More songs for long quiet solo drives over beautiful mountains. Hey! is Rush the most hated band ever? Elric (who no longer reads this) played Rush and has praised Geddy Lee's bass-playing (Elric was a bass-player) as superlative, says Geddy Lee plays keyboards with his feet while singing and playing bass. I didn't mind hearing Rush though at parties I mostly heard the same few songs the Rush zealots always played so the songs got old. Every band has it's zealots, say Pere Ubu or Guided by Voices or XTC or Archers of Loaf or Roxy Music, those zealous fucks always annoy non-zealots to the respective bands' unfair detriment. I'd heard anti-Rush sentiment but not nearly as much as I've heard anti-Steely Dan sentiment. Dr Z loves Steely Dan, I really like some Steely Dan tunes, and the deep disdain for Steely Dan by some friends always surprises me. Other than Dr Z, I haven't talked with anyone about Steely Dan in more than a decade. Posed the most hated band question last night on twitter, responses there and by email, got real Rush hate, real Steely Dan hate, real Steely Dan love.
- But no, I don't feel like posting a Steely Dan cascade, it's just been awhile since I thought about black licorice bands.
- Just to clarify, I don't believe Elizabeth Warren is a progressive savior - there are no progressive saviors - I think she plays one on TV. I'd like to be wrong, I bet you any number of pints you specify I'm not. I'd love to see, for my selfish entertainment, her piss off senior Democratic Party leaders and freak out the Party establishment as the apparently and avowedly sincere progressive savior she plays on TV with a deep run into the 2016 primaries (and even then the freakout wouldn't be about her policies but about the Party's rites of succession), but it's not going to happen, I'm betting pints it won't. It's the progressive savior thingee I'm noting, having been infected with it before myself.
- Pissing off friends is a doomed strategy.
- Sharing science is a crime.
- The Toobin Principle.
- Petulant fuck confirmed. Not that it needed confirming.
- Petulant fuck goes on Leno?
- Fred Hiatt's views on the Purple Line, which will never be built.
- Arguing over Jesus.
- This week in water.
- Hey! I have tickets for Bonnie Prince Billy in Annapolis at Rams Head for late November, a week before Thanksgiving. Looked at Rams Head ticketing this morning, looks like I didn't need to pounce the minute the tickets went on sale yesterday.
- Hey! Some new sites added to the blogrolls, check them out. I may do some maintenance on them over the next few days, consolidating a few to make my browsing easier. I may not. As always, if there's someone you think I would enjoy reading please let me know, as always if you're Kinding me but me not you please let me know.
- O'Donnell's closes. Haven't eaten at O'Donnell's in decades but remember when it was a mainstay on Wisconsin in Bethesda. There was a competitor seafood place in Bethesda, they were near if not directly next to each other, I can't remember it's name.
- UPDATE! Bish Thompson's.
- Corridor City Transitway!
- A British take on Dempsey's move to Seattle: 1. American footballer fights from a tough upbringing to become one of the best 50 footballers in one of the top leagues in the world. 2. He battles for playing time each season and proves himself to new coaches and new teams. 3. Told for the sixth consecutive time that his services are surplus to requirements, he finally says: "Fuck it, I'm the star. I'm not getting a Champions League shot, except as a squad guy at a discount. I don't need to prove anything else. Why should I go down or make a move across to Sunderland or Everton for less money? To prove what?" 4. An MLS club wiggles a massive paycheck, four-year security and a chance to settle his family back in the States. And validate him – more than Europe could or would at this point – telling him that he is the star.
- Philosophy and its double.
- Blockbuster movies will still suck in 2015. (h/t Walter)
- Americans turning against beer?
- Geilivable!
- Reflection.
- RIP George Duke.
- Cat-whisperer!
HYMN
A.R. Ammons
I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth
and go on out
over the sea marshes and the brant in bays
and over the hills of tall hickory
and over the crater lakes and canyons
and on up through the spheres of diminishing air
past the blackset noctilucent clouds
where one wants to stop and look
way past all the light diffusions and bombardments
up farther than the loss of sight
into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark
And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth
inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes
trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest
coelenterates
and praying for a nerve cell
with all the soul of my chemical reactions
and going right on down where the eye sees only traces
You are everywhere partial and entire
You are on the inside of everything and on the outside
I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum
has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut
and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark
chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down
and if I find you I must go out deep into your
far resolutions
and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves
