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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Colleen @librarycolleen.bsky.social · 25m

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell

Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 3h

If I had a bunch of beads and one of them was considerably older than the others, I would call it the venerable bead

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Reposted by Peter Sokolowski

Christine Kooi @christinekooi.bsky.social · 4h

I often tell students that one of the major differences between modernity and pre-modernity is that pre-modernity regarded "innovation" as a very bad thing.

Carl Hendrick @carlhendrick.substack.com · 1d

The Innovation Illusion: Most of what’s worth knowing in education isn’t new, and most of what’s new isn’t worth knowing.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

Today is the centennial of Alvin Stoller, maybe the best drummer you've never heard of. First choice for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, Oscar Peterson, Stan Freberg, and nearly every record made in LA in the 1950s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXC...

Frank Sinatra With Billy May And His Orchestra – Come Dance With Me!

YouTube video by RetroGrafix

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 8h

That is exactly right! And I know that listeners expect perfection (& announcers need to know how to pronouce Saint-Saëns & von Dohnányi and the like).

I am second to no one in my appreciation of Terry Gross, but the two times she interviewed M-W editors, she clearly expected harsh prescriptions.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

And yes, @npr.org stations play this music...no one else does.

As a culture, we pay lip service to the importance of Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald or Miles Davis...but who actually PLAYS THIS MUSIC ON THE AIR?

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

A sampling of what I was spinning @nepublicmedia.bsky.social tonight, all Alvin Stoller sessions.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

Here's Alvin Stoller on brushes with Oscar Peterson...masterclass in energy and taste.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WCS...

Oh, Lady Be Good

YouTube video by Oscar Peterson - Topic

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

Alvin Stoller replaced Buddy Rich (!) as Tommy Dorsey's drummer, and spent the rest of his career in the studios as "the Buddy Rich who can sight-read."

(Buddy Rich himself never learned to read music.)

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

Today is the centennial of Alvin Stoller, maybe the best drummer you've never heard of. First choice for Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, Oscar Peterson, Stan Freberg, and nearly every record made in LA in the 1950s.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXC...

Frank Sinatra With Billy May And His Orchestra – Come Dance With Me!

YouTube video by RetroGrafix

www.youtube.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 18h

My theory, from hearing interviews and being interviewed by many radio hosts, is that they get so thoroughly thwacked for some perceived language peeve or faux pas early in their careers that they beome inveterate & incontrovertible prescriptivists.

Garfield, Terry Gross, Colin McInroe among them.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, he was in a 3-piece suit (the bank that is across from Amherst Cinema, now a co-working space).

I used to regularly see Shepp, Yusef Lateef, and, later, Gary Smulyan in that Whole Foods.

I miss For the Record!

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 2d

(I also showed Archie Shepp how to use the newfangled device called an ATM, but that's another story.)

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 2d

I met him around '93, he came to Amherst to attend a workshop held by Dave Monette, who makes Wynton's horns and mouthpieces. He introduced himself to Monette, who had never heard of him.

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 3d

Correcting strangers’ grammar uninvited is an act of hostility, so either jubilantly own that or don’t do it.

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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 7d

I'd never known of this artwork before, but with so much going on I think it's one we need right now: detailed 1934 drawing in black crayon by American modernist Charles Sheeler entitled "Feline Felicity," currently on view at the Harvard Art Museums harvardartmuseums.org/collections/...

Photo-realistic drawing of a cat snoozing on a cane-seated chair

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 4d

'Spiral' is terrific! If you want something shorter, I liked 'TOTEMS,' cold-war spies in the early '60s, like a French 'Tinker Tailor' meets the classic James Bond era.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 4d

Audrey Fleurot and Thierry Godard are also stars of 'Engrenages' (Spiral), and I kept forgetting that they were playing (very) different characters in 'Village.'

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 4d

a group of great and well-known actors (but not outside of France) too

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 4d

Love this series, but I had to stop a few season in, when the deportation begins. Too real.

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Peter Gilliver @petermgilliver.bsky.social · 5d

And 10 months later it's grown considerably: over 150 names featured, many of them with (I'd say) fascinating lives. Please take a look—try picking a name at random—and share/link to the website if you know anyone interested in the #OED or its history. (Yes, I'm autotrombating again.)

Peter Gilliver @petermgilliver.bsky.social · May 12

Time to put out a reminder, and a plea, about my—still v rudimentary—website for pieces about @OED people: themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com
The reminder: it exists, and is steadily growing (currently c.40 articles).
The plea: please let everyone know about it who you think would be interested.

The Makers of the Oxford English Dictionary

An experimental site for my writing about the people who created the Oxford English Dictionary.

themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com

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doxy-cycling.bsky.social @doxy-cycling.bsky.social · 7d

@merriam-webster.com

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 6d

Rich was superb with this trio, also on the Verve "Pres + Sweets" and "Ella + Louis" sessions.

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Peter Sokolowski @petersokolowski.bsky.social · 7d

As @emckean.bsky.social said to @grammargirl.bsky.social, they are "imitation," not "intelligence."

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 7d

Somebody smarter than me should write a piece about how in theory, LLMs are descriptivism machines because they produce language that resembles usage in the training data; but in practice there's often that slick flatness, the regression to the mean, the homogeneity that feels generic and synthetic.

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