OVER & OVER

Listen to OVER & OVER by Fleetwood Mac.

Opening track of "Tusk," which I am continually amazed has become one of my favorite albums in the last few years. I even like Mick Fleetwood's dorky drum flourishes on this song. (Actually, he's so restrained that his dorky flourishes in the last thirty seconds really make a satisfying payoff. Well constructed.)

Also, Happy Birthday Mom!

Sunday night blogging

So, our man John can do it all. Emergency guest blogging Friday, getting himself a new kid on Saturday (well, early Sunday morning). Congratulations J & J! I guess we'll need a new guest blogger Friday...

There's not even any soccer this weekend, so I guess I'll just have to link to my favorite part of John McCain's speech last week. No, really, check it out.

It's all downhill from here!

On the occasion of my mom's XXXXtieth birthday, my friend (and like Philip, "occasional commenter") John and I visited the top of the World Trade Center to give her a visual birthday message (see the title of this post).

Amazingly, that was ten years ago. Happy Birthday Mom!

To the rest of you, enjoy Jason's "off piste" selection tomorrow, and we'll see you back here soon.

oh-ho-HO it's MAGIC!

...Speaking of, Laura & Corbett have two kiddies today, Henry & Louisa. Congratulations to them!

Friday Martin's Birthday blogging

My apologies for stepping on Jason's post, but Martin's birthday only comes once a year. Happy Birthday, kid! You're legal!

SUPERNAUT

Listen to SUPERNAUT by Black Sabbath.

Of all the groups we could feature in this series, Black Sabbath needs the least introduction. Everybody knows them. Evil satanic music your mom wouldn't let you listen to.

But Sabbath are fun! There's a significant minority of music dorks who think Black Sabbath are way, way, way underrated. And they have a point. You don't necessarily think of Sabbath as one of the greatest bands of all time, but have you ever blasted the "Paranoid" album over a jukebox? Magic, man.

More to the point, most people know and have an opinion about Iron Man, War Pigs, and Paranoid, but even most music fans have never bothered to dig into the band's catalogue, especially their first four albums. Big mistake. There's loads of great tunes that haven't been played to death, and Supernaut is possibly foremost among them.

Supernaut is from the band's fourth album (Vol. 4, conveniently), and it is a killer. Tony Iommi comes up with one of his best riffs, Ozzy is Ozzy, and Bill Ward and Geezer Butler never swing as hard as they swing here. Genius dumb rock.

And oh yes, Happy Birthday Corbett!

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (4).

STILL DON'T (NOT YET)

Listen to STILL DON'T (NOT YET) by La Revolucion De Emiliano Zapata.

La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata was a heavy rock group from Guadalajara. How dumb were they? Well, their biggest hit (locally and in Europe) was a turgid seven-and-a-half minute jam titled Nasty Sex. This was in 1970. (Their follow-up, and last hit, was called Sh*t City.)

Fortunately for you, we're featuring the b-side to their big hit, Still Don't (Not Yet). It's still big and dumb, but in a good way. Only three minutes long, it rides a fat bassline, it has a really tight breakdown leading into a satisfyingly skronky guitar solo. If it wasn't so stoned, it could be as funky as the Stones.

Oh, and Happy Birthday John!

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (2).

Birthday wishes from the Rock-afire Explosion!

Rock-afire, Stu!

Here it comes again

Evening folks! Most of you won't be reading this tonight but a short short recap of the weekend's events is called for. Saturday morning followed the usual routine: a walk, then settle in on the couch for the soccer. Two nice things about our match: one, we won with some super stylish goals and pretty decent defending, two, at halftime we firmed up some arrangements on getting the ceiling finally put right. More on that a little later.

Amy and I spent some time Saturday cooking for a pot luck dinner at Helen & Oren's house to watch the OU game. Splendid stuff, though Maddox and I were both unusually downbeat at the end: depressed at how we managed to throw away a great chance to play for the national championship. Ah well, we'll be looking forward to buying all the preseason magazines next year listing us as the number one team in the country.

Today I visited Laura and Corbett to preview this year's Christmas CD for them and to hear some of the songs he's blogging this week. We're going on a five-songs-per-week schedule through Christmas at least: too much good material!

Before that Amy and I attended Luke's first birthday party. Luke's arrival on the scene was one of the very first posts on this blog. Speaking of, we wouldn't be doing ourselves justice if we didn't note that this weekend marks the one year anniversary of the public debut of this here blog! Happy birthday to us!

All mod cons

I know a few of you would like to play music directly over the internet without worrying about downloading and importing and all that. To that end I added a music player on the right-hand side of the blog. Just click on whatever song and it should stream directly, if you have Flash capability. If it works for people, we'll keep it!

I neglected to do this earlier, but I also wanted to point people to my friend Kendal's essay on Oklahoma's 100th birthday (tomorrow!). It's thoroughly readable and original and for my money it gets at something important about the Oklahoma character.

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST by Nick Drake.

Thanks to Volkswagen almost everyone has heard of Nick Drake, but it wasn't always this way. On balance that's a good thing but I'm not sure I ever got a bigger thrill of discovery from any single artist . That was thanks to Corbett. I remember I got my own copy of "Way To Blue" at a Blockbuster Music on 23rd Street while I was up visiting my Grandpa (the same one who built the Myriad) the fall of 1995. What is it with these songs? Are they placid? Unsettling? You can't get to the bottom of them.

Of the three albums, "Bryter Layter" always struck me as the weakest. That's the purist in me talking. Even so, Corner Bistro has long had a copy of "Way To Blue" in its jukebox, and over the years I've listened to every track there, and in my opinion one song sounds the very best there: One Of These Things First. Here it is for you.

***

While I have your attention: Congratulations to our two teams for their wins this weekend, congratulations to Paul and Medina for their new baby girl, Anessa, and safe travels to Amy and the girls!

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (1).

ON THE WAY HOME

ON THE WAY HOME (Live from London, 1971) by Neil Young.

Short write-up today because I'm blogging on location with a demented mouse. I found this concert bootleg a year or two ago on the internet. It's from the same period as the Massey Hall concert you can buy at Starbucks. On The Way Home has long been a favorite--I put the official Buffalo Springfield recording at the front of a mix CD I made for Amy's birthday a while back (I'd post the link to that CD at this point, but again, I'm blogging on location and don't have my full repertoire.)

LISTEN.

Photo: The Grove (April 2006).

"Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good"

I was going through the archives of the blog last night looking for something and noticed that I used to post a little bit more than just a song every Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I got away from it once I started wedding blogging, but I don't have an excuse now.

Sometimes I wrote a little bit about sports. During the first couple of months of this year, when Arsenal were playing really well, there were quite a few posts. Then Arsenal lost the Carling Cup final, Henry and Van Persie got hurt, the season petered out, so that stopped. But now, well, now we've never had it so good! Apart from winning a trophy, have we ever had such a good week? We crushed three teams, including Spurs, quite convincingly, and went top of the league for the first time since 2004. Cesc Fabregas has come of age much like Ronaldo did last year. We announced that we are now the "richest" club in England and have loads of money in the bank. Not to mention the oft-predicted and much-anticipated Chelsea implosion may have finally begun! Beauty!

Things change quickly, so the saying goes, and that's true, but who cares about tomorrow, let's enjoy it while it lasts, etc etc.

The other football team is ticking over nicely too, coping pretty well with a tricky Tulsa team and solidifying its place as the best of the "other" undefeated teams after USC and LSU. As a bonus, OSU's coach has made himself an international Youtube laughingstock by losing his cool over some stupid newspaper article. (Personally, I think "laughingstock" is a little generous. Yes, he looks completely ludicrous stalking the podium like he's Howard Beale. But it's no surprise, and a little creepy, that the target of his mad as hell grandstanding happens to be a childless woman. That'll show her, eh Mike?)

Anyway, another thing we were doing on the blog is noting births among our crew. As many of you know, Nick, a very-pregnant Kim, and Sabina were at the wedding last month, and now it's Nick, Kim, Sabina... and Ramona! Here's Ramona and her sister. Too cute!

I'm heading home for a little bit next week so I picked out the next series of tunes last night. I like them, but they aren't too hip. So enjoy this week's hipness while it lasts, don't worry about tomorrow, etc. etc.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

It's been a while since I've updated my reading list, in part because I've been busy enough at the other place and in part because I haven't read much since the last time I updated. Three books, I think, the best being "Istanbul: Memories and the City" by Orhan Pamuk. An extremely engaging memoir. An honest memoir is an exhilarating and harrowing experience, that's the main thing I learned.

But today we can report the end of the Harry Potter sage here at HLIT central. Martin had bought Amy a copy for her birthday, but then we quickly realized (and later had confirmed) that Amy would have inevitably bought her own copy in Las Vegas. So, not wanting the gift to go to waste and disappoint the little mutt, I read her a few chapters, and just kept going. We put it down not 20 minutes ago. I won't say how it ended, but the whole country will probably be finishing their copy within hours, if not already, so there's no need anyway!

Beautiful weather today, enjoy it! Tonight we're going to see the last Rivals show (at least the last one with the full band!), at Cake Shop.

Eli is here!

Say hello to Eli! Congrats to Jeremy and Gretchen on the birth of their son a week ago today. You're in good hands Eli!

Two years of Martin

Two years ago today, Martin, the girl with the boy's name, was born. I found her for sale on a website while I was sitting at home from my latest (and hopefully last) knee surgery instead of being in Paris at Emily & Milos's wedding. Windy went up to Washington Heights and picked her out, and we had photos in time for our fifth year anniversary, and she was home by May. She's helped us through the good weeks and the bad weeks and we hope she'll be around for many years to come!

Amy and Bill say Hi to Ava Danielle

Yesterday afternoon, Caryn and Brian welcomed Ava (by consensus, a lovely name!) into their world. We're really happy for them!

Happy Birthday!

I'm not great at dates, but for some reason I always remember John's birthday. So, happy birthday papa! Bad luck it's the shortest day of the year...

They Thought They Were Free

So a lazy Saturday morning, the first in-season weekend without football (at least any that I care about) in living memory. Amy, Martin, and I are going shopping soon, then off to Luke's 100-day birthday party.

This morning I woke up around 7 a.m. and finally finished one of the books I'm reading, "They Thought They Were Free," by Milton Mayer. Subtitled "The Germans, 1933-1945," it's about how and why 'decent Germans' became Nazis. Mayer interviewed ten Germans from K(C)ronenberg, Germany about their lives under Nazi rule. With two big swastikas on the front and back covers, I'll be glad to not have to carry it onto the subway anymore!

The book was released in 1955, and so it's had a long time to build a deserved reputation as worth reading and worth grappling with. From this remove, some of the most interesting insights (or at least theses) come from Mayer's observations about life in Germany, 1933-1939, and life in the United States in the early 1950s. This was pre-Godwin's Law, which enabled Mayer to un-selfconsciously make some unsettling comparisons. But as I'm writing post-Godwin's, I'll leave most of them to the book itself. I did dog ear a few interesting passages, which I'll note below. A very worthwhile read.

- P. 154: In comparison to the Social Democrats, "'There was one thing you had to say for the Bolsheviks,' said the Nazi Fanatiker Schwenke. 'Their "No" wasn't a three-quarters "Yes."'"

- P. 246: Quoting a convict acquaintance, "'I'll tell you what's wrong with the indeterminate sentence. If you tell me to pick up a big rock and carry it, and I say, "Where to?" and you say, "To that pile over there," and the pile is a mile, or two miles, or five miles away... I can pick it up and carry it. But if I say, "were to?" and you say, "Until I tell you to put it down," why, I can't budge it. ... I am just too po' to tote it.'"

- P. 299: "If any occupation ever had a chance of succeeding, it should have been the American Occupation of western Germany. As occupations went, it was probably the most benign in history... That the Occupation did fail... is now clear, I think, to anyone who does not define peace as order and democracy as balloting. It failed because it was an occupation, and no occupation has a chance of succeeding."

- P. 311: On remilitarizing the Germans (an understandably unpopular notion among Germans after the war): "'The Germans are great fighters,' said Senator Thomas of Oklahoma in late 1949. 'If the United States gets into a war, we shall need fighters.'"

BRAZILIAN RHYME

BRAZILIAN RHYME by Earth, Wind & Fire Mabo and the Invalidation of Terra Nullius.*

Today we're observing our friend Stu's birthday. Like the obnoxious guests we are, we're requesting the DJ start the party off with this number by Earth, Wind, & Fire. We think there's a good chance it'll come off, mainly because there's no one up at the moment to challenge us, and also because it's a pretty killer little tune.

Brazilian Rhyme is off 1977's awesome "All 'N All" "Mabo and the Invalidation of Terra Nullius Sing the Songs of Earth Wind and Fire"* (funny internet story, from an amazon.com review: "My college roomate used to have me rolling with this anecdote-he was at a church where a crazy man walked to the pulpit with an EW&F album and proceeded to tell the congregation, "THIS ALBUM IS GOD!" before being forced offstage by the ushers").

But it's really from Milton Nascimento, who wrote Ponta de Areia (Sand Edge), from "Ultimo Trem," on which Brazilian Rhyme is modeled (another internet story: When Maurice White formed Earth, Wind & Fire he posted an ad looking for "musicians who could sound like Milton Nascimento"). In the spirit of giving, we'll let you hear the original here.

That's yer lot. Happy Birthday Stu, Happy Weekend everyone else, and we'll be back Monday.

(Edited to make an extremely tenuous Gaffers joke, but why not?)

LISTEN.

Photo: Windfarm, 2005.