Numerically Speaking

Remember being in grade school and learning how time signatures worked? Mathrock is apparently music based solely on using funny time signatures.

I mention this because Jean told me the other day that Outkast's "Hey Ya" is in 22/4 time. You and I never noticed this because it's an even number which means you can still dance to it without suddenly finding yourself offbeat. The conversation reminded me of feeling like I'd discovered some hidden secret message when I realized that one of my favorite Soundgarden songs - "The Day I Tried To Live" - is in 15/16. Anyway...

Speaking of Soundgarden, I saw their excellent former drummer Matt Cameron play with Pearl Jam the other night at the Verizon Center. I'm not much for stadium rock and they had a bit of mid-tempo lull early on that dragged, but once they recovered, they rocked. Kudos to Eddie Vedder for trying to explain U.S. oil-drilling policy to 25,000 people in the middle of a rock show. I'm still not about to go buy all their music, but I had a good time. And more importantly, I didn't get that distinct feeling that I was seeing a band that was a caricature of its former self. May we all age so energetically and well.

Not much live music other than that. Caught the Waco Brothers a few weeks ago and they were a rollicking good time as always. Hope to make it to Pitchfork next month - not sure I'll get to see Public Enemy perform, but I'm looking forward to seeing them talk.

New releases I've been meaning to get: Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar and My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges.

New releases I'm curious about: Al Green's Lay It Down (with ?uestlove producing) and Joan as Policewoman's To Survive.

Inertia

An ex once told me that I was the object in motion that stayed in motion until I finally became the object at rest that stayed at rest until I finally became the object in motion etc, etc. I always found that characterization amusing and spot on...except during the summer.

I don't function at my normal speed in the summer. I move more slowly, I want to do less and have more of it be of the escapist variety of entertainment. I find myself spending weekend afternoons lost in a book and then wandering off to watch a few innings of baseball en route to something else that doesn't require lots of energy. I even want my music to be paced to a stroll rather than a run. During the last DC episode of swampiness, I found the right musical waystation in a couple of soundtracks. Soundtracks are often a crapshoot, but the Dianne Reeves soundtrack to Good Night, and Good Luck and the soundtrack to Robert Altman's The Company along with a stack of Jack Teagarden's old big band tunes, the new Goldfrapp album, and my friend Craig Klein's solo trombone release have all finally got me out of my Depeche Mode jag.

I'm going to have to find a way to break out of my mental relaxation mode though since this summer promises to be brisk at work. To prep for that, I'm getting ready to start hiring again. Arg. Didn't I just finished looking at bad resumes? Observation: the people who applied for the unpaid intern position were overwhelmingly more likely to follow the directions than the people who applied for the paid position. When I say directions, I mean that they sent the resume, cover letter and writing sample that we asked for. Is it that the people who want an unpaid internship self-select so only the more conscientious people apply whereas everyone needs to make money? Or are college students more used to following directions because they're still in college? Hmm.

I leave you with this inspired little couplet my ipod shuffled together the other day:

"Off the Grid" by Beastie Boys from The Mix Up
"Kilometer" by Sebastien Tellier from Sexuality
"Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Stars from Set Yourself On Fire

I'd happily post a mini "mixtape" except I'm not entirely sure how to do it legally...which is a whole 'nother post.

Candlepin Anyone?

I've been reading Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, an extensive look at social capital in the US and why there's a marked decrease from the 1950s and 60s in the strength and breadth of civic engagement and social connectedness in the US. According to Putnam, less social capital correlates with or increases the chances of everything from infant morality to obesity to not stopping at stop lights. For instance, if you smoked cigarettes and lived in Mississippi - which ranks at the bottom of much of everything in Bowling Alone - and continued to smoke but moved to North Dakota - which is at the top of most every heap - the effects would be akin to your having quit smoking.

In the way that you often find synchronicity when you start exploring a topic, I've been thinking a lot about social capital lately. When I moved to DC I was told that it takes at least a year after you move to a place for you to start feeling comfortable. I only stopped feeling like I was living on an alien planet once I made some friends, met some people in the neighborhood, and was able to leave my apartment on weekends without looking at a map. Having a number of friends that are relative newcomers here, we can all attest that even then, it's not easy: where to go, how to meet people, how to be a part of a place when you don't feel of it. All that sure takes the naive romance out of "reinventing yourself" in a new place.

I'm not sure how much I buy all of the book's arguments especially since they're about 8 years old now. For instance, the Internet has certainly added a dimension to how we keep in touch and a case could be made that this year's political theater has increased active participation in politics. I'd definitely be curious to read an update. (For you non-New Englanders, here's the explanation on candlepin bowling.)

Still, I'm glad I waded through the book...which I did in between a couple of shows that renewed my faith in live music: X and Cut Copy. I've seen X a couple of times now and they never disappoint. Their show certainly isn't new since they haven't released new music in years, but everything's played with gobs of punky, head-banging attitude and energy and they obviously have a fabulous time. Cut Copy was a lean, tight, dance machine and I can't wait to see them again. I think I may have actually jumped up and down on command. Wow. (Arf?)

And yes, finding the rock clubs in DC went a long way to making me feel like I belonged more!

Calendar Illusions

Ever feel like you're definitely getting older but feeling younger all at the same time?

I took a few days off to visit family and friends in Boston this past week and arrived just in time to smell the lilacs in full bloom. As usual, I had a great time, but it wasn't all fun and games.

I had that moment when I realized that I might really need to get involved in some evolving family health situations. As the only American-born member of my biological family with the language skills and resources to cope with the system, I guess I'm going to have to get involved and be bitchy and demanding. Mind you, like Tina Fey, I can be good at being bitchy and demanding. In my head, however, advocacy is the province of an adult and it's hard not to feel like a kid around my family's older-generation-but-not-grey-and-frail family members, regardless of how many years the calendar gives me. I think it's going to be an eye-opening transition from cared-for to care-giver.

On the more light-hearted side of things, I saw a bunch of friends in ones and twos and groups, did some long-overdue clothes shopping, made it to Redbones and got me some BBQ, bought too many books at Brookline Booksmith (in particular, I felt a keen case of discounted-cookbook-lust), wore out the little kitty playing many rounds of bottlecap soccer and got scratched up by the big kitty. I discovered - how did this take me so long? - that you can sync up Bollywood film dances with just about any non-downtempo music (thanks, Justin, for that). I ran around Jamaica Pond a few times and saw the ducklings and goslings trailing their parents. The ducklings especially were too cute for words. I'm considering making my next trip back coincide with the Newport Folk Festival.

Now that I'm done procrastinating, I should get back to digging through email...have a great long weekend, folks.

Diversions

Getting tickets turned into one hell of a process, but I didn't regret it when The Black Keys finally started playing on Monday. Yup, I did hear shades of Zeppelin on occasion, but that's not a bad influence to wear as long as you're not draped in it. Danger Mouse, producer of The Black Keys latest, made sure of that. I loved the raw and loose blues attack of thickfreakness (you probably heard some of it in a car commercial), but the slighter cleaner and spacier sound of the new release is completely complementary. The live show had a lot more bombast and devil-horn-worthy tunes than you'd expect from only two guys on stage. Psychotic Girl is one of my favorite tracks. NPR webcast the second night at the 9:30 club.

Also checked out the Hirschorn Museum's The Cinema Effect: Dreams exhibit. The entire exhibit hall was outfitted cinema-style, complete with red curtain at the entrance. Once you walked in, you followed faint white arrows on the floor and tried not to walk into other people. Eyes adjust of course, but even still the exhibit had a pleasantly disorienting and cocoon-like atmosphere...which was perfect since the exhitbit was about how cinema blurs the lines between illusion and reality. There were lots of quiet, eerie short films and there were also some amusing oddities: someone had taken close-up videos of a face looking around and talking - David Bowie was one of them - and then projected it onto a flat dummy head, which when played looked like it was talking to you. They wouldn't let me take photos, otherwise this explanation would make more sense. Regardless, always entertaining to have Bowie looking at you maniacally!

On the way back, I walked past the soon-to-be-open National Museum of Crime and Punishment . And then I learned that there's also a Museum of the American Cocktail. Maybe I can raise my glass with a drink made with ice cubes using these?

I was hanging at the Marx Cafe last Friday night when DJ Provoke was on fire with the funk spirit. Too bad for him that he was spinning a masterpiece in a sports bar/restaurant. Even those of us who were really into it were dividing our attentions. Sorry, Patrick. Gotta go buy some Meters.

Farmer's Market Love

The Mt. Pleasant Farmer's Market started again on Saturday. I love going to the farmer's market and I'm completely spoiled since it happens 60 seconds outside my front door. I like vegetables and fruits, but the farmer's market makes me want to cook and eat even more of them. I like buying what looks good/interesting/different and then figuring out what to do with it - the green, diamond-spiked, Romanesco cauliflower, the Thai eggplant, the riotously- colored tomatoes and all the rest of it. For instance, this weekend I brought home some stir-fry greens, spicy radishes and this crazy looking purple asparagus.

I also brought back some herbs. My apartment faces north and while it's really bright from indirect sunlight, it only gets actual sunlight for a bit in the early morning so growing anything is a bit of a crapshoot. Based on last summer's experiments, I'm going to plant thyme, chives, and mint and I'm going to see how rosemary does without sunlight. I tried lavender last summer and it grew beautifully but I couldn't figure out what to do with it.

Someday, I want to have an actual garden with all sorts of vegetables and way too many heirloom tomatoes growing in it. In the meantime, my windowsill garden is a nice start.

Moments Per Minute

After a workweek spent touring upstate New York, I'm back.

It was a busy and stressful week that was also entertaining, interesting and more-laughs-per-minute than usual. The parts of Rochester I saw seemed hip and happening, relatively speaking. We had our event there at the science museum which amused me because I got to direct people to the mastodon. (Before you think it, yes, I'm easily amused.) Syracuse and Albany seemed much more economically-depressed. You have to wonder what will happen to those folks if our economy continues to flounder.

Our events, however, were very well-attended by local musicians and music industry folk and hopefully we gave them some new ways to keep playing. Random photos here. It was gratifying to watch people begin to put the pieces together of how the new music business works and how they can be a part of it and how faraway policy issues like net neutrality can affect them. It's not hard to become a bit blinkered in that I forget how little other people know about the issues that I spend my days on. Always good to get a reminder.

After the Albany event ended, Jean and I drove to New York City. We arrived in the wee smas of the night at the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel itself was vaguely hostel-like but unsurprisingly very cool, as I discovered the next morning when I work up enough to take in my surroundings.

I spent Thursday catching up a bit on work (have laptop/cell phone/Internet, will travel) and with some friends I haven't seen in a while. Good to see James, who I've known since high school. James is the man behind Dutch Angle Films and he's the reason I know anything about the art of film-making.

That evening, I saw my friend Stew's musical Passing Strange, a thoroughly enjoyable coming of age story with a rock/funk/soul soundtrack and some great acting performances. I've never really been into theater, but if I lived in New York, I think I'd develop a taste for it.

Whew. Now, I'm off to enjoy a weekend with very little planned.