Squirrel-Shaped Fish

Mom Becomes Daughter

Want to know how politics works? Read the first half of this. Want to see it in action as the GOP noise machine takes up arms against, of all people, Oprah ? Then you must read the second half.

Then you can begin to despair. Because, while the author hints that he knows how to combat it, it's perfectly clear that the Democrats don't.

Let's Do Eeet!

1. ZZ Top - Lowdown In The Streets
2. AC/DC - Soul Stripper
3. The Byrds - So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star
4. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
5. Smaller Animals - poopy
6. Spoon - June's Foreign Spell
7. Andrew Bird - Opposite Day
8. Spoon - You Was it
9. The New Pornographers - Unguided
10. Rolling Stones - I Got The Blues

Yay!

Writer David Foster Wallace commited suicide. Such a loss. He was a great writer.

His "Infinite Jest" is a huge, difficult, but funny and fascinating novel. I read it years ago, loved it, but felt like I probably missed 1/2 of it. So, I've been slowly working myself up reading it again. In my mental bookshelf, it sits right next to Pynchon and Joyce. And unlike the works of Pynchon and Joyce, I actually recommend it to other people.

"Infinite Jest" is now #14 at Amazon.

We are here today:

It's in the high 80's, perfectly clear. The ocean is still warm. We closed down two bars last night and slept till 11:00 this morning. And now we are about to hop on a catamaran for a private dinner cruise for a friend's birthday. I've been told the guitarist for Corrosion Of Conformity will be there. (he was, and is a nice guy.)

What a great weekend.

8 weeks from now, I promise (to myself, mostly) that I'll stop blogging about politics so much. And, on the brighter side there's a 50/50 chance I'll be blogging a lot about the emigrating-to-Canada process.

Oh I kid, I kid.

iTunes 8's new "Genius" feature is awesome. You give it a song to start with, and it builds a playlist of 25 songs based on the song you started with. As far as I can tell, it picks them based on style, tempo and shared band members.

For example, I started with Son Volt "Mystifies Me" (a Ron Wood song) and got:

1. Uncle Tupelo - New Madrid (half of Uncle Tupelo is Son Volt)
2. Wilco - Summer Teeth (the other half of Uncle Tupelo)
3. Yo La Tengo - Stockholm Syndrome
4. Rolling Stones - Torn & Frayed (Ron Wood connection)
5. Big Star - I'm In Love With A Girl
6. Pavement - Silence Kit (as folk-rock as Pavement gets)
7. Son Volt - Flow
8. My Morning Jacket - Masterplan
9. REM - Pale Blue Eyes
10. Calexico - Cruel

etc..

That's a great, cohesive, interrelated list.

Even better, a few sings later, it picked something I'd never heard before: The Damnwells, "Sleepsinging". That's a song I got on a magazine sampler a few years ago, which I imported into iTunes, but never listened to. But, this song fits the list perfectly.

I hate to say it, but I think this feature just made the hand-crafted mixed tape obsolete. What's the point in spending an hour finding a nice blend of songs when iTunes can do it in a couple of seconds? Well, OK, the personal touch - iTunes can't handle the meaning of songs. But, if we're talking about samplers, or party mixes, or some things to put on a work-out mix, Genius owns it. And I say that with the absolute confidence you can only get from using something for all of 10 minutes.

Juke Box Hero

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