The Playlist: October 2007

This month, we’re looking at songs that are our personal soundtrack to the change of the seasons. The leaves are changing color, the air is getting crisper, the sun is setting earlier, and this is what we’re listening to…

1. “Sweetness and Tenderness,” The Rentals.
- When first we encountered the Rentals, they were an analog-synthesizer-laden side project of Weezer. In the years since the first album, Rentals frontman Matt Sharp has left his gig in Weezer, and apparently ditched the synthesizers. This song features piano, acoustic guitar, and violin prominently and may be the most achingly gorgeous thing I’ve heard in ages, due largely to Rachel Haden’s cooing second-lead vocal.

2. “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” Radiohead
- We’re hoping to have more about the new Radiohead album, “In Rainbows,” shortly. This track has become an instant highlight of the album for me, thanks largely to the swirling, ambient guitars. While Radiohead has forsaken typical verse-chorus-verse song structure, it’s nice to see that they can use their guitars and use them beautifully.

3. “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
- Leave it to Bruce to release the best summer song I’ve heard in years at the very end of summer. Sigh. Classic E-Street song, complete with great piano, keyboards, and saxophone.

4. “Room At The Top,” Tom Petty
- Through the magic of DVD, I’ve been reintroducing myself to the television series “Undeclared.” Watching this has made me nostalgic for college, not because the show sugar-coats the experience of being away at school for the first time, but rather because it gets it so very right. The denouement of the first episode, where lead character Steven Karp (Jay Baruchel) confronts the fact that he’s absolutely terrified, while the other characters go through not-dissimilar moments, features this song. So spot-on and wonderful.

5. “Chelsea,” Counting Crows
- Another month, another Counting Crows song – this one, the “hidden” track from the disc featuring the band’s VH1 Storytellers performance on their “Across A Wire: Live In New York” set. It’s a sparse song about one of my favorite New York City neighborhoods, featuring mournful horns, piano, and Adam Duritz’s voice. Graceful and elegant, like the best parts of autumn.

The Pharyngula Mutating Meme.

My brother Mike (see link on blogroll) tagged me with the Pharyngula Mutating Meme - a series of questions that can change as they get passed from blogger to blogger according to a set of simple rules.

The original questions were:

1. The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is...

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is...

3. The best sexy song in rock is...

The Pharyngula mutating genre meme:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

* You can leave them exactly as is.

* You can delete any one question.

* You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".

* You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".

* You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

For the purpose of this intellectual exercise, my parent blog is The Questionable Authority. (He's traced the ancestry of the meme completely - click on his link if you so choose.)

These are the questions I got from my parent blog (really, they're categories and not questions, but it hardly seems fair to expect science geeks to, you know, use words properly).
The best time travel book in SF/fantasy is:
The best English novel in scientific dystopias is:
The best page-turner book in historical fiction is:
The best landscape painting in American art is:

That being said:
The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is: "Back To The Future"
The best English novel in scientific dystopias is: Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"
The best page-turner book in historical fiction is: "The Road To Wellville," TC Boyle
The best landscape painting in American art is: Thomas Cole's "The Oxbow"
The best power ballad in American rock is: "Faithfully," by Journey.


I am propagating this meme on thusly: because I don't have a sense of who reads this blog - if you feel so inclined, take this meme on in your blogging (and credit me as the "parent" blog). If not, meh. One thing I like about evolution is its unpredictability - let's see where this goes from here.

Meandering Thoughts: Alice Sebold's "The Almost Moon"

Over the weekend, I finally began (and finished) Alice Sebold’s new novel, “The Almost Moon.” I’m not much of a book reviewer, so here’s my quick take on this book:

The difficulty faced by Sebold in creating a followup to her previous novel (the multimillion-selling “The Lovely Bones”) is the indelible impression left on readers by that book. For me, as a reader, one of the things that I was absolutely captivated by in terms of “The Lovely Bones” was Sebold’s character of Suzie Salmon, the young, dead narrator of the story – it made an otherwise dark story extremely palatable, largely because of the grace and beauty of that youthful presenter and the idea that came with her of a heaven being personally defined. It added a light sheen to a dark story; ultimately, I feel that this is what made “The Lovely Bones” wonderful.

In “The Almost Moon,” Sebold sets out to shed the otherworldly childlike presence that inhabited the pages of “The Lovely Bones.” She does so immediately and with the subtlety of a jackhammer – her lead character in “The Almost Moon” is a woman in her late forties who, within the first pages of the novel, gets frustrated with her infirmed, mentally-questionable, elderly mother and kills her. It’s no brutal a starting point than “The Lovely Bones” (which is told from the point of view of a young girl who has been raped and murdered), I suppose, but I think I was hoping for something that might be even slightly reminiscent of that sense of innocence and beauty. That’s lacking in “The Almost Moon,” which takes us through a day in the life of an extremely troubled woman.

In short, I didn’t like “The Almost Moon” too much. When it comes down to brass tacks, though, this was probably an impossible book to follow. As much as I admire Sebold’s artistic intent to create distance between “The Lovely Bones” and what will be the remainder of her career as an author, though, I found myself missing the childlike voice and sense of innocence that was so central to that book as I read this one.

The Odds: Who Will Be The Next Yankees Manager?

As an avowed Yankees fan, I viewed yesterday's dismissal of Joe Torre as manager with a combination of sadness and ambivalence. [Yes, let's be honest, and call it what it was - a dismissal. The contract offer proferred by Yankees administration was an atrocity that Torre obviously recognized as being nothing so much as a Catch 22, and while the decision to not accept it was obviously Torre's, it should be viewed as a termination. I would have liked to have seen Torre get a happier ending to his time in pinstripes, but realistically - the expectations were high, but he didn't meet them. It's hard to keep your job if you're not meeting expectations, even if they're ludicrous. And the offer that they gave him was a terrible one, that involved a large-percentage salary decrease with even loftier expectations.]

That being said, one of my favorite things about baseball has always been hot-stove-league machinations. In an offseason without a lot of big-name free agent movement (according to a list maintained by the wonderful MLBTradeRumors.com, the list is currently headed up by a trio of current Yankees - Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada - but is otherwise lacking in big-name sexiness), it serves to reason that the Yankees managerial opening may be one of the biggest offseason bidding spots.

So, let's look at some of the candidates for the position. We've handicapped the race for you (admittedly, we don't have any inside information, and truth be told, when it comes to gambling we're pretty terrible), and perhaps provided you with some food for thought.

The Favorites

Don Mattingly 7:2
Pro: Is well-acquainted with NYC media glare, both as a player and a coach. Has expressed willingness and interest in the job. Steinbrenner loves him.
Con: Lack of experience a major factor - the last manager that the Yankees had whose first ever managerial job was the helm of the Yanks was Lou Piniella, who did well at first but melted down quickly.

Joe Girardi 4:1
Pro: Has experience with NYC media glare as a player, coach, and broadcaster, and a track record of managerial success (2006 NL Manager of the Year).
Con: Might struggle with a veteran club - when he was in Florida, it was with a youthful core. The Yankees that Girardi would inherit could feature several players who knew him as a peer.

Tony LaRussa 6:1
Pro: Very successful manager with an extensive track record of success. Possible Hall of Famer, when all is said and done.
Con: No experience with NYC media glare; it is reported that he "lost" the Cardinals last year; questions about character as leader and individual will follow him given his arrest last year and the Cardinals' issues with substance abuse (Josh Hancock's death and Scott Spezio going into rehab, among others).

The Dark Horses

Tony Pena/Larry Bowa 9:1
Pro: Success and experience as Yankees coaches and as managers in other cities (Pena in Kansas City, Bowa in Philadelphia).
Con: Perceived as having a minimal impact while coaching for the Yankees. Probably aren't serious contenders for managerial jobs in NYC.

Trey Hillman 12:1
Pro: Currently managing in Japan, Hillman is still widely remembered and respected in the Yankees organization for his time as a minor-league manager. He's known for player development, which could figure in nicely with the Yankees' current organizational strategies.
Con: Trey who? Lack of name status and big-league experience could be a turnoff for the Yankees given their high expectations.
[Mere hours after posting this, Hillman was announced as the new manager of...the Kansas City Royals. So he's off the board. Good luck to him in KC.]

Bobby Valentine 14:1
Pro: He's done well in New York (most notably, as manager of the 2000 NL Champion Mets).
Con: He's Bobby Valentine.

The Longshot

Dave Miley 17:1
Pro: The International League's Manager of the Year last year in Scranton, Miley has experience on a major league level, and worked with a lot of the young Yankees that will be forming the core of next year's team.
Con: Not used to NYC media glare; his three years as a major league manager (Cincinnati) were less than successful. Probably better suited to minor-league managing for the time being.

The Dark Horse

Luis Sojo 20:1
Pro: Beloved for his time in New York, has managerial experience in Yankees organization and in International baseball
Con: Has been managing A ball - may not be "ready" for the big show as a manager yet

Save Your Money

Willie Randolph (Mets manager) - 25:1, Joe Kerrigan (bullpen coach/former Red Sox manager) - 27:1, Tony Franklin (AA Trenton Thunder manager) - 35:1, Lee Mazzilli (former bench coach/ex-Orioles manager) - 35:1, Don Zimmer (avowed Steinbrenner hater/curmudgeon) - 60:1, Stump Merrill (ex-Yankees manager, man named "Stump") - 60:1.

As for this blog, well, as much as we love Don Mattingly (he's awesome), we'd love to see some kind of throwback to the championship run of 7 years ago. We'd be fine with Joe Girardi, definitely, but how awesome would a Luis Sojo-run Yankees team be? It's got potential, you gotta admit...

Meandering Thoughts: On Counting Crows and "August And Everything After"

One of the pleasures of growing up in the Dunford household was the slow earning of privileges. Specifically, as my three brothers and I got progressively older, we were allowed to stay up increasingly late and watch different kinds of television.

I couldn’t tell you how old I was when I started watching “Saturday Night Live,” to be honest with you. I could tell you that the cast of the show included such comedy superstars as Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, and Chris Farley. I could also tell you that, before I watched a single frame of a live show, I was already well versed in the culture of “Saturday Night Live” – a couple of years before I’d seen the show, I read a copy of “Saturday Night: A Backstage History,” a now-out of print book that chronicled the show’s ups and downs in graphic, sensational history that my Uncle Chris gave to me to read during a visit to my grandparents’ house. Enamored with what I’d read (even though the book was a warts-and-all portrayal of the show and process that didn’t necessarily lend itself to being viewed in a good light), and spurred on by my father’s habit of taking movies out from the library, I began to watch older “greatest hits” highlights of “Saturday Night Live” – the best sketch comedy work of folks like John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy.

However, when I started watching the show on a regular basis, I found the comedy end to be somewhat lacking. Like many viewers of the show, I was measuring the show with one of the harshest yardsticks possible – that of the aforementioned comedy gods. Let’s face it – when you’re trying to fill shoes as big as those left behind by the late, great Gilda Radner with the feet of someone as catastrophically atrocious as, say, Melanie Hutsell, then you’re already kind of dooming yourself to failure.

The reason I watched a lot of the shows that “Saturday Night Live” aired during my high school years was because of the music. In one season of the show (the 1993-94 season), the bands that performed included Nirvana, Cypress Hill, the then-newly-revitalized Aerosmith, Smashing Pumpkins, and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The music was generally phenomenal during my introductory years.

The band that I remember the most from this time-period on “Saturday Night Live” was, surprisingly, Counting Crows. The Counting Crows debuted on “Saturday Night Live” in January of 1994, the same week that my father had a heart attack. I remember staying up to watch the show with my older brother, who was home from college at the time, and watching the entire episode of this show. I’d not heard of Counting Crows before the previous week’s announcement of the musical guest, and I had no idea of what to expect until I heard the first notes of their first song.

The song that they played was “Round Here,” which was unlike anything else I was listening to at the time. My musical tastes were dominated by angry, grungy rock music (although my favorite album at the time was R.E.M.’s quiet, melancholy “Automatic For The People”). “Round Here” wasn’t particularly angsty or loud – it was quiet and melancholy without being particularly sweeping or orchestral. It was yearning music, sung by a weird-looking dude with dreadlocks and played by a band of folks who didn’t look like the grunge-muppet misfits that I liked to listen to. Perhaps it was the time and place, or perhaps it was the right sounds and message at the right time, but I was completely mesmerized.

I sought out a copy of Counting Crows’ debut album, “August and Everything After,” soon after, and I fell in love. 1994 wound up being a miserable year for me personally, but there was always comfort in that album for me – whether it was the ballads (“Anna Begins,” “Sullivan Street”) or the faster songs (the ubiquitous radio smash “Mr. Jones,” as well as “Rain King” and “A Murder Of One”). For better or worse, that album soundtracked a lot of terrible things for me that summer – hospital visits, funerals, and the car trips and waiting rooms in between.

Like just about every year in history, 1994 came to an end, just like every streak of luck (whether good or bad) comes to an end. I still find a lot of comfort in the “August and Everything After” album; I’ve never thought about why I do, really, but I think it has something to do with having made it through the difficult times and emerging. I mean, I cannot listen to a wide range of music (from Bob Dylan and Mercury Rev to Radiohead’s “Kid A” album) without thinking about being in Manhattan on September 11th , 2001), but I can still listen to “August and Everything After” without those feelings coming back.

Interestingly enough (and perhaps coincidentally), when I’m in periods of transition, I find myself gravitating back to the Counting Crows. For example, when I decided to move to upstate New York and pursue my Master’s degree, the song that meant a lot to me was “A Murder Of One.” The end of college had a lot to do with “Recovering The Satellites,” from their second album for me. Now I’m in another time of transition, and I find myself back, listening to “Sullivan Street” from that album. It’s comforting and wonderful.

All Apologies.

We're currently experiencing technical difficulties.

(That is, to say, our computer is just about dead.)

Posting will be sporadic for awhile.