My latest article for All About Jazz is an interview with percussionist and educator Bobby Sanabria:
Bobby Sanabria is a living museum of Afro-Cuban music. Sanabria is a percussionist, drummer and educator who is at the forefront of Afro-Cuban music—particularly the frontier where it intersects with jazz. In 2007, Sanabria released Big Band Urban Folktales (Jazzheads, 2007), an album he says takes the music “beyond the 21st century.” Jason Crane, AAJ contributor and host of The Jazz Session, sat down with Sanabria in May 2007 to talk about the history of Afro-Cuban music, Sanabria’s own career, and “The Ugliest Man In America.”
I’m very sorry to report the passing of our cat, Domino. She’s been living with me in Albany for the past several weeks, and I came home tonight to find her in the den, no longer living.
Jen and I got her from the Hermitage Cat Shelter in Tucson, AZ, in 1995. She was 6 months old when we got her, and she’d been left in a box in the desert with her sister; left there to die. Luckily, she and her sister were rescued and adopted.
Since then, Domino has traveled with us to Pennsylvania, Japan, South Carolina, New York City, New Hampshire, Rochester and Albany. She had a very happy seven years or so, particularly in Japan, where the fish were fresh and plentiful. Those years of relative bliss were followed by The Child Years, of which she was less than fond. In recent months, she’d been sick, losing a lot of weight and lot of hair. She’d made a nearly full recovery, however, since moving to Albany with me.
She was a strange pet. Aloof, not too fond of humans. Many of our friends went years without knowing we even had a cat. She was always attached to Jen and me, though, and was our practice child before the real things came along.
So raise a glass to Domino. A good cat who led a happy life and who will be fondly remembered.
I started commuting by bicycle again today. The Packet Boat (Xtracycle), to be exact. Or maybe not so much commuting as traveling. I don’t really have an office, so my job is more about going to different hotels and other sites where the members of our union work. You can read about my return to pedaling here or here.
In this article at AlterNet.org, Sean Gonsalves argues that the first responsibility of the president is not to defend the homeland, and that only one remaining candidate is up to the task of the actual first responsibility.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University. In an article now appearing on AlterNet, he talks about the Clintons’ desperate need for power, and the potential for the right set of circumstances to lead to the birth of a real third party for the first time in 150 years. (And by real, I mean “with access to power and electoral validity on a national level.”) It’s a fascinating read.
In 1985, Diamond Walnut faced bankruptcy and turned to its workers for help. The workers, Teamsters from Local Union 601, agreed to make concessions. When the workers’ contract was up, Diamond had reached the Fortune 500 and bragged of record profits. But instead of giving those profits back to its employees, the company demanded more concessions. The workers went on strike — a fight that would last 14 years. This is their story. (Running time - 14:27)
