Dean at Home: The Pandemic Blog

The 98% Pacifist Tonight's Soundtrack: 30 Minutes of Jimmy Smith Live in '65! So, we often talk about microaggressions when talking about little instances of unconscious bias, or ignorance, or little examples of racism that the perpetrator often has no idea they are perpetrating, and taken by itself, it might be a little thing, like someone adopting a fake Asian accent and saying, "Ah, what a bargain." Or, calling Japanese people, Japs... calling the Corona virus the Kung Flu... or walking up to a random Asian person and start making chopping motions... or White people making assumptions about someone's nationality because they had a Korean, or Filipino, or Chinese, girlfriend and so they know you must be that nationality. And taken as an individual instance, the microaggressions are not giant offenses. They are not the person yelling, "Chink!" out the car window. They are not the person telling me to go home where I came from. But, those little microagg

Playing in the Band Today's Soundtrack: Jimmy Smith, Cannonball Adderley, Dave Brubeck, and Charlie Mingus Live, 1971  (with Kenny Burrell playing with Jimmy Smith!) It is fascinating to watch these old videos of jazz greats playing. People dressed so much more colorfully in 1971. How marvelous. It is the 7th Newport Jazz Festival and things seem so much simpler. The stage seems so large it nearly swallows up the musicians, but nevertheless, they groove with a great intensity. I'm sure it was something to see. A stone embedded in a tree root. I've always loved the Cannonball Addreley Quintet, and Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus, but I'm going to definitely have to look up more Jimmy Smith, particularly if Kenny Burrell was a regular in his lineup. Watching a great musician play, one can really see the connection the person has with the instrument and the way the instrument becomes a channel for expression. Take Cannonball Adderley's bass player, Walter Booker, for e

10 Albums for 1 Cent! Today's Soundtrack: Fleetwood Mac, Boston Blues Live 1970  (RIP Peter Green) Over the last several weeks we've been engaged in an experiment. We were introduced to Home Chef by my sister-in-law, one of those meal services where you get shipped a box of ingredients to create a meal. For the cost of a nice night out at a mid-priced dining establishment, we get three nights of meals. Despite its slightly pyramid scheme feel ( if you want a $30 coupon for a first trial, let me know ), and the lingering resonances of the old Columbia House 10 albums for a penny postcards that counted on the ambivalence of thousands of pre-teens to never bother to cancel the subscription and thus harnessing an entire generation of parents into paying off the debts garnered from the early vestiges of a vinyl collection. If I remember correctly, my first order contained Santana, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Sheena Easton, The Talking Heads, Huey Lewis and The News,

Brave Little Tailor Today's Soundtrack: The Allman Brothers Band, Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival, 1970 The other day we had a sudden proliferation of house flies. They were bothersome enough that I went and found the flyswatter from the basement stairwell where it lives with the brooms and mops. They were bothersome enough that Franklin was snapping at the air around his head like a Venus flytrap. I killed three or four in span of twenty minutes. It was the kind of infestation where one starts to wonder, where do houseflies come from? After pondering that for half a day, I then turned to Google for an answer. That was not so pleasing. I searched the house for a potential source of flies, but then decided that it was much more wholesome to figure they had followed us into the house while bringing in the groceries, or while I was taking the dog out for a walk. Or maybe they snuck in through the air gaps by the window AC unit.  Sometimes it is better to keep things a m