8.31.2004
cause for optimism?
I'm not sure if this is true where you live, but...in my neighborhood, more or less middle-class, and generally fairly conservative in outlook (although more diversity there than one might guess), there are a fair number of Kerry/Edwards signs (likewise Feingold, and for more progressive congressional candidates)...whereas the Bush signs I've seen tend to be almost shy: tucked in an inside window, smaller in scale - almost as if those folks aren't quite sure how positive they are about Bush. We'll see.
both flip and a flop
Two entries in a row dedicated to trivia...hmm, must get back to Important Things. Such as trying to conduct my daily life not under the influence of harmful doses of outrage at the usual bovine ordure emanating from the Ass-Hat-in-Chief. Mark Morford's SFgate.com column for last Friday includes the following abbreviated list of "issues about which BushCo has either completely reversed his position, or has simply openly lied to the nation":
The following paragraph in Morford's article contains links to three more sites listing vast quantities of our Flip Flop's flexible relationship with and commitment to truth.
And then there's this, on The Big One, courtesy Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo site, rather like Jon Stewart's famous video clip of Candidate Bush (in 2000) vs. President Bush. Here's W on July 30: "We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world." And here he is Sunday: "I don't think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world."
And finally, here's Bush once again being too stupid to realize he's being just honest enough to prove himself a liar: "I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with us. I wasn't so pleased with the ads that were run about me. And my call is get rid of them all, now." What do you mean "us," kemosabe? Remember? You had nothing to do with it. (That's also from Marshall's site, citing Andrew Sullivan, of all people.) Hint: if the answer to "have you ever used cocaine?" is "no," just say "no" - because all other carefully phrased answers do not equal "no," and therefore equal "yes." (Either one's used cocaine or one hasn't.) Similarly, if there are military records that once and for all get rid of the accusation that you were a deserter, and you say you'll release them, there's no good reason not to have released them immediately and publish them in 72-point type. That this issue is still unresolved (technically)...well, what benefit does Bush have in leaving it unresolved, if he could resolve it in his favor?
"The creation of the 9/11 commission. The Iraq WMD investigation. The Israeli/Palestine conflict. Nation building. Same-sex marriage. Veterans' benefits. The value of Osama bin Laden. The Saddam/al Qaeda link. North Korea. The U.N. vote on Iraq. "Mission accomplished." Ahmed Chalabi. Steel tariffs. The Department of Homeland Security. Campaign-finance reform. Energy policy. Hybrid cars. The deficit. Assault weapons. Abortion. Science. Global warming. The environment."
The following paragraph in Morford's article contains links to three more sites listing vast quantities of our Flip Flop's flexible relationship with and commitment to truth.
And then there's this, on The Big One, courtesy Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo site, rather like Jon Stewart's famous video clip of Candidate Bush (in 2000) vs. President Bush. Here's W on July 30: "We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world." And here he is Sunday: "I don't think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world."
And finally, here's Bush once again being too stupid to realize he's being just honest enough to prove himself a liar: "I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with us. I wasn't so pleased with the ads that were run about me. And my call is get rid of them all, now." What do you mean "us," kemosabe? Remember? You had nothing to do with it. (That's also from Marshall's site, citing Andrew Sullivan, of all people.) Hint: if the answer to "have you ever used cocaine?" is "no," just say "no" - because all other carefully phrased answers do not equal "no," and therefore equal "yes." (Either one's used cocaine or one hasn't.) Similarly, if there are military records that once and for all get rid of the accusation that you were a deserter, and you say you'll release them, there's no good reason not to have released them immediately and publish them in 72-point type. That this issue is still unresolved (technically)...well, what benefit does Bush have in leaving it unresolved, if he could resolve it in his favor?
8.29.2004
in the wordrobe of my soul, in the section labeled "trom-trou"
a) Learned from office supplies: the French call paperclips trombones, which is amusingly apt;
b) Learned from a bottle of Belgian beer (Hoegaarden): they also refer to the cloudy state of such beers with the word trouble, past participle of a verb meaning "to make turbulent" - and the tumbling of those similar consonants ought to suggest that, yes, the two words (in English this time: trouble, and turbulent) are cognate.
b) Learned from a bottle of Belgian beer (Hoegaarden): they also refer to the cloudy state of such beers with the word trouble, past participle of a verb meaning "to make turbulent" - and the tumbling of those similar consonants ought to suggest that, yes, the two words (in English this time: trouble, and turbulent) are cognate.
stolen goods
Here's one o' them thar polls, stolen from that editrixie:
1. Your name spelled backwards.
ffej
2. Where were your parents born?
Dad - suburb of Chicago; Mom - suburb of Milwaukee.
3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer?
a hard-to-find Beck b-side.
4. What's your favorite restaurant?
"Too many to count!" She's right! Recently...Mexican at Xel-ha; the redoubtable Cafe Lulu; a new barbecue place called Q; Vivo; fish to die for at Roots; standby favorites Hooligan's and Comet Cafe (outside only - damned smokers)...I'll stop before I get too hungry and have to go eat.
5. Last time you swam in a pool?
Man, I've got no clue on that. I'm not a swimmer.
6. Have you ever been in a school play?
Yep, a few. I was in high-school productions of The Fantasticks, Pippin, and maybe one or two others.
7. How many kids do you want?
I will resist the temptation to make a Michael Jackson joke, and instead merely say: none.
8. Type of music you dislike most?
Amy said, "That highly synthetic neo 'soul' perpetuated by 'American Idol,'" and I wholeheartedly concur. In terms of styles, I just don't get metal: it always seems inherently ridiculous to me, a joke I'm either not getting or become instantly tired of. Oh, and you absolutely must see this.
9. Are you registered to vote?
Absolutely. Everyone should register to vote - unless you're voting for Bush, in which case, do us all a favor and stay home that day. Here's a suggested activity.
10. Do you have cable?
Yes...but I'm not sure why. We have the absolute most minimal package, mostly for reception. There are fewer and fewer shows I actually want to watch. I think once they're cancelled (except for The Simpsons which, as a review of Futurama in The Onion pointed out, will probably outlast civilization itself), I'll opt out.
11. Have you ever ridden on a moped?
I have moped, but I've never ridden on one.
12. Ever prank call anybody?
Not as an adult...but as a kid, oh yeah.
13. Ever get a parking ticket?
I lived for half a decade in Madison, Wisconsin: Q.E.D.
14. Would you go bungee jumping or skydiving?
No. I'm not fond of unenclosed heights, and I'm risk-averse. Activities in which one minor screw-up can kill you strike me as foolish and pointless.
15. Farthest place you ever traveled.
My mind, ma-aa-aa-aann... Uh, that would be San Diego, which is pretty pathetic (not San Diego - the fact of its being my most unhere location). Oh well.
16. Do you have a garden?
Technically, yes, in that the house Rose and I own has a garden. But it's wholly hers, since I believe in respecting nature and therefore leave it alone to live another day.
17. What's your favorite comic strip?
I used to like "Zippy the Pinhead," but it's been coasting. "Get Fuzzy"'s fun. And online, I'm really liking "Questionable Content."
18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem?
The first verse, yes. No one knows all the words to the rest of it - the guy was drunk when he wrote it anyway. Check this out.
19. Bath or shower, morning or night?
Shower in the morning.
20. Best movie you've seen in the past month?
I see so few, I might as well list them all: Heaven (Tom Tykwer), Smoke Signals, Outfoxed, 25th Hour, and The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (which is nowhere near as intriguing as it might sound to a PKD fan). I think I'd rank Heaven slightly at the top of that list.
21. Favorite pizza topping?
Oh, that varies highly. For traditional, I'm a traditionalist: Italian sausage or pepperoni. I'm pretty tolerant of what can go on a pizza, as long as the ingredients work well together.
22. Chips or popcorn?
(Brain:) Popcorn. (Stomach:) Chips
23. What color lipstick do you usually wear?
Oh, so this is a chick thing...! I can never find a shade that really brings out the best in my complexion, sorry.
24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells?
Goddamn juvenile delinquent elephants...
25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?
Again, resisting the temptation to make a stupid joke. There's a bit of a portrait above: I think that answers the question for you.
26. Orange juice or apple?
Orange juice at breakfast, apple otherwise
27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine?
Rose, the above-mentioned Q, last night.
28. Favorite type of chocolate bar?
Not sure about brand, but I prefer a good dark chocolate to milk chocolate. I'd be a chocolate snob if I wanted to weigh 300 pounds...
29. When was the last time you voted at the polls?
State primary, April.
30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato?
I think a pizza some friends made for us a couple months back at a visit featured homegrown tomatoes.
31. Have you ever won a trophy?
Probably. Softball as a kid? Piano? Dunno.
32. Are you a good cook?
Pretty good, yes, within a limited culinary range.
33. Do you know how to pump your own gas?
This is a weird question for me: around here, almost every gas station is at least half self-serve pumps, and some are exclusively so. It's hard for me to believe that anyone doesn't know how to do so - it ain't exactly rocket science!
34. Ever order an article from an infomercial?
For myself, or for someone else as a joke?
35. Sprite or 7-up?
Can't be arsed.
36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work?
Not since I quit the S&M gig (ba-dum shnnnng). Uh, yeah, working for a pizza place during college.
37. Last thing you bought at a pharmacy?
Hmm...lightbulbs maybe?
38. Ever throw up in public?
If public restrooms count, yeah - but not for decades.
39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or find true love?
Love - but I've already found that, so send me the million forthwith.
40. Do you believe in love at first sight?
I believe in lust at first sight.
41. Ever call a 1-900 number?
Nope.
42. Can exes be friends?
If they'd only drop those restraining orders, sure.
43. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital?
My mother-in-law, recovering from surgery.
44. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby?
I don't remember. Pictures don't strike me as being particularly Robin Williams-esque, however.
45. What message is on your answering machine?
I used to do "creative" answering-machine tapes...but I gave that up when I got bored with it, realizing that everyone else would get bored of it a lot sooner. Just a generic "we're not home right now" etc.
46. What's your all time favorite Saturday Night Live character?
???
47. What was the name of your first pet?
(childhood) Umbrella, a dog (named by four-year-old me - no idea why, and no, it wasn't raining). (adulthood) Spin, a cat.
48. What is in your purse?
Again with the female-centric questions...okay, in my wallet right now: $35 cash, two unrecorded debit-card receipts, DL, grocery store cards, debit card, some punch-card coupons, UWM staff ID, five credit cards, campus library copy machine card, two health-insurance ID cards, Onion discount card for various items, library card, art museum membership card, auto insurance and car info, video-store cards I no longer use (all hail Netflix).
49. Favorite thing to do before bedtime?
Uh, brush my teeth?
50. What is one thing you are grateful for today?
This place provides a forum for me to complain, sure - but on balance I really have to be grateful for how fortunate my life has been overall - particularly Rose, my family, and my friends. (Awwwww...) And see also this lovely benediction, courtesy Paula.
1. Your name spelled backwards.
ffej
2. Where were your parents born?
Dad - suburb of Chicago; Mom - suburb of Milwaukee.
3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer?
a hard-to-find Beck b-side.
4. What's your favorite restaurant?
"Too many to count!" She's right! Recently...Mexican at Xel-ha; the redoubtable Cafe Lulu; a new barbecue place called Q; Vivo; fish to die for at Roots; standby favorites Hooligan's and Comet Cafe (outside only - damned smokers)...I'll stop before I get too hungry and have to go eat.
5. Last time you swam in a pool?
Man, I've got no clue on that. I'm not a swimmer.
6. Have you ever been in a school play?
Yep, a few. I was in high-school productions of The Fantasticks, Pippin, and maybe one or two others.
7. How many kids do you want?
I will resist the temptation to make a Michael Jackson joke, and instead merely say: none.
8. Type of music you dislike most?
Amy said, "That highly synthetic neo 'soul' perpetuated by 'American Idol,'" and I wholeheartedly concur. In terms of styles, I just don't get metal: it always seems inherently ridiculous to me, a joke I'm either not getting or become instantly tired of. Oh, and you absolutely must see this.
9. Are you registered to vote?
Absolutely. Everyone should register to vote - unless you're voting for Bush, in which case, do us all a favor and stay home that day. Here's a suggested activity.
10. Do you have cable?
Yes...but I'm not sure why. We have the absolute most minimal package, mostly for reception. There are fewer and fewer shows I actually want to watch. I think once they're cancelled (except for The Simpsons which, as a review of Futurama in The Onion pointed out, will probably outlast civilization itself), I'll opt out.
11. Have you ever ridden on a moped?
I have moped, but I've never ridden on one.
12. Ever prank call anybody?
Not as an adult...but as a kid, oh yeah.
13. Ever get a parking ticket?
I lived for half a decade in Madison, Wisconsin: Q.E.D.
14. Would you go bungee jumping or skydiving?
No. I'm not fond of unenclosed heights, and I'm risk-averse. Activities in which one minor screw-up can kill you strike me as foolish and pointless.
15. Farthest place you ever traveled.
My mind, ma-aa-aa-aann... Uh, that would be San Diego, which is pretty pathetic (not San Diego - the fact of its being my most unhere location). Oh well.
16. Do you have a garden?
Technically, yes, in that the house Rose and I own has a garden. But it's wholly hers, since I believe in respecting nature and therefore leave it alone to live another day.
17. What's your favorite comic strip?
I used to like "Zippy the Pinhead," but it's been coasting. "Get Fuzzy"'s fun. And online, I'm really liking "Questionable Content."
18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem?
The first verse, yes. No one knows all the words to the rest of it - the guy was drunk when he wrote it anyway. Check this out.
19. Bath or shower, morning or night?
Shower in the morning.
20. Best movie you've seen in the past month?
I see so few, I might as well list them all: Heaven (Tom Tykwer), Smoke Signals, Outfoxed, 25th Hour, and The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (which is nowhere near as intriguing as it might sound to a PKD fan). I think I'd rank Heaven slightly at the top of that list.
21. Favorite pizza topping?
Oh, that varies highly. For traditional, I'm a traditionalist: Italian sausage or pepperoni. I'm pretty tolerant of what can go on a pizza, as long as the ingredients work well together.
22. Chips or popcorn?
(Brain:) Popcorn. (Stomach:) Chips
23. What color lipstick do you usually wear?
Oh, so this is a chick thing...! I can never find a shade that really brings out the best in my complexion, sorry.
24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells?
Goddamn juvenile delinquent elephants...
25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?
Again, resisting the temptation to make a stupid joke. There's a bit of a portrait above: I think that answers the question for you.
26. Orange juice or apple?
Orange juice at breakfast, apple otherwise
27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine?
Rose, the above-mentioned Q, last night.
28. Favorite type of chocolate bar?
Not sure about brand, but I prefer a good dark chocolate to milk chocolate. I'd be a chocolate snob if I wanted to weigh 300 pounds...
29. When was the last time you voted at the polls?
State primary, April.
30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato?
I think a pizza some friends made for us a couple months back at a visit featured homegrown tomatoes.
31. Have you ever won a trophy?
Probably. Softball as a kid? Piano? Dunno.
32. Are you a good cook?
Pretty good, yes, within a limited culinary range.
33. Do you know how to pump your own gas?
This is a weird question for me: around here, almost every gas station is at least half self-serve pumps, and some are exclusively so. It's hard for me to believe that anyone doesn't know how to do so - it ain't exactly rocket science!
34. Ever order an article from an infomercial?
For myself, or for someone else as a joke?
35. Sprite or 7-up?
Can't be arsed.
36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work?
Not since I quit the S&M gig (ba-dum shnnnng). Uh, yeah, working for a pizza place during college.
37. Last thing you bought at a pharmacy?
Hmm...lightbulbs maybe?
38. Ever throw up in public?
If public restrooms count, yeah - but not for decades.
39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or find true love?
Love - but I've already found that, so send me the million forthwith.
40. Do you believe in love at first sight?
I believe in lust at first sight.
41. Ever call a 1-900 number?
Nope.
42. Can exes be friends?
If they'd only drop those restraining orders, sure.
43. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital?
My mother-in-law, recovering from surgery.
44. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby?
I don't remember. Pictures don't strike me as being particularly Robin Williams-esque, however.
45. What message is on your answering machine?
I used to do "creative" answering-machine tapes...but I gave that up when I got bored with it, realizing that everyone else would get bored of it a lot sooner. Just a generic "we're not home right now" etc.
46. What's your all time favorite Saturday Night Live character?
???
47. What was the name of your first pet?
(childhood) Umbrella, a dog (named by four-year-old me - no idea why, and no, it wasn't raining). (adulthood) Spin, a cat.
48. What is in your purse?
Again with the female-centric questions...okay, in my wallet right now: $35 cash, two unrecorded debit-card receipts, DL, grocery store cards, debit card, some punch-card coupons, UWM staff ID, five credit cards, campus library copy machine card, two health-insurance ID cards, Onion discount card for various items, library card, art museum membership card, auto insurance and car info, video-store cards I no longer use (all hail Netflix).
49. Favorite thing to do before bedtime?
Uh, brush my teeth?
50. What is one thing you are grateful for today?
This place provides a forum for me to complain, sure - but on balance I really have to be grateful for how fortunate my life has been overall - particularly Rose, my family, and my friends. (Awwwww...) And see also this lovely benediction, courtesy Paula.
8.27.2004
new acquisitions in the 2fs collection
Periodically, when I'm bored (or you are), I'll put up lists of recent music acquisitions, with occasional comments.
These are from a recent used-CD haul:
Mostly new...
So yeah, tell me how much I suck...
These are from a recent used-CD haul:
Isobel Campbell Amorino
Hot Hot Heat Make Up the Breakdown
Radiohead Remix Project: pretty "eh" - there are creative remixes, and then there's adding dance-club percussion to sampled guitar licks
Tripping Daisy I Am an Elastic Firecracker
Jim White No Such Place: peculiar, interesting packaging as well (the music fits those adjectives)
Mostly new...
Gentle Giant Acquiring the Taste: prog time!
TV on the Radio Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes: As I mentioned over at The Mystical Beast in comments, I absolutely don't get why anyone would compare this to Peter Gabriel in any way. Odd, that...
Kraftwerk live at Coachella, May 2004: downloaded from that mysterious interweb thingy!
Lilys The Lilys: Yes, it's titled that way...because Kurt Heasley's a perverse bastard (the band name lacks the article, the title has it). This is a British reissue of last year's Precollection, with a few tracks featuring added parts (to fine effect), a seemingly sharper and better-balanced mix, three new songs (all pretty fine), and new sequencing and artwork. On Rainbow Quartz - although their online store isn't selling it, alas.
Julian Cope live 1987 at the Ritz (broadcast on MTV, apparently) / World Shut Your Mouth EP: I got these two discs in trade for another CD - pretty good, considering they were digitized from cassette and LP respectively.
Guided by Voices Half Smiles of the Decomposed
Sixteen Horsepower Hoarse (live, from eMusic)
The Grifters Full Blown Possession - another used find
Clinic Winchester Cathedral
Gary Numan and Tubeway Army Replicas (eMusic)
So yeah, tell me how much I suck...
8.26.2004
I knew I wasn't the only one!
In the midst of a wonderful essay by Tom Robbins on "crazy wisdom" (in the September 2004 issue of Harper's), I saw an ad for a new book, Defining the Wind, which is a meditation of sorts on, of all things, the Beaufort Scale - which (as that link will inform you) I've long been intrigued by. I'm not sure why it's valuable to find others sharing the more out-of-the-way of your interests, but it is.
8.24.2004
punctuated disequilibrium
This is an actual sign, located about a mile from my house: 
I truly have no idea what the sign painter was thinking here - perhaps this is merely a slip of the brush, an artistic flourish?
I truly have no idea what the sign painter was thinking here - perhaps this is merely a slip of the brush, an artistic flourish?
dog bites man; sun rises in east; Bush an asshole
When Republicans try to claim this election is about "character," is this what they have in mind?
8.20.2004
about time...
John Kerry's response to Swift Boat Veterans Against Truth (that is their name, right?) was right on target, particularly these lines: "Well, if [Bush] wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on.'" Following upon Josh Marshall's analysis that this flap is ultimately about perceptions of "toughness," these lines not only point out the true difference in the two candidates' military experience (service vs. weaselization at best) but allude, unmistakeably, to Bush's most grievous policy blunder and most inane statement thereon. The metatext, simply, is "I'm far more qualified to deal with military messes like Iraq, because I've 'been there' and would never mistake bullying rhetoric for effective policy."
And I love the fact that the guy who leads that Swift Boat group - Larry Thurlow, a Texas Republican who's been pissed at Kerry for Kerry's anti-Vietnam war statement - himself received his Bronze Star in the same battle for which he's trying to discredit Kerry's behavior - and the citation describing the circumstances under which Thurlow received his medal contradict Thurlow's claims that the group was not under fire.
What's sad is that Bush's team and fellow travelers like Thurlow are not utterly discredited in the public eye.
And I love the fact that the guy who leads that Swift Boat group - Larry Thurlow, a Texas Republican who's been pissed at Kerry for Kerry's anti-Vietnam war statement - himself received his Bronze Star in the same battle for which he's trying to discredit Kerry's behavior - and the citation describing the circumstances under which Thurlow received his medal contradict Thurlow's claims that the group was not under fire.
What's sad is that Bush's team and fellow travelers like Thurlow are not utterly discredited in the public eye.
8.18.2004
six degrees of light
I'm something of a collector of evocative phrases (see here for another example), and looking at a weather forecast I ran into the phrase "civil twilight." Its official definition is rather mundane (see the link), but the phrase resonates in so many ways. I love it.
And as so often happens, puzzling about one phrase led me to another. I was curious where the "civil" in the phrase comes from, and my best guess has it deriving from this definition: "based on the mean sun and legally recognized by law" (Webster's New Collegiate). "Legally...by law" seems pleonastic - but "mean sun"! The sun, surely, can be cruel - just ask any lazy sunbather who's neglected the SPFs - but mean? Of course, that isn't the sense of "mean" being evoked; rather, a mean sun is "a fictitious sun used for timekeeping that moves uniformly along the celestial equator and maintains a constant rate of apparent motion."
Here in this part of the country, we're quite familiar with the idea of a fictitious sun.
And as so often happens, puzzling about one phrase led me to another. I was curious where the "civil" in the phrase comes from, and my best guess has it deriving from this definition: "based on the mean sun and legally recognized by law" (Webster's New Collegiate). "Legally...by law" seems pleonastic - but "mean sun"! The sun, surely, can be cruel - just ask any lazy sunbather who's neglected the SPFs - but mean? Of course, that isn't the sense of "mean" being evoked; rather, a mean sun is "a fictitious sun used for timekeeping that moves uniformly along the celestial equator and maintains a constant rate of apparent motion."
Here in this part of the country, we're quite familiar with the idea of a fictitious sun.
8.17.2004
the crux of the biscuit
I don't know why apostrophes give people such trouble - they're really only used in two rather simple situations - but what's got me curious lately is a rash of properly formed apostrophes showing up where they don't actually belong. And I'm not sure whether this is a typical thing, or just a Milwaukeeism. What I'm talking about is adding an apostrophe-s to the names of places that don't properly have them. This is a bit understandable when the name is a proper name anyway - for example, a restaurant called Sanford that gets referred to as "Sanford's" - but a bit more mystifying when the place has a fully developed name - as in Cafe Lulu being called "Lulu's" (no, no one named Lulu is involved with the place) - and even weirder when the name of the place isn't a name at all: Trocadero -> Trocadero's, Vivo -> Vivo's, or for you chain-restaurant fans, Chipotle's or Panera's.
Can anyone help us out here at Architectural Dance Society's?
Can anyone help us out here at Architectural Dance Society's?
8.14.2004
a thing I like
Why don't more businesses rent those searchlights for grand openings, etc.? I'm a total sucker for 'em - I see one of those lights sweeping across the sky, illuminating the clouds, and I'm always tempted to find its source, as if it's a rainbow and there might be gold (rather than, say, used cars) at the end of it. Totally cool...
8.10.2004
TV, or not TV?
Sue T. has been writing about her reality-show jones (August 6 and August 8 entries). I'm thinking, it's only a matter of time before these shows become, uh, reality:
Don't Restrain Yourself Several guys compete for the affections of a pretty young thing and see which one is the first to get a restraining order put out on him.
Barfight! Teams of two go into the roughest, toughest bars. One person's job is to try to start a fight. The other person's, to weasel their way out of it. The winner is whoever can walk out the door under his own power.
Huh? Network executives compete to come up with an actual idea. If they do, they lose. (Some problems here: the test run consisted of a bunch of guys in suits sitting utterly still with quizzical expressions on their faces for up to five hours at a time. Not exactly exciting TV...)
Boing-Boing Not only is this a reality show, it's live, in real-time! Teams of well-endowed women, wearing skimpy t-shirts and short skirts, jump up and down for as long as they can. When they fall over, they get sprayed with a hose. (Wait - I think this one is already on the air.)
Don't Restrain Yourself Several guys compete for the affections of a pretty young thing and see which one is the first to get a restraining order put out on him.
Barfight! Teams of two go into the roughest, toughest bars. One person's job is to try to start a fight. The other person's, to weasel their way out of it. The winner is whoever can walk out the door under his own power.
Huh? Network executives compete to come up with an actual idea. If they do, they lose. (Some problems here: the test run consisted of a bunch of guys in suits sitting utterly still with quizzical expressions on their faces for up to five hours at a time. Not exactly exciting TV...)
Boing-Boing Not only is this a reality show, it's live, in real-time! Teams of well-endowed women, wearing skimpy t-shirts and short skirts, jump up and down for as long as they can. When they fall over, they get sprayed with a hose. (Wait - I think this one is already on the air.)
8.09.2004
Keyes on the highway
"Talking Points" scribe Josh Marshall can sometimes bog down in detail and leave his less wonkish readers gasping for air, but he's been on a roll recently, with his "Concerned Veterans..." post, and his most recent posts have trenchantly and hilariously addressed Illinois Republicans' satirist-proof attempts at political farce ("let's have a moralistic right-winger get caught trying to persuade his movie-star wife to get it on in sex clubs, and then let's nominate a batshit insane politician from another state, even though he pontificated against state-hopping carpetbagging during Hillary Clinton's Senate run...").
8.06.2004
a rush of wonder this spell we're under might last
I would have thought it extremely unlikely, with so many songs in my collection to choose from, that I'd be able to name any one song as a favorite - but "I've Made Enough Friends" by the Wrens, from their second album Secaucus, would come close. As a love song, it is square in the center of pop music history - and equally apt, for a rock song, it's about sex. And just as studies have shown that the ideal face is apparently some sort of composite face (judging from subjects' clear preference for a face generated by averaging multiple faces, with the more faces averaged, the higher the score), some measure of typicality probably adds some needed ballast to a song, even if that typicality is weighted, of course, toward the center of your particular tastes (it's your favorite, after all), not just anybody's. But what makes the song for me is how much more than typical it is, and how many different ways it achieves those more-than-typical ends.
The song begins with a quiet, shuddery organ playing a skeletal introduction. In a common Wrens trick, that bit sounds as if it's left over from an earlier overdub session for the track, or even from a different song, yet somehow the fact that both sonically and musically it's slightly out of place (the chord sequence it outlines is consonant with, but not a part of, the song proper) makes a certain degree of sense, sort of a musical ghost making its presence felt. (In fact it wafts Eno-like through the background of the whole song.) The real song begins with a prototypical Wrens guitar part, one of their cracked-plate filigree dissonant patterns that might be painful at high volume but here, more quiet, evokes fragility. A second, more textured guitar shadows that part in sometimes dissonant figures as Charles Bissell's vocal enters. A tentative, teasing lead guitar line is woven between the vocal phrases. But the description of these parts cannot capture what their working together achieves. What really makes the music of the song work, though, is Jerry McDonald's wonderfully musical and varied percussion playing. Using maracas, tambourine, and triangle in addition to the usual kit, McDonald's parts in isolation give the song a structural arc oscillating from quiet to loud, sparse to intense, not in a simple linear fashion, but in escalating intensities, each tentative push backing down again but returning, more determined and certain than before. Kevin Whelan's bass tends to work subtly to reinforce the percussion in the song's quieter moments, but it plays a countermelody as the song's energy is amped up. The Wrens tend to use discord as a textural and emotional agent; for example, rather than crank up the guitar, they add vocal harmonies, and each iteration of the song's key musical phrase finds them piling thicker, higher, more discordant harmonies, until the final repetition hammers away at a nearly Stravinsky-like chord (it's an off-minor thirteenth with a drained fifth, I think).
And then there's the lyrics. At first, they seem merely to be the best-ever description in song of those moments when two people know, without having to say, that they'll be sleeping together for the first time. Bissell (I'm assuming he wrote these lyrics) has a wonderful, short-story writer's eye for the telling detail. In the opening lines, for example ("brush your shoulder with an offhand gesture / I'm holding your stare: invite me upstairs / we look for reasons to stand closer, touching"), there's the narrator's hyperawareness of the part he plays: a gesture isn't really "offhand" if one knows about it, but of course it needs to seem that way. And then there's the trying to will the other person to read your mind, playfully delivered with some wordplay, and again the gesture at roleplaying: both are looking for reasons to stand closer, as if desire can't be enough. Of course, the musical tension of starting, stepping back, starting, stopping again is echoed in the lyrics, as is the mounting erotic tension between the two lovers-to-be, as if the space surrounding their bodies must be handled like nitroglycerin.
But what makes this song kill me, even beyond its best-of-breed description of pre-sexual tension, is the heartbreaking knife-twist of the last two lines: "we're too hoping, our years are showing and fast / but we're too desperate, too soon investing, another lesson I'll pass." And wickedly, these lyrics are placed at the musical climax of the song: okay, using musical structure to parallel the cresting of erotic arousal is an old trick (hell, classical sonata form arguably did so), but these lines - coming right after the only-too-apt "a rush of wonder this charm we're under might last" - place a crashing, and crushing, self-awareness and desperation right atop that musical climax. There's no honeymoon, no cuddling; both of our lovers rolled over and lit cigarettes, knowing (or being unable to accept) that this isn't it, that everything else was a "charm," a "spell." Of course, if you do think that, you will feel that, and you probably will be just as desperate as this song's narrator.
The Wrens' great subject, I'd argue (see The Meadowlands for further proof), is male self-doubt: in particular and in recent years, the way a man might disdain social standards of success but still question whether he's all he could or should be, in the absence of any other clearly defined notions of career, family, and so forth. Secaucus is full of such tales: relationships pursued when maybe they shouldn't be, or not pursued when maybe they should be, or neglected out of indecision and uncertainty which category they fall into. (Liz Phair might provide the female equivalent of this perspective. Hey: they're both single now, right? Charles, meet Liz - Liz, Charles...) On the one hand, we want to believe there's a certain integrity in going one's own way, in, say, choosing to make art instead of money. That's probably easy when you're twenty - but when you're nearing forty, you're working a temp job, you're still single and living with a couple of other single guys, and you're playing in a rock band: is that still okay? How old can you be and still be "the best 17-year-old ever" (to quote another Wrens song, "Everyone Choose Sides") and not feel that you're fooling yourself? My answer, at least as far as the Wrens are concerned, and insofar as we read such lyrics autobiographically: who's given more people more pleasure, the Wrens or some investment banker somewhere? I know I know the answer to that.
It's not really an answer, of course. Most rock lyrics are content to live in their own world, a world in which integrity and intensity are enough. And one reason rock has trouble growing up, the reason it often turns to restaurant-background public-radio mush once its artists hit their thirties, is that outside of the rock world, integrity and intensity are never enough - or at least (at most), they don't feel that way, except to the utterly clueless. (And the charm of such cluelessness has a rather limited shelflife.) The painfulness of compromise, and its necessity, and the attempt to reconcile the needs and pleasure of creativity with rock-bottom practicality, would seem to make an excellent subject for rock: in many ways, they're the more complex, grown-up variant of yr usual teen/post-teen angst that has fueled so many great rock songs. But it's that complexity, uncertainty (read: inability to be distilled into a very sharp marketing hook) that make such an approach, uncompromising in its grappling with necessary compromises, so hard for record companies to embrace. (Cue well-worn Wrens record company woes story...)
When The Meadowlands was released, the lyric that was initially most heartbreaking to me wasn't even on the album: it was the line "I won't ever give up" that was omitted from that album's version of "This Boy Is Exhausted." (It was there on early demos and on a version of the song that appeared on a Drive-In Records compilation called You'll Never Eat Fast Food Again.) As inevitable as it might sometimes seem, giving up in the face of bad necessity never feels good, and the erasure of that note of hope meant more to me than it probably did to the band (for all I know, they just decided the guitar part was heard to better advantage without being doubled by the vocal line). And it was immensely fulfilling, seeing the Wrens live several months ago, to see how gratified they were by fans' response to The Meadowlands and to the show. While its spell lasts, music can let us believe all sorts of impossible things (before breakfast, even). And even if its rush of wonder is, inevitably, temporary, it would be drastically more so if we were unable to believe, even for a while, that it might last.
The song begins with a quiet, shuddery organ playing a skeletal introduction. In a common Wrens trick, that bit sounds as if it's left over from an earlier overdub session for the track, or even from a different song, yet somehow the fact that both sonically and musically it's slightly out of place (the chord sequence it outlines is consonant with, but not a part of, the song proper) makes a certain degree of sense, sort of a musical ghost making its presence felt. (In fact it wafts Eno-like through the background of the whole song.) The real song begins with a prototypical Wrens guitar part, one of their cracked-plate filigree dissonant patterns that might be painful at high volume but here, more quiet, evokes fragility. A second, more textured guitar shadows that part in sometimes dissonant figures as Charles Bissell's vocal enters. A tentative, teasing lead guitar line is woven between the vocal phrases. But the description of these parts cannot capture what their working together achieves. What really makes the music of the song work, though, is Jerry McDonald's wonderfully musical and varied percussion playing. Using maracas, tambourine, and triangle in addition to the usual kit, McDonald's parts in isolation give the song a structural arc oscillating from quiet to loud, sparse to intense, not in a simple linear fashion, but in escalating intensities, each tentative push backing down again but returning, more determined and certain than before. Kevin Whelan's bass tends to work subtly to reinforce the percussion in the song's quieter moments, but it plays a countermelody as the song's energy is amped up. The Wrens tend to use discord as a textural and emotional agent; for example, rather than crank up the guitar, they add vocal harmonies, and each iteration of the song's key musical phrase finds them piling thicker, higher, more discordant harmonies, until the final repetition hammers away at a nearly Stravinsky-like chord (it's an off-minor thirteenth with a drained fifth, I think).
And then there's the lyrics. At first, they seem merely to be the best-ever description in song of those moments when two people know, without having to say, that they'll be sleeping together for the first time. Bissell (I'm assuming he wrote these lyrics) has a wonderful, short-story writer's eye for the telling detail. In the opening lines, for example ("brush your shoulder with an offhand gesture / I'm holding your stare: invite me upstairs / we look for reasons to stand closer, touching"), there's the narrator's hyperawareness of the part he plays: a gesture isn't really "offhand" if one knows about it, but of course it needs to seem that way. And then there's the trying to will the other person to read your mind, playfully delivered with some wordplay, and again the gesture at roleplaying: both are looking for reasons to stand closer, as if desire can't be enough. Of course, the musical tension of starting, stepping back, starting, stopping again is echoed in the lyrics, as is the mounting erotic tension between the two lovers-to-be, as if the space surrounding their bodies must be handled like nitroglycerin.
But what makes this song kill me, even beyond its best-of-breed description of pre-sexual tension, is the heartbreaking knife-twist of the last two lines: "we're too hoping, our years are showing and fast / but we're too desperate, too soon investing, another lesson I'll pass." And wickedly, these lyrics are placed at the musical climax of the song: okay, using musical structure to parallel the cresting of erotic arousal is an old trick (hell, classical sonata form arguably did so), but these lines - coming right after the only-too-apt "a rush of wonder this charm we're under might last" - place a crashing, and crushing, self-awareness and desperation right atop that musical climax. There's no honeymoon, no cuddling; both of our lovers rolled over and lit cigarettes, knowing (or being unable to accept) that this isn't it, that everything else was a "charm," a "spell." Of course, if you do think that, you will feel that, and you probably will be just as desperate as this song's narrator.
The Wrens' great subject, I'd argue (see The Meadowlands for further proof), is male self-doubt: in particular and in recent years, the way a man might disdain social standards of success but still question whether he's all he could or should be, in the absence of any other clearly defined notions of career, family, and so forth. Secaucus is full of such tales: relationships pursued when maybe they shouldn't be, or not pursued when maybe they should be, or neglected out of indecision and uncertainty which category they fall into. (Liz Phair might provide the female equivalent of this perspective. Hey: they're both single now, right? Charles, meet Liz - Liz, Charles...) On the one hand, we want to believe there's a certain integrity in going one's own way, in, say, choosing to make art instead of money. That's probably easy when you're twenty - but when you're nearing forty, you're working a temp job, you're still single and living with a couple of other single guys, and you're playing in a rock band: is that still okay? How old can you be and still be "the best 17-year-old ever" (to quote another Wrens song, "Everyone Choose Sides") and not feel that you're fooling yourself? My answer, at least as far as the Wrens are concerned, and insofar as we read such lyrics autobiographically: who's given more people more pleasure, the Wrens or some investment banker somewhere? I know I know the answer to that.
It's not really an answer, of course. Most rock lyrics are content to live in their own world, a world in which integrity and intensity are enough. And one reason rock has trouble growing up, the reason it often turns to restaurant-background public-radio mush once its artists hit their thirties, is that outside of the rock world, integrity and intensity are never enough - or at least (at most), they don't feel that way, except to the utterly clueless. (And the charm of such cluelessness has a rather limited shelflife.) The painfulness of compromise, and its necessity, and the attempt to reconcile the needs and pleasure of creativity with rock-bottom practicality, would seem to make an excellent subject for rock: in many ways, they're the more complex, grown-up variant of yr usual teen/post-teen angst that has fueled so many great rock songs. But it's that complexity, uncertainty (read: inability to be distilled into a very sharp marketing hook) that make such an approach, uncompromising in its grappling with necessary compromises, so hard for record companies to embrace. (Cue well-worn Wrens record company woes story...)
When The Meadowlands was released, the lyric that was initially most heartbreaking to me wasn't even on the album: it was the line "I won't ever give up" that was omitted from that album's version of "This Boy Is Exhausted." (It was there on early demos and on a version of the song that appeared on a Drive-In Records compilation called You'll Never Eat Fast Food Again.) As inevitable as it might sometimes seem, giving up in the face of bad necessity never feels good, and the erasure of that note of hope meant more to me than it probably did to the band (for all I know, they just decided the guitar part was heard to better advantage without being doubled by the vocal line). And it was immensely fulfilling, seeing the Wrens live several months ago, to see how gratified they were by fans' response to The Meadowlands and to the show. While its spell lasts, music can let us believe all sorts of impossible things (before breakfast, even). And even if its rush of wonder is, inevitably, temporary, it would be drastically more so if we were unable to believe, even for a while, that it might last.
ceasefire
In the latest edition of his long-running online (music) column "The War Against Silence," glenn mcdonald announces the forthcoming end of TWAS's weekly installments. (I put "music" in parentheses because even when mcdonald writes most directly about music - which he does in compelling detail - his real subject is his relationship and interaction with music, and in recent years he's often filled entire weekly dispatches without addressing music at all.) I know glenn casually, through a music mailing list, although I've never met him personally. But TWAS tempts its readers to believe they know its author, since he's never been shy about addressing the intensely personal way he - and by extension, or perhaps presumption, most people - is affected by music and by the rest of the world. In this, mcdonald has walked a tightrope: some of his columns wield the personal in such a way as to encourage readers to examine their own private reflections therein, while others feel rather like accidentally walking in on someone undressing.
In the past year or so (as TWAS has documented), mcdonald has gone through an extraordinary number of changes, most important for him being his forthcoming marriage (I trust he won't be offended at my presuming this priority). Much in the way a friend of mine all at once quit drinking, smoking, eating meat, and his job, the engagement seems to have caused in mcdonald a global re-evaluation of his life. Part of that, it seems, is an interrogation of the impressive, but perhaps less strictly necessary, dedication or even compulsion that has enabled (or allowed, or even forced) him to write a lengthy installment of TWAS every week without fail for nearly ten years. Rounding out TWAS with issue no. 500 both complements and defeats this compulsion, defeating it in the obvious sense that he will no longer write a weekly issue, but complementing it in insisting on ending at a round number - instead of, say, merely stopping. (Incidentally, it's odd that "compulsion" is generally a negative word: some things should be a compulsion, or at least yield positive results when they create one. Writing about music is one such object.)
I'm writing this entry to commemorate the occasion, to acknowledge the influence of TWAS on my own work, and to speak of the joy and intellectual pleasure the column frequently offered me. Of course, I haven't always agreed with mcdonald (our musical tastes, for example, have only about a 10% correspondence - and sometimes I'm utterly flummoxed as to how he can simultaneously enjoy Artist A and Artist Z) but I've always understood that, and often why, he feels strongly about the musicians he's written about.
Perhaps the central idea of TWAS, or at any rate the one I can most enthusiastically endorse, is the notion that music is what humans do best - or that the best things humans do is to make music. (The counterargument is that they can, and should, do better at being with other humans - and perhaps that's what mcdonald is now dedicating the bulk of his energies toward.) I understand the religious impulse, although I'm so constituted as to bog down immediately in reason and practicality when following that impulse along the traditional lines - but music provides, for me, most of the transcendence and sense of wonder that the religious impulse would pursue. And of course, it's musicians, primarily, who've taught me that - but glenn mcdonald, in his tireless dedication to exploring that sense and transcendence, has aided immeasurably in the effort. Thank you.
In a typically pretentious - but provocative, and even beautiful - phrase, Robert Fripp notes that "music is the cup that holds the wine of silence." A toast, then, and the laying down of arms.
In the past year or so (as TWAS has documented), mcdonald has gone through an extraordinary number of changes, most important for him being his forthcoming marriage (I trust he won't be offended at my presuming this priority). Much in the way a friend of mine all at once quit drinking, smoking, eating meat, and his job, the engagement seems to have caused in mcdonald a global re-evaluation of his life. Part of that, it seems, is an interrogation of the impressive, but perhaps less strictly necessary, dedication or even compulsion that has enabled (or allowed, or even forced) him to write a lengthy installment of TWAS every week without fail for nearly ten years. Rounding out TWAS with issue no. 500 both complements and defeats this compulsion, defeating it in the obvious sense that he will no longer write a weekly issue, but complementing it in insisting on ending at a round number - instead of, say, merely stopping. (Incidentally, it's odd that "compulsion" is generally a negative word: some things should be a compulsion, or at least yield positive results when they create one. Writing about music is one such object.)
I'm writing this entry to commemorate the occasion, to acknowledge the influence of TWAS on my own work, and to speak of the joy and intellectual pleasure the column frequently offered me. Of course, I haven't always agreed with mcdonald (our musical tastes, for example, have only about a 10% correspondence - and sometimes I'm utterly flummoxed as to how he can simultaneously enjoy Artist A and Artist Z) but I've always understood that, and often why, he feels strongly about the musicians he's written about.
Perhaps the central idea of TWAS, or at any rate the one I can most enthusiastically endorse, is the notion that music is what humans do best - or that the best things humans do is to make music. (The counterargument is that they can, and should, do better at being with other humans - and perhaps that's what mcdonald is now dedicating the bulk of his energies toward.) I understand the religious impulse, although I'm so constituted as to bog down immediately in reason and practicality when following that impulse along the traditional lines - but music provides, for me, most of the transcendence and sense of wonder that the religious impulse would pursue. And of course, it's musicians, primarily, who've taught me that - but glenn mcdonald, in his tireless dedication to exploring that sense and transcendence, has aided immeasurably in the effort. Thank you.
In a typically pretentious - but provocative, and even beautiful - phrase, Robert Fripp notes that "music is the cup that holds the wine of silence." A toast, then, and the laying down of arms.
8.05.2004
disjointed but with purpose
Here is my latest utterly crazed musical theory: Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans is really a Guided by Voices album.
I'd ask the gentlemen with the extremely long-sleeved white coats and those festive nets to hold off just one minute. Here's how:
So: strip out solos, disensuite song fragments, roughen up production and vocals, and perhaps alter a few of the more floripotent Yes lyrics, and Tales stands revealed as proto-Pollard product.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
I'd ask the gentlemen with the extremely long-sleeved white coats and those festive nets to hold off just one minute. Here's how:
* Tales, from the track listing, looks as if it's four twenty-minute-long epics. What it really is, though, is a bunch of songs and song-fragments run together, sometimes with thematic continuity but often without, into convenient LP-side lengths. If the CD had been available when it was recorded, what you want to bet that it would have been one continuous 80-minute track? So the twenty-minute song length is more a matter of convenience than composition. What we really have is twenty to thirty songs and fragments - structurally, that is, the album is rather like Alien Lanes.
* Allowing for certain aesthetic proclivities of the seventies (lengthy solos, for instance), we could probably edit Tales down to about 45 minutes of material that wouldn't instantly offend the ears of the post-seventies (after punk) aesthetic.
* Yes, obviously, valued different kinds of instrumental skill than Guided by Voices. Still, there are related aspects: certainly, in later GBV, Doug Gillard's guitar-playing is every bit as varied and virtuosic (if not as flashy) as Steve Howe's. And listen to some of the arranging tricks Todd Tobias uses on the Pollard solo albums he's collaborated on: the latent progginess always present on GBV albums is about as close to the surface there as it ever gets.
* Both artists' lyrics are abstract and tend toward sound rather than sense. Anderson's image as macrobiotic sunshine hippie contrasts with Pollard's as beer-drinking gnomic cutup man - but still, lines like "Move over glory to sons of old fighters past" and "sing of the velvet sailors' course" could easily come from either lyricist's oeuvre (they're both from Tales, in fact).
So: strip out solos, disensuite song fragments, roughen up production and vocals, and perhaps alter a few of the more floripotent Yes lyrics, and Tales stands revealed as proto-Pollard product.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
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