Carolyn and I spent last evening listening to one of the world's great jazz artists, Chick Corea. There's a certain beauty in watching someone do something — anything — about as well as it can be done. When the skill is playing great jazz piano, so much the better. His new trio includes bassist Avishai Cohen and drummer Jeff Ballard, both of whom are equally magnificent. They're at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood for a few more nights. If you're in the vicinity or if they wander near you, you'll find that there ain't nobody better.
And the Animation World Network website is currently serializing online, the autobiography of the prolific cartoon producer-director, Gene Deitch. They've recently put up several chapters having to do with the years wherein he ran the Terrytoons studio, which included the creation and supervision of Tom Terrific. To say it was probably the best thing that operation ever produced is a pretty feeble compliment…so let's say that it was one of the cleverest cartoons produced for TV at a time when there were a number of clever cartoons being produced for television. It was cheaply produced — transparent characters, one voice actor, and the entire musical score was provided by one harmonica — but it worked. Deitch doesn't tell as much about the production of the series as I'd have hoped but what's there is fascinating. It's especially worth a visit just to see Jules Feiffer's quickly-sketched storyboard for a never-produced sequence showing Tom T. as a bitter old man. (Feiffer worked on Tom Terrific and a few other Terrytoons projects of the day.) Here's a link to that chapter…or you can click here to read the whole book.
Some good may yet come of the whole Gary Condit/Chandra Levy potboiler. While many journalists have run amok with saturation coverage and "facts" of dubious accuracy, a few have demurred. This, of course, has given them less to write about…so they're writing about the press reporting and how sloppy it's been. Bob Somerby over at The Daily Howler continues to quote the journalists and pundits and point out how what they're reporting doesn't make sense and/or check out. At Salon, Joshua Micah Marshall is citing conflicting press reports (here's a direct link to his piece) and noting out how The New York Post is now standing by its story that Ms. Levy left a series of messages with Condit's private answering service in the last days before her disappearance…while Newsweek is standing by its story that she didn't. And at Slate, William Saletan is keeping a scorecard on how thoroughly — if, at all — various journalists retract a now-discredited story about Condit having an affair with a minister's daughter. Here's a direct link to Mr. Saletan's play-by-play account. Would that the more mainstream press engaged in more of this about themselves.
Those Wacky Websites: Well, someone has finally come up with a good and valuable use for the Internet. Check out www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com.
Nice article on our pal Stan Sakai and his creation, Usagi Yojimbo, in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Click here to go there. Aloha!