Author Archives: markweiss86

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About markweiss86

Mark Weiss, founder of Plastic Alto blog, is a concert promoter and artist manager in Palo Alto, as Earthwise Productions, with background as journalist, advertising copywriter, book store returns desk, college radio producer, city council and commissions candidate, high school basketball player, and blogger; he also sang in local choir, fronts an Allen Ginsberg tribute Beat Hotel Rm 32 Reads 'Howl' and owns a couple musical instruments he cannot play

Let’s rename the park

Posted on February 3, 2021 by markweiss86

Let’s rename the park, for a Black man.We’re all equal, not a sequel.With 2020 hindsight, we’d repair the funkAll the other parks, they want the darkness. We charge the poor to park the car,but we don’t tax the man, and … Continue reading →

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Ethan Iverson with Alex Ross: In music, there were no victories

Posted on January 26, 2021 by markweiss86

A piece from NYT in summer 1995, that presages Ross becoming a genius of writing about classical music, the rest is noise etc: bw TEN MINUTES DRIVING AROUND PALO ALTO IN MY DAD’S OLD LEXUS LISTENING AS IF FOR THE … Continue reading →

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If not now, Venn

Posted on January 25, 2021 by markweiss86

Few people realize that John Venn Neumann, the inventor of the Venn diagram, lived here in Palo Alto. He used to play poker with other notable geniuses like Dr Richter, the inventor of the Richter scale, Nathan Oliveira, who invented … Continue reading →

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Ben Franklin VS Chuck Berry

Posted on January 25, 2021 by markweiss86

One said we have a republic, if we cnn keep it.The other said it’s got a back beat you can’t lose it.Something like that.   @Adobe abode, in terms of my concert series at Cubberley, I did have an artist … Continue reading →

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Amber Navran, reeds and vocals

Posted on January 25, 2021 by markweiss86

I said below that I was going to turn out 500 sax players.Amber Navran of Moonchild, sings, sax — this is a clarinet though. No, sax.In a previous life I had a blue spiral notebooks with the names of 1,000 … Continue reading →

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Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears

Posted on January 25, 2021 by markweiss86
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My dream deferred

Posted on January 24, 2021 by markweiss86

In 1993, because my parents were supporters of Anna Eshoo, I was able to use a ticket to go to DC and watch Clinton being sworn in. I went with a college roommate, whose father worked in the Kennedy administration, … Continue reading →

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Detail of Mark Weiss painting

Posted on January 24, 2021 by markweiss86

From April, 2013 — he is Mark S. Weiss to my Mark B. Weiss and thanks to Erik Lawrence for mensch-chinning this…

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Forty years of fear and loathing

Posted on January 24, 2021 by markweiss86

Somehow I am watching NFL football and listening to Dick Gregory in January 1972 at UCLA, but was dictating to my handheld Hunter S. Thompson about the Washington football team and Richard Nixon, Edward Muskie, Edward Bennett Williams, Dave Gurgin, … Continue reading →

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Joy Hackett (Spalding)>>>Ben Davis(Brubeck)

Posted on January 24, 2021 by markweiss86

Bw one more for the road This was a reiteration of a previous post that was about Keith Jarrett but digressed to a query about an unknown artist out of San Jose, Joy Dawn Hackett, who is doing a livestream … Continue reading →

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