. total birds counted;
3. average;
4. max.

Here's the link to the IslandWalk hotspot at eBird.org.

Each bird name listed below is linked to its IslandWalk activity page in eBird.org. So click on the name, you will get a picture & all the data eBird has on that bird in IslandWalk.

Swimmers

I guess all are dabbling "ducks"? "Dabbling" === "stick your bill down in the water & swish it around & eat what you get from that" - as opposed to diving ducks.

• mottled duck: % days 100; tot 1334; avg 41.7; max 85.
• muscovy duck: % days 100; tot 169; avg 5.3; max 10.
• common gallinule: % days 100; tot 622; avg 19.4; max 31. After 1st being counted in IW by me 2020-04-02, their #s continue to grow. In the 32 bird lists, there were 5 where the gallinules outnumbered the mottled ducks. The gallinule seem to like the more numerous reeds we have now.
• american coot: % days 75; tot 146; avg 6.1; max 15. From a total count of 3 the prior season to 146 this season.

Divers

• pie-billed grebe: % days 88; tot 148; avg 5.3; max 14.
• hooded merganser: % days 31; tot 147; avg 14.7; max 36. They were here from late November to early February.
• lesser scaup: % days 31; tot 547; avg 54.7; max 94. We had quite a flock of these. They were on Lake #22 for quite a while, then spread to Lakes 24-29 for their last couple of weeks. They were here from the new year to early March.
• ring-necked duck: % days 6; tot 14; avg 7.0; max 10. 10 in early December, 4 in late January???
• double-crested cormorant: % days 91; tot 140; avg 4.8; max 12. No sign of a Cormorant Menace, yay!
• anhinga: % days 81; tot 93; avg 3.6; max 10.
• brown pelican: % days 41; tot 28; avg 2.2; max 4.
• belted kingfisher: % days 31; tot 10; avg 1.0; max 1. Their distinctive chitter is easy to recognize.

Waders

Wader numbers seem to be down in general. 1 theory I have is that the lakes have been so full. I think the waders prefer things more marshy.

• great egret: % days 97; tot 77; avg 2.5; max 4. No longer our most numerous wader.
• great blue heron: % days 41; tot 19; avg 1.5; max 2. Down from last season.
• snowy egret: % days 59; tot 54; avg 2.5; max 7. Down from last season. I last counted a snowy egret on 3/12.
• cattle egret: % days 0.
• tricolored heron: % days 91; tot 82; avg 2.8; max 7. Down from last season, but our most numerous wader this season.
• little blue heron: % days 88; tot 79; avg 2.8; max 11. Down slightly from last season.
• green heron: % days 16; tot 5; avg 1.0; max 1.
• wood stork: % days 6; tot 2; avg 1.0; max 1.
• white ibis: % days 97; tot 423; avg 13.6; max 41.
• glossy ibis: % days 72; tot 210; avg 9.1; max 44.
• limpkin: % days 22; tot 8; avg 1.1; max 2. Considerably fewer than last season.

Beach Birds

• killdeer: % days 0.
• black skimmer: % days 0.

Raptors

• osprey: % days 47; tot 16; avg 1.1; max 2.
• bald eagle: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• cooper's hawk: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• red-shouldered hawk: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• broad-winged hawk: % days 0.
• swallow-tailed kite: % days 0.
• loggerhead shrike: % days 88; tot 69; avg 2.5; max 7. 1 of my fav birds. Down a bit from last season.
• black vulture: % days 6; tot 2; avg 1.0; max 1.
• turkey vulture: % days 50; tot 31; avg 1.9; max 6.

Corvids

• fish crow: % days 81; tot 632; avg 24.3; max 76. I am increasingly thinking it is pointless to count crows. The proper caw goes out, 100 crows can gather in 30 seconds or so. Similarly, the vultures will show up in large numbers depending on the size of the fish kill. I created a formula column in the spreadsheet, = # birds - fish crows - black vultures - turkey vultures, I may play with that some.
• blue jay: % days 94; tot 376; avg 12.5; max 30.

Perching Birds (Passerines)

• mourning dove: % days 94; tot 198; avg 6.6; max 21.
• eurasian collared dove: % days 75; tot 75; avg 3.1; max 9.
• common ground dove: % days 0.
• rock pigeon: % days 0.
• common grackle: % days 96; tot 968; avg 38.7; max 70. Once again our most common passerine.
• boat-tailed grackle: % days 78; tot 86; avg 3.4; max 8.
• red-winged blackbird: % days 9; tot 7; avg 2.3; max 3.
• european starling: % days 9; tot 37; avg 12.3; max 32.
• northern mockingbird: % days 100; tot 744; avg 23.3; max 52.
• brown thrasher: % days 13; tot 5; avg 1.3; max 2. Quite a bit fewer than last season, but not a lot regardless.
• northern cardinal: % days 25; tot 10; avg 1.3; max 2.
• red-bellied woodpecker: % days 100, tot 303, avg 9.5, max 23. Up a little from last season.
• pileated woodpecker: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• downy woodpecker: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• northern flicker: % days 0.
• palm warbler: % days 81; tot 289; avg 11.1; max 35.
• black-and-white warbler: % days 0.
• yellow-throated warbler: % days 0.
• prairie warbler: % days 0.
• blue-gray gnatcatcher: % days 3; tot 2; avg 2.0; max 2.
• gray catbird: % days 0.
• american redstart: % days 0. NEW! I saw 2 of these 1 morning walking to town center. The orange patches made the ID easy.

Or Not

I really was intending to starting blogging books on a onesy basis. But, I'm in a period of serious baby-sitting, and after I finished novel #1, it was inconvenient to blog it. Versus, it was very easy to start another book. So, 3 novels and a novella, all very good.

1. "Polostan", by Neal Stephenson, 2024, 320 pages, 111k words. This is Volume 1 of "Bomb Light". I think we're going to get Stephenson's version of "Oppenheimer". This is totally a setup book - the origin story is 1st, rather than get us sucked in & then tell it as a flashback. The heroine of the story mostly grew up in Big Sky Country, working on a ranch that bred polo ponies - that was her mom's side of the family. Her dad meanwhile is a dedicated commie. Nothing says "dedicated commie" like

   For Papa was busy translating the Twenty-One Theses of the Second Congress of the Third International into English, to inform the proceedings of the Red International of Labor Unions, which was preparing an ideological offensive to cleanse its ranks of naïve anarcho-syndicalism.

   The family moves to Russia when she is ~5YO, when grown she speaks fluent, accentless English & Russian. Heading into the race to the A-bomb, & the following cold war, which side will she be on? We'll find out, I guess.

   We get Neils Bohr early on in the story, & our heroine's 1st lover in 1933 is a young New York Jew named Dick - Feynman maybe?

2. "Alien Clay", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2024, 375 pages, 116k words. Tchaikovsky likes prison novels - this is his 2nd or 3rd. Interesting interstellar travel technique, some very, very novel biology on the target prison planet - totally different system of "evolution". As always, a great read.

3. "Spill", by Cory Doctorow, 2024, 103 pages, 31k words. The Bard of the Revolution delivers, as always. This is at least the 4th Doctorow story featuring Marcus Yallow, gifted hacker. These stories are all about civil resistance to the powers that be, & are somewhat reference manuals on how to fight back against police brutality crowd suppression methods.

   Our heroes of the revolution in this story are Water Protectors, trying to stop the latest zombie revival of the Keystone Pipeline. A lot of them are Native Americans. I did not know this:

   Native people serve in the armed forces at five times the rate of the general population.

   Lots of false flag operations, lots of subversion of local law enforcement by corporate $$$, Capitalism FTL!

   The emotional content of this story is outstanding, I gave it 5 stars.

4. "The Naming Song", by Jedediah Berry, 2024, 501 pages, 155k words. This is only Berry's 2nd novel. I enjoyed the 1st, which came out in 2014. He also did a deck of cards telling a story of generations of a weird family living in a weird house, with associated audio with 52 different people reading each card's excerpt - it's surprisingly enjoyable.
   

   This latest I really enjoyed. Post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse has done some strange things. Very much a story about words. A most excellent read! Interesting characters, cards come into it, lots of action, great conclusion. I actually gave this story 5 stars, 2 in a row!

Still babysitting, ready to forge ahead ...

Ain't Misbehavin'

"Ain't Misbehavin'", subtitled "The Story of Fats Waller", by Ed Kirkeby in collaboration with Duncan P. Schiedt and Sinclair Traill, 1966, 248 pages. Trade paperback.

• 17 chapters. I think the 1st 13 chapters were mostly written by the collaborators in 3rd person. Then Ed Kirkeby takes over (when he becomes Fats' manager in 1938) and the last 4 chapters are written with him in 1st person;
• 16 pages of photos - nice! A large % of the people mentioned have a pic;
• 16 page listing of "The Music of Thomas "Fats" Waller; A Selective Discography by the "Storyville Team""; very comprehensive, & includes all personnel.

My review/precis of "Fats Waller" by his son Maurice listed the date of this book - the Kirkeby book - as 1975, gotten from ??? Meanwhile, the copyright in this soft cover trade paperback is 1966 - 11 years before Maurice Waller's 1977 book. Overall, I think Maurice's is the better piece of work. This 1 seems to get bogged down a couple of times~2x.

Ed Kirkeby (1891-1978) was Fats Waller's manager from 1938 until Fats' death in 1943. He 1st met Fats in 1935 as an A&R man for RCA Victor. Kirkeby was also a musician, band-leader, lyricist, and record producer. Fats' career had been greatly aided by Phil Ponce, his prior manager, but by 1937 or so Phil was getting old & was having health issues, so a new manager was needed, and Kirkeby got the gig.

Like the 1st Fats bio I posted about, I'm just gonna make a bulleted list of new things I found interesting.

• In London in 1938, Fats hung out & performed with Adelaide Hall, who had brought Art Tatum to New York. He also hung out with his old friend Spencer Williams, and ... Django Reinhart! No mention if Fats & Django played together.

• In Chapter 16, it's mentioned that Fats insisted on accompanying Maxine Sullivan at the Famous Door on 52nd St. in New York. I discovered Maxine's music working up "keepin' out of mischief now" - she had a nice intro for the song. I got 24 tracks of her music, & she does several other Fats' songs as well.

• Cab Calloway (1907-1994) was a buddy of Fats.

• Kirkeby's story of Fats' run-in with Una Mae Carlisle when he was supposed to be delivering tickets says that she was in the hospital. I wanted to review this, but I couldn't find it skimming [missing an eBook] :-(

• Kirkeby tells a completely different story of Fats' Jan 14, 1942 Carnegie Hall concert:

  This was the very first time a solo jazz artist had played Carnegie Hall, and Fats really came into his own. The reviews were terrific, and Fats got a tremendous ovation from the capacity crowd of 2,800 enthisiasts who jammed the hall.

  ??? Quite a different tale than the other bio. Saving face, maybe? I skimmed the 3rd bio I have looking for a tie-breaker, couldn't find mention of the Carnegie Hall concert. [Gawdammit, I miss my eBooks! I love books, but, it is much harder to create these reviews/precis from hardcopy books.]

• Kirkeby was white, & he numerous times expresses his outrage at Jim Crow and segregation problems Fats' band had on the road, not just in the South, but in the North & the mid-West as well.

• Finally, the most important new factiod! A FFTKAT!

  During prohibition, like most folks Fats drank bathtub gin. Post-Volstead, Fats drank Old Grand-Dad bourbon. Being from KY, my primary liquor is necessarily bourbon. I stock Maker's Mark, a top-shelf wheated bourbon. My dad was a (cheap) bourbon drinker, I remember Old Crow, which I tried recently. Maybe Old Grand-Dad too?

  Somewhere in Kirkeby's narrative, he mentions Fats drinking 100 proof Old Grand-Dad. I'm thinking, that's not right.

  Meanwhile, my bourbon-drinking mind wants to try the Old Granddad. &, if it's good, & cheaper than Maker's, maybe I'll stock it? To channel Fats? [LOL]

  So I look for it in Total Wine (which has incredible pricing on Maker's Mark, buy 2 1.75l bottles for $37.99/each. Incredible! Liquor Barn in Lexington is at $47.99). They have 1.75l of 86 proof Old Grand-Dad for maybe $30? I don't remember, because what caught my eye was a 1/5 of 100 proof for $32.99. Here's a pic on my liquor shelf.

  

  It's actually been moved to my freezer. Very good on the rocks.

  Note the spelling too. I had it as Granddad, the label is clearly GRAND-DAD !

  Channeling Fats ...

Well, 2 down 1 to go. The newer bio by an English author appears to be organized rather differently than these 1st 2. I think it will be a while before I get to it.

Oops! I Forgot

Back in April, I titled a book review post "Before I Forget" and said I was going to make that my new catchphrase.

Well, I waited too long, & I did forget 1 of the books I had read since the last book review post. Oops.

I think I will start doing 1 post/book, even if it is just science fiction, after I get caught up here.

1. "The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 3", edited by Neil Clarke, 2018, 816 pages, 252k words, 26 stories. I like that in his intro Clarke gives us the source of the stories (10 from online magazines, 6 from print magazines, and 10 from anthologies), and the size breakdown (2 novellas, 11 novelettes, 13 short stories). The stories are high quality. There was 1 standout story, by Rich Larson. It definitely smacks you upside the head, very violent, kind of John Wick-ish.

2. "Binti: The Complete Trilogy", by Nnedi Okorafor, 2019, 368 pages, 113k words. Actually a 2015 novella & 2017 & 2018 novels. I believe these won numerous awards. A young woman of a small tribe gets a chance to attend the best college in the galaxy offworld. The plotting is good, it went fast. The main character is engaging, and teaches us about the traditional Himba culture, including otjize: a butterfat & ochre clay mix that the Himba (increasingly mostly women) cover themselves with, including their hair. It protects against UV, IR, & insects, & acts as a cleansing agent, bringing dead skin with it as it dries & flakes off.

3. "The Best Science Fiction of the Year", Volume 4, edited by Neil Clarke, 2019, 818 pages, 253k words, 29 stories.
   Source breakdown: 11 from online magazines, 6 from print magazines, 11 from anthologies, 1 from collections;
   Size breakdown: 3 novellas, 8 novelettes, 18 short stories.

   I really went quite a way before any story jumped out at me. I think this may be short story fatigue setting in. There was a good Hannu Rajaniemi story I had read before. Then 3rd from last, an excellent story by Ken Liu. A cautionary tale re cryptocurrencies. Next, Rich Larson, a really nicely odd story whose protagonist is the only uplifted chimpanzee in existence, who of course works as a police detective. And finally, a Carolyn Ives Gilman story, very hard sci-fi, featuring life forms who only wake up & live when there are copious quanties of x- & gamma-rays present.

So I think no more short stories for a while. I started a 2nd Fats Waller biography, plus my friend David has already started reading the new Neal Stephenson novel, so I want to get to that.

"DeFi today is a circular speculative economy"

[Note, DeFi === Decentralized Finance: cryptocurrencies, NFTs, coins, etc.]

I think I did a pretty good rant analysis of "AI" BS, the newest unnecessary waste of energy, in my post "Bullshit All The Way Down".

I need to vent & do the same for crypto.

!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

F#cking losers. Making $$$, so what, destroying the planet. Seriously, making $$$, providing 0 real value, wasting petajoules, either make it illegal or tax it out of existence.

What are my feelings about the immediately previous & ongoing bubble/grift, cryptocurrency?

Blockchain is an interesting technology. Bitcoin as a v0.5 POC (Proof Of Concept) for blockchain, maybe. But, we're 15 years in, this whole marketplace has not really found any useful applications. Bitcoin-based transactions are slow & expensive, & always will be. Ransoms, blackmail, criminal activities are currently their main use?

And NEVER FORGET, "proof of work"-based crypto systems are an environmental disaster. Sadly, McSweeney's had a parody PSA from the Department of Energy, thanking people for turning things off & down & savimg energy - to be squandered by AI & crypto.

I threatened promised this late July in a comment when I shared a Doctorow post on "The largest campaign finance violation in US history". This is Must-Read. Seriously, read the Doctorow article, give it a week to sink in, then come back & read my meager effort.

Welcome to the wild & woolie world of cryptocurrency! Spoiler alert! Largest campaign finance violator was Coinbase, a crypto exchange.

Vitalik Buterin, Mr. Ethereum, might be the only person in the crypto world that I kinda respect. The title of this post is a quote from Buterin. I think I read early summer where he said something similar. I am interpreting this to mean,

This whole BS DeFi is just us buying each others speculative virtual tokens & trying to figure out how to suck the general public into our scam.

He looks like a Dostoyevsky character, how can I not trust him?!?!? LOL!

[Note. I think my name may be on a patent, via Exstream Software, from ~2007, for Intelligent Documents, which I think is pretty much what the Smart Contracts (?) of Ethereum are. That patent would have passed from HP to OpenText.
I've thought about that since then, always concluded, smart => code => how confident are you in your testing of that code? You are sending it out into the cold, harsh world to represent your interests. I think the concept is fraught with peril.
LOL, I used that phrase, "fraught with peril", on some presentation on VAX/VMS system services I gave somewhere/early 80s, the attendees greatly liked the term ;->]

1 of my main sources of info is via my RSS Reader, NewsBlur - very reasonably priced. I am currently subscribed to 230 RSS feeds/blogs.

2-3 years agp, I subscribed to the feed of Coindesk. It is 1 of the biggest info hubs for crypto. It posts prolificly: I'd estimate 1-3 dozen stories/day. I seldom read stories, but, I scan headlines, every day, w/o fail. I will leave a random sample below in an appendix.

You kind of learn the cast of criminals. 1 or 2 women only. You recognize several recurring themes:

• Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency may or may not be correlated to outside economic factors.
• Whale investors must be carefully analyzed. Whaleomancy is a discipline fraught with peril!
• Fraudsters steal billions from gullible crypto investors.
• Cryptocurrency thought leaders love The Orange Turd, because he endorses them, because, grifters gonna grift.
• It is all pretty much completely speculative investing. Pump & dump, all that good stuff.
• Cryptocurrencies are going up & going down, hitting & missing targets, absolute & relative to each other. Bull & bear markets - so they have completely achieved a viable market - as long as they can keep pulling new suckers in.
  This type of finance is always to some extent a Ponzi scheme. I had a period when I was younger & ignorant when I invested in a lot of dividend stocks - which tended to be VCs. Every year or so, you would get hit up for an additional investment, to "keep the liquidity optimal".
• Sector leaders & founders are charged with fraud; go to jail; & get out of jail. I joked on twitter:

  The crypto industry is showing signs of maturity. The founders are starting to get out of prison.

One theme you don't see very often: somebody actually using this stuff to accomplish something useful! But, in the Appendix below, the CoinDesk headlines of Friday, Oct 11, there is actually such a post: "DePIN Promises Small Business Innovation in Emerging Markets"!

I think the whole thing is similar to derivative investiments. Ah, I found it - this post of mine references a study that states that the value of derivative investments is 5-10x all other forms of money put together. Man, all this stuff needs to be taxed at a 90% rate. No, 99%. It should be taxed out of existence. But, start at 50%, over 5-10 years raise to 99%. Let the grifters get some of their profits out, because ... ... ???

The tax rate should be determined by, how much did this transaction benefit the common wealth, versus being rent-seeking or some such other economic parasite. If I'm buying groceries, tax rate low or 0%. If I'm paying a "convenience fee" on my phone or whatever, tax rate 90% on the rentier.

As with all bubbles, it will pop. The question then is, as Doctorow examined in depth, what survives after the bubble pops? In the various web bubbles, lots of great web infrastructure & platforms were left behind. And bitcoin mining has created huge server farms, hopefully some of which were designed to minimize environmental impact. Already, as bitcoin mining becomes more expensive, miners are shifting their server farms to "AI" support. So "compute-intensive-grift-1" readily transforms into "compute-intensive-grift-2". Really sad. But, people are making money & growing the economy, so, it's all OK! Capitalism, FTL!

In David Graeber's "Debt: the 1st 5000 Years", Graeber posits that this eternal boom/bust cycle makes capitalism overall apocalyptic - the bubble will burst; Rome will fall. & with that, comes cynicism? nihilism?

No, it creates Moneyism: the only thing that matters is making money. Aka Financialization: the late stage capitalism insanity currently causing so many problems in the world, like the 'vacuum up, cash out, load w debt, sell off' VC-backed operations that are decimating so many small, medium, & large service industries. Doctorow has been all over this. This blog previously discussed financialization here, "Postcapitalism", by Paul Mason, a Brit.

Today, 2024-10-12, Doctorow teed off on crypto again. I should hurry up & get done here.

Meanwhile, f#cking crypto-bros are going all in for the Orange Turd for president, because, grifters hang together, &, grifters gonna grift. Great, yeah, there should be a federal cryptocurrency reserve. Holy f#ck, that is a Orange Turd level grift, you've conned the US of A into keeping a Scrooge McDuck treasure trove of your worthless Beanie Babies cryptocurrencies!

So, what happens next? Orange Turd reelection would greatly hearten the crypto-bros, including the sons, Beavis Fredo & Butt-Head Fredo, who now have their own crypto bank! Oooh, I smell a grift! How many months until it's bankrupt?

LOL, my wife just sent me this excellent article on Drumpft Crime Family crypto plans. Their visionary will be the youngest Drumpft brother, who, I am sadly really afraid, may be the grifter anti-christ. His dad is the greatest grifter in history - he grifted the POTUS job, FFS! & his mother is an incredible grifter, look at all the crap she has for sale!

Oof, I'm as bad as the xtians! I'm getting the youngest Drumpft bro as Mordred, & his mom Melanoma as Morgana, in "Excalibur". ?!?!?

Crap, he speaks fluent Slovenian w his mom & her parents. Orange Turd is only capable of grunting in Slovenian. Baby bro also speaks french. Je parle le francais aussi. :(

Phew! Gawd! Thinking about the Drumpfts wears me out! Enuf for now!

Meanwhile, (BLUE WAVE!!!), on the other hand, if rule-of-law prevails (BLUE WAVE!!!), I think the right thing to do would be to outlaw anything that exceeds an energy/transaction limit. Prolly won't happen, next up, tax the hell out of it. Start at 50%, work up to 99%.

I think the tax rate should be based on, how useful to everyone is this energy use? We all have to live with the externalities - pollution & climate change - we should all have a say in how the planets sustainable energy budget is allocated.

Is this a new concept? Voting weighted by how much each person is affected by an externality? In voting based on externalities, poor folk should get at least 10x the votes of rich folk. Rich folk can insulate themselves from the easy climate problems. Ecological "sacrifice zones" are almost always in "black & tan" neighborhoods. I certainly will vote 0% for crypto, & maybe 5% for "AI" (LLMs).

Appendix

Here are the headlines from the Coindesk RSS feed for yesterday, Friday, 2024-10-11. I highlighted 2 headlines.

1. 12:43am Trump-Themed PoliFi Tokens Buck Bitcoin Downtrend as China Stimulus Hopes Return
2. 05:24am Former FTX Customer Sues Hedge Fund, Says It Reneged on Bankruptcy Payout Deal
3. 05:54am Binance Executive Tigran Gambaryan Denied Bail in Nigeria
4. 06:41am Bitnomial Exchange Sues U.S. SEC, Alleging Regulatory Overreach
5. 07:13am Bitcoin on Track for Record Sideways Action, With Eyes on November Elections as Bullish Catalyst
6. 08:01am First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Trims Thursday's Inflation-Led Losses
7. 09:28am CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: RENDER jumps 6.5%, With All Index Constituents Rising
8. 10:27am DePIN Promises Small Business Innovation in Emerging Markets
9. 10:58am FTX's Salame Hoped Dog Bite Would Delay Prison, But Tucker Carlson Derailed Effort [LOL!}
10. 11:04am Mt. Gox Postpones Repayment Deadline to 2025, Allaying Concerns of Bitcoin Selling Pressure
11. 11:26am [Opinion] Has Ethereum Lost Its Way?
12. 12:13pm Scroll Airdrop Allocation Met With Dismay From Farmers
13. 01:12pm Arkham's Token Soars 16% on Report Sam Altman-Backed Crypto Firm Plans Derivatives Exchange
14. 02:48pm Trump-Supported World Liberty Financial Will Start Public Token Sale Next Week
15. 05:27pm Bitcoin Bounces 7% Above $63K as Crypto Traders Eye China Stimulus Statement

The 2 highlights:

1. #8, bolded - a claim to an sctual real world use!!! There are SO few of these.
2. #13, italicized - "Derivatives Exchange". They've got themselves a market ecosystem here, hell yeah, derivatives!!! Is the derivative of "worthless" "worthless"?

p.s. Beanie Babies! Beanie Babies! Beanie Babies! None of the crypto-bros look old enough to remember Beanie Babies! Better jump in, don't be left behind, fortunes are being made!

Well, at least you got cute little stuffed doggies, vs a # in a wallet on your phone, which hopefully won't get hacked & taken. Or maybe you got a fabulous NFT of a bored chimp! Kudos! [Sarcasm]

I'm definitely getting too old for such aggregious BS!