Thursday, June 22, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Favorites
Whenever I buy a CD I always hope it will be the CD, the one that I listen to over and over and never get tired of, the one that will resonate with what I am feeling at a particular time of my life and embed itself into my memories. Few CDs ever meet those expectations, but when one does it is a very special thing. Here are some of the CDs that have been that CD to me over the years (in reverse chronological order of purchase):
U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb- I got this CD for Christmas in 2004, but it wasn't until New Year's 2006 that I stayed up until 3 AM listening to it and fell in love with every song. As usual with U2, the songs are beautiful and poetic, with lyrics about love, God, war, and poverty. Big subjects, yet the songs are still so personal and touching. I've listened to this album about a million times this year.
Beach Boys, Classics- I bought this one on a summer night in 2003. This collection has some of the usual Beach Boys hits but what I really love are the less well-known tracks. These are some really interesting songs, some fun and some heartbreakingly sad. Two of the saddest songs I know are on this CD ("Caroline, No" and " 'Til I Die"), so sad that I rarely can stand to listen to them.
18, Moby- I bought this CD a week before my birthday in 2002. I remember lying on my bed listening to this CD, reading the essay in the liner notes and feeling like maybe there is exactly one other person in the world who understands how I feel. "The Great Escape", "Extreme Ways", "At Least We Tried", "18", it's like these songs about alienation and loneliness were pulled directly from my mind. There is even a song called "Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)" that I listened to the Sunday two days before my birthday, sort of like it was written just for me (one day off, that's not too bad).
All the Pain Money Can Buy, Fastball- I bought this CD after class one morning in my freshman year of college (2000). After so many years of being in high school all day every day, it felt so strange to go toTarget to buy CDs on a weekday morning just because I felt like it. Out of all the CDs I browsed through, I picked this one because I recognized and liked a couple of the songs on it. This album is definitely not musically genius, but it's good basic rock and it has a nice flow to it- "Which Way to the Top?", "Out of My Head", "Nowhere Road", and "Sweetwater, Texas" are favorites. This album always reminds me of being a freshman.
Whatever, Aimee Mann- I bought this album based on a music review, without hearing even one song, back in 2000. On first listen, I didn't understand this CD at all. Aimee Mann has a beautiful voice, but the lyrics were so puzzling. I gave it a few spins, though, and I'm glad I did. May-December romance, a world's fair, getting screwed over by your record company, no one else writes songs quite like this. This is one of the few older CDs in my collection that I still listen to regularly.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Lauryn Hill - I bought this CD at Blockbuster Music on my 17th birthday in 1999. The first great album I owned, this album still defines for me what an album should be. Heartfelt, poetic, musically innovative, cohesive, it truly is a masterpiece.
U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb- I got this CD for Christmas in 2004, but it wasn't until New Year's 2006 that I stayed up until 3 AM listening to it and fell in love with every song. As usual with U2, the songs are beautiful and poetic, with lyrics about love, God, war, and poverty. Big subjects, yet the songs are still so personal and touching. I've listened to this album about a million times this year.
Beach Boys, Classics- I bought this one on a summer night in 2003. This collection has some of the usual Beach Boys hits but what I really love are the less well-known tracks. These are some really interesting songs, some fun and some heartbreakingly sad. Two of the saddest songs I know are on this CD ("Caroline, No" and " 'Til I Die"), so sad that I rarely can stand to listen to them.
18, Moby- I bought this CD a week before my birthday in 2002. I remember lying on my bed listening to this CD, reading the essay in the liner notes and feeling like maybe there is exactly one other person in the world who understands how I feel. "The Great Escape", "Extreme Ways", "At Least We Tried", "18", it's like these songs about alienation and loneliness were pulled directly from my mind. There is even a song called "Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)" that I listened to the Sunday two days before my birthday, sort of like it was written just for me (one day off, that's not too bad).
All the Pain Money Can Buy, Fastball- I bought this CD after class one morning in my freshman year of college (2000). After so many years of being in high school all day every day, it felt so strange to go toTarget to buy CDs on a weekday morning just because I felt like it. Out of all the CDs I browsed through, I picked this one because I recognized and liked a couple of the songs on it. This album is definitely not musically genius, but it's good basic rock and it has a nice flow to it- "Which Way to the Top?", "Out of My Head", "Nowhere Road", and "Sweetwater, Texas" are favorites. This album always reminds me of being a freshman.
Whatever, Aimee Mann- I bought this album based on a music review, without hearing even one song, back in 2000. On first listen, I didn't understand this CD at all. Aimee Mann has a beautiful voice, but the lyrics were so puzzling. I gave it a few spins, though, and I'm glad I did. May-December romance, a world's fair, getting screwed over by your record company, no one else writes songs quite like this. This is one of the few older CDs in my collection that I still listen to regularly.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Lauryn Hill - I bought this CD at Blockbuster Music on my 17th birthday in 1999. The first great album I owned, this album still defines for me what an album should be. Heartfelt, poetic, musically innovative, cohesive, it truly is a masterpiece.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
World Cup
As a matter of cultural sensitivity, I've been trying to follow the World Cup these past five days. I really, really want to like soccer. I see the sold-out stadiums of people on those televised games, most covered from head to toe in their nation's colors, chanting for nearly the entire game, and it just seems like, wow, this must be a really exciting game. Just over the border in Mexico, people love soccer. You turn on Mexican TV on weekends and you can usually find a game, and whenever a team scores the announcer yells GOOOOALLLL for like two minutes straight. So I've been tuning in to a few games trying to see what the excitement is all about, trying to catch the World Cup fever if you will.
But, I am sorry to say, I still just do not get soccer. Call me a crass American who is addicted to instant gratification, but I just can't understand how you can get that excited about a game (such as today's Brazil game) where it's common that one goal is scored the entire game. Or worse, no goals are scored (i.e. today's France-Switzerland game). The rest of the time, players run up and down the field, or they get really close to scoring a goal but miss. Sorry, but the American in me wants a game where real points are scored. Take basketball, now there's a game. One NBA team can score a hundred points on a good night, and I have to confess that I was about a million times more excited about seeing tonight's NBA finals game than I was to see the US play in the World Cup. Football, baseball, basketball, I think any of those sports ranks higher in excitement when compared to soccer. Most Americans are just not raised to like soccer, which is probably not a good thing for world unity, but that's how it is. Despite my effort to be culturally sensitive and cosmopolitan, I think I'm destined to remain out of sync with the rest of the world as far as the World Cup goes.
But, I am sorry to say, I still just do not get soccer. Call me a crass American who is addicted to instant gratification, but I just can't understand how you can get that excited about a game (such as today's Brazil game) where it's common that one goal is scored the entire game. Or worse, no goals are scored (i.e. today's France-Switzerland game). The rest of the time, players run up and down the field, or they get really close to scoring a goal but miss. Sorry, but the American in me wants a game where real points are scored. Take basketball, now there's a game. One NBA team can score a hundred points on a good night, and I have to confess that I was about a million times more excited about seeing tonight's NBA finals game than I was to see the US play in the World Cup. Football, baseball, basketball, I think any of those sports ranks higher in excitement when compared to soccer. Most Americans are just not raised to like soccer, which is probably not a good thing for world unity, but that's how it is. Despite my effort to be culturally sensitive and cosmopolitan, I think I'm destined to remain out of sync with the rest of the world as far as the World Cup goes.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Eight billion
"... Women in Africa — and the job falls to women — must spend six, eight hours a day just in trying to bring clean water to their children.
Eight billion hours a year of human effort are spent just in bringing water. And when I heard that statistic, sitting like you are in an audience, I thought, 'Well, he must have said eight million.' Then I thought, 'Maybe it's 80 million.' It's eight billion hours a year of wasted effort because the water is often contaminated when it gets there. This isn't rocket science. You can fix this."
Quote from a commencement speech by Anthony M. Kennedy, Supreme Court justice, at New York University, as quoted in the New York Times.
Eight billion hours a year of human effort are spent just in bringing water. And when I heard that statistic, sitting like you are in an audience, I thought, 'Well, he must have said eight million.' Then I thought, 'Maybe it's 80 million.' It's eight billion hours a year of wasted effort because the water is often contaminated when it gets there. This isn't rocket science. You can fix this."
Quote from a commencement speech by Anthony M. Kennedy, Supreme Court justice, at New York University, as quoted in the New York Times.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Trendio.com
Trendio.com, the first stock exhange for headline news. You sign up for free and get $10,000 (virtual, of course) to buy stock in words. Prices are based on how often the words are quoted in 3000 online media sources. I've made $795 since I signed up yesterday. My words: Republicans, Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Paris Hilton, NBA, and Iraq. Click here to read more about it, and if you sign up with this link I get $1,000 added to my portfolio.
Six Rules for Eating Wisely by Michael Pollan. The best nutrition advice I've seen in awhile. My favorite line: "Don't eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Monday, June 05, 2006
Classic kottke
Jason Kottke named this as the most well-received post on kottke.org in an interview with leahpeah. Interesting.
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