Miscellaneous

To Little League Opening Day yesterday,

Posted on May 16, 2010
To Little League Opening Day yesterday, where LCA and her cohorts from City Honors Chorale sang the anthem. Holy crow they make a big deal out of this: hundreds of Little Leaguers march down Hertel Avenue to Shoshone Park, escorted by a fire engine...

Could Maureen Dowd possibly be

Posted on May 16, 2010
Could Maureen Dowd possibly be more offensive? Not in my house. I'd rather have Bill O'Reilly over for cocktails.

Alan Dershowitz is so deliberately

Posted on May 14, 2010
Alan Dershowitz is so deliberately annoying and provocative that it is easy to lose track of how intelligent he is. His students are, I think, pretty lucky, although it must be a challenge for them to avoid becoming as annoying as he is. Dershowitz really is that smart-- for most other people his mannerisms amount to simply being abrasive for the sake of it...

People seem to want to like Laura

Posted on May 14, 2010
People seem to want to like Laura Bush, but I don't. The way I see it she knew better than any one exactly what it would mean if her husband became president , and she was really the only person who could have stopped him. The way I reckon it that makes her fully culpable for what followed and the fact that she thinks gay marrage is okay and sneaks an occasional cigarette mitigates nothing...

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More on the Exile reissue, an interesting

Posted on May 13, 2010
More on the Exile reissue, an interesting mix of reminiscence and revisionist history."I was squeaky-clean when I got to France. It was after it was over that I went back on the stuff again, as a present to myself. But the work was first."

It's May, and it's 44° and raining.

Posted on May 12, 2010
It's May, and it's 44° and raining. Early days for my Personal Hit Single of the Summer, but I'll tell you this much: this cover of Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" by JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound is going to be in heavy rotation for a while...

It's been about twenty years since

Posted on May 11, 2010
It's been about twenty years since I've been to the track. I suppose I could fix the date more firmly if I cared to-- we have photographs of EGA togged out in baby jockey silks, and as I recall she looks about two. It's been a while, in any event. I keep my hand in, more or less, by playing the Triple Crown races, and since my folks live in a place that doesn't have an OTB setup I play their picks too...

Kagan is a Mets fan. I like that.

Posted on May 10, 2010
Kagan is a Mets fan. I like that. I liked Diane Wood, who had an established record and who didn't go to Harvard or Yale law. It's been a good year for women who went to Princeton and Harvard. Other things I like-- it's been a long time since we've seen a SC nominee who hasn't come from the bench...

Good summary on the making of "Exile

Posted on May 09, 2010
Good summary on the making of "Exile on Main Street", useful mostly for the bonus tracks 'authenticity' breakdown. As I suspected "Plunder My Soul" is essentially current Mick laid over an "Exile"-era track. I thought I heard Mick Taylor in there, and now it's as close as I'll get this spring...

It would be interesting to go back

Posted on May 04, 2010
It would be interesting to go back and trace the history of roadside memorials. They were once unusual, and now they seem ubiquitous. There are three or four in the immediate vicinity of LCA's school, and I assume that these commemorate crime victims rather than people who were killed in motor vehicle accidents, and they are the worse for the Buffalo winter...

In the back of my mind there is

Posted on May 02, 2010
In the back of my mind there is a place I can walk into where Juan-Carlos Formell and Johnny's Dream Club are always playing. Who knows what I am doing there-- maybe I ducked in for a drink, or to get out of the rain. Maybe I''m making myself scarce, waiting for things to cool off...

Do Music-Lovers Still Need Record

Posted on May 01, 2010
Do Music-Lovers Still Need Record Stores? I miss New World Record. I'm sure I'm not alone, and I'm sure that the other people who feel the same were never going to be able to keep the place going-- they were in the buggy-whip business, and a neighborhood store like that, even in a neighborhood like mine, is going to have a tough time...

Props to my dad, who had the Derby

Posted on May 01, 2010
Props to my dad, who had the Derby horse.

I'm thinking an exacta of Devil

Posted on April 30, 2010
I'm thinking an exacta of Devil May Care and Sidney's Candy.

Good article on 'begging the question',

Posted on April 30, 2010
Good article on 'begging the question', a phrase which has migrated in meaning. The author advocates surrender: use "assuming the conclusion" instead, and say "raise the question" when that's what you mean. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.)

The poetics of place and displacement

Posted on April 29, 2010
The poetics of place and displacement in the songs of Bob Dylan. Richard Elliott argues that there is a tension between "recognizable locations... which are... crucial to the ability of his audience to identify with the texts",and the use of "displacement techniques and refusal of a fixed identity"...

To make up for a more or less substantive

Posted on April 28, 2010
To make up for a more or less substantive post on law, politics and the judiciary yesterday: The Cheesiest Cheeseball Guitarists of All Time! Freebird!

I don't really have an outlet for

Posted on April 28, 2010
I don't really have an outlet for this sort of thing at the moment, but I still care: Fashion Terror Watch List: Shoes for Dudes.

At the Volokh Conspiracy Jonathan

Posted on April 27, 2010
At the Volokh Conspiracy Jonathan H. Adler opines that "For many, the selection of federal judges is one of the most important things a President can do," and that something similar can be said about the appointments governors make to state courts. He cites Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, arguing that Pawlenty's upcoming pick to the Minnisota Supreme Court "could reveal something about Pawlenty?s political aspirations," and notes that "conservative activists had soured" on Florida Governor Charlie Crist over his picks for Florida?s high court...

Is "The Loneliness of the Long

Posted on April 26, 2010
Is "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" the greatest work of fiction about my sport? Probably not, since it isn't really about the sport at all, but it is certainly the best title for a running novel ever. As movies about running go I'd put Saint Ralph at the head of my list...

Here's the thing with Jeff Beck

Posted on April 21, 2010
Here's the thing with Jeff Beck albums-- it is always great to hear him play, but his taste in material and in sidemen is frequently off. It sounds stupid to say about one of the last rock'n'roll musicians who routinely releases instrumental sides but it's true: it often seems as though he doesn't have much to say...

As Eyjafjallajokull percolates

Posted on April 20, 2010
As Eyjafjallajokull percolates along I find myself musing about various ScFi scenarios. The last time it erupted it kept erupting for two years-- would that mean the end of air travel to and in Europe for the duration? Of course Europe isn't cut off-- we are able to communicate, just not travel...

Lance Mannion had problems with

Posted on April 19, 2010
Lance Mannion had problems with Pirate Radio (or The Boat That Rocked-- movies that can't figure out what they are supposed to be called should just pick a name fer crying out loud). I have problems with it too. It is a meandering shaggy dog story that can't seem to get a grip on what it is supposed to be about, and that was irritating...

Still too cold to set the fish

Posted on April 17, 2010
Still too cold to set the fish free, I'm afraid. The goldfish could probably hack it, but I don't know about the neons. (I think that's what the little blue ones are.) Still, I've proven how responsible I am with pets. Maybe I'll get a pony next. I promise to brush it and feed it and walk it and love it, and I'll give it a carrot.

Stuart Taylor Jr., a self-described

Posted on April 16, 2010
Stuart Taylor Jr., a self-described "conflicted moderate with (for example) a center-left sympathy for gay rights and a center-right discomfort with large racial and gender preferences" contends, apropos of Justice Stewart's pending departure, that "Like some other Republican-appointed justices in recent decades -- Harry Blackmun and Sandra Day O'Connor and, to a lesser extent, David Souter, Warren Burger and Lewis Powell -- Stevens has become markedly more liberal during his years on the court...

Your Best Bob Dylan Album Calculator.

Posted on April 16, 2010
Your Best Bob Dylan Album Calculator. (Related: Rolling Stone's 15 Worst Albums By Great Bands. Why only 15, Rolling Stone? Why not 20?)

I didn't see it coming, but a Pulitzer

Posted on April 15, 2010
I didn't see it coming, but a Pulitzer for Hank Williams makes all kinds of sense. "A posthumous special citation to Hank Williams for his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life...

Our television habits are formed

Posted on April 14, 2010
Our television habits are formed around LCA's dance schedule, which means that we seldom sit down and watch a whole program from beginning to end. We scroll, and if we spot something we watch it until it is time to take or retrieve LCA from dance. One of the rules of scrolling is that if we see a ballgame we pause for a moment to check it out, and lately the ballgames we've been coming across have been from 1986...

Writing about the Catholic Church

Posted on April 13, 2010
Writing about the Catholic Church feels like piling on, but it seems to me that there are a few points that some people are missing. A few years back we were speaking at a conference in Salzburg where one of the other participants was a lawyer from Kentucky who'd been one of the first to successfully sue the Church for clerical abuse...

I've been trying to work out a

Posted on April 11, 2010
I've been trying to work out a formula for the American Trinity-- have been for a while as part of longstanding project. How's this: all rock and all jazz are informed by the blues, not infrequently in direct proportion to the quality that the rock or jazz under discussion is so informed...

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