Dan Kois profiles Britt Daniel and Spoon in The New York Times Magazine. Nice photos. New cd. Are in SF for big crowded festival but I savor taste in mouth from 1997 intimate taste-maker event I produced here at the Cub.
More jazz tonight closer to home. Catch Britt and them down the line or via mediated digital experiences.
This is my first post after 800 via mobile, one finger tap at a time. Used a spoon just now, tres leches, Coupa. Yesh.
Not much of an item but I had a nice brief chat with publicist Terri Hinte of Richmond, Cali.
She works for, among many, many others, Mimi Jones.
Mimi Jones, also known as Miriam Sullivan.
Miriam Sullivan, born in the Bronx but actually, if you listen or watch carefully, and are trained, a West Indian (Barbados and St. Croix).
Miriam has a brother in L.A. named Hannibal or something definitely you hear more of in Kingston or Rosseau than Detroit or Atlanta.
Mimi Jones is her married name. Mazel tov!
Miriam who I met in 2000 as part of Rachel Z trio, which also featured Allison Miller.
Allison Miller a little birdie or birdland told me is now also a mommy! Mazel to them.
Rachel Z whose last name starts with an N.
Miriam Sullivan pka Mimi Jones not to be confused with vocalist Marianne Solivan.
Marian Sollivan who sings with, knows or donated Kickstarter to Dayna Stephens.
Dayna Stephens putting out a new album, “Peace” his fifth this fall, on his own label and probably not ChrisCross or Sunnyside, who released most of 2 thru 4.
Terri Hinte, who worked for Fantasy for years before going solo, who also works with and posed with Sonny Rollins.
The Bob Dylan novelty cd of baseball songs includes “Newks Fade” by Sonny Rollins, because Sonny Rollins apparently looks or looked like Don Newcomb the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher, who had a hard to hit pitch called a fade like a curveball or maybe slider.
I was gonna try to stump Taylor Eigsti on that one, because I know that Taylor likes sports, or 49ers at least, and played something by Sonny the other night with Julian Lage, Dayna Stephens, Jeff Ballard (from Santa Cruz) and Larry Grenadier.
I did not speak with Taylor, but did catch up with — a sophisticated game of catch — the rest of his quintet and his mom, Nancy Eigsti.
Julian Lage who is sounding a bit like Bill Frisell; I asked Fred Hersch, pseudo-naively if he “recorded with Lee Townsend”.
On her site, Terri Hinte, rhymes with Splendid Splinter — which reminds me of something I wrote about Bennett Paster talking in an exaggerated Brooklynese — explains “hudba” which is European for something postive; I will edit to add.
Maybe this would be better suited under “A Sophisticated Game of Catch” (baseball-ese for the pitcher focusing on where the catcher is holding his mitt, and how he or she is calling the pitches, and not so much about what the batter might do, if he gets his way, but also this catching a show, or catching up with the guys and gals, or catching as becoming known; there is also something in The New Yorker humor blog making fun of Newk, but didn’t go over well, a bit outside or worse Chin Music).
A young guitarist at Berkelee, David Stern, approached Dayna Stephens last night and asked him to look over a chart or a transcription of something Dayna did or knows, and I held my super-smart-phone as a flashlight, plus snapped a picture of Dayna’s hand, which he said he was cool with me publishing here, at Plastic Alto. Either here or in my photo essay, below. Stern’s combo played an original ballad, called “An Original Ballad” or something — maybe someday there will be a David Sterns – Dayna Stephens project, or DavDayna SterStephens project. Dayvna Sternphens? Sort of a Shedroff-Redman thing….Oh, yeah, I was telling Dayna about Vida Blue and Pumpsie Green. Why shouldn’t there be a Montclair Women’s or Big Womens Blues Band? Dayna has an auntie who I am guessing can bring it, JoAnna Bullock I think is her name. Ledisi and Liberty ring-a-ding-ding. To it, birds do it yadda yadda yadda.
edit to add: I just realized that I had met Kenny Drew Jr when the Mingus Big Band did a series of events and clinics at Stanford a couple years ago. He died last week, at age 56. His father plays with Sonny Rollins in the clip above, and died in 1993. An announcer from the stage, maybe Taylor Eigsti, mentioned Kenny Drew passing and I did not put it all together until just this minute.
Why we are at it, why don’t we vette the developer of Alma Plaza and his relationship with his grocer tenant, the one that filed for bankruptcy soon after opening, which is a public document and seems to say, according to another local paper that the developer-grocer relationship was less landlord-tenant and more backer-backee or worse; vette them and use that experience here, or do nothing, but look into it.
That story, Alma Plaza I mean Alma Village as prelude to JJ&F Plaza or whatever, is consistently reported with developer saying “I never collected a dime of rent from the guy, to help him” but could have more truthfully be reported as “I actually paid the guy to open his doors, with my profits from the upzoning on housing”.
Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it.
When the grocery does open at J.J.&F, be careful if you try swordfish:
I hear Palantir has a new technology, call it a time-machine, with which it will be sending key employees back to 1974 to purchase homes in Palo Alto at the prices they deserve. A beta version of this over-shot considerably and apparently there is now a group of x-Palantir people actually living in the age of Hobbits.
(I wrote this on a scrap of paper and handed it to Gennady Sheyner of the Weekly, who had overplayed the thing about Palentiros and other Gen Y complaining about not being able to afford housing here. The note, on the verso, continued:
Mark Weiss, with apologies to Jerry Zuckheimer, J.R.R. Tolkein, Ray Bradbury, GS, H. G. Wells, the Goodby Berlin and Silverstein film circa 1988 with a homeless guy who was actually an art director, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and Philip K. Dick.
edit to add: I meant to say “Robert Zemeckis” of course, meaning the movie director, “Back to the Future” an obvious source. Marty McFly, “Doc Brown”.
come to think of it: new nickname Gennady Shire.
by the way, in the books, “Lord of the Rings” by Tolkien, the palantir was used for evil by Saruman.
Peter Thiel is no Strider
edit to add, 30 minutes later but before a.m. coupa coffee:
I spoke at Wednesday’s meeting about putting a large park in Ventura, the most undervalued neighborhood in Palo Alto. Our Comp Plan — the topic of the public hearing — does stipulate that we want more parks.
I noted, however that when I ran my idea by “Ari” and his daughter, roller-skating at Peers Park on Park Boulevard, his reaction was “Good idea, but what I’m worrying about is my landlord just raised my rent $500 and I don’t know if I can continue living here.”
In my travels recently, collecting 65 signatures to qualify for the ballot, several other people told me the same thing: they may have to leave Palo Alto because their landlords are gouging them.
So why not study Rent Control? I love the speaker who said “I demand government build new housing but I don’t want rent control”. Doesn’t he realize the huge subsidies our government puts into high tech? Isn’t the war a subsidy of big business? (I am indebted to George Packer for some of this).
It’s still one-person one-vote here and there are roughly 40 percent of Palo Altans who rent, so I would think we should be talking about a measure that would help people who live here stay here, and not 2030 how much too much more to build.
This was also brought up by Edie Keating at the Housing Element meeting (she, like me, there as a guest). Ken Allen meanwhile started talking about it in opposition — fair enough. We should discuss these things more fully.
I made a joke to GS of the Weekly about “the age of Hobbits” I thought he’d print it somewhere hereabouts
Web Link
Steve Levy strikes me as a Worm-tongue creature, that’s a Tolkien reference, to Saruman, who used the Palantir for evil, and is therefore fair comment, appropriate, and don’t delete me bro!
Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
4 minutes ago
addendum:
do not delete this, it is fair comment, and informational:
Gríma Wormtongue was the chief advisor to King Théoden of Rohan before being exposed as an agent and spy of Saruman.
I swear I am like the Dave Schultz of Weekly postings and deletions, Schultz being a hockey player famous for penalty minutes: I am probably the only person who posts under his own name and still gets deleted. Once I said, apropos of 27 University, ultimately the subject of a Grand Jury report, that the Weekly identifying uber-capitalist John Arrillaga as “philanthropist” is like remembering Genghis Khan as an advocate of family planning. Khan famously had thousands of offspring, a measurable portion of all a continent’s people, or so is said.
What does John Arrillaga say about the Comp Plan?
Report Objectionable Content
Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
0 minutes ago
No, hilarious is that we the people are spending $1.7 million to a consultant in Berkeley to sugar-coat and twist the current General Plan or Comp Plan to rationalize and mesmerize the fact that some powerful entity wants to build more dense housing and more office complexes damn the torpedos.
How much rent relief would that same $1.7 M provide?
I’m a Keynsian but I think this should be discussed. If not now, when?
I’m a Marxist, but only because I think that rhubards cooked like prunes taste more like applesauce than Gail Price does.
take 3:
And seriously folks, speaking of Groucho and the Housing Element, we are way past tense and now living in bungalows:
What I mean is, this is a joke. The Comp Plan is fine. Or we should punt its revision until after the election.
Mark Weiss and Carol Garsten, August, 2014, photo by Beth, her customer
Carol Garsten is my friend of about five years, whose business Nature Gallery relocated from Town and Country to downtown Los Altos in 2012, but is still a Palo Altan and in fact lives in Barron Park, which I consider one of the most real neighborhoods, ironically enough.
I popped by her gallery Thursday because I wanted to check out their Farmers’ Market.
Thanks, Carol, for your friendship and for endorsing my campaign
I met the Ms. N_, her friend, and her friend’s dog in front of Peet’s Coffee in Palo Alto this a.m., on the strength of her wearing a Dartmouth pullover or sweatshirt I spied.
She mentioned that you are a football supporter, and in fact had hosted Buddy Teevens during his recent visit and appearance for the alumni group.
Buddy Teevens, 1978 (about 170 lbs)
I posited that if you attended Miami of Ohio you might have known also John Harbaugh, the football coach and brother of Mr. Teevens’ successor at Stanford Jim Harbaugh, or known of that connection, at least.
(This came after a short lecture I offered, and my pet theory that Buddy is sadly under-rated by Stanford fans and Jim Harbaugh, as a zero-sum effect, over-rated).
I am writing you care of Tuck in that it is not obvious how to contact you via your bank. I have no other business or personal interest in contacting you, other than an enthusiasm for our Mr. Teevens, Coach Teevens, Buddy, which was sufficient to prompt this note.
Wah-hoo-wah, as we used to say and sometimes still do.
Mark Weiss
Dartmouth 1986
(former sports editor, The Daily Dartmouth)
PO Box 60786
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650) 305-XXXX
P.S. A good friend of mine took his 15-year-old, a defensive stalwart on the Gunn High team, to hear the Buddy talk and reported that it had the desired effect of Sam wanting to study hard and work out hard, to someday play for The Big Green. I was disappointed, however to learn that Buddy did not tell what I thought of as the most compelling Buddy story, that I recall him telling the San Francisco alumni club, in 1988. Apparently when Buddy was entering high school he was rather undersized. He knew that one had to be 95 pounds to play freshman football. He weighed about 93. The day of the physical and weigh-in, he ran home from school and ate eight peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As he stood in line with the other prospects, waiting to be examined by the trainer or team doctor, he grew anxious. When he was two boys away from the scales, he looked left and saw a stack of flat-weights, like you might add to the bench press bar. In a flash his hand darted out, speared a 2.5 pound weight and shoved it in his jock. He stepped on the scale: “One hundred pounds” said the doc. The rest (all Ivy QB, championships, coaching) is his story.
Bennett Paster is a Brooklyn-based piano player and composer, who led an amazing jam last night at Stanford’s CoHo — the Stanford Jazz Workshop or Stanford Jazz Institute faculty all-star jam — featuring Julian Lage, Alvin Lin, a Colombian percussionist, Yosvanna Terry, Josh Thurston-Milgrom — and spoke in a funny fake accent and at times delighted some of the crowd by tapping some receptive high notes with two fingers ala Chico Marx.
Bennett Porter meanwhile is director of communications for Survey Monkey, a pre-IPO financial entity holed up (careful!) at Lytton and Alma, where oversize signs blink like the green light across the way from Jay Gatzsby, and she was a literature major at Colorado College or something like that before the sweet smell of success and maybe blue bottle coffee lured her, well after Greely, west.
Who would you prefer on a desert island, Bennett Paster or Bennett Porter? It depends on the quality of your upright, or grand or if you can stand more than four minutes….and thirty two seconds…of silence, if you are more easily Caged that Gated, so to speak.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 