Hepcat. This should interest you.

Picked up off the new book table at library. Coltrane by Paolo Parisi. A graphic novel type book.

Paolo Parisi - Coltrane
The album Love Supreme is undoubtedly John Coltrane’s crown achievement and Paolo Parisi used its four piece suite structure as a foundation for his graphic novel biography, Coltrane.

It tells the story of one of the greatest Jazz musicians of all time starting from his humble beginnings – a deprived childhood spent among the cotton fields of North Carolina and then launching his career as a session musician in Philadelphia, until eventually meeting and teaming up with Miles Davis. Glimpses of Coltrane’s musical history alternate with scenes from his personal life: meeting his first wife Naima, the subsequent divorce, meeting his second wife Alice McLeod (not exactly in this order), his battle with addiction, and the birth of his children.  All this is peppered with quotes from interviews and articles set against the backdrop of a good chunk of 20th century American history; segregation, civil rights movement, Malcolm X, Ku Klux Klan (notably their bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church as John Coltrane dedicated a song to its victims).

Coltrane was not the one to stick to rules. He constantly broke them, pushed the boundaries and challenged his own creativity. Parisi bows to that by mimicking jazz music and converting it into a graphic novel. He abandons a pure chronological order in favour of using the division Coltrane invented for Love Supreme. As a result the book is divided into four parts which mirror the four parts of Love Supreme, i.e. ‘Acknowledgement’, ‘Resolution’, ‘Pursuance’, and ‘Psalm’.  Parisi did his best to put jazz rhythm on the pages, and if you tune in you will hear syncopation, improvisation, crescendo and decrescendo.

If you know nothing about jazz and John Coltrane, this book probably wouldn’t be the best introduction.  It relies too much on the reader’s understanding of jazz idiosyncrasies. However, if you are already a fan, Coltrane offers a pleasant journey through time and sound.

Kevin Phillips' Bad Money

Film Noir Buff wrote:

Marcel Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past, Part One"

Those of sat on many a bookshelf...............unread!

Good luck...

Film Noir Buff wrote:

formby wrote:

Film Noir Buff wrote:

Marcel Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past, Part One"

Those of sat on many a bookshelf...............unread!

Good luck...

Finished it...as an audio book


Now I am listening to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sign of Four"

Sign of Four is a favorite. How are the ACD books as audtio books?

I am reading the cracking autobiography of Ray Barrett the famous (RIP) Aussie actor who appeard in Troubleshooters years ago on Brit TV.  I am old enough to remember watching the show as a kid - fascinated.  Found it in the remnants pile and can't put it down.

Last edited by meister (2012-03-02 14:47:32)

fxh wrote:

4F Hepcat wrote:

Thanks for the tip, FXH.

What you're not going to get in a comic book is in-depth analysis and that's not always a good thing. For an evocation of the sense of style, time and the sessions it may prove the perfect vehicle for setting ambience, especially if you have the music playing in the background.

Now I'm actually reading 'Office Kaizen: Transforming Office Operations Into A Strategic Competitive Advantage', it does have some interesting buzz words in after all, and a couple of sections may prove useful. Back at the chicken shack, I'm finishing off the book on Bill Evans and just waiting on some Joseph Moncure March poems to arrive by post.

I like graphic novels. ,most of them are done very well and the drawings can add a marvelous depth and nuance, that's not literal, so to speak. I first got onto them through one of the offspring who is a graphic artist/filmmaker/animation person.w

Kaizen. Years ago I was absorbed with Toyota ,kaizen and lean thinking. Most people thought iwas a bit weird and many said "you can't transpose a car factory to our field".

Now theses same idiots are telling me about this great new idea they have just had a workshop on! And most of the stuff around is so shallow and distorted it makes me mad.

I've always found it comes pretty natural to me, I don't know why, perhaps coming for a farm you are always looking to streamline and save time and effort. Yet many farmers never do that , so I'm not sure that explains it. There worst part about the new found zealots is that most of them really have no idea of how to really do it. A majority of them are plain old time and motion men. A lot are the type who want you to "think outside the box"- I find most people who talk about "thinking outside the box" usually can't, haven't and never will.

People get hung up on the product that is being made, rather than the processes that are being used to make it. Its the processes you analyse.

So with this in mind...we end up with smart asrses saying 'what can we learn from someone who makes cars when we make shoes'. This misses the point.

As an example, the TPS (Toyata Production System) has its origins in the working of supermarkets not in rival car manufacturers, who Toyoda and Ohno found unimpressive upon visiting.

4F Hepcat wrote:

There's a good book on Toyota by a J.K. Liker: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles From The World's Greatest Manufacturer.

As one would expect the lessons are simple as Deming's PDCA reinforced with a long term strategy, the kind of values Western companies have eschewed for corporate theft by dodgy-spiv executives focused solely on cooking the books for their bonus and exit payment.

In my time in industry, western firms had still failed to grasp what JIT was and how to deliver it. They would boast that they carried very little inventory, and true they didn't. What they had done however, was just push the inventory down the supply chain, so the costs were still there but hidden within the supply chain.

Western concepts of keeping suppliers at arms length and playing them off against each other is completely at odds with JIT manufacturing philosophy which requires close cooperation and combined strategies through the supply chain.

This system can work in Britain however, as Nissan, Sunderland clearly shows but for a strong indigenous manufacturing base to develop in Britain, there needs to be a wholesale change in the way that British finance works.

The image of the buccaneering rentier as hero needs to go. The nation that dragged the world into the modern age needs to learn to start getting its hands dirty again.

If its immediate, then surely you can tell us what it is Shooey?

formby wrote:

The image of the buccaneering rentier as hero needs to go. The nation that dragged the world into the modern age needs to learn to start getting its hands dirty again.

Well put. I shall steal that immediately!

Sammy Ambrose wrote:

The_Shooman wrote:

The Supreme Master Ching Hai - The Key of lmmediate Enlightenment (Questions & Answers, vol 2)

Do you feel sorry for all the non enlightened ones, or are you just a bit  tempted to relish that the suckers are going to deserve what they are going to get?

Of course l don't feel sorry for the unenlightened ones, they still have lessons to learn here on Earth before they become enlightened and move on to much better places, that's why they keep coming back here.

fxh wrote:

4F Hepcat wrote:

Thanks for the tip, FXH.

What you're not going to get in a comic book is in-depth analysis and that's not always a good thing. For an evocation of the sense of style, time and the sessions it may prove the perfect vehicle for setting ambience, especially if you have the music playing in the background.

Now I'm actually reading 'Office Kaizen: Transforming Office Operations Into A Strategic Competitive Advantage', it does have some interesting buzz words in after all, and a couple of sections may prove useful. Back at the chicken shack, I'm finishing off the book on Bill Evans and just waiting on some Joseph Moncure March poems to arrive by post.

I like graphic novels. ,most of them are done very well and the drawings can add a marvelous depth and nuance, that's not literal, so to speak. I first got onto them through one of the offspring who is a graphic artist/filmmaker/animation person.w

Kaizen. Years ago I was absorbed with Toyota ,kaizen and lean thinking. Most people thought iwas a bit weird and many said "you can't transpose a car factory to our field".

Now theses same idiots are telling me about this great new idea they have just had a workshop on! And most of the stuff around is so shallow and distorted it makes me mad.

I've always found it comes pretty natural to me, I don't know why, perhaps coming for a farm you are always looking to streamline and save time and effort. Yet many farmers never do that , so I'm not sure that explains it. There worst part about the new found zealots is that most of them really have no idea of how to really do it. A majority of them are plain old time and motion men. A lot are the type who want you to "think outside the box"- I find most people who talk about "thinking outside the box" usually can't, haven't and never will.

Two years ago I attended an advanced training by some ex-Mecki who mentioned Liker. An extremely dissatisfying event that was, but of course every special effect of PP was put into use. When I mentioned Shigeo Shingo and it came clear he had no clue about his existence the room drew near to mutiny. Speaking of which, Shingo has written extensively about fail-safing or poka yoke, there are few ideas in the literature of risk management in (acute)medicine of Gawande, Lackner or Helmreich you can not find in the books of an long gone industrial engineer from Japan. That said, the reluctance to challenge authority/seniority in japanese culture is rather hard to overcome and can inhibit the improvements of CIT.

4F Hepcat wrote:

. Places like Kazakhstan have seen shocking levels of fake engineering degrees from Brits...

It's not only fake degrees that are a problem, it's dishonestly acquired qualifications. I know a foreign national who made a very good living in London writing dissertations up to doctoral level for other people. His fee for a PhD could be as much as $20,000.

Last edited by Sammy Ambrose (2012-03-04 03:09:50)