READIN

Friday, April 7th, 2006

Guns, Germs and Steel serves as a really good prophylactic against romantic nostalgia -- the evolution of society depicted in the "Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" chapter does not at all make you want to go back to the days of egalitarianism.

posted morning of April 7th, 2006: Respond
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🦋 Song nostalgia

An idea for a meme! I have never started such a thing before but now I am going to try it out.

Here's the idea: list 4 songs (by different artists please) that meet the following criteria: (a) You have not listened to the song in a long time. I'm thinking like 2 years minimum but adjust this limit at your discretion. (b) You can hear the song in your head, just by closing your eyes and willing it. (Well you know what I mean; it's debatable how strongly "will" enters into this activity.) (c) You would gladly listen to it right now. Optionally, write a little squib about the song, why you like it, why you have not listened to it, where you know it from, etc. Here are my four:

• "Clean Steve" by Robyn Hitchcock: This is the song that came into my mind this morning and inspired this whole thing. I love, love the song but have never owned it, last time I listened to it must be home from college sometime hanging around with my friend Jer Egenberger who is the big Hitchcock afficionado and was my conduit to Hitchcocky goodness.
• "Hurricane" by Dylan: I like the "Desire" album a lot but when I go to listen to Dylan, that never seems to be what I put on the record player.
• "No Xmas for John Quays" by The Fall: "Live at the Witch Trials" was one of the first punk rock albums I ever owned and I think one of the finest. Don't listen to that music too much anymore.
• "Here I Go" by Syd Barrett: Barrett is another artist that Jer Egenberger introduced me to. This is a pretty song and the only Barrett tune that I know on guitar. (For some values of "know": I haven't played it in ages but could pick it out again pretty quickly I think.) (Aha: Here are the chords, which I worked out 2½ years ago.)

I want to forward this meme to: music snob extraordinaire Amanda Marcotte; Becks, who is learning to play guitar; Ben Wolfson, who has some interesting ideas about music; and monster of rock Roy Edroso, who is on a bit of a hiatus right now but will hopefully be back soon. Also I'd like to know NickS's picks, so maybe Becks or somebody will start a thread about it on Unfogged.

If you participate (is this the correct verb?) in this meme, let me know and I will link to your stuff. Update: Here are responses to this meme:

• Ben Wolfson: A complicated musical request

posted morning of April 7th, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, April 6th, 2006

🦋 Fiddle Practice

Tonight for the first time I felt myself starting to get comfortable in the second and third positions. All along I have been trying to work them in to my playing without any real luck. On Tuesday, Bill and Aaron were saying how they'd really like to hear the high notes and advising me to practice scales up the neck -- aagh! my bane! repetitive practice! -- so I set out to try it.

Last night I was playing the scales but without any real clue what I was doing. But tonight I changed my strategy a little. First, I decided only to work on the key of G for now, since the songs I've been playing with Bill and Aaron are primarily in G. And second, I decided not to worry about the bottom string since I was having a lot of trouble there.

I started playing some scales, sounding a little better than last night; and after a little while I moved into playing melodies and solos -- mostly in third position. Still having to hunt for notes a bit and sometimes drifting away from the proper position. I'm trying to figure out how to move between positions now.

posted evening of April 6th, 2006: Respond
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I had dinner last night with Unfogged commenter Idealist (whom I am planning to start calling IdeaList) -- we went to La Espiga. He is also from the Central Velley, grew up in Davis, and has been missing good Mexican food since he moved to NY. La Espiga did not disappoint. The menu is limited on weekdays, e.g. they did not have chiles rellenos, which IdeaList had been hoping for; but the dishes they did have were great. I had chivito en adobo, which I was a little surprised to see on the menu -- I had thought of it as more an Ecuadorean or Columbian dish -- and of course a couple of tacos. (Best taco filling available on weekdays is carnitas IMO; best on the full menu are barbacoa and lengua.) Update: Jim says chivito in adobo is Mexican. My mistake.

posted morning of April 6th, 2006: Respond

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

I was jamming again tonight with 13 Scotland Rd, and got a lot of good stuff on tape. Where last time I felt pretty up-in-the-air about whether I was playing with or against Bill, tonight I was starting to click and hear what I was doing right or wrong. Bill was also teaching me the songs in a way he was not doing last week, which was really helpful. Between Bill and Lisa Gutkin I feel like I have really happened on two ideal music teachers. We played:

• "Dream", which we had finished out the evening with last week, with me playing a really pretty intro. Had a hard time getting back there, but after a couple of times through I broke through and started getting it.
• "Used to be" -- just blew me away, a beautiful song. Aaron taught me an intro that I picked up fairly quickly. On the solo I'm having a hard time really going into it aggressively without also being sloppy.
• "If You Were Mine", which I've been practicing most of this week.
• "Always", which is really difficult for me to hear the key of.

posted evening of April 4th, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, April second, 2006

Pointed out by someone in my department: for a moment on Wednesday morning, it will be 01:02:03 04/05/06 for the first time since 1906, and for the last time until 2106.

posted afternoon of April second, 2006: Respond

Saturday, April first, 2006

🦋 Inside Man

I just got back from watching Inside Man with Ellen. (Sylvia is away at her first sleep-over! Yay!) It was a good movie -- I thought so anyways, Ellen was not as happy with it. Which is funny in a way, because I went there prepared not to like it and Ellen was predisposed to enjoy it, I think -- it was her choice of movie, and she likes Spike -- whereas I have never (before tonight) watched a Spike Lee joint that I enjoyed without reservation.

I think the crux of our difference in opinion, was the plausibility of the story. Neither of us found the plot to be very believable; for Ellen this interfered with her focussing on the movie, but not for me. I was able just to open up and let the movie pour into me unfiltered, and I loved it. Will it stay with me? Not sure. But it was an excellent movie viewing experience.

posted afternoon of April first, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, March 30th, 2006

🦋 Indigenous languages

A statistic, from the opening chapter of Guns, Germs and Steel, to make the mind reel: of roughly 6,000 known human languages, 1,000 are spoken only on the island of New Guinea. This seems incredible to me; but Teofilo, who knows more of these things than I, confirms that it is straight up. Some Googling brings up a list of Papua New Guinean languages, and there are certainly a lot. Also the full text of Papuan Linguistics is online in PDF form. Update: there is also about a ton of interesting stuff on PapuaWeb, from beautiful pictures to scholarly articles.

posted evening of March 30th, 2006: Respond

🦋 Non-fiction

I've never been much of a reader of non-fiction. Maybe part of the reason is I fear writing style like that found in Unequal Childhoods, which I finished the other day -- full of potentially useful information but written in such a way as to stymie concentration in even the most willing reader. But today I started Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel; if the first chapter is any basis for expectation, reading it will be a different story. His voice is clear, engaging, direct.

I've encountered Diamond's name a number of times over the years, mainly referred to by Crooked Timber posters, and always thought his stuff sounded interesting. I'm looking forward to this book. (And I realize on reflection that Crooked Timber has been responsible for encouraging a good deal of my non-fiction reading over the past couple of years.)

Note: Here is a Crooked Timber post with pointers to a wide-ranging controversy about GGS.

posted morning of March 30th, 2006: Respond
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🦋 Quitter

Yesterday I read The Quitter, Harvey Pekar's new book about his childhood. I've always loved American Splendor and this book is a fine addition. (It actually reminded me quite a bit of the AS movie -- Pekar as a kid in the main story, and Pekar as an old man stepping in occationally to comment.) Lovely art, moving story. Definitely recommended to the Mineshaft crowd, who I think will identify.

posted morning of March 30th, 2006: Respond
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