Vin Suprynowicz

I bought a few jazz records over the weekend, as I do whenever the opportunity arises.

One was a 10-inch Mercury LP from 1950, produced by Norman Granz and titled “Charlie Parker with Strings.” The disc was a bit controversial when producer Granz brought it out. Critics wondered whether Bird Parker, who had fought the hard fight over the previous decade to introduce the new melodic and rhythmic approach of small combo be-bop, was “selling out” to produce a more marketable sound. (They needn’t have worried. More mature evaluation has concluded Parker merely refused to stay in a rut, was always willing to try new combinations.)

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Among scores of other promises, some more and some less likely than walking on water, Barack Obama devoted a paragraph in his recent State of the Union address to the age-old Democratic promise of more gun control — vowing he’ll proceed even without the cooperation of Congress.

“I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook,” the lame-duck president intoned.

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NOTE TO READERS: Vin Suprynowicz specifically authorizes & encourages the copying, forwarding and re-posting of this column, with the sole proviso that, as a matter of courtesy, no new material not of his making be interpolated (mixed in) to create the impression he wrote it. Column originally posted at vinsuprynowicz.com

On Tuesday morning, March 4, Kermitt Waters, a Las Vegas attorney whose main job is defending Nevada property owners whose land is being seized by government agencies offering low-ball prices (and who to that end joined with retired Judge Don Chairez to successfully bring us the “PISTOL” property-rights initiative back in 2004-2006) will stand before the full Nevada Supreme Court on the top floor of the leaky boondoggle “Regional Justice Center” in Las Vegas, staging a last-ditch defense of the constitutional right of Nevadans to participate in their own government through the initiative and referendum process, as supposedly guaranteed by the state Constitution.

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As it was never our intention to present here only “gun-related stuff,” and since a number of readers raised their hands when asked not long ago if they’d like to see more “book stuff,” herewith an update of interest primarily to those seeking interesting and hard-to-find titles.

Most of you know The Brunette sells vintage clothes and fabric at the Charleston Antique Mall, next to Arizona Charlie’s casino on Decatur Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas (within a mile of Amber Unicorn and Las Vegas Fine Books — formerly Greyhound’s — which string out to the south along Decatur), and that in between work on the next novel Vin pitches in, stocking a few bays with used and collectible books and records.

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Over the objections of a majority of Colorado’s chief law enforcement officers, Democrats pushed three “gun control” bills through the state legislature last year, wringing their hands and ridiculing those who refused to “do something to protect the children” from mass shootings like those at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. and an elementary school in Connecticut.

Republicans predicted the measures — banning new sales of magazines of more than 15 rounds, and requiring background checks on private gun sales — would prove unenforceable and would do nothing to prevent such incidents, both of which were carried out by lunatics.

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Perusing the memoirs of 20th century book dealers and collectors can provide some useful perspective on what’s been collected over the years, as well as an idea of the (often jaw-droppingly low) prices people used to pay for things the average person could hardly dream of stumbling on today – inscribed copies of Dickens and Mark Twain, original hand-written manuscripts by James Joyce or Joseph Conrad, the works.

(You have to correct for inflation, of course. A dollar in the 1930s was made of silver, an ounce of which will cost you $40 today. And a single pre-1933 $20 gold piece can now set you back $1,400 in today’s Washington Monopoly money.)

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The Brietbart Web site reported Dec. 5 that Barry Greenfield, an elected Selectman in Swampscott, Mass., “is pushing a measure to give police the
authority to conduct home searches to check proper storage of firearms.”

The site reports Greenfield said “State law requires Massachusetts gun owners to keep their firearms locked away or rendered inoperable.” There are “600 registered gun owners in [Swampscott],” and the selectman “wants police to be able to drop in unannounced, enter the homes of each gun owner, and verify compliance.”

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By Vin Suprynowicz

It’s the holiday season, when we’re reminded to give thanks. Indeed, we risk going into a tailspin if we concentrate only on our problems, without remembering to be thankful for health, for friends and loved ones, for living in a country where we can stand up for our liberties by speaking and reading and writing pretty much as we please.

I almost said “where we can STILL read and write as we please,” but recall that before 1962 Americans faced jail sentences if they tried to send birth control information through the mail (even to married couples!) or to publish such books as “Ulysses” or the works of Henry Miller, then deemed “filth” but which are now considered among the cornerstones of straight-talking modern literature. (Read a lot of Anthony Trollope, lately?)

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I see where there have been a couple more “mass shootings,” leading not to questions about why so many black men seem to feel trapped, frustrated, and unneeded in the wonderful new multi-generational welfare state we like to call Obamaland, but rather to the usual recycled, croaking calls for more “gun control.”

For the record, we should always note the death toll of these predictable psychotic explosions among the quasi-literate and otherwise unemployable graduates of our youth propaganda camps, desensitized as they are after years of blow-’em-up video games, remain infinitesimal compared to the purposeful massacres of their unarmed subjects by such champions of socialism as Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

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My mom called me the other day to ask whether I thought the “government shutdown” would impact some state program or other. I can see how the thought arose, given that there are hardly any independent “state programs” any more (most having fallen victim to the siren call of “supplemental federal funding,” which leaves them about as independent as if they were accepting short-term loans from your local Mafia.)

“Mom,” I asked, “there’s a federal prison not that far from you, in Danbury. Are you worried about all those federal prisoners wandering the streets, now that they’ve let them out?”

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