I Evoke Brow VI: SEIS

The Hidden Game of Football Not much to say about this one. Some interesting info in here, though I flipped through about half of it; I don't give a shit about the football hall of fame, for instance. I got the original edition from the Athens library (the link above is to the new edition): it was written after the 1987 season, so only a few of the names are familiar to me. Worth reading, as there's not much out there about football from a sabermetric point of view. ----- Listening to: about to listen to the Dave and Friends webcast from Vegoose, until Heather puts an end to it.

My Phix Setlist

I:Run Like an Antelope fakeout (first few seconds only, just enough for everyone to recognize it)>Llama, Runaway Jim, The Sloth, Possum->Wolfman's Brother->Fee->Run Like an Antelope II:Jesus Just Left Chicago->Funky Bitch,Timber Ho->The Landlady>The Wedge->Brother, Character Zero I call the first set "The llama's on the lamb with the murderous marsupial; the lycanthrope charges dear for pursuing duikers." Second set is "Jesus left the bitchy mule with his old landlady, then hit the highway (in his tub) to see the man Mulcahey" (if you read it right, it's like a couplet, albeit a terrible one). What a dork. ----- Listening to:I would be listening to Phish- Dog Stole Things, but idigit doesn't have it :(

I Evoke Brow V: Browbeaten

Today's installment: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Wow. Excellent book. My first try at this author and I was thoroughly impressed. It's a classic and complex murder mystery but I was more taken with the author's presentation of the future society. Morgan "cheats" with regard to the rules of classic SF convention by including technologies like faster-then-light travel and digitized consciousness without any explanation of technologies involved. Usually I like a little more Science with my Fiction, but if it's well done, as it is in this case, I don't mind taking the futuristic technologies at face value. In fact, half of the fun in reading this novel comes in infering all the events that have led to the current society. Morgan liberally sprinkles the text breadcrumbs leading back into the history of the world he creates. It was a little baffling at times keeping track of the large number of ancillary characters, but that may be a consequence of either the vast number of brain cells I've killed since in the past few years or my current habit of juggling three or four books and magazines at a time. By the end of the book, I found it hard to care much (or indeed follow) about the resolution of the murder mystery. At first I thought of this as a weakness, but in thinking about it more, I realize that the narrative evolves into a resolution for the twisted psyche of the protagonist [Kovacs] (go STaC major, go!)--even he doesn't overly care about the murder anymore, he's more interested in redemption by way of...well, I won't give it away, in case someone other than my mom or girlfriend actually reads this blog. Anyway, I realize that the diminished importance of the mystery may be intentional on the part of Morgan, and I was no less eager to reach the last sentence. I'm really taken with Morgan, and pleased to have another hardcore/cyberpunk SF writer to pursue. The Kovacs of Altered Carbon is, quite frankly, a scary badass, and it's exilhirating to ride along with the first-person storytelling. The gunplay is immersive and it even has a few well-written and mature sex scenes. 9/10, with a point taken off for its scientific liberties and because the mystery aspect was a little too complicated. ----- Listening to: moe.--Tin Cans and Car Tires--Letter Home. Gotta love the violin intro to Plane Crash (the previous track). Everyone gives me a blank look when I compare jambands to classical music, but I think there's something to it. Trey attempt at it was pretty up and down, and the Pink Floyd example is godawful, but a great album could be made making classical versions of jamband tracks. And yes, I know the Disco Biscuits have played with this idea in the reverse sense, and I love it.

To Do....

Here’s my current list of books/authors to read. I miss summer vacations, I’ll never catch up with the pace I discover new books. I need to “triage” more effectively, by which I mean giving up more quickly when I find that I’m not really enjoying a book.

Blind Watchmaker Extended Phenotype (And Other Dawkins' Books) Hyperion Parnell Hall - Crossword Puzzle Mysteries Tom Robbins Ladies And Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning Asimov, Best Stories Fight Club Mind Game Pat Cadigan Neal Stephenson William Gibson Haruki Murakami Richard Morgan Orchid Thief Temple Grandin (Animals) Game Theory Stephen Baxter The hidden game of football New thinking man’s guide to pro football My father the spy Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis Michael Pollan "The Long Ball" By Tom Adelman Best American Sportswriting (1994) Robert Parker Alan Alda Grateful Dead Books (Phil Lesh in particular) Infinite Jest David Rakoff (From The Daily Show) Nickel and Dime ----- Listening to: the sound of my head not pounding for the first time today.

I Evoke Brow IV: Evoke This!

Pat Cadigan's Dervish is Digital. I read Tea from an Empty Cup, the first book in this series, for a great class in college (thanks Prof. Yaszek) and loved it, though it took two readings to understand the ending. Dervish is Digital revisits the incredibly well crafted future Cadigan created in the first novel. I enjoyed the first book much more, but this was still an excellent read. What Dervish lacks is the "Through the Looking Glass" quality of Tea, in which it's possible to see the "real world" as another layer of simulation and the "out door" as, well, whatever you want. The 2nd novel is more concrete both in and out of AR (Artificial Reality). What Cadigan excels at in both books is skewering the "Johnny Mnemonic"/"Matrix" versions of AR and instead building on a framework of non-stop commercialization. I seem to have run out of steam. Enough of this book report, back to work (maybe). Edit: I forgot to include this great quote from Dervish: "Never chalk up to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity or greed or both." Thus endeth the argument over whether Bush is playing dumb or really is the village idiot. ----- Listening to: Pgroove 2005-09-22 Decepticon Structure

Sempiternal Diapason

Caught my favorite band, Perpetual Groove in Clemson on Friday. I'm convinced these guys are the best group out there, jamband or otherwise. They weave back and forth between soul-searching verses, spine-tingling compositions, and brain-melting improvisation. All four members are among the best musicians alive with their respective instruments, but avoid sounding like four solo virtuosos (*cough* Bela Fleck and the Flecktones *cough*) instead of a cohesive unit. Pgroove shuns solos and works to build and build a layers of sound until they reach stunning crescendos. That being said, the Clemson show wasn't that great. Good, but not stellar. The setlist: Set 1 Crockett & Tubbs, Long Past Settled In, March of Gibbles Army > Green Tea > Naive Melody Set 2 It Starts were it Ends, Playground, Get Down Tonight, Cabulo Montrosity, Breeze, Say it Aint So Encore: Stealy Man The transition from Gibbles into Green Tea was nice. Naive Melody is a great closer so long as they don't overplay it. Get Down Tonight got the college crowd bouncing, but I'm getting a bit sick of it. Cabulo was my highlight--rarely heard it even on recordings, pretty sure this was my first time live. Didn't really like Say It Aint So; Stealy Man was insane though: Brock was goofing off (though he never stopped shredding), playing behind his head, messing around with Adam, laying on his back at the very end, y'know rock star shit {grin}. I was real happy to catch up with my friend (and new roommate) Tom. Fun, drunk time, I haven't been drinking much lately, but I let it all hang out this time. Got to meet a lot of people I only knew from faces or the message board plus a couple of band members. Though it shouldn't surprise me, it was funny to hang out with a member of a rock band and he not be the coolest guy in the room. ----- Listening to: Pgroove (of course), 2005-07-09, Beyond the Veil

Music Survey

I stole the question from my buddy (and imminent roomate) Thom's livejournal. Name an obscure song that you enjoy that shouldn't be obscure. "Honest Hour", Assembly of Dust What was your last music purchase or download? Every trip to the Mall of GA I let Heather shop for clothes and sneak away to Sam Goody, where I spend exorbinant amounts of money on used ("New to You!") cds. This last trip I brought back 2Pac - Greatest Hits, Clapton and B.B. King do the blues, Nirvana - Nevermind, Santana - Supernatural, Beethoven's Greatest Hits, and 1 or two others. The 2Pac discs are incredible--makes me remember why I was ever into rap. I download a bunch of cds and shows every week so I don't remember what the latest is. The last one I listened to was Grateful Dead - Trucking up to Buffalo. Craziest one was a reggae tribute to The Dead (haven't listened to it yet). For each season give an appropriate song... Winter: "Rebubula" moe. Spring: "Haleakala Crater" Disco Biscuits Summer: "Mauna Bowa" String Cheese Incident. I'm not a huge cheese fan, but there may not be better music on the planet to roadtrip to with your windows down in the summer breeze. Fall: "New York, New York" Frank Sinatra What's your favorite movie soundtrack? Big Lebowski
Name an appropriate song for each of the following... Birth: Beethoven's 9th Celebration: "Get Down Tonight" KC and the Sunshine Band Death: "Po' Lazarus" O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack
What was the first musician/band that you felt an affinity torwards: First cd I ever bought was ONYX. Ha. If i ran into my 12 year old self, I'd kick my own ass. I went through a hair metal stage at some point too, but I think the answer to this one would have to be Pearl Jam/Nirvana, not sure which I had first. Name a band that a friend would be astonished to find out that you enjoy: Yo Yo Ma Name a local act(s) that you feel should receive wider exposure: Dunno. What are some of your favorite songs to dance along to? "Chameleon" Herbie Hancock. "Sundog" Perpetual Groove. Name your favorite hair/glam metal tune: "Patience" Guns and Roses Is punk dead? I hope so.
How do you feel about the proliferation of artists selling their music to advertising corporations? Don't care. I watch as few ads as possible anyway. What's your favorite shit-kicking/fuck-shit-up song? "Killing in the Name Of" Rage Against the Machine "Seat Of My Pants" moe. You've died and gone to heaven. In order to gain entry you have to answer this question: What one song best sums up your life spent on Earth? "Andromeda" PGroove

I Evoke Brow 3

Today's book: Evolution by Stephen Baxter. I got into Baxter when I happened to pick up Manifold: Time when I visited Heather at the UGA library. Though his prose is dry and it's often hard to empathize with his characters, he probably writes the "hardest" Science Fiction of anyone out there today. The Manifold series provides a great glimpse of the (literally) inconceivable vastness of galactic time and space. On a wildly tangential point, I can't write or read "inconceivable" without hearing Vizzini's voice

"Shining"

Brilliant! ----- Currently listening to: Space Wrangler, Widespread Panic

I Evoke Brow 2

Finishing books faster than I can crank out posts on them. Here's one I recently finished: The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) by Neal Stephenson. A very aptly titled book. My first thought was that this was the first book I've ever simultaneously (that's the word of the day, apparently) enjoyed and been utterly confused by. Then I realized that I'd experienced just that combination when reading Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. The book switches back and forth between two narratives, each of which is filled with numerous characters (including historic people from Louis the 14th to Isaac Newton). I have not read the 1st or 3rd volumes yet--I thought that this book was the sequel to "Steampunk", another confusing book. I didn't find it to be a major hindrance towards enjoying this volume. I think Stephenson is one of the best authors writing today. He's from the school of Pynchon, but his books don't read like a post-modern lit class. He has a real talent for storytelling, regardless of genre. For an easier start with his works, try his classic cyberpunk novel Snow Crash.

Politics, politics, politics!

From now on I'll try and leave the political stuff to those who do it better (see my links, if and when I get ever get them up), but I make no promises--sometimes I need an outlet for the rage that this administration provokes in me. A quick Bush note before I retire: the latest Supreme Court nomination is just another data point in my theory that the Chimpublican plan all along has been to cause everyone with a rational bone in theory body to suffer a massive and simultaneous brain embolism. Eventually they'll smile at the headline: "Bush Appoints Christ to Head NSF / Millions Instantly Debilitated by News"