Thursday, April 12, 2007
Remembering Kilgore Trout
As you have no doubt heard by now, Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. With the exception of his friend Issac Asimov, Vonnegut is the only novelist whose works I have read extensively. I got onto a pretty big Vonnegut kick about ten years ago. It has subsided in recent years, but I picked up Galapagos last year and it brought me right back to the excitement I felt as a younger man reading his unique voice for the first time. Here are some more interesting reflections on the man and his works.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Musician
I just found out that a documentary film about my favorite musician, Ken Vandermark, is about to be released. Here's a brief synopsis and here's a short clip.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Branch Davidians, Part Deux
A friend and I were recently talking about the Branch Davidians, and we wondered if any followers of that spiritual persuasion still exist. As luck would have it, someone else was thinking the same thing and wrote a newspaper story about the reorganized Branch Davidians, now called The Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness. The new church is led by a former Branch Davidian who was exiled from the church in the mid-1980s after challenging David Koresch. The new church currently has about a dozen members. Other than owing a lot of money to the IRS, the new leader doesn't appear to be in trouble with the law. I don't see this new church having much success building a cult on the ruins of the Branch Davidian compound, but I've been wrong about these things in the past. I've never felt the urge to join a cult, but if I ever do, I hope that I'll at least join one that has a sizable and/or growing membership. Indoor plumbing would also be a big plus, but maybe that's just me.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Bracket Coverage
I enter a modest college football betting pool every season, but I rarely fill out an NCAA bracket and when I do, I never have any money riding on it. I may want to reconsider this strategy, as I tend to fare rather poorly in my football pool but finish near the top in March. This year has been no exception, so far. I managed to get three of the final four correct. The only one I missed was Florida (I had Maryland) and the only reason I missed Florida was because I'm kind of sick of them. Were I playing with my head instead of my heart, perhaps I would have had the Gators in the final four. The last time I remember filling out a bracket, I managed to guess the entire final four correctly (2002). I attribute my success in the NCAA basketball tournament to my lack of knowledge about and interest in college basketball. I tend to put a lot of effort into my bowl picks because I've always watched a lot more college football than college basketball and feel like I know enough to make intelligent decisions. For what it's worth, I have Ohio State over UCLA in the final.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Hi Neighbor!
Today's ProJo had a neat article about Mark Hellendrung, the businessman behind the revival of Narragansett Beer. I picked up my first 'gansett shortly after moving to Rhode Island last year and I haven't been able to stop drinking the stuff ever since. Ok, so that's not exactly true, but I do think it tastes pretty good for a regional beer. My love of regional cuisine was the reason I picked up a Narragansett in the first place. I'm a sucker for regional food. Case in point, I don't particularly enjoy sweetened iced tea, but I always take my tea sweet when I'm visiting the south. Lucky for me, Narragansett is a regional taste that actually tastes good (otherwise, I'd be drinking a lot of nasty tasting beer in the name of authenticity). It's not quite up to the level of Shiner Bock, the champagne of regional beers, but it's a good, reasonably priced beer. If you've ever in Rhode Island or stumble upon some kind of weird Rhode Island-themed bar in your hometown, give one a try.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Fire Water
In an incredible act of American Indian synergy, I bought a 16 oz can of Narragansett with two Sacajawea dollars tonight.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Compass Shatters Magnet
The Vandermark 5
Johnny D's - Somerville, MA
Tuesday, February 13th
It's been almost four years since I last saw this band play live. They are still one of my favorite bands around and I hope that another four years doesn't elapse between now and the next time I hear them perform. Though I wasn't too excited about make the drive up to Boston for a Tuesday night show on the eve of the huge winter storm that turned out to be something of a dud, at least in southeast New England, it was fun to be back in my old neighborhood. I had only been to Johnny D's once before, for a Marc Ribot concert back in 2001. The crowd wasn't as large as the one at the Ribot show, but they were a lot more attentive, and with good reason.
The show got off to an unexpected start. I arrived around 8:45 (the show started at 8:30) and the band was already playing by the time I got there. I can't remember the last improvised music show I went to that started within 30 minutes of the published starting time. This was the first time I heard the band play live with their new cellist, Fred Lomberg-Holm. I was sad to hear trombonist Jeb Bishop was leaving the band. I thought his playing added a really interesting dimension to their sound and I had my doubts as to whether or not a cello could really replace that. I'm still not sure I feel about the addition of Lomberg-Holm. On the positive side, he can do some really interesting things with effect pedals. At times, it almost sounded like he was playing an electric guitar, which brought back some good memories of band prior to Acoustic Machine. Bishop's electric guitar was used sparingly in the days of the electric Vandermark 5, but I really liked the way it was used to give the music a harder edge On the negative side, the cello is not a trombone and it doesn't really bring the same kind of energy.
The first set was a lot more jazzy than I was expecting. Most of the numbers they played were upbeat and swinging, which is something that this band hasn't been doing as much of over the past few years. Vandermark picked up the clarinet for at least one piece in first set and parts of two more pieces in the second, which was a lot more clarinet than I am used to hearing from him. His clarinet playing is always very expressive, more so than any of his other alternate horns, so it was nice to hear more of it. Unfortunately, he didn't bring his tenor sax with him for this show. I asked him why he wasn't playing any tenor between sets and he explained that the band was getting ready for a European tour and carry-on luggage restrictions preclude him from brining his tenor and baritone saxophones as well as his clarinet and bass clarinet. The perils of being a multi-instrumentalist, I suppose. Dave Rempis split his time between alto and tenor sax so it's not like there was no tenor representation, but it would have been nice to hear Ken play a few licks on his most powerful horn.
The music in the second set was a lot sparser and tended to highlight individual group members instead of featuring full-bore group improvisation. The one exception was the last piece prior to the encore, a new song entitled "Compass Shatters Magnet". It started out with a Tim Daisy mallet solo on his drum kit which led into a hard-driving group improvisation with Kent Kessler laying down some particularly vicious bass lines which served to both keep the group anchored and help push them over the edge at the same time. It was an incredible piece and I hope it makes it onto their next album. The Vandermark 5 is a working group in the purest sense of the term. I've probably seen them play at least a dozen times over the past nine years and I can't recall ever hearing them play anything that predates their current album. This concert was pretty typical in that regard, about half of the music was from their latest release, A Discontinuous Line, and the rest were new songs.
Overall, it was a great show. It was also great to see the Boston Phoenix publish a review of the show. I found their coverage to of the local improvised music scene to be spotty at best when I lived in Boston a few years ago, it's nice to see that they are paying more attention to it.
Johnny D's - Somerville, MA
Tuesday, February 13th
It's been almost four years since I last saw this band play live. They are still one of my favorite bands around and I hope that another four years doesn't elapse between now and the next time I hear them perform. Though I wasn't too excited about make the drive up to Boston for a Tuesday night show on the eve of the huge winter storm that turned out to be something of a dud, at least in southeast New England, it was fun to be back in my old neighborhood. I had only been to Johnny D's once before, for a Marc Ribot concert back in 2001. The crowd wasn't as large as the one at the Ribot show, but they were a lot more attentive, and with good reason.
The show got off to an unexpected start. I arrived around 8:45 (the show started at 8:30) and the band was already playing by the time I got there. I can't remember the last improvised music show I went to that started within 30 minutes of the published starting time. This was the first time I heard the band play live with their new cellist, Fred Lomberg-Holm. I was sad to hear trombonist Jeb Bishop was leaving the band. I thought his playing added a really interesting dimension to their sound and I had my doubts as to whether or not a cello could really replace that. I'm still not sure I feel about the addition of Lomberg-Holm. On the positive side, he can do some really interesting things with effect pedals. At times, it almost sounded like he was playing an electric guitar, which brought back some good memories of band prior to Acoustic Machine. Bishop's electric guitar was used sparingly in the days of the electric Vandermark 5, but I really liked the way it was used to give the music a harder edge On the negative side, the cello is not a trombone and it doesn't really bring the same kind of energy.
The first set was a lot more jazzy than I was expecting. Most of the numbers they played were upbeat and swinging, which is something that this band hasn't been doing as much of over the past few years. Vandermark picked up the clarinet for at least one piece in first set and parts of two more pieces in the second, which was a lot more clarinet than I am used to hearing from him. His clarinet playing is always very expressive, more so than any of his other alternate horns, so it was nice to hear more of it. Unfortunately, he didn't bring his tenor sax with him for this show. I asked him why he wasn't playing any tenor between sets and he explained that the band was getting ready for a European tour and carry-on luggage restrictions preclude him from brining his tenor and baritone saxophones as well as his clarinet and bass clarinet. The perils of being a multi-instrumentalist, I suppose. Dave Rempis split his time between alto and tenor sax so it's not like there was no tenor representation, but it would have been nice to hear Ken play a few licks on his most powerful horn.
The music in the second set was a lot sparser and tended to highlight individual group members instead of featuring full-bore group improvisation. The one exception was the last piece prior to the encore, a new song entitled "Compass Shatters Magnet". It started out with a Tim Daisy mallet solo on his drum kit which led into a hard-driving group improvisation with Kent Kessler laying down some particularly vicious bass lines which served to both keep the group anchored and help push them over the edge at the same time. It was an incredible piece and I hope it makes it onto their next album. The Vandermark 5 is a working group in the purest sense of the term. I've probably seen them play at least a dozen times over the past nine years and I can't recall ever hearing them play anything that predates their current album. This concert was pretty typical in that regard, about half of the music was from their latest release, A Discontinuous Line, and the rest were new songs.
Overall, it was a great show. It was also great to see the Boston Phoenix publish a review of the show. I found their coverage to of the local improvised music scene to be spotty at best when I lived in Boston a few years ago, it's nice to see that they are paying more attention to it.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Beating a Dead Horse
Not to keep writing about Parade Magazine, but Michelle pointed this out to me today and I just had to mention it. This week's issue (the annual worst dictators in the world issue) featured a question in Walter Scott's Personality Parade regarding the status of Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro. The reply stated that Barbaro has recovered from his January 13th surgery and is in stable condition. Unless you have been living under a rock without access to Deadspin for the past couple of weeks, you certainly have heard that Barbaro is now in horsey heaven.
The online version of Parade includes a retraction and explains that Barbaro was euthananized after the current issue went to press. Barbaro was put down on January 29th and the current issue of Parade came out on February 11th, so it appears that Parade goes to press at least two weeks before it is published. I was somewhat surprised to learn this. Of course, it's not like Parade contains any timely information, so I guess it doesn't really matter when it goes to press.
The online version of Parade includes a retraction and explains that Barbaro was euthananized after the current issue went to press. Barbaro was put down on January 29th and the current issue of Parade came out on February 11th, so it appears that Parade goes to press at least two weeks before it is published. I was somewhat surprised to learn this. Of course, it's not like Parade contains any timely information, so I guess it doesn't really matter when it goes to press.
Monday, February 12, 2007
I Dream of Geni
I came across a new website today. It's called Geni and it appears to be a Web 2.0 social networking approach to genealogy. It's an interesting concept, but I don't know how useful a socially networked family tree can be. It seems to me that only people from huge and/or fragmented families would need a website to figure out who all of their living, Internet-savvy relatives are. Perhaps they are working on software to mine historical records for birth, death, and marriage information so they can link you to your pre-Internet descendants. That would be a really cool feature.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Dictator of the Year
If Parade Magazine's annual Worst Dictators in the World issue isn't enough to get me out of the blogging doldrums, I don't know what is.
This year's list began with a disclaimer noting that previously ranked dictators Fidel Castro of Cuba and Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan were excluded from this year's list. Castro was excluded for handing over the reigns (at least in name) to his brother in July and Niyazov was excluded because he died in December. I don't agree with either of these choices because this list has always been a survey of the worst dictators over the past year. Both men were in power for most of last year, and both had personality cults so immense that their presence will be felt in their countries for decades to come, so I don't think they should have been excluded.
Sudan's Omar Al-Bashir and North Korea's Kim Jong Il finished 1-2 for the second year in a row. Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei shot up six places into third place this year. I'm not going to defend Khamenei, but I think it's pretty obvious that his rise from 18th to 9th to 3rd place over the past three years has more to do with the increasingly defiant and bellicose rhetoric that has been coming out of Tehran with regards to nuclear weapons, Israel, Iraq, etc. While Iran has become a more repressive place over the past few years, it's hard to justify Khamenei's jump from the outskirts of the "best of the rest" two years ago to the top three today based solely on his lousy human right record.
The top 10 welcomed two new members this year, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi (who placed 11 last year) and Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, who moved up from 16th. I'm not sure why Qaddafi moved up, since if anything, he's been cleaning up his act as of late.
China's Hu Jintao jumped up two places to reclaim the number 4 spot this year. I continue to be puzzled by his high ranking in this survey. The Chinese government is no champion of human rights, but at least they have given their population some measure of economic freedom. Furthermore, China appears to be on a positive trajectory. The Chinese people as a whole live freer and more prosperous lives than they did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, which is more than the people who live in most of the countries under the control of the top 10 dictators can say. The people of Myanmar have been stuck living under the control of a brutal military junta over the past 15 years and have seen their economy collapse and their country branded an international pariah and yet their leader, Than Shwe, comes in two places below Hu this year.
The 10 worst dictators list needs to decide if it wants to rank the world's dictators solely based on their dictatorial bona fides or if it wants to weigh each regime's human rights record against it geopolitical importance. The reason China always places so high (I assume) is because it's a country that wields a lot of power on the international stage. This year's list begins with an eye towards geopolitical significance (Sudan, North Korea, Iran, China) but it then switches to a more of a pure dictatorial quotient, placing Zimbabwe in the number 7 spot and four leaders of relatively obscure African countries in places 11-20 (Equatorial Guinea: 11, Swaziland: 12, Eritria: 13, Cameroon: 19). I'm really curious as to how Cameroon's Paul Biya managed to move from unranked to number 19 this year. I feel like I pay fairly close attention to international news and I fancy myself a bit of an Africa watcher and I've never ever heard of this guy. I don't recall reading any news about Cameroon in the past year good or bad (other than the Cameroon Crazies).
This year's list began with a disclaimer noting that previously ranked dictators Fidel Castro of Cuba and Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan were excluded from this year's list. Castro was excluded for handing over the reigns (at least in name) to his brother in July and Niyazov was excluded because he died in December. I don't agree with either of these choices because this list has always been a survey of the worst dictators over the past year. Both men were in power for most of last year, and both had personality cults so immense that their presence will be felt in their countries for decades to come, so I don't think they should have been excluded.
Sudan's Omar Al-Bashir and North Korea's Kim Jong Il finished 1-2 for the second year in a row. Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei shot up six places into third place this year. I'm not going to defend Khamenei, but I think it's pretty obvious that his rise from 18th to 9th to 3rd place over the past three years has more to do with the increasingly defiant and bellicose rhetoric that has been coming out of Tehran with regards to nuclear weapons, Israel, Iraq, etc. While Iran has become a more repressive place over the past few years, it's hard to justify Khamenei's jump from the outskirts of the "best of the rest" two years ago to the top three today based solely on his lousy human right record.
The top 10 welcomed two new members this year, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi (who placed 11 last year) and Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, who moved up from 16th. I'm not sure why Qaddafi moved up, since if anything, he's been cleaning up his act as of late.
China's Hu Jintao jumped up two places to reclaim the number 4 spot this year. I continue to be puzzled by his high ranking in this survey. The Chinese government is no champion of human rights, but at least they have given their population some measure of economic freedom. Furthermore, China appears to be on a positive trajectory. The Chinese people as a whole live freer and more prosperous lives than they did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, which is more than the people who live in most of the countries under the control of the top 10 dictators can say. The people of Myanmar have been stuck living under the control of a brutal military junta over the past 15 years and have seen their economy collapse and their country branded an international pariah and yet their leader, Than Shwe, comes in two places below Hu this year.
The 10 worst dictators list needs to decide if it wants to rank the world's dictators solely based on their dictatorial bona fides or if it wants to weigh each regime's human rights record against it geopolitical importance. The reason China always places so high (I assume) is because it's a country that wields a lot of power on the international stage. This year's list begins with an eye towards geopolitical significance (Sudan, North Korea, Iran, China) but it then switches to a more of a pure dictatorial quotient, placing Zimbabwe in the number 7 spot and four leaders of relatively obscure African countries in places 11-20 (Equatorial Guinea: 11, Swaziland: 12, Eritria: 13, Cameroon: 19). I'm really curious as to how Cameroon's Paul Biya managed to move from unranked to number 19 this year. I feel like I pay fairly close attention to international news and I fancy myself a bit of an Africa watcher and I've never ever heard of this guy. I don't recall reading any news about Cameroon in the past year good or bad (other than the Cameroon Crazies).
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Bowling for Dollars
Here are my bowl picks for this season, in descending order of confidence. I got off to a good start tonight with TCU's decisive victory over Northern Illinois tonight. Upset picks are denoted by boldface type.
| Game | Matchup | Pick |
| Hawaii Bowl | Arizona State vs. Hawai'i | Hawai'i |
| Sugar Bowl | Notre Dame vs. LSU | LSU |
| Fiesta Bowl | Boise State vs. Oklahoma | Oklahoma |
| Texas Bowl | Rutgers vs. Kansas State | Rutgers |
| Gator Bowl | West Virginia vs. Georgia Tech | West Virginia |
| Poinsettia Bowl | TCU vs. Northern Illinois | TCU |
| Alamo Bowl | Texas vs. Iowa | Texas |
| Outback Bowl | Tennessee vs. Penn State | Tennessee |
| BCS Championship | Florida vs. Ohio State | Ohio State |
| Emerald Bowl | Florida State vs. UCLA | UCLA |
| Sun Bowl | Oregon State vs. Missouri | Oregon State |
| Holiday Bowl | California vs. Texas A&M | California |
| Independenc Bowl | Oklahoma State vs. Alabama | Oklahoma State |
| Orange Bowl | Louisville vs. Wake Forest | Louisvile |
| Motor City Bowl | Middle Tennessee State vs. Central Michigan | Central Michigan |
| Liberty Bowl | Houston vs. South Carolina | South Carolina |
| Insight Bowl | Texas Tech vs. Minnesota | Texas Tech |
| Papajohns.com Bowl | South Florida vs. East Carolina | South Florida |
| Chick-fil-A Bowl | Georgia vs. Virginia Tech | Virginia Tech |
| New Orleans Bowl | Rice vs. Troy | Rice |
| International Bowl | Cincinnati vs. Western Michigan | Cincinnati |
| Capital One Bowl | Arkansas vs. Wisconsin | Wisconsin |
| Rose Bowl | USC vs. Michigan | Michigan |
| Meineke Car Care Bowl | Navy vs. Boston College | Boston College |
| Armed Forces Bowl | Tulsa vs. Utah | Utah |
| New Mexico Bowl | New Mexico vs. San Jose State | San Jose State |
| MPC Computers Bowl | Miami vs. Nevada | Nevada |
| Music City Bowl | Clemson vs. Kentucky | Kentucky |
| Las Vegas Bowl | BYU vs. Oregon | BYU |
| GMAC Bowl | Ohio vs. Southern Mississippi | Southern Mississippi |
| Champs Sports Bowl | Purdue vs. Maryland | Purdue |
Monday, December 11, 2006
Fast Food Nation
The McDonald's and Taco Bell franchises that are closest to my house are located on opposite corners of the same intersection. For reasons that I will probably never know, both restaurants were demolished within a few weeks of each other earlier this fall and are now in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. Having never dined at either of these restaurants, I can't say what was so wrong with them that they had to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Taco Bell is an interesting restaurant. I don't think I've eaten there since I was in college and I have no desire to ever eat there again, but I do really enjoy their commercials. I can't think of any other product or service whose advertisements I enjoy as much relative to the product or service being sold.
Taco Bell is an interesting restaurant. I don't think I've eaten there since I was in college and I have no desire to ever eat there again, but I do really enjoy their commercials. I can't think of any other product or service whose advertisements I enjoy as much relative to the product or service being sold.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Light Show
Here's a picture of the first annual Christmas light display at our house. It's not exactly Clark Griswold quality, but it's a start.
Sikh and You Shall Find
Due to the limitations of the form and the drudgery of churning out one strip after another each day in perpetuity, comic strip artists will occasionally (some more occasionally than other) craft a comic strip whose joke requires such an obvious set-up that any humor that may have been there is sucked completely out of the page. Today's installment of Curtis, a comic that is rarely funny even when such shenanigans are not being used, demonstrates a textbook application of this technique.
Ray Billingsley achieves a rare two-fer in this strip, he constructs a joke that requires knowledge of eastern religions and underground artists (knowledge that as far as I know has never been required to understand Curtis) and links it together in such a contrived fashion that it is painfully unfunny.
Ray Billingsley achieves a rare two-fer in this strip, he constructs a joke that requires knowledge of eastern religions and underground artists (knowledge that as far as I know has never been required to understand Curtis) and links it together in such a contrived fashion that it is painfully unfunny.
Monday, November 13, 2006
This is Our Country?
The Football Outsiders know a lot about football, but they probably know even more about the annoying things that people who enjoy football have put up with in order to watch football. I was browsing through the notes in this week's installment of Audibles at the Line when the following comment about Chevy's latest ad campaign, running in heavy rotation during all televised American sporting events, caught my eye:
I couldn't agree more. The old "Like a Rock" campaign was insufferable, of course, but at least it didn't feature John Cougar Mellencamp and his cornpone paeans to folk wisdom and knee-jerk patriotism. I loathe John Cougar and his entire songbook. I even refuse to refer to him by his nom de plume John Mellencamp. You can't just add the word 'Cougar' to your name and then remove it once you become a commercial success. As you can see, my distaste for him is deep-seeded and highly irrational.
Setting aside my reservations about the music and the musician, the commercial itself is borderline insulting. It's full of stock footage celebrating at worst the banality of life in America and at worst, some of the darkest days in our history. Ok, so there are a couple of perfunctory clips of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, who are certainly spinning in their graves over being included in this travesty. After that, it's all downhill. There is some footage of kids at the sock hop, followed by the Vietnam War, anti-Vietnam War protests, probably a clip from Woodstock for good measure, Nixon resigning, some other crappy moments in American history, and New Orleans under six feet of water. What are future installments (and you know there are going to be future installments) of this series of commercials going to show? Lee Harvey Oswald? The Manson Family? Jimmy Carter? Have Americans gotten so stupid that they feel nostalgia for any even that happened more then 30 years ago, regardless of whether or not it was good?
If this campaign runs as long as their "Like a Rock" campaign, I'm going to have to seriously consider whether or not I want to remain a sports fan.
“Not only does that ad not make me want to buy a Chevy, it makes me want to join Al Qaeda.”
I couldn't agree more. The old "Like a Rock" campaign was insufferable, of course, but at least it didn't feature John Cougar Mellencamp and his cornpone paeans to folk wisdom and knee-jerk patriotism. I loathe John Cougar and his entire songbook. I even refuse to refer to him by his nom de plume John Mellencamp. You can't just add the word 'Cougar' to your name and then remove it once you become a commercial success. As you can see, my distaste for him is deep-seeded and highly irrational.
Setting aside my reservations about the music and the musician, the commercial itself is borderline insulting. It's full of stock footage celebrating at worst the banality of life in America and at worst, some of the darkest days in our history. Ok, so there are a couple of perfunctory clips of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, who are certainly spinning in their graves over being included in this travesty. After that, it's all downhill. There is some footage of kids at the sock hop, followed by the Vietnam War, anti-Vietnam War protests, probably a clip from Woodstock for good measure, Nixon resigning, some other crappy moments in American history, and New Orleans under six feet of water. What are future installments (and you know there are going to be future installments) of this series of commercials going to show? Lee Harvey Oswald? The Manson Family? Jimmy Carter? Have Americans gotten so stupid that they feel nostalgia for any even that happened more then 30 years ago, regardless of whether or not it was good?
If this campaign runs as long as their "Like a Rock" campaign, I'm going to have to seriously consider whether or not I want to remain a sports fan.
Beauty is a Rare Thing
NPR did a piece on free jazz legend Ornette Coleman this morning. It's always nice to see someone in the free jazz community get some coverage in the mainstream media. I'm not a huge Ornette fan. In fact, I don't own a single Ornette Coleman recording. I guess that's somewhat shameful for someone who considers himself a free jazz afficianado, but my recording collection is very sparse by jazz collector standards anyway. I'm familliar with some of his work from the 1960s and I like almost all of it. I haven't been too impressed with any of his recent stuff, but I've only heard a small sample.
I've never seen Coleman play live, and I probably never will. From what I understand, he rarely plays live shows anymore. I heard that he played a free show on the Boston Common sometime back in the 1980s. Nowadays, you're probably lucky to hear him play a show in his hometown (New York?), let alone a free show in the middle of a city park. I'm not knocking Coleman by any means, his impact on the world of creative improvised music has been profound. I'm just saying that I can't really consider someone who is not out there making music on a regular basis part of the vanguard of the free jazz movement. Still, it was a nice piece and he is a much more deserving of an in-depth profile than most of the musicians that I hear about on NPR.
I've never seen Coleman play live, and I probably never will. From what I understand, he rarely plays live shows anymore. I heard that he played a free show on the Boston Common sometime back in the 1980s. Nowadays, you're probably lucky to hear him play a show in his hometown (New York?), let alone a free show in the middle of a city park. I'm not knocking Coleman by any means, his impact on the world of creative improvised music has been profound. I'm just saying that I can't really consider someone who is not out there making music on a regular basis part of the vanguard of the free jazz movement. Still, it was a nice piece and he is a much more deserving of an in-depth profile than most of the musicians that I hear about on NPR.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Forklift Safety Dance
Michelle has to go into the plant sometimes for her job, so she has to take all kinds of safety training classes. Today's class featured a forklift safety video (in German). Whatever the video may have lacked in educational value it more than made up for in humor. After she told me about the video, I was laughing so hard that we decided that we had to find it on the Internet. Fortunately, we weren't the only people who found it hilarious. Check out the video for yourself. You probably wouldn't learn anything about forklift safety, but you should enjoy it. This video, by the way, does nothing to dispel the reputation that Germans have for being really weird.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Election Day
I spent more time studying in college than most people, but I never pulled an "all-nighter". Unlike many of my classmates, I never spent the final minutes before an exam looking over notes, trying to memorize that last piece of information that would help me pass the test. My approach to politics, however, has always been to spend the night before the election cramming, trying to figure out which candidates and proposals I support. I usually make up my mind on the big-name candidates before the election, but I never pay attention to the local races and the more obscure offices until the last minute. It would actually make more sense to figure out the smaller races first, since the only media coverage that those races tend to get happens a month or two before the election. I always pledge to pay more attention to local races after each election, but I never manage to make good on that pledge. I'll do things differently in 2008, I'm sure.
In my defense, I had to vote on no fewer than 22 separate ballot questions in this election (9 statewide and 13 citywide). I'm not a big fan of ballot questions. With ballot questions, the most important thing seems to be the wording. I don't know if there is any ballot proposition that could not be passed given the right amount of creative wordsmithing. I only thought a couple of the questions on this year's ballot were somewhat misleading. My main complaint was the overall inanity of some of them. There was a statewide question to approve $4M in bonds to rehabilitate a state park. Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining about fiscal transparency in a state as legendary for corruption as Rhode Island, but isn't this something that could have been taken care of by the legislature without having to solicit the opinion of every registered voter?
In my defense, I had to vote on no fewer than 22 separate ballot questions in this election (9 statewide and 13 citywide). I'm not a big fan of ballot questions. With ballot questions, the most important thing seems to be the wording. I don't know if there is any ballot proposition that could not be passed given the right amount of creative wordsmithing. I only thought a couple of the questions on this year's ballot were somewhat misleading. My main complaint was the overall inanity of some of them. There was a statewide question to approve $4M in bonds to rehabilitate a state park. Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining about fiscal transparency in a state as legendary for corruption as Rhode Island, but isn't this something that could have been taken care of by the legislature without having to solicit the opinion of every registered voter?
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