Using vanilla install of 5.1.x on Ubuntu and Windows with Polish translation.
Left column (as marked on the screenshot below) is not wide enough to hold all the controls - some of them are completely invisible (ie icon theme drop down list), the rest is partially cut off. The invisible controls are still accessible (I think) by changing the focus with TAB key, but they're still unusable because you can't see what you're doing.
Here's the screenshot: link text (I'm sorry, I don't have enough points to upload the file).
Other tabs and sections in this window don't seem to suffer this issue. This one sticks out to me as the first thing I'm always doing after the fresh install is to change the fugly default icon theme to sifr.
I can't do that now because the option isn't there.
Also "still" version (5.0.5) doesn't have this problem.
I have plea. If some of you knows how to properly file a bug, please, report this one.


The NB16T SE version is the next generation of the standard NB16T, upgraded with a two speed automatic gearbox, tough aluminum shock absorbers and aluminum shock tower. It also comes fully loaded with racing ball bearings throughout instead of the standard metal bearings found in most models.
The NB16T SE boasts the high build quality of all Acme models with a strong alloy chassis, shaft driven 4WD system and sealed radio compartments. These nitro radio controlled cars come fully built with radio control included. Just add fuel and a glow start and prepare for some serious driving fun.


text:
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"Pottie Wars" – Coming to Your Area Soon?
By Compete Network
By Connie Wardman
Just as some LGBT civil rights issues such as ending homophobia in sports, same-sex marriage and job protection are gaining positive traction these days, a new issue now becomes the rallying cry for those who want to "protect" the public from alleged LGBT "perversion."
There is now a push to legislate public bathroom usage so that transgender individuals can use only the bathroom that corresponds to the gender listed on their original birth certificate. Now, more than ever, transphobia is raising its ugly head.
This is a national issue with a local impact. And read "local" as "a pottie bill may be coming to your locale soon" because as soon as it passes in one area, it will be used as the legal precedent by other communities wanting to follow suit.
This is an important issue for the entire LGBT community but especially for transgender athletes. Even if you aren't transgender, please pay attention. There are any number of transgender athletes who compete in their sports of choice not only within their local areas but who also travel to other geographic locales for tournaments and their associated events. The public restrooms they use may be in a locker room at a gym, at a ball field or arena, or at a hotel, bar, restaurant or other public place. While the issue is a national one, its everyday impact will affect happenings in your local area and mine.
This push to legislate bathroom usage has cropped up in several U.S. communities but perhaps nowhere with as much political drive behind it as in Phoenix, the sixth-largest city in the U.S. that up until this past February has offered little protection for gay people. While the bill has been pulled for this year, it's certainly not "flushed" away – it will come back again next year according to its sponsor, Arizona Republican Representative John Kavanagh.
Here's how it played out this year. What came first was a vote on an updated discrimination law. In what was called one of the most contentious city council meetings Phoenix has ever had, the discrimination law (which had only included protection based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age and marital status) was finally amended to include a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
About the same time, Kavanagh had sponsored Arizona Senate Bill (SB) 1045, making it a crime for transgender citizens to use a public bathroom that didn't correspond to their sex at birth. A transgender individual violating this would have faced a class one misdemeanor that carried with it penalties of up to six months in jail and a fine of $2,500. Kavanagh said his bill was intended to protect innocent children from exposure to "naked men in women's locker rooms and showers."
After meeting a wall of resistance from transgender advocacy groups, Kavanagh did a radical rewrite on the bill that eventually became known as the "bathroom bill," or more creatively termed by news.yahoo.com as "No Loo For You!" The new version removed legal action against transgender citizens using the restroom of their identifying gender. Instead, business owners were absolved from prosecution – those who banned transgender individuals from using their establishment's public restroom not matching their birth sex would be protected, free from civil or criminal liability for their discrimination.
Referring to the amendment that had just expanded Phoenix's non-discrimination law, Kavanagh told the NY Daily News that "What I'm doing [with the SB 1045] is pre-empting these cities from prosecuting businesses that say they want separate [facilities]. I'm basically resetting the clock to before Phoenix passed the law."
It's bad enough when some elected officials push legislation without realizing the legal and human implications of what they're proposing, but Kavanagh most assuredly knows what he is doing. According to his member page for the Arizona State Legislature website, with a 20-year career as a police officer for the New York Port Authority and the New Jersey police department, he is now a criminal justice professor at Scottsdale Community College and director of the school's Administration of Justice Studies and Forensic Science Program. A military veteran, he also has a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Rutgers and a master's degree in government from St. John's University in Queens, New York as well as a bachelor's degree from New York University in liberal arts.
Kavanagh knows exactly what he is doing. He is using legislation to discriminate against transgender citizens based on his inaccurate view of the transgender community. Prejudice is an ugly word. When you break it down it really means making a judgment without necessarily considering all the known facts. In his own words, Kavanagh is protecting innocents from "naked men in women's locker rooms and showers." English translation: he's willfully choosing to discriminate against a class of citizens who already have very little legal protection. If his bill passes next year it will definitely serve as the legal precedent for other governing bodies to do the same.
While it's certainly possible in his law enforcement career that Kavanagh has come across a few male perverts, it appears that he has mentally labeled them all as being transgender without ever bothering to learn what being a transgender individual is all about.
If you read any of the language of his bill, it assumes that any transgender person who knowingly enters and uses a restroom that does not correspond to his or her birth sex is doing so only for perverted reasons. There is no understanding or acknowledgement on Kavanagh's part that individuals who are being treated for hormone therapy and other treatments are expected to begin their transgender transition process by living as their preferred gender in public, generally for a year.
Lumping all transgendered citizens into his personal "pervert" category, he apparently believes that the true danger zone is women's bathrooms as opposed to men's bathrooms because that is where he believes transgender males-to-females will expose themselves to a child. Although given the recent action of conservative activist Dan Joseph of the right-wing Media Research Center who last month posted a video to YouTube, entitled "The Transgender Bathroom-Locker Room Question," maybe Kavanagh's response shouldn't be so surprising. Dan Joseph pic here
In the video he himself filmed with students at a Virginia university campus, Joseph asked if they would be ready to share bathrooms and changing rooms with transgender individuals. Clearly trying to elicit negative responses from them, he said, "You mean like a guy who just wants to see some naked chicks going 'Oh, I'm transgendered and I need to go to the girls locker room?'" When a student responded with "exactly," Joseph followed by saying, "I mean, that's what I would do."
Although Joseph has tarred himself and other heterosexual males with the "pervert" brush rather than trangendered citizens as Kavanagh has done, this is simply another illustration of how far people are willing to go to defend their erroneous assumptions-turned-beliefs without ever trying to learn what the true issues are about. It prevents positive action to find a meaningful and equitable resolution for all concerned.
Kavanagh's obvious prejudice against transgendered individuals is easily revealed when you realize that people who believe with all their hearts and souls that they've been born into the wrong body don't revel in the "wrong" body parts that they were assigned at birth. Many with the financial means have sexual reassignment surgery so their physical bodies can finally match who they truly are emotionally. But by using this rallying cry of protecting children from perverts exposing themselves, Kavanagh and others like him, those who are already prejudiced by fear of what they don't know and/or understand, push legislation based on emotion rather than justice.
Molly Lenore, Compete's 2012 Inspiring Athlete of the Year, is a male-to-female transgender individual. As an athlete, particularly a die-hard football player who travels to out-of-town tournaments regularly, I asked her if she had experienced any difficulties with this. She replied that "I haven't had to really deal with it myself, but I do remember that before I 'officially' transitioned, when I was using the men's bathroom but looking pretty much like I do today, guys would walk in the bathroom, see me and run out, assuming they were in the wrong bathroom." Molly Lenore pic here
The good news for Phoenix is that this legislation won't be in effect this year when the National Gay Flag Football League (NGFFL) returns to Phoenix in October for the thirteen annual Gay Bowl. But it's not dead – it's going to be voted on again next year. And if Phoenix and the rest of the state of Arizona decide to discriminate against transgender individuals, they should start mentally deducting the money from its tourism coffers that events like the Gay Bowl bring to the area.
City and state leadership should have learned that lesson on prejudice from a two-decade struggle due to the state of Arizona's refusal to acknowledge the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Begun in 1986, the first year the holiday was celebrated across the U.S., it finally ended when the state's voters approved it in 1992. It lost Phoenix untold millions of dollars in cancelled conventions and other large events, the tipping point being the NFL's decision to relocate the 1993 Super Bowl from planned Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe to Pasadena, California.
I asked Molly if is she sees a way to resolve this emotional issue for the good of all involved. Without hysterical rhetoric fueling the question, the simple solution according to Molly is to have Kavanagh "put on a dress for a week and use the public restroom that corresponds to the gender listed on his birth certificate. I think he might have a slightly different outlook … assuming he could handle the verbal and possible physical abuse." I couldn't agree more! What about you?
Palm Beach Beckons
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News about Charles Cullen, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.
Charles Cullen, the former hospital nurse who admitted killing at least 29 of his patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has donated a kidney to a male relative of a former girlfriend, Mr. Cullen's lawyer said.
A judge in Somerset County Superior Court signed an order on Thursday that would allow the convicted serial killer Charles Cullen to donate one of his kidneys as long as he and his doctors met a new series of conditions, including providing a guarantee that the recipient's insurance would pay all costs. The order leaves in question when the transplant could take place. Mr. Cullen's lawyer said on Friday that he was concerned that New Jersey officials might yet try to ''sabotage'' his client's effort to donate the organ.
Charles Cullen, a lonely, sneaky nurse who pleaded guilty to killing 29 patients and told authorities he may have killed many more, was sentenced on Thursday to 11 consecutive life terms, with no hope for parole for 397 years. Families of his victims had waited years for this: to stand in court and lash out at the man who ranked as one of the most elusive serial killers in the country and had caused them so much pain. But if they were looking for any hint of a reaction from Mr. Cullen, any sense of remorse or even recognition of what he had put them through, they left disappointed.
The convicted serial killer Charles Cullen abruptly dropped his resistance on Friday to appear at his sentencing next week, and in response, the judge in the case said that he ''stands ready to help'' Mr. Cullen fulfill his wish to donate a kidney to an ailing friend. The agreement appears to end months of maneuvering that kept putting off the long-awaited sentencing of Mr. Cullen, a New Jersey nurse who has pleaded guilty to killing 29 patients, usually by sneaking into their hospital rooms at night and injecting them with high doses of drugs.
A carefully constructed deal between the authorities and the convicted serial killer Charles Cullen to allow him to donate a kidney to a friend in exchange for showing up at his own sentencing has fallen apart, his lawyer said yesterday. The authorities had hoped this month to sentence Mr. Cullen, a former nurse who has confessed to murdering up to 40 patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Many relatives of his victims have been waiting for the day they can face him in court.
The New Jersey nurse who confessed to killing 29 people and has spent nearly two years cooperating with investigators decided abruptly on Tuesday that he would no longer help them. The nurse, Charles Cullen, 45, was so upset about his sentencing being canceled last week that he is pulling out of a carefully constructed plea deal in which he had agreed to help identify his victims in exchange for not facing the death penalty, his lawyer, Johnnie Mask, said.
A former nurse who pleaded guilty to killing 29 patients at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has received permission to donate a kidney to an acquaintance in New York, as long as he first appears at his own sentencing. The ex-nurse, Charles Cullen, 45, has been in prison for two years but will not be formally sentenced until next month.
Charles Cullen, the former nurse who pleaded guilty last month to the murders of 13 New Jersey hospital patients in Somerset County, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to three more murders during his employment at a hospital in Warren County in 1993, bringing the number of confirmed deaths he caused to 16 in New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania. According to Johnnie Mask, Mr. Cullen's lawyer, he will continue to cooperate with prosecutors of five other counties -- three in New Jersey and two in Pennsylvania -- to identify as many as 40 patients, by his count, whom he killed while employed as a nurse in those states from 1987 until last year.
Charles Cullen, the former nurse who pleaded guilty last month to the murders of 13 New Jersey hospital patients, has confessed to another, the Warren County prosecutor said yesterday. The prosecutor, Thomas S. Ferguson, said the confession came Thursday at a meeting between his staff and Mr. Cullen. The meeting was arranged to discuss open investigations into the deaths of several people at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg during the time Mr. Cullen worked there, from February 1992 to December 1993.
It was the hospital that finally stopped Charles Cullen, but now Somerset Medical Center is in the eye of a legal storm. Mr. Cullen, one of the worst mass murderers in New Jersey's history, confessed that he had murdered 13 patients at the hospital, and had attempted to murder two more.
The victims were young and old, recovering and dying. They left behind sons and daughters and mothers and fathers, some unsuspecting and others highly suspicious that a nurse named Charles Cullen had done something terribly wrong. Tears lined those relatives' faces on Thursday as Mr. Cullen coolly recounted in a small courtroom how and when he had killed their loved ones. Some were pleased to finally see the nurse brought to justice. Others were frustrated that the proceedings did not reveal his motivation.
It took less than 10 minutes in the county courthouse for Charles Cullen, the former nurse, to confirm committing the most recent murders in a quiet rampage through hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the past decade. Answering with a simple, emotionless ''Yes,'' Mr. Cullen again and again admitted intentionally killing a total of at least 14 patients. He did not elaborate or grimace, apologize or smile.
Prosecutors in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are nearing a plea agreement with a former nurse, Charles Cullen, under which he would be spared the death penalty, plead guilty in 14 patients' deaths and help investigators identify his other victims, law enforcement officials said. Mr. Cullen has claimed to have killed more than 30 patients. The officials said that under the deal, which was sent Monday to prosecutors in the seven counties where Mr. Cullen worked in his 16-year career, he would also help legislators and government regulators strengthen the oversight of the health care system by explaining how he managed to work for years even after he was fired repeatedly and was suspected more than once in the poisoning of patients.
An article on Dec. 13 about Charles Cullen, a nurse suspected of having killed more than a dozen patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, misstated one aspect of an earlier investigation of him in Pennsylvania. (The error also occurred on Dec. 19.) A report about Mr. Cullen was indeed made to the Pennsylvania State Nursing Board, although board officials are not allowed to discuss the details. Both the Pennsylvania State Police and one of his employers, St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa., said they filed reports. It is incorrect that no report was filed. St. Luke's officials notified The Times this month about the errors.
Charles Cullen, the nurse who has confessed to killing 30 to 40 people during his 16-year career in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was charged Monday with criminal homicide in the 1998 death of an elderly man in his care, the authorities said. Mr. Cullen, 44, who also faces a count of murder and a count of attempted murder in New Jersey, was charged in the death of Ottomar A. Schramm, a 78-year-old retired Bethlehem Steel worker who died in a hospital here where he was being treated after choking on food.
In Nurse's Confession, Agonizing Echoes For Kieran Greene of North Babylon on Long Island, the recent news that a hospital nurse had confessed to killing as many as 40 patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania ''brought a pit to the stomach,'' as he described it. It is not that one of Mr. Greene's relatives or friends was a victim of the nurse, Charles Cullen, whose lawyers are reported to be trying to reach a plea deal with prosecutors. But Mr. Greene's father died at the hands of another homicidal nurse in the New York region, Richard Angelo, above, who in 1989 was convicted of killing four patients at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip two years earlier.


the retention of the remainder of 455CL, retitled "Yuen Long combined wholesale food market - road and bridge works" in Category B.
We need to carry out site formation works in area 12 of Yuen Long in order to be able to provide land for the development of a combined wholesale food market.
2.	The Director of Territory Development (DTD), with the support of the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, proposes to upgrade part of 455CL to Category A at an estimated cost of $31.9 million in money-of-the-day (MOD) prices for carrying out site formation works in area 12 of Yuen Long for the development of a combined wholesale food market.
construction of the associated drainage works.
4.	The part of the project we now propose to upgrade to Category A comprises the works described in paragraphs 3(a) and 3(c) above.
5.	For many years, vegetable farmers in Yuen Long have marketed their fresh produce in the early morning along the kerbside of Hop Yick Road, Kin Tak Street and Hop Choi Street in Yuen Long. In recent years, wholesalers of vegetables grown in Shenzhen have also made use of this ad hoc assembly market to sell their produce. More traders, transport operators and workers are attracted to the market as its throughput increased and the hours of operation extended in recent years.
6.	The early morning assembly market has now become a large scale roadside vegetable wholesale market. Surveys carried out by the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries (D of A&F) in 1996 showed that the average daily throughput of the market was around 150 tonnes, representing about 11% of the vegetable consumed in Hong Kong. 69% of the throughput was marketed retail and consumed in Northwest New Territories.
7.	The existence of such a wholesale market in the existing venue is incompatible with the residential and commercial use of the surrounding areas due to noise, traffic congestion and hygiene problems caused by the large scale wholesale market activities. The existence of this kerbside wholesale market has been the subject of frequent complaints from nearby residents for many years. There is also an indication that the wholesale activities will proliferate further if the issue is not properly addressed.
8.	To eliminate the traffic and environmental problems arising from the kerbside wholesale market and to retain the economic value of the market activities, D of A&F proposes to build a wholesale food market in area 12 of Yuen Long to replace the existing kerbside wholesale market. The proposed market would provide efficient and up-to-standard facilities for the wholesale activities which contribute substantially to the sale of vegetable consumed in Hong Kong, especially in the Northwest New Territories region.
9.	The Director of Architectural Services (D Arch S) plans to commence the building works in November 1998 for completion in December 1999. To tie in with this building programme, we need to start the site formation works in March 1998 for completion in phases from November 1998 to March 1999.
Due to insufficient in-house resources, DTD proposes to engage consultants to supervise the proposed works. A breakdown by man months of the estimate for the consultants?fees is at the Enclosure.
12.	We have derived the MOD estimate on the basis of the Government's forecast of trend labour and construction prices for the period 1997 to 2001. We will tender the works under a standard remeasurement contract because the quantity of earthwork may vary according to the actual ground conditions. The contract will not provide for inflation adjustment as the contract period will not exceed 21 months.
13.	We estimate the annually recurrent expenditure of the project to be $111,600.
14.	We consulted the Environmental Improvement Committee of Yuen Long District Board on the proposed works in March 1994. The Committee supported the project and urged the Government for early implementation of the project.
15.	The Director of Environmental Protection has assessed the potential environmental implications of the proposed wholesale market and concluded that, with the implementation of suitable mitigation measures, the proposed wholesale market will not have long term environmental impact. D Arch S will review the measures to be adopted for the construction and operation of the market at the detailed design stage. For the site formation works, we will set out in the works contract the requirement of implementing mitigation measures during the works period to control dust, noise and site run-off nuisance to within the established standards and guidelines.
16.	We will resume 76 private agricultural lots, with a total area of about 2.5 hectares. The land resumption will necessitate removal of 11 households involving 32 people. The Director of Housing will offer to rehouse these families to pubic housing in accordance with the existing policy. We will charge the cost of land acquisition and clearance, estimated at $170 million, to Head 701-Land Acquisition.
17.	We upgraded 455CL to Category B in January 1996.
18.	We subsequently engaged consultants to undertake investigation and design for the proposed site formation, road and bridge works, and charged the cost of $3.0 million to the block allocation Subhead 7100CX "New towns and urban area works, studies and investigations for items in Category D of the Public Works Programme" The consultants have completed the detailed design and drawings for the site formation works.
19.	We plan to start the site formation works in March 1998 for completion in phases from November 1998 to March 1999. We will hand over the formed site for the wholesale food market to D Arch S in phases from November 1998 to March 1999 for construction of the market under 46FS which was upgraded to Category B in June 1996.
20.	We plan to implement the remaining road and bridge works in December 1998 for completion in December 1999.
2.	The figures given above are based on estimates prepared by the Director of Territory Development. The consultancy works for this project will be included as part of the overall consultancy agreement for the development in Yuen Long District.


This is the second post on the shisa of Okinawa.
All of these photos wre taken at Okinawa World, a "theme park" in the south of the main island.
Arashima Hachimangu is located right on Route 9. Hachiman is usually a trio of kami, Homuda Wake, the name of Emperor Ojin, is usually the primary, and the other two being taken from his mother, Jingu, his father, Chuai, or his wife, Himegami. Unusually this one lists Homuda Wake, Jingu, and Takeuchi Sukune, who was Jingu's minister.
It is a direct branch of the Usa Hachimangu. Almost two thirds of Hachimangu nationwide are branches of Iwashimizu. Like all the other shrine in this area there was a Zuijinmon which also had a pair of nice wooden komainu.
Again, like all the other shrines in the area there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami in the region that hardly gets a mention in any sources on Shinto as it is neither national nor imperial. Represented as a rope snake, in my neighboring area the name is different, but it is just as prevalent and important.
There are several outcroppings of smooth, rounded rock in the grounds. The smaller one has a hokora to Sumiyoshi in a small hole carved into it.
The larger one has steps carved into it that leads up to an Inari Shrine.
Whereas hemp had and has many uses in ritual and ceremony as well as medicine in traditional Japan, its main use was as fibre, and that was one of the main focuses of the matsuri.
All morning a very tall steamer had a fire burning under it.
By lunchtime the stems of the plant were ready and removed and placed in the stream to cool down.
After a short while everyone collected some stalks and began peeling off the outer skin, something surprisingly easy to do.
I has presumed that it was the whole stalk of the plant that was used to make fibre, so was surprised to learn that it was just the thin bark. The strips of fibre were then scraped with a bamboo scraper to remove the vestiges of "stickiness", and that about it. We now all had a small amount of one of the best fibres in the world.
It could be used to weave, or could be used to make a gohei, a purification wand used by Shinto priests, pictured below.
Last weekend went to the second Annual Hemp Festival up in the mountains near Chizu, Tottori. The festival was organized by a small, local hemp farm to showcase the second most important plant in ancient Japan.
The day was kicked off by a purification ceremony by a Yamabushi from Mount Fuji.
There were lots of stalls selling clothing made from hemp, probably its most important use in ancient Japan. There were also demonstrations of extracting oil from hemp seeds and a small loom where visitors could try their hand at weaving with hemp.
The folks from the Hemp Car Project arrived in a bus powered by hemp oil. There were about three hundred people there, mostly younger people who have moved into the rural areas of Japan and practice a more sustainable lifestyle. There were lots of young children. The Mayor of Chizu gave a speech and suggested that he may be naming Chizu "Hemp Town" in the future. I met an old guy from Hiroshima who told me about a Shinto Sect shrine in central Hiroshima that has links with hemp. In return I was able to tell him about the Hemp Mountain and Hemp Shrine near our home.
There were stall selling other hemp products, and several example of traditional hemp products including some bell ropes from Kyoto and a Gohei, a purification wand used by Shinto priests. Throughout the day musicians performed.
As at any other festival in Japan there were plenty of food stalls including some vegan offerings. I settled for a Wild Boar Burger even though I have been eating a lot of boar this week. 600 yen a pop for a hemp beer from Germany was a bit too pricey for me but the brand name is kind of clever.
Hashima ( or Hajima) Shrine is located on a small rounded hill among the rice paddies just outside Yasugi town center, just off Route 9. The hill is called Gongenyama, and until the Meiji Period the shrine was called Daigongen Shrine. Gongen are/were Buddhist manifestations in kami form.
Like all the shrines in this area of eastern Izumo there was a Zuijinmon ans a nice pair of unpainted Zuijin. At the base of the hill was a stone carved with the name of Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Sun Buddha who was the identity of Amaterasu for a thousand years. However the kami now listed for the shrine are Onamuchi, the Yamato name for Okuninushi, and his "sidekick" Sukunahikona. The Gongen for Okuninushi was Yakushi Nyorai.
There were a couple of smaller shrines in the grounds, an Inari, one to Konohanasakuya, the wife of Ninigi most often equated with Mt. Fuji, and an Oyamagi Shrine.
Like all the shrines in this region there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami of all. Every shrine has at least one Kojin altar, often more.
By lunchtime of my first day walking across the Kunisaki Peninsula I was approaching the foothills and the valley I was going to follow up to the center of the peninsula. In the middle of the rice paddies in a small village east of Bungo Takeda I came across this Yasaka Shrine.
Being a branch of the famous Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto, and formerly known as Gionsha, it enshrines Susano as well as various members of his "family" Like most of the shrines I'd visited today there was a carpet of golden gingko leaves.
There was a small secondary shrine in the grounds but there was no sign so I could not find out which kami was enshrined there.
For the ninth day of the Izumo Kannon Pilgrimage I started out in Yasugi. Now I head back West. Today I will not get to a visit any of the pilgrimage temples.
I will, however, be visiting lots of shrines. This area was where the provincial government of ancient Izumo was based, and also home to some of the earliest of the myths of Japan.
I will be following the route of the Sanin-do, the ancient imperial highway that linked the region to the capital. It is generally believed to be the least travelled of all the ancient routes. Nowadays Route 9 follows its route, though I hope to be spending a lot of time off the busy road and on side roads.
The route takes along the southern edge of the Nakaumi, marked as a lake on maps but actually a shallow lagoon.
On my second day of walking along the Akinada Islands I was on the southern coast of Osaki Shimojima heading towards Mitarai.
The road around the northern coast looked on the map to be busier, plus the view would be towards the mainland.
Here on the southern coast there was no traffic and the views were out into the Inland Sea and across to Shikoku.
This part of the island is known as a breeding ground for a species of migratory cormorant. Othere than one small village there is nothing else along the coast except citrus orchards clinging precariously to the steep slopes.
After leaving Kiyomizudera I headed for Unjuji, what I believed to be the next temple on the Izumo Kannon Pilgrimage. When I studied the route and guide I saw a temple marked at the approximate location of Unjuji, and as Unjuji was a pretty big temple and on the Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage I didn't read closely enough. Temple 22 is actually a small temple about 600 meters away, so technically I have not yet finished the pilgrimage until I go back and visit the proper temple 22.
When I've been to Unjuji before I have seen pilgrims there, as can be attested by the photo above of the Kannon-do.
There are a lot of small statues scattered around the grounds, and a very fine gate. The temple was founded in 1322 and belongs to the Rinzai Zen sect.
The most interesting thing at the temple though is a bronze bell that is somewhere between 1000 to 1300 years old. Its a Korean bell, more specifically from Silla, the country that unified the Korean Peninsula in the late 7th Century. During the "colonial" period of Japanese rule over Korea in the first half of the 20th Century much was looted from there, and Korean bells were one of the objects apparently prized. Also, of course, much was looted from Korea by Hideyoshis armies in the 16th Century. Why the bell, and others like it throughout Japan, have not been returned is a mystery to me. Some historians believe this particular bell is one of the oldest of its style in existence.
There is a fascinating article here that discusses the meaning of Korean Bells, and the Unjuju Bell, in relation to a pre-Buddhist "Goddess" religion of East Asia. The author is also pretty scathing in her criticism of how Japan portrays Korean history.
The Museum of Art in Onomichi, Hiroshima, is located on top of the mountain overlooking the town and the nearby islands.
It was designed by world-famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and while the combination of modern glass and steel with the traditional curved roof is interesting, it is in my opinion not one of his better designs.
The museum hosts various changing exhibitions and has a cafe with great views.
It is possible to drive up, but the easiest way is to take the Senkoji Ropeway. The museum is a few minbutes walk from the mountaintop station.
It's open from 9 to 5 and is closed on Mondays.


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Organization Design looks at how you need to change the ways your organization does things in order to increase productivity, performance, and profit. Providing the knowledge and method to handle the kind of recurring organisational change that all businesses face, those which do not involve transforming the entire enterprise but which necessitate significant change at the business unit, divisional, functional, facility or local levels. The problem lies in knowing what needs to change and how to change it. Taking the organisation as a designed system, it describes four major elements of organizations: the work - the basic tasks to be done by the organisation and its parts, the people - characteristics of individuals in the organization, formal organization - structures eg the organisation hierarchy, processes, and methods that are formally created to get individuals to perform tasks, informal organization - emerging arrangements including variations to the norm, processes, and relationships, commonly described as the culture or 'the way we do things round here'. The way these four elements relate, combine and interact affects productivity, performance and profit. Most books on this subject target a wide management audience rather than HR, this is specifically written for HR practitioners and line managers working together to achieve the goal. It clarifies why and how organisations need to be in a state of readiness to design or redesign and emphasises that people as well as business processes must be part of design considerations.


This study examines a Korean children's community-based chorus within the US context. Through an in-depth examination of group musical activities and interviews of Korean early childhood educators and Korean immigrant parents within the sociocultural framework, this study makes visible the meanings of engaging in a community-based children's musical experience. Findings indicate that both groups of early childhood educators and Korean parents found that engaging in a community-based chorus provided developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive experiences for young children and their families. These findings suggest that the nature of group musical experiences can be harmonized with early childhood curricula, and provide more comprehensive understandings about the Korean culture, relating how culturally relevant teaching can lead to positive effects for immigrant children and their families.


Empowering women to succeed working at home. Resources, Tips, Inspiration & More!
Work at home moms like you have discovered how to shop online and save money. You, too, may be looking for creative ways to make your money go further. I understand completely. I've been a stay at home mom for many years. Sometimes I wasn't working or running a home business. Those months made saving money even more important. And, so I found some great ways to shop online and save money.
The first thing I do is consider what I'm shopping for. Right now it's all about back to school so let's go with that. That means new clothes, shoes, back packs, and school supplies. Even though we home schooled we still have a back to school shopping season. By shopping for clothes in season for back to school, I saved money on the big sales merchants have.
Know what you need to buy.
You got to know what items are needed before you start filling up your virtual shopping cart. Take a look at your child's wardrobe and see what needs replacing to wear or growth spurts. Write down what they need and what sizes they are now wearing.
Use apps like Sello to find great deals from different merchants. Deep discounts help you never having to pay full price again. Look for coupons and sales by subscribing to merchant mailing lists, too. You might even be able to layer your savings of a sale + coupon code or a sale with free shipping.
Go with Quality to Save More Long Term.
Quality clothing will last a longer time. You won't need to replace it quickly. And, might even be able to hand it down to another child to wear. Look for classic pieces that are durable and stand up to fashion trends changing. Mix them with less expensive trendy items. This is especially true of items such as coats, boots, and jeans.
When you shop online you end up spending less money and time. You avoid impulse spending. This is especially true when shopping with kids. You avoid all the time and stress of taking them from store to store. Instead, you can use the money and time you saved to take your children to do something fun together as a family.


Since its foundation in 1991 ENERTEC has been providing consulting services in all fields of thermal power engineering. Therefore, we can profit from long experience in this area and can already support our clients in the phase of preparing a project through well-directed guidance and analysis.
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Are you having a dress up day on Friday? Our school is dressing up as your favorite storybook character. Last year I dressed up as The Cat in the Hat. I had a momentary memory loss about a student's fear of costumes. When she walked into my classroom, she dropped everything she was carrying and tried to run out of the room. I immediately began taking the costume off to help her calm down. (Yes, I was wearing jeans and a tee underneath!) She finally calmed down after I was in my regular clothes. Since I have my students until they move to the middle school or "graduate" to resource, I have the same students for several years. I decided that I didn't want to terrify her again, so I made Dr. Seuss tees for both of my daughters and myself. We will be wearing these on dress-up day instead of costumes.
Oh my! I can just see the chaos that caused! It reminds me of the time I opened my back door to dismiss at the end of the day and a stray dog was outside. One of my kinders FREAKED out while the others all tried to surge forward to pet it! At least it was the end of the day though and she could go home! I am wearing a thing 1 shirt and blue wig on Wednesday, as far as I know it won't upset anyone, but I'll mention this to our new special ed teacher who is also participating so she can make sure of her class! I love your alternative, are they iron ons?
Kind of. You need to find a pattern/coloring sheet that you can use. Draw each individual piece onto the paper side of Heat-n-Bond Lite. Cut out each piece, but leave 1/4 inch border around it. You will iron each piece onto the backside of the color of fabric that you want it to be. After it has cooled, cut it out on the line. Peel off the paper backing and place it on your shirt. Zig-zag stitch around it. (If you don't sew, you can do the same process, but use heavier heat-n-bond and seal the edges with fabric paint.


RPSC 2nd Grade Teacher Answer Key 2019: Rajasthan Public Service Commission RPSC released Answer Key for the Examination of Senior Teacher Grade 2.
Those who are given the examination on 17.02.2019 and 18.02.2019 (2 days). The complete answer key is available in the below format.
Exam Date: 17.02.2019 and 18.02.2019 (2 days).


text:
Pepper Adams Archive
[SEE BELOW]
Happy New Year! I was able to fit in a trip to New York over the Christmas holidays. In anticipation of finally delivering the first batch of Pepper Adams materials to William Paterson University's Living Jazz Archive, a few weeks ago I emailed the following announcement to my jazz research colleagues around the globe:
I'm very pleased to announce that in the next few weeks I will be delivering to William Paterson University the first batch of Pepper's materials from his estate. My goal was to make his materials available somewhere in the New York City area, where far more researchers would have access to it. Furthermore, the idea of pairing his materials with Thad Jones' was irresistible. Many thanks to David Demsey for making this possible.
Mostly LPs and 78s are all I can squeeze into my little VW this time around. On subsequent trips north, I will deliver his papers, photographs and ephemera, plus my research notes and many rare audience recordings and broadcasts. Some of Pepper's documents have already been posted at my Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/pepperadamsblog/
Additionally, all of my interviews with and about Pepper, about 275 at last count, are being digitally preserved by Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Jazz History Database: http://jazzhistorydatabase.com/index.php Available to anyone with internet access, all of the audio should be available starting this summer.
Also, while editing the final draft of the first half of my Adams biography, I sent the following excerpts of my galleys to my good friend Anders Savnoe. He's the author of Bluesville: The Journey of Sonny Red, (Scarecrow, 2003), the study of Detroit alto saxophonist Sonny Red. I knew he'd appreciate reading all my references to Red:
Donald Byrd met the alto saxophonist Sonny Red in 1945 at the Hutchins Intermediate School. They had classes together, played school dances, and were in the orchestra and concert band.
Charles Boles, Claude Black, Sonny Red, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers, Doug Watkins, Teddy Harris and Tommy Flanagan all attended Northern High. Its program was run by Orvis Lawrence, who had played with Glenn Miller and the Dorsey Brothers. "Claude was in the choral group with me," remembered Charles Boles:
We all did the Messiah every year. We were very good. They had a very good [voice] teacher there, Claire Weimer. . . . I couldn't play in the concert band because I couldn't read as well as Donald Byrd's sister, Martha Byrd. She was a classical pianist. So I ended up playing bells in the concert band, and then I played piano in the dance band. They very rarely played any dances. We just played jazz tunes, and blues of course. In that band were people like Donald Byrd and Sonny Red, Paul [Chambers]. Paul and I used to eat lunch together every day. When he got to the 10th Grade, he went to Cass. Him and Donald Byrd both.
Claire Roquemore is still another Detroit legend. "There was this great trumpet player named Claire Rocquemore," wrote Miles Davis in his autobiography. "He was one of the best I ever heard." "He could play anything," remembered Charles Boles:
He'd wear Miles out. He'd wear anybody out. Donald [Byrd] didn't want to get on the bandstand with him. He ended up being strung out, and he didn't go anywhere. He would always be around, when he could keep it together, and kick everybody's butt. He was at Barry's house all the time.
Roquemore "was a wonderful, young, Caucasian-looking trumpet player," recalled Roland Hanna. "He was very fair-skinned, blonde-haired. He probably had a white mother and a mixed father. He looked white but he wasn't white. He was mixed. Whenever Claire had a gig, he'd use Pepper." When Charlie Parker came to town, he would ask, "Where's 'Roque?'" Teeter Ford, yet another obscure trumpet player who never fulfilled his immense potential, replaced Roquemore in Barry Harris' group (with alto saxophonist Sonny Red) in the early 1950s, According to Frank Gant, he had a better tone than Rocquemore, but not Roquemore's extraordinary breath control. Harris believed that Ford would eventually become jazz's greatest trumpeter.
When Frank Foster moved to Detroit in 1949, he taught many of the young musicians, including Barry Harris, how to work with tritone substitutions. "I think Frank Foster was probably one the best things to happen to Detroit when he came," said Barry Harris. "He knew a lot about music. He was our biggest influence." In turn, Detroit shaped Foster. "When I came to Detroit," Foster told the audience at Thad Jones' memorial service at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City, "I could play. But Detroit taught me how to swing." In 1950 or so, before he joined the U.S. Army, Foster would meet with some of the budding Northern High School musicians. "He was becoming a pretty astute arranger," said the pianist Teddy Harris. "He would get Donald Byrd, Sonny Red, and myself and Claude Black, and take us to his house, where he would teach us how to read his arrangements."
Detroit's musicians revered Harris as much as they feared his mandates for self-improvement. After high school was out an any given day, some of Detroit's most dedicated young players went to either Barry Harris' house or Bobby Barnes', depending on how they were faring with Harris' jazz assignment from the previous week and how much courage they possessed. "At Bobby Barnes' house," remembered Charles Boles, "Roland Hanna was the piano player, Gene Taylor was the bass player, Claude Black played trombone, and Bobby Barnes played the sax.
Sometimes we'd go to Bobby Barnes' house, who lived on Russell on the North End, or we'd go to Barry Harris' house. Sonny Red would go back and forth. . . . We would come out of Northern High School — me and Paul Chambers and Sonny Red — and we'd catch the Woodward bus. . . south, downtown to, say, Warren, and then you'd catch the crosstown bus to Russell. And then you'd catch the Russell bus to Barry's house. . . . At Barry's house, it was almost a situation where it was either Doug [Watkins] or Paul. They were in fierce competition. . . . When we went to Barry Harris' house, more than likely you're gonna get slaughtered! You know what they do? They would egg you on, and do everything they could do to get you to play, and then they'd play something like "Cherokee" or some hard-ass tune. Of course, they'd play it at some ridiculous speed, but you couldn't keep up. So you'd go home and you'd practice that all week long, and you go back and they'd play it in "A," or play it in some other ridiculous key that would have nothing to do with the tune at all. They'd say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm in 'A.'" Whatever you practiced would be null and void. You could barely play in B-flat! When you get your butt kicked at Barry Harris' house, then you'd slink on over to Bobby Barnes' house the next two or three days. You wouldn't dare show your face at Barry Harris' house when you got killed already. He was a master teacher, though. I tell you what: If you continued to go there, he would help you. He would teach you how to improvise.
Posted by http://gc-pepperadamsblog.blogspot.com/ at 4:53 PM No comments:
Labels: Anders Svanoe, Barry Harris, Charlie Parker, Claire Roquemore, David Demsey, Donald Byrd, Doug Watkins, Frank Foster, Jazz History Database, Living Jazz Archive, Paul Chambers, Sonny Red, William Paterson U
Progress with the Biography
{SEE BELOW]
Much of my free time in November was consumed by proofreading
and polishing the galleys of Chapters 1-3 of my Pepper Adams
biography. Chapter 1 is currently being reviewed by two readers, after
having been read by another. Chapters 2-3 are following the same
process. Obviously, the more feedback I get, the stronger the book
becomes. The Prologue has already been put to bed.
Each chapter has an epigraph, which helps me underscore why I chose
each chapter title. The book's central epigraph, essentially my lead
argument, is this:
How many musicians out
there are really different?
- RAN BLAKE
I've begun hunting for an ebook publisher. Nothing tangible yet, but
I've made progress nonetheless.
As for the second half of the biography, to be published in 2021,
Chapters 4-6, 8 and 10 are done. Chapter 7 is in progress, about a
third finished. 9 remains as a major task, though I have a ton of notes.
Chapters 7-10 will follow this basic format:
Solos with Thad/Mel
Solos as a single, 1963-1977
Solos as a sideman, 1963-1977
Marriage proposal; Girlfriend #1
Girlfriend #2
New York loft scene
Racial relations
2. Journeyman, original poem
3. Drugs/Bobby Timmons/Elvin Jones
4. Interlude: Bohemian New York in the Fifties
Byrd/Adams
Goodman, Monk, Mingus
Kenton, West Coast Scene, early New York experiences
Six reasons why Adams didn't gain popularity
The process of working through all of my taped interviews was very
well worth it. I was able to add some really great excerpts to the book:
Lew Tabackin, for example, discussing the bleak 1960s, the difference
between Thad and Duke Pearson as bandleaders, and why Thad and
Mel were crazy to put their band in the hands of Keiko Jones for the ill-
fated 1968 trip to Japan that almost finished off the orchestra.
My Mel Lewis interview was equally good. What a rich trove of information
about the intricacies of Thad/Mel and the Stan Kenton band. Some very
important information also came from the two physicians who owned
Uptown Records, Pepper's last record label. They had much to say about
his final illness, and the role they played when advising him about his
health. Many other quotes were added from other interviewees; subtle but
important comments that added depth to my existing text.
My biggest discovery, however, wasn't testimony from an interview, as
valuable as they are to the project. The most startling find was the Norma
Desmond-like letter (remember the film Sunset Boulevard?) that Pepper's
mother wrote to her son when he moved out of her house in late 1955. It
really put her character into perspective. Previously, I had all these friends
of Pepper's commenting about her, but nothing at all from her in her voice.
This is the only letter that exists written by her, and it's quite telling that
Pepper would save it.
Next to that, my interview with Bob Cornfoot was very important. It made me
completely revise when Pepper moved back to Detroit in 1947, and when he
began working at Al's Record Mart. It necessitated a complete revision of
Pepper's chronology from late 1953 to the end of 1955, plus changing some
language in my text.
One of the enormous benefits of working through all the interviews yet again
is correcting errors, and discovering so many new facts about where and what
Adams did during his lifetime. Accordingly, many changes have been made
to Pepper Adams' chronology:
https://www.pepperadams.com/Compositions/compList/index.html
I expect the updates to be posted soon.
I've organized all of my remaining Pepper materials for donation to William
Paterson University. Pepper's recordings and other materials that belong to
the estate are still in my possession. It looks like it will be 2020 before I
deliver the first batch of goods. Then, it's up to the university to make room
for the rest of it.
I've corresponded with Chick Corea, asking him to consider writing a foreword
to the book. I was pleased that he bought a copy of Joy Road. Any suggestions
about who else I should contact for a foreword?
Labels: Bobby Timmons, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, Donald Byrd, Duke Pearson, Elvin Jones, Lew Tabackin, Norma Desmond, Ran Blake, Stan Kenton, Thad/Mel, Thelonious Monk
The Hard Copy-Ebook Dilemma
{SEE BELOW}
This month has been an exciting one. Much to my surprise, I found thirteen
unmarked tapes that I had to review. Some fascinating material came out
of them, especially regarding Pepper and Elvin Jones' early days together
in New York City. I even found a tape of Tommy Flanagan's trio live at the
Village Vanguard!
Most of my efforts continue to be readying the first part of the biography for
publication. I'm in the process of making my final edits, then passing it on
to three readers for their final comments. That will push the publication date
into January but make for a stronger book.
I've put some time, too, into writing Chapter 7. It covers Adams' recordings
from 1963-1977. I expect a first draft to be in place by the end of the year.
That's well ahead of schedule. For my work on this chapter, I've been
listening to all my versions of Pepper's Thad/Mel solos features. Although
there are sixteen of them, six in particular form the core of Pepper's solos
with the band: "Once Around," "Three and One," "Us," "Thank You," "Little
Rascal on a Rock" and "My Centennial."
Tony Faulkner sent me an exciting video of the University of Illinois Concert
Jazz Band. Three Pepper tunes are played: "Patrice" (at 9:00), "Mary's Blues"
(at 1:14:40) and "Etude Diabolique" (at 1:32:45). "Patrice" features Glenn
Wilson bs. "Mary's Blues" features Ron Bridgewater ts and Carlos Vega
ts. "Etude Diabolique" features all three plus Chip McNeill ts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odBCOgzJoJ0
Two Pepper concerts, both jam sessions done at the Highlights of Jazz series
In New York, are available to check out. The first was led by David Amram
from May 6, 1974: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/kleinsinger/16/ Scroll
towards the bottom of the page. On -a, Adams solos begin at 9:55, 35:52;
48:24., and 1:05:12. A "Tribute to Al Cohn" took place on December 15, 1977.
Pepper's solo on "In a Mellow Tone" begins at 44:32. His ballad feature on
"My Ideal" begins at 1;00:37: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/kleinsinger/41/
I'll let you find them.
I've gotten commitments from three European writers to review the biography.
Because everyone prefers a hard copy edition but the Pepper book will be
released only as an ebook, it was necessary to explain to them my rationale
for that decision. The following will be posted soon at pepperadams.com:
A Word About Hard Copy
Books vs. Ebooks
The only publishers who produce hard copy books about important yet unglamorous
jazz figures are either academic or small independent presses. To keep the cover price
affordable, their modus operandi is to include mostly text and not exceed around 250
pages. Music examples and musicological analysis, in particular, are anathema. It
increases the book's cost and scares off a substantial part of their readership.
We strongly feel, however, that Pepper Adams is worthy of a major study well beyond
what these publishers will accept. For one thing, a 250 page limit for this work's
biographical and cultural study (Part One) would necessitate significant excisions,
even, as was suggested, if the entire first part was decoupled from the musicological
section (Part Two) and published as a freestanding volume. Secondly, the musical
analysis of Adams' artistry is the science that proves his many accomplishments. Best
conjoined with the biographical study, it buttresses some of the assessments in Part One
just as surely as the biography contextualizes the analysis of Part Two. Simply put, they
need each other.
Although the authors are fully aware that many readers prefer hard copy books, the way
that the current publishing landscape restricts jazz scholarship is the reason why an ebook
for a work of this kind is the only sensible alternative. By cutting out the middleman, we
don't have to reconsider the book's length or scope. Photographs, music examples,
and audio samples, too, aren't a constraint.
We're especially excited that our interactive, multidimensional study allows the reader to
listen to the recordings that are discussed in the book, and view an array of photographs
and other related material. To that aim, all the links that are enabled within the text are tied
to corresponding documentation that's found at other websites. Furthermore, we've
Designed an inclusionary approach to Part Two so that musicians and non-musicians alike
can appreciate Adams' eminence. Divided into two sections, the first part will contain
general observations about his style that can be understood by non-musicians. The other,
quite technical and intended for musicians, will include musical jargon and notation.
Three separate ebook installments will be released upon completion. "The Life of Pepper
Adams" (Part One, 1930-1955) will be published first: Chapters 1-3 in 2020, Chapters
4-10 a year later. "The Music of Pepper Adams" (Part Two, 1956-1986) will be published
by 2029, in time for Adams' centennial in 2030. Please join us for the worldwide
celebration.
Labels: Al Cohn, Chip McNeill, David Amram, ebook, Elvin Jones, Glenn Wilson, Pepper Adams, pepperadams.com, Ron Bridgewater, Tommy Flanagan, Tony Faulkner, Village Vanguard
The Biography is Done
[SEE BELOW}
I'm very proud and excited to report that just this morning, after two and a half years of steady, unrelenting
work, I finished writing Pepper's biography. Although I've completed writing his life, I still have to go back and listen to and write about his recordings from 1956-1977. That will take another year of work to finish.
In anticipation of the release of my Pepper Adams biography early next year, here's the Prologue. It is also
posted here: https://www.pepperadams.com/Reflectory/Prologue.pdf
On September 28, 1986, our first wedding anniversary, my wife Nancy and I attended Pepper Adams'
memorial service at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City. Adams had waged a courageous battle
against an aggressive form of lung cancer that was first diagnosed in March, 1985 while he was on tour in
Sweden. On that somber yet bright Sunday afternoon St. Peter's ash-paneled, multi-tiered sanctuary, tucked
under the 915-foot-tall Citicorp Center, was packed with friends, musicians and admirers. The Reverend
John Garcia Gensel presided over the service and many jazz greats performed and paid their final respects.
Pepper Adams was a friend of mine but, sadly, I knew him only during the last two tumultuous years of
his life. At that time, still recovering from a horrible leg accident that kept him immobilized for six months,
Adams was separated from his wife and diagnosed with the cancer that would kill him. Although it was an
undeniably miserable time for him it was, conversely, quite a fascinating ride for me. I was a 28-year-old
grad student; a passionate jazz fan and record collector who was trying to find a jazz musician interested
enough to participate with me on an oral history to satisfy my thesis requirement.
Fortunately, because Adams was still recuperating at home, he had time to indulge me. What an
ideal subject! Here was a major soloist who played with virtually everyone in jazz from the late
1940s onward yet hadn't received the acclaim that he deserved. At our first interview in June, 1984
he was so gracious and prepared, so articulate and engaging, when retelling the events of his life.
We met several times at his home in Brooklyn that summer. Eventually I amassed eighteen hours of
tape-recorded interview material. Because Pepper's recollection of his childhood and early career
was so stunning in its depth and historical sweep I strongly felt that I had the makings of a valuable
co-authored autobiography.
Then, seven months later, Adams' cancer was diagnosed. I visited him at St. Luke's Hospital in
Manhattan, when he began his chemotherapy regimen, and I saw him perform whenever he had a gig
in New York. On one occasion, between sets at the Blue Note, I saw him bark at a pianist whom he
misperceived was harassing him for a job. At Far and Away, a club in nearby Cliffside Park, New
Jersey, I heard the sufferingpour out of him during a stunning ballad performance that brought me to
tears. Because his medical treatments and international travel schedule made our autobiographical
project an impossibility, I decided that writing a full-length Pepper Adams biography would be the
more appropriate undertaking. When Adams was home, either convalescing or in between gigs, I
watched football games with him while going through documents and dubbing copies of his tapes.
Although I was trying to gather as much information as I could in the little time that was left, it was
improper for me to pry about the minutiae of his life. Despite my youthful curiosity I had to respect
the fact that his cancer treatments made him feel awful and he was fighting to stay alive.
In the summer of 1985 I moved three hours away to Boston. No longer able to visit with him nor catch
any of his gigs we stayed in touch by telephone. Late that year I somehow learned that he had an
upcoming four-night stint in bitterly cold Minneapolis. Concerned about his well-being, I urged a
friend to attend as a courtesy to me. Thankfully, Dan Olson caught one of the performances and also
taped both sets. During intermission he said hello for me, bought him a beer, and the two had a chance
to chat at the bar. My final conversation with Pepper took place in August, 1986, only a few weeks
before his death. Bedridden at home and under the watchful eye of a home-health aide, I called to see if
there was anything I could do for him. His hospice caretaker answered and asked me to hold on for a moment. While I paced anxiously for at least five minutes, Adams somehow found the energy to drag himself to the
telephone. In a sentence or two he acknowledged that time was short, thanked me for calling, said a
final goodbye, and hung up. That was right around the time that Dizzy Gillespie called Adams on
Mel Lewis' behalf to say that one of Pepper's dearest friends, the trumpeter Thad Jones, had just died
of cancer in Copenhagen.
About a year later, once I began interviewing Adams' colleagues for this book, I spent a very memorable
afternoon with the pianist Tommy Flanagan, Ella Fitzgerald's longtime music director. I was meeting him for
the first time and was completely star-struck. One of the last people to see Pepper alive, Flanagan especially
wanted me to know that the transcripts of my Adams interviews were stacked high on Pepper's nightstand
just days before he died. At one point, while sitting next to Adams on the edge of his bed, Flanagan told me,
Pepper awoke and tried feebly to push my interview materials towards him. As if he was brushing crumbs
off a tabletop with the backside of his fingertips, Flanagan intensified his story by imitating Pepper's
debilitated attempt to move the heavy pile of papers in Flanagan's direction.
As you can imagine I was completely stunned by the many implications of Adams' gesture. At first
I was astounded, something that I must have readily expressed to Flanagan by my astonished gaze
and frozen expression. Then my heart sagged and my eyes watered as I became increasingly aware
that our months of work together somehow comforted Pepper at the very end of his life.
During the next few weeks, as Flanagan's story continued to wash over me, I noticed that I was
taking my role as Pepper's biographer a lot more seriously. As the proud guardian of Adams' legacy,
acutely aware of how important it was to Adams that his work carry on after him, my research
acquired renewed vigor. Surely my resolve to do this book and all the other Pepper Adams projects
that have preceded it was strengthened. But truth be told I've wanted to tell his story since that
memorable Saturday afternoon when I conducted my first interview with him that completely
changed my life for the better.
Flanagan's interview was one of more than 250 that I conducted, mostly in the late 1980s before
my daughter was born. Over and over again my interviewees affirmed Adams as a complex
individual — a hero, a genius, a model of grace, an intellectual, a virtuoso musician and stylist
— yet someone also very hard to calibrate. The contradictions that they depicted equally
fascinated me. Adams, they said, was an unworldly looking sophisticate, a white musician who
sounded like a black one, and a dynamic, commanding saxophonist who was soft-spoken and
mild-mannered off the bandstand.
Many told me of his unprecedented agility on the baritone, how he "played it like an alto." Before
Adams the baritone sax was a cumbersome, fringe instrument rarely played outside of a big band.
Today, because of his innovations, the baritone with a rhythm section is commonplace and no
longer viewed as a novelty.
Throughout his career Adams told radio interviewers that the pitch of the baritone was similar to his
speaking voice. He felt that this to a certain extent explained his affinity for the instrument. But much more
about him can be divined from his adoption of the baritone sax. For one thing, he greatly prized originality.
Becoming a baritone saxophonist in the late 1940s gave him an opportunity to create a completely unique
style on an infrequently heard instrument. Like Duke Ellington, whom he greatly admired, Adams could
similarly stand way apart from everyone else.
Paradoxically, despite enhancing the idiom and securing his place in history Adams' fealty to his instrument
also hurt him. The public's inherent bias against low-pitched instruments and his status as a sideman stood
in the way of him fronting a band or recording far more albums as a leader, particularly any with widespread
distribution. As the pianist Roland Hanna once asked, Who knows what Pepper might have achieved had he
instead chosen the tenor saxophone?
Throughout his career Adams was exclusively a baritone saxophonist for hire. Refusing to double
on the bass clarinet disqualified him from studio work that could have helped him immeasurably
during the 1960s, when jazz gigs were sporadic. He never experimented with other instruments
nor taught the saxophone (except an anomalous lesson here and there, or master classes sponsored
by educational institutions). Always the fierce individualist, Adams' lack of pragmatism interfered
with other aspects of his life.
When I began collaborating with Pepper Adams I knew that he was a superb instrumentalist but I had little
idea of the breadth of his contribution, how much his colleagues adored him, or the degree to which his life
intersected with so many of the greatest poets, writers, painters and musicians of his time. Much to my
delight, because of our working relationship, the door to the international arts community burst open for
me right after his death. I have had the remarkable privilege of speaking with so many of his esteemed
colleagues, all of whom honored my interest in such a deserving artist.
Undoubtedly, excerpts from my 250 taped interviews with Adams' associates are the heart and soul of this
book. You will read some of them speaking, at times with surprising tenderness, of their fondness and
profound admiration for Pepper Adams. His death was a significant loss for them, and their remembrances
of his last few years in particular are filled with sentimental accounts, sometimes with them breaking into
tears.
It was my interviewees who helped me answer so many of my pressing questions and, ultimately, grasp the
totality of Adams' character and many achievements. Their thoughtful responses — respectfully given quite
a bit of space throughout Part One — allowed me to fill in many of the gaps left over from my interviews
with Pepper. Despite his eagerness to share many aspects of his life he was reluctant to discuss his personal
relationships, his time in the U.S. Army, or his heartfelt feelings about himself or others. Though Adams'
radio appearances and the magazines articles about him were of some help about his career, they too were
of little use about his private life. For the most part I had to start from scratch.
Thus, much like a fine Bordeaux, bringing this book to maturity took many years. To unravel the
complexities of such a very private, enigmatic individual, put into perspective a lifetime of work,
conceptualize a narrative structure that suited his life, and then transfer my mountain of data and
personal observations about him into prose took me 36 years. I intentionally waited until I was
finally ready to write the kind of book that I felt he deserved. That began in April, 2017 after I
gave a series of lectures about him in Utah.
Before I began writing, many years of research allowed me to finally comprehend Detroit's jazz
culture and socio-economic history. I was especially interested in understanding the growth of
its automobile economy, its profound racial problems, and its illustrious jazz history dating back
to the 1920s. As a friend of the underdog, I wanted to exhume some of the Detroit musicians who
contributed significantly to its jazz scene but remain completely unknown. I was most curious
about what it was that produced the extraordinary, postwar "band of brothers": that clique of
world-class jazz musicians who descended on New York City in the mid-1950s and so thoroughly
reinvigorated the music.
Regarding Rochester, New York, where Adams grew up, I wanted to know how the city came to
be, how its economy was much better off than the rest of the country during the Great Depression,
and what took place there during World War II when Adams was a teenager. I was equally curious
about its jazz culture and the influence of the Eastman School of Music. The New York City jazz
scene of the 1950s of course intrigued me too. More than just recounting Adams' gigs and living
arrangements, I wanted to understand how jazz cross-pollinated with the other arts, and define
Pepper's place within it.
Mostly, however, I wanted to understand my subject: his personality traits, his strengths and
weaknesses, how he filled a room, how he behaved with others, and what myths he created or believed
about himself. I wanted to penetrate the veil of secrecy about his mother and his time in the army. I
wanted to learn about his childhood, research his genealogy, and get my arms around his relationship
with women. I wanted to grasp why, despite his exceptional musical gifts and the universal respect that
he received from his colleagues, he wasn't financially successful. Was it mainly because of the
instrument that he played or was it due to the way he conducted himself or other factors?
Looking back, my journey has been an extraordinary blessing. On one level, Adams' music has
immeasurably enriched me. Moreover, writing about him has satisfied my inveterate wish to
contribute something tangible to the music that I love more than anything. But on a deeper level,
my work has morphed from a passionate hobby to a raison d'etre. Along the way I've gotten to
know so many Pepper Adams admirers, for whom he was a sage and musical beacon. Their
friendship and support have given me a profound sense of interconnectedness with the world for
which I am truly grateful.
Knowing Adams personally and working on this demanding project has brought me as close to
genius as I'm likely to experience in my lifetime. After researching his life, collecting his recordings,
overseeing pepperadams.com, and unearthing his wonderful compositions for six recording sessions,
in 2012 I produced a five-CD box set of Adams' entire oeuvre. Featuring newly commissioned lyrics
to his seven magnificent ballads, it was co-branded with my book Pepper Adams' Joy Road: An
Annotated Discography. Now, with this companion volume I at long last fulfill my promise to him and
Half biography and half musical study, this book is the culmination of more than 45 years of work. I'm
extremely fortunate that John Vana, an alto saxophonist and ardent Pepper Adams fan, agreed to co-author
Part Two. We first met in late 2013 at Western Illinois University, where he invited me to speak. Soon after
my visit I asked him to write a major piece on Pepper's early style for a proposed anthology. Not long
afterwards John started requesting that I send him, bit by bit, every Pepper Adams LP, cassette and
videotape in my collection. Clearly, listening only to Adams' early recordings wasn't enough. He wanted to
examine Pepper's entire output. Eventually, on a long drive from Atlanta to Orlando it occurred to me that
John's piece would likely cover some of the same terrain that I'd be exploring. Considering the demands
of my day job, wouldn't it be better for me to focus exclusively on the biography and have John (with my
input and editorial oversight) write the second half? The anthology might not even happen, I pointed out,
so what better place for his study?
Our twofold aim, dear reader, is to showcase an important person who lived an extraordinary life and
to contextualize his many unique contributions to Twentieth Century music. As you work your way
through the book we urge you to listen to Pepper's glorious saxophone playing. For the most part
Chapters Five, Seven and Eight discuss what I consider to be Adams' greatest recorded achievements.
Additionally, a few of his early pre-1956 recordings are covered in Chapter Three. Eventually you
will likely discover that some of my favorites diverge from those covered in Part Two that John Vana
felt best illustrated important aspects of Pepper's style. This independent approach was designed to
extend the breadth of our study and give both of us a chance to more thoroughly express our points
of view. Whether you are encountering Pepper Adams for the first time or are already hip to his career,
be sure to enable the music links that are embedded throughout the text. Many of these extraordinary
performances have never before been made available to the public. As always, thanks so much for
your interest in Pepper Adams.
Posted by http://gc-pepperadamsblog.blogspot.com/ at 11:18 AM 1 comment:
Labels: Dizzy Gillespie, Eastman School, Ella Fitzgerald, John Gensel, Pepper Adams, Thad Jones, Tommy Flanagan


X says I think we should hear other voices.
# 65596 When I hear someone say they hear voices in their head, I wonder if they're just thinking for the first time.
# 15539 Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends."
# 87962 As a kid, I use to talk to the fan so I can hear my ROBOT voices.


text:
Are you married to your financial opposite?
Spendthrifts and tightwads are attracted to each other, but money talks can get fierce in marriages where spouses don't have the same habits.
By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Does your wife's closet look like a jewel box of shoes, while you wish your bank account could afford an actual box of jewels? Or maybe you're tired of your spouse snapping up the newest tech gadgets and instead want to spend the money on a vacation together.
You're not alone.
When it comes to money, fiery opposites attract, according to "Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction: Spendthrifts and Tightwads in Marriage," a study being authored by a team of professors from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University.
"We found that people tend to marry spouses with opposing emotional reactions toward spending," the report said.
People register how much something costs in terms of how much it pains them to dish out the cash, according to the report. As a result, spendthrifts gravitate toward tightwads to help them balance their financial tendencies and emotional reactions to money -- even if they do it on a subconscious level.
"Opposites attract for personality traits that people dislike in themselves," said Deborah A. Small, one of the three authors, who is an assistant professor of marketing at The Wharton School. "Critical to the definition of spendthrift and tightwad is that there is some self-recognition involved. You recognize that you are acting differently than you want to act and as a result you tend to be attracted to people who act in a different way than you."
0:00 /1:31Is love recession-proof?
So how did the authors determine that financial opposites attract? Online surveys that focused on consumers' feelings about spending money -- theirs and their spouses'. The respondents were then rated on a Tightwad-Spendthrift scale that ranked them based on their emotions toward money -- not necessarily how much they actually spend.
Spendthrifts, for example, are those who experience little pain or remorse when spending, while tightwads are all too conscious of what it costs them to part with a dollar. One person feels guilty for not saving more, while the other is wracked by not enjoying life.
"Tightwads and spendthrifts are generally unhappy with their emotional reactions toward spending, and complementary attraction may benefit both spouses if they help each other overcome their prepotent emotional reactions toward spending," according to the report.
Double-edged sword: Of course, the reality of being married to someone with different -- and thus, ideally, complementary -- attitudes toward money is not all joy and partnership. When you want to buy the new flat screen and your spouse wants that cash to go into the retirement fund, compromise can be hard.
"Complementary emotional reactions toward spending money among husbands and wives will be associated with greater conflict over finances, which will in turn be associated with diminished marital well-being," the report finds.
So while there are plenty of long-term benefits of marrying your financial opposite, the frequent bickering can certainly strain relations.
Get it out before the wedding bells ring: How many times have we all heard there are three topics that you just don't talk about: religion, politics or money. But waiting to find out about financial ghosts in the closet until after getting hitched doesn't make sense.
"Most of us were raised that talking about money was taboo, so we don't know how to communicate about it," said Joan Sharp, CFP at Life Strategies LLC in Newcastle, Del.
"But if you went into business with someone, wouldn't you draw up a business agreement on how you are going to pay each other or how you are going to unwind the business if one of you wants to buy the other out?" said she added. "Marriage is love, but it is a business."
You have a right to know how much your spouse-to-be makes, how much debt -- from credit cards to education loans -- your future life partner really has, and how much your partner likes to spend on Starbucks every week.
"Ideally, I would have this very unromantic conversation before you got married where you actually showed each other your credit scores and talked about any ongoing financial obligations," said Jill Gianola, Certified Financial Planner at Gianola Financial Planning in Columbus, Ohio.
Navigating the tension: The recession has pinched consumers, putting additional pressure on money talks. If you are having battles over financial decisions with your spouse, then professionals suggest you start the conversation about your bigger goals.
"One of the first things I do is pull them back from the day to day nitty-gritty to the bigger vision of where they are going as a couple," said Gianola.
Save the dollars and cents for another conversation. "Sit down and don't pull out money," added Sharp. "Have a conversation about what is important to each other. The first time that you sit down and talk, don't talk money."
In order to better understand the other spouse's feelings, Gianola recommends that if one person always pays the monthly bills, the other spouse ought to take over the checkbook for a while. Furthermore, a couple could set aside one day a month to go over their performance for the month in terms of meeting established goals.
First Published: August 25, 2009: 7:06 AM ET


text:
Baidu: 'China's Google' looks for a way forward
Investors and net surfers shun top search engine as more Chinese use apps instead
Baidu said revenue for the three months ending Mar. 31 will decline by between 5% and 13% from the year-ago period, © Reuters
NARAYANAN SOMASUNDARAM and COCO LIU, Nikkei staff writers October 28, 2019 20:57 JST | China
HONG KONG -- Even in the futuristic world of tech executives, few paint as rosy a picture of artificial intelligence and its prospects as Robin Li.
The founder and CEO of Baidu, which is often called "China's Google," even went so far as to claim last week that "artificial intelligence will ... give people eternal life."
Li may have made a Freudian slip when he mentioned people, and instead meant Baidu. Because his belief that the future will be shaped by AI -- from speakers that recognize your voice, to cars that drive themselves -- has led Li to all but bet his company's future on it.
Why Li has done that says as much about Baidu as it does about how internet use has changed in China when compared with the U.S. -- and also why investors have, for now, all but given up on the company's shares.
Ironically for a company that made its name in internet search, Baidu has lost its way.
Shares in the "B" of the BAT trio of Chinese internet giants -- which includes Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, and that one Washington official has described as a U.S. "national security risk" -- have hit the skids. After peaking at an all-time high a year ago, its share price now hovers near 10-year lows.
Steven Johnson, chief investment officer at Sydney-based Forager Funds, even goes so far as to call his firm's 2016 investment in Baidu stock "a mistake." (Forager sold out the position earlier this year at an average 35% loss.)
It is a long fall from grace for the internet company that started out in a dingy Beijing hotel room, listed on Nasdaq in 2005 and then became the country's No. 1 search engine -- a position only fortified when Google pulled out of China in 2010.
The main reason for its change of fortune has been a structural shift in how China surfs the web. Most Chinese have leapfrogged from the pre-internet era, over the desktop and laptop years, and straight into the modern day of smartphone dominance.
As a result, Chinese consumers did not build up the same search habits and brand loyalty that Google, with its more global user base, still enjoys.
Instead, they mostly search the internet on their smartphones through mobile apps owned by domestic rivals such as Tencent and ByteDance, owner of social media app TikTok.
Furthermore, these apps are designed to encourage consumers to stay within "walled gardens" by providing a series of other services, too, from e-payments to ride-hailing or food delivery.
This has only further undercut Baidu's relevance in search. In just three years, its share of Chinese internet search has collapsed from 83% to less than two-thirds now, according to data from global market intelligence firm Statcounter.
"The evolution of walled applications, especially the likes of WeChat, is eating into Baidu's ability to increase ad pricing," one fund manager who has been cutting his Baidu stake told the Nikkei Asian Review on condition of anonymity. "From an unparalleled success story, the company is now trying to stay relevant."
Weakness in the Chinese economy and its advertising market has further hurt Baidu's bottom line, with ad revenues falling at a steady clip, and slipping 2% in the last quarter. By contrast, Google's ad revenues continue to climb.
The quest for Baidu to stay relevant is why Li has bet so big on AI. Here his interests are fully aligned with Beijing's, which has stated it wants to make China a world leader in AI.
Baidu has made great strides. Its mapping app is the most popular in China. Its engineers have also devised highly praised voice-recognition systems for Mandarin. According to the Economist, it has also invented smart chopsticks that warn when food is unsafe to eat, and a bicycle that monitors riders' vital signs.
The problem is that refashioning the company's focus toward AI-powered driverless cars and cloud services has required massive investment.
Moreover, self-driving cars are yet to take off. For all the hoopla, there are only 1,400 self-driving vehicles in the U.S., according to Department of Transportation data, and the U.S. is the most advanced automated driving market in the world.
In the meantime, the company has hemorrhaged talent, from senior to executives to top scientists such as Lu Qi, the captain of Baidu's artificial intelligence unit.
"Baidu is in the process of a painful transition," said Martin Bao, an analyst specializing in Chinese internet companies at ICBC International in Hong Kong. "This will have a negative impact on its shares for the next 12 to 18 months, but we do believe the company will benefit from it in the long run."
Ironically, one of the company's most promising prospects may be in search -- via smart speakers that recognize voice patterns rather than via text.
The company overtook Google to become the second-biggest seller of smart speakers, behind Amazon, earlier this year, according to research specialist Canalys.
Meanwhile, the installed base of Baidu's DuerOS voice assistant currently stands at over 400 million users, over four times more than the year before. Monthly voice queries in June also surpassed 3.6 billion, an almost 800% annual increase.
Baidu is far from the only internet company to want to embed users in an ecosystem that combines hardware with software. Google, which is ramping up its smartphone presence, is increasingly moving into hardware, too.
So far, though, investors are giving Baidu's plans little credence.
Its current market capitalization is $36 billion, but only around half of that is its actual business. Subtract holdings in listed companies that are worth $9 billion, according to S&P Capital IQ data, and net cash worth about another $9 billion, and its core business, which is profitable, is valued at just $18 billion.
If Baidu's voice-recognition system "develops as the standard... in China it might give them an edge over the competition for a while," Forager Fund believes.
Baidu's search for the next big thing, let alone the eternal life that Li mentioned, looks as though it will be a long haul.
-- additional reporting by Olivia Tam in Hong Kong.
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