“The only one of my contemporaries who I felt had more talent than myself was James Jones. And he has also been the one writer of any time for whom I felt any love.”—Norman MailerParis. May, 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards of rebelling students’ strongholds, of the literati, the sexual anarchists, the leftists—written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling America in the late ’60s. The reader sees, feels, smells and fears all the turmoil of the frightening social quicksand of 1968.James Jones (1921–1977) established himself as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century with his WWII trilogy, From Here to Eternity (National Book Award winner), The Thin Red Line and Whistle.

“The only one of my contemporaries who I felt had more talent than myself was James Jones. And he has also been the one writer of any time for whom I felt any love.”—Norman MailerParis. May, 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards of rebelling students’ strongholds, of the literati, the sexual anarchists, the leftists—written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling America in the late ’60s. The reader sees, feels, smells and fears all the turmoil of the frightening social quicksand of 1968.James Jones (1921–1977) established himself as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century with his WWII trilogy, From Here to Eternity (National Book Award winner), The Thin Red Line and Whistle.

Come discover Japan. Yuko will introduce us to her family, her home, and her city. We ll learn what she does in school, how she celebrates holidays, and lots more.From a typical bedroom and bathroom (two different kinds of toilets!) to a typical day in school (the students are responsible for cleaning it!), these snapshots of Japan are informative and interesting, presenting the questions and answers about the topics kids are curious about. Writing, Japanese holidays and customs, transportation, and festivals...it s all here.

Free Worldwide Delivery : Coffee Life in Japan : Paperback : University of California Press : 9780520271159 : 0520271157 : 04 May 2012 : Traces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day. This title shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure.

This selection of new work by some of Japan's most eminent observers and artists offers a richly nuanced perspective on the complex relationship between Japan and the U.S. in the long aftermath of war. With an interview with former Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima, the photography of Shomei Tomatsu, a play by Masataka Matsuda, the illustrated diary of Noboru Tokuda, soldier in the Imperial Army, and featuring Fiction, Poetry and Essays by: Deni Y. Bechard * Christopher Yohmei Blasdel * Hiroshi Fukurai * Ryuta Imafuku * Setsuko Ishiguro * Roland Kelts * Mari Kotani * Leza Lowitz * Janice Nakao * Shogo Oketani * Tami Sakiyama * Kim Shi-Jong* Keijiro Suga * Iona Sugihara * Goro Takano * Ben Takara* Takayuki Tatsumi * Stewart Wachs * Stephen Woodhams * Kentaro Yamaki * Katsunori Yamazato Over 100 photos and illustrationsReader s Guide Included The war haunts everything. It is the blot that names: zainichi, hibakusha, Okinawan, nisei, renunciant, POW, comfort woman, Merikan, juri. War s occupation will control and censor every outcome, will obliterate the aftermath of starvation, black markets, and prostitution, will reinstate the zaibatsu and create an economic miracle and subservient ally. The artists and writers here were and are the born-into recipients of all this. This is their memory. from the Foreword by Karen Tei Yamashita, author of I-Hotel, National Book Award Finalist

In 1959 journalist John Roderick joined the Tokyo bureau of the Associated Press. There, he befriended a Japanese family, the Takishitas. After musing offhandedly that he would like to one day have his own house in Japan, the familyunbeknownst to Johnset out to grant his wish. They found Roderick a 250-year-old minka, or hand-built farmhouse, with a thatched roof and held together entirely by wooden pegs and joinery. It was about to be washed away by flooding and was being offered for only fourteen dollars. Roderick graciously bought the house, but was privately dismayed at the prospect of living in this enormous old relic lacking heating, bathing, plumbing, and proper kitchenfacilities. So the minka was dismantled and stored, where Roderick secretly hoped it would stay, as it did for several years.But Roderick's reverence for natural materials and his appreciation of traditional Japanese and Shinto craftsmanship eventually got the better of him. Before long a team of experienced carpenters were hoisting massive beams, laying wide wooden floors, and attaching the split-bamboo ceiling. In just forty days they rebuilt the house on a hill overlooking Kamakura, the ancient capital of Japan. Working together, they renovated the farmhouse, adding features such as floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors and a modern kitchen, bath, and toilet. From these humble beginnings, Roderick's minkahas become internationally known and has hosted such luminaries as President George H. W. Bush, and Senator Hillary Clinton. John Roderick's architectural memoir Minka tells the compelling and often poignant story of how one man fell in love with the people, culture, and ancient building traditions of Japan, and reminds us all about the importance of craftsmanship and the meaning of place and home in the process.

In 1959 journalist John Roderick joined the Tokyo bureau of the Associated Press. There, he befriended a Japanese family, the Takishitas. After musing offhandedly that he would like to one day have his own house in Japan, the familyunbeknownst to Johnset out to grant his wish. They found Roderick a 250-year-old minka, or hand-built farmhouse, with a thatched roof and held together entirely by wooden pegs and joinery. It was about to be washed away by flooding and was being offered for only fourteen dollars. Roderick graciously bought the house, but was privately dismayed at the prospect of living in this enormous old relic lacking heating, bathing, plumbing, and proper kitchenfacilities. So the minka was dismantled and stored, where Roderick secretly hoped it would stay, as it did for several years.But Roderick's reverence for natural materials and his appreciation of traditional Japanese and Shinto craftsmanship eventually got the better of him. Before long a team of experienced carpenters were hoisting massive beams, laying wide wooden floors, and attaching the split-bamboo ceiling. In just forty days they rebuilt the house on a hill overlooking Kamakura, the ancient capital of Japan. Working together, they renovated the farmhouse, adding features such as floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors and a modern kitchen, bath, and toilet. From these humble beginnings, Roderick's minkahas become internationally known and has hosted such luminaries as President George H. W. Bush, and Senator Hillary Clinton. John Roderick's architectural memoir Minka tells the compelling and often poignant story of how one man fell in love with the people, culture, and ancient building traditions of Japan, and reminds us all about the importance of craftsmanship and the meaning of place and home in the process.

I sometimes think that if, as the result of an accident, I were to lose my knowledge of Japanese, there would not be much left for me. Japanese, which at first had no connection with my ancestors, my literary tastes, or my awareness of myself as a person, has become the central element of my life.In this eloquent and wholly absorbing memoir, the renowned scholar Donald Keene shares more than half a century of his extraordinary adventures as a student of Japan. Keene begins with an account of his bittersweet childhood in New York; then he describes his initial encounters with Asia and Europe and the way in which World War II complicated that experience. He captures the sights, scents, and sounds of Japan as they first enveloped him, and talks of the unique travels and well-known intellectuals who later shaped the contours of his academic career.Keene traces the movement of his passions with delicacy and subtlety, deftly weaving his love for Japan into a larger narrative about identity and home and the circumstances that led a Westerner to find solace in a country on the opposite side of the world. Chronicles of My Life is not only a fascinating tale of two cultures colliding, but also a thrilling account of the emotions and experiences that connect us all, regardless of our individual origins.

I sometimes think that if, as the result of an accident, I were to lose my knowledge of Japanese, there would not be much left for me. Japanese, which at first had no connection with my ancestors, my literary tastes, or my awareness of myself as a person, has become the central element of my life.In this eloquent and wholly absorbing memoir, the renowned scholar Donald Keene shares more than half a century of his extraordinary adventures as a student of Japan. Keene begins with an account of his bittersweet childhood in New York; then he describes his initial encounters with Asia and Europe and the way in which World War II complicated that experience. He captures the sights, scents, and sounds of Japan as they first enveloped him, and talks of the unique travels and well-known intellectuals who later shaped the contours of his academic career.Keene traces the movement of his passions with delicacy and subtlety, deftly weaving his love for Japan into a larger narrative about identity and home and the circumstances that led a Westerner to find solace in a country on the opposite side of the world. Chronicles of My Life is not only a fascinating tale of two cultures colliding, but also a thrilling account of the emotions and experiences that connect us all, regardless of our individual origins.

I sometimes think that if, as the result of an accident, I were to lose my knowledge of Japanese, there would not be much left for me. Japanese, which at first had no connection with my ancestors, my literary tastes, or my awareness of myself as a person, has become the central element of my life.In this eloquent and wholly absorbing memoir, the renowned scholar Donald Keene shares more than half a century of his extraordinary adventures as a student of Japan. Keene begins with an account of his bittersweet childhood in New York; then he describes his initial encounters with Asia and Europe and the way in which World War II complicated that experience. He captures the sights, scents, and sounds of Japan as they first enveloped him, and talks of the unique travels and well-known intellectuals who later shaped the contours of his academic career.Keene traces the movement of his passions with delicacy and subtlety, deftly weaving his love for Japan into a larger narrative about identity and home and the circumstances that led a Westerner to find solace in a country on the opposite side of the world. Chronicles of My Life is not only a fascinating tale of two cultures colliding, but also a thrilling account of the emotions and experiences that connect us all, regardless of our individual origins.

Maturity always seemed an alien concept to Oasis. The brothers Gallagher may have worshiped music made before their birth but there was no respect to their love: they stormed the rock & roll kingdom with no regard for anyone outside themselves, a narcissism that made perfect sense when they were young punks, as youth wears rebellion well, but the group's trump card was how their snottiness was leveled by their foundation in classic pop. This delicate balance was thrown out of whack after the phenomenal success of 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, when the group sunk into a pit of excess that they couldn't completely escape for almost a full decade. When Oasis did begin to re-emerge on 2005's Don't Believe the Truth they sounded like journeymen, purveyors of no-frills rock & roll. All this makes the wallop of 2008's Dig Out Your Soul all the more bracing. Colorful and dense where Don't Believe the Truth was straightforward, Dig Out Your Soul finds Oasis reconnecting to the churning psychedelic undercurrents in their music, sounds that derive equally from mid-period Beatles and early Verve. This is heavy, murky music, as dense, brutal, and loud as Oasis has ever been, building upon the swagger of Don't Believe and containing not a hint of the hazy drift of their late-'90s records: it's what Be Here Now would have sounded like without the blizzard of cocaine and electronica paranoia. Dig Out Your Soul doesn't have much arrogance, either, as Oasis' strut has mellowed into an off-hand confidence, just like how Noel Gallagher's hero worship has turned into a distinct signature of his own, as his Beatlesque songs sound like nobody else's, not even the Beatles. His only real rival at this thick, surging pop is his brother Liam, who has proven a sturdy, if not especially flashy songwriter with a knack for candied Lennonesque ballads like I'm Outta Time. To appreciate what Liam does, turn to Gem Archer's To Be Where There's Life and Andy Bell's The Nature of Reality, which are enjoyable enough Oasis-by-numbers, but Liam's numbers resonate, getting stronger with repeated plays, as the best Oasis songs always do. But, as it always does, Oasis belongs to Noel Gallagher, who pens six of the 11 songs on Dig Out Your Soul, almost every one of them possessing the same sense of inevitability that marked his best early work. Best among these are the titanic stomp of Waiting for the Rapture and the quicksilver kaleidoscope of The Shock of the Lightning, a pair of songs that rank among his best, but the grinding blues-psych of Bag It Up and gently cascading The Turning aren't far behind, either. These have the large, enveloping melodies so characteristic of this work and what impresses is that he can still make music that sounds not written, but unearthed. These six tunes are Noel's strongest since Morning Glory -- so strong it's hard not to wish he wrote the whole LP himself -- but what's striking about Dig Out Your Soul is how its relentless onslaught of sound proves as enduring as the tunes. This is the sound of a mature yet restless rock band: all the brawn comes from the guitars, all the snarl comes from Liam Gallagher's vocals, who no longer sounds like a young punk but an aged, battered brawler who wears his scars proudly, which is a sentiment that can apply to the band itself. They're now survivors, filling out the vintage threads they've always worn with muscle and unapologetic style. [A Japanese version was also released.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

For all intents and purposes, Whitney Houston retired from being a full-fledged recording artist after her third album, 1990s I'm Your Baby Tonight, choosing to be a Streisand-like celebrity who cultivated a career through movies, soundtrack contributions, and social appearances. She may have been content to continue in that direction for many years if Arista president Clive Davis didn't push her into recording My Love Is Your Love, her first album in eight years, which easily ranks among her best. Never before has Houston tried so many different sounds or tried so hard to be hip. It's one thing to work with Babyface, the standard-bearer of smooth soul in the '90s, but it's quite another to hire Wyclef Jean, Lauren Hill, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott, and Q-Tip -- all cutting-edge artists (albeit on the accessible side of the cutting edge), the kind who never would have been associated with Houston in the late '80s. The gambit works. There is still a fair share of David Foster-produced adult contemporary ballads, but the true news is on the up-tempo and mid-tempo dance numbers. In fact, the songs that feel the stiffest are the big production numbers; tellingly, they're the songs that are the most reminiscent of old-school Houston. That's not to say she can no longer belt out ballads convincingly -- in fact, the best ballads are where she restrains herself, delivering them with considerable nuance. Houston has never been quite so subtle before, nor has she ever shown this desire to branch out musically. That alone would be reason enough to rank My Love Is Your Love among her more interesting albums, but the fact that it works more often than not pushes it into the top rank of her recorded work. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

In 1987, the Japanese government inaugurated the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in response to global pressure to internationalize its society. This ambitious program has grown to be a major government operation, with an annual budget of $400 million (greater than the United States NEA and NEH combined) and more than six thousand foreign nationals employed each year in public schools all over Japan.How does a relatively homogeneous and insular society react when a buzzword is suddenly turned into a reality? How did the arrival of so many foreigners affect Japan's educational bureaucracy? How did the foreigners themselves feel upon discovering that English teaching was not the primary goal of the program? In this balanced study of the JET program, David L. McConnell draws on ten years of ethnographic research to explore the cultural and political dynamics of internationalization in Japan. Through vignettes and firsthand accounts, he highlights and interprets the misunderstandings of the early years of the program, traces the culture clashes at all levels of the bureaucracy, and speculates on what lessons the JET program holds for other multicultural initiatives.This fascinating book's jargon-free style and interdisciplinary approach will make it appealing to educators, policy analysts, students of Japan, and prospective and former JET participants.

Hard as it may be to believe, but Rod Stewart has gotten through five decades without succumbing to a holiday album. That streak ends in 2012 with the release of Merry Christmas, Baby, an easygoing and chipper collection of secular seasonal standards. A couple of carols are thrown in for good measure but these songs -- Silent Night, We Three Kings presented as a duet with Mary J. Blige -- along with a mildly incongruous When You Wish Upon a Star, slide by easily on the mellow big-band swing of the rest of the record. Song for song, Merry Christmas, Baby is very much of a piece with Rod's ongoing Great American Songbook series, with Stewart not straying from the familiar form of these songs and producer David Foster laying on all manner of soft, soothing sounds, whether it's acoustic guitars, synthesizers, strings, or a children's choir on Silent Night. Very rarely does this hint at the Rod of the '70s -- and when it does on the closing Auld Lang Syne, its intro given a spare folky treatment reminiscent of his Mercury work, it's a bracing, effective reminder of Stewart's skill as a singer -- and instead relies on a gladhanding charm that suits the season, not to mention Stewart in his crooning dotage. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Electronics Cameras Computers Software Housewares Sports DVDs Music Books Games Toys in titles descriptions Company Info |Checkout Info |Shipping Info |Return Policy |FAQ's Add us as a favorite seller By continuing with your purchase using the eBay Buy It Now button, you agree to the Buy Terms of Use at http://stores.ebay.com/Buys-Internet-Superstore/Terms.html . The War With Japan - Willmott, H. P.THIS IS A BRAND NEW UNOPENED ITEM. Description Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 wa

Japan has some of the most spectacular peaks anywhere on the planet and so it's only natural that visitors to the country are immediately drawn to peaks like the iconic Mt. Fuji, the most visited mountain in the world; the many beautiful peaks of the Northern, Central, & Southern Japan Alps; and the 100 Famous Japanese Mountains spread throughout the Japanese archipelago. Being a lifelong climber, the attraction for Japan's breathtaking mountains was immediate for Gary J. Wolff, and so within only 4 short months of arriving in Japan nearly 22 years ago, he was standing atop Fuji-san, the nation's highest peak. Over the course of the next 2 decades, Gary managed to climb all of the 29 highest mountains in Japan and 38 of the tallest 50. To the greatest extent possible, Gary has shared intimate details of his love affair with Japan's highest mountains, including pics, trail descriptions, and other useful info based upon his 2-decade-long climbing experience in Japan. Not a hiking guide per se, The View from the Top of Japan will nonetheless whet your appetite to the point that you'll want to hit the Japanese mountain trails immediately!

What happens when a seasoned professional woman from Texas moves to Japan without doing her homework? Culture shock blindsides her from the moment she steps off the plane--with sometimes hilarious results. She wasn't just a fish out of water, it was more like fish on the moon. And speaking of fish--she doesn't like them--not the smell, the texture or the taste. But she is an artist, too, and the soul of old Japan eventually wins her heart. She explores Japan with her new- found friends until 9/11 when all communication with friends and family is abruptly severed. Feeling very alone and vulnerable, she realizes how the year abroad has changed her perspective--as a professional, as an artist and as a Texan, finally coming home at year's end with a new appreciation of how precious home is.

A lovely, unsettling family story and a vivid traversal of modern Japanese history that will impress the jaded Japan scholar and inspire the curious general reader or memoir fan. — Library JournalHelm was the Tokyo correspondent for the Los Angeles Times when he realized that the majority of the articles he had written were critical of Japan in some way. This was surprising considering Helm was born in Japan and is part Japanese himself. In this lovingly researched memoir, he sifts through five generations of Helms living in Japan...history buffs will relish Helm's painstaking detail and impressive command of the material. — Publishers WeeklyYokohama Yankee is a marvelous and eloquent work of family history. What makes it more remarkable is this family's history also sheds light on the political, economic, cultural, and racial interactions and tensions between Japan and the United States for more than a century and a half, right up to the present day. This is a humane and insightful book that will be read many years from now. — James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and author of China Airborne“Like a sword cleaving a bittersweet fruit, Leslie Helm’s saga of his mixed-blood family in Japan cuts to the inescapable isolation of being white in a country where blood still means so much. Yokohama Yankee is a painfully intimate story that spans more than a century and brings the wrenching history of modern Japan into a focus that is both razor sharp and deeply human.” — Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14 and former Tokyo bureau chief of The Washington Post“Leslie Helm has written a lively and engaging account of his remarkable family history and its intertwining with Japan ... It is a warm and human story that will charm its readers.” — Kenneth B. Pyle, Henry M. Jackson professor of Asian history and Asian studies, University of Washington, and recipient of Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun“One of the finest correspondents to have reported on Japan, Leslie Helm tells the riveting, sometimes painful story of his multinational, biracial merchant family. Living in Yokohama for generations in war and peace, the Helms are at the heart of Japan's long modern history without ever actually becoming ‘Japanese.’” — Sheldon Garon, Nissan professor of Japanese history at Princeton UniversityHelm mines the many treasures of his family's past, and the multicultural futures of his adopted, Japanese children, to investigate the mysteries of identity that are locked away inside all of us. The family fortune disappears, and relatives scatter in the winds of war and reconstruction. But this lovely story remains, about an erudite man trying to make sense of the world, of the past, and of himself. — Alex Beam, Boston Globe columnist“[A] wonderful work full of pathos, insight and humanity.” — Fred G. Notehelfer, emeritus professor of Japanese history at UCLA and author of Japan Through American Eyes: The Journal of Francis Hall, 1859-1866Leslie Helm's decision to adopt Japanese children launches him on a personal journey through his family's 140 years in Japan, beginning with his great-grandfather, who worked as a military advisor in 1870 and defied custom to marry his Japanese mistress. The family's poignant experiences of love and war help Helm overcome his cynicism and embrace his Japanese and American heritage.This is the first book to look at Japan across five generations, with perspective that is both from the inside and through foreign eyes. Helm draws on his great-grandfather's unpublished memoir and a wealth of primary source material to bring his family history to life.

This follow-up to 2009’s Lullaby, a collection described by the artist as intended “not just for children, but also adults,” sets its focus clearly on the former. Released just months after Jewel gave birth to her first child, Merry Goes 'Round saunters and swings with the easy confidence of new motherhood, going from back porch singalongs (“She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain” and “Oh! Susanna”) to jazzy, Sunday morning slow jams (“My Favorite Things,” “Give Me the Rainbow”) without a care in the world, offering up a set of 16, mostly original, country-folk kids’ songs that are sweet and silly enough to hold the attention of a roomful of little ones, and breezy and folksy enough to keep their parents from launching a sippy cup into the speakers. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi

This fascinating book--part ethnography, part memoir--traces Japan's vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White's book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.

This fascinating book--part ethnography, part memoir--traces Japan's vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan's coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White's book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.

In 1987, the Japanese government inaugurated the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in response to global pressure to internationalize its society. This ambitious program has grown to be a major government operation, with an annual budget of $400 million (greater than the United States NEA and NEH combined) and more than six thousand foreign nationals employed each year in public schools all over Japan.How does a relatively homogeneous and insular society react when a buzzword is suddenly turned into a reality? How did the arrival of so many foreigners affect Japan's educational bureaucracy? How did the foreigners themselves feel upon discovering that English teaching was not the primary goal of the program? In this balanced study of the JET program, David L. McConnell draws on ten years of ethnographic research to explore the cultural and political dynamics of internationalization in Japan. Through vignettes and firsthand accounts, he highlights and interprets the misunderstandings of the early years of the program, traces the culture clashes at all levels of the bureaucracy, and speculates on what lessons the JET program holds for other multicultural initiatives.This fascinating book's jargon-free style and interdisciplinary approach will make it appealing to educators, policy analysts, students of Japan, and prospective and former JET participants.

Alice Hart is a genius at effortless entertaining and serving up delicious food for a crowd. In Friends at My Table she’s crafted 12 complete menus—3 for each season—and 70 perfectly delicious recipes for a year’s worth of colorful celebrations. Menus include food and drink for a bridal shower, brunches, a laid-back summer wedding, picnics, autumn bonfires, and even a New Year’s Eve dinner. There’s something here for every occasion, mood, budget, and palate—omnivores and vegetarians, too. Also, get ideas for charming activities to incorporate into your parties: how to build a home smoker, tips on wild-food foraging, how to pack for a picnic, and even the basics of playing beach cricket.  

This double-CD set, not the legendary triple-CD (four-LP) Carnegie Hall concert, is the one to get to hear what Chicago sounded like in their classic early period. In contrast to the Carnegie Hall show, where the band emphasized its precision to the point of deadening any excitement that might have been generated, here Chicago sounds upbeat and lively, bent on giving a good, exciting show and not on capturing a perfect performance. There are moments, as on the crescendo of Dialogue, where the spirit outstrips the cleanness of the performance, but the group is so tight and forceful that one lets them slide by; at other times, as on Beginnings, they're so smooth and lithe in their extension of the piece that one just wants to bask in it; and then they switch gears to the rougher, harder Mississippi Delta City Blues, and make that work too. The whole performance is good, with a steady stream of worthwhile high points. The repertory runs up through Saturday in the Park and Dialogue, and includes the core of their albums up through Chicago V (including the notorious Song for Richard Nixon and His Friends). The recording is so close that one hears every bass note and guitar lick, and feels practically in the bells of the trumpets, trombones, and so on, and the mix is vivid and spacious. It shows what an embarrassment of riches Columbia was faced with in the group's output that they never issued this performance in America, favoring the more hyped but far less entertaining and exciting Carnegie Hall show -- it was only Chicago's buying back of their catalog in the mid-'90s that got Live in Japan released in the U.S., more than 20 years after its first appearance in Japan. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi