La Blogotheque!

Normally, sites of interest are innocuously tucked away in my Links of the Week, but I was pretty impressed with this one, La Blogotheque. They get performers who tour in France to record a live performance at a variety of everyday settings in France, and usually try to incorporate some of the surroundings into the recording and video. One acoustic track takes place on a small sailboat in the Mediterranean, for example, while another track is recorded in a small courtyard just off a city street. The videos are well done, and the sound is great. Check it out!

Tasting: Maracaibo Especial

Maracaibo Especial (Special Brown Ale) Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, Dexter, MI

I went into the Beer Depot yesterday after finishing up all official ties to the University of Michigan to get a Celebration Beer. I noticed this line of Artisan Ales in 750 ml bottles, and selected the Golden Ale. Then, noticing that the homebrew specialist was working that day, I asked him whether he thought it would be worthy of the occasion. He said that it was a decent beer, but warned me that it was a bit sour. I did not realize this, but "oak barrel aged" is synonymous with "tart", because souring infections from certain bacteria are encouraged in this process. One of my first tastings on this blog was another of Jolly Pumpkin's offerings, Bam Biere, and I complained about the tartness. Perhaps what bothered me the most was that no mention was made of the tartness in the beer description on the bottle.

Anyway, he got busy with another customer and I wandered back to the Jolly Pumpkin section. I read each label for the oak-aged warning, and then cast my eyes on this one: "A rich brown ale inspired by the enigmatic monastic brews of Belgium, and the mysterious mist-shrouded jungles of the tropics. Brewed with real cacao and spiced with cinnamon and sweet orange peel for a seasonal delight. A brew to be sipped, savored, and enjoyed." There was no mention of oak barrel aging, but I knew that I was taking a chance anyway.



So it poured a clear, medium dark brown with a bit of amber. It smelled clean and rather spicy. The first sip immediately revealed the sour note. However, knowledge can often tip the balance with something like tasting. I was much more patient than I might have been had I not understood that the sourness was intentional. I took my time, getting used to the new, and the spicy mixture of cinnamon, chocolate, and orange, along with the middling amount of carbonation began to scrub against the increasingly faint backdrop of watery wine. About a fourth of the way into my glass, I realized that I really liked this beer. The malt sugar is still there, but the bacterial enzymes convert a portion to the sour form that initially dominates. I'm not sure, however, how much I would like this without the adjuncts (for example, their Golden Ale, or Bam Biere). But this brew convinces me that the folks at Jolly Pumpkin know what the hell they're doing, and I'll definitely be seeking out more of their beers.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

This is to certify that as of September 28, 2007
MARC J. PRINDLE (the J is for Jacked Up, Sucka!)
completed all requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in the field of
CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

In the normal course of events, the degree
will be conferred on
December 16, 2007

Friday Grab Bag

A relaxed and empathetic-without-being-uncomfortable Good Morning to you, or a warmer-than-merely-civil Good Afternoon for our friends in the South Pacific (Ohayo!). We're counting down the top few unrelated things today, and we won't stop 'til we get to number ONE, so fasten your bucklebelts!

1. I tried a few other beers without blogging them all over the place, so here's a recap:
   
1. Arcadia Scotch Ale Arcadia Brewing Company, Battle Creek, MI I put off trying Scotch ales for awhile, because I'm not a huge fan of Scotch whisky. No, I'm not an idiot, it's merely a matter of word association. If you handed me a beer and said that it's Stewed Cauliflower IPA, but that it's not actually made from cauliflower, I would politely decline. Anyway, at Jon and Kerrigan's wedding, some fellow homebrewers were taken with the weissbier that we brought (Jill's brew), and offered up glasses of their Scotch Ale. It was fairly amazing. So, since I've been impressed with Arcadia's offerings to date, it made a lot of sense to pick this up. So the pocket review goes like this: molasses color; malty aroma; syrup-sweet, mega-malty flavor; medium-light body; slight bitterness from a minimalist hops approach and from darker roast grain; wonderful finish; maximum drinkability is about 3 per session (lightweight here gets toasty after 2). Final analysis? It's in my current top 10. Nummmmmmm.
2. Dubbel Ale Allagash Brewing Company, Portand ME
   I bought and tried this at the same time as Railbender Ale. I'm unclear as to whether or not this brew has any hops at all. There was a big empty feeling in the middle to back of my tongue (sorry). It was like part of my mouth was tasting beer and another part was drinking water. I chalk it up to almost no bitterness. The pocket review: Golden to Maple syrup color; slightly sour, trub-like odor; dry, light, and sweet flavor, light body with a bit of carbonation burn; the aftertaste starts out slightly bitter and quickly turns sour; quite drinkable, but in the 6-7% abv range. I tasted this once more to be sure of my analysis, and it was much sweeter, so I think that there's some variability from bottle to bottle, or one of the bottles that I tried was bad. I would like to try more from this brewery. Check out their website.
2. I printed off my thesis last night to take to the Graduate school for my post-defense meeting this morning. It's a rather modest volume of 130 pages, counting the fluff at the beginning and the bibliography, but I think that it is of decent quality. There's a few additions that I would like to have made to the introduction, but it's fairly focused as it is, and I like that. Greg, my boss, signed off on it yesterday, and I've been busy filling out paperwork and making sure that I've met all of the requirements. So today, I turn in an unbound copy of the thesis to the grad school, and arrange for the binding of another copy to be sent to the Graduate Library. This will fulfill my obligations to the university, and I will receive a certificate stating my eligibility to graduate in December, which also enables me to start working as a post-doc. Then, I need to get another 6 copies of the thesis bound -- one for me and one for each member of my thesis committee. So, I'm pretty happy and relieved at this point. I just hope that my margins are all correct...
3. I'm going to see Battles at the Blind Pig in November, and I'm planning on getting my tickets in advance. Anyone else who wants to go, let me know by Monday at the latest. I've got a feeling it's going to sell out.
4. As I alluded to last Friday, I totally would have won that prematurely-ended game of History of the World two Sundays ago. Not that I'm the sort of person that would dwell on such matters. I'm quite content to leave it all on the table, as it were. But I can hear a faint challenge to my claim humming through cyberspace with a Turkish accent, so here we go. If you'll observe the following image......you will notice that my yellow forces have been pushed back into Northern Europe and North America by the sequential uprising of the Huns (Jonathan, purple), and the Mongols (Tony, blue). You will also notice that I am in a very tight race for 1st place despite having used the least strength to get there. This is the board at the end of Epoch V. I would be selecting the first Empire in Epoch VI, and the odds dictate that I would get one of the middling to better ones. I also had two lesser events that I was going to play on my next turn: Sub-Saharan Migrants, which would let me place two armies in Africa (on those two resource lands, enabling me to build a monument), and another card that lets me place an army and a city in Palestine. So there's 8 extra points going into Epoch VI, and I'm spread out again. Also, I'm not a huge target as the 3rd place guy. Finally, I had the Japan Major Event card for Epoch VII, so I'm getting bonuses again, and probably the highest total strength for that round, without incurring the penalty that high strength brings. So, thanks for playing, and I'll just assume that you're all congratulating me from home.
   
   Have a great weekend!
   

The way it sounds...Sound Off!

Like I said before, I've been out of touch, musically, for awhile, and I'm just now coming back into the relevant and moist in recent months. It has not, however, escaped my notice that there has been a ridiculous "20 year lag" thing going on for the past...20 years? It used to be a 30 year lag. At some point in the '80s, the mid to late 50's sounds were hitting, with the Stray Cats and even Huey Lewis' somewhat neutered greaser image getting traction. Of course, the early '90s saw the renaissance of the late '60s, which morphed quickly into the mainstream '70s music, to the point where there were dedicated Disco clubs doing great business by 1998. Have a Nice Day Cafe in Charlotte, NC was one such nostalgia-soaked joint, where they served expensive cheap beer and played the same 50 songs every night to a packed house. Fast forward to about two years ago, when I noticed the young knuckleheads wearing their Polo shirts with that collar ERECT, and new bands on the scene that recreated the look and sound of those, um, classic acts? You remember...the skinny ties, bangs, mousse and makeup coming correct over unapologetic synth fanfares, straightforward drumming and embarrassingly sincere, asexual vocals. Yes, the '80s arrived. Interpol, the Killers, Franz Ferdinand. I avoided the sound for awhile, using my lifelong distrust of anything new-old-fangled. But soon, as always, I began to search for the element of this sound that moved other people so.

Now I do like some music that is firmly embedded in the '80s. I've always respected early U2, even though I was never a superfan. The Tragically Hip are an amazing live act that draw heavily from the creative palette of that time period. At the same time, I hated the '80s sound when I was in the middle of it. This was the soundtrack of my generation, and I felt supremely ripped off. A generation earlier had the music of Hendrix and Zeppelin. Our older brothers had the shameless abandon of the arena rock bands. We got hair metal, sweaty leather punk, clunky early rap, the Thompson Twins, and Madonna. None of this sounded cool to me at the time. It was all just embarrassing. So I found my way to classic rock, explored there for awhile, and waited out the '80s.

So what does a guy like me do when he realizes that two of his top albums from the past two years are from bands that are strongly influenced by the 80's? Simple.

Showdown. Only one survives.

First up:
Apologies to the Queen Mary Wolf Parade

Wolf Parade didn't immediately strike me as being terribly influenced by the '80s, because the influences are such a part of the new creation. It initially sounds like a bold foray into harder indie rock, but the truth comes out in Dan Boeckner's vocals and Spencer Krug's keyboard explorations. The tunes themselves are anything but straightforward (with the possible exception of the Boeckner-led "Modern World"), often containing disjointed arrangements and obtuse lyrics. "I'll build a house inside of you, I'll go in through the mouth, I'll draw three fingers on your heart." Boeckner and Krug split the frontman duties up about 50/50, and their songs often feel like very different beasts. Krug also heads other projects like Sunset Rubdown and Frog Eyes, and his songs have a trademark feel of mania and desperation. Highlights from the Krug contributions include "You are a Runner and I am my Father's Son", "Fancy Claps", and "I'll believe in Anything". Having seen Sunset Rubdown once (at the Blind Pig), I can attest that he's a great live performer, although you'll either love or hate his voice. While Boeckner's voice is like the drone of a chainsaw, Krug doesn't sing so much as he emotes. The band is solid and tight, and the album feels road-tested.

Neon Bible by The Arcade Fire

Neon Bible is a concept album that explores the evolution of the American psyche of the past 7 years. The tone is generally pessimistic and presents a story arc of discovering faith in a post-9/11 world, and eventually finding that faith to be self-limiting, empty and hopeless. The band secured the use of this huge organ at a cathedral in Canada somewhere, which provides this awesome reverb and thunder to a lot of the tracks. The band is solid, with a great sense of drama, and the lead vocalist is classic '80s. He uses a few of Gordon Downie's (Tragically Hip) techniques of getting a lot out of the weaker parts of his range, and he does really well in the midrange, where he hits a bit of a Bruce Springsteen tremble. The song "Keep the Car Running" sounds a lot like "On the Dark Side" from the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack, which sounds very Bruce-like, as well. The songs get darker and darker until the sunbeams bursting through in "No Cars Go", which is both my favorite track and the most unabashedly '80s-sounding track. I can't tell if the song is pointing a way out of the "prison" of faith, or if it's "Opposite Day!" and they're presenting a sarcastic message of false hope. Then comes the quiet revelation in the closing track, "My Body is a Cage": "My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key. Standing next to me...my mind holds the key...". It's an extremely well-conceived, well-executed, and well-produced album, and will certainly be a go-to for the forseeable future.

Both of these bands from North of the border are legendary live acts these days. I'd love to catch either of them in a club, although Arcade Fire is now doing arenas with LCD Soundsystem. Hopefully there'll be a chance of a club tour at some point, as I'm not so into stadium shows anymore. I'm old.

So, if I had to declare a winner, and I do, I will err on the side of Zestyness and select Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade. Sorry, guys at Arcade Fire who are currently raking in tons of cash and admiration. I will now destroy my copy of Neon Bible.

Out of Town

So, about the accelerated rate of posting promised recently...

I've been plugging almost all free time into doing revisions to my dissertation. At this point, I have one more chapter, and then it's just formatting, table of contents, etc. It's taken a lot longer than I expected, but I think that it's certainly a much better document than before.

At my oral defense, I was told to think of my dissertation as a resource for the next person in the lab to work on my project. So all of the "misfit data" that didn't marry neatly into a storyline needed to be included in an appendix. And all of my Materials and Methods sections needed quite a bit more specificity as to the source of reagents, times of treatments, and other minor, but crucial, steps in experiments.

I was less stunned by the amount of suggested improvement to my sentence structure. This is because I provided my boss with first drafts about a week before it was due. I think many PhD students go through multiple revisions before the committee sees it.

Anyways, that's why I've been so inconstant.

We're going out of town this weekend: tonight we're going to Marine City, which is HERE



So I don't know what's up with these cartographers who think Canada got overrun by the melting ice caps, but Marine City is right at the border, on the St Clair River. Jill thinks these maps are hilarious.

Tomorrow, we'll be treated to the dazzling feast of sights along the storied Ohio Turnpike as we make our way to Gwen and Clint's. We're picking up a car there, so we're back to being a two-car family.

*Jim and Sonja, the land yacht served us well, and my brother managed to sell it for $1000 for me to a little old lady who declared, "Sold!" after her test drive. It will be missed. I hope she likes her Achewood sticker.

Big plans for next week, including revamping the links of the month (ahem) and other cosmetic nonsense. Oh, and game night at my place, Monday!

Real-time Fortune Cookie!

I'm pulling out all the stops here...I WILL NOW OPEN MY FORTUNE COOKIE FROM LAST NIGHT'S TAKEOUT MEAL FROM SAN FU....drumroll....*cymbal crash*!!!

Hey, that was pretty tasty! Not too stale for once.

Well, hope you enjoyed it.

The Dragon is No More

Well, after that ridiculously long entry on the merits and flaws of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and after just completing the penultimate novel in that series, I find that Robert Jordan has succumbed to his amyloidosis. This news is saddest, obviously, to his family and friends, but it also hits us readers. Jordan had also planned some prequels to the series once the main sequence had been completed, as well as some smaller side stories, so there's another loss. Some good news is that he apparently sat down with his wife and her cousin (and, presumably, a digital recording device of some sort) last week and explained how every story strand is supposed to resolve.

So, despite my earlier nitpicking, let me say "Thank you, Mr. Jordan", for the many hours of enjoyment, and may you enjoy your long slumber.

Tasting: Railbender Ale

Railbender Ale Erie Brewing Co. Erie, PA.
So, I'm skulking up and down in front of the coolers at the Beer Depot, looking for a six of something new (and preferably Michigan-born), when I spy this one. Never even heard of the brewery! Railbender! I guess it had a nice ring, because here we go.

From the label:
(Deep Malt Flavor, Caramel Sweetness Lingering In A Soft Hop Flavor, Deep Red)
"Dubbed 'Nectar of the Gods' by 'Bender', believers and ardent apostles from mount to the plain, this strong Old-style ale has a following of devout like none since Aegir himself. With an alcohol content of 6.8% by volume, our maltiest ale is remarkably smooth and sweet. It's complex bitterness and aroma result from four hop varieties, including Czech Saaz and English Fuggles. Taste Ambrosia!"


Wow. I have no idea who Aegir or 'Bender' even are, but I can tell that this is going to be awesome. Did you read that? Awesome, I tell ya. Be back soon...

OK, I'll argue that it's not "Deep Red", but more of a dusky golden red. It pours clear, and the refrigerated head is but a skim that somehow lasts until the beer is gone. The aroma is all malt, with just the ghost of aromatic hops present. The taste...oh, yes. This has the perfect amount of sweetness for a beer. Very malty, like a good Old style ale should be, with a slight carbonation burn. I'd put it at about a 4 out of 10 on a bitterness scale, with nearly all of it coming from the boiling hops. Man, this is nice. The aftertaste is where the bitter hops really come out, and they stave off the inevitable sourness for a minute or so.

So, sweet-but-not-cloying, some gentlemanly bitterness, and great drinkability. Well, decent drinkability, with that 6.5% abv estimate. I would totally buy this again.


Let's talk about an uncomfortable subject. Mouthfeel. Say it with me...mouthfeel. It's a word that has great utility if you're describing a tasting experience, be it beer, wine, lemonade, or melted butter. Trouble is, it's a horrible, horrible word. It really puts the reader or listener right inside your mouth while you're describing something, which seems, on the surface, to be a great idea, but in reality it is a bad thing. I don't, for example, want to be in your mouth while you're tasting something, so it stands to reason that...got me? And it's no good to say something has X characteristic "in the mouth", because that just sounds dumb, and causes the same ooky problem.

So do we need a new term for expressing this, or has the existence of the word just made me lazy? Instead of "...had a heavy mouthfeel, like maple syrup...", I could say "...after slurping up a yapful, I found it heavy, like maple syrup...", or even "...I sat there with a mouthful, my tongue violently probing the flavors prior to swallowing, and I noted a peculiar maple syrup-like gravitas to the concoction...".

Incidentally, Railbender Ale was delicious in the mouth, and it had a fantastic mouthfeel.

Please help me.

Hiatus extended!

By popular request...Two more days! That's right, only two more days to get all of your hiatal goodness right here!

For your approval in the interim, I present the Home of the Future. Actually, what I mean to say is...
First, fire. Then, the wheel. Now, millenia of technological advances have converged to give us this radical new way of showering. (It starts about 45 seconds in.)

I dare you to claim that you don't want one.

Next week: A beer tasting of some sort, New (to me) music reviews: Folk and Singer-Songwriter, why I would have won that aborted game of History of the World, plus the usual political analysis, economic advice, and sports updates that you've come to trust.



See? I'm WORKING and UNSHOWERED over here. Oh, the humanity...

5-day Hiatus

OK, bloggineers, I'm taking another hiatus to finish up the revisions on my thesis. In the interim, for your viewing pleasure, here's some highlights from another site, "Worst Album Covers of All Time".
Have a great week!

The Way I See It: Jordan's Universe

The Wheel of Time is a 12 volume fantasy series by Robert Jordan. For the uninitiated, it is set in a world that is based on cycles that stretch across millenia. For example, the series is set in the Third Age. There have been other Third Ages in the history of the world, and all of them had certain events happen and certain people born (again). While other ages have seen the world "advance" to motored transport and advanced weaponry, the Third Age is your classic horses and swords type of situation. There is a source of power, called the True Source or the One Power, that can be tapped into by those born with the skill, called channelers. There are male and female halves of the Power, and the force of evil, called the Dark One, touched the male half as he was being sealed into his prison. This was enough to taint the male half of the power, and all of its works, and allowed the Dark One to go on affecting the world. The channeler who ended up repairing the final seal in the Dark One's prison was known as the Dragon. All of the male channelers eventually went insane and began destroying the world with earthquakes and floods until they were brought under the control of the female channelers. Thus, when this story begins, only females are permitted to channel, and any males who display the talent are cut off from the source. There's one big problem with this: in the Third Age, the Dragon (and a small cast of other characters) must be reborn to defeat the Dark One in an analogue of Armageddon, as part of an endless cycle. There is always the threat, however, that the Dark One could prevail, breaking the cycle and destroying Creation. It's a fun series and I recommend it, minus the complaints listed below in my "review".
Caveat: Jordan has amyloidosis, a life-threatening disease, and is still working on book 12, but he seems to indicate that we can expect it next year. If he can't finish it, his wife has all of the details on how the series should end.


Spoiler alert: If you are planning to read the series, or are reading an early book, go away now. I'm on book 11 right now.


The Wheel of Time is a fine story, and Jordan is a fine storyteller, but these are not, in themselves, fine books. Many people point to the first 3-4 books as being the best in the series. I'm not going to argue with that, although I don't think that any of the books are necessarily better or worse. The first few books have some 'intangibles' going for them that, I think, generate a fonder memory.

1) The titles make sense
In "The Eye of The World", we encounter the Eye of the World near the I end of the book. In "The Great Hunt", the hunt for and discovery of the Horn of Valere figures prominently. In "The Dragon Reborn", Rand acknowledges his destiny. After that, the titles are drawn from the Prophecies of the Dragon, and rarely have any direct tie to the story, which lends them a generic feel.

2) The concepts are new
We are introduced to Jordan's world through the dialogue and ruminations of its inhabitants. All of their general knowledge and myths, customs and prejudices are laid out. For some reason, Jordan assumes that he has to explain these ideas in each new book, as if readers pick up the series at some point other than the beginning. You know what? Screw 'em! Let them play catch as catch can, and spare your regular readers the repetition. I asked my wife recently what was happening in book 8 as she was reading it. Her response, paraphrased, follows:

Perrin is stomping around the camp. Someone refers to him as Lord Perrin.
"Light! Why do they call me Lord Perrin? I wish they wouldn't do that. Although, Faile seems to think that they should, and it makes them uncomfortable to just call me Perrin. I guess I should get used to it".
He encounters a soldier, who refers to him as Lord Perrin.
"Light! Why do they call me Lord Perrin? I wish they wouldn't do that. Although, Faile seems to think that they should, and it makes them uncomfortable to just call me Perrin. I guess I should get used to it."
Etc.

This kind of overexplaining and repetition is really tedious. After the first few books, there is often only one or two lines per page, if that, that actually advances the plot. The rest is either descriptions of scenery, detailed descriptions of what everyone is wearing, or "reminders" of the most basic stuff. All that I want for repetition is to remind me who the secondary and tertiary characters are when they're reintroduced in subsequent volumes for their short, usually unimportant scenes. Which brings us to point 3.

3) Too many new characters, societies, other groupings of people emerge in the later books
We learn about the one Power, the Dark One, the Forsaken, darkspawn, Aes Sedai, and the concept of taver'en, not to mention the customs and myths of a variety of societies in the early books. Then, it seems as if a new nasty must appear in every book, such as the Seanchan host of domesticated critters, the giant Myrdraal, and Moridin, making me wonder if Jordan overreached in the first few books by having one Forsaken eliminated every book. Also, whole societies spring out of nowhere, like the Kin, with their own hierarchies and haircuts. Jordan begins adding little vignettes at the start of the books to set the scene, using the POV of characters we've never met. It all gets to be too much, too many. Plus Jordan likes to be "stylish" and make you read someone's internal dialogue for a page or two before he gives you useable context. Here's a sample.

"Marandille shook her head with a mirthless smile and watched Gamadole retreat from her chambers. How long had it been? Two months? Four? Still, one good thing had come of her liaisons with the son of the Autarch. The assembled armies of the Light-cursed Ghaldoran menace had not advanced one step toward Borleine. True, they had also not retreated, but the cost of maintaining a large, non-fighting force would surely take its toll on the coffers of Rialtain. Sleepily, Marandille shrugged on a fine, silk pink robe, hemmed in purple that was almost black, and lightly stepped toward the window. She always stepped lightly, as if hunting boar as she used to do with her father in the Murkwillow.
The great city of Borleine lay arrayed before her from her high tower room. She had once occupied rooms in her private palace nearly ten miles across the city, but now this sumptuous tower room was her home, and her prison. She was free to travel through the city, but never beyond its walls, and her life depended upon Gamadole or his men finding her in the room when the bells chimed eight every night.
Borleine, the City of Tears, rose up in towers and spires..."

Now, anyone who knows the series at all will know that I made all of that up. The point is that we will have to find out about the politics of Borleine, Marandille's childhood, her attitudes toward Dragonsworn, and one hundred other useless factoids before Jordan lets us know how she interacts with the main characters. Then, she might play a bit role in a climactic scene in this book, and then become detritus in the story. And Jordan never throws anything away. The clumsy Kin and Sea Folk are brought up almost obligatorily in later books, as are the Aiel/Tinkers, because Jordan doesn't want you to forget about them, even though he seems to have no current plans for them.

I get that to show that the whole world is affected by the events leading to Armageddon, you're going to have messy storylines. The problem with all of these additions is that they detract from the main story.

4) Not much happens in the later books
Granted, the early books get to lay out the big picture, so everything feels important. But this only makes the contrast in books 8 and 9 that much more evident. In Anne Rice's Vampire series, every book redrew the boundaries of what we understood about her universe to include the new revelations--it was peeling an onion in reverse. The only revelations in some of the later books of The Wheel of Time are character-based, which doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The 8th book was a total placeholder. Only two things happened in the ninth book. Everything else was filler. The 10th book got much better, and this is so far true of the 11th, but mostly because we're beginning to see the resolution of some storylines that were dragged out for much too long, and not due to a revelatory shift in our understanding of the Jordan universe.

On to things that generally bug/amuse me about the series

1) Despite the disparities of appearance and custom of the various regions of the world, everyone seems to agree that spanking is the best way of handling any situation. The Wheel of Time series has enough incidences of spanking, strapping, flogging, switching, birching, and caning to rival "The Taking of Sleeping Beauty". It is generally accepted that reasonable leadership within societies that are controlled by women (Aes Sedai, the Kin, Aiel, Sea Folk, all small villages, and the Empress-ruled Seanchan) consists exclusively of Headmistress/Dominitrix types who reward any perceived slight or sass with punishment that makes it hard to sit down, ride a horse, or that leaves one with welts from "the small of the back to the backs of the knee". Sure, occasionally people are tortured, beheaded, hung, cooked by trollocs, etc., but almost every (adult) character is the recipient of at least one thorough spanking or similar sort of sustained beating at some point. Wheeee!

2) People often point to the series as having more strong female characters than most fantasy writing. This is true, but the majority of these characters are not what you would call role models. Most are petty, power-hungry, and extremely catty, and end up having their asses saved by males. The male characters are either purely evil, mischievous but good-hearted, or the silent soldier type, bound to duty and honor. So perhaps the female characters are written with more complexity than many of the male characters, but often they are shades of the same flawed character, while the males have a greater variety of distinct personalities.

3) Pecking order and power lust. It's essential for the advancement of soap opera plots, but here it strains credibility. Everyone is concerned with rank to a pathological degree, and everyone seems to have an innate sense of how it works. In an actual collection of twenty people, only a few would have any idea how to effectively manipulate other people, and the rest would become sheep. Here, everyone is ready to step into the breach. Excepting Lord Perrin, of course.

4) No one dies. I haven't seen Moiraine come back yet, but I'm reasonably confident that the balefire that was used following her trip into the ter'angreal negated her death. Also, by book 6, you reach a point where the horrible shadowspawn, in any number or combination, is no match for a small band of main characters. There's no tension in it for the reader, because you know that Rand , Mat, and Perrin, at least, are going to make it.

In conclusion

I have enjoyed the series thus far, minus these complaints. It's an old-fashioned Good versus Evil yarn, with not much room for middle ground. Despite its flaws, there are a lot of cool concepts introduced. The world of Dreams, the weaving of flows, the relationship between saidar and saidin and the dark source, some of the military strategy, and the fulfillment of various prophecies make for exciting reading, as does the classic Luke Skywalker storyline. I look forward to the eventual end, if Jordan ever gets around to it, but I hope that he finds a way to trim the fat along the way.

Look Who's Poopin' Now!

Such a big girl!

WHO'S A BIG GIRL????

The way it sounds to me: Indie files

Musical categorization is a tricky thing. Talking about music, in general, is regarded as being a useless pursuit on par with discussion of religion in an online forum. Since I don’t let that stop me from doing one, why should it stop me from doing the other? So, here we go. I’ll do my best to get the categories right, even when they don’t make sense to me (For example, I think emo fits much better with much of the goth stuff than with, say, Fugazi, which I would call post-punk, purely based on the overall impression that I get from the sound.). So without further ado, here is the rest of the Indie rock that I picked up from Karl and Jim early in my de-ruttification. There will be a couple more installments of just Indie in the future to cover the stuff that I’ve picked up since then, but I’ll break it up with electronica, folk, singer-songwriter, harder stuff, and older stuff.

Badly Drawn Boy The Hour of the Bewilderbeest
This is a weird one for me, because I hate the whole BDB persona/gimmick somehow, but I think that he’s really talented. The songs are composed largely of very familiar- sounding acoustic rock hooks and melodies, with an occasional dip into the more danceable (“Disillusion”) or psychedelic (“Start a Rockslide”, “Body Rap”). There’s a unifying element of self-discovery throughout the tracks, and a few songs are patched together in the fade-outs to further the sense of an integrated project, but I don’t see this as a concept album. It’s a nice collection of nice songs that, while not breaking down walls creatively, gets a lot right, and reveals a decent talent for song craft. Sorry in advance for that link. His videos are universally and embarassingly bad. Watch it alone.

Band of Horses Everything All the Time
This is a prime example of a band that is defined by the unique voice and delivery of the lead singer. The songs are hit and miss, with some real winners like “I Go To the Barn Because I Like the”, “Part One”, and “The Funeral”. Others, like “The Great Salt Lake” drag a bit and have a plodding energy that clashes with the overall sound in an unpleasant way. Generally, though, Band of Horses employ good instincts, and I enjoy this album. Overall, the sound reminds me of a few mid-late 90s bands that were getting a lot of airplay like Everclear.

Belle and Sebastian The Boy with the Arab Strap
Jim hooked me up with this work of his fellow Scots. These are great songs, most of which have you feeling like you’re wearing a corduroy jacket and jeans, slumming around England in autumn 1970. They’ve nailed this mood pitch perfect, with lyrics disaffected and cynical enough to be dialogue from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. The only weak spots in the album come when frontman Stuart Murdoch turns over the vocals to a female lead, and in the boring, irredeemable “Seymour Stein”. Otherwise, a perfect album. Check out "Dirty Dream Number Two".


Dirty on Purpose Hallelujah Sirens
This is still kind of new to me, but it’s a very likeable collection of tunes. The comparison that I keep coming back to is Yo La Tengo-lite. This probably isn’t fair, but I need to hear a bit more. The only knock that I have is that many of the songs are one or two choruses too long. With dance music, I can see saying "One more time!", but with guitar-based fuzz rock, you have to come up with a reason to keep going. Like YLT, they manage to subsume a lot of styles within their own sound. Generally, though, it’s moody rock with an affected garage band sensibility, and some interesting ideas, songwise. Here's one of the more frenetic ones, "Car No Driver".

Figurines Skeleton
These guys sound like they’re always on the verge of turning into Blind Melon. Certainly, the lead vocalist’s warbling-yet-strong tenor delivery gives promise to that notion, but the bands tendency to pull punches and drag songs out too long, and their lack of true melodic creativity assures that it will never happen. Oh, well. There are some really good, catchy songs on this CD, but there’s also a lot of samey-ness, which will keep me from digging deeper into their catalog. I’d be curious to see how they come across live. Here's a pretty one, "Back in the Day".

Japancakes Waking Hours
Mannnnn, this is mellloooowwww. Like steel guitar? Like beautiful melodies? Hate singing? Well, this is for you. I really dig this album. The songs are 5-7 minute tracks of interlude music featuring drums, bass, guitar, and steel guitar. Great background music, thinking music, and, especially, sleepytime music.

The Kingsbury Manx
Mellow stuff from a Chapel Hill based group. It's a mostly likeable mix of Beatles/Kinksesque acoustic tracks with some organ and a healthy dose of post-production magic. It’s perfectly nice and meticulously crafted. Good tracks include “Hawaii in Ten Seconds”, “Fields”, “Whether or Not It Matters”. Dull tracks include “Regular Hands” and “Silver Trees”. I despise “New Old Friend Blues”, which taints the whole album for me. I'd like to check out their more recent stuff.

Modest Mouse This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About
Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
I haven’t listened very closely to either of these, I just had them on while I was working on something. First impressions are thus: very few songs pulled my attention from what I had been working on, which shouldn’t have been very hard to do. Also, there was a lot of yelling. I have Tom Waits for yelling. I don’t need Isaac Brock, too. The one consistent thing is interesting melodies and arrangements, but there's a certain claustrophobic quality to much of it that doesn't appeal to me. I will listen again and reassess, but I doubt Modest Mouse will ever become a favorite with me. Here's their earliest single, "Dramamine".

My Morning Jacket Z
MMJ have mastered the late ‘70s album rock sound a la Genesis, Elton John, and The Who. Z has some great tracks like “Lay Low”, “Gideon”, “Anytime”, and “Wordless Chorus”. They also venture into the realm of the offbeat with “What a Wonderful Man”, and the corny and irreverent “Into the Woods”. While many of the tracks have a dark, subdued feel, musically, the lyrics are generally upbeat and interesting. The album closer, “Dondante”, has an epic Zeppelin feel to it, but it also drags on in repeated listens. Still, that’s about the worst that I can say about any of the tracks. It’s a good, solid album. I hear they’re great live, as well. Here's a tune that would've hit the Top 40 back in '79, "Off the Record".

The Sea and Cake The Fawn
Honestly, I hated this album for a long time. Then I took it off my iPod autofill list. I knew that there was something good there, but I was put off. After a year, I went back and listened again. Now, I kind of like it. I think that it was mindset, in that I previously saw this as a very serious attempt at some rock/jazz fusion with the intention of challenging the audience to find the beauty therein. On my second attempt, I heard it as light, summery music that incorporates elements of jazz and rock, fronted by a singer who makes…interesting decisions sometimes. There’s a hypnotic groove underlying much of the album that holds a state of tension in the midst of the pretty, easygoing melodies. It’s very nice, but I doubt that I’ll seek out any more The Sea and Cake. (I couldn't find anything off of this album, but this track should give you the flavor.)

Spoon Gimme Fiction
Spoon is big right now, having just released their much anticipated follow-up to Gimme Fiction, entitled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. The tracks on Gimme Fiction are relatively straightforward rock songs with a touch of post-production glibbertyflibber. The style is constantly referred to as “experimental” in indie press for some reason, perhaps because they don’t sound quite finished. There’s often not much buildup or letdown in these tunes, and two tracks end with a bit of instrumental section going on for awhile. One of these tracks, “Was it You?” is probably my favorite. Their sound is characterized by sharply strummed chords on the guitars, and an overall emphasis on rhythm. A lot of their "experimental" sound seems borrowed from The Cars. They have a great lead singer in Brit Daniel, who has a distinct delivery and produces literate, understated lyrics. The songs range from the disco of “I Turn My Camera On” to the ‘70s concept music of “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”, and “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine”. This is another good album, but after listening to samples of their new album, I get the sense that this one pretty much sums up the limits of Spoon.

TV on the Radio Return to Cookie Mountain
Another one that I probably haven’t given much of a chance. Simply put, I don’t like the lead singer’s voice. These guys are from NYC, but he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. The songs themselves are really interesting and fresh. The drums are a big part of what they do, and tracks like “Wolf Like Me” have desperately thundering rhythms that give the impression that the song will fly apart like a broken centrifuge, but they use an ingenius keyboard drone to hold everything together through the madness. There’s lots to like here, and I haven’t even listened that closely to the whole album. It’s very dense and not quickly digestible, like Modest Mouse, but I think that I’ll end up really liking this. Try this tasty video of "Province".

Yo La Tengo I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
This was the first record that Karl loaned me that made me go, “Wow.” YLT have an understated, classic Indie rock sound with lots of acoustic guitar-based tracks, warbly singing (from both male and female leads), and off-kilter guitar work. They take on nearly every subclass of rock from the ‘80s and ‘90s (short of metal), but all of the songs end up sounding like a YLT song. Lots of great songs on this one, so I’ll do the whole thing, word-association style!

“Return to Hot Chicken” Easygoing intro
“Moby Octopad” creeping and menacing
“Sugarcube” Pop music is on fire
“Damage” David Lynch is in your closet
“Deeper into Movies” Whirling dervish
“Shadows” Patsy Cline’s corpse is in your closet
“Stockholm Syndrome” Indie Rock, exhibit A-- the prosecution rests
“Autumn Sweater” Yawn, at least the drums are cool.
“Little Honda” OK, I actually hate this song
“Green Arrow” Driving at night
“One PM again” Alt-country, but pretty
“The Lie and How We Told It” I don’t remember this one
“Center of Gravity” is fun! BOPnBOP-BAAA ba ba bum BOPnBOP-BAAA ba ba bum….
“Spec Bebop” 8 minute groovy space jam with drone. Awesome! Five stars!
“We’re an American Band” Shoegazer and slacker gold.
“My Little Corner of the World” Lullabye and goodnight.