5-4-Fri: Great Album Liner Notes

This week it's time for--ta-duh!--five great sets of album liner notes. I am a beeg fan of learning more about how a song got developed or where or whatnot. It gets my goat when you buy an album and you don't even get the lyrics. Props to Michelle Shocked for even listing the key of the songs on her Short, Sharp, Shocked.

So, I asked one of most knowledgable music friends, Steve, to recommend a handful of his fave liner notes:

1. Girlfriend: Deluxe Edition, Matthew Sweet. Athens (GA): Volcano. 2006. Liner notes by Bud Scoppa.
2. Live at Leeds: Deluxe Edition, The Who. Santa Monica (CA): MCA/Geffen. 2001. Liner notes by Mike Shaw, Shel Talmy and Andy Neill.
3. Loaded: Fully Loaded, The Velvet Underground. New York (NY): Atlantic/WEA. 1997. Liner notes by David Fricke.
4. No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, Bob Dylan. New York (NY): Columbia/Legacy. 2005. Liner notes by Andrew Loog Oldham and Al Kooper.
5. First Rays of the New Rising Sun, Jimi Hendrix. Seattle (WA): Experience Hendrix. 1997. Liner notes by John McDermott.

PS - I am not necessarily one of those people who mourns the woeful loss of vinyl and all that space for album art and liner notes. I think CDs have shown some pretty cool visuals and those little insert booklets actually make for even more liner space. Oh, and "Caring is Creepy" by The Shins, made famous by the Garden State soundtrack, is suh-weeet; now playing on iTunes.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Remember the writer's strike? David Letterman's beard. Endless "reality tv" repeats. Public worries that the next season of "Two and a Half Men" might be delayed. Good times.

How did I cope? I read books, dog. How did Joss Whedon cope? Hilariously.

Imagine being rich and having funny actor friends and access to world-class video equipment. Now imagine none of you can work for current production. Now imagine what a great chance it would be to go down to the basement and make a three-part Web-based musical mini-series about an evil genius trying to gain entry into the exclusive Evil League of Evil but not entirely succeeding. (Perhaps partly because, woefully, his henchmen sport dastardly powers like having unnaturally moist hands.)

I know! Such a great idea. And the end results are stunningly clever.

PS - How, how, how is "Two and a Half Men" so popular?! (Top 10 show; 9.2 million dumass viewers weekly.) Still, Chuckles gave us "Big Bang Theory." All is forgiven. Oh, and "Debaser" by The Pixies rocks, now playing on iTunes.

The Illustrated Man

Coming home from work on Friday I realized that I could tell a story about everything I was wearing:

SHIRT - I hold a dinner party every 5 years whether I want to or not. My last one was an insane Mole Turkey fest that took 12 straight hours of cooking. Thank you Rick Bayless! It was yummy but I have had to take the past 4 years off just to recover. One day in San Fran off Union Square at the Kenneth Cole shop I found a shirt that looks just like a shimmering panfull of mole sauce. Currently the pride of the wardrobe.

TEE SHIRT - Sounds creepy, but some time after my Dad died I took like all his undershirts home with me. Hey, we’ve got Scottish blood in us; it honestly would have pleased him to know that someone was getting the value out of them. And I will not have to buy undershirts for, oh, say, 10 years.

PANTS - Sporting my Luckies -- a brand I had never heard of since I am so woefully old (are there options other than Levis, Wranglers, and Toughskins?) but that my pal Nancy put me into in Denver at the Cherry Creek Mall. We were on a work trip that turned into a ski resort vacation and I needed to replace some woooorn out jeans from the 90s. I hard core pretended to be from the deep South at the information desk at the Mall. Heh. I am always slightly scandalized --and faintly depressed to be the only one reading it--by the phrase “Lucky You” sewn into the zipper when you open them.

SHOES - On a recent trip to LA, I actually went to Rodeo Drive. Many of the staff in the stores made me feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but the nice people at Cole Hahn sold me a ‘spensive pair of sweet kicks that I like to wear on Casual Friday because who the hell knows how to dress on Casual Friday? So I abuse the system by wearing jeans but then add a pair of shoes only Steve Martin could really afford and double-dog dare anyone to think it’s too cash.

SOCKS - Seriously, I have a sock story, too. Sorry. One day I was getting dressed for work and my only pair of clean socks had a humongous hole in the toe. So, when I got to work I took a lunch break at Filene’s Basement and went all kinds of nutty and purchased a pair of argyle socks. Now, then, aren’t you glad you heard that?

WATCH - In graduate school my girlfriend gave me a very well-designed Swatch for my birthday. Well, it broke eventually and so on a trip to NYC I dropped by the Times Square store and picked up this fairly cool see-through watch with one of those swiveling arms that keeps the thing wound up as you walk around.

GLASSES - I have a great friend who hated my old George Bush, Senior glasses and while I was on a trip to Manhattan to visit her we went to work out and as we were heading to the gym she said, “Leave your glasses on the table, you will never be wearing them ever again.” On the way, we stopped into Hour Eyes and she and a gaggle of ladies pored over me saying stuff like “No, his face is way to long to pull those off” and “He’d need cheekbones to get away with those.” Eventually, we settled on a hep new pair of Armanis and they were custom cut to my leagally-blind prescription while we sweated away on some exercise bike staring out the window at latte-drinking Gothamites busily headed about their day. Later, as I took possession of what amounted to major debt on my nonprofit salary, she said, “And don’t wait ten years to replace them next time!” So I didn’t. These new Ray Ban specs are proof that I listened. They show off my double chin nicely.

PS - The underwear have no story. Look, not everything can be intentional. It is fun to care about where you get stuff and to have a story for your belongings but it leaves you woefully exposed to pomposity and to collecting way too may event-specific tee shirts. (As my buddy Anne said when I asked what I should keep in mind to better dress for the ladies, “Tee shirts should be for the gym.”) Oh, and “The Littlest Birds” by The Be Good Tanyas is engaging; now playing on iTunes.

Excellent Quotes: The Character of Physical Law

Okay, here’s another quotable quote. This time from dearly-departed scientist and speechifier Richard Feynman. He addresses not just the central paradox of quantum mechanics but its scientific import:

(I know you know, but the quantum paradox is that light is both a particle and a wave; you can therefore study a single photon of light and know its position or its momentum but never both. This has been classically addressed--pardon the pun--via an experiment modeled on work by Thomas Young, where “bullets” of light are fired through two slits cut into a solid surface onto a wall beyond. If you look at each particle of light as it travels through the slits you find two stripes of bullets behind on the wall as you might expect; but if you “close your eyes” you find that the bullets have formed a wave-like pattern on the wall beyond the shield--sort of the way water pushed through the slits would spread into peaks and troughs. Freaky.)

“I will take just this one experiment, which has been designed to contain all of the mystery of quantum mechanics, to put you up against the paradoxes and mysteries and peculiarities of nature one hundred percent. Any other situation in quantum mechanics, it turns out, can always be explained by saying, ‘You remember the case of the experiment with the two holes? It is the same thing.’”
--Feynman, Richard. The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965. P. 130.

PS - Dude, I love quantum mechanics. Woefully, I don’t understand jack about it. Sigh. Oh, and the up-and-coming Joshua Morrison’s “Coming Home” is really very nice; now playing on iTunes.

What is Going On? (New Functionality)

Housekeeping alert: Gots some new functionality designed to help, people:

You can get your feed burned and not miss one gripping, seat-of-your-pants, J J Abrams-like post -- new to the top of the right nav.

Also, as a service to the nation, I am posting a chron list of all musicians/songs mentioned in the posts -- Lynn, woefully this does not excuse you from actually reading the posts themselves.

PS -- Perhaps the awesome streaming iGup music service will periodically suggest some new and worthy music. Oh, and -- thanks to that limited-access online radio -- "Dry River" by The Knitters is in my ken; now playing on the iTunes.

5-4-Fri: Natural History Books

As you can see The Bloguscript's "Five for Friday" feature now has a hep new catch phrase: "5-4-Fri." Coming to a tee shirt near you soon.

'Kay, here is this week's list. It's The Five Bestest Natural History Books Ever (Not Counting Literally Tons and Tons of Other Great Natural History Books):

1. Aku-Aku, Thor Heyerdahl. Garden City (NY): International Collector’s Library. 1958.
2.The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen. NY (NY): Delacorte Press. 1988.
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. NY (NY): Broadway Books. 2003.
4. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond. NY (NY): W. W. Norton. 1999.
5. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Cambridge (Mass): Helix Books. 1999.

PS - I felt that also including The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen would either make the list "Six for Friday" or, woefully, put two books by the same author on one list, but: You. Must. Read. This. Book. Also, as your lawyer I recommend Quammen's Natural Acts and his Outside magazine columns of the same name. And The Soul of Viktor Tronko. Oh, and The Postal Service’s “Recycled Air” is the goodness; now playing on iTunes.

Excellent Quotes: The Sign of the Four

Sherlock Holmes time, peeps! Sooo many great quotes to choose from. Well, woefully, sometimes you gotta just bite the bullet and go for a classic. After deducing that Dr. Watson has just been to the post office to send a telegram, the celebrated detective reveals his deductive method to his amazed companion:

“Why, of course I knew that you had not written a letter, since I sat opposite to you all the morning. I see also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. What could you go to the post office for, then, but to send a wire? Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”
--Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Sign of the Four. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club. 1994. Pp. 5-6.

PS - The Sign of the Four is the tale in which Watson scores the babilicous Mary Morstan and subsequently gives up his bachelor ways for domestic bliss--something Holmes never considered, even for “the woman.” Oh, and “Stupid Mouth Shut” by Hem is simultaneously perky and gorgeous; now playing on iTunes.