JACK Report: Mixed with a little Swedish

JACK is hip. Somebody at the University of Oregon mixed some excerpts of JACK with Komeda, a Swedish pop/indie band. It sounds cool.

Crockhead Report: I Survived Ebertfest

Some day soon, I will blog about my experiences at the 12th annual Roger Ebert Film Festival in our town last weekend. I promise. I'm still recovering from sleep deprivation. In the meantime, if you are a fan of JACK Quartet, or are wondering what they sound like,WNYC is streaming them live this afternoon at 2:30 EDT, 1:30 CDT. Unfortunately, I will be on the road and unable to listen. Let me know if you listened and what you think.

JACK Report: "Mind-Blowingly Good"

I have been telling anyone who would listen that the JACK Quartet is going to blow LA's mind (minds?) when they hear the concerts they were doing last night and tonight. I was right. Here is the review from today's LA Times. I am unabashedly, unashamedly proud. These young men are going places. (The photo was taken through night vision glasses of Kevin McFarland, the cellist, by LA Times photographer Gary Friedman)

JACK Report: Darkness in LA

As I have previously reported, JACK has two sold out concerts in Los Angeles last night and tonight. I've been breathlessly waiting for reviews. The first one is up now at this link. It's a very perceptive review.

Prove You're Not An Idiot, Mayor Schweighart

This is a video of the mayor of my city at a Tea Party rally on Thursday. He is a retired police officer and should know better than to say something this stupid.



In today's local newspaper, the Mayor defended himself by saying that he was asked for and gave his opinion. As The Wife has pointed out, whether President Obama is a citizen is not an opinion, it's a question of fact. Mayor Schweighart can't produce his original birth certificate either, it's in the custody of the Champaign County Clerk and will stay there no matter what Mayor Schweighart does. The only thing the mayor can do is the same thing Obama did; produce a copy.

So, here's my opinion, Mayor Schweighart. You're an idiot. Until you produce the original IQ test showing you're not, you're not qualified to be mayor of my city.

Here's a tongue-in-cheek YouTube video produced by someone making essentially the same point.

You Were Right, Professor Allen

The announcement this week of the retirement of John Paul Stephens from the United States Supreme Court brought to mind a Messiah concert I attended at the University of Michigan the first Sunday in December, 1974. I was brought up in a family with no knowledge, indeed, scorn, of classical music. My in-laws, however, loved classical music and had made it a family tradition to make the two and one-half hour trek every December from Bay Port to Ann Arbor to hear Handel's Messiah.

In December, 1994, I was in my first semester of law school at the University of Michigan and was taking a criminal law course under the legendary Francis A. Allen, a former dean of the law school, author of a definitive textbook on criminal law and principal author of the Illinois Criminal Code of 1961. I discovered as the concert was getting started that we were sitting directly in front of Professor Allen.

I was a shy, young student, awed by the professors and my peers at the law school, intimidated from opening my mouth in class. So, all through the first part of the Messiah, I worried about Professor Allen sitting behind me. He probably didn't even know me, I was in a large section of about 100 students and he had three sections of first year students; I had never been called upon or spoken in his class and he would probably never know the difference if I just pretended I didn't know who he was and ignored him. On the other hand, he was very bright and what if he did recognize me and would be offended if I didn't speak to him.

When intermission came and everyone stood up to stretch, I bravely turned around, offered my hand, introduced myself and told him I was in one of his first year criminal law sections. He was very gracious, didn't act like I was a stranger, but it quickly became awkward standing there facing each other with nothing really to say to each other, but unable to walk away.

Out of the blue, Professor Allen started talking about John Paul Stephens, whom Gerald Ford had just nominated for the Supreme Court. There was concern in the legal community because he would replace Justice William O. Douglas, who had established himself as the leading liberal, probably of all time, on the court. Would Ford's pick, a relatively unknown Republican, undermine all the good work the Warren court had done in the area of privacy, civil rights and criminal rights? Professor Allen had spent time in Chicago, teaching at Northwestern and the University of Chicago and knew Mr. Stephens. I don't remember exactly what was said in our conversation, but I have a distinct memory of Professor Allen saying, "He's going to be all right."

It's ironic to now hear the media regularly refer to Mr. Justice Stephens as a liberal. He is not a liberal in the mode of Justice Douglas, and he made several rulings with which I disagree. He is a common sense moderate, however, who did not allow partisanship to enter into his decisions. His denunciation of the five Republicans on the court, who stopped the Florida recount in 2000 and ordered George W. Bush installed as president, because continuing the recount would undermine his "credibility," makes him a hero, no matter how much I disagreed on other issues.

You were right, Professor Allen. Mr. Justice Stephens turned out all right.

Son Report: "A Performance For The Ages"

Regular readers know I am never shy about letting you know when reviewers say nice things about Son Number Two's performances with JACK Quartet. In fact, it's probably getting a little old -- at least for Son Number Two. He never lets me know about these things; I have engaged a private investigator, Mr. Google, to relentlessly search the internet and send me an email when it finds something of interest. Last night, I could not believe my eyes at what Mr. Google sent me.

Son Number Two regularly does gigs with other musical groups besides JACK. Sunday, he played with a group called Ne(x)tworks. They did a piece by Morton Feldman, his String Quartet No. 2, which is made up of one movement running six hours long. It was done without any breaks, for musicians or audience, in a new space, Issue Project Room. The Wife and I listened to the performance, which was streamed live on the internet, and it was very listenable music. While SNT was playing, we listened, ate lunch, read the newspaper, went to the hardware store and worked in the yard. I talked with Son Number Two Sunday night after the performance. Although he had water with him, he didn't drink any until after the performance. He told me the problem for him was not getting thirsty or needing to use the bathroom but fatigue. His arms and shoulders were hurting by the time he got finished. (So, you probably think, as I did, he now has a week or two to recuperate. No, he played with a different group Monday night; is scheduled to play with another group tonight; with JACK in New York on Thursday night; then he flies with JACK to California for performances Saturday night, Monday night and Tuesday night. The Monday night performance is sold out.)

So, this is what Mr. Google sent me. A review in the New York Times by Steve Smith in which he concludes that this was "a performance for the ages."  Now that is high praise for any performer, particularly for one just 26 years old.  Did I say I'm proud of my son?

JACK Report: Another New York Times Review

It's time for the monthly New York Times review of JACK. This is the one in today's paper on page C-3. No pictures of JACK, alas.

JACK Report: SOLD OUT

Who says the public doesn't like new music? I see JACK's LA debut on April 19th is SOLD OUT! And it's not like tickets are cheap -- at least by Midwestern standards. They're $27 a pop. Don't despair, people on the West Coast. There are still tickets available for the April 20 performance.

Amish "Bombshell" Breaks Up Sandra Bullock's Marriage

Okay, the world is crazy, but this is the craziest thing I've heard in a long time. If you don't follow the tabloids (I don't either, but I still found this out) you may not realize that Sandra Bullock, who just won an Oscar for The Blind Side, learned this week that her husband, Jesse James, is cheating on her with a tattoo model, Michelle "Bombshell" McGee.

Among other salacious details from Bombshell McGee is that she grew up Amish, left the church when she was 16 and her parents won't speak to her. (You don't say!) Who knows how much if her story is true, but if she really did grow up Amish, you can be sure that her real name isn't "Michelle McGee." But then who is going to pay to see a tattoo model named Amanda Yoder?



I guess if Amish can grow up to be lawyers, then why not sluts?

Obscure Fact: Dylan Wrote A Song About My Town

I was skeptical at first, when a friend posted on Facebook that the great Bob Dylan co-wrote a song about Champaign in 1969 with Carl Perkins. I'm a Dylan fan and I had never heard of it. But my friend, Google, found this excerpt from a book by Clinton Heylin, which confirms it. Apparently he never recorded it, and when he was here for the first Farm Aid concert in September, 1985 (where I was present,) he didn't sing it. I particularly like the first lines:

I got a woman in Morocco
I got a woman in Spain
Woman that done stole my heart,
She lives up in Champaign

Here is a Youtube video of Carl Perkins singing the song, with some great photos taken around the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. Cool.

JACK Report: Get Your Lawyers on This!!!

I'll bet you're wondering what has been happening to the JACK Quartet (actually, you're probably wondering whether I haven't been reading any good books or seeing any good movies lately. I have. Reports will come in due time. Or not.)
Last week, the New York Times had another rave review of JACK, accompanied with a four column picture. To just pick out a few random blurbs: "young, hip JACK Quartet"; "this brilliant ensemble"; "viscerally exciting"; "eclectic thoughtful program"; "riveting performance"; "a tour de force of intensity and color."

The reviewer comments that he previously heard JACK perform in black t-shirts, but the performance last week was in suits and ties and that the Quartet proved it can do both. That review has been widely reprinted, not just because it was about JACK, but because it is by the New York Times.

Now, lo and behold, some internet t-shirt purveyor in the United Kingdom is using the quartet to sell t-shirts -- not JACK t-shirts, just t-shirts in general. The ad quotes the review as saying the Quartet is comfortable in either t-shirts or suits, and then goes on to basically say, "you too can be comfortable. Buy a t-shirt from us." Take a look at the ad, it's weird.

JACK Report: The New Yorker Takes Notice

If you're a subscriber to The New Yorker (and why would anyone not be?) don't miss the article on pages 78 and 79 of this week's issue by Alex Ross entitled "The Singular Iannis Xenakis." (There's no point in posting a link because you have to be a subscriber to read it.) In the course of the article Ross describes the "JACK Quartet's howlingly beautiful rendition of 'Tetras' (1983) at the Morgan Library earlier this month."

The article concludes by saying, "Xenakis once announced that he sought 'a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect.' If these performances didn't quite achieve that transcendent goal, they came exhilaratingly close."

As I have stated before on these pages, the importance to my son and his JACK cohorts of being noticed by media like The New Yorker goes far beyond the one million actual subscribers to the magazine and other media like The New York Times. They are cultural arbiters. When they say a group or performance is fine, other critics pick up the refrain and their opinion is amplified. Whether justified or not, that is the way the world works and it is so gratifing to see my son, the grandson of an Amishman who had never heard of The New Yorker, benefit from it.

Book Report: Pat Conroy Has Run Out of Ideas

When Book-of-the-Month Club offered Pat Conroy's latest book, South of Broad, I eagerly ordered it. Conroy has written some great books: Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, Prince of Tides, The Water Is Wide, but he has not had any new books for several years.
It didn't take too many pages to figure out that this book isn't the end of Pat Conroy's dry spell. He is just repeating the same books he has been writing, except now the overbearing father with a fanatical allegiance to an authoritarian organization, the Citadel, is an overbearing mother with a fanatical devotion to the Roman Catholic church. The good guy basketball coach is now the good guy football coach. The token black is back; the narrator is still the wise-cracking hero who goes through harrowing adventures before everything turns out all right in the end.
Conroy has always had a penchant for melodramatic plotting, but this one is so over-the-top that it is not remotely believable. Conroy never met a superlative he didn't like. Everything and everyone is the best, the most beautiful, the smartest, the most talented, the worst criminal in the history of mankind. Average people and ordinary events don't exist in Pat Conroy's world.
Conroy still knows how to turn a good phrase. But his writing talent is wasted in this book. Even if you're a Conroy fan, particularly if you're a Conroy fan, don't bother to see how the mighty have fallen by wasting your time on this book. I gave it two stars out of five.

An Excerpt of What the Parents Are Up Against Tonight

Opera Cabal has a video which it calls a trailer, but is actually a seven-minute excerpt of the opera, UW, which we're going to Chicago to see. Although only a small part of the video, there is a great deal of tennis-ball-throwing-against-the-sheet action. Parents will do anything for their children.