B12 Solipsism

Another Quickie review

“Ethiopiques 19″ (Ethiopiques (Buda Series), Mahmoud Ahmed)

I don’t have every album in this series¹ , but every CD except one has been a great addition to my African music library. My favorite song on this album, called Tezeta, has a simply stunning bass line, along with a moody vocal, sort of like a Hazzan², though in Ethiopian. Great sax too.

Tezeta means nostalgia, a bittersweet longing for the past, btw, and is a frequent song subject. In fact, there is an entire Ethiopiques album devoted to it.

1. estimate without counting that I’ve picked up slightly more than half of the 23 titles, mostly from my pals at Aquarius Records in San Francisco [↩]
2. cantor [↩]

“Outliers: The Story of Success” (Malcolm Gladwell)

I’ve already ordered Malcom Gladwell’s new book, Outliers¹ just on the strength of a few excerpts I’ve stumbled upon. His New Yorker magazine style of writing is easily consumed², and his ideas are usually interesting, if not always perfectly formed. His theories are what they are, but truth be told, I really just like his anecdotes. Speaking of the Beatles, I did not know this factoid about their Hamburg days…

Is this a general rule of success? If you scratch below the surface of every great achiever, do you always find the equivalent of the Michigan Computer Centre or the hockey all-star team - some sort of special opportunity for practice? Let’s test the idea with two examples: the Beatles, one of the most famous rock bands ever, and Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men.

The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - came to the US in February 1964, starting the so-called “British Invasion” of the American music scene. The interesting thing is how long they had already been playing together. Lennon and McCartney began in 1957. (Incidentally, the time that elapsed between their founding and their greatest artistic achievements - arguably Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album - is 10 years.) In 1960, while they were still a struggling school rock band, they were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany.

“Hamburg in those days did not have rock’n'roll music clubs. It had strip clubs,” says Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles’ biography, Shout! “There was one particular club owner called Bruno, who was originally a fairground showman. He had the idea of bringing in rock groups to play in various clubs. They had this formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of people lurching in and the other lot lurching out. And the bands would play all the time to catch the passing traffic. In an American red-light district, they would call it nonstop striptease.

“Many of the bands that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool,” Norman continues. “It was an accident. Bruno went to London to look for bands. But he happened to meet a Liverpool entrepreneur in Soho, who was down in London by pure chance. And he arranged to send some bands over. That’s how the connection was established. And eventually the Beatles made a connection not just with Bruno, but with other club owners as well. They kept going back, because they got a lot of alcohol and a lot of sex.”

And what was so special about Hamburg? It wasn’t that it paid well. (It didn’t.) Or that the acoustics were fantastic. (They weren’t.) Or that the audiences were savvy and appreciative. (They were anything but.) It was the sheer amount of time the band was forced to play. Here is John Lennon, in an interview after the Beatles disbanded, talking about the band’s performances at a Hamburg strip club called the Indra: “We got better and got more confidence. We couldn’t help it with all the experience playing all night long. It was handy them being foreign. We had to try even harder, put our heart and soul into it, to get ourselves over. In Liverpool, we’d only ever done one-hour sessions, and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at every one. In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours, so we really had to find a new way of playing.”

The Beatles ended up travelling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, of five or more hours a night. Their second trip they played 92 times. Their third trip they played 48 times, for a total of 172 hours on stage. The last two Hamburg stints, in November and December 1962, involved another 90 hours of performing. All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, they had performed live an estimated 1,200 times, which is extraordinary. Most bands today don’t perform 1,200 times in their entire careers. The Hamburg crucible is what set the Beatles apart.

“They were no good on stage when they went there and they were very good when they came back,” Norman says. “They learned not only stamina, they had to learn an enormous amount of numbers - cover versions of everything you can think of, not just rock’n'roll, a bit of jazz, too. They weren’t disciplined on stage at all before that. But when they came back they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.”

[From Extract from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: Is there such a thing as pure genius? | Books | The Guardian ]

The excerpt goes on, click if you want to read more. Or just buy the book!

1. Amazon sent me an email today that the book was shipped from their warehouse - I should get it by Tuesday [↩]
2. I tried to avoid using the phrase, breezy, but it does fit [↩]

Another Quickie Review

“Forca Bruta” (Jorge Ben)

The guitar rhythms circle around a moving middle, makes me move my belly button in concentric ovals in my chair. Huge thumbs up.
From the Amazon blurb

First time on CD in the US - and first time in the world in over 15 years! A groundbreaking album from the young Jorge Ben - one of Brazil’s most soulful singers ever - heard here at a pivotal point in his career! Forca Bruta is a record forever transformed Brazilian music with its unique blend of samba and soul - and it features some tremendous rhythm work from Trio Mocoto - who bring in a wide variety of percussion techniques to make the whole thing groove. There’s an earthy, laidback feel to the whole set - one that makes the album feel like a spontaneous expression of genius, even at the few points when larger orchestrations slide into the mix. The album’s easily one of Jorge Ben’s greatest - and it’s a much-heralded Brazilian treasure that’s finally getting reissued!

Quickie review:

“Bluesy Burrell” (Kenny Burrell)

Originally labeled as being a joint release with Coleman Hawkins, he plays on nearly half the songs. An album that encourages dimming the lights, and lighting up. Too bad I gave up my smoking habits.
Thumbs up.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson (Aperture Masters of Photography)” (Aperture)

Was lucky enough to sneak over to the Art Institute of Chicago this week, and explore the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit. Wow. My art-speak muscles have atrophied from inactivity¹, so I’m not going to bore you with faux critical analysis, suffice it to say, I was blown away, and want to explore the exhibit again before it leaves, January 4th, 2009. I was not familiar with his work, besides perhaps one image that became famous recently² when uploaded to Flickr. Amazing will suffice as an adjective for Mr. Cartier-Bresson.

The exhibit also mixes in drawings³ from contemporaries, sometimes uncannily similar, sometimes related in other fashion - such as a photo of Henri Matisse in his studio alongside a Matisse sketch.

From the AIC:

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Art Institute will present, for the first time, a comparison of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs to the modern drawings, etchings, and paintings of his contemporaries—works that would otherwise be in storage in preparation for their installation in the Modern Wing.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the legendary photojournalist whose work was characterized by the term “the decisive moment,” began his career as a painter influenced by the Surrealist poets who were a mainstay of Parisian café culture in the 1920s. Although his subsequent work in photography was concerned primarily with time and timing, it also reveals an appreciation for the irrational and subconscious gleaned from the work of writers and poets of this time.

Pulling from the Art Institute’s Julian Levy Collection—the legendary gallery director who assembled the first exhibition of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs in the United States—this exhibition provides a rare glimpse into the early stages of Cartier-Bresson’s career. Work by his painting instructor André Lhote parallels Cartier-Bresson’s early photographs, as does that of Salvador Dalí. Also included will be work by Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso that relates to photographs by Brassaï, André Kertész, and other photographers active in Paris between the World Wars.

When I got home, I ordered this book from Amazon

Henri Cartier-Bresson reveals–as only a few great artists have done consistently–the richness, the sensibilities, and the varieties of the human experience in the twentieth century. This volume of Aperture’s Masters of Photography series confirms the genius of the photographer whose pictures with the new, smaller hand-held cameras and faster films defined the idea of “the decisive moment” in photography.

Cartier-Bresson’s imagery is intimate, but it is also utterly respectful of his subjects. In his wide travels throughout the world, he has captured universal meanings through the glimpses into the lives of individuals in scores of countries. Each photograph is in itself a masterpiece of dramatic form; taken together, Cartier-Bresson’s works constitute a personal history of epic scope.

Henri Cartier-Bresson presents forty-two of the artist’s photographs, each recognized a a masterpiece of the medium. In addition, Cartier-Bresson offers a brief statement of his own artistic ethos, his striving for the spontaneity through intuition that imbues his work.

Forty-two 5″X7″ quality reproductions, well worth the $10 price tag. If you have the slightest interest in photography or art history, you should swing by the Art Institute, or at least pick up a copy of this book.

1. University of Texas was a long, long time ago [↩]
2. A wiseacre uploaded this photo to a Flickr group called “deleteMe”, a group that invites photography critique. Some of the more dismissive comments seem to have been deleted, but plenty still remain, criticizing his lack of focus, weird depth of field, should have been in stronger focus, and so on. Flickr is a great site, but rewards a certain type of photo over all others. Color photos of beaches are fine, but are they really art? Over-saturated postcard style images usually get viewed much, much more than photos containing less technical polish. [↩]
3. and paintings? The trouble with spending a couple hours browsing the Art Institute is that there is a certain amount of blur [↩]

“FreeDarko presents The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today’s Game” (Bethlehem Shoals, Dr. Lawyer IndianChief, Silverbird 5000, Brown Recluse Esq.)

Received my copy today. Looks like a lot of fun. Bloggers making good - the tome was written by Bethlehem Shoals (Author), Dr. Lawyer IndianChief (Author), Silverbird 5000 (Author), Brown Recluse Esq. (Author), Big Baby Belafonte (Illustrator). Excerpts are available if you want to dip your toe in FreeDarko waters. I jumped right in on the strength of their brand.

The indispensible, amazingly illustrated companion to today’s NBA—a roundball Rosetta Stone that hilariously decodes the trends and tendencies of pro basketball.

The NBA of the moment is a league of hugely charismatic celebrities, crackling aesthetic intrigue, sociopolitical undercurrents, and raw humanity: every Kobe Bryant pump-fake or LeBron James dunk holds within it a Shaq-size load of meaning. The Macro-Phenomenal NBA Almanac is a one-of-a-kind guide to this tumultuous and exciting league. In a series of brilliantly illustrated chapters—from Master Builders like Tim Duncan to Destiny’s Kids like Amare Stoudemire to Lost Souls like Lamar Odom—the almanac breaks down the styles of the NBA’s most colorful characters, showing what each one reveals through his play and conduct, both on the court and off. Filled with some of the smartest, funniest sportswriting known to fankind, this book will cast an entirely new light on one of our favorite games.

From the book site:

The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac functions simultaneously as the ultimate basketball book for the ultimate NBA fan as well as the ideal sports book for the person with no interest in sports. This book will satiate the passionate sports fan’s desire to see athleticism legitimized as a cultural element extending beyond mere cro-magnon brawn.

Within the pages of this tome, NBA hoopery collides with Japanese noise-rock, municipal politics, experimental zoology, Belgian surrealism, and behavioral economics like never before. The mystical deities of this hallowed league of professional basketball are finally given the treatment they deserved, as they are scrutinized not as men, but as embodiments of our own core cultural values and insecurities.

Whereas past sports-literary endeavors have attempted to paint sports as a metaphor for life or life as a metaphor for sport, we depict the National Basketball Association as a universe unlike any that one would encounter in daily existence. The NBA is a sphere in which Indiana farmboys, housing project messiahs, African tribesmen, and escapees from war-torn Eastern Bloc countries, coalesce by the nature of their superhuman physicality. Free Darko was born to make sense of it all.

Awesome I say, awesome indeed.
One other point: the book is well designed, slick, with heavy paper stock, and brightly colored illustrations. Not a tri-fold manifesto published at night at a local copy shop, but a book that feels like it is something.

“The Johnny Cash Show: The Best of Johnny Cash 1969-1971″ (Michael B Borofsky)

I feel strongly that Louis Armstrong was one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th Century. Not just for the jazz world, or the music world, but in every aspect, Louis Armstrong accords respect as an innovator, and creator of themes emulated, copied and echoed by others. A genius, in other words.

I would have never guessed, but Louis Armstrong was a guest on the Johnny Cash Show. This and the story about Satchmo and Jimmie Rogers show how diverse musical tastes these men had and once again that music is a great connector.

This is from episode 38, Oct., 28, 1970 and must be one of Satchmo’s last performances. He was such a great performer right to the end and the Nashville audience and Johnny just loved him.

Louis Armstrong cracks everybody up at the start of the song: Let’s give it to ‘em in black and white.

THIS AND OTHER GREAT PERFORMANCES ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON A 2-DVD-SET “BEST OF THE JOHNNY CASH TV SHOW”

Jason Kottke links to this Paris Review sampler of some of Louis Armstrong’s visual art:

When not pressing the valves on his trumpet or the record button on his tape recorder, Armstrong’s fingers found other arts with which to occupy themselves. One of them was collage, which became a visual outlet for his improvisational genius. The story goes that he did a series of collages on paper and tacked them up on the wall of his den, but Lucille, who had supervised the purchase and interior decoration of their house in Corona, Queens, objected. Armstrong decided to use his extensive library of tapes as a canvas instead, and the result is a collection of some five hundred decorated reel-to-reel boxes, one thousand collages counting front and back. The collages feature photographs of Armstrong with friends (like the snapshot captioned “Taken at Catherine and Count Basie’s swimming pool, at his birthday party, August 1969”) and with fans (Armstrong seems never to have refused a photo op or an autograph); congratulatory telegrams and clippings from reviews of his performances; a blessing from the Vatican (as reassembled by Louis, the first lines read: “Mr. and Mrs. Most Holy Father Louis Armstrong”); and cutouts from packages of Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, which, judging from the label’s ubiquity in these pieces, were as much a staple of Armstrong’s daily life as playing the horn. Only occasionally do the collages indicate the musical content within; usually there is no correlation. Armstrong made generous use of various kinds of adhesive tape not only to attach images to each box but also to laminate, frame, or highlight them. The works are untitled and undated, but he was making them as early as the 1950s; in a letter from 1953 he wrote, “Well, you know, my hobbie (one of them anyway) is using a lot of scotch tape . . . My hobbie is to pick out the different things during what I read and piece them together and [make] a little story of my own.”

[Click to read more of The Paris Review - Reel to Reel]

and we posted this a year or so ago…

As mentioned on a Bob Dylan XM radio broadcast, Louis Armstrong appeared in a Betty Boop short.

One of the classic Depression-era musical cartoons created by Max and Dave Fleischer. Satchmo’s soundtrack obviously inspires the artists - even if the visuals aren’t in any way “politically correct” 70-plus years later.

Yes, besides the wince-inducing racism, this piece is a great meld of Fleischer brothers cartoon, live action of Louis Armstrong’s crack jazz band of the 20s and 30s - The Hot Fives and Sevens, and Mr. Armstrong’s floating head.

“The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings” (Louis Armstrong)

Jimmie Rodgers and Johnny Cash are important musical icons too, any fledgling musical historian should own multiple albums by both, but Louis Armstrong transcends them.

“Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition” (Pavement)

Matador Records is re-issuing Brighten the Corners, Pavement’s penultimate album, with a second disc of goodies, and more.

Our latest edition of Buy Early Get Now is perennial favorite, Pavement’s classic album Brighten The Corners!

Buy Early Get Now and receive the 2 CD deluxe edition in an embossed and die-cut slipcase, with a 62-page perfect-bound book AND a stream of the album, two bonus tracks and a whole vinyl LP containing an unreleased live show. That’s right. A free LP if you Buy Early Get Now. The bonus live LP was recorded during the first Brighten tour and scheduled for release as OLE-324 in July 1998, but was then shelved… until now.

[From Matador Records ]

I assume this bonus LP will eventually be released in the future in other formats, but maybe not.¹

Pavement is intertwined with my memories of the 1990s, they were by far my favorite contemporary band, eclipsing even the mighty Sonic Youth who had already started their decline by then. Pavement rewards multiple, concentrated listening, their lyrics were comprised of obtuse bits of American indie subculture, and whatever else was on our bookshelves. In my own iTunes rating scheme five songs are classics, 4 star songs that are always included on my iPod².

Clicking around to read contemporary reviews of the album, stumbled on this gem from Pitchfork. I imagine the reviewer³ smoking a big bowl of something interesting, and then being unable to write anything coherent about an album he loved, but still typing something anyway on his laptop. Err, or something. I simply don’t know what you are implying.

Still shocking the music world with their wacky, off-kilter brand of music, Pavement come back hard in 1997 with Brighten The Corners. Having never released an album that was even remotely bad, Pavement continue to awe with songs like “Shady Lane” and “We are Underused.” Yeah, it’s a fact. Stephen Malkmus and company pretty much got it goin’ on.

When this disc opens with “Stereo,” you’re immediately compelled to grin. And grin you do. For the duration of the album. A natural high, the tracks roll on. “Transport is Arranged,” “Date With Ikea,” “Old to Begin.” Each one somehow ultimately more awesome than the last. Stuck in a joyous stupor, your only option is to go limp and let the music move you.

Luckily, the disc ends and after a few minutes of continued incapacitation and twitching, you’re able to move again. Best not put it on repeat.

Actually, Robert Christgau wasn’t much deeper in his rave:

Brighten the Corners [Matador, 1997]

Mature or die is the whole of the law. So of course there’s no longer much insurgency in their ill-mannered sounds, now deployed to serenade a self-sustaining subculture and celebrate a band’s collective success. Moderate tempos that once breathed psychedelic wooze turn reflective if not thoughtful as lyrics reference the material emoluments of middle-class life. Yet it’s still exciting, because it isn’t dragged under by the nagging disappointments that generally dull such music (and security). As convinced ironists, Pavement never expected anything else. Closure is a chimera–they’ll drink to that. Onetime insurgent Thelonious Monk–they’ll drink to him, too. A man known for his brilliant corners. A

At least neither reviewer⁴ uses the word, angular.

1. Only available directly from Matador, not the Amazon link, btw [↩]
2. Stereo; Blue Hawaiian; We are Underused; Starlings of the Slipstream; and Fin, in case you were curious [↩]
3. Ryan Schreiber [↩]
4. nor myself, up until this point. Doh!! [↩]

“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - A Film About Wilco” (Sam Jones (IV))

Wilco emails warning about an upcoming Blue-Ray disc that is not worth purchasing:

Also, we have a CONSUMER ALERT. Without consulting us, the DVD company (not WB/Nonesuch) that released “I am trying to break your heart” is about to issue a Blu-Ray Edition which, no surprise, costs considerably more (nearly 2x) than the standard DVD. We’re unsure as to the rationale for the release, given that the film was shot in beautiful grainy B&W and has a stereo-only audio track… there is, in our opinion, not much to be gained by spending the extra cash. It’s your money… and in this case you should probably hang onto it. [From W I L C O - N E W S]

The film is quite interesting, if you are familiar with the band, but apparently, you can just rent it from Netflix instead of forking out for the new version. Or get the standard DVD.

or just read Greg Kot’s book:

“Wilco: Learning How to Die” (Greg Kot)

Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain Live

Forty years after its recording, “Sugar Mountain”” by Neil Young will finally see the light of day, live Michigan gigs which helped establish the singer as a solo artist.
Young’s solo career launched in earnest with an engagement at The Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Mich. Having left the Buffalo Springfield six months earlier, Young brought just his guitar along to the University of Michigan facility.

The gig was a stealth booking to determine if audiences would accept Young’s music in its most elemental form since he previously was in band.

The night of Nov. 9-10, 1968, he performed his music and told stories between the songs. The performances were recorded those evenings on a TEAC 2 track tape recorder, the tapes kept in storage over the intervening years.

“Sugar Mountain Live At Canterbury House 1968″ will be out Nov. 25 by Reprise as part of the continuing Neil Young Archive Performance Series. The 23-track album will include recordings made on both nights. The album includes songs that were written during his Buffalo Springfield tenure as well as newly written material that would appear on future solo albums. One of the spoken word pieces is a tale of Young’s hapless “day job” experience working in a Toronto bookstore.

[From Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain Live" sees light of day]

I’m sure this is better than Living With War…

“March 16-20, 1992″ (Uncle Tupelo)

For an evening of alcohol-inspired melancholy, there are few albums¹ as good a soundtrack as Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992. In my rudimentary iTunes rating system, ten of the fifteen songs² on this album³ are rated 4 stars, and thus are always on my iPod.

Although Uncle Tupelo usually mixed in punk-rock with their traditional songs and traditional-sounding tunes on their other three albums, the March 16-20, 1992 album is all acoustic, guitar, banjo, etc., and decidedly minor key. Peter Buck of R.E.M. produced, and the emphasis is certainly on mood. I love all of the Uncle Tupelo albums, but this is always the one played the most.

For instance, Fatal Wound, a Jeff Tweedy song, is one of my ten favorites. I’m still a little vague as to the song’s meaning, but I don’t mind if I hear if over and over again anyway, and my emotional response remains constant. I’m sure the song’s target understands the references.

don’t the lights look empty
when the streets are bare
almost as empty
as the look you give me
when I’m the only one

and it’s a long one
so it brings you down
so say you have nowhere else to go
and nothing to do
so you hang around
you hang around

but you wait around until
you’ve received that fatal wound

columns of sunlight
and glorious cities
oceans of opportunity
and all your decisions seem ancient

but you wait around until
you’ve received that fatal wound

Jay Farrar’s version of Moonshiner is also spectacular.

I’ve been a moonshiner
for seventeen long years
and I spent all my money
on whiskey and beer
and I go to some hollow
and set up my still
if whiskey don’t kill me
Lord, I don’t know what will
and I go to some barroom
to drink with my friends
where the women they can’t follow
to see what I spend
God bless them pretty women
I wish they was mine
with breath as sweet as
the dew on the vine
let me eat when I’m hungry
let me drink when I’m dry
two dollars when I’m hard up
religion when I die
the whole world is a bottle
and life is but a dram
when the bottle gets empty
Lord, it sure ain’t worth a damn

You can stream the album at Last.FM, if you are a little bit interested, or just pick up your own copy.

Jason Ankeny writes:

Produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, March 16-20, 1992 represents Uncle Tupelo’s full evolution into a true country unit; with the exception of the eerie squalls of guitar feedback which haunt Jeff Tweedy’s mesmerizing “Wait Up,” there’s virtually no evidence of the trio’s punk heritage. Instead, the all-acoustic album — a combination of Tupelo originals and well-chosen traditional songs — taps into the very essence of backwoods culture, its music rooted in the darkest corners of Appalachian life. An inescapable sense of dread grips this collection, from the large-scale threat depicted in the stunning rendition of the Louvin Brothers‘ “The Great Atomic Power” to the fatalism of the worker anthems “Grindstone” and “Coalminers”; even the character studies, including a revelatory “Moonshiner,” are relentlessly grim. A vivid glimpse at the harsh realities of rural existence, March 16-20, 1992 is a brilliant resurrection of a bygone era of American folk artistry.

1. the only other comparable album that I can think of is Richard Thompson’s I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight [↩]
2. actually, looking closer, the track Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down should probably be rated higher, so that’s 11 of 15 [↩]
3. as originally released, the re-release contains a few more tracks [↩]

“Harps & Angels” (Randy Newman)

The new Randy Newman album, Harps and Angels, is growing on me the more I listen to it. I was unfamiliar with his prior work, with the exception of the over-played classic, I Love LA, but I’m increasingly intrigued by his non-film work.

In an apathetic age, only Neil Young among his original peers still consistently sounds any musical alarm against injustice and corruption. Browne agrees with Gore Vidal’s assessment that America’s largest political party is the “nonvoting party”, so such opinionated motivation is nothing short of admirable. Don’t ask me, ask Randy Newman. On the ever-laconic Newman’s new album, Harps and Angels, a song called A Piece of the Pie mischievously measures America’s collective languid self-interest against the undimmed commitment of one man. “The rich are getting richer, I should know,” he writes. “While we’re going up, you’re going down, and no one gives a shit but Jackson Browne.”

So, is Browne the last protest singer? “He didn’t really say that,” he says of Newman’s portrayal. “What he said was even funnier, that no one else gives a shit. Not true, of course, but very funny. My friend Don Henley referred to [the actor] Ed Asner, who’s active for social change, and Henley called it the Dreaded Asner Syndome. I guess I’ve contracted it, and am proud to be afflicted. I don’t think there’s any choice but to throw in with those people who are doing what they can to make the world inhabitable and beautiful. I’m a card-carrying member of hedonists for peace. I just don’t think peace and prosperity should only be for the wealthy.”

[From Jackson Browne: Running on plenty - Times Online ]

I actually was unfamiliar with Jackson Browne’s music up until about two months ago, but his first albums are excellent, and I’m slowly working through his back catalog.

We had mentioned John McCain’s keen urge to steal from artists without compensating them previously, but here’s Jackson Browne’s direct response to the situation:

This is more than benign idealism, as John McCain recently discovered. Browne is suing the Republican campaign, seeking damages of $75,000, for using his 1977 song Running on Empty in an “attack” ad against Barack Obama, in the apparent belief that a lifelong liberal would either not mind or not notice. “They broke two very clear laws,” he says calmly. “That they can’t use your song without your permission, and that they can’t imply you endorse a candidate if you don’t. Either they don’t know the law or they think they’re above it. Either way, it speaks volumes about the style of governance.” Browne has given $2,300 in support of Obama’s presidential campaign, according to public record.

“McCain’s campaign [managers] are trying to say he knew nothing about the ad,” Browne adds. “Do we believe that? It may be that it plays well to his constituency to steal my song, unapologetically take whatever you feel like using, and work out the details later. I’m sure I’ll prevail, because the laws are clear-cut, but I think the Republicans have a culture of impunity.”

Now three weeks off his 60th birthday, a bearded Browne may be looking just a little older at last. As in a similarly long dialogue at the time of his 2002 album, The Naked Ride Home, however, he is likeably low-key. “The inspiration’s not a problem,” he says. “I’m not less inspired, I’m less free to shut myself away long enough to finish a song. I’m also not in a hurry. That’s the odd thing that’s happened, that there’s less and less time left, and I’m less in a hurry. Maybe I’ll get desperate towards the end. You want the things you sing about to be about life and other people’s lives, and if I shut myself away and tried to ramp up the output, it might limit the interest I take in things that are pretty universal.”

“Time the Conqueror” (Jackson Browne)

“AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker” (Aerobie)

Forget the bitter, acidic coffee you’re used to drinking from a standard coffee press The AeroPress from Aerobie takes only 30 seconds, but makes the smoothest, best-tasting coffee that coffeereviewcom, Sunset Magazine, Vogue Magazine, Cooks Junction, and you, have ever tasted Features: Total immersion of the grounds in the water results in rapid yet robust extraction of flavor Total immersion permits extraction at a moderate temperature, resulting in a smoother brew Air pressure shortens filtering time to 20 seconds This avoids the bitterness of long processes such as drip brewing Laboratory pH testing measured Aeropress brew’s acid as less than one fifth that of regular drip brew Microfilter prevents the gritty texture of French-press methods Makes 1 to 4 cups (1 or 2 mugs) of coffee or espresso

This actually looks like a pretty cool coffee maker. For $25, worth a try.

From their website:

The AEROPRESS™ is an entirely new way to make coffee.

• Water and grounds are mixed together for ten seconds.

• Then gentle air pressure pushes the mix through a micro-filter in 20 seconds.

• The total brewing time of only 30 seconds results in exceptionally smooth flavor.

• Tasters ranging from professional cuppers and author Kenneth Davids, to coffee aficionados all praise the smooth, rich flavor.

“The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible” (A. J. Jacobs)

I had forgotten that I had pre-ordered this book a while ago, but it arrived via UPS today

The Year of Living Biblically is about my quest to live the ultimate biblical life. To follow every single rule in the Bible – as literally as possible. I obey the famous ones:
•The Ten Commandments
•Love thy neighbor
•Be fruitful and multiply

But also, the hundreds of oft-ignored ones.

•Do not wear clothes of mixed fibers.
•Do not shave your beard
•Stone adulterers
Why? Well, I grew up in a very secular home (I’m officially Jewish but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant). I’d always assumed religion would just wither away and we’d live in a neo-Enlightenment world. I was, of course, spectacularly wrong. So was I missing something essential to being a human? Or was half the world deluded?

I decided to dive in headfirst. To try to experience the Bible myself and find out what’s good in it, and what’s maybe not so relevant to the 21st century.

The book that came out of the year has several layers.

-An exploration of some of the Bible’s startlingly relevant rules. I tried not to covet, gossip, or lie for a year. I’m a journalist in New York. This was not easy.

–An investigation of the rules that baffle the 21st century brain. How to justify the laws about stoning homosexuals? Or smashing idols? Or sacrificing oxen? And how do you follow those in modern-day Manhattan?

–A look at various fascinating religious groups. I embedded myself among several groups that take the Bible literally in their own way, from creationists to snake handlers, Hasidim to the Amish.

–A critique of fundamentalism. I became the ultra-fundamentalist. I found that fundamentalists may claim to take the Bible literally, but they actually just pick and choose certain rules to follow. By taking fundamentalism extreme, I found that literalism is not the best way to interpret the Bible.

–A spiritual journey. As an agnostic, I’d never seriously explored such things as sacredness and revelation.

–A memoir of my family’s eccentric religious history, including my ex-uncle Gil, who has been, among other things, a Hindu cult leader, an evangelical Christian and an Orthodox Jew.

[From A.J. Jacobs - The Year of Living Biblically]

Perfect reading for the plane, methinks.

The Amazon blurb:

Jacobs, a New York Jewish agnostic, decides to follow the laws and rules of the Bible, beginning with the Old Testament, for one year. (He actually adds some bonus days and makes it a 381-day year.) He starts by growing a beard and we are with him through every itchy moment. Jacobs is borderline OCD, at least as he describes himself; obsessing over possible dangers to his son, germs, literal interpretation of Bible verses, etc. He enlists the aid of counselors along the way; Jewish rabbis, Christians of every stripe, friends and neighbors.

In an open-minded way he also visits with atheists, Evangelicals Concerned (a gay group), Jerry Falwell, snake handlers, Red Letter Christians–those who adhere to the red letters in the Bible, those words spoken by Jesus Himself, and even takes a trip to Israel and meets Samaritans. Through it all, he keeps a healthy skepticism, but continues to pray and is open to the flowering of real faith. Jacobs is a knowledge junky, to be sure. He enjoys the lore he picks up along the way as much as any other aspect of his experiment. One of the ongoing schticks is his meeting with the shatnez tester, Mr. Berkowitz. He is the one who determines whether or not your clothes are made of mixed fibers, in keeping with the Biblical injunction not to wear wool and linen together. The two become friends and prayer partners, in only one of the unexpected results of this year.

In the end, he says, “I’m now a reverent agnostic. Which isn’t an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there’s a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred.” Not a bad outcome.

An interview with the author here including this Q/A:

You found that following biblical rules dovetailed with your tendency toward obsessive compulsive disorder. If somebody who doesn’t have OCD did the same experiment, would they end up with it?

I think you have to be a little obsessive to do the experiment in the first place. So the question is probably unanswerable. It was fascinating, though, to see the overlap between OCD and religious rituals – an overlap Freud talked about. I actually found it comforting. Why should I come up with my own idiosyncratic rituals, when the Bible has ones that my ancestors have practiced for thousands of years?

“Brian Eno’s Another Green World (33 1/3)” (Geeta Dayal)

“Another Green World” (Eno)

A favorite album of mine, and now the 33.3 book is imminent. I’ve already pre-ordered it I believe. As a teaser, here is the opening few paragraphs of Geeta Dayal’s book

When I initially set out to write a book on Brian Eno, I didn’t realize what a massive endeavor it would turn out to be. This short book has taken several years to write. I wrote, rewrote, threw out entire chapters, and started over more than once. Every idea fanned out into ten other intriguing ideas, and eventually I found myself enmeshed in a dense network of thought. Finally, I realized that I had to pick a direction and run with it, or risk never being finished.

Sometimes a good way to begin a drawing is to first carve out all of the negative space. So I will start out by telling you what this book isn’t. This is not a rock biography that meticulously documents the making of Another Green World. Nor is it a book that dwells very much on Eno’s personal life. It certainly touches on both of these things, to the extent that they are useful in creating a larger picture. This is a book about process. How did these songs grow from kernels of ideas into fully-formed pieces? How were these kernels of thought formed in the first place? I attempt to examine the confluence of ideas at a certain time in a certain place in the 1970s, and how these notions helped to shape the form of three records, all released in 1975: Another Green World, Discreet Music, and Evening Star.

My own background is in the sciences, and I approached this book as a sort of scientific experiment. I came up with hypotheses and tested them by doing research. Sometimes these hypotheses were wrong, so I went back to the drawing board. I did a lot of interviews, read a lot of books, and spent a lot of time thinking and listening. I spoke with dozens of people; one of the great gifts of writing a book on Eno is getting to interview some of the very interesting collaborators that he has worked with over the past thirty-odd years. I wasn’t just interested in speaking with those who worked on Another Green World; I wanted to learn more, in a general sense, about how Eno worked with other people.

I read dozens of books on a number of different subjects — from visual art to cybernetics to architecture to evolutionary biology to cooking to tape loops — for inspiration. Of course, I read books about Eno as well. But many of the most helpful books for understanding Eno’s methods are not explicitly about Eno at all. They are books like Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, Stafford Beer’s The Brain of the Firm, and Michael Nyman’s Experimental Music. What these books have in common — besides being books that Eno rates highly — are that they unite a variety of seemingly disparate things, and lay out general principles for thinking about these things. In this book, I look at how Eno devised his own sets of tools for thinking, such the “Oblique Strategies” cards he created with Peter Schmidt. (I used a deck of these cards myself while writing this book, whenever I reached an impasse).

Of course, there is the music. In the chapters that follow, I dig into some of the many unique sounds on these records. This is not any kind of formal musicological analysis. What it is, instead, is an exploration of the sonics–the timbres and layers of shifting textures. I spend more time on sonics than I do on the words. Eno has stated many times that lyrics, especially at this time period in his life, did not interest him very much. But that does not mean that words did not serve an important function. Using some ideas from cognitive science, I probe two different phenomena at play in Another Green World. The first, as Eno himself has pointed out, is that only five out of the 14 tracks on Another Green World have words, but that listeners tend to perceive the album as a “song record,” not an ambient record. Each song with lyrics “bleeds” into the surrounding ambient tracks. How does this effect work in our heads? The second phenomenon has to do with another type of sleight of hand — how chains of words, even nonsense words that do not make any sense in sequence, can nonetheless generate distinct, powerful images.

[Click to read more of 33 1/3: Another Green World]

On a different subject, have installed a Feedburner redirect plugin, so if it is properly configured, you’ll be reading this in your newsreader without issue. If it isn’t, doh! Sorry, and please let me know so I can fix or attempt to fix.