I Wished on the Moon

The local jazz station played Billie Holiday's version yesterday morning and grabbed my attention immediately. To be honest, I usually switch away from the channel as soon as I hear one syllable of vocal (of course, there are exceptions, when the singer sounds anything like Billie, Ella, Patricia Barber.......) Very simple yet elegant lyrics (even though I don't completely understand what they meant: something to do with wishing beautiful things to happen. Who doesn't?) Added more to it was the superb instrumentalists playing on it, especially the saxophonist. Turns out it's from the Verve Silver collection. Now my next question was: what was the original Verve release that contained the song? And after a little bit of research, I found out it's from "All or Nothing at All," (MGV 8329) a studio album recorded in 1956 and 1957 and released by Verve Records in 1958. Turned out the saxophonist was Ben Webster. And the other musicians included guitarist Barney Kessel (his playing was tasteful as usual) and trumpter Harry "Sweet" Edison. The same lineup had recorded several sessions and the tracks were released by Verve many time. Another album from the sessions was "Songs For Distingué Lovers," which contained 6 tunes originally. This 15-song digital edition (also containing "I Wished on the Moon") is offered by Amazon for only $5.99. What a great deal (even though some reviewers thought the extra tunes added by the 1997 re-release didn't fit in with the original 6 in terms of the mood and style)

荒謬世界三藩市篇之鬼祟加價

早一排很少出三藩市金融區，最近連出兩次，感覺實在一般：幾條街道及部份建築物在進行維修，嘈吵又塞車。東西越來越貴，反而是意料中事；今時今日在SF吃個午餐，budget是十元或以上。要便宜最好去唐人街，十二年前吃越南（牛角）包三元有找，對上一次吃是$3.75，早幾天去見餐牌還是寫同一價錢，但老闆收我$4，抱歉地說餐牌還未更新價錢。今天外賣印度飯盒，餐牌也是舊價$8.75，收銀收我$10.4，我想稅沒有那麼重吧，原來餐牌上新加：所有食品均加收10% service charge! 那應該把餐牌全部加10%才對呀，老實說明碼實價$9.6也不算過份，巧立名目更令人反感。其實SF街頭的流動餐車（香港政府說要引入那種）很多午餐都標價$10。講開又講，這種餐車好像越來越多，今天發現一架賣雞的，以前未見過。