Saturday, June 6, 2026

Simon & Garfunkel - Kitchen Listening

Simon & Garfunkel - Kitchen Listening. Old Friends, 1997. A 3 CD box set that runs for nearly three hours and includes their greatest hits and plenty of previously unreleased outtakes. 

I played this album after seeing that Paul Simon was ranked number 2 on the NY Times Readers Poll of Top 100 Living Songwriters. I followed this up with one of their several live albums... Live from New York City, 1967 that was released in 2002. That added another hour to the set. I got a lot more of their albums and solo albums to play over the coming days. 



Friday, June 5, 2026

Barbara Tuchman - Authors List

Barbara W. Tuchman - Authors List. 5 books read. I first discovered this amazing historian when I came across her book A Distant Mirror a few months after it was published in 1978. I read it the following summer and loved it. This has been one of my favorite history books and still have a copy on a book shelf.

I then read four more of her histories over the next several years. Because of her I did read many more books on middle ages over the years and continue today.



  • A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978 - Jul 1979
  • Stillwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945, 1971 - Jul 1980
  • The Guns of August, 1962 - Nov 1983
  • The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, 1984 - Apr 1986
  • The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution, 1988 - Feb 1989

100 Top Living Songwriters - Part 2 The List

 




































Thursday, June 4, 2026

Bob Dylan Live - Kitchen Listening

More Bob Dylan. Kitchen Listening Live. Celebrating his 85th birthday. This is about a five hour set of live music from different times in Dylan's career but mostly in the 70's which was when I saw him perform several times. I especially liked his 1975 tour concert.

I'm also celebrating his position in the NY Times Readers Poll for Top Living Songwriters. He was voted #1.


  • Bob Dylan Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue, 2002
  • Bob Dylan Live at Budokan, 1978
  • Hard Rain, 1976
  • Real Live, 1984

Dinner @ Cafe 59

We had another wonderful dinner tonight at Cafe 59 on Allen Street and sat at a table in the front window. I had there delicious Harvest Wrap with roasted turkey, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, field greens, gorgonzola, and balsamic vinaigrette. This is one of my favorite items on their menu. Becky had their Chicken Finger Sub. We also had a side of their amazing Potato Wedges. I also had a Port City Belgian Wit. Cafe 59 has been one of our favorite restaurants for years.



Jim Thompson - Authors List

Jim Thompson - Authors List. 5 books read. This was a classic hardboiled crime fiction author. He wrote over 30 novels mostly in the 1950's. 

The first book I read was The Grifters in 1981. During that time period I was reading a lot of classic crime novels including Dashiell Hammett.





  • The Grifters, 1963 - Apr 1981
  • Savage Night, 1953 - Oct 1982
  • The Getaway, 1958 - Dec 1984
  • Wild Town, 1957 - Jan 1987
  • The Killer Inside Me, 1952 - Nov 2004


100 Top Living Songwriters

NY Times conducted a reader's poll creating a list of the top living songwriters. This was in response to an earlier critics poll that the NY Times posted a couple of months ago. 

Repost @nytimes:

As soon as we decided to make a list of the 30 greatest LIVING AMERICAN songwriters, we could guess how readers would respond to the results: with a combination of enthusiasm and outrage, quickly letting us know which of their favorites we had unconscionably forgotten.

We didn’t want all that passion to go undocumented. So we invited readers to assemble their own list in a formal poll. More than 25,000 ballots were cast, producing nearly 12,000 distinct choices. We spent weeks combing through the votes to tabulate the results.

Finally, here they are: the top 100 songwriters, according to our readers. They’re annotated throughout with facts, testimonials and interesting patterns we noticed in the data.

So here is the link to the NY Times Top 100 Living Songwriters selected by a reader's poll.

Here is a link to the original NY Times Top 30 Living Songwriters as selected by a group of critics.




30 Living Songwriters

The New York Times recently posted a list of 30 greatest living songwriters as determined by their critics. Posted here


The expanded list of 100 created by a reader's poll is much better. The NY Times post is here.


Ego Power Chaos

From Vets Against Trump

After Fred Trump died and left Donald Trump a fortune estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, Trump spent much of his life bouncing from one failure to another.

There are really only two undeniable successes on his résumé:
* The Apprentice, which transformed him from a struggling businessman into a television celebrity.
* Winning a second presidential term, which allowed him and his family to cash in on their political fame in ways most presidents never have.
But even as Trump profits personally, the list of failures surrounding this presidency continues to grow.
* Renaming institutions and attaching his name to everything in sight.
* The turmoil surrounding the Kennedy Center.
* Damaged relationships with longtime allies.
* Tariff policies that have created economic uncertainty.
* Continued chaos and turnover within his administration.
* An increasingly unpopular conflict with Iran.

And now there is another warning sign that even some Republicans are beginning to lose confidence.

The House recently passed a War Powers Resolution aimed at limiting Trump’s ability to continue military operations in Iran without congressional authorization. Four Republicans broke ranks and voted with Democrats, sending a message that cracks may be starting to appear in what was once nearly automatic Republican support for Trump.

That’s what makes the vote significant.

It isn’t really about four Republicans.

It’s about the fact that after years of loyalty, some members of Trump’s own party are finally willing to publicly tell him “no.”

Meanwhile, his polling numbers are slipping, public frustration is growing, allies are questioning America’s reliability, and controversy continues to follow this administration from one headline to the next.

Yet through it all, Trump continues to insist he is the greatest president ever, the smartest leader ever, the best dealmaker ever, and the most successful businessman ever.

The question isn’t whether Trump will declare victory.

The question is:

What could possibly go wrong next?

Because every time you think the chaos has reached its limit, Trump seems determined to prove there is always another level.

As this old veteran sees it, real leaders don’t spend all day telling people they’re great. Eventually, the results have to speak for themselves.

If you enjoy my political commentary, observations, and occasional dose of sarcasm, please consider following me. I may not always be right, but I promise I’ll always give you my honest opinion—and probably a few laughs along the way.

– Jim Lager, this old veteran

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

WOW 2026

This evening we attended the first Parkside Wine on Wednesday for the season. It was a perfectly beautiful night for a neighborhood party and there was a great crowd. We knew most of the people there and met a few more. A lot of old friends.

Looking forward to a few more of these get-togethers.