As with Dylan, I don't have time these days to listen to Neil Young's canonical works -- especially the early seventies albums, on which his melodic gifts compete with remnants of hippy poesy (he'd begin to purge them on Harvest and be done with them completely on Time Fades Away). As familiarity has worn the pleasures of Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, I find large chunks of After the Gold Rush simply indigestible. Young found his voice on near-classics like On the Beach and Zuma; by the time of Rust Never Sleeps he'd transformed into a sinister demi-urge, coldly noting the decay of fellow hippies, signaling that he'd caught The Wages of Fear in a repertory theatre, expressing ambivalence over the relation between Elvis and Johnny Rotten (in the still-too-little understood "Hey, Hey, My, My [Into the Black]").

Live At Massey Hall 1971 is a dandy compendium of Young's contradictions. He's gosh-darn polite and grateful in his between-song banter one minute and singing "What am I doing here?" in a wavery, unsettling falsetto the next. I'd rather here "Helpless" and "Tell Me Why" in this context than in any other. The warhorses (and crazy horses) aren't covered with dust yet. The deeply weird "A Man Needs a Maid" gets weirder (on acoustic guitar!) when performed as a medley with "Heart of Gold"; domesticity has rarely seemed creepier, although Young tips his hand when he lingers momentarily on "part" in "She was playing a part/that I could understand." This hippie weirdo understood: it takes an actor to recognize an actress. Not long after the success of Harvest he'd show chameleonic instincts on American Stars 'n' Bars, Comes a Time, and Rust Never Sleeps to rival the role-playing games of the creator of Station to Station, Low, Heroes, and Lodger, but trumping him by keeping the confused hippy straights who probably bought CSN too.

A Good Last Name Too

Roy Zimmerman cracks me up, and I usually think very little of musical stand-up.

Check out "Jerry Falwell's God."

Now I keep on hearing about how creationists, evangelicals, anti-gay-marriage frothers and the such are too easy targets. Well, no, they're NOT easy targets if they're still standing around! An easy target is one that you can bring down easily. These people are not being brought down at ALL. By the latest polls, 55 % of Americans do not believe in evolution, which is observable and the foundation of all our biological and genetic understanding. They say it's just a "theory." Gravity is just a "theory" too, but I very much dare you to defy it as you walk around the house.
Now, I would happily spit on evolution if new scientific evidence opened up new understanding of life that suggested that, oh, I don't know, we were all actually designed last week by spacefaring robots that gave us retroactive memories, but I would need EVIDENCE. Americans are turning away from science because it doesn't match with some old, badly written Jewish legends. This should be extremely terrifying to any right thinking person.

Drunk Rove as Douchebaggy as Ever Part 2

This is almost as good as that Vanilla Ice rap at the end of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

Still a Terrible Name

It took a while to dig in to "Ys". After one too many recommendations I went to the store and got it, and I simply thought it lacked. The combat was symplistic, and dungeon design repetitive. I wasn't sure what the hype was all about.



Right, so I took it back to FYE and tried to sell it back to the clerk, who after listening to my rant, told me maybe my friends were referring to something else.



I know, it's virtually impossible to look at that Ren Fair cover without bursting into laughter. No amount of critical acclaim can salvage THAT.

The thing about Joanna Newsom is that she provokes a radical split in your brain functions, with two sides simultaneously thinking thoughts that are opposite and yet true.

Side 1: "This is brilliance, poetry of the highest order, a musical journey to a richly imagined alternate universe unlike anything else, not only one of the best albums in recent years but in all of musical history."

Side 2: "I'm listening to a demented nerd girl with a harp whining out 10 minute songs about monkeys dancing with bears. Dear God, strike me down with a meteor, a meteorite, a meteroid, whichever, just make it all end."

Some Classic '90s Albums That Just Aren't as Classic as I Remember

Before I am mauled down: these were albums I once adored or otherwise played the heck out of, but every time I try to revisit those youthful feelings things are a little awkward, like having coffee with your high school crush ten years down the line, and all she wants to do is show you her stretchmarks.


Nirvana-In Utero


To say that Nirvana captured all the angry loserish desperation of rejects of all stripes is boring, done, and true. I will also say that I rocked hard to
"Nevermind" (still do). But "In Utero" is diminishing returns, and if you're being honest to yourself, "Milk It," "Very Ape," "Tourette's," and "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" are not strong songs. They were not meant to be, sure, but that's a lame defense. Of course, that does leave a nice bunch of healthy tracks, and at least one ("All Apologies") that will still move me 50 years from now. I just never thought that I would skip forward on this one when I was 17.

(And there's no use ragging on "Bleach." No one has put that on their player since Cobain's funeral.)Nirvana's so much of my youth, but looking back sometimes I hear little more than the severely troubled growling of a junkie that really dug his Pixies records.

Pearl Jam-VS


Another great grunge album that I wore down with love, (you should see the mangled state of the case), and yet... Now I find myself skipping tracks, particularly the self-righteous liberal put downs:("Police stopped my brother again"? Eddie, please, you're whiter than cum on tissue.) Then there's that one annoying song about blood, and the other annoying one abour rats, and GOSH will "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" just END? It's a 3 minute song that feels longer than a Neal Pert drum solo.

Weezer- The Self-Titled, Blue Album, the One that Wasn't Hideous.


Knowing how low things would go afterwards makes revisiting "The Blue Album" with all its poppy poses really tragic, because it's obvious that Rivers Cuomo had nothing to say- EVER. It just sounded like he did. Hard to shake "Undone" and "In the Garage" from my consciousness, but I can't sit through this one anymore, and I'm guessing you can't either.


Dave Matthews, "Crash"


Once upon a time, I swear this was cool. I tried listening to it just the other day, and every single track works hard to impress you with the fact that they're too jazzy to cohere into anything as plebeian as a song.


Radiohead- OK Computer


Probably the first album I heard that obviated all use of illegal substances with its technical wizardry... And yet I go to it now, and its obsession with being prodded by alien androids and all that nonsense is silly, isn't it? "Karma Police" is still great, and maybe if my devotion to this band hadn't been so ill-rewarded with Thom Yorke's subsequent bleep-addled wankery I would feel differently. I was one of those people who defiantly pretended that it was possible to enjoy "Kid A" without being mentally impaired by serious chemical dosages, but by the time that horrible live album came about, the jig was up. They'd lost me as a fan, which I suppose was what they intended to do all along. I wasn't hard core enough.

Aerosmith- Get a Grip


You may roll your eyes, eyes no doubt schooled in obscure, sophisticated indie balladry and avant-garde German techno-jazz, but back in 1994 my timid high school version had a choice between Aerosmith, Metallica and 2Pac. Or The Spice Girls, if I had been leaning that way. I chose, and had my first make-out session to this.(Don't do the math: it came pretty late.) "Get a Grip" made a kid feel like he could walk into a bar, start some shit, and still walk away with a stripper in tow. If that's not rock and roll, what is? Unfortunately, now I listen more closely: in one of the bonus tracks you actually hear Steven Tyler snorting Peruvian White through a rolled-up thousand-dollar bill.


TWO GIRLY ONES

Jewel's Pieces of You and No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom. I really really loved these albums. Both of them are liberally peppered with crap, unlistenable crap.

Nadirs: Jewel's "Adrian", a 27 minute long opus about a dying crippled kid with cancer, AIDS, irritable bowel syndrome and anything else that can bring tears to your eyes. No Doubt's quasi-instrumental 41 minute long ska-fest, "The Climb." Those might not be the actual track times, but then again they might.

One last minute addition: "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness."

Oh, who am I kidding, even back then I could not make it through both discs.

Drunk Rove as douchebaggy as ever

"Condemned to Premature Death by Hunger and Thirst more than 3 Billion People of the World"

Say what you want about communists, they write the best headlines.

Vilsack's support for Clinton has a price: $400,000

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton has agreed to help one-time candidate Tom Vilsack, who endorsed her on Monday, as he seeks to retire a campaign debt of more than $400,000.

More here.

Phil Collins may have as unbearable a public persona as any balding middle-aged former pop star, but he's not entirely useless, as his production of Frida's great "I Know There's Something Going On" proved.

one, two, three, four, fif

I love that the lawyer even managed to a get a Scooter Libby reference in there.

WASHINGTON - Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said the lawyer, John Dowd.

"One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," he said, a reference to the recent conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case.

More here.

The party of family values

A great cartoon from Jim Morin, via Discourse.net.


Of course, on the Herald website, it has been eclipsed by more important news--some more nonsense about Ana Nicole Smith.

If I only had a heart

The earnest trudge of The Lives of Others has its moments, but if you don't accept the film's conceit -- that the cold, gray Stasi automaton (well played by Ulrich Mühe) finds a heart by eavesdropping on one of the German Democratic Republic's most well-regarded playwrights/collaborators -- it seems not just improbable, but sentimental. The last is a particularly poignant irony. Writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut captures the immobilization of life under totalitarianism with a clarity that honors chroncilers like Robert Conquest, Czeslaw Milosz, and Elie Wiesel. The possibility that anyone can become an object of suspicion, arbitrarily, is essential to totalitarian regimes. Hannah Arendt:

Their regime is not a government in any traditional sense, but a movement, whose advance constantly meets with new obstacles that have to be eliminated. So far as one may speak at all of any legal thinking within a totalitarian system, the "objective opponent" is its central idea.

However, Mühe's performance is such a marvel of brutal efficiency that I couldn't believe that he'd steal a volume of Brecht poems from the playwright's apartment and shed a tear, or confront the playwright's girlfriend -- an actress played by Martina Gedeck -- in a dingy bar with the words, "I'm your audience." As J. Hoberman correctly noted, the ending represents a triumph of an artist's power to retreat from the horrors he's created, dramatic logic be damned.

Vilsack to endorse Clinton for president

Whoa Tommy Boy, are you just hungry for some presidential spotlight?

DES MOINES, Iowa - Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and one-time Democratic presidential candidate, will endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her presidential bid, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

But the real question is, does this make Iowa a lock for a her?

11 percent of Americans have witnessed exorcisms

Yeah, I'm not joking. That's what the Pew Research Center found.

More than one-in-ten Americans (11%) say they have experienced or witnessed an exorcism, when the devil or evil spirits are driven out of a person. Over a third (34%) of pentecostals say they have had experience with exorcisms, compared with 7% of the general Christian population, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

More here.

Jaque mate

These Cuban chess players from Miami Dade College who are schooling Ivy League teams have been written about extensively in local papers, but it's nice to see them getting some national attention. The AP story is the fifth most popular story on Yahoo News today.

Cubans have a long tradition of aggressive, fast chess that started with Jose Raul Capablanca. I've never seen a defensive player good enough to hold up, including yours truly, who crumbles pathetically in front of a persistent offense.


(The story misspells the coach's first name on second reference. His name is Rene, not Renier.)

More on Scarlett Johansson and old men

Actress Scarlett Johansson (Match Point, Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around . . . video) tells Vogue she's recording a CD of songs by Drano-voiced composer Tom Waits.

Ah, Lily...

This is starting to make the rounds, so I'll post it here: a horrifying example of what happens when you cross Lily Tomlin and David O. Russell. From the set of I ::heart:: Huckabees. It would have worked in the finished film too.

State Department clueless on Cuba

Going by what U.S. officials have said about Castro, it's clear that they have no idea what the status of his health is, or they made public what they hoped it would be. It's also clear they don't know to what extent Castro is in control. They're now being a little bit more cautious, and not writing him off completely.

Stepping back from previous assertions that Fidel Castro was near death, U.S. officials say that the image of an increasingly revitalized Castro is impeding the island's day-to-day leadership from making major changes.

Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America and the Caribbean, told The Miami Herald in an interview Wednesday that Cuba was in a period of ''suspended animation'' as Castro exerted a ''controlling political presence'' on the island.

While Shannon did not directly contradict previous statements from U.S. officials that suggested Castro was close to death, he suggested that the Bush administration is more cautious in its assessment of whether Castro will return, and in what capacity.

Castro is going to be a defining figure in Cuban politics until he dies. Like Franco, he could be on a deathbed for months, not making any sense, and shitting himself through an artificial anus, and he will still be in control. The State Dept. has apparently reached this realization not very long ago.

As a Cuban-American--nay, as a human being--I wish him a terrible, yet prompt death, so I can take my nonexistent tumbadora down to Eighth St. and dance it up Ricky Ricardo style, but that's too easy, and by now, I've learned not to underestimate Castro. Even on his deathbed, he's not going to make things easy.

More from The Herald.

I have to admit it

A helluva lot of wet dreams came true for me on this: Beatles? Big Musicals? Evan Rachel Wood? I'm not proud, but Wood indeed. September cannot come fast enough.

Al Gore tearing into some dumbass Texas representative

Check out this video of Al Gore explaining global warming 101 to some backwater Texas congressman and global warming skeptic.

From TPM Cafe.

Choose Your Own Mini Festival

French movies have become as genre friendly as their American counterparts; what they haven't grasped (and have abstained from grasping) in mass satisfaction they've made up for in obsessive visits to the same topical corners. Below are a few recent notables that you can string together into a mini festival of "French Character Studies That Subtly Tackle Colonialistic Fears through Neo Noir/ Existential Crime Narratives and are Centered Around Way-Too-Young Girls, Arab Immigrants, and Middle Aged Intellectual Sad-Sacks."

Trust me, look these movies up, and you will see a pattern.

LILA SAYS


One look at that cover and you know you're in for an intense examination of France's Arab ghettos. And soon as you learn the main actress' name is Vahina Gioccante, you can't help but assume that you're about to watch a slow study of immigrant alienation. You won't be dissapointed.

I hate the people who design DVD covers. And who names their child Vahina anyway?

A TOUT DE SUITE



Another sexy blond girl, another immigrant boy (Moroccan), another sad denouement. Benoit Jacquot is a very good director, and the two leads in this movie have unforgettable faces. Very recommended.

13 TZAMETI


A character who is, for all intents and purposes, the same immigrant boy from the previous two pictures, is caught in an existentialist nightmare that helps us segue into:

LA MOUSTACHE

Maybe the solution to France's problems lies in surrendering to its colonial past,
Which it cannot hide.

CACHE


I've been a fan of Michael Haneke's work ever since "Funny Games"; (I was the nerd going like: "Dude, you must have your mind blown by THIS.") Daniel Aueteuil and Juliette Binoche are French movie royalty so whenever they meet there's something to be seen. (They are the lesser avatars of Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve, who meet in "Changing Times" which I still haven't seen but judging by Alfred's review would be a crown jewel at this Mini Festival.)

Goin' Down

I have to wonder what it is about Scarlett Johansson that makes old people get all excited about filming her.



Total mystery.

The Cuban-American leap year

To politicians, Cuban-Americans must seem a lot like leap years. They only exist once every four years. And even then, they only restate the failed policy that older, right-wing Cubans want to hear.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain stumped in Miami's Cuban-American community Wednesday morning as a contentious immigration debate lurched forward in Washington.

McCain gave interviews to two Spanish-language radio stations and visited the Bay of Pigs Museum, where the former Vietnam prisoner of war put his arms around elderly Cuban-American veterans and called them ``comrades.''

I wonder if McCain knows that the word comrade, like the phrase "patria o muerte, venceremos," also brings back negative memories to children of Communism.

The Herald has more.

What is it about wearing a uniform that's turning these dudes into rapists?

Miami police Officer Michael P. Ragusa kidnapped a woman in his patrol car, tried raping her, released her, sent her a cellphone text message, then called to invite her to lunch, authorities say.

Ragusa, a three-year officer with an undistinguished career, was arrested Tuesday.

The Herald has the rest of the story here.

The Wilburys twist again

It's about damn time.

Modest gains

I'm not as crazy about Modest Mouse as a lot of crits are, so I don't give a damn whether Good News For People Who Love Shiney Hooks represented a disappointing popist direction. For the curious: Johnny Marr does not add appreciably much to the proceedings. But in these days when Rolling Stone can birth three new guitar heroes with one cover story I'd like to remind listeners of the effectiveness of anonymity. My review of We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank here.

Barack Obama: "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."

The Washington Note has a letter sent by over a hundred Iowa caucus participants to Barack Obama, encouraging him to continue his support for a Palestinian state, as well as a secure Israel.

The letter quotes Obama as saying, "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," which surprisingly has not been made into a bigger campaign issue. I still remember Joe "the schmuck" Lieberman going after Howard Dean in 2004 because he suggested the United States should be an unbiased arbitrator in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Light blogging today

I'm downing a Molson at Pearson and likely will not do much blogging today. I hadn't paid much attention to this airport, probably because the first time I was in Toronto I left in something of a hurry after one of the worst days of my life, and when I arrived this time around, I was too busy fighting with the Immigration guy. But it's a very nice, sleek and modern airport. Clean, too.

Back to the Molson.

La Revolución y Errol Flynn

I found this video on the CBC website while looking around for a special on Cuba I heard on the radio today. In 1959, Errol Flynn went to Cuba to experience The Revolution first hand. It appears that it was big news at the time--Flynn in Cuba, that is--because on Jan. 13, the day of this broadcast, one of the panelists immediately mentions it. I'd never heard anything about it.

During the interview, Errol Flynn says that Fidel Castro, who he considered a friend, would go on to "rank in history as one of the greats." Well, he was right about the first part. I was also amazed by how in 13 short days, the world already knew Castro was a criminal. One of the panelists asks Flynn about summary executions in Cuba. Flynn denies Castro authorized or had any knowledge of them.

Oh Errol, you can't swing out of this one on a chandelier.

This dude is shameless

Gustavo Coronado, a Homestead prison guard, said he grew so tired of an inmate's advances that he had sex with her in her bunk ''so she would leave him alone,'' according to state agents.

I've heard of the she-was-asking-for-it excuse, but she wouldn't leave me alone is a new one.

More, here.

Mon Dieu

Gauloises have become considerably more expensive since the last time I was in Toronto. They're now $8.50.

Up in smoke

You know, I wish I could post this, and rant on some only-in-Florida theme or some such nonsense, like the columnists that make a living writing about a culture of weird that doesn't actually exist. But the reality is that I just don't care enough. Sometimes you just have to sit on a park bench and smoke a joint, whether you're a judge or a loser.

Now if it comes out that this guy was a hardass on drug offenders--again, I don't care enough to try to find out--that's a whole different story.

In the meantime, a judge got caught smoking a joint... I feel bad for the guy.

Poll of Iraqis

How does the average Iraqi feel? Here are some interesting results.

51 percent of Iraqis now think that violence against U.S. forces is acceptable. That's up from only 17 percent in February of 2004.

42 percent of Iraqis say that Iraq is in civil war. The number among Sunnis is much higher, with 63 percent.

35 percent of Baghdad residents say they have moved their home to avoid violence or persecution, and 31 percent say there has been ethnic cleansing in their area.

Approval of the government, like everything else in Iraq, breaks down ethnic lines. 68 percent of Shiites and 71 percent of Kurds approve, while only 6 percent of Sunnies approve of the government.

You can find the story here, along with the full report.

A taste of the Cuban reality

There's no news to this story, but it is a good portrait of just one of the many ridiculous obstacles Cubans have to navigate everyday.

Hitchiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."

Last year, the government announced the purchase of 7,000 buses from China, and hundreds more Chinese buses are said to be on the way since Castro took power from his ailing brother Fidel in July.

Meanwhile, the hitchhikers are everywhere — at street corners, crosswalks, stop lights. Whole families with luggage hitch to and from the airport. On the capital's outskirts, government inspectors wave down government vehicles. Those with empty seats must take hitchhikers, a law that results in 68 million free rides a year, according to the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

"Guess we'll just have to adjust"

Marcello's post helped me get a few things straight: Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is a thrilling record, alternately ridiculous and terrifying. Just because this style of melodrama isn't usually to my taste doesn't mean I can't acknowledge this collective's achievement. It's the songs' dynamics -- in which weird, disorienting orchestral and vocal swoops substitute for instrumental solos -- that consistently enthrall: how Regine Cassagne's refrain of "In my head" cuts into Win Butler's frantic reverie in "The Well and the Lighthouse," as a taunt and an echo; the clouds of white noise, cumulonimbi of strings, and the compelling overwroughtness of Butler's voice create a tension that more than obviates a malaise that, to their credit, seems felt not received, even if they think lines like "eating in the ghetto on a hundred-dollar plate" are meaningful. Depending on my mood, the quiet numbers spook me like the fast ones don't. "Ocean of Noise" seethes like one of the clenched-jawed ballads on The Velvet Underground's third album. Juxtaposed against "working for the church while your family dies," Biblical tropes like "don't wanna live in my father's house" adduce honest anger if not sadness at the way things have gotta be. In this sense, Arcade Fire are realists, not the romantics their critics (and fans) accuse them of being.

Again, the arrangements are Gothic-scale, but not the emotions. Neon Bible collects the most lucid teenaged spiral notebook self-hatred ever written (your body's a cage, swelling and mutating beyond your ability to control it, meanwhile the world to which your parents and teachers belong is controlled by warmongers and authoritarians like them). But the images of flight, coupled with the brisk tempos of songs like "(Antichrist Television Blues)" and "No Cars Go," don't signify escape so much as thought: we have to solve our own problems, and quickly, for time's running out. The emo bands to which Arcade Fire are stupidly compared don't aim for the still point in the vortex. Hell, most of us don't. Arcade Fire don't imagine a place where no cars go: they know a place, and they'll show you if you clear your head of bullshit, as Neon Bible records song by song ("Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles"-- Ralph Waldo Emerson). Don't think this will solve the problems. At first I thought ending the record with "My Body is a Cage" is a mistake; coming at the heels of the strength-in-numbers affirmations of "No Cars Go," we're back to the black mirror and hortatory cathedral organs. But that's life, isn't it? Which is why the greatest lyric Butler will ever write (on Funeral's "Wake Up") is "I guess we'll just have to adjust." The second greatest? "I'm gonna work it out" ("Ocean of Noise"). Psychoanalytic cliches work if we actually use them.

Venezuela banking on 12.5-cent coin for economic turnaround

Nothing provides me more amusement than the absurdities of totalitarian autocrats. Take Hugo Chavez, for example, the man who changed the direction in which the horse on the coat of arms was facing, now plans a financial makeover based on a 12.5-cent coin and renaming their currency, from bolivar to strong bolivar.

I could see the press conference right now:

Somewhat-ballsy foreign reporter: "President Chavez, a considerable number of economists have said that the bolivar is on a downward slope due to inflation, how does your government plan to counter that growing inflation?"
Hugo Chavez: "Are you insinuating that the bolivar is weak? Because it says right in the name that it is not. It is the strong Bolivar, like the Venezuelan people and our libertador. But just to cover my ass in the future, in case it becomes impossible to deny that the strong bolivar is, in fact, weak, it's doubtlessly due to American imperialist intervention in Venezuela."

Oh Canada

I may have sworn off all things Canadian after they sent me to Immigration upon arriving at Pearson. They claimed it was an absolutely random procedure, but I railed back, convinced it had to do with my Spanish name, and I might have even told the Canadian customs guy, "why the hell would I want to immigrate into Canada?!"

But that's all in the past now, I love this country too much to stay mad at it for long.

Toronto is really wonderful city. I thought I'd seen most of what it had to offer, but as it turns out, I'm not even close. So far, I taught my brother a thing or two on the slopes, had some amazing--and cheap--Thai food, and made a repeat visit to the CN Tower, which hasn't gotten any less sublime. And, best of all, they show "Arrested Development" reruns here. Today --I'm reminded by a gaggle of hot Irish women singing "Danny Boy" on the Buffalo PBS channel--is St. Patrick's Day, and there will be plenty merriment tonight.

I'll leave you with a picture of lil' brother Diaz, having fun on the glass floor of CN Tower, and perhaps of negligently more general interest, "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz" by Yeats in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams —
Some vague Utopia — and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion,
mix pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.

Plains, trains, and automobiles

I know there's nothing original about this, but I have a serious travel fetish. So, sitting at the provincial Fort Lauderdale airport bar waiting for my flight to Toronto to board and listening to Steely Dan, I figured I would rhapsodize about this for a while. (Actually, it's going to be shorter than that, 'cause I need to do a good deal of work on the plane and I have to find an outlet to charge my laptop.)

Anyway, an Albanian friend of mine is convinced that I have gypsy--yes, gypsy--in my blood. A conclusion derived purely from my "gypsy eyes"--whatever that means. But hey, I'm guessing an Albanian could pick out a gypsy from a mile away.

My family has, in three short generations, taken on two major migrations--one across a continent. While, they'll tell you that they were for political reasons, I'd like to think it has something to do with a genetic wanderlust.

Shit. This is getting way more self-absorbed than I intended, so let's sum up. Travel, good; Fort Lauderdale airport, bad.


So let's move on to actual substantive stuff. Ricardo Alarcon says Castro--not Raul--is seeking reelection in 2008. I'm not even going to discuss the ridiculousness of calling what happens in Cuba an election, I just want to tell Ricky--a sedulous AGI reader, I'm sure--that I'll give him whatever odds he wants on that bet. I'll even give him a one-to-one exchange rate on dollars to pesos. C'mon, Ricky, what do you have to lose.

Updated to add: Fort Lauderdale airport has very slow WiFi and four power outlets in the whole airport. Grrr.

Dylan Hears a Who!

There's no way to convey what this is about, but it comes by way of Rocketboom--itself rather ineffable--and you should definitely check it out. And if you do not trust my judgment, then so be it; your loss.

Yet another reason to loathe Garrison Keillor

Fine, I've never been a fan of his. As a Reader's Digest addict as a boy (when every article seemed to be of the "Can Cocaine Conquer America?" kind) I had to endure his gross homilies about growing up poor but surrounded by lovable eccentrics who made sure he'd grow up to become an NPR star one day. I sounded like a crank when I expressed reservations about Robert Altman's swan song, but mostly because I questioned the ornery fucker's choice of collaborators: you'd think Altman would've been hip to Keillor's jive years ago.

But now Keillor writes this. And Salon published it. To wit:

Under the old monogamous system, we didn't have the problem of apportioning Thanksgiving and Christmas among your mother and stepdad, your dad and his third wife, your mother-in-law and her boyfriend Hal, and your father-in-law and his boyfriend Chuck. Today, serial monogamy has stretched the extended family to the breaking point. A child can now grow up with eight or nine or 10 grandparents -- Gampa, Gammy, Goopa, Gumby, Papa, Poopsy, Goofy, Gaga and Chuck -- and need a program to keep track of the actors.

And now gay marriage will produce a whole new string of hyphenated relatives. In addition to the ex-stepson and ex-in-laws and your wife's first husband's second wife, there now will be Bruce and Kevin's in-laws and Bruce's ex, Mark, and Mark's current partner, and I suppose we'll get used to it.

The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men -- sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That's for the kids. It's their show

What a fuckwit! Dan Savage takes him down mercilessly: .

What an asshole. Asshole, asshole, asshole. What Keillor wrote today on Salon is every bit as offensive as Ann Coulter’s “faggot” joke about John Edwards and relies on the same set of cultural prejudices.
-------------------

Most of the gay male parents I know adopted children that men and women in “opposite-sex marriages” weren’t interested in—children with HIV, older children, mixed-race children, children with developmental disabilities, children abused, neglected and abandoned by their heterosexual parents. Every year I go to Michigan for Gay Family Week in Saugatuck and I’m staggered by the love, patience, and compassion demonstrated by these men. These couples deserve our gratitude and support. What they don’t deserve is a rich, old hypocrite insinuating that they’re more interested in their fussy hairdos and over-decorated apartments than they are in raising their kids.

Then there are conservatives who assume that liberalism = support of gay rights (as I once told my students: "This country's leaders are still wary of fags, kikes, and niggers"). What makes Keillor's opinions doubly offensive is the folksy drawl in which he'd probably deliver it aloud, which is probably his idea of humility. If you supported John Kerry and (now) John Edwards' positions on gay marriage and adoption Keillor's remarks encapsulate why "mainstream" Demos remain as deluded as the GOP.

Yes, that old the-unicorn-is-my-designated-driver story again

Why not a leprechaun? Wouldn't be able to reach the pedals?

BILLINGS, Mont. - A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post — it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.

More, here.

Poll: 58 percent want Iraq withdrawal by 2008 or sooner

The biggest challenge facing the Democratic party today is not the Republican party, but rather being swooned by the overwhelming popular support for withdrawing the troops, which is providing them with quick and easy political capital. It doesn't seem like we're handling that challenge with much responsibility right now.

But with numbers like these,

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly six in 10 Americans want to see U.S. troops leave Iraq either immediately or within a year, and more would rather have Congress running U.S. policy in the conflict than President Bush, according to a CNN poll out Tuesday.

Though support for Bush's decision to dispatch additional troops to Iraq grew to 37 percent -- up from 32 percent in a mid-January poll -- a slim majority of 52 percent say Congress should block funding for the new deployment.

The CNN poll was conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp. Pollsters interviewed 1,027 adults for the survey, which had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

I'm sold; juice me Hodgman

Dumb fuck

This guy has discretion over the lives of soldiers in Iraq?

Marine Gen. Peter Pace likened homosexuality to adultery, which he said was also immoral, the newspaper reported on its Web site.

"I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way," Pace told the newspaper in a wide-ranging interview.

You know, if homosexuality was anything like adultery, there would be a lot more homosexuals in the Republican party.

Oh, to live in Gotham...

Those lucky devotees of Film Forum's excellent programming have a real treat: Max Ophuls' magnificent The Earrings of Madame De.... Although still unavailable on DVD (Criterion is supposed to give it the deluxe treatment this summer; if the inferior Ophuls product Lola Montes can get it...), I've protected my New Yorker Home Video copy purchased in the mid-nineties as zealously as I used to my copy of The Conformist (until I left it under a movie theater seat during an Adaptation screening, after Andy had borrowed it). The reliable Dave Kehr published an enlightening essay in today's New York Times. "Proustian" is a disgracefully abused adjective, but surely it applies to The Earrings of Madamde De..., in which Ophuls' irony and bemusement fuse in the film's last third into something approaching despair.

In other news an American remake of Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon is scheduled for release....starring Chris Rock.

Three from Europe (sorta)

When your big Broadway musical leans towards ROCK, and it's about GERMAN, STRAIGHT, CHRISTIAN TEENAGERS, it's safe to say you've misunderstood your audience in every significant way. Or so I thought initially, but never fear, Duncan Sheik's "Spring Awakening" has enough songs about boys masturbating to keep it from crashing like that jukebox show about John Denver. Based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 drama about the goings-on at an affluent Christian school, the book matches purposefully (I hope) sophomoric lyrics and sub-"Rent" guitar riffs to a fin-de-siecle tale. The results are either amusing or embarrassing, depending on your particular mood. Songs dive from the oppressively emotional ("The Word of your Body") to gleeful cussing that is meant to jolt the musical form, (in big numbers like "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked"). If this supposed to capture adolescent see-sawing, kudos. For better or worse, this is the youngest-feeling musical Broadway has seen in a decade. (And that one about the Spelling Bee doesn't count.)


Martin Amis got majorly whipped over in the U.K. for his last novel, "Yellow Dog," which was bizarre and off-putting but not as jaw-droppingly bad as the Brits pretended it was. "House of Meetings", more conventional in tone, more "important" in subject matter, is reassuring. His story about gulag love, human degradation, and the current state of the wounded Russian giant echoes Solzhenytzin, (feel free to comment on that spelling, I'm too lazy to Google at this particular juncture), but Amis' distinctly British approach makes it all seem fresh.

Finally, and in case you haven't, (why haven't you?), go rent Borat, damn it. It's just as funny the second time around, and the DVD's plentiful deleted scenes will tickle you all a-new; although they reveal how bad the movie could have been. After all, (and this is where I throw my dissent), what makes the movie great was a fortuitous combination of character and social critique. The deleted scenes (Borat goofing off at a supermarket, getting turned on at a massage parlor) are funny but have nothing to reveal, hinting at an original scattershot approach that got whittled down to the satire we've come to love. This is why, much as I love this movie, I'm going to balk out of thinking Sasha Baron Cohen is some sort of universal comedy genius. Tried re-renting "Da Ali G Movie" recently? I didn't think so.

(Added Borat note: When I saw this at the theater, a group of frat guys on the front rows stood up during the trailer scene and cheered, having recognized fellow drunken idiocy. When the idiocy went too far, one of them stood up, turned to the rest of us and yelled: "We're not all like that!" If this movie shamed one jock out of jackassery, it's already done its duty.)

Ne-Yo's debut was good enough to juice my anticipation for his next one. His namby-pamby voice often detracted from his (slightly overrated) lyrics and his (quite underrated) melodies and hooks. Really, I wished In My Own Words matched the effortlessness of "When You're Mad" and "Sexy Love," the latter of which is the best R&B ballad of the last several years, even in a period replete with them (Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" and Ciara's "Promise" and "Like a Boy" are just three).

Rich's thoughts on Ne-Yo's "Because of You" have made me reconsider the voice/music dichotomy:

But then, like "I Want Your Sex" or the moany breakdown of Jade's "Don't Walk Away," * you might not want to listen to it with your mom, after all, for backing up the sonic discord is a lyrical one. Ne-Yo has the voice of a goody-two shoes, sweetly competent and never aggressive, which means he can get away with a lot.

"Because of You" is about what Borat calls vagine, according to Rich. I'm embarrassed I had nothing memorable to say the first time I wrote about it; Ne-Yo even wrote a song for the first album called "Mirror" about benign sexual narcissism. I should known that Ne-Yo is Example #657 of perversion-through-banality.

* I really need to hear Jade again.

Florida Man Beats Out Heart Disease As Nation's No. 1 Killer

Goddamn, I love The Onion:

ATLANTA—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that in the first two months of 2007, 47-year-old Wayne Ray Thomas of Jupiter, FL has surpassed heart disease as America's No.1 killer.

"We're in the midst of a major national health crisis," CDCP Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said. "Every 22 minutes, Wayne Ray Thomas takes another life. If trends continue, by 2027 this silent killer could affect one in every 15 Americans."

According to health and law enforcement officials, there are several warning signs of the onset of Wayne Ray Thomas, including intense anxiety, shortness of breath, sweating, and a sudden loss of power to the victim's house.

Physical symptoms of a full-scale attack include involuntary constriction of the airway and sharp, stabbing pains in the left arm, right arm, throat, and back. In the advanced stages, afflicted persons suffer external bleeding, loss of motor function, organ failure, and intracranial hemorrhaging.

So far, those stricken by Wayne Ray Thomas have exhibited a 100 percent mortality rate.

The unbearable lightness of being

The Washington Post has this neat feature up on their website called On Being, which is surprisingly addictive. That, or I am just desperately reaching for entertainment that'll keep me from reading some boring law review article on domestic violence. Anyway, it's a series of well-produced video clips that range from some dude's quotidian pet peeves to a nun on her nun-hood. Check it out, if you have some free time, or need a quick mental break.

Oh, Annie

I've figured it out. Anne Coulter is posesed by Andy Kauffman. Look at their initials... AC... AK... Close, no?
After all, no human being's really that hateful. She's Tony Clifton.

Contrarianism -- post(post)-punk edition

Received opinion I'm delighted to refute:

*Matos and Thomas are wrong: the Jesus & Mary Chain's worst songs are their early "classics." "Just Like Honey" is really pretty, I guess (Lost in Translation, thank you), but "You Trip Me Up" does not make me miss the Ramones (whom I'm not fond of anyway). Their mid-period college radio heyday holds up the best: "Happy When It Rains, "April Skies" (both of which are the same song really), "Sidewalking," the glorious "Head On," and their narcoleptic Hope Sandoval collaboration "Sometimes Always." Still, to claim that JAMC were a major band is simply laughable. The best thing anyone's ever said about them is Rob Sheffield's remark that Depeche Mode are JAMC with synths instead of guitars: they signify on that level of histrionics.

*Eighties Wire -- the edition employing gauche synthesizers, sequencers, and reducing Robert Gotobed to a tinny drum machine -- fascinates me in a way that the dangerous, seedy seventies Wire (like the mostly dismal 154) doesn't. I can't understand why "Kidney Bingos" makes me tear up -- especially in the fade-out, where Graham Lewis' near-incomprehensible basso harmonizes with Colin Newman's cuddly vocal. When critics write about the perversion in accessibility, I'd cite this as a prime example.

Gettin' by with a little help...

Win Butler’s greatest genius lies in having a bunch of friends.

It’s not hard to imagine how insufferable Butler would be if it were just his earnest mug alone plastered all over indie mags and blogs. Just picture Conor Oberst or Sufjan Stevens and you’re already there. By contrast, sharing the spotlight with brothers, wives and drinking buddies goes a long way towards preventing people from accusing you of being self-absorbed or navel-gazing. As if by magic, you’re suddenly “communal.” I admit it’s an effective trick and not one to be undersold. Eric Weisbard once memorably mythologized Nirvana by claiming that Cobain “made his I’s resonate like we’s.” Butler takes a shortcut to achieving the same thing by simply inviting all the “we’s” up on stage.

On the one hand, the Arcade Fire by its very existence acts out the close-knit camaraderie that Oberst frequently evokes but rarely allows to actually penetrate his solipsistic mewlings. On the other, Butler and friends appear to live out the fellowship of believers (no matter how strong/nonexistent each member’s individual faith) that Sufjan seems so clearly to want but only occasionally and obliquely brings to life.

The Devil Made Him Do It

Norman Mailer loves shit.



He loves it in all its oleaginous glory, in its clumpy turdiness, smeared between buttocks or alone in the woods. He's hopelessly devoted to shit; it's the kind of fascination that fuels posters on alt.sex.scat.

In "The Castle in the Forest" you'll find all sorts of rapturous takes on doo-doo. What you won't find is anything illuminating Adolf Hitler's psychology, or global politics, or good ol' evil. Mailer's devilish narrator has nothing to say except that there are no easy answers. He actually sets up a scene in which hundreds of bees are gassed up and die while little Adie watches, only to knock it down by saying, (and here I paraphrase, but I promise I'm being accurate to the spirit of the thing): "This moment looks like it could be significant to our boy's psyche. But it really isn't. It's just bees being gassed. It would be cheezy to create such an obvious analogy. This moment is not important."

Well, if it's not important, can I have my money back?

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., RIP

So falls another totem of wit and elegance. Although I haven't read his FDR tome, on the evidence of The Age of Jackson and his cheerful role as Courtier of Camelot I don't care for Schlesinger's kind of power worship. The wistfulness pervading the obits suggests that his sycophancy is, like honor and loyalty, a virtue this generation of leaders lacks:

How to convey the way public intellectuals such as Galbraith and Schlesinger loomed over American politics and ideas for the quarter-century following World War II?

The easiest way would be to point to their latter-day equivalents. But there simply is no one these days who does what they did. They were dominant figures in their intellectual disciplines, but their books were bestsellers. They emblazoned the covers of Time magazine (twice for Galbraith, once for Schlesinger). They steered the Democrats and rallied the fight against the Republicans, and when their side won, they occupied coveted positions in the government. They moved happily among celebrities such as Lauren Bacall and Angie Dickinson; they sat for Playboy interviews. They were especially close to the family -- the Kennedys -- that epitomized the merger of celebrity and politics. And, of course, they were on Richard Nixon's enemies list.

According to reporter John F. Harris, Schlesinger was important because he was (a) a star; and (b) a party hack; (c) a martyr. Note the defensiveness of his lede: "There was a time -- it's been decades now -- when politicians or pundits would call people `liberal intellectuals' and not mean it as an insult."