January 31, 2008
SLIGHT RETURN
I haven't had any time to post anything, but in the meantime I stuck myself with a youtube window of rudy giuliani. yecch. I had it just right with this gorgeous tone slab, and then I went and replaced it with one of the least attractive faces on the planet...
until I can get around to it, I'm putting the guitar back at the top...if only for my own homepage purposes...
nighty-night...
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January 30, 2008
THANK YOU FLORIDA
...for weeding out a true villain...and helping us to avoid the disgrace of Judy Nathan as first lady...I wonder, what would her great first lady civic cause have been? oceanfront property? getting a good deal on open-toed sandals? goodbye rudy & judy...back to the filthy lucre of glad-handing suckers...
...with this sort of "fair and balanced" coverage, it will be interesting to see who Fox Noise tries to coronate next...
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January 29, 2008
I ME MINE
...everyone should strike gold at least once in their life...
I'm not trying to brag or anything, but like, that's my guitar...
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January 27, 2008
THERE'S A PLACE
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new boots and contracts this weekend with telecasters small amps double-tracked rhythm parts the barbecue in winter the roaring fireplace and some colorful spirits...the red telecaster was re-assembled and got new strings and sounds better than ever, the new mandolin was taken out for fireside sing-a-longing, but more crucially it turned out to be an excellent make-baby-stop-crying sound...(I need to learn more chords)...and I carved out a little corner for practicing that doesn't require me to repair to the basement studio, which is currently dark and cold and out of earshot of crying baby so I can't go down there too much...good thing that AER amp is so small and fat-sounding...it's the perfect practicing companion for the woodshed...and oh yes kevyn's new song is in the can....most of it anyway...still need to add an acoustic overdub and sub-mix the harmony vocals...
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January 24, 2008
MY AGING PERSPECTIVE
...good luck indie record store guy...
As if it matters (and it don’t), my annual look at the “best of” pop music lists is typically taken as a thanks-for-catching-me-up exercise, whereby I allow the young ‘uns to hip me to what I missed in the past year. I began this dependent state a few years back, when I began transitioning from full-on loud rock guy (in bands that performed as much) to laid-back/studious jazz devotee…since jazz requires the lion’s share of one’s listening time, I backpedaled away from the pop scene. I guess I’d played one too many gigs to less than ten people…
But that doesn’t mean I’m totally clueless when it comes to the goings-on of this or that band. The new village voice “pazz & jop” list is out, and (is this the first one sans christgau?) following are some of my gut reacts to the choices. Again, it doesn’t matter very much in the grand scheme, but I’m often tickled by what passes for excellence these days. This pointless meandering and utterly ignorant and uninformed spiel is dedicated to the former employees of New World Record, the latest in a long line of independent record stores that are dying out there in the homeland…
#1!!! LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver
years ago, I had my little phase with chemical brothers and their famously block-rockin beats etc. I got a few of their records. More block-rocking beats. Went to see a concert of theirs, on my birthday. Didn’t much dig ANY of the music on the PA—lots of boring droning electronica. Some kid asked me if I was selling X. Then the band came out and was basically just two guys making a big deal about pressing buttons. Here he goes! Here he goes! He’s gonna press the button! And…and….NOW he’s pressed the button! Beats! Beats! Beats! Block rockin! Problem was, all the rest of their tunes were just other beats with lesser degrees of block-rocking-ness. And it was all coming off of machines. The brothers might as well have been back in their hotel room, pressing the buttons. And I have to admit to a certain prejudice here: in my own misspent youth, we had a word for music like this: disco.
So, pretty lame. There seems to be so many places to go with electronics, but every time I fall for one of these critics’ reviews of the newest dj/computerist, I end up with the same crap. Spacey synth textures, some rhythmic groove, samples of ACDC guitars, loud soft loud soft, followed by very soft and then very loud. End of song. Sorry LCD you might be the greatest thing since Thomas Edison but if your influences are any indication I’ll be bored by you too. And I’m pretty sure you ain’t Kraftwerk…
#2 Radiohead In Rainbows
I’ve already opined bloggily about my disappointment with this album. I guess I’d planned on eventually returning to it to gauge whether or not my gut reaction still held up (in a word, boring), but so far I’m living a happy well-adjusted life without radiohead in it. maybe one day I’ll come back to it, say when it’s still raining but the sun’s coming out. Or maybe when I’m in the backyard running the hose and the spray catches a bit of the sunlight, I’ll be so consumed by the magic of the visual spectrum that I will immediately run inside and pay homage to radiohead.
Or not.
M.I.A. Kala
I gave this record some time. Pretty funky. Plenty of third world influences.
So what. I’m an uptight white guy. I could give a shit.
Amy Winehouse Back To Black
I loves me some Amy! Single of the year! Get well soon girl!
Arcade Fire Neon Bible
I loved these guys the first time they hit the scene. Only back then they were called Joy Division and sounded like nothing that had come before. I’m beginning to think of these guys as easily the most overrated band of our time…
Kanye West Graduation
what was all that hype about, I wondered? All those awards and critics raves? Such a nice boy, it seemed. Loves his moms. Then she dies. Sad. But I saw him shake his thang on SNL and saw what it was all about. A very competent entertainer. Working the shades, working the dance steps…getting it on. Break of dawn. Word is born. etcetera. So, I’d love to hear more, as long as I can hear it for free. In the days of public enemy and tribe called quest, hip hop seemed like an indispensable quantity, a must-have: current events report from the ‘hood…maybe ‘cuz I still lived in the hood. That last ghostface thing was fun too, but mostly it all just feels disposable now.
Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
good-not-great album. Like most spoon records, I find three or four that I really really like, then the rest feel like throwaways…this one suffered from the cardinal sin of having a difficult track two. Hard to appreciate brilliance when the flow is broken and I’m asked to work. Their eventual best-of will kick ass, I’m sure.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand
really cool combo of voices. I love how they sing backups whenever the other is singing lead. And I’m sure their children will be happy blonde and beautiful. But top ten of the year? Really? Was 2007 that thin?
Bruce Springsteen Magic
Magic? Really? Sorry Bruce I’ve never been a part of your army of fans. The reasons are blatant: Clarence Clemons, too many backup singers, the stupid 9/11 “rising” thing, a stint at the U. of Delaware where everyone is from south Jersey, and of course the state of New Jersey itself (where I happen to live). Give me Nebraska or Tom Joad, and my neighbors in the garden state can have the rest. By the way, if you’re thinking of hiring a sixth guitar player for your band, give me a call…
The National Boxer
I maintained an irrational obsession with this record for several weeks. I don’t necessarily recommend that you do the same, however. It might just be my own particular obsessive impulsions when encountering piano riffs and interesting drums with mellow lower octave singing. If it was a movie they’d call it a “sleeper.”…ironically it’s also good for sleeping.
Wilco Sky Blue Sky
good record. Nice little record. Happy to hear tweedy get back into strumma-strumma songs, let out that neil young, southern cali vibe once it a while. I could have done without the entire album being excerpted by Volkswagen, but I guess somebody’s got to pay for the wings over america 747 tour plane…
Panda Bear Person Pitch
animal collective. A bunch of bands with animal names. Different combinations of the same people. When I was a kid they had other names for this: mickey mouse club, new zoo revue. But in Brooklyn. Or something. Whatever…
The White Stripes Icky Thump
the white stripes suck. They always have sucked and they will continue to always suck. as far as worst concerts of my life they're right up there with the hooters. But meg’s got a great rack, I’ll grant them that. Just too bad about the drumming…
Jay-Z American Gangster
c’mon…does anybody really think that the “gangster” reference is anything but a total pose? This guy flies around in helicopters pretending he’s Donald Trump, appears on commercial for coca-fucking-cola, and he’s a gangster? Oh yea jamie zed you’re so hard. Hardly. This just in: tupac called from hip hop heaven. When you get there he’s going to kick your ass…
The Shins Wincing the Night Away
hey there America I’m an urban indie rocker with my trucker hat my sad face tattoo my hairy pit girlfriend my poor posture acne face working at my job at the video store and I like the shins because they're all english majors like me and they use guitars so I’m not totally ball-less, and my girlfriend likes them too and we like to wear ironic t-shirts and we're vegans and our parents are republicans and we'd hate them even more if they weren't paying our rent for us in an overpriced loft in williamsburg and bush sucks and basically their music allows me to continue moping without interruption.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings 100 Days, 100 Nights
I’ve never heard her sing but I have a strong feeling that I’ll dig the noise they make…
Against Me! New Wave
Butch Vig kicks motherfucking ass. Big guitars, big drums. This album made me go back and check on their earlier work. A bit shrill but if you like your politico rock with a bit more tempo than billy bragg then you might like that stuff…this one is ok (the fan fave “thrash unreal” is damn near perfect) but I prefer their 2003 album “as the eternal cowboy”…
Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
we are now in the golden age of lame band names…just pick up any recent issue of SPIN…and since you know the record companies are focus-grouping this shit now, it’s really gotten bad. “of montreal”…what’s that mean, that you’re a blonde French girl who’ll give it up if I give you a cigarette and a glass of vodka? in fact, that's their new single...
Band of Horses Cease to Begin
they’re ok but I can’t get around the guy’s voice. It’s a girl voice. But coming out of a guy. I had the same issue with that built to spill guy. Ok tunes though, if you're a fan of inertia.
PJ Harvey White Chalk
time to get back to the guitar playing polly jean…
Grinderman Grinderman
my favorite record of 2007. Nick Cave allows himself to rock again. And there’s a ballad here that rivals “pale blue eyes” in terms of fragile beauty. It is a glorious menu of sonic violence and poetic brilliance.
Animal Collective Strawberry Jam
the animal guys again. I refer you to my previous inculcation regarding band name quality. These guys have apparently patterned their organization on amway. How rocking.
Mavis Staples We'll Never Turn Back
Bob Dylan wanted to marry her. One of the great voices of the 20th century. I’d love to hear this one actually…
Lil Wayne Da Drought 3
probably another disappointment waiting in my hip hop future. Hey now I’ll bet he’s hard. This is the guy with the tattoos right? Yeah, very original. I will enjoy it despite my caucasian status and you will see that I am "down." right? right.
Iron & Wine The Shepherd's Dog
Sam Beam is Florence Nightingale to a nation of insomniacs. Thank you Sam.
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January 22, 2008
ON THE WHOLE
"Suffering the gloom, inevitable as breath, we must further accept this fact that the world hates: We are forever incomplete, fragments of some ungraspable whole. Our unfinished natures — we are never pure actualities but always vague potentials — make life a constant struggle, a bout with the persistent unknown. But this extension into the abyss is also our salvation. To be only a fragment is always to strive for something beyond ourselves, something transcendent. That striving is always an act of freedom, of choosing one road instead of another. Though this labor is arduous — it requires constant attention to our mysterious and shifting interiors — it is also ecstatic, an almost infinite sounding of the exquisite riddles of Being.
To be against happiness is to embrace ecstasy. Incompleteness is a call to life. Fragmentation is freedom. The exhilaration of never knowing anything fully is that you can perpetually imagine sublimities beyond reason. On the margins of the known is the agile edge of existence. This is the rapture, burning slow, of finishing a book that can never be completed, a flawed and conflicted text, vexed as twilight," - Eric G. Wilson, author of "Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy."
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one of the handy aspects of maintaining a blog is you can save stuff there...this excerpt is apropos of nothing--I just like it, think it's beautifully phrased, and as a description of my typical daily process--the inner life--it's pretty damn spot on. it also functions handily as a summary of the will to create--the compulsion that drives all artists. in all of us, the urge to make things whole, or to create whole things...and as stated, one might also find a suggestion for the impetus to religious belief... in any case, fascinating, well-phrased, and well worth saving for some later date...
here's another way of putting it:
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
-- Mark Strand
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January 18, 2008
January 16, 2008
I'VE TOTALED ANOTHER AMP I'M CALLING IN SICK
..there's bum trash in the hall and my place is ripped...
Prescription Electronics SUCKS.....
totally sucks. I spent over $180 a few years ago to get the real-deal-holyfield sola sound tonebender circuit, and what came back was weak tea at best. blimey, I thought, what was mr. quine talking about anyway? the tone he'd been searching for going on 30 years was this pathetic grunt of midrange apoplexy? akin to comparing a dinosaur fart to the squeak of a helium balloon....no it wasn't until I had to buy the damn fuzz from the estate of quine himself before I could hear what he was talking about--first of all the older pedal has a heavy-duty carling switch and no LED...so the circuit was altered somewhat, both in terms of schematic design and integrity of infrastructure, i.e. the newer model was made with cheaper parts. and I have no idea if this change was the thing, or more likely I suspect that once they made the switch, they went cheaper with a few more parts as well.
simply put, rather than maintain their loyalty to quality, they maintained loyalty to a price point, and quality be damned because hey, the positive reviews had already been printed, the in-the-know guitarists had already voiced their approval, and johnny epiphone back home with his crate amp couldn't say fuck-all if there were a difference or not. he's sitting there telling his friends how it sounds just like led zep I while he packs yet another bong hit...
so, ultimately I had to pay 50% more than the asking price and certainly about a buck eighty more than I needed to ultimately. I ought to try and get ninety bones for the "new" model, which is--honestly--barely used. it's what it's worth. the funny thing is, knowing what I know now about how the quine box sounds, I'd gladly have paid double for it. it sounds that good...
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January 15, 2008
THE QUINE COLLECTION
“Prescription Electronics has done a lot of amazing things in the last six years. Their Yardbox is my all-time favorite fuzz, a sound I'd been searching for for about 30 years. I'm a big fan of the Beck/Page Yardbirds sound, and this does it exactly!” --Robert Quine
Prescription Electronics Yardbox:
A faithful sonic copy of the original Sola Sound Tonebender, purportedly the only distortion pedal used on Led Zeppelin's first two albums. The pedal has no similarity to Jumbo, Supa, or the Vox Tonebender. Wide variation in tone and smooth dynamics at all volumes.
In my opinion, when it comes to true rock n roll playing, few did it better than Robert Quine. He was one of the few virtuosos to come out of the punk era, and went on to be a sideman on a lot of great records. Always uncompromising, his high ideals were also his undoing, as he took what he did very seriously, and was in the habit of alienating his employers with his verbal vitriol if he wasn't granted what he considered to be his due position in the final mix. He was truly an iconoclast, and paid for it. After a bout of depression that was exacerbated by the death of his wife Alice, he took his own life in 2004. I was a huge fan of his work with Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Lou Reed and Matthew Sweet. I also dug that "Basic" record he cut with Fred Maher, which is so out of print you can't even find a reseller on Amazon for it...
So here we come to the apex of guitar geekery: I just bought a fuzzbox from the estate of Robert Quine. And here's the thing: I already own a PE Yardbox. and truth be told, I'm not even that big of a fan of the sound. the one I bought was a bit muddy and farty and I never quite got my groove on with it. but on the other hand, all fuzzes are slightly different, and perhaps this one, having resided in the home of the master, will have some special magic dust. Because even if the tone doesn't thrill me all that much, I can still fetishize it as an objet d'art, like having one of sonny rollins' used reeds, or a broken paint brush from de kooning's studio...but I have a feeling that mr. quine, famous for his reticence, gruff demeanor and anti-rock star pose, didn't exactly have the endorsement deals to enable, say, a case of said devices to be delivered to his door. nope, I'll bet that he paid for it, and my guess is that he used it. but on what? waves of fear? girlfriend? sick of myself? could be, could be...we'll see how the thing sings tonight...
[click on the quine pic above to go to a site with copious background on the man himself]
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January 14, 2008
DEATH OF A YANKEE KILLER
...winner, game 7, 1955 world series...
One of the "boys of summer," Johnny Podres beat the Yankees twice in the now-legendary World Series of 1955, the great last-hurrah of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was also voted MVP of that series. Now he joins the ranks of history, and legend...
Johnny Podres, age 75, passed away yesterday in Glens Falls, NY...
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January 11, 2008
THERE MUST BE SOME KIND OF WAY OUT OF HERE SAID THE JOKER TO THE THIEF
... a little animated jimi (not my creation) for a friday ...
first five-day work week of the new year...and now into our second month of infant baby quietude...I think I need to kick out the jams dontcha know...
make it a good one...
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from the randomly observed dept: just in, definitive proof that golf is evil: angie everhart, acclaimed beauty, famous redhead, avid golfer, is engaged to...
to...
to...
to....
oh no!
it can't be!
turn away before it's too late!
aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhh....
...joe pesci
I'll leave you now so you can all go home and bathe yourselves....
have a nice weekend...I joe pesci will....
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January 10, 2008
I'M IN
...greatness...
I am beginning to realize that there is a very simple reason for the crescendo of voices for Obama, a simple reason why he is looking more and more like the next leader of the free world, a simple quality which he possesses that none of the presidents in my lifetime* have demonstrated: greatness.
I am realizing that there is a reason that I've been so disillusioned by the body politic over the past two decades. it has nothing to do with simplistic red/blue differences over the philosophical role of government. I lean left, but I take umbrage at the mere suggestion that the government would be needed to solve any of my personal problems. and I'm in easy accordance with many righties who would emphasize the importance of such things as strong national defense, a simplified tax code, or better border security. Just like Rudy the Bully, I too lived through 9/11, within a mile of ground zero, and I have no truck with pacifists who think it's over. at a minimum, it isn't over until Bin Laden has a bullet in his brain. and then we'll see.
but I digress. I have decided to support Barack Obama for a lot of reasons. I think his election would help race relations in this country immeasurably. I think that he is fair-minded and intellectual. In fact, the more I think about his many fine qualities, the more I realize that they are indeed the very qualities that I've found lacking in our current president for the past seven years. Obama is about as antithetical to George W. Bush as one could imagine, and if you consider that over 2/3 of the grownups in this country have disapproved of BushCo now for two terms, the momentum Obama is enjoying is multiplied further by the contrast between the two men, one who would ask "is our children learning?" and another who, well, let's just say that Obama will probably have to expend less effort on his own basic grammar...
so then, I could rattle off an itemized list, issue by issue, but really what's the point? presidents run as if they're legislators but really their true role is to react to events on the ground, and to lead in a broad stroke way. they're supposed to unite us, to keep us whole. and hopefully in the process they come to represent the best of us, not the myopic, superstitious, cynical, mendacious underbelly that is exemplified by Bush/Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld.
So if you missed the Obama NH "concession" speech the other night, just read these words. If you don't get a teensy little lump in your throat, maybe you ought to do a gut check on just how cynical the Rove era has made you....
I want to elect the guy who said THIS:
"We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.
Yes we can.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can."
Yes we can. War is over. If you want it.
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*presidents in my lifetime: John F. Kennedy was assassinated when I was 12 days old. therefore, whether or not I believe him to have possessed greatness, he is excluded from the analysis.
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BAKERSFIELD
...ken nelson, rest in peace...
you've probably never heard of him, but this guy was involved in the making of a lot of GREAT classic records...credited as the architect of the bakersfield sound, he produced records by buck owens, merle haggard, gene vincent, wanda jackson, sonny james, the louvin brothers, hank thompson, and many others...
he dead now.
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January 09, 2008
HE'S IN
...the goose is loose!...
Richard "Goose" Gossage
member-elect of the Baseball Hall of Fame
no asterisk
...
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January 04, 2008
THANK YOU IOWA
...they said this day would never come...
It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on ...
I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
"Democracy" by Leonard Cohen
January 03, 2008
SHE WAS SHOT
apparently I wasn't the only one who had a hearty belly laugh when I heard the paki govt spokesman blaming BB's death on her head hitting the door handle...
it would also appear that the gunman was blown up at the scene...nice and tidy...maybe Cheney helped with the planning...
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confidential to CD (and, I assume, Mama D): thanks for the cookies!!!
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