music, 2008

i'm unabashedly ripping off a colleague's blog post here, but it was a splendid idea ... top ten list of music for 2008. the key here is albums, not songs. it would have been quite an easy task to list my top 10 best songs, but albums are a different beast altogether. to be a great album, you can't have sequential "skip over" songs. top to bottom, it has to be a record, you can hit play at 1 and enjoy it until it stops. it flows, it builds, it interweaves ... well, maybe always and not really, but the picture is fairly straigyou get the idea. with that in mind, here's my list. my one caveat is that these are CDs that i listened to for the first time in 2008 ... not released in 2008.

1. coldplay: viva la vida
eno took them to another level of grandeur. the suburban snob in me tried not to like them, but why resist? it was AWESOME from beginning to end. i bought it in El Paso on June 17 and I'm not sure I changed CDs until July.


2. band of horses: cease to begin
refreshing energy and sound. unique in a derivative world, and South Carolinians to boot.



3. andrew bird: armchair apocryphy
an odd bird, but feels like a cross between sufjan stevens and rufus wainwright. dig it.


4. bon iver: for emma, forever ago
this could have been a top three but not sure it has enduring quality. will revisit it from time to time but it is now more of a mood piece than an anytime, all the time kind of CD. made for a nice soundtrack in Cabo


5. jay-z & dj danger mouse: grey album
BOOM! goes the dynamite. a superb mash-up, phenomenal top to bottom, but as with #4, feels a bit more short term than long term. great for a drive, a run, and a saturday morning (until E can understand the words!). i'm sure i looked like a full air-drumming to this across campus







6. the myriad: with arrows, with poise
how can i not give props to my bro-in-law? the #1 video on MTV is a great song after all. the thoughtfulness of the music and the live performance in SF puts this on the list

7. horse feathers: house with no home honestly feels a bit derivative to some of the hot sounds right now like iron and wine, bon iver, etc, but this group been around almost as long as iron and wine, so perhaps they invented the sound. regardless, can listen to this CD any day, all day




8. ryan adams: heartbreaker
the guy puts out CDs like they are going out of style but this is an old classic that i finally got my hands on. it was a favorite of E's -- we'd dance to it. he rocks with soul like no one else


9. sun kil moon: tiny cities
another chill piece that sets a great mood. the guitar makes it. wonderfully done.



10. honorable mentions
strays don't sleep: self-titled
sigur ros: hvarf-heim
gotan project: lunatico

krugman calls me from sabbatical

i suppose i've been on something of a sabbatical from blogging. why not come out of hiding for a brief peak?

knowing my friedmanite tendencies, my father-in-law brought to my attention this article from Paul Krugman for a good email discussion. as we might expect, PK serves his usual dose of pro-government rhetoric.

the topic got me so inspired, that it brought me back to blogging. here is a general summation of my thoughts...

"interesting article. i find it intellectually dishonest on Krugman's part however to judge the Fed's liquidity actions a failure. economists know that there is a significant lag in the real economy catching up with both monetary and fiscal policy. His judgment on Bernanke's actions (at least the more drastic of the actions), which have only been in effect for less than 3 months seem a bit premature. [though] Krugman is an unapologetic Keynesian, his arguments certainly hold water on some fronts. Gov't action is likely needed, but as [we] discussed about racial progress [i.e. should the legislative focus be on quotas or on perhaps enabling opportunity through a more fundamental, albeit long term approach such as ensuring high quality K-12 education, building / encouraging social role models inside minority communities, something else, or a combination of all the above -- and over what time period], often gov't spending / action addresses the symptom versus the root. For example, in the current crisis, at least some of our national problem is that we need to re-educate our a significant portion of our populace. we need more people in the services industries, technicians, skilled labor -- essentially a move back to professional blue collar and less of the white collar back office functions that can now be largely outsourced. What if we focused money here -- on specific, targeted education programs? Injecting money into infrastructure projects will indeed provide immediate impact on crumbling roads, waterways, and bridges; however, these projects print money (threatening inflation) without structurally changing the economic landscape of America -- a landscape that is currently not optimized to support a 21st century growth strategy. If you want to get really philosophical, we could debate the question of not just "re-educating" our population but changing education altogether so that not all Americans have equal access to 4 year education. this question has bubbled up on the margin, being discussed in the editorial pages of influential papers such as the WSJ; however, it flies in the face of the opportunity of the "American dream". Even so, is this a more efficient way to reduce the tax burden and help people not overshoot their talent? Don't know, but worth a look perhaps."

Bottom line: come on Krug; i would have thought your Nobel prize would have qualified you to recognize that it takes time for the economy to integrate the full impacts of policy change. It is exactly the impatience of shrill voices like yours that leads our government to execute ill-fated actions and over-correct a necessary period of desert wandering which if allowed to run its course will force us to address the real questions of the hour.

hilarious

i'm a self-admitting big fan of tom cruise -- yeah yeah, his antics are weird and over the top, but he is an incredible actor and his movies are generally high quality entertainment. this cameo in a movie that i'm dying to see is no exception...

mini-blogging

well, blogging has tapered off with the addition of a job in my life :). however, i'm starting to mini-blog or micro-blog, if you will, at: http://twitter.com/theboldbrew

i will have to approve you; i'm locking down security on these more personal updates...otherwise, i would post my twitter updates here live.

will try to post here more often as well...

being Javert

my favorite book is the unabridged Les Miserables.

i will not lose you in setting up details on the story's plot and characters. for the purposes of this post, it will suffice to know the following: the protagonist is Jean Valjean -- a convict hunted his adult life by the antagonist, an officer of the law, Javert. Valjean's life had been transformed by the unwarranted pardon of a priest, and in the climax of Victor Hugo's novel, Valjean has the chance to vanquish Javert who had fallen into the hands of a group of rioting rebels during the days of the Revolution. Instead, he lead him into an alley and freed him. After a lengthy pursuit through the sewers under Paris, Javert reclaimed his nemesis only to inexplicable let him go. Javert, we must understand is a man bound to duty and justice. And it is here that we pick up his thoughts:

"All sorts of questions flashed before his eyes. He asked himself questions and gave answers, and his answers frightened him. He asked himself: 'this convict, this desperate man, I have pursued to the point of persecution, and he has had me beneath his feet, and could have avenged himself, and ought to have done so both for his revenge and for his security; in granting me life, in sparing me, what has he done? His duty? No. Something more. And I, in sparing him in turn, what have I done? My duty? No. Something more. So is there something more than duty?' Here he was startled; his scale feel out of balance; one end slipped into the abyss, the other flew up into the sky, and Javert felt no less dismay from the one that was above than from the one that was below. He was not in the least what is called a Voltairean, or a philosopher, or a skeptic; on the contrary, respectful by instinct toward the established church, he knew it only as an august fragment of the social whole; order was his dogma and was enough for him; since he had reached the age of a man and an official, he had placed almost all his religion in the police. He had a superior, M. Gisquet; he had scarcely thought, until today, of that other superior, God. This new chief, God, he was feeling unawares, and he was perplexed by that.

"He had lost his bearings in this unexpected presence; he had no idea what to do with this superior; he who was not ignorant of the notion that the subordinate is bound always to yield, that he should neither disobey, nor blame, nor discuss, and that, in presence of a superior who astonishes him too much, the inferior has no resource but resignation.

"But how manage to send in his resignation to God?

"However this might be, and it was to this that he kept returning, one thing overruled everything else for him, that was, that he had just committed an appalling infraction. He had closed his eyes on a convicted second offender who was illegally at large".

Unable to let grace and justice co-exist -- he knew he must serve only one -- he lept into the Seine. For me, raising children has exposed my ironclad pursuit of what is right, or what is just; and I look into myself and realize that I am being Javert. I frantically do not want to be Javert but I see in myself this driving, overriding, 29 year old legal bind -- and it lurks from a long shadow of seeing not just the world in this lens but holding myself tightly confined within these gnarly knots as well. To learn from Javert, is to accept, as did Valjean, the priest's commission: "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!"

Understanding that position of inferiority to grace and mailing in a daily resignation accordingly enables one to accept the commission, release the security of a balanced scale, and refuse to be Javert ... easier said than done.

dead heat

well, i owe you guys a verdict on my voting direction as many of you have asked, but for now, i was shocked to wake up this morning to the largest poll movement yet in this campaign. and no, i'm not talking about Gallup, Zogby, Rasmussen, USAToday, etc ... but rather the Intrade Market Odds. this market-based system always people to buy future contracts on each candidate's odds of winning. it has been the most accurate predictor of election results in the last few major election cycles. as of yesterday it was still 57 - 43, Obama. This morning, it moved all the way to 50 / 49. money talks...

spirituality in the south

observations on the spiritual state of the South

- "Religion" happens on Sunday when lip-synching, tidy patrons fill the pews.

- "Worship" happens on Saturday when the loud voices of passionate, arms-a-waving fan(atic)s descend on stadiums from Tuscaloosa to Athens to Gainesville to Baton Rouge.

- "Prayer" happens every time Nick Saban panics at the thought of Alabama losing 7 games in a row to Auburn.