Fido the Yak

Back from where? Peregrinations, I guess. So what's up? I decided I needed to read Husserl's Cartesian Meditations before trying this phenomenology business at home, so I got a copy --thank you, Beth-- and I'm about halfway through it. Someday when I'm fabulously wealthy I'll buy the complete Husserliana for our local library. And the Analecta. And endow a chair at the university. Scholarships too. Well, stranger things have happened.

Politics has gotten on my last nerve, but I enjoyed listening the Grapple from the Apple, a debate over the Iraq war between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway. Both speakers made substantive points, if you want to hear them. I am partial to Hitchens and believe he made the stronger case.

The response to hurricane Katrina has been a little unneccessary. The red cross is very necessary. They accepted my donation. They will gladly accept yours.

I had wondered whether Bolton's laissez-faire attitude towards genocide could be taken as Bush administration policy. I guess so. Kristoff calls it the the axis of medieval. That about sums it up.

The Real Book version of Monk's "Criss Cross" is horrible. Somebody once published an accurate transcription of Monk playing it, which you can use to write up your own chart. Naturally the best way to learn it is to listen. I like the Blue Note version with Monk, Al McKibbon on bass, Art Blakey on drums, Sahib Shihab on alto sax, and Milt Jackson on vibes. It's the clearest statement of the tune on record, imho. Whatever you do, do not use the chart from the Real Book. Oh man, it stinks. It's just sad.

posted by Fido the Yak at 9:04 AM.