META, not Etta–As in, “I met-a nice lady from Guyana on my way to write about Etta”, Ivonne Baker — good name for a singer! Thirty words in, and I digress…

Dude, I haven’t even finished writing on this, so quit commenting! Thank you to Brian Moore, our most attentive reader, lonely out there I guess in Cleveland I mean Springfield, home of Vachel Lindsay. Now back tot he news, as opposed to the Hottentrot Venus or Sutton Hoo, or Don Sutton or Horton Hears a Hoo:

I’ve been blogging for about a year-and-a-half under the name “Plastic Alto” — it’s a jazz reference, regarding Ornette Coleman and his white Grafton saxophone.

WordPress lets me track how each post is doing, relative to each other. The results are humble. Maybe I should switch to Tumblr or something hip.

But I still think of this as a notebook where I keep track of my ideas. What I would be DOING if i were not merely writing about it. The internet — millions, ‘lo, billions of potential readers — imbues just enough potential reader looking over my shoulder to keep me honest.

Here is a list of my top 15 posts, in popularity, plus a very brief summary or abstract — I was gonna post about Etta James, Lisa Fay Beatty and Selene Vigil, via Mia Levin. (Palo Alto Downtown Library kicks me off after an hour; public time share; plus I gots to walk the dog — Frida the Cocker — and get ready for the VaLINtine Show, at Old Pro –Knicks v. Raptures). My girlfriend works until 8 today so I drew the perfect hand to watch basketball then be romantic. TMI.

1. Paul Cohen and Evan O’Dorney — math and prodigy

2. Lockhart Loo — Kent Lockhart, Jeremy Lin, Jungle Jim Loscutoff, top 3 ballers of all time — Ron Wyden not far from the bunch –and the unofficial proposal to rename a court at Seale Park for Lockhart and or The 3Ls. Hans Delannoy and I talked about this yesterday, while dining at Chef Chu, who just moved a picture of he and Jeremy to a better table.

3. “XXX-The Busker” about street music– and Emily Palen the violinist — but I suspect people looking for porn accidentally land there because for the first 30 posts I labeled them in Roman like they do for Super Bowl. Triple X is a type of hardcore, or so I hear. “Busker” being a term for street music, from Spanish “buscar” “to look for”.

4. The Varsity and “the last picture waltz 456” initiative — Plastic Alto has been headquarters for my log or blog about organizing and lobbying to help a cultural group to be determined get the lease on the historic The Varsity Theatre, at 456 University Avenue, with perhaps a little Keynsian help from local council or commissioners. I have posted about 10 times on topic, including one meta-coverage with links to previous eight or so, plus random posts at several other sites, like PA Weekly, and a couple articles for Patch.

5. This is What Democracy Looks Like — my incidental coverage of an Occupy march in SF when Terry Acebo Davis and I were attending a matinee performance at Bindlestiff Theatre near Market and Sixth in San Francisco.

Fuck This How Bout Some Zep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6dnfm-OQ3k

6. and 7. (dr. moore is refering to my possible LINCOHERENCE)

Free Concert Saturday at Lytton Plaza with Magnolia Sisters

Alden Van Buskirk event in San Francisco’

Both of these posts were used as previews to events I produced in 2011 and I also sent the link to people on my email list. The Magnolia Sisters event, April 1, 2011 was part of an ongoing effort to bring music to Lytton Plaza, and part of a series I’ve written on that topic. Also, there are plans to keep going to promote Alden Van Buskirk a Dartmouth graduate and poet who died before his poems were pubished, fifty years ago.

8. Last Hippy or what did you expect

This is one of several posts about Michael McFaul a Stanford professor and Rhodes Scholar who I knew briefly in that he took me and three Gunn students to see the Grateful Dead at Greek Amphitheatre in Berkely in 1982. He is now U.S. Ambassador to Russia. I have a Russian theme going on elsewhere in Plastic Alto regarding Elif Batuman, another Stanford alumnus, or alumna, who wrote “Possessed: Russian Writers and People Who Read Them”.

9. Calling ICOBOPA relates to my ongoing work and lobbying for live music in Palo Alto including a proposal about a theoritical event in which someday hordes of hippies on recreation drugs will descend on Palo Alto to play free live music, based loosely on Mavericks and something I worked for in its first year here, World Music Day Fete De La Musique which I actually told the founder sounded more like a dragnet than a festival in his description of it – he wanted all the musicians to be finger-printed before being allowed to assemble.

10. Thurston Moore and Alden Van Buskirk – a quickie about new cd from founder of Sonic Youth and the fact that a sound title reference hematology — Alden Van Buskirk died of a blood-related disease, although it actually presented through his urine.

11. Wallace Stegner tribute via song

12 “V. Monocles or How Do Our Burgers Rank” about my Dartmouth contemporary the comedic genius and hottie and bodybuilder or boxer Jen Dzuria and our spoof on Zimbardo. It was called “Vagina Monocles” but I wimped out.