---

It was one of the coldest days of the winter and the guitarist Pat Metheny was only a few minutes late, but he had called ahead. When he arrived at our meeting place, a small recording studio within Right Track Studios in Midtown Manhattan, he arranged his stuff on the couch - including some musical scores - and sat down in a swivel chair before the 96-channel console. Mr. Metheny grew up in the rural Midwest but seems Californian: he has the inner glow. He had no socks on and looked comfortable. Well, for me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music B-flat minor, the saddest of all keys

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: What's wrong with the Australian film industry?

When the much-heralded film Eucalyptus was cancelled recently, it was a huge blow to the Australian film industry. After a disastrous 2004, it had seemed that things were looking up in 2005. Cate Blanchett was here to star in Little Fish, Abbie Cornish and Heath Ledger in Candy and Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman in Eucalyptus. It would have made a fine trifecta. Last year, the overall box office increased by 5 per cent, but attendance at local films slumped to an all-time low.

• This particular film was already had a lot of hopes pinned on it [MJ Rose with links ; Returns Suck: So Do Something About it ]
• · More on the Google Library Digitization Project How Google will scan the world, 1 Cold River at a time
• · · When I was a kid, I thought I'd grow up to be a novelist Behind the scenes in publishing
• · · · ; Why I blog ; A tribute to Hunter S Thompson
• · · · · What if the Holy Grail was not the cup that held the blood of Christ but the bloodline stretching from him? Notes on a Strange World The Secrets of Rennes-le-Château ;
• · · · · · Fluid Thinking ; Bill Ives