Ciao, Benny

    One might interpret this as a sign from God.

Wednesday Math Quiz

    Oh man, how did those "Order of Operations" go.  Let's see now.  Was it "X before Y, except after Z"?  No, that's not it.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “HIM?  What’s that?”

    “His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ on earth, son of God.  His blessings upon us.  Jah, mon.”

    “You mean Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian king who died in the 1970’s?  That Haile Selassie?”

    “Yah mon.  HIM…”

     “But he’s dead, how’s that work?”

    “It helps to be stoned.”

    (from Fluke by Christopher Moore)


    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Albert Lee Concert - Phoenix, Arizona

    We did indeed make it for the Albert Lee concert on Saturday night.  And it was, as expected, fantastic.  Because we didn't get our tickets until Thursday night, we were on the last row, but that turned out to be Row 16.  We'll post about the venue in a couple days.

    Albert played all sorts of genres.  A couple of songs from his Emmylou Harris days; one from the Everly Brothers.  A bunch of good old 50's rock & roll.  Mostly is was two hours of him showing off on the guitar, although he took a break to play a couple songs on keyboards, including "Highwayman".

     His band was equally great, particularly the keyboardist, he with the ponytail and stocking feet.

    All in all, it was a fantastic concert.  Started right on time.  No opening band.  No intermission.  Well worth the $30 or so for a ticket.

    So Thank You, Albert Lee, for stopping by in Phoenix and putting on one helluva show.  My jaw dropped to the floor with every guitar solo.

The Tiger and the Pope

    Amen to that.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “And then, well” the dwarf shrugged, “it would only be natural for a young lady to hold me in a higher esteem.  If I was a hero, I mean.  Wouldn’t she?”

    “Is this a particular lady, or a hypothetical one?”

    “A hypothetical one,” Tycho said slowly.  “With long black hair that shimmers red in the sunlight, and a lovely singing voice…and very muscular legs.”

    (from The Bound Soul – Halcyon #3: A Quest for Revenge,  by Joseph Robert Lewis)

    8*/10.  The full review is here.

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Albert Lee in Concert

    The guy is a frickin' guitar legend.  He's played C&W with Emmylou Harris, the Blues with Eric Clapton, Blugrass with Ricky Skaggs and Earl Scruggs, and rocked with the Everly Brothers.

    And he's in concert here in Phoenix this Saturday night.  I am seriously thinking about going to see him.

It's freezing!

    Yeah, I know.  It's winter.  But this is Phoenix, Arizona.  Valley of the Sun and all that.

    It fiddle-farted rain all morning.  Then around 3:00 in the afternoon, the cold front apparently finally arrived.  With a bunch of hail that turned our office's parking lot briefly white.

    Okay fine.  But then around 6:00, sh*t got real.  We got SNOW!  And not just flurries.  Enough to lay on windshields and in backyard nooks and crannies.  In the 40+ years I've lived here, I have never seen anything like this.

    We're now sending this storm to the midwest.  Have fun with it there, y'all.

how to pronounce French words

    The graph is accurate, but only tells part of the story.  There are whole syllables that are silent.  For instance, parle, parles, and parlent are all pronounced exactly the same.

the Gospel according to Sarah

    C'mon admit it.  You miss Sarah.  So do I. 

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Are you a fool, Rand al’Thor?”

    “An impossible question,” Min replied.  “If he says that he is, then a fool he becomes.  If he says that he is not, then he implies he does not seek further wisdom.”

    ”Phaw.  You’ve been reading too much, child.”

 

   (from A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson & Robert Jordan)

9½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Surreal Saturday

    It's been a while since I posted something Dali-esque.  One of these days, I need to get back to Escher-esque as well.

Three-Day Weekend

    For the first time ever, my company is giving us Presidents' Day as a paid holiday.  Which is greatly appreciated since it is a long time between the last holiday (New Year's Day) and the next one (Good Friday).

    I'm taking the opportunity to do a little sky-riding on my dragon, Gleep.

Happy Valentine's Day

   Or, as I prefer to call it...

there's a bustle in my hedgerow!

Ciao, Pope Benny

    Pope Benedict XVI is the first Pope to abdicate since 1415, and the first one to do so voluntarily since 1294.

    Certainly his health has something to do with it - he's 86 years old.  And the Cardinals who elected him in 2005 did so with the tacit understanding that, being an old fart, he'd be gracious enough to die rather quickly.  Pope John Paul II reigned for 27 years, and most of those who wear the furry red-and-white thought that was entirely too long.

    Still, Popes are supposed to rule until God chooses to take them home, the logic being Her will be done.  So methinks there's a story here.  Beyond the physical health.

    Is he getting senile, and wants to quit before he gets too zonked to know it?  Is a new and even more damaging Sexual Molestation scandal about to break?  As head of the Roman Catholic church is he about to be required to appear in court in one of those cases?  Will the Vatican itself be sued?

   It's useless to speculate, but Benny is too much of a traditionalist to buck the the-yoke-till-you-croak protocol.  And it's something more than just not feeling like getting out of bed in the morning.

RIP - Sylvia Plath

    Sylvia Plath (b. : 10/27/32) died on 11 February 1963.  Ever the dutiful mother, she protected her kids by placing moist towels underneath the kitchen door before turning on the oven's gas and sticking her head as far into the oven as possible.  In those days, depression and bipolar disorder were little understood, and the world of poetry lost a rising star way too early in her career.

   

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Pandora’s box.”  Ross drew a hand across his forehead, smearing sweat and fine sand into a brand.

    Ashe nodded.  “Maybe we run that risk, loosing all the devils of the aliens.  But what if the Reds open the box first on one of their settlement worlds?”

    There it was again, the old thorn which prodded them into risks and recklessness.  Danger ahead on both paths.  Don’t risk trying to learn galactic secrets, but don’t risk your enemy’s learning them either.

    (from Key Out Of Time by Andre (Alice) Norton)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Alphabet Heroes

    I know the following :  B - E - F - G - H - I - L - M - P - S - T - W - X - Y - Z.

Prayer 101

    Yeah, it's a cartoon.  But there are some pretty good points about prayer in there too.

The Pink Floyd Shuffle

    True dat.

Dillard - Hartford - Dillard : Permanent Wave

    A hard-to-find 1980 collaboration between "New Grass" John Hartford and brothers Doug and Rodney Dillard of the Bluegrass band "The Dillards".

- TRACKS (favorites in pink) -

01. Break It To Me Gently

02. That'll Be The Day

03. Blue morning

04. The Same Thing (Makes You Laugh, Makes You Cry)

05. Yakety Yak

 

06. Something's Wrong

07. Boogie On Reggae Woman

08. Country Boy Rock and Roll

09. No Beer In Heaven

   This was the second album that these three collaborated on, the other being Glitter Grass (1977), which I converted a while back.  Permanent Wave (1980) seems to be lower-key and lower-energy than that one; but is still worth the listen if you like Blue Grass/New Grass.  IMHO, the best tracks are the more lighthearted ones.

    There's no doubt that the jewel of this album is the final song - No Beer In Heaven.  NBIH is a German Polka tune from the 1950's, which Wikipedia calls "a song about the existential pleasures of beer-drinking".  Existential, eh?  Wow.  Hartford adds his own second verse about the fact that there's also No Smoking (of various substances) in heaven.  No one has yet put this track out on YouTube; I'd really appreciate it if somebody would.

    The LP itself was in pristine condition; I considered not even running the scratch-removal program.  An audiophile owned this album.  Amazon packaged both of the D-H-D albums onto a single CD, and it sells for $15.10.  Downloading the MP3 files only costs $9.99.

    This isn't John Hartford at his finest, but it's still some pretty damn good bluegrass.

I want one of these

    Better yet, I want the marketing rights for it.

About the Library.

    I understand the joke - books are free at the library.  But the fact of the matter is, our local library also allows you to check out free Kindle downloads.  If you're wanting a recent and popular release, you may have to get on a waiting list.  But that's true of "book" books too.

    And for the record, the library also has a deal where you can download free MP3 music.  Three tracks per week.  It's called Freegal.  Check to see if your library takes part in this resource.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    On the rare occasion he’d let his guard down, she’d seen the depths of the man inside.  She knew nothing could ever come of it.  Aside from the twenty year age difference, he listened to Stravinsky, she listened to Sting.  He was from South of London, she was from North of Lubbock.  He grew up with a silver spoon, she grew up with a spork.  It was hopeless.

    (from The White Tree, by Edward W. Robertson)

    5*/10.  The full review is here.

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Why Pavlov used a dog

    Not all scientific experiments are successes.  That's why we run them.

Theological Thursday

    One catchphrase you never hear the religious right say when it comes to the issue of gays, is What Would Jesus Do?  Cuz if you think about it, He'd accept them as they are.

Demotivational Wednesday

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Her face was calm and fixed, her eyes looked far.  She could have daunted any man, even an abbot.  Prior Robert baulked at sight of her.  Cadfael was proud of her.

    So far from checking at sight of Robert, she gave a slight spring of hope and purpose to her step, and came on without pause.  Face to face with him at three paces distance, she halted and stood so still and quiet that he might have mistaken this for submission, if he had been fool enough.  But he was not a fool...

    (from A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters)

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Today is "Fun At Work" Day !!

   Really.  It's also National Kazoo Day, but I didn't have any way-kewl image for that.

War - Greatest Hits

    My latest LP-to-MP3 conversion, this was released in 1976, pretty much after the group's heyday.  War got their start in the early 70's when Eric Burdon, lately of The Animals, teamed up with them to put out two albums of - hmm, what to call it - white man's funk.

    Burdon left the group midway through one of their tours (so sez Wikipedia), and it was pretty much assumed War would rapidly fade into obscurity.  Instead, they had a string of hits in the 1972-76 period.

- Tracks (favorites in pink) -

01. All Day Music

02. Slippin' Into Darkness

03. The World is a Ghetto

04. The Cisco Kid

05. Gypsy Man.

06. Me and Baby Brother

07. Southern Part of Texas

08. Why Can't We Be Friends?

09. Low Rider

10. Summer

    The album itself was in fairly good shape - the usual plethora of small scratches, but no major ones and no skips.  The de-popper program cleaned it up just fine.

    I recognized all but one or two of the tracks, and was surprised how many hits they had.  I've been playing it for the past week at work, and digging the vibes.  I've been looking for the two Burdon/War album for a long time now, but they seem to be collector's items.  I remember that my college roommate had the second one (Black Man's Burdon), and we played it to death.  But I note that Amazon has both LP's at just under $10 each, which is probably cheaper than what the vinyl is going for nowadays.  So I'll probably pick them both up soon.

   

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Patience!” he thundered.  “It’s a week from now your destiny becomes known.  That’s as long as it took the gods to build the world.  Do you really think this will be harder than the creation of everything in existence?”  Dante worked his throat and Cally stepped forward, craning his thin neck.  “You know what happens to apprentices who try to work gold before they’ve hammered iron, don’t you?”

    “They’re commended for their initiative?”

    “Their masters stuff them into the forge.”  

    (from The White Tree, by Edward W. Robertson)

    7*/10.  The full review is here.

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we'll be doing this tomorrow

    Dressed to the nines, hobnobbing with the rich folks, and bidding on various (donated) prizes at the 2013 Cameo Ball.  I'll be looking debonair in my one-and-only tuxedo.  But it's all for a good cause - a number of them, actually.

Happy Birthday, Doug Kershaw

    Born in 1936, and one of the finest fiddlers ever.  In the early 70's, he introduced us college-type hippies to Cajun Music.  Specifically, Orange Blossom Special.  And we dug it.

     Fame was fleeting;  Cajun music is really more akin to Country & Western than Rock & Roll and/or Folk Music.  But over the last ten years, I've hunted down, and digitalized, most of his LP's.

    I frankly am in awe of his musical talent.  There are a few videos of him on YouTube, but mostly live and homemade stuff.  Which is okay, cuz it's kewl to watch him shred that fiddle.  But someone really needs to post a bunch of his studio tracks.

    So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DOUG KERSHAW.  Hope you celebrated it Cajun-style.

Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon

    I freaking LUV Dork Tower.

Surreal Tuesday

    I don't know what it represents, but I like it.

Nothing on TV

    Wormholes.  A whole new way to travel.

The Dark Knight Rises

   
    Finally watched this last night.  At 165 minutes, it dragged a bit, especially as we waited for Batman to work himself back into shape.  But I quibble.

    Catwoman was kewl.  I like the dark tone.  The Bane character could've been psychoed up a bit more - sticking a muzzle on him was chintzy compared to Heath Ledger's Joker character in the previous film.

    The storyline held together reasonably well.  The takeover of Gotham by Bane reminded me of Doctor Zhivago after the revolution kicked out the Czar.  But it was quite a stretch to imagine that the federal government would just sit idly by while a major metropolis was occupied.

    The action scenes were well done.  There were enough plot twists to keep me on my toes.  I suppose there could be a Part IV to this series, but that would frankly surprise me.

    I quite enjoyed this whole Batman Trilogy.  Whoever makes the next Caped Crusader movie has his work cut out for him.  I'd rate TDKR around 8 Stars - some minor irritations, but overall a good flick.

Pagan Friday

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “This,” he displayed between thumb and forefinger a small sphere which glowed, as if lit from within, “is a key.  The key, in fact.  It has lain in a secret place for over 1,000 Earther years.  From the time, in fact, when it was supposed to be used the first time.  But now I am informed by the backers that its moment has come for certain.”

    “What does it do?” Jason asked.

    “In short it ties up a lot of loose ends.”

    “A McGuffin,” Jason suggested.

    (from Armageddon The Musical by Robert Rankin)

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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