Song of the day

"Life On Mars", by David Bowie. By way of celebrating the return to our TV screens, in a seconds series, of the BBC show of the same name.

To whom it may concern: Thanks, guys

[Editor's note: May also be of general interest to other readers.]

Let's assume you were the recipient of a twelve-month gift subscription to the New Yorker. What would you do with it? You would read it. Every week. From cover to cover. If you had the time. Which you don't. Here are my suggestions.

Elizabeth Kolbert's writings on climate change are compelling (and frequently distressing) and must be read. Likewise, Michael Specter's pieces on the outer limits of science and research. I would also recommend you always read: Anthony Lane's film reviews and longer-form criticism; anything by Bill Buford, who seems to have found his calling in writing about food (although, like me, he has the annoying habit of throwing parenthetical comments into every other sentence); Seymour Hersh's skating of the thin line between conspiracy theory and How Things Really Are in the murky world of American foreign policy; anything by its team of excellent foreign correspondents, particularly the editor, David Remnick, Jon Lee Anderson, Steve Coll and George Packer (who seems to have developed a second life writing on the US election - and writing well about it, too); and anything by David Sedaris.

It is an election year, after all, so there will be quite a lot about that, most of which will be out of date by the time the magazine has travelled all the way to Australia (most such pieces are available online as soon as they come out, which is the better way to take them in). But there will likely be long-form profiles of the two candidates, whomever they may be, which would be worth reading. If you had the time.

Let's say you are a two-doctor couple: the magazine carries a lot of writing about medicine, particularly the moral and ethical aspects of practice, which you may be interested in; I can't say whether the fact that it is a general-interest magazine means it would be talking down to you.

Let's say you have a particular interest in music: you would do well to read classical music correspondent Alex Ross and pop music writer Sasha Frere Jones (who also maintains not one but two excellent weblogs). Everyone seems to hate SFJ, mainly, I suspect, because he has probably the best job in the world. Also in the arts sphere, I always enjoy Calvin Tompkins' profiles of artists.

What you will look at every week is the cartoons. Don't ignore the other art, either, from the cover inwards: there are often contributions from comic book artists such as Seth, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, and others, including the wonderful Jacques de Loustal, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire (who also is/was a member of Liquid Liquid, but you knew that). If you are really lucky, at some point during the life of your subscription the magazine will run one of its infrequent three-page strips by R and Aline Crumb.

As for the fiction, you're on your own, really, although obviously you must read anything by Alice Munro and William Trevor.

And one final tip: what the New Yorker has the enviable ability to do is to run articles on a topic that appears on its face to be of marginal-to-none-whatsoever interest, only for you to discover that it is the most interesting thing you have ever read. Over the last few months, for instance, there have been fascinating pieces on: the demolition of a building in lower Manhattan; the creation of a global seed bank; the harvesting of cocoa beans; a classical-music hoax; and shenanigans in the Italian olive-oil industry.

Enjoy.

K-Tel record of the day

If you had asked me, back in 1979 [1980 actually - see below], to put together a list of what I was listening to in 1979, it would have looked remarkably like the track-list of "Full Boar". (With the exception of the Jon English song, which I don't remember at all.)

Darren, the font of all knowledge, takes up the story:

"The release date is listed incorrectly (a clue is that selected songs such as 'I Got You' by Split Enz, 'Space Invaders' by Player 1 and 'He's My Number One' by Christie Allen were all released in March/April 1980).

'Full Boar' was released in May 1980. At the time I was working in Clark's Sound Centre during the school holidays (I was 13 and probably shouldn't have been in paid employment). We sold heaps of copies but not as many as '1980... The Music' which was considered a superior compilation.

Whereas FB was released by K-tel and therefore contained left-overs from the previous year as they were deleted from the primary catalogues of the major labels (the practice of the day), 1980 was jointly released by EMI and Festival and therefore contained all the hits of the moment.

I think the 1980/FB sales ratio would have been 3:1. Rarely was FB sold in isolation.

In hindsight, FB is the pick of the two (reinforced by the inclusion of 'Confrontation' by the Aliens, a song I have not been able to locate despite many years of trawling the internet, and 'I'm Not Like Anybody Else' by Jimmy And The Boys)."

The funny thing is, it is quite possible that Darren, whom I did not know in 1980, but who is now very close to the centre of my universe, may have been the person who sold me this record.

This just in

Farewell then, Smoky Dawson, who was an important part of my Saturday-morning-television education (and who was serenaded by The Reels on "The Smokey [sic] Dawson Show", from "Quasimodo's Dream").

All together now: "A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend, he'll never let you down ...".

Civics in schools: a case study

Jules: "Why is the radio still talking about the apology? That was yesterday."

Mum: "They are talking about people's responses to it. The apology is a very important event for Australia. There was a long story on the BBC, which is like the ABC but in England. So even in other countries in the world, it has been news. And you got to watch it on television with your class!"

Jules: "And it was very boring."

It's Sorry Day!

I took an extended route to work this morning, so that I could study the vibe at the Tent Embassy, which has been rapidly expanding this week in anticipation of the Prime Minister's apology to Aboriginal people for the acts committed long ago, in good faith but misguidedly so, against many of their people. I was a bit late (on account of my watch deciding to lose a few minutes at some point during the night), so that, when I was walking past, the apology was already underway - was, in fact, being broadcast at high volume so it could be clearly heard, depending on tree obstruction and wind direction, from at least as far as the High Court - and the Tent Embassy residents had made their way already up to the lawns of Parliament House, along with a steady stream of people from, as they say, "all walks of life", whom I saw from the bus. Traffic was also congested, or as congested as it can really get in the Nation's Capital. Even the workers at the new National Portrait Gallery stopped to listen.

The apology was made. From what I heard, it was an understated but gracious speech. At the end of it, the world didn't end. A terribly misguided policy had been, over a number of years, carried out against certain segments of a small but significant minority of the Australian people. It was latterly discovered and investigated, and an apology recommended. It is difficult to see how such an apology could be resisted, and yet resisted it was. The new Prime Minister deserves credit for so promptly doing what his predecessor could not.

Now we can all, as they also say, "move on". My feeling is that the apology will be good not only for those to whom it was directed by also for the rest of us. (I'm not being facetious in saying that I feel better knowing it has been made.) There can't be too many people today who hold the view that removing people from their mothers on account of the colour of their skin is sound policy. That being so, there is no reason why a collective expression of (belated) sorrow should be construed as amounting to an admission of present-day individual guilt or responsibility, or any other narrow-minded legalistic kind of analysis. Shit does happen, and it never hurt anybody to hear someone say "sorry".

Song of the day

"The Number One Song In Heaven", by Sparks. All seven and a half minutes of it, including the lengthy, somewhat abstract introductory passage, which only serves to enhance the thrill, and it is a thrill, that takes place at the 3.30 mark when the song "proper" kicks in. Produced, as if you didn't know, by Giorgio Moroder.

Song of the day

"A Stream With Bright Fish", by Harold Budd and Brian Eno. Unusually for Canberra, today is grey and overcast (although, as we speak, the sun has appeared - as have, go figure, a few drops of rain - through a crack in what is otherwise an unbroken mass of cloud) - perfect listening conditions for Harold Budd, and specifically his collaboration with Brian Eno "The Pearl", which I bought, along with "Eden" by Everything But The Girl (the two albums have remarkably similar covers, although there the resemblance ends), on an expedition in early 1985 with Russell and Roger to the record shop at Monash University. The Budd and Eno I had been looking for for quite some time - thanks to the British music magazines I was aware of its existence, but, in those pre-digital days, the physical object had proved elusive. I should, too, have mentioned it as another record that was predicted by "After The Heat" (passim).

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Pretty much every second place you go on the Internet is linking to this piece of US election propaganda. Apparently, what we all want is "change" [c.f. myself, who often can be heard asking "Why can't things just stay the same?"]. But the change this video makes me long for is the eradication of the heinous practice of melisma from the face of the earth. (Actually, the saving grace of the video is the totally swoon-worthy smile given out by Scarlett Johansson towards the end. And you can get the full benefit of that with the sound off.)

Song of the day

"Tunic (Song For Karen)", by Sonic Youth. It may be that Sonic Youth's first couple of albums of the Geffen era are not the sell-outs they were pilloried for at the time. Either they have gotten better with age, or they now have a wider context in which to sit (viz., a Second Golden Age around the time of "Murray Street", demonstrating that it wasn't all going to go downhill after "Daydream Nation", after all).

I have always associated the Sonic Youth of the early nineties with Hal Hartley films. "Tunic", to my callow and insensitive ears, was broad, coarse comedy. It is not comedy. And it is more like a Wes Anderson film: a tale of heartbreak and tragedy dressed up in the raiments of slapstick. The lyrics are quite possibly the most direct in the SY canon; and I can't think of a better showcase for Kim Gordon's voice.

2008: the year of the ...

Hmmm. Already we have had a new album from the Magnetic Fields (whose last album was released in 2004). In the pipeline are new albums from My Bloody Valentine (1991), Portishead (1997) and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2004). Now we discover that there will also be a new album by Tindersticks, who last released an album in 2003 and have since been missing presumed defunct (Stuart Staples releasing a solo album entitled "Leaving Songs" was a pretty solid hint, I would have thought). It is the last of that list that I am most looking forward to. Tindersticks have always produced work of the highest quality, and each album has added something to (or sometimes, crucially, taken something away from) what has come earlier. I don't know where they could go from "Waiting For The Moon", which was a solid (if perhaps in parts less than surprising) summation of The Story Of Tindersticks up to that point, but I am more than happy that I will get a chance to find out.

Song of the day

"The Belldog", by Eno, Moebius and Roedelius. Somehow, many years ago, I must have come home from one of Russell's and my regular Expeditionary Forces to record shops far and wide with SKY021, also known as "After The Heat" by Eno, Roedelius and Moebius (1978). This would have been in the early to middle 1980s, when this type of music was still hard to obtain, and (sudden intake of breath) There Was No Internet. Nowadays, of course, Sky Records has a huge cachet (in certain small but intense circles), and the selling point for the album would no doubt be the presence of the members of Cluster, but back then the drawcard was Eno. I had no idea who the others were. To be honest, I don't remember listening to the album all that often, beyond the last three tracks (the ones with Eno on vocals). But I must have, because last night, as shirt-ironing music, I threw the heavy German vinyl disc on the turntable and was surprised at how well known were all of the music's many quiet twists and turns. I was even more surprised at how it positively reeks of Eno's influence, far beyond just his voice on those three tracks. Most of the album is very much of a piece with "Music For Films" (also 1978), although fragments of "Tzima N'Arki" would appear three years later on Eno and David Byrne's "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts". "The Belldog" itself is a lovely song, which would, perhaps not surprisingly, slot nicely into the second side of "Before And After Science" (December 1977: can you believe Eno's work rate in those days?).

Happy 50th Birthday to Lego

Can I just say that I think our household has been responsible for a large part of Lego's financial recovery over the last 10 years. (Us, and that White Stripes video.)

what I like about electrelane

Late, but not too late, I own "No Shouts, No Calls", the fourth and, sadly, last (at least for now) Electrelane long-player. One thing about Electrelane is how remarkably closely, at this distance in time, they echo what was best about the whole post-punk idea. The sense of four people in a room making music for the sake of making music. The absence of the corporate. The urgency; the directness; the sense of "I can do that".

Another thing about Electrelane is the organic nature of their recorded sound. There is a real feeling that what you are listening to is four people in a room. Few, if any, instances of electrickery are involved. The drummer accurately conveys the sound of someone in the back of the room hitting a drum kit. Presumably because that is what she was doing. The guitars sound like guitars. It is as clean as it needs to be, and when it doesn't need to be it isn't. There is a palpable depth of field. In other words, it sounds more like Steve Albini or Jim O'Rourke than John McEntire. (Well, duh; their earlier albums were produced by Albini, as I am now reminded.)

And, of course, the most important thing about listening to Electrelane is the thrill; a thrill of the specific kind that vanished around 1991, the last moment in time when the world could have conceivably annointed the Cannanes as its saviour, and embraced Seattle instead. [Internal inconsistency alert: the Seattle thing may well have been in large part the catalyst for Steve Albini's prominence as a producer. Of course, it also facilitated Kim and Thurston's god-like status, which just goes to show that it's an ill wind etc.]

Countdown

Eighty-one: that's the number of days until the release of the third Portishead album. And still we will believe it when we see it.

Song of the day

"Psycho Session", by Composite Profuse. It is four years now since I discovered that, hey, you could get music from the Internet. I have recently been going back over my archives, and this has caused me to wonder, is it me, or has the element of surprise gone out of the blogging lark? Admittedly, back in 2003 I was on a very steep, but hugely rewarding, learning curve. The law of diminishing returns has, no doubt, kicked in somewhere along the line. And perhaps I am suffering from download fatigue. ("Perhaps"???) But there are a lot of tracks in the archive that I would never have come across alone (and haven't come across subsequently) and which I would not part with for all the world. (The list is endless, but let's just say Chateau Flight's "Cosmic Race"; "Stuck (Superpitcher Mix)", by Contriva; "Compulsion", by Joe Crow.) A lot of them were pulled down from Woebot (RIP - the blog, not the man), Tom Ewing's lamented "PopNose" project, and Gabba. There are now many more places to find music; the industry has, by subterfuge or otherwise, gotten in on the act; and readers, fans, bloggers and musicians are almost visibly chasing each other around the web in ever faster, and ever decreasing, circles. It's tiring just to watch.

But today I downloaded from, and listened to, a track (from Gabba; you can still get it) called "Psycho Session", from a band called (incorrectly) Composite Prefuse. It takes me back to those Good Old Days, not only in the nature of the music but also in the thrill of hearing it for the first time. Discogs.com clarified the name confusion for me, and also indicates that this was a limited vinyl release of 300 copies. How, without the Internet, would I ever be able to hear that?

I Don't Like Mondays

Which may well be true, and, as this post is being published on a Monday, can in fact be confirmed. However, our purpose here is to mention "I Am Bob", a short film that showed on SBS over the weekend, in which Sir Bob Geldof, by playing himself as a surly, patronising and cantankerous old grump, actually manages to demonstrate that he has a sense of humour and therefore may not in fact be like that at all. (Either that or he thought it was a documentary.) The film takes place at a celebrity lookalike competition, where the real Bob (who is assumed not to be the real Bob but just another wanna-be) goes head-to-head with a not-real Bob (played, appallingly well, by David Bamber (aka Mr Collins from "Pride and Prejudice") sporting a headband - I can't remember Geldof ever actually wearing a headband, but it did add to the 80s verisimilitude) and loses when it all comes down to who wins a Bob Geldof trivia quiz, where the real Bob's not quite fast enough on the buzzer (but, again, is a good sport in answering in minute detail questions dealing with some less-than-flattering aspects of his life, even if he does end up questioning the compere's decision on the final question ("I didn't say that! I didn't say that!")). It is to be hoped that they show it again.

Song of the day

Sally Oldfield, "Hide and Seek". There is something intriguing about the way this song filters English folk music through a prism of late-seventies production and, particularly, disco. (Shudder.) Things to note:

1. She is the sister of Mike Oldfield.

2. The dude on the left.

Last thoughts on Bob Dylan

It's easy to forget this: in October 1962 Dylan was still playing in New York coffee shops; within the next three years and nine months, he had become the poster-boy for the "protest" movement; gone electric; recorded what must be the greatest six-album run ever seen; been called "Judas"; been feted in England; and had a serious motorcycle accident (well, something had to bring the madness to an end).

So, what were you doing three years and nine months ago?

Song of the day

On the day that we discovered that there exists a version of The Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love" performed by current heartthrobs The Bird And The Bee, how can that not be the song of the day?

Song of the day

I recently picked up "The Monstrous Surplus", the long-awaited (by me) new album from Marcus Schmickler's Pluramon alias. It appears, on first listen, to be a (relatively) straightforward collection of songs, although I am sure there is a lot more happening, which will only reveal itself over time. Schmickler, presumably coincidentally, is moving in a similar direction to Caribou. Here are a couple of first impressions: (a) if you cut out the vocals, the opening song, "Turn In", could be a new song by the Chills (and with that prospect remaining tantalisingly close but frustratingly far away, I'll take this for now); and (b) "Fresh Aufhebung" would appear to have invented a new genre, which I would choose to call progtronica (if nobody has the copyright on that yet).

But it is "Can't Disappear" that I keep coming back to. It sits so neatly with a number of my own personal cornerstones (viz., The Passions' "I'm In Love With A German Film Star", Strawberry Switchblade's "Trees and Flowers" and the Moir Sisters' "Good Morning How Are You"; meanwhile Julee Cruise does her best Noosha Fox impersonation) that I can't give it any kind of dispassionate analysis or perspective. What I do know is that I love it.

A Question of Temperature

We were in Melbourne (or at least nearby in Geelong) for some, but mercifully not all, of that city's run of forty-plus-degree post-Christmas days. If this is the future, you can let me off now, thanks. All thoughts were addressed towards finding the nearest available air-conditioned premises. And the media duly reported record levels of energy consumption in Melbourne on those days.

Aha, I said. Herein lies concrete proof, if such was needed, of my theory: a theory which is, essentially, a variation on the theory of the frog and the pot of water on the stove. (You know the one: put a frog in a pot of cold water and bring it to the boil and the frog will stay there until it dies; put a frog in a pot of hot water and it will jump straight out.) It goes something like this.

1. Consumption of fossil fuels is causing the planet to heat up. (This is, perhaps, the one aspect of my theory that is not capable of proof; but how much proof do you need beyond looking out the window? If we were to wait until this could be proved, it would be too late. Which is my fundamental point on climate change.)

2. As the planet heats up, more and more people, at least in the affluent West, are turning to domestic air-conditioning units in order to cushion themselves from hot days.

3. As more people install, and use, domestic air-conditioning units, consumption of fossil fuels, in order to run those units, increases.

4. As fossil fuel consumption accordingly increases, the planet continues to get warmer, and places like Melbourne experience more and more extremely hot days.

5. As the number of hot days increases, the number of people installing, and using, domestic air-conditioning units also increases, thereby leading to further increases in the consumption of fossil fuels, leading in turn to hotter weather, leading to more people succumbing to the lure of the air conditioner, which in its own turn ... well, you get the picture.

What I don't know is the extent to which domestic air conditioners are a contributor to global warming (as opposed to, say, the arrival of the motor car in large numbers in India and China), but if their use can be seen in a noticeable spike in the daily energy consumption of a large city like Melbourne they surely must be a significant contributor.

Far be it from me to call for any sort of a ban on domestic air conditioners. I don't like to ban things. (Public air conditioning I have no problem with; on its own, it should be able to be managed in a reasonably benign way, and if we didn't have such comforts in our own homes we would have to get out more, which wouldn't be a bad thing either. Car air conditioning, well, its use will presumably be self-regulated with further increases in petrol prices, which, by the way, I am happy to argue should be about four times what they are now, even in these expensive times.) But I think it's time we woke up to what we are doing, or to get out of an understandable state of denial (the consequences are too horrible to contemplate).

We might well be able to make ourselves more comfortable in our homes, but at some point we will all be feeling very uncomfortable indeed. We might be The People Who Air Conditioned Themselves To Death.

End of sermon.

Films I saw

"No Country For Old Men" is tense like "Blood Simple" and bleak like "Barton Fink". It is beautifully shot and written but harrowing to watch. In short, another fine Coen Brothers movie.

"The Darjeeling Limited" just proves how lucky we are to have Wes Anderson movies to look forward to. Views may differ, but mine is that he can do no wrong. His films contain so much; it is a privilege to bask in his shadows. (I have no idea what that means.) Conclusion: the critics are not always the right people to ask about these things.

Song of the day

"BBC World", by David Kilgour. "The Far Now" continues to grow on me. It's a simple thing that David Kilgour does, but he does it so well that the greatness of individual tracks tends to sneak up on you.

"Price Check Aisle Three!"

eMusic subscribers: on a simple cents-per-minute basis, James Blackshaw's 34-minute drone-and-guitar epic "Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances" wins the Value For Money Sweepstakes. That it also happens to be a gorgeously hypnotic slice of meditative post-Fahey, post-(Robbie)Basho sound-drift just seals the issue, really.

The Italian Job

A long time ago - it must be at least nine years, given that that is how long we have been in Canberra - Gideon recommended to me the Aurelio Zen series of crime novels by Michael Dibdin. It is a recommendation I have picked up and run with. My summer reading this year included, or, more accurately, was, "Back To Bologna", the second-last of them (the final one had been completed, but not published, before his death, last year, at the age of 60, and I look forward to reading it anon).

Dibdin started doing funny things with genre a few books ago. "And Then You Die", for example, was Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" in the guise of a crime story. Likewise, "Back To Bologna" is more Keystone Cops than police procedural, a farce masquerading as a whodunnit, with a dose of tricky post-structuralism thrown in, thanks to the appearance of a thinly disguised Umberto Eco character, who gets it in the end (literally). Not unexpectedly enjoyable, but unexpectedly a hoot.

Ludd Gang

Or: What We Did On Our Holidays.

For a few days in early January, we were very kindly given the keys to a very nice house on the river in inner Melbourne. It has the distinction of being the only house I have ever been in that has more Charlie Brown books than our house does. (It also has the most Doctor Who figurines and magazines I have ever seen outside a shop, which has sent Carl off onto his next most recent obsession. Thanks, Miles. Oh, and sharp kitchen knives. Thank heaven for sharp kitchen knives.) The house is not geared for scaredy cats such as us. It has all (post-)mod cons, everything that can possibly be remote controlled is remote controlled, and press-buttons do the most surprising and unexpected (and sometimes unwanted) things. We were all at sea, and hence probably made a few too many telephone calls to the owners.

During our stay, we only made one trip into the city, much to the boys' disappointment: "only two train rides? only two tram trips?". We dropped in on the Games Lab at ACMI, where all of us got to try out a few cutting-edge computer games, including a gorgeously whimsical piece of Czech animation called "Samorost 2". Thereafter we split up, and I was able to take in the Christian Marclay exhibition (the four-screen gunfire-percussion loop, featuring scenes from many movies, almost all of which involved someone firing or aiming a gun at you (the viewer as victim), was particularly confronting (and mesmerising), but there were lots of other good things; and to think I only knew of Marclay as a "turntable artist"), and the ridiculous-to-imagine Saint Nick Cave exhibition across the road, where you could look at Actual Nick Cave Notebooks, an Actual Nick Cave Desk and Typewriter, Actual Nick Cave Bookshelves, and many, many photographs of Actual Nick Cave, and listen to the Actual Nick Cave Voice commenting on the above, in his dry, verging-on-ironic/sarcastic manner. Unsurprisingly, you are left with the impression that he is somewhat bemused by the whole thing, and not taking it particularly seriously (although it is a serious exhibition, and entirely deserved).

We also spent a very memorable evening of a very hot New Year's Eve with good friends at the beach at Point Lonsdale, and took a run up to Ballarat, where I saw my cousin Max, whom I last saw at my mother's funeral, in 1993.

Miraculously, I got to catch up, briefly, with one of the most important people in my life, who I haven't seen since before we moved to Canberra, and who has been living in London for many years now but happened to be in Melbourne for Christmas and happened to ring us the day before we left home for the holidays, and whose time in Melbourne happened to overlap with our time in Melbourne by two days.

In other news, that man Darren insisted on filling the remaining space on my hard drive with (after deleting the few that I already have) 1,111 songs (Nelson with an extra digit), personally chosen to highlight my many weaknesses and blind spots (e.g., and particularly, my long-held aversion to all things popular, which I have since remedied but which has left a gaping void as a legacy). I intend to blog all 1,111, from top to bottom, on these pages, even though it will likely take several years to do so.

And, finally, what you have been waiting for:

"The Ball In The River": A True Story.

Somehow the boys talked us into buying for them from Studley Park Boathouse a bouncy ball each (we used to call them super balls; I don't know the current nomenclature). Next day, we were going for a walk along the edge of the river at Fairfield Boathouse when - as if you didn't know what's coming - Jules lost control of his ball and we watched it roll slowly but inexorably towards, and into, the river. In its own way, this was not unlike the end of the first chapter of Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love", with its runaway hot air balloon - although here nobody dies.

I have never seen anybody as distraught as Jules was. He ran after the ball to the edge of the river, but mercifully did not jump in. We could see the ball, which had become trapped near the bank, but just too far out for a very brave person (viz., myself) to reach, despite my best efforts at riverbank clambering. There was only one thing for it: we were planning to hire a canoe the next day for a Wind In The Willows outing anyway, so we instantly decided to bring it forward a day. What the heck; and Jules wasn't going anywhere from his watching post, so Carl and I hastily proceeded to the boathouse while Adrienne stayed with Jules, lest he decide to do something rash. After several rings of the boathouse bell, somebody deigned to take our money and issue some very rudimentary instructions about boat hire and safety.

I was not born with sea legs, and I have an unexplainable inability to tie knots (I am from a family of knot-tying professionals), yet somehow I managed to get Carl and myself into the boat, upright and facing the right way, preparing to light out for the territory, as they say, just in time to hear from nearby a small boy shouting the words "We got it, we got it". Somehow figuring out how to stop the boat from drifting away from the bank, I held it in place for Adrienne and Jules to join our little party. Their story was that Jules had used his, uh, piercing voice to hail a passing kayak, and after several attempts the ball (which, I might as well at this point add, would have been entirely replaceable for the very affordable sum of two dollars) was passed up onto the bank and into Jules's greedy hands, and thence to his mother's handbag, with strict instructions not to take it out until we were well away from any watercourse.

Our purpose thwarted (thankfully; I had no great confidence in my ability to retrieve the ball myself), we nevertheless, having paid for an hour of boating time, headed off upriver for a leisurely row, mercifully not putting too many other rowers (or ourselves) in too much danger, strengthening our arm muscles, picking up a bit of sunburn, and gradually getting our heart rates back to within normal range.

Gone fishin'

Numberplate of the week

Driving from Canberra to Geelong, we came up behind a car bearing what looked from a distance to be a customised numberplate that said "FUN BOY". The car being a Rav-4-type "recreational vehicle" driven by "young people", and me being a Cranky Old Geezer, my instant reaction was, "Meh". However, on slightly closer inspection, it appeared to read "PUN BOY", a different thing entirely, and for some reason bringing to mind Ian Penman. Then, on even closer inspection, it revealed itself as "PUN 80Y", an apparently authentic New South Wales off-the-rack numberplate. The lucky bugger.

2007 (4)

So, where does all of this leave us? Looking back, as The Idolator would say, on a year in which two records stood head and shoulders above all others:

1. "Sky Blue Sky", by Wilco. From the cover photo inwards, a simply beautiful record. As Churchill almost said, never before has so little been made by so many using so much. You have three guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, frequently all happening at once, and still this music breathes. But its real power is in the songs. Tweedy himself says, on the accompanying DVD, "just play some fuckin' songs, man". And they did.

2. "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", by Spoon, which also takes sparseness to new levels. There is frequently almost nothing there, but what there is kicks in a way that music hasn't kicked for a long time.

Both, in many ways, traditional. But when it comes to a contest between quality and originality (which is NOT to concede any lack of originality in either case), quality sometimes just might win.

2007 (3)

2007 was the year in which I experienced something for, I think, the first time: use of the wrong word in a song lyric.

"The Bird And The Bee", by The Bird And The Bee, was one of my very favourite records of the year (notwithstanding its non-appearance in almost all year-end lists that I have seen - never trust a critic - one exception being Marcello Carlin). But my enjoyment of it is, I am afraid, tainted by a big howler: on the song "Because", Inara George sings "I'm lying prostate on the ground". Now, the old prostate/prostrate dichotomy is fun when (mis)applied by football commentators, but its appearance in one of the crucial (and clearest, and oft-repeated) lines in a song poses a problem: what does one do when singing along? Correct the mistake? But then one is not actually singing the song as written (and sung), but one's own, edited, version of same, and what business do I have in interfering with somebody else's song? And I've tried it: I feel like a schoolteacher. (And where would that end: "No, I'm not going to work on Maggie's farm any more"?) Perpetuate the mistake? Well, naturally I'm not comfortable with that. Not sing along at all? (Many would be grateful.) Press the "skip" button? I really don't know. It's vexing.

(Curiously, and somewhat tangentially, for some reason multiple copies of this CD appeared mid-year in Canberra's main second-hand CD shop. This could not be explained by natural attrition; I suppose they could have been review copies, but there is nothing marked on them to suggest that; could they have been hot? (But where would they have been nicked from in the first place? I don't think I've actually seen it for sale new anywhere, and you can't imagine too many shops ordering in more than one or two.) Strange. Canberra is full of little mysteries like this.)

2007 (2)

During the year I bought one of those pairs of in-your-ear headphones that Bose has latterly taken to advertising on every second Web site. They are very good headphones: the sound is clear, a lot of extraneous outside noise is filtered out, and they are comfortable. They are way better than the equivalents offered by Apple (and obviously not even comparable with the horrible phones that come with an iPod). (My only criticism is that you have to be careful not to lose the little silicone bits that stick in your ear, they are not affixed as well as they might be.)

Listening to Burial's "Untrue" through these headphones is a revelation. All the nooks and crannies of the sound are there, the bass is wicked, and generally the sound is just huge. I have no background in dubstep, and have only spent an hour or so of my life in Sarf London, so there is the sense, as with crucial seventies dub reggae (a not coincidental comparison), of surreptitiously listening in on something to which I was not invited. Plus, we are out on the cutting edge of music here. Nevertheless, if you found somebody who listened to all the right music from 1979 to 1983 and who then stopped listening to music altogether, they would experience a strong sense of continuity here. Really, only the beats have changed. Certainly, I can see why Mark K-Punk would like this: there is a lot of John Foxx in those synths.

In 12 months time I may or may not be as obsessed with this record as I am right now, but for the time being I am drawn back to it at least as strongly as I was drawn back to The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" a few months ago. It's nice to think that from my jaded and cynical standpoint I can still fall for something as simple (and complex) as a piece of music.

Will the real Raymond Carver please stand up?

This is a fascinating document.

Somewhere there is a line between editing and re-writing. (Yes, I have my own Red Pen Of Death, but it is necessarily reserved for the clearly wrong; everything else is marked in pencil for further discussion.) Wherever that line is, Gordon Lish seems to have crossed it. The story, as published, should really have been credited to "Gordon Lish writing as 'Raymond Carver'". What effect revelations like this have on Carver's reputation remain to be seen. For me, he remains in the pantheon, but nevertheless it will be difficult to re-read those early stories with the same sense of unalloyed pleasure. A seed of doubt has been sown. (Do we know who was responsible for the name change? "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", as a title, seemed to express Carver's writing in a nutshell. To find out it's not Carver at all would make for a very bad day.)

2007 (Part 1)

Two of my favourite records from this year (although not "My two favourite records from this year") were Studio's "West Coast" and A Mountain Of One's "Collected Works". Both pull off the neat trick of coming across as new by sounding old, but with the old nestled comfortably inside heavy quotation marks. Hence, what they make is "songs", not songs. (And perhaps you could argue that listening to both is "fun", not fun. But I wouldn't agree with you.)

The difficulty with this approach is that one senses that both bands are travelling at speed down a very short cul de sac. (But then, I thought the same about LCD Soundsystem, who managed to come back with an album that majestically bolstered LCD Soundsystem's undeniable Style with unexpected Substance.) (But then, I also thought the same about Dungen's "Ta Det Lugnt", and this year's "Tio Bitar" hasn't, at least for me, added much to the sum of human knowledge.) So who knows where the future lies? For now, it might be best just to enjoy the present.

Song of the day

"Turn To Earth", by Al Stewart. The drum sound on this song has been borrowed, at some point, by Broadcast.

YouTube of the day

In which Kermit The Frog gets it soooo right. Even down to the I'm Cutting My Arm Off In Little Thin Slices bit.

YouTube of the day

And also song of the day: many many days.

Song of the day

"Gila", by Beach House. New! Improved! (Maybe.) Certainly, it's been on high rotation, as would be expected for new material from Beach House, whose first, self-titled, album has been on the highest of high rotations throughout 2007. This new song features the most gorgeous of big, echoey guitars, blending in nicely with the drum machine, bass guitar and organ, and of course that voice. Sweet.

Song of the day

"Teach me how to fight", by the Junior Boys.

Two of the best albums that I bought this year and which bear the copyright date "2007" were not in fact recorded in 2007. The first of them, which should come as no surprise to regular reader(s), is Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall 1971", the missing link to beat all missing links (although, at least theoretically, "Chrome Dreams" would give it a run for its money). It's difficult to begrudge "Harvest" its massive success over the decades, but really, it's such a (typical) stylistic muddle that that success remains just a little startling. The Massey Hall recording, which sounds so good it could have been made yesterday, is, on the other hand, a Unified Theory Of Neil Young, circa 1971. Young as much as admits his mistake, in putting out "Harvest" instead of this, on the "removable" (don't try it) cover sticker.

The other one is the 2007 reissue - a whole three years after its original release! - of the Junior Boys' "Last Exit". Bart once explained to me the difference between the first two Mazzy Star albums by saying that "She Hangs Brightly" has the higher highlights but that "So Tonight That I Might See" is the consistently better record. Whilst one might disagree with the example given (personally, I have such a soft spot for "She Hangs Brightly" that I cannot listen to it objectively, but I think I know what he is getting at), one can use the description as a way to compare the two Junior Boys albums. There are four songs on "Last Exit" that cannot fail to make you go weak at the knees. "Teach me how to fight" is perhaps the most affecting of those; that recurring synth line hits me like it's 1981. (Or 2.) The second album, on the other hand (and this is where the Mazzy Star analogy entirely falls apart because one half of the JBs left between the first and second albums), doesn't reach the heights of unreleased tension that are so brilliantly employed on the debut, and yet it is a delight to listen to from one end to the other. (One might question where the music industry is headed - hey, there's a new idea - with seemingly instant repackaging of still-warm music (Boards of Canada's "Music Has A Right To Children", Fennesz's "Endless Summer") but (naughty) I didn't own "Last Exit" until I found this 2007 reissue second-hand a couple of weeks ago, AND it contains remixes by Fennesz and Manitoba, so at least in my case it serves several purposes at once. If you already owned the original album I don't know that you would be shelling out again.)

Baby's got a blog

Pinakothek.

Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men?

The Shadow knows.

Song of the year?

In a year which didn't contain a song as instantly captivating as "1 Thing" or "Crazy", we are forced to fall back on the old rule that a song that compels you to turn it up the second it starts, no matter how many times you have heard it, is a Good Song. This year, that song has been "Atlas" by Battles, with its insistent drum beat, crispness of sound, and just-in-time-for-the-movie Alvin and the Chipmunks vocals. For probably the first time since early REM it is possible to love a song without having a clue what they are singing about. (The singer is hooked? The kitchen is cooked?) Oh, and it looks good, too.

Best of Both Worlds

Two songs thrown up in succession by the sh-sh-shuffle perhaps encapsulate the two extremes of what I am looking for in a song. Okay, it's just two songs at random, and any other two songs chosen at random might be able to be analysed in the same way, but there you are. First we have the Marine Girls' version of "Fever": charm; brevity; a kind of goodnatured naivete; taking a good song and making something new out of it; Tracey Thorn's voice. Then we get "Halleluwah", by Can: strength through repetition; experimentation; length; a sense of the unknown; Jaki Leibezeit's drumming.

And all things in between, obviously.

The funny thing was, the very next song to shuffle up was Talking Heads' "Electric Guitar", from "Fear of Music". I don't recall ever having connected Talking Heads and Can before. But knock me down with a feather, the two songs have an almost identical rhythm. (And it's not the kind of rhythm you have ever really heard anywhere else. If I didn't already over-use the word "counterintuitive" I would be using it again here.) Who knew?

"Ways to skin a hepcat"

The above phrase, the context of which we shall get to, is by Mark Sinker, semi-dormant link at right, one-time writer for the NME, one-time writer for and editor of The Wire, writer for Sight and Sound, of latter years appearing less frequently than we would like, a writer we always looked up to, someone who may be considered a more-low-than-highbrow but equally articulate English Adam Gopnik, someone who is able to draw together threads you had never thought of, and who regularly sends you off in directions you never expected to go, lover of Moomins, someone about whom Mark E Smith either did or did not write a song ("Mark'll Sink Us"), now masquerading around Freaky Trigger, The Poptimists, ILM and the like under the moniker P^nk Lord Sukrat Cunctor (go figure).

But why is he here? Because you can now read a piece of long-form writing by him responding to the death of Richard Cook, one-time writer for the NME, one-time writer for and editor of The Wire, whom I also, for many years, looked upon with awe and for crucial guidance (when I wasn't silently cursing his contrarian ways, viz. glowing reviews of The P*l*ce, of David Bowie's "Let's Dance"; it was so typical of him to take over The Wire and put Michael Jackson on the cover). Sinker writes typically astutely and candidly here of the nature of music, of writing about music, and of the perils of magazine editing. If you have ever been of the view that music criticism needs to be more than just a consumer guide, you would do well to go across and read it (hint: scroll down).

Election night special

Let me see now, where were we? Oh, yes, the election.

About 25 years ago - March 1983 to be precise, the start of my second year at University - a bunch of like-minded individuals gathered together around a television set to cheer in the election from opposition of a Labor government for the first time since 1972, when we were too young to know much at all but from which we remembered the words "It's time".

Now, a generation later, another bunch of equally fresh-faced individuals were, presumably, gathered around a television somewhere doing the same. On Saturday night I felt happy for them.

Twenty-five years seems like a long electoral full-circle, but there you go. I wonder how many of those 1983 revellers, well into careers as doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants or merchant bankers, are still fighting the good fight.

Oh. And I am no longer named after the only sitting Prime Minister to lose his seat at a general election. "John Howard Emmerson" will have to wait for the next generation.

Bad politics, baby

Tomorrow we vote.

Twice in the months before the start of the election campaign I had the feeling that we were about to witness the unedifying spectacle of a government falling apart before our very eyes.

It was not to be, and the government has actually run a pretty credible campaign, given the limitations that were imposed on it, or which it imposed on itself.

Nevertheless, in a country where the prime minister (a) largely sets the agenda as to the direction the country is to head in and yet (b) is not elected, but rather is chosen by the party which holds the majority of seats in the lower house, and in accordance with whatever obscure and arcane rules that party follows in making that choice, it seems to me an insurmountable leap of faith to ask voters to choose a party whose leader has made it a campaign platform that he won't in fact be the leader "at some point" during the next term. In other words, we are being asked to put the future direction of the country in the hands of, well, nobody can say for certain, or at all, effusive praise (in some quarters) for the incumbent treasurer notwithstanding.

And in any event, as you know, I am rigid with fear over the issue of climate change, and neither of the major parties has really come to grips with the magnitude of the problems facing us all. Hence, although I have never entertained the idea of voting for a single-issue party (what if everybody did that?), the single issue this time around so far outweighs everything else (i.e., if we don't sort out climate change it doesn't really matter what your mortgage interest rate is) that the Greens must come into contention. (I quite like their "two Bobs' worth" television ad, too, for what that's worth. I had no idea Bob Brown had a sense of humour.) Tomorrow night, all will be revealed.

Meanwhile, on with the show.

Song of the day

Pelle Carlberg, "Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls". As compensation for the longer than usual wait between Belle and Sebastian albums, may I recommend this jaunty slice of sunshine pop.

Local content

I like how the Canberra Times is always keen to put a local slant on the stories of the day. (A friend once described the ideal Canberra Times headline for us: "Grass grew on the Tuggeranong Parkway".)

For example, today's Ben Cousins Story is along the lines that whilst it is highly unlikely that Ben Cousins will play in the local australian rules competition next year, it would provide the kind of low-key playing environment that just might do him the world of good. And they may just be right (on both counts).

Echoes of Frozen Faces

The first, self-titled album by Neu!, from 1971, has influenced so much of what has come after it that making a list is futile if not impossible. But, M Ward? How, you might say, could there be any possible connection between him and them? And yet it's there. I swear. Take a listen to the final track, "Lieber Honig", and imagine you are listening to something from "Transfiguration of Vincent". And you could be. It's kind of like staring into one of those magic eye pictures. (Well, not at all like that, really.)

"We're a service industry" of the day

We thought we should stop for coffee before I went in to work today. We stopped. We ordered. We waited. No coffee came. Those who arrived after us were enjoying their coffee. I could wait no longer. I had to get to work. I went to the counter and said: "I'm sorry; our coffees haven't come and I have to get to work. Can you scratch them off the list?" The person behind the counter (who was also the person who took our order; we are regulars there, "the usual" is a known quantity) said: "Okay, no problem." We left.

It only struck me later that this was a slightly odd response. The problem was wholly ours: loss of half an hour's work time for no coffee is no quid pro quo. I will see what kind of belated apology I get tomorrow. As Dick Cheney would say, all options are on the table.

Film review

Saw "Michael Clayton". Liked it.

It's Only Words

Those who know me would be aware of my unhealthy obsession with bad translations of foreign material, with a particular interest in instructions for electronic products. This now ties in nicely with my equally unhealthy obsession with the New Yorker, from the 16 November 1940 issue of which comes this extract from the preface for a book published in China entitled "Correctly English in Hundred Days". If they typed it correctly, and I have re-typed it correctly, it is all "sic".

This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wished to served for the foreign firms. It divided nearly hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language. This book is clearly, easily, to the Chinese young man or scholar. If it is quite understood, that will be satisfaction.

Indeed it will.

Memo to Weird Al Yankovic

We have discovered that you can sing "I'm feeling queasy" to the tune of "Crazy", by Gnarls Barkley. We will not be pursuing this idea any further. It's yours if you want it.

What did you do on the weekend?

1. We got a lot done in the garden. Two and a half rows of carrots planted; tomato plants transferred from pots into beds; planted two new jasmine bushes to replace the dead and/or dying stumps that have languished by the side fence for several years; contemplated replacing the back lawn with paving, fruit trees, and a bigger veggie patch; harvested a couple of bowls of strawberries. Mmmm. Gardening really is the new rock and roll.

2. I re-read the two volumes of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", in anticipation of the release (finally!) - possibly as early as tomorrow - of, not Volume III, which is slated for publication in three parts in 2008 (as if), but something called "The Black Dossier", which, well, I'm sure we'll know it when we see it. (Moore has a unique ability to drag out the publication of his most important works, beyond the patience of most ordinary mortals. Does anybody else remember the interminable waits for the last couple of issues of "Watchmen", back when it was first coming out in "monthly" parts? "From Hell", too, limped out in fits and starts over a very long period of time - and bounced from publisher to publisher, just like "League". And then there's "Big Numbers", which remains stalled on issue 2, and has been for, what, almost 20 years. We live in hope.)

3. We had a nice walk along the lake.

4. We checked out the John Brack exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Brack is a stunning artist, formidably skilled and with a great vision. (Perhaps I like him because of the natural affinity I see that he has with the comic book artists I most like (see: the Raw artists; Daniel Clowes - who, if you haven't been keeping up with his New York Times serialised strip, well, you're a fool, because it started off pretty good and just keeps getting better); in fact, some of the people in Brack's portraits wouldn't at all look out of place in a Clowes strip.)

5. I listened to Masada's "Live in Sevilla 2000". One of my many regrets in life, but one of the bigger ones, is never getting the chance to see Masada play live. (We did attempt to see Greg Gohen's own group at an afternoon show at the Knitting Factory in NYC back in 1996, but it was cancelled. On the other hand, we were introduced to the joy of vodka and cranberry juice: it's an ill wind etc.) Anyone who feels obliged to perpetuate the canard that Zorn cannot, like, "play" the saxophone, man, should listen to the first four minutes of the final piece on this disc, "Bith Aneth".

6. And, like, family stuff, y'know.

The "d" of "th"

Regarding yesterday's entry: I may have been a little harsh in one aspect of my criticism. I now see that yesterday's Melbourne Age refers to Murali as "Muralidaran". Cricinfo, however, has "Muralitharan", which is how it has traditionally appeared. I wonder if Murali is having an identity crisis. (This reminds me, very slightly, of the "Ejaz F" brouhaha from some years ago. The "F" being short for "Faqih", which was apparently more than some sensitive Channel Nine viewers could take.)

[Meanwhile, speaking of yesterday's Age, Tim Lane has an excellent piece highlighting the AFL's hypocrisy regarding (a) Ben Cousins and (b) Richard Pratt.]

The curse of modernity, part 193

Today being Saturday, I took the opportunity to watch a few overs of the first cricket Test between Australia and Sri Lanka. But what kind of cut-rate third-world coverage is Channel Nine offering this year? The modern trend is to cover the screen in "useful" facts and figures (we get it in the AFL coverage, too, with regular updates as to who has, for example, "gone missing"), but it is probably worth ensuring that the person responsible for same has some basic literacy skills. In the short time that I was watching, I saw three mis-spelled Sri Lankan players' names: "Muralidaran" (phonetically not far off); and (on the one screen) "Jayawardena" and "Jayawardane" (presumably to help viewers distinguish between two players inconveniently born with the same surname, Jayawardene). Plus one gratuitous typo, "comparsion". Sigh, give me Kerry O'Keeffe any day.

Last Thoughts on Neil Young

1. I don't think I want to listen to Neil Young again for a little while. But I probably will.

2. How is it that, when Neil is singing in that wobbly high-pitched voice he often uses, I could swear I was listening to Thurston Moore?

3. If the word "shambolic" has any reason for existing, it is to describe Neil Young in the 1970s.

4. I would sure like to hear Crazy Horse let loose in a live situation on "Danger Bird", breaking through the frustrating fade-out on the "Zuma" version, and working it to its logical conclusion some, say, 15 minutes further on.

5. Could somebody please explain the song "After The Gold Rush"?

Listen Now

This just in:

David Kilgour live on Minnesota Public Radio. Enjoy.

(link courtesy largehearted boy)

Life During Wartime

Of the many time-wasting activities in my personal canon, the one that is most interesting, if useless, at the moment, is my ongoing project of reading, in "real time", the New Yorker as it appeared throughout the years of the Second World War. Right now we are in late October 1940, in other words the middle of the Blitz. Each week Mollie Panter-Downes files a short but mesmerising report on how London is coping with life in what can only be described as a Living Hell. Reading history is one thing; reading contemporary accounts, from people who (obviously!) don't know what's going to happen, is both fascinating and inexplicably exciting (i.e. I know what happens, and yet I can still see it through the eyes of those who don't). A couple of weeks ago her report didn't appear in the magazine; and I spent the next seven days anxious for her safety (even though, as I know, she continued to write for the magazine for many more years).

And then when I've done that, there is Test Cricket to be followed. Never a dull moment.

Song of the day

Every so often the International Man Of Crate-Digging Mystery who is bumrocks.com uncovers a track that lifts you out of your shoes and attaches electrodes to your head. He (or she) has done it again, with "Desintegracion", by Tabaco, an awesome slice of hard-edged psychedelic rock. Googling around reveals that it is from an album of the same name, from 1971, and that Tabaco hailed from Spain. Unsurprisingly, Tabaco otherwise remain somewhat obscure. (There appears to have been a two-CD reissue of this a few years back; the danger, I have found, with such surprising one-off tracks is that the rest of the associated album doesn't have what it takes. See, for example, "Edge Of Time" by Dom.)

And if you're verra verra quick, you can click across and download this little beauty for yourself.

Song of the day

"Shake It Off", by Wilco. I still have no idea what lay behind the negative response across the Internet to Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky". As the year has gone on, my love for it has only grown stronger, to the point where I now have my very own copy. (!) (It even comes with a "bonus" DVD, which I will, in accordance with normal practice, assume - at least until I watch it - to be entirely useless.) Perhaps you have to be as old as, or older than, Jeff Tweedy to really appreciate where this album is coming from. Perhaps you need to be well versed in Television's "Marquee Moon" and other records of that era and ilk. Perhaps it just wasn't "experimental" enough for some people's liking. (Whatever that might mean. To my ears at least, the album is anything but straight four on the floor.) Perhaps end-of-year results will show that it has been a "grower".

Anyway, "Shake It Off" just jumped into my head, so it must be the song of the day.

Song of the day

"The World May Never Know", by Dr Dog. Aside from the nice mental image conjured up by the band name, I like this song for the pleasant early-70s vibe it gives off. I have heard other stuff by Dr Dog which I have liked a lot, and yet other stuff I haven't liked at all. That gives you a lot of useful information, doesn't it?

Halloween has its uses

(photo found on drawn and quarterly's website's blog)

And speaking of same, the second Moomin comic strip collection is now "in stores", and I am hoping mine is flying its way to Australia as we speak.

Halloween video of the day

Here.

Hacienda, Manchester, 1982. Link via idolator.com.

I used to think that if Halloween existed in our country (it now does, and I wish it didn't - a licence for kids to essentially come and knock on your door and say "give me some lollies" (like, someone thought this was a Good Idea?) - last night one of our neighbours did just that, and didn't even go through the least motions of dressing up) it would be totally scary just to dress up as Nick Cave. (Now he has that facial-hair thing happening it would be, if anything, even more scary.) I actually still own one of the original "Eeeek!" t-shirts put out by Philip Brophy and Bruce Milne, notionally a graphic representation of the lead character in the original version of "The Fly", but actually, I suspect, a photograph of Nick Cave with a giant fly head superimposed on top.

Song of the day

"A Little Lost", by Jens Lekman. One thing about eMusic is that it is inclined to hide its leading lights under a bushel. An example is "Four Songs By Arthur Russell", a self-explanatory offering collated by our hero of the moment, Jens Lekman, and featuring one song by Jens himself. One tackles an Arthur Russell song at one's own peril, Russell himself being such a singular artist, but Jens is up to the challenge. In fact, the entire record (or digital equivalent) is highly worthy of your attention.

Song of the day

Three songs actually: "What A Day That Was", "Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)" and "Light Bath", by David Byrne. I had forgotten that not that long ago I picked up for very little money the complete David Byrne score for the Twyla Tharp dancepiece "The Catherine Wheel". Heard in its entirety it is even more impressive than the original vinyl release (even if its highlights are the same highlights) and proves that Byrne didn't need Brian Eno to prop him up. (The music throughout, perhaps unsurprisingly, sits somewhere between "Remain In Light" and "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", particularly "Mountain Of Needles" from the latter.) The three songs listed above comprise the final ten minutes of the score, and are, in a word, thrilling.

Song of the day

"Black Crow", by Linda Hoyle. With thanks to the always interesting Art Decade. Art Decade claims to specialise in the music of the "long seventies", which I would put as the years 1966 to 1983, wherein, of course, can be found most of the best music ever made. (I could mount, I think, a compelling argument that one build a near-perfect music collection drawing only on this range of years. Obviously significant musical markers would be missed, but, as I have recently discovered (more later), you can't listen to everything or you'll likely go mad.)

Anyway, speaking of levels of obsessiveness (we have and we will be), in tracking down information on this wonderful piece of piano-and-guitar-driven, what, psych-folk-rock?, female Todd Rundgren?, proto-Quatro?, I fell upon a seemingly bottomless website entirely devoted to records bearing the Vertigo "swirl", with a depth of detail and, I suppose, "scholarship" that defies belief. Seriously, I am not worthy. Take a look for yourself, and get lost. (Literally.) Sample: "6360 061
not released in Britain, BUT IT WAS RELEASED IN PERU!
please refer to the Peru page." It is sentences like those that make life worth living.

YouTube of the day

Here.

Best line: "You can be a coffee achiever."

Neil Young: Reprise

If one good thing has come out of the release by Neil Young of an album entitled "Chrome Dreams II", it is the appearance, in various corners of the Internet, of diverse collections of songs claiming to be a digital simulacrum of the original "Chrome Dreams", which was scheduled for release in 1978 but shelved in favour of one of his lesser regarded efforts, "American Stars 'n' Bars". What you hear may not be as Neil intended, but it certainly fits in with the overall character of his 1970s oeuvre. Which is to say, it's all over the place, but frequently in a good way.

And, if you pick up your copy from Aquarium Drunkard, be sure to also acquire what must be a world first: a bonus disc of "extra tracks" - for a bootleg release of an "album" that may never have even existed. What will they think of next?

Stylus quote of the week

From Andrew Iliff's otherwise over-my-head (and ultimately futile) Roxy Music career overview (there was never just one "Roxy Music", lending itself to a career trajectory as such; there were three distinct, and entirely separate, "Roxy Musics"), this quote stands out as a beautiful summation of Brian Eno's involvement with two bands, a decade apart:

If there is a Roxy/U2 succession - from one doubtfully coiffed anthemic narcissist in the service of Brian Eno's closeted rock star animus to the next ...

Krautrock artifact of the day

This looks interesting.

Bumper sticker of the week

Hello to the Canberra driver whose car bears the message "Republicans For Voldemort". (And good luck in next year's presidential election.)

Song of the day

"My Soul, My Soul", by Richard Thompson. I borrowed a couple of recent Richard Thompson CDs from the local library. RT as an album artist is a difficult proposition. In fact, Fairport Convention aside, there is only really one individual RT album that bears the designation "instant classic": you know which one (it's actually Richard and Linda together, not incidentally). Otherwise, his albums are a bit all over the place. Which makes the standout nature of the three-disc compilation "Watching The Dark" such a surprise. Although perhaps it shouldn't be. The signal achievement of RT is his guitar playing. Whether or not it is matched to compatible songwriting, it is never less than excellent on its own terms. But it's not always so matched. "Front Parlour Ballads", from which this song comes, is as good a case in point as any. There are a few quite good songs; a few that just drift by; a few that just seem to have dropped off the conveyor belt, having bypassed quality control. (Oh, I really do hate it when I have to say negative things about my heroes.) But stunning playing all through. (I can also listen to his voice irrespective of context, but that's not for everybody.) Nevertheless, you are hardly going to reach for this disc off the shelf in preference to any of your otherwise favourite records (RT or otherwise).

Still, "My Soul, My Soul" would fit readily onto any RT collection. It comes from what I consider to be the Fairport Convention end of his various song "types". Which is a good place for a Richard Thompson song to reside.

Song of the day

"It Happened", by Dirty Three. Because it was the first song I heard this morning after an extended stop-off at the National Library's cafe, in order to finish the third book of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass". There were silent tears. I stepped out into the light.

This song, like life itself, is fleetingly beautiful.

Song of the day

"The Nurse", by The White Stripes. To me, this sounds like Hot Chip trying to lay down one of their smooth indie pop grooves in the studio, with Animal from the Muppets crashing the party in his own inimitable style. Plus, as the boys pointed out, the start of the song is identical to the Rugrats theme music.

Also, I must have heard the song "My Doorbell" a couple of hundred times, without for a minute suspecting it was by White Stripes. Actually, I don't know if I ever really thought about who it was by, but I had in mind someone like Amerie or someone of that ilk. Which, I hope, is some kind of a compliment to their being able to pull off what I think they were trying to do.

I still the internet

Even though I can't be in New York , I can, thanks to modern technology, sit back comfortably to watch this public fireside chat between New Yorker editor David Remnick and prized investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. It is a fascinating evening's entertainment, not only for the typically incisive and frightening things Hersh has to say about the present administration, but also for giving a rare insight into the relationship between writer and editor, a relationship which sits somewhere between that of employer and employee on the one hand, and husband and wife on the other.

If it's done right. And the New Yorker has always done it right. You can also see glimpses here of why David Remnick was the right person to be handed the baton. Five editors in 82 years: that's a weighty ball to drop (I would argue, in the minority, that Tina Brown didn't drop it at all, but rather reinflated it and kept it in play), and Remnick looks to have what it takes. Which, exactly, I have no idea what that is. But Remnick himself writes, he digs for stories, so he understands, and relates well with, a guy like Hersh. Anyway, watch the video.

Song of the day

"Down by the River", by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The deeper I descend into this perilous Neil Young phase of mine, the more I get the feeling that Young, like Dylan, is not an artist who can, or even wants to, be defined in terms of individual albums. Rather, he puts out albums as occasional collections of Songs Wot I Wrote. In this respect, "Decade" works for Young as "Biograph" worked for Dylan (and as the new "Dylan" set doesn't), as a much better summary of (one part of) a career. Note the extensive inclusion, in both cases, of non-album and even unreleased tracks, not the usual fare for retrospectives of Big Name Artists.

Anyway, of Neil Young's "major" albums, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" comes perhaps closest to embodying a unified aesthetic vision. It may well be a mess, but it is a mess that is all of one type. And it is frequently a glorious mess. Nowhere more so than "Down by the River", 11 minutes of twin-guitar grind. Back in the late 1970s, when I used to read Rolling Stone from cover to cover, someone once wrote, I think in relation to "Rust Never Sleeps", that Crazy Horse are a band that manage to sound fast by playing slow. Or something like that. (The particular reference may have been to "Welfare Mothers".) I think this song also gives an clue as to what that writer was getting at; and that he or she (most likely he) wasn't far from the mark, notwithstanding how ridiculous it seemed to me when I read it.

Song of the day

"Words of Wisdom", by Cedric Im Brooks & The Light of Saba. From the album "Cedric Im Brooks & The Light of Saba", which is one of a long list of albums that have long been known to me by reputation alone. Well, this one at least I have now heard, and it proves to be a joyful amalgam of musical styles ranging from ska, reggae and 1970s soul to African music (in some places the Africa of Fela Kuti, in others that of Mulatu Astatke, whom Jim Jarmusch brought to some degree of notice by way of his underrated most recent film, "Broken Flowers"). This particular song is at the soulful roots reggae end of the spectrum, and is distinguished, as is the entire album, by some really lovely horn work.

Presumably "The Light of Saba" does not refer to a furniture showroom that existed in Melbourne in the early 1980s.

By Chance

1. "Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey: Uncle Gabby"

It was a slow library day, so on spec I borrowed the above, being a short graphic novel / sequential pictorial narrative story / comic book written and drawn by Tony Millionaire (coloured by someone else, and colour is an important part of its charm, but still). I had seen Millionaire's name around the traps, but if he is also millionaire by nature it is no thanks to me. Well, I read it and was staggered. It is really, really good. Most solo graphic novelists work in a kind of alchemy which allows them to offer a finished product that is greater than you would expect from considering just their individual story-writing and drawing skills. Adrian Tomine, for example, as much as I like his stuff, still has a way to go as a writer. But it is good enough to allow him to become a fine graphic novelist and not just a purveyor of gorgeous New Yorker covers. Seth, of course, is a genius at both drawing and writing; so is Kevin Huizenga; but such is rare. Even Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, wonderful though they both are, would perhaps seem less than that if their writing and their drawing both had to stand up on their own. (None of this is meant as individual criticism. Those of us who can neither write nor draw can only look on in awe at these freaks of nature.) But this simple little book, about the adventures of a few old stuffed toys, demonstrates real talent in both the writing and drawing departments. Being the good scientist, I tested my theory. It was a delight to look at. It was a pleasure to read. Together, hey, it was unstoppable. I need to dig further.

2. Gillian Welch

Yesterday I fluked upon an iTunes-only live EP by Gillian Welch, released early 2006, about which I previously knew nothing. $5.07 (Australian) later, it was on my hard drive. And was money well spent, not only but including because it reminded me of the hauntingly perfect show they put on in Canberra a couple of years back. Their version of "Pocahontas" is a beautiful take on a beautiful song, and ties in scarily well with my current Neil Young obsession. (Presumably I wasn't the only obsessive to be eluded by this: it isn't mentioned in Stylus's extraordinarily thorough runthrough of Neil Young covers.)

3. Life Without Buildings

Straight to the top of bands I can't believe I never knew existed. Their sole studio album, "Any Other City", comes at me from the place where all the great albums come from. Which, I'm not sure exactly where that place is, but to be simplistic about it (if only because this record gets me in a way that is too personal for words), they sound not unlike if you combined, say, Television and The Feelies, and threw a female Mark E Smith in front (in that the singer declaims rather than sings, and seems as interested, in a lovely way, with the sounds words make as with the words themselves), if Mark E Smith were ever to sing about matters of the heart. None of which does this magnificent record justice. And to think, if they hadn't released a posthumous live album called, I think, "Live at the Annandale Hotel", and if the Annandale Hotel, in Sydney, wasn't a name I associate with another group that still mean more to me than I can put into words, The Cannanes, then I probably wouldn't have given Life Without Buildings a second thought other than to note that their name sounds like a couple of Talking Heads songs mashed in a blender.

Song of the day

"Christmas", by Beat Happening. Which appears on the CD version of their first, self-titled LP. And in which Calvin, in the lowest of lo-fi surroundings, succinctly and accurately defines the human condition: "Disappointment. Heartache. Pain."

YouTubes of the day

One

Two

Three

The hypothetical mixtape series: September 2007

It's still October, so it can't possibly be time for the September hypothetical mixtape. And yet.

The Notekillers, "Clock Wise". A few years ago, I did some volunteer work with Melbourne radio station 3PBS (if WFMU did not exist, PBS might lay some claim to being the best radio station in the world; seriously). Anyway, one of the presenters was a mild-mannered bank manager, always neat and tidy, dressed in suit and tie. The only hint that something was amiss was a pair of razor-sharp sideburns. This guy, it turns out, was the presenter of a heavy metal show called something like "The Red Stink of Metal". Who knew? But a couple of years prior to this, I might have been that guy. There I was, living in a country town, working as a solicitor, suit and tie, etc, going home at night to a diet of loud, heavy guitars. Big Black. Husker Du. Feedtime. Sonic Youth. Band of Susans. Ut. Dinosaur Jr. Minutemen. And if it wasn't guitars it was industrial noise. Einsturzende Neubauten, for example. Or John Zorn's headkicking Ornette Coleman "tribute" "Spy Vs Spy". Yes, that was me. (One of the highlights of those years was finding on the doorstep a parcel of records airmailed from a certain Doctor Jim, who was then on a world tour and, I suppose, figured that someone might as well be listening to his stash while he remained o/s.) Again, who knew? (Before long, Adrienne was quick to disabuse me of the notion that music had to be in some way unpleasant or "difficult" to be worthy of attention; one only of the many things for which I am eterally grateful to her.) Point? Oh yes, The Notekillers, of whom I had no knowledge at all until a couple of tracks appeared on the wonderful Art Decade, would have fitted perfectly into my listening schedule. So perfectly that I feel I owe them an apology: where was I when they needed me?

Junior Senior, "Move Your Feet". The moral of that story being, I can now happily jump around the house to songs like this. I think that makes me a better, more well-rounded person. Or a sad, pathetic sell-out.

Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66, "Scarborough Fair". And yet, even through those dark and twisted days, the magic of op-shop records was always there. This version of a song I have long deemed unlistenable is gorgeous, up there with their version of "My Favourite Things", which Adrienne says outdoes even Coltrane, and in my weaker moments I can almost agree.

Cibo Matto, "Sugar Water (Acoustic)". To paraphrase the very wise Roy Slaven and H G Nelson, too many versions of this song are barely enough.

Milton Nascimento and Lo Borges, "Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser". It must be time for a Brazilian. Or two.

Gimmicks, "California My Way". Perfect for the approaching antipodean summer, which looks like being long and hot.

Reigning Sound, "When You Touch Me". Loud fast rules.

The Come Ons, "Keep The Change". I love (a) the organ and (b) the album title ("Hip Check") and (c) the album cover. Oh, and the guitar. Plus the fact that they have put out a seven-inch single entitled "Play Selections From The Françoise Hardy Songbook".

The Professionals, "Theme From The Godfather". This may be the greatest four minutes of music I have ever heard. And (obviously) I am not even exaggerating.

Belbury Poly, "Tangled Beams". So this is Hauntology? It reminds me of Broadcast, actually. They probably frequent the same library.

Hanne Hukkelberg, "Do Not As I Do". It wouldn't be a hypothetical mixtape without some warm and friendly Scandinavian pop.

Rheingold, "DreiKlangsDimensionen". Not exactly krautrock, but not exactly not krautrock, I am guessing this is of the genre known as NDV. It must be from the end of the seventies. But I don't know and I don't really care. It's stunning.

Seelenluft, "Horse With No Name". Ooh look, another song that by rights should have gone to the knackers' yard long ago. But here it is, stripped of its America(n)ness, and I could happily listen to it all day. The guy who wrote this song was on Spicks and Specks not so long ago. He seemed like a nice chap.

The Memory Band, "This Is How We Walk On The Moon". It's an Arthur Russell song. Do I need to say anything more? I suppose, if you needed a reference point, you might think Four Tet plus a violin. If you had to.

Amorphous Androgynous, "Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead". This is what "Astral Weeks" might have sounded like if it didn't have Van Morrison wailing away over the top of it and generally getting in the way. (Obviously, I don't mean that at all.) Curiously, Amorphous Androgynous is actually Future Sound Of London, whom I have long felt I should get to know a bit better.

Mouse On Mars, "Schnick-schnack". And a little voice said, "That sounds like her from Stereolab". And so it came to pass, presumably done as a payback for the work MOM did with Stereolab on "Dots and Loops", still I think my favourite Stereolab record, even in the face of fierce competition from almost any other Stereolab record.

Beck, "Cellphone's Dead (Villalobos Entlebuch Remix)". Ricardo Villalobos does this interesting trick with time. Take this song. At around the five minute mark you start to think, Okay, I'm about done with this. And then, before you know it, 12 minutes have passed, and you find that you have gone to another place and back again. Without even noticing. And it happens every time. I don't know how he does it.

Song of the day

"Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread", by Bob Dylan, with The Band, from "The Basement Tapes". I have no idea why. It is completely silly, disarmingly so (hence its charm?), but the music offers the best kind of understated but definitely forward momentum.

Song of the day

"Drowning In You", by Pluramon. This is brand new Pluramon, allegedly from a forthcoming LP. I find it difficult to "read" individual Pluramon songs absent any kind of context; a bit like looking at a panoramic view through a keyhole. But this one sounds pretty nice, and bodes well for the new record.

Anyway, new Pluramon songs don't come around all that often, so a week that starts with one must surely be going to be a good week.

Your bad

More on climate change. You can't really argue with this. At least, you shouldn't be able to. But somebody will. And that somebody will have much more power and influence than you.

Song of the day

"Walk On", by Neil Young. I am heavily into a big Neil Young phase at the moment (it was bound to happen sooner or later). I am being guided primarily by Woebot's recommendations. I last followed Neil Young back in 1979, when I was 15, with "Rust Never Sleeps". Now I am going backwards, not forwards. You never know what you are going to find. "Walk On", the opening song from "On The Beach" (1974), brings to mind nothing so much as De La Soul; it carries a particular lilt that they would have been proud of. Other parts of "On The Beach" bring to mind (for a brief fragment) Marine Girls and (first minute of "Ambulance Blues") Robert Forster. Neil Young predicts the future. It is perhaps no wonder the album didn't find its place in the world until 29 years after it was first released.

Things I learned today

That Sputnik was no bigger than a basketball. I had never really thought about this before. I don't know how big I would have thought it would have been, but I would have thought it would have been, you know, big.

That before they put those guys on the moon no human being had ever seen Earth from space. Again, I had never really thought about it. But it is pretty amazing, isn't it? I wonder what we thought it would look like. And how it made people feel to actually see where we sit in the bigger picture. It might have stopped people from starting wars, for instance. Except it didn't. Now we have Google Earth allowing us to sit at our desks spinning that little ball all day, like the gods we are. Or something.

Song of the day

"Impossible (Possible remake by Studio)", by the Shout Out Louds. About the Shout Out Louds I know less than nothing. But this song will stay on repeat until the end of time. Its blend of Cure and New Order early-80s old (not New) romanticism sends my mind drifting back to a time when everything was good, and the world was indeed a World of Possibility. I haven't heard the original song, if indeed there is one, but to me this sounds more Studio than Shout Out Louds. Apologies to the latter if I am wrong in this.

If not I'll just die

I created a YSI link for The Reels' take on "This Guy's In Love (With You)", from the K-Tel "Beautiful" album, for the comments box of Marcello's new venture. If anyone else is interested in hearing this fine Australian cover version, all you have to do is go here. Don't thank me, thank Dave Mason. And buy "Reelsville", his new album wherein he "covers" his own songs (including "covers" of his own previous covers of other people's songs: hey, kids, post-modernism).

Song of the day

"A Sad Lament", by Orange Juice. "Texas Fever", although it contains only six songs, has always been my Orange Juice of choice. I thought it came closest to Edwyn Collins' presumed vision of a merger of Motown with the Velvet Underground, and with a minimum of (a) outside interference and (b) delusions of stardom. Pure speculation on my part admittedly. If the final 75 seconds of "A Sad Lament" have a fault, it is simply that they are only 75 seconds, and not the five minutes or so that are clearly warranted. Well, that's what the rewind button is for, I guess. (The what?)

GDMFiTunes

Okay, so Wes Anderson's short film "Hotel Chevalier" is available for download, free, from iTunes. Except, as punishment for living in Australia, my iTunes account won't let me download it, because I have no US dollar credit card. Even though it's free. And it's not available in the Australian iTunes store. What's with all that?

Somebody. Gotta. Help. Me. Please. I'm desperate.

One day in September

This year I will be watching the AFL Grand Final on television at home, with my family, as nature intended. That way I can take part in the traditional Half Time Mowing Of The Lawns ceremony.

(And we will be barracking for Geelong.)

Song of the day

"The Song Remains The Same", by Led Zeppelin. When this comes on, and at first you don't know what it is, and your brain is attempting to put all the pieces in place, you will be convinced, for the first ten seconds or so, that what you are listening to is The Clean, or to be precise David Kilgour. Does this mean that Kilgour is a closet Rock God, or just that he and Jimmy Page use the same guitar?

Song of the day

"Bone", by Map of Africa. There appears to be rather a lot of Internet hate for the Map of Africa album. I can't see why that should be the case. Maybe it was made by the wrong people. Maybe the right people made the wrong record. Maybe the methodology was suspect. For myself, and possibly this is an age thing, I have no problem with somebody creating a seventies vibe using 21C technology, especially when (based on the three tracks I have heard) it's done this well.

Stickin' it to the man

This blog would like to express its support for the poor, oppressed monks and everyday people in Burma as they do the collective equivalent of throwing open the window and screaming "We're not going to take it any more".

We might then make a few comments about the usual fate of such "uprisings", and how and why they occur, but as usual George Packer says it all much better than we ever could.

"Imagine that"

The scene: listening, at a good volume, to "Heavy Denim" by Stereolab.

Dad: This song sounds to me like riding down a hill very fast on a bicycle with no brakes and hoping you aren't going to crash into anything.

Seven-year-old: It sounds like a rock song.

Song of the day (mine, not his)

"Lady Bug (Larry Levan Mix)" by Bumblebee Unlimited. What this is, is, a novelty record pure and simple, and yet one that transcends its novelty status by reason of its containing absolutely everything you could hope to find in a ten-minute disco "epic". Respect.

Song of the day (his, not mine)

Marcello Carlin's new (perhaps temporary, but let's hope not) venture is definitely worthy of your time. Oh, and look, he's linked to me. I'm blushing. Again.

I wonder if his picks are genuine inspirations "as of today" (as it says on the tin) or whether he is making a list (and checking it twice). Not that it matters.

Gimme Indie Rock

SFJ recently wrote some kind words about Elvis Costello's "Trust". At least I think they were kind words; with SFJ it's not always easy to tell. The funny thing is, around the same time I found myself listening to it as well, something I haven't done for a number of years (it's easy, but wrong, to allow the bad memory of later Elvis's frequently misguided projects to obscure the fact that with "Get Happy!!", "Trust", "Almost Blue" and "Imperial Bedroom" he was responsible for possibly the strongest four-album run we've ever seen; and the three albums he put out before those were no slouches either).

Coincidence? Or something else? What drew me back to "Trust" was a solid stint of listening to "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" [do you know how hard that is to type?], the new album by Spoon, which clearly, although exactly why I'm not sure, puts me in mind of Elvis's golden era. SFJ in his New Yorker column recently wrote about that album. Was he hearing what I was hearing? I guess we will never know.

But what I do know is that even though it's still September (and yes I know there's a new Manu Chao [put away for Adrienne's birthday] and shortly a new Jens Lekman) I am prepared to say that I do not expect to hear a better album this year than "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga". And I also know that a year that produces "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", and Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky", cannot be a Bad Year For Music.

Oh crap, part the third

Am I too pessimistic? Well, when it comes to climate change, I don't think one can ever be too pessimistic. Nevertheless, this article (which should be read with, and preferably after, the two I previously blogged) suggests that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, if only we can persuade the leaders of the governments of the high-pollutin' countries of the world to enter that tunnel. Or, more accurately, to acknowledge that we are all already in the tunnel whether they or their constituents like it or not.

Oh crap part 2

And then you read this, which basically confirms a lot of my longstanding worries as to the difference little people like us can make (such as not putting in air conditioning, making us possibly the last house in our street without it). (Short answer: no difference at all. Which is not to say we shouldn't keep doing those little things we can do.)

Act locally = good.

Think globally = depressing.

It seems to me that all we can do now is put our faith in scientists and entrepreneurs to come up with a sudden, dramatic solution comparable to putting a man on the moon. Oh. We did that.

[p.s. I don't really like Tom Friedman's tone, for some reason that I can't put a finger on, but I have always known more after reading his column than I knew before, and it is kind of the New York Times to once again make his stuff available to concerned cheapskates like me.]