Thanks very much to the Jazz Journalists Association for awarding Do The Math “Blog of the Year” for the second time. If someone is considering starting a jazz blog, one helpful practice is simply linking to others. Probably certain now-defunct blogs of yore would still be here if they had felt part of a conversation. If you link to DTM I promise to link back.

—

Next Thurday, I’m giving a free masterclass in Brooklyn. Sign up for Floyd Camembert Reports to get complete details.

—

The news is not good. On the other hand, the news has seldom ever been good: it is just that social media has sped up the cycle of shock, agitation, and regret.

As a jazz musician living in Brooklyn I have no contact with anybody that would even begin to think about voting for Trump. However, after the Brexit debacle, I’ve been wondering what the hell I can do to make sure Clinton wins instead. I guess one thing is: Hey! If you read and love DTM and you live in a battleground state, please think about upping the Dem’s ground game sooner rather than later!

The chaotic aftermath of Brexit has made me think of a favorite (and very English) exchange from the radio play of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams:

PROSSER: Come off it, Mr. Dent. You can’t stand in front of the bulldozer indefinitely. This expressway has got to be built, and it’s going to be built!

ARTHUR: Why’s it got to be built?

PROSSER: What do you mean, “why”? It’s an expressway. You’ve got to build expressways! You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.

ARTHUR: Appropriate time?! The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday and said he’d come to demolish the house!

PROSSER: But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months!

ARTHUR: Yes, well, as soon as I heard, I went straight round to see them. You hadn’t gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody.

PROSSER: The plans were on display–

ARTHUR: On display? I had to go down to the cellar to find them!

PROSSER: That’s the display department!

ARTHUR: With a flashlight.

PROSSER: The lights had probably gone out.

ARTHUR: So had the stairs.

PROSSER: But you found the notice, didn’t you?

ARTHUR: Yes, I did. It was “on display” in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, “Beware of the Leopard.”