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Music: Current count 26267 [26231] rated (+36), 422 [421] unrated (+1).
Started to write a Weekend Roundup yesterday, but I lost a big chunk of time when we went out for shopping and sushi, and another when we watched The Good Wife and Downton Abbey. In the meantime I wrote an ill-tempered rant I wasn't very happy with about the late Antonin Scalia, and a short item on the Republican debate. Scalia was one of the most despicable figures in American politics in my lifetime. In his early years he was remarkably adept at twisting the constitution and the law to support his own political prejudices -- economist Martin Feldstein was one of the few I can think of to have debased his craft so thoroughly -- but in his later years he gave up on cleverness and turned into an ill-tempered crank and demagogue. He wasn't the first modern conservative appointed to the court -- Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist are obvious cases -- but he was a movement conservative, not content to rule he went out to campaign. One reason Republicans are so apoplectic about the prospect of Obama naming a replacement is that Scalia had made himself one of the political idols of their movement. To them, he had become sacrosanct, turning every snarky dissent into gospel.
I did manage to get out one tweet on Scalia:
My only question re Scalia is how will we ever again know what the Founding Fathers originally thought without him to reveal the truth?
Scalia called his legal philosophy "originalism" but what it amounted to was little more than an egomaniacal fraud as Scalia was invariably able to find his own political agenda among the "original intents" of the Founding Fathers. Three obvious problems with this: one is the utter impossibility of anyone growing up in modern America fully understanding the mindset of anyone from the 18th century; the second is that those founders were a remarkably diverse and divisive lot, so there's really no single "original intent" to divine; and third, the common recognition that the genius of the US constitution lies in its flexibility, how it has been adapted over time. Yet Scalia has often been humored (and in some quarters revered) for this nonsense. What he tried to accomplish was to imbue the Constitution with something like the doctrine of papal infallibility, then proclaim himself pope. The arrogance of it all is breathtaking.
Anyhow, that's more or less what I meant to write. I also had some links, including two to more moderate pieces by Michael O'Donnell: Alone on His Own Ice Floe, a 2014 book review of Bruce Allen Murphy: Scalia: A Court of One, and the post-mortem It will Be Easy to Replace Antonin Scalia. The latter doesn't refer to the political process, which with the Republican-controlled Senate will be arduous and often embarrassing, but to the impact and stature of the former Justice, who conceded both many years ago (especially in Bush v. Gore, a ruling he explained should never be taken as a precedent elsewhere). My original draft is squirreled away in my notebook, along with various other aborted drafts and more personal notes (plus a lot of what I wound up posting -- it's basically my backup store).
I won't go into the other stuff here, other than to mention that when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled last week that the government of Kansas -- which is to say Governor Brownback and the neanderthal state legislature -- had violated the state constitution by failing to adequately and fairly fund public education. Brownback's response? He wants to personally appoint a new Kansas Supreme Court. This isn't the first time the Court has ruled as much: last time the legislature came up with their "block grant" scheme and basically dared the school boards to sue them again. When Scalia died, Brownback issued a moving tribute to his hero. Clearly, one thing Brownback learned from Scalia is that an oath of office swearing to "uphold the constitution" isn't enough to keep a Republican from picking and choosing which parts they want to uphold.
Also listened to a few records this past week. The number of A-list jazz records for 2016 increased from two to five, and it's worth noting that trombone great Roswell Rudd has two of those five. Also that one was originally recorded in 2001 but unreleased until now.
The other three A- records this week are alt/indie rock. Shopping showed up on Robert Christgau's Expert Witness last week (he swear the earlier Consumer Complaints, *** below, is every bit as good, but my more limited exposure prefers Why Choose). Radical Dads came from Jason Gross's EOY list (at Ye Wei Blog), as did a bunch of HMs listed below: Jason James, Souljazz Orchestra, White Reaper; Czarface, Haiku Salut, PINS, Worriers; The Alchemist/Oh No, Inventions, Seinabo Sey. It's not the best A-list Gross has ever come up with -- most years I discover 4-6 A- records there (like Radical Dads' Rapid Reality, an A- in 2013).
The third A- is American Man by the Yawpers, a record that no one I know has gotten onto yet: its only appearance in an EOY list was 19th among Hipersonica's international albums over in Spain -- I checked it out because I've often liked albums on the label, Bloodshot. Perhaps a bit long on American mythos, but struck me as a non-southern Drive-By Truckers with a dash of non-Jersey Bruce Springsteen. But what do I know? Feels weird to me to be the one finding alt/indie and post-punk albums. Definitely not my calling.
New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: