Only One Path At A Time

So I was out walking this morning and at one point started thinking about the route I was going to take biking this Sunday. When I snapped back to the here-and-now, I was disoriented and didn't know where I was. So this somewhat refines an earlier conclusion of mine: that our minds have only one set of circuits for following paths. Hence the confusion when you think about following a path while actually following a path. I think I blogged this before with regard to becoming disoriented while driving if you think about how to drive somewhere else (but I couldn't find it). This generalizes the conclusion to be independent of mode of travel, be it on foot, by bike, or by car.

Of course it could mean that I have only one set of path-following circuits. Maybe other people have more than one?

Music In

Reader polling has revealed that the favorite feature of this blog is the Music In topic. Acquisitions have down lately. Everything is rated back to the start of June, so 2 months worth. Also some exciting Music Out News.

• "Closing Time", by Tom Waits (1973). So Amazon says, Tom Waits, 2005, I think, I don't have that. Download, start listening. First song, "Ol' 55", I'm like, wait a minute, I know that song, it's an Eagles song?!?!? Why would Tom Waits cover that? So do some research, this is Tom Waits' first album, from 1973. The Eagles covered Tom Waits. If you do not have this album, I would highly recommend you get it. It's one of those fabulous 1st albums by a singer-songwriter who went on to a 40 year (and counting) career. His voice wasn't so gruff then. 4 stars.

  I was going to work up the 2nd song, "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You", really nice guitar riff. I download the lyrics, 5 verses of 7 lines each -- lots of songs only have 2 verses. So I'll be doing this one from the book only, doubt I'll memorize all 5 verses. Altho, I have remembered all 5 verses of "Up On Cripple Creek" the last couple of times I did it (around the time of Levon Helm's death).

  Tom Waits just released this really ... nasty, creepy, dark ??? but compelling video. I've watched it several times.
  

• "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do", Fiona Apple. Ms. Apple puts so much angst into her music, you cannot help but admire it. No standout catchy tunes tho. 3 stars.
  
• Walk The Moon, "Walk the Moon". A Cincinnati band. We all know what a sucker for pop I am, this somehow crosses the line from pop to commercial. Still, the tunes are not bad. 3 stars.
  
• "The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends", Flaming Lips. These guys continue to pad their resume as the masters of odd orchestration / sounds / noises. Some of these collaborations really work, I particularly liked the ones with Nick Cave, and with Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band. 3 stars.
  
• "New Beard City", New Beard. Hot damn, another great Brooklyn band! The 1st track opens with peppy pop, strings and hand-clapping orchestration, male and female vocals, then an 80s guitar harmony interlude, then a shredding solo, while the strings continue to build. 13 consistently good tracks. 4 stars.
  
• "Carry Me Back", Old Crow Medicine Show. Power folk / bluegrass, similar to their prior album, somehow it doesn't work as well for me. 3 stars.
  
• "Shrines", Purity Ring. A Montreal band, electronica/dance. Good female lead singer, nice grooves. 3 stars.
  
• "The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2", Joss Stone. Has Ms. Stone got this sh#t down or what? Interesting to see the covers she decided to do -- wait a minute, I thought only a few of these were covers, looks like they all are. I only recognized a few. Ms. Stone must be a real aficionado -- duh. 3 stars.
  

The Joss Stone has been here for ~10 days, nothing new since then, so, I am all caught up! All music rated and reviewed!

Re Music Out, after years without one, I've recently played 3 paying gigs with the Here For Party Band: the weekends before and after the 4th of July, and last weekend. A block party (cancelled due to a blown transformer in the heat wave, but, we still got paid, so it counts) and 2 private parties. I think that 4th of July is the time of biggest demand for musicians, even more so than New Year's.

The most recent gig was the most fun, lots of dancers for the last 1-1/2 hours. And the last hour, I was the only guitarist (the most excellent Lindsay Olive had to leave for another gig), and I played some feedback on "Wang Dang Doodle" that seemed to really work. A compressor, 2 fuzz tones and a wah-wah, you can definitely get some serious feedback, but totally under the control of the wah-wah and the whammy bar.

More Reading

I don't actually read all the time. I do work (which does involve reading technical articles and books). I exercise -- biked 43.6 miles this morning, temperature not bad at all, but my legs are talking to me. There are actually several other blog posts rolling around my noggin, but, want to take these two books back to the library, so they go to the top of the stack.

"Black Hills", by Dan Simmons. Simmons has written award-winning science fiction, fantasy, mystery and horror. Lately he has been doing kind of magical realism with a lots of historical fun facts. "The Terror" was a British Northwest Passage expedition stranded in the ice (with weird eskimo gods running around), blogged here. "Drood" was cults in the London of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, who is the narrator (and author of "The Moonstone", considered the first detective novel).

This one is a young Native American who touches Custer right as he dies and who becomes infested with Custer's ghost. Several timelines, including one of Custer's, and the NA working on Mount Rushmore. I learned a lot about the Black Hills. In some ways tho, this novel seemed more straightforward than the prior two, which really kept you guessing as to what was going on. It also seemed a little shorter than it could have been (486 pages). There were a couple of threads, in particular that with the NA's wife, that seemed a little sketchy.

Still, Simmons cannot but produce a readable and enjoyable novel, which this is. I liked how he worked in a one sentence (anonymous) appearance by Richard Baedecker from "Phases of Gravity" (blogged here), and the Greek philosophy from "Ilium" and "Olympus". 4 stars.

"Eastern Standard Tribe", by Cory Doctorow (2004). I have been really enjoying his recent stuff, championing worker's rights for the digital. This story is more like a novella. The central character is reminiscent of Charles Stross's Manfred Manx -- every conversation winds up having several patentable ideas in it. It moves fast, a little sketchy, but great insight into modern tech. 4 stars.

Speaking of of Charles Stross, he and Doctorow are supposed to have a collaboration "The Rapture of the Nerds" out RSN. Definitely looking forward to that one.

Reading

Just got back from the library, picked up 4 books. A new Dan Simmons, woo-hoo! The prior time I was there I only got into the B's before I had 2 books to read. Those were:

• "Not Less Than Gods (The Company)", by Kage Baker. I think I've read most of Ms. Baker's Company stories. They're OK, semi-immortal superhero types are usually fun. This one is set in the 19th century, and kinds of twists itself around to get some steampunk thrown in. An OK read.
  
• "The Sunborn", by Gregory Benford (2006). A sequel to "The Martian Race", which I enjoyed. Surprised I missed this, I normally keep up with Benford. This is a good read, with interesting ideas about non-CHON-based life forms.
  

I finished these while we were on a 4 day trip to Philadelphia for the wedding of an old, good friend of my youngest. She and I performed "Our Love Is Here To Stay". After six weeks of practicing on an electric guitar, all that the band there had was flattops. So lots of flubs chasing the flattop around my belly, but Christie sang beautifully, and the song was rich in emotional content and was very well received. That song was the last written by George Gershwin before his death. It first was used in a "Goldwyn Follies" movie in 1938. But it then got recycled as the main love theme of "An American In Paris" in 1951.

So on the flight home it was back to ebooks on the iPad.

• "An Unexpected Twist", by Andy Borowitz. A whimsical short story about a near death experience that was a $0.99 kindle special. A quick and sweet read. He is very funny on Twitter (@BorowitzReport), and "The Borowitz Report" is a regular feature in Funny Times.
  
• "The ChristWire Handbook". Based on a web site that satirizes fundamentalist christians so well that people didn't realize that it was a satire. I read the first two chapters, very funny. Probably read more in the future. This would make a good bathroom book -- I guess at some point there will be cheap tablets on the back of every toilet?!?!? This kindle book was a father's day gift from my oldest daughter - thanks!
  
• "Religion for Atheists: A non-believers guide to the uses of religion", by Alain de Botton, who is a Swiss writer and philosopher living in Britain. I read the first chapter, disagreed with most of his premises and assumptions, and decided not to proceed further. I don't think we need religion for handling funerals, weddings or childbirth. I have been to totally non-religious versions of all of these and they work much better without having to artificially inject god into them. I did see a chapter named Community, and in raising our children without religion, I did miss the community that I had growing up, although we did have neighbors and the church of soccer. I will probably try the book again in the future. Also a gift from my oldest daughter.
  
• "In Her Name: Omnibus" by Michael R. Hicks. Apparently three novels, "Empire", "Confederation", and "Final Battle", published as one ebook. Looks like it was $5.99 and I probably bought it based on the recommendation of some other sci fi author I follow. I almost put it down after the first page due to bad sentence structure. But it was the only thing I had to read on the plane, so I kept on. Not too bad really, it keeps you turning its 700 pages. Epic space opera, human confederation vs blue female warrior race of a 100,000 year old empire. Almost fantasy in that their empress has powers that are basically godlike. Oh, and the race is sexually compatible with humans -- so the "Avatar" movie fans will be into the blue warrior chicks -- who have upper and lower fangs for the vampire fans! Unfortunately as well, I believe it is showing "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" effect -- it has rape scenes, which I'd just as soon not have in my comic books. The ending of the book was really bad tho. It was like "OK, long enough, we're outta here!" What should have been at least several pages explanation of what was going on was instead a couple of shortish paragraphs. I guess I will rate it a solid "meh".
  

Music Velocity

Time to catch up on Music In, which will be followed by a discussion of Music Velocity.

• "Slipstream", Bonnie Raitt. Man, what is not to like. She has such a fabulous voice. So many completely catchy guitar riffs. It's interesting, she does a cover of "Right Down The Line", by Gerry Rafferty. You really wonder how someone of her stature decides to do a cover. Like on Prince's "Emancipation" albums, where he covered "Betcha By Golly Wow!", "La-La(Means I Love You)", "One Of Us", and "I Can't Make U Love Me" -- the 1st covers he ever did (of course, he was trying to get out of his Sony? contract). Notice the Bonnie Raitt tune there -- but somehow I don't think her version had "U" in the title. We will revisit the covers issue later. 4 stars for "Slipstream", major props for Ms. Raitt.
  
• "Underwater Sunshine (or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation)", Counting Crows. My youngest told me she no longer listens to Counting Crows. They did do that Shrek song after all -- and I for one completely quit listening to Phil Collins once he started shilling for Disney. But, I think that CC still has some authenticity, and some excellent guitarists. However, sometimes the lead singer Adam Duritz, starts doing talking and other stuff which tells me he's bored. He needs to get that shit reined in.

  Back to the topic of covers. They cover "Amie", Pure Prairie League, and "You Ain't Going Nowhere", The Byrds. I still have them in the Southern Rock genre, those are OK there, but, not totally compelling picks for covers??? BTW, I have like 4 of the 1st 6 Byrds albums on vinyl. Ripping those to MP3 is definitely on my stack.

  3 stars, 4 stars for "Like Teenage Gravity" and "The Ballad of El Goodo" -- which has banjo, yes!
  

• "Stars and Satellites", Trampled by Turtles. I think the genre for these guys, and Fleet Foxes, and Mumford and Sons, and OCMS, is "Power Folk". Enjoyable stuff, 3 stars.
  
• "In The Time Of Gods", Dar Williams. I have a fair bit of her earlier stuff, and I saw her live at Woodsongs. Good tunes, no real standouts, 3 stars.
  
• Butterfly Boucher, eponymous. I think my friend David gave me one of her early works. This is a nice effort. I thought maybe there would be 1-3 4 star tracks -- maybe the 1st track "5678!" -- but it wound up all being 3 stars.
  
• Delbert McClinton, "Keeper Of The Flame" (1979) and "Live From Austin" (1989). Both of these reminded me of Paul Butterfield "East-West" -- I heard that, I'm going "Damn -- that's half of Patty Butcher's material". There are several songs off of both these that are permanent parts of the repertoires of good players that I've played with. 3 star, with several 4 stars for the ones I've enjoyed playing. "Standin' On Shakey Ground" (the last hit of The Temptations in 1975) and "Givin' It Up For Your Love" are in my book.
  
• Norah Jones, "Little Broken Hearts". My first couple of listens to this were totally, "meh". But it really grew on me. Noteworthy is the creepy "Miriam", about murdering a female rival who messed with her man. I read an interview with her, she's saying "Oh, it was just a "murder somebody" song -- traditional" -- I don't know. Really comes across as some seriously bad feelings towards another female who f#cked her boyfriend. 4 stars.
  
• The Lumineers, eponymous. Another Power Folk band. I think some of my young friends are totally into these guys. Nice tunes, no standouts. 3 stars.
  
• Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, "Soul Time!". If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times, there's nothing as fun as playing in a funk band. Ms. Jones has played Lexington a couple times in the last few years and gotten rave reviews, and rightfully so. Man, does she open the can of funk. Totally kick-ass. 4 stars.
  
• Yes, "Fly From Here". So Amazon (still looking for an alternative) has this as a $5 special. I go for it. It is totally excellent. Totally Yes. But I'm like, it is ~50% evolved from 1970 Yes. Shouldn't it be like 400% evolved from 1970? Very interesting listening. Yes is definitely added to the list to be burned from vinyl. 3 stars.
  
• Ben Harper, "Diamonds On The Inside (2003). Another $5 Amazon special. I remember some of my kids liking Ben, and having a decent impression of him. Very nice collection of tunes, a variety of genres including reggae. 4 stars, except for a couple which are a little too raucous for my current years. Sad but true, heavy rockish doesn't work for me anymore. And Metal is Right Out.
  
• Monica Lionheart, "Indian Summer". Holy crap, another great new Brooklyn artist! IMHO, Brooklyn is indeed the coolest city in the USA. And my daughter Erica is now the proud owner of an apartment in Park Slope 2 block west of the Civil War Victory monument. (What? The Civil War is over? The North won?) This album has an excellent variety of orchestration. The hook was planted deep in the 1st track, "Air And Sea", which has a very nice, reverbed pedal steel track as the main ambience. 4 stars.
  
• John Mayer, "Born and Raised". He's a great guitarist, too bad he just seems to come across in his People Magazine personal life as such a dork. Maybe we'd work harder to ignore that, but then there's songs where he bemoans how hard his life as a multimillion celebrity is. Please. 3 stars.
  
• Regina Spektor, "What We Saw From The Cheap Seats". I have the rest of her work and I like it, but somehow, I was expecting that somehow she should mature somewhat as time passed. In particular, sometimes she does this teenager cutesy stuff in her vocals which I would say is becoming inappropriate, as she is now 32 YO. But, I guess it is still distinctive. 3 stars.
  

So, onto the topic of Music Velocity. We just reviewed music acquired from 4/10/12 to 5/29/12. So that's 49 days, 7 weeks, in which I ingested 15 albums, 173 tracks. Let's do the math! 2 new albums per week, 3.5 new tracks per day.

It seems at times like it's too much. It's like there is a river of music flowing through my mind. I am notorious for not particularly remembering new recent events of import. Maybe it's because the stream of music washes it all away.

Most of us resonate most strongly with the music of our puberty. I continued to acquire music for 8-9 years after that, before I in quick order had 4 kids and forgot about music pretty much for 25 years. I restarted with music in maybe 1997. Since then, it has come to fill my mind. But, I'm wondering if, it's too much so. So I'm trying to slow down on new music acquisition. But, come on, a new Brooklyn band? I've gots to be there!

Big Government Sucks!

In response to someone in a comment thread on a Tim O'Reilly post on Romney's clueless comments on public servants.

Big government sucks!

But, the only other option is letting the .01% and the corporations run everything. Welcome back to feudal times! And with AU, and the government big or little completely for sale, we're practically there already.

I'm a 1%'er, the ultra-rich have been good to me. F#ck them. My dad was a union man, I don't forget where I came from.

Like all those role-players who talk about living in the middle ages and practicing fencing and jousting. I'm sure my forebears from those times were serfs, for whom touching a weapon was punishable by death. Keep this in historical perspective. We're still trying to get rid of kings, dukes, nobles and opposition-crushing hereditary wealth.

True Life Nature Adventures

This morning I biked Keene Rd through Troy to Paul's Mill Rd. I came back in Delaney Ferry. 2h20m 30.2 miles. Overcast, a little breeze, not too hot.

On Keene Rd just before the Jessamine Co line, a mole ran into the road in front of me. At first I thought it was a leaf blowing, but it was a mole, around 2.5 inches long.

At the small pond (eutrophication experiment #1) on the left of Keene Rd just after Delaney Ferry splits off, a turtle was sunning itself on a rock in the middle of the pond. Not a snapper, shell maybe 10 inches long.

Just past Keene, I spooked a bunch of turkey buzzards feeding on a dead deer. 3-4 of them flew right in front of me, I'm like "Oh crap, I hope I don't hit one." They were full grown, 4-5 ft wingspan, probably weighed 20-30 pounds each. But I was on a slight uphill, probably doing below 10 mph, so I didn't get within 5 feet of one.

There was a man and a woman fishing in the creek that runs next to Paul's Mill Rd -- my map says that is the East Fork Clear Creek. Just past them were two swans swimming. I think the horse farm there on the left keeps the swans.

Yesterday I finished reading "The Drowned Cities", by Paolo Bacigalupi, on an ebook purchased from Carmichael's Book Store. He won some awards last year for "The Windup Girl". This one was short, 286 pages. Post-apocalyptic, or post global-warming ocean rise, survivor/refugee story. Child soldiers like in Africa now. Kind of an ensemble cast of characters, including a war machine "half-man", 400-500 pounds of human/tiger/dog/hyena/wolf hybrid bred for war -- a good character. The main "Drowned City" is Washington D.C. Strangely bothersome are images of warlords shelling the capitol building, etc. An OK read, 3 stars.

Oriole and Peacocks

Sounds like a fable, doesn't it?

I biked to Midway, back via Ft Springs. 34.5 miles, 2h50m. Beautiful morning, sunny and cool but windy.

I saw a baltimore oriole on US62 just south of Midway. Amazingly bright orange, he flew ahead of me down the road for a while.

I saw and heard the peacocks on Moores Mill Rd. I think they're at Elkview Farm, at the top of the hill up from the creek. No tail displays, but the chest feathers are such a brilliant iridescent blue. I was thinking, "This is the place with the peacocks, wonder if there are any ..." and then heard one call -- loud and distinctive, no mistaking it for anything else.

Finished my 2nd library book, "Surface Detail", by Iain M. Banks. It is a Culture novel, I think he's done about 6 or 7 of these. I love The Culture -- an advanced, "8th level", post-singularity galaxy-spanning pan-human civilization. Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous, in orbital and ship minds in particular. Wow, an extensive Wikipedia article -- "anarchist, socialist, and utopian". Most of the stories seem to deal with The Culture dealing with more primitive civilizations. My son loved the 2nd Culture novel "The Player of Games" (1988).

"Anarchist, socialist, and utopian" -- what's not to like? I mean seriously, how do conservatives see the future? Or are they too busy trying to reclaim the past to think about the future? Right now, this very moment, there is enough food to feed the entire world. But 20% of the world is starving because of politics. When are we going to quit letting the "haves" get away with saying "there's not enough to go around". They've been saying that for 6000 years, and it's a lie now more than ever.

New Yellow

I biked out to my friend Tim's house this morning, and got some new yellow highlighter on my bike maps -- roads I haven't biked before. I took Keene Rd to Keene, then south on 169 (new yellow) to Harrodsburg Rd and south to Barkley Woods subdivision. After visiting, I continued south and then came back Clear Creek, Woods, and Delaney Ferry. 2h18m, 27.1 miles. Hot.

Harrodsburg Rd was four-laned out that way last year. Jessamine has turned 3-4 miles of the old 2-lane into a bike trail. Nice!

Saw a meadowlark on 169. Phew, I guess. Hopefully not another sign of global warming.

Where have the Meadowlarks Gone?

Biked this morning from 9:07 to 11:03. 23.8 miles, Parkers Mill to Dedham to Ft. Springs-Pinkard through Little Texas, out Military Pike to Shannonwood, Dry Ridge to 33. Then south, back 169 to Shannonwood to McGee to James and back in Military Pike.

Right before I turned onto Dedham a hawk flew about 5 feet in front of my nose with 2-3 smaller birds on its tail. On Dedham, I heard crows making a racket and out of a tree busts another big hawk with 3 crows chasing it. I didn't have enough time to ID the hawks, but the 2nd one at least I think was a red-tail.

I saw a kingbird on a fence on Military Pike. It was the 1st one I'd seen in a while. That got me to thinking about other birds, and I realized, I don't think I've seen a meadowlark for several years.

They are easy to spot. Distinctive markings, short tail, helicopter flying style, very sweet, melodic song. They hang out in fields rather than trees. I used to see and hear them all the time, now I can't remember when the last time I saw or heard one was.

So have the fields become subdivisions? Are they really gone, or is this just the general (increasing?) spottiness of (my) memory? Guess I'll keep more of an eye out for meadowlarks.

Music ... And Videos

Looks like this is April through mid-May. Then I got hit with an especially rich "100 Albums for $5" email from Amazon and bought 6 I think. So better get caught up some.

BTW, I posted to Google+ (mostly my geek friends) asking for a MP3 purchasing alternative to Amazon. Didn't particularly get any good alternatives.

• "Natives", by Bright Moments. This is the latest band of Lexington native and Dunbar graduate Kelly Pratt. Kelly is also in Beruit, and toured with Arcade Fire a couple of years ago. Really catchy grooves, and in one of their live videos you can see that the bass is coming from a tuba. Kind of the balkan pop like Beruit, but a little more catchy and brighter. 4 stars, and 5 stars for "Travelers", video here. Man you just keep waiting for that monster groove to come back around.
  
• Miike Snow, "Happy To You". 2nd album by this Swedish group. Catchy dance grooves, I thought about putting it in Electronica & Dance instead of Euro Pop. 3 stars.
  
• Idiot Glee, "HopHop EP" (2010). A local group, 4 songs recorded at Lexingon's HopHop studio. Doo-wap type tunes. Way too much reverb, 2 stars.
  
• Hospitality, eponymous. Surprisingly tasty stuff from yet another great Brooklyn band. Nice female vocals. 4 stars.
  
• fun. "Aim and Ignite" (2010). The first album of these guys, who got a great review last time. I love this peppy, poppy stuff. Vocals that sound like ELO or Queen. And, no, I'm not gay. 4 stars. This song messed with me. Here's the video for"All The Pretty Girls". My wife insightfully pointed out that it reminded her of the incredibly catchy "Come On Eileen" (video here, 1982).
  
• Tennis, "Cape Dory" (2011). First album by this husband and wife duo whose 2nd album was mentioned last time. Still gets "Girl Groups" classification -- again, I think that it's the reverb on the drums that gives it the Phil Spector sound. 4 stars.
  
• Rocket Juice & The Moon, eponymous. Brit-hop, with some contributions from Gorillaz members. Interesting how as the various parts of the empire come home, Brit-hop becomes world music. Good dance tracks. 3 stars.
  
• Of Monsters And Men, "My Head Is An Animal". Icelandic Euro Pop. The female vocalist really reminds me of someone else who's come out recently. Nice tunes, very listenable. 3 stars.
  

I stayed up til 1 last night and finished my 1st library book in a while: "Exultant", by Stephen Baxter. Very hard science fiction / military space opera. A fun read. But, should I feel bad about a book where humanity has spread like vermin through the galaxy, wiping out or assimilating other races as it went? A little too close to US history? Baxter is British tho.

eBooks at the LFPL

So I followed the instructions of the fine pamphlet I was given at the Beaumont branch of the Lexington Free Public Library. I went to www.lexpublib.org/elibrary and downloaded the OverDrive Media Console from the iTunes app store and put it on my iPhone and iPad. It has a Find Library function, and there was the Beaumont branch. Select it, all done!

They have a limited number of books per title to download. If one is available, you can add to your cart, otherwise you can put your name in the queue for a copy, or add it to your wish list. Most books seem to be available only for 7 day checkout.

They offer two flavors of downloads:

1. Kindle format books. When you pick one you are redirected to amazon to check-out. You must also go back to your Kindle page at amazon to return the book. So I think I will forgo this in favor of
   
2. Adobe EPUB format. These load directly into the OverDrive app, and you can return them from there. The app is pretty well integrated with the library when you want to look for more books. I did download a book and read it in this format. The reader is a little bit funky tho. When you swipe to the next page, rather than any kind of page turning animation, the new page just pops into place, but maybe looking like it is scrolling down a line. Odd that something like that is just a little annoying, but it is.
   

So the tech is decent, I would have to say the selection, not so much so. I searched for a few sci-fi authors I like, nothing. So in 10-at-a-time mode, I looked at the 451 titles they had listed in their top level browsing category "Science Fiction & Fantasy". It was pretty much completely fantasy. I don't remember a single sci-fi title. And the emphasis was on fantasy series I'd never heard of, most in 12 volumes or so. They had the whole Sookie Stackhouse series (Twilight). They did have "The Lord of the Rings" and "A Song of Fire and Ice" (A Game of Thrones) series. Interesting, 10 people waiting to read "A Game of Thrones", tails off pretty rapidly after the 1st one.

This kind of fits with what my friend Michael the bookstore owner told me: ebooks are being overwhelming adopted by genre (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, western) readers who plow through far more titles than your average reader.

For my sample read, I chose "Side Jobs" by Jim Butcher, a collection of short stories set in The Dresden Files series. I had read the 1st of these "Storm Front" and liked it OK -- although there were some anti-science rants that seemed unnecessary to me -- but didn't follow up with the series. Stories were OK, I'm kind of digging urban fantasy as mindless reading -- but it looks like the series winds up getting into some serious christian mythology, with archangels and that murderous psychopath jehovah (god the father) getting involved.

I don't mind christian mythology, like in the movies "Constantine" or the "The Prophecy" series, but, man, I'm so tired of christians in general. We went to Campus Pub to see Ben Lacy Friday, got there 1 hour early, the trivia question is "Which is the only gospel that mentions the word "manger"?". KMN, fucking bible trivia in a bar? Where will it end?

R&R + T&T

Well, since it's been a while since I've had a paycheck, I decided to go the library this afternoon rather than go eshopping for ebooks. Hadn't been there for a while, the Lexington Public Library now has self-checkout. You just scan your card and the books yourself. I also got a pamphlet on their ebook lending, I'll see how that works.

Looking at books by two prolific authors -- Stephen Baxter and Iain M. Banks -- and I was having trouble remembering if I had read them or not. So got a couple and then checked this blog to see if I'd read them. Apparently not, yay! Although searching for Banks turns up a single reference to his work in general, and no specific titles. Need to do better blogging this stuff. I definitely need the external memory. There are some mystery writers I've kind of quit reading because I can't remember which of their stuff I have and haven't read.

Anticipating rain tomorrow, I biked today, Saturday: 28.3m, 2h20m. Browns Mill to Leestown, back Waizenberger Mill, Pisgah, and Military Pike. Nice day. Kind of felt like I was getting stronger at the end. Almost fell down a steep trail down to the creek when I stopped at Waizenberger Mill. I always stop there to check out the waterfall.

So, recent reading (R&R), from most recent back:

• "Japanese Fairy Tales", compiled by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908). When we 1st got an iPad, I went into the Apple store and downloaded lots of free, out of copyright books. Nice that Apple makes them available. All the Oz books, some Kipling, Wind and the Willows, complete works of Shakespeare, and lots of books of mythology and legends. I ran out of reading material coming back from Jacksonville last week and pulled this up. Interesting stuff. Evil stepmothers appear to be a cross-cultural constant. Ditto for cannibalistic ogres. A few stories feature Ryn Jin, the dragon king under the sea, who was generally a pretty good guy unless you disrespect the power of the sea.
  
• "Year's Best SF 6", edited by David G. Hartwell (2000). I think my daughter Alexis got me this for solstice. Kind of interesting, 12 years old, but the stories all pretty good. I think I'd read only one before. I think this validates my building a stash of "Year's Best" collections in Florida -- good reading even when old.
  
• "Majesty's Offspring", by A. J. Vega. This was a free Kindle book. The A.I. kind of ruling humanity decides it wants to breed. Humanity decides, bad idea, and destroy it in a big war. Story set post war, with lovable, former navymen turned space pirates (arrgh). Ends in a complete and total cliff-hanger. I the 2nd one costs money, I will probably decline. 1 star.
  
• "Deep State" and "The Fourth Wall", by Walter Jon Williams. These are sequels to "This Is Not A Game", which I thought I'd blogged but can't find. Both very enjoyable reads, gaming nerds trying to help make the world a better place. 4 stars.
  
• "Liminal States", by Zack Parsons. I think this was recommended in a tweet by one of the SF writers I follow on Twitter. Harry Connolly, John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and William Gibson get some lively exchanges going on Twitter. Anyway, this is a 1st novel, and it really, really covers a lot of ground. It goes from being a western to a 50's cheap detective mystery to a 21st century SF story. When I got to the end, my reaction was kind of like, "huh"? But you keep turning the 448 pages. 3 stars? BTW, the eBook format on this was bad. Like a file that had inconsistent hard and soft returns. Lots of bad white space and run on words. I emailed the author, he said he fwded on to the publisher -- nice!
  
• "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman. This started out looking like magical realism in Brooklyn, and I'm kind of like "Oh no, that never works". But then it becomes Harry Potter meets Chronicles of Narnia -- but for adults, dark and with sex and death. Pretty good reads, I guess. 3 stars.
  
• "Distrust That Particular Flavor", by William Gibson. A collection of his non-fictional essays. I think I'd read most of these before. I never believed in semiotics until Gibson explained it to me. He has definitely coined some bon mots -- wow, a web page just for these, nice! "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." 4 stars.

  The other day I thought I came up with a good term for something I was working on -- something unique and cute. Quel dumbass, I didn't check it with The Google. When I finally got around to it, of course there were already several versions of my "original" idea out there. When will I learn? ;->
  

FSATFFMATVE

Double duty, the First Sunday After The First Full Moon After The Vernal Equinox is both a lunar and a solar fertility feast. So to celebrate, I will hard-boil some eggs and make some fine, fine egg salad and eat egg salad sandwiches. Yum!

And for all my Jewish readers and friends, happy Feast of the Murdered Children (aka passover).

This morning biked 1h21m 17.1 miles, top speed 32.2 mph. I went on and wore arm and leg warmers but probably could have done without them. I took Woods Ln south from Delaney Ferry to 169, then left and back through Keene. I've taken Woods Ln many times, but I think always in the past I've taken it in the opposite direction. Of course, the hills were worse this way ;->

It was worth it tho, because I saw a bluebird on Woods Ln. I think only the 3rd time I've seen one.

What is a Milkman?

So, I wonder what the min age is for not knowing what a milkman is? I think when I was growing up, I was fuzzy on what an iceman was. A job species in the economic ecology that is definitely on the endangered list.

I was thinking about milkman based on the fact that I now have three different versions of "My Very Good Friend The Milkman" in my iTunes:

1. Fats Waller, 1935. Genre is Early Jazz.
   
2. Eric Clapton, 2010, off of his latest album. Genre is Rock.
   
3. Paul McCartney, 2012, of the album of standards he just released. Genre is Pop
   

The Fats Waller version is, of course, the best.

So on to new music for the 1st 2 months of 2012.

• "For The Good Times", by The Little Willies -- Norah Jones country band. Very listenable. 3 stars, with 4 for the title track.
  
• "All Hours", by Ivy (2011). I think they are getting a little tired of their format. 3 stars.
  
• "An Innocent Man", by Billy Joel (1983). I ripped this with the fine USB-out turntable given me by my children. The quality from this is surprisingly good. This was a family favorite as the kids were growing up, lots of dancing in the foyer in sock feet to these songs. I think too that "Leave A Tender Moment Alone" may be my wife and my "song" -- the only other contender I can think of is "Wonderful Tonight". That it came out after we'd been married 9 years I believe to be immaterial. 4 stars.
  
• "Duets" soundtrack (2000). We loved this movie, about competitive karaoke singers. Great ensemble cast with Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul Giamatti in particular acquitting themselves well with their singing. 3 stars with a couple of tracks 4 stars.
  
• "With A Twist...", by Todd Rundgren (1997). I've always been a big Todd Rundgren fan, and I've loved bossa nova since I first started playing guitar and was given an Antonio Carlos Jobim songbook by my first guitar teacher at age 15 or so. So an album of some of Todd's greatest hits done with bossa nova arrangements definitely gets me off. 4 stars.
  
• "Le Voyage Dans La Lune", by Air (French Band). So this is a new soundtrack written for the re-release of the colorized version of the 1902 Georges Méliès movie, known for its image of the moon with the shell/rocket stuck in its eye. (Méliès, BTW, is the topic of the recent Scorsese move "Hugo", one of those execrable Hollywood patting itself on the back movies -- "Movies are magic, and we make them! Hooray for us!") Listenable I guess, 3 stars.
  
• "Kisses On The Bottom", by Paul McCartney. Released on Valentine's Day and given to me as a gift by my lovely wife. McCartney covers 30s to 50s standards. I don't think his voice is really that suited to this material. 3 stars (maybe more like 2.5).
  
• "Paralytic Stalks", by Of Montreal. I don't like this as well as some of their earlier stuff. More neurotic than psychotic. 3 stars.
  
• "Young & Old", by Tennis. I think the best find of this batch. I put the genre as "Girl Groups". It's got kind of Phil Spector production value (reverb on the drums?). Very nice quality songs. 4 stars. This is their 2nd album, I'll have to check out the 1st. Wikipedia says it's a husband/wife duo. This was a $5.00 special from Amazon.
  
• "Where It Hits You", by Jim White. Quirky southernish tunes once again. I really like his stuff. My favorite was "My Brother's Keeper", about the death of an old friend who he hooked up with a "honky-tonk angel" who broke the friend's heart, after which he wouldn't leave the house and grew to 400 pounds. Started at 3 stars, ended at 4.
  
• "Obadiah", by Frazey Ford (2010). Mostly folky stuff with a variety of instruments. 3 stars.
  
• "Some Nights", by fun. These guys remind me of Of Montreal or Apples In Stereo -- vocal harmonies sounding like ELO are the main giveaway. This is also reminiscent of Queen and maybe BeeGees. Kind of a show tune / rock opera sound. 3 stars (maybe 3.5).
  
• "All Of Me", by Estelle. My favorite Brit-hopper does a take on "The Miseducation of Lauren Hill". So like Miseducation, you have to go through and mark all the spoken bits as 1 star. Some good tracks, 3 stars.
  
• "Something", by Chairlift. A Brooklyn duo. Edgy arrangements. I put in Chick Pop genre. 3 stars.
  
• "Break It Yourself", by Andrew Bird. Nothing really jumps out from this album. As usual a solid piece of work tho. 3 stars.
  

Suffered a shock Wednesday night. After playing at O'Neill's, which was pretty thin both crowd- and musician-wise, I stopped by Lynagh's, where I sometime play at the open mic Wednesday night. I wanted to talk to Jamie Green and tell him that I'd mentioned him to Ross Compton, whom I've been trying to get Jamie to hook up with re getting some tracks down.

Lynagh's was closed! The guy mopping up came and told me that they'd been real slow so they closed up early. Not a good sign, I worry about live music in Lexington.

And Now For Your Moment Of Zen

Took my 1st bike ride of the year this last Sunday morning. 1h15m 16.3 miles by Little Texas, back in via James and Delaney Ferry. Hills have somehow gotten steeper since last November, #TectonicActivity was tweeted.

I noticed, I really don't get much Zen going when I'm biking. My mind is always all over the place. Occasionally I will tell my mind to focus in and pay attention only to what is around us. But it never lasts long.

One of the coolest things that happens biking is when you get to smell woodsmoke. Millions of years of association of company, food, women flood your brain. Totally hard-wired, nice!

I've always felt like getting a massage I should be able to turn my brain off and just let it dwell in the sensation, but Zen not so much there either. Probably because it's too easy to get some napping in.

Playing music doesn't wind up being Zen either. Say for instance, I am just about done working up "Shaky Ground". One of the drummers at the jam told me that was one of his favorites, so I thought I'd work it up for him. I wind up playing the same lick over and over for the whole song, except for 3 bars on the 4 and 1 on the 5 for the solo. So for something like that, I practice the lick over and over until it is committed to muscle memory, and then start working on singing the lead over it. Interesting, I thought I was ready to do it tomorrow, but tried it tonight and the 2 brains required, 1 for the guitar lick and 1 for the vocals, refused to disengage for the 1st 4 measures of the vocals. So, need to practice a few times more, give the muscle memory a few more reps.

But the point is, it winds up being not very Zen. The only time I think I get Zen playing music is when I'm really clicking on a lead. But, at our jam, I really focus on playing rhythm guitar, singing, and leading the band, which involve enough components that it doesn't lend itself to getting into a Zen groove, and which often lead me to skip taking a lead.

I guess not surprisingly, the most Zen place I currently wind up going is when I get In The Zone writing code. I've been doing it as a full-time job for 40 years. When you get In The Zone, the beautiful, interconnected, white towers of logic out of which you build software become the whole of your existence. You are the logic and the logic is you.

So I guess that's why I still like coding. Getting In The Zone coding is by far my greatest current source of Zen.

A History Lesson

I have actually read a non-fiction book! Something to improve my mind!

I read "Natural Experiments of History", edited by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson (2010).

I am a big fan of Diamond's, as noted in these earlier blog posts. In school, history was always my worst subject -- no logic, no point in memorizing dates. Diamond's work tries to tease out the "why" of history, and he is extremely good at it.

This book has 8 cases of comparing historical development that diverged from similar beginnings, and attempting to evaluate theories of why history diverged as it did. It was surprisingly topical politically in that several of the articles dealt in why different countries developed at different rates economically. In all of these, it turned out that the sooner feudal and old regime type systems were put aside and more modern democratic institutions were put in place, the more rapid the economic development.

The more you think about that, the more obvious it seems. When wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, it festers there, as the primary interest of the privileged few is protecting the exclusivity of their wealth and power. In contrast, the more people can have a real chance to borrow money, build a business, better educate their children, etc, the faster an economy will develop and prosper.

So how can the 1% not realize this? I really think that the overall standard of living was improving to the point where they just didn't feel "rich enough". I mean really, someone practically a beggar can maybe buy a smartphone as good as that of the richest man in the world. Where is the justice in that? What about all his hard work? (or not if he inherited his wealth).

A New Record

Yesterday I scattered some safflower seed on the lower patio. In the afternoon, I counted 20 juncos feeding on that and the thistle seed fallen below the goldfinch feeders. A new record!

Music In

Man, how can I get so far behind on music in? I guess it's because with books, as soon as you finish it, you can normally review it. Whereas music you have to live with a while to give it a chance to sink in. Anyway, going back to October:

• "Biophilia", by Bjork. Ms. Guttmunsdottir, the world's greatest living composer, hits it out of the park again. Plus, lots of songs that express the wonder and awe of science, on topics like dark matter, evolution, viruses. 4 stars.
  
• "Ceremonials", by Florence + The Machine. Another very strong offering, although I like it a little less than her prior. 3 stars.
  
• "Realistic", by Ivy, 1995. I am such a sucker for sappy Europop (actually a NYC band with a French lead singer) like this. 4 stars.
  
• "Innervisions", by Stevie Wonder, 1973. $5.00 special from Amazon. The body of work that Stevie produced in the early 70's is completely excellent and represented a huge advance in pop and R&B music. 4 stars.
  
• "Highway 61 Revisited", by Bob Dylan, 1965. $5.00 special from Amazon. Set the wayback machine for 1965. Great stuff. 3 stars, 4 for "Highway 61 Revisited", and "Ballad of a Thin Man". "Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones?"
  
• "50 Words For Snow", by Kate Bush. Ethereal arrangements, haunting lyrics. 4 stars.
  
• "In The Clear", by Ivy. Filling out their discography. This 2005 effort sounds a little tired, maybe they're ready for a change. 3 stars, I think, still unrated. I still have to try their latest, which came out just last year.
  

The next 5 albums I got from the Rolling Stone Top 50 Albums of 2011. I think Josh at Azur pointed me at that. I thought about doing my own Top 10 list for 2011, but when I'm pulling from someone else's list, that seems like cheating. 4 of these I also gifted electronically to my NYC daughter for Solstice -- they should not take up too much space in her tiny Brooklyn apartment.

• "Thank You, Happy Birthday", by Cage The Elephant. A Bowling Green, KY band no less. Some of it is a little too punkish for me, but some great tunes. 3 stars.
  
• "So Beautiful Or So What", by Paul Simon. I'm not that big a Simon fan, but there were some great tunes here. A nice (short) instrumental too, you forget that this guy's been a pretty good guitarist for 50 years. 4 stars.
  
• "W H O K I L L", by Tune-Yards. Wow, that a vocal range Merrill Garbus has! And what catchy grooves! 4 stars.
  
• "Nine Types Of Light", by TV On The Radio. Nice tunes, very consistent. 3 stars.
  
• "Ritual Union", by Little Dragon. Swedish techno R&B. Makes sense to me. Killer grooves. 4 stars.
  

Finally, two albums downloaded as a result of watching "The Royal Tenenbaums" with my daughter Erica when she was home for solstice. Both oldies.

• "Chelsea Girl", by Nico, 1967. I think her first solo album after her Velvet Underground / Andy Warhol gig. Kind of the prototypical Europop/trash female lounge singer. Surprisingly good. 3 stars.
  
• "V.U.", by The Velvet Underground, 1985. That date is suspect, this was a compilation album, but a lot of the tracks don't appear to be anywhere else. Again, surprisingly good. "Stephanie Says" is the track in the movie. 3 stars.
  

That brings us into 2012. BTW, Happy New Year!

More Reading

After my last post, I had that nagging feeling I had forgotten something. And I had: "Postsingular", by Rudy Rucker. I missed it because the paperback had been on my shelf for a while, and so didn't show up in my Kindle downloads listing. I really feel like, given his normal subject matter and background (computer science professor and Louisville native), I should like his stuff, but, he is just not a very good writer. "Postsingular" winds up being "Jack and the Beanstalk" anchored in quantum mechanics??? I really can't recommend it. I still have a reissue of his Ware tetralogy, of which I think I have read the first two, "Software" and "Wetware", on my to-read shelf. That will definitely be saved for a rainy day.

More recently, I read "Twenty Palaces: A Prequel", by Harry Connolly. This is apparently the last book in this series -- I think I read on Connolly's blog or twitter feed that his publisher was not going to publish any more of these. Too bad, I have enjoyed them. The protagonist, an ex-con who works as a thug for a mystical society that ruthlessly wipes out magic users, is a great noir character, a cheap detective of the old school.

Finally, I read "The Quantum Thief", the first novel of Hannu Rajaniemi. I tweeted: "80s: Neuromancer; 90s: Snow Crash; 00s: Accelerando; 10s: The Quantum Thief." I was really impressed. Just when you think that visions of future computing, cyberspace, and virtual reality are totally passe, here comes a new vision that blows you away. Rataniemi jumps on the privacy issues that are now coming to the forefront in social media with both feet. Highly recommended.

I also yesterday bought my first ebooks from a local bookstore: Carmichael's, Louisville's Oldest Independent Bookstore, owned by my old friend Michael Boggs and his wife Carol Bosse. I knew Michael from the Louisville computing scene in the mid-80s. Had a very pleasant lunch with him a few Sundays ago. Anyway, he told me I could buy Google eBooks from their website, same price as Amazon. You download them to the IndieBound Reader app on the iPad or iPhone. The books in this app look more like real books in their page layout than either the Apple or Kindle readers. The only downside so far is that I can't figure out how to get books from within the app, I have to go to the Carmichael's website, purchase and download. They have told me that I can designate Carmichael's as my store within the app, and then work from within the app, but I haven't figured out how yet.

Meanwhile tho, I would rather give business to local bookstores than to sweatshop master Amazon. The people who work in their warehouses (there is a large one in Lexington) are all hired as temps, minimal benefits, get sick and you're fired. Definitely a workforce that needs to unionize.

I have loved the convenience of buying from Amazon, but if the low prices come as a result of worker abuse, I will take my business elsewhere (whenever possible). Now I need a good alternative for buying music.