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It’s been suggested by many that with the move and other changes I should make a determined effort to get this thing rolling again. I make no promises whatsoever, but it’s not costing you anything to keep me at the bottom of your RSS reader and see what happens. So: on the offchance that you’re not in the loop:

• I no longer work chez Speak, at least for now
• I went on an awesome bike trip through the Olympic Peninsula and the San Juans with SF. Hopefully another post on this once pictures turn up
• I didn’t completely screw up being best man in PM’s wedding
• I moved to Our Nation’s Capitol in order to live in the same city as SJ

So far things out here on the Least Coast are going swimmingly. While I probably picked the worst time in recent memory to switch jobs, I’m not too worried and have a decent plan B. My time is mainly spent sending out resumes and writing cover letters (which I, like everybody else, hate — there’s something soul crushing about having to write in business speak about how great you are), eating good food, washing dishes, and reading DFW articles online. Whenever I go downtown I have a really, really hard time not saying inane things like “look, there’s the capitol building!” every time it crops up on the skyline (which is frequently b/c DC has crazy zoning restrictions on building height which directly contribute to urban housing shortages).

I’ve also been helping SJ out with her insect collection, which requires 120 different families of insect and 15 families of spider to be represented. We spent a gorgeous sunday in the appalachias barging around with various nets and generally laying waste to kingdom arthropoda. One tip: all ants are in the same family, so don’t spend a bunch of time finding different kinds of the little buggers because your entomologist will be Unimpressed. I did manage to capture some butterflies, moths, and one very pissed off wasp. Future plans include trips to a famous haunted forest, the air and space museum out in VA that has a space shuttle prototype (!), and the Big Apple where I hope to score rush tickets to Dr. Atomic.

Also, I now own a suit.

if i’m more reliable about posting to this group blog than i am about posting here.

Today’s episodes of dinosaur comics and boasas both explore the economic value of goods that are generally considered to be invaluable. Boasas optimistically dreams of a world where money can be replaced by art. While my immediate reaction to this is longing for such a reality, where I could stop worrying about my 401(k), I quickly realized that I would be dirt poor in such a world, unless waxing pretentious is art.

Dinosaur comics takes the opposite view; rather than replacing the current economic model with romantic but unattainable pipe dreams, this comic replaces the ideal of friendship with cold cost-benefit analysis. I’m not sure either approach is really that useful, other than to make me chuckle, but then feel sad about my profession. I should spend more time with my friends.

The sound you hear during Fox’s commercials for the reality show about the 9 people locked underground until they agree to give $ 1.5 million to only one of them is the sound of every economist in the world simultaneously crying out in jean creaming ecstacy. Tonight I learned that the amount in the pot decreases continually with time, which only makes the entire operation that much more fascinating. If we just get them to repeat the show maybe 30 or so times with contestants drawn from a statistically random sample (instead of the wackos they’re sure to pick), we might really learn something about bargaining and strategery. I only wish that we’d had that kind of budget for research in college. Maybe grad school isn’t such a bad idea after all?

So… it’s been awhile. I’ve been busy riding my bike, listening to music, nursing my poor poor knee, and trying to not be hungry.

holy crap “i want to live where soul meets body” is a crappy lyric. I’m willing to tolerate some of that if there’s mad postal service production behind it, but this sucks. it sounds like bad oasis.

It’s been kind of a slow couple of months. I managed to actually create some music last night, or at least the approximation thereof. You can check that out here. The guitar part is, I’m afraid, too similar to a kid dakota song, but what can you do. So, yeah.

boo-yah! the sun is now just barely bluing the sky to the east when I head in to work at 5h45. I’m really, really excited for spring/summer. And this is perhaps the mildest winter I can remeber, in MN or WA/OR. One becomes spoiled quickly.

Coming soon:
breaking out the chacos, climbing outside, picnics, taking fenders off the bike.

though I keep thinking that it’s probably going to rain for a couple months just because.

I’ve been listening to a lot of new/new to me music the past few days. The arcade fire, the new doves album, some 12 rods stuff I didn’t have. And then I was feeling a bit down, and I put on The Bends… this album is ridiculous. It might be better than OK computer in terms of being genuinely enjoyable to listen to. It’s like listening to good music, only better somehow. Some of that is probably related to past memories of listening to the album, though many of those memories are bittersweet at best. So the question is, I think, is: is this album so great solely because of the sum total of the experiences/moods I’ve felt while listening to it over the past decade (cripes. it actually almost has been a decade. I’m pretty sure I bought this in ‘96 towards the end of 8th grade. that’s insane), or is something particular about this album that facilitates the retaining of those experiences? In other words, if I had been turning to Yanni over and over over the past 10 years, would I find Yanni as spectacularly comforting? Does certain music lend itself to this sort of thing more than other music?

I remember from Psych 101 the notion of ’state dependent memory.’ If you study while drunk, you won’t remember what you learned while sober. But if you finish off that bottle of wine the next night, it’ll all come back. It seems plausible that this same association could be made with music.

What makes The Bends so effective, then? I think it’s the breadth of sounds/subject matter it incorporates. The album is beautiful and angry, alone but just barely hopeful… my theory is over the course of 12 tracks, it triggers all of the various emotional center thingies in the brain at some point. This is why listening to the album is so cathartic… no matter your mood, it can sympathize. And, as it hits all of those centers, it brings out the stored memories, which is what makes the album so fulfilling for me to listen to. Probably the majority of those associated memories and experiences aren’t exactly happy ones, but together they represent a significant chunk of what I’ve done since I got this album: grown up. No specific experience I suffer right now really seems very significant in light of that. Adding that experience on to the memory blanket associated with The Bends means it will be that much more fortified the next time around.

Or maybe it’s just a really good rock album. Do I take music too seriously?

The new album doesn’t even compare to the first one… It sounds a lot less majestic and a lot more pink-floyd. They get points for the creepiest found dialogue mash up I’ve heard in awhile, but all in all the album is mediocre. They’re trying to write pop songs instead of create interesting textures, which is probably a good strategy to attract listeners who aren’t me. Also, the world does not need any more polyphonic spree style concept albums about the triumphant sun.

So, I saw Amon Tobin thursday night. Mr. Tobin is a DJ in the vein of instrumental hip-hoppy electronic goodness, comperable perhaps to Mssrs Shadow, Tet, and D2. Watching DJs live is always a bit odd, as it can be really hard to match up whatever they’re monkeying around with on their decks with what sounds are occurring. Mr. Tobin plays two turntables that are actually jacked into his powerbook. These turntables, through some miracle of analog-digital conversion, act as controllers for samples on the laptop. So it’s even harder to tell what’s going on compared to a DJ with actual records playing, because he’s not changing the records out, etc. Basically, he could just put on a CD of remixes of his songs he’d prerecorded and pretend to press buttons and wikka wikka the turntables and nobody would be the wiser.

Despite this, the concert was freaking awesome. There’s such a thin line between crap IDM and awesome electronica (similar to the line between Air and easy listening), but it’s so clear which side of it Tobin is on. I think basically it just comes down to the dark, dark ambient noises he continually mixes up in the background of the phat beats. Also, the beats are pretty incredible. He started out with a 40 minute ambient/breakbeat set, which was overwhelming in scope. Creepy synthesizer moans and groans interspersed with with beats that were exactly what the sounds demanded… his breakbeat stuff is complicated and dense, but never gratuitously so, and it’s always coherent. Beats need space to breathe sometimes, and many lose sight of that.

Mr. Tobin then switched into a drum and bass set, which is rarely something I enjoy, but itwas OK live. The sheer volume and intensity is almost numbing. I can’t process that many snare hits. Still, it was an interesting experience.

The last 20 minutes was a lot of fun. He did a live remix of the brilliant 4 ton mantis into a version of the Velvet Underground song “venus in furs.” There’s a shorter version of this sequence on the “solid steel” album, which is awesome. He encored with a death metal instrumental song (perhaps megadeath?) with some hilarious breakbeats over the top. The concert ended at around 130, which was neat because I had to be at work in four and a half hours. I snagged a bit of sleep and had a great day at the job. Interestingly, I woke up with drum/bass beats in my head, and had to resist the urge to spastically beatbox on the phone all day. Maybe it’ll grow on me?

boy is my borrowed wifi connection broken. maybe it’ll be good for me. maybe it’ll be fixed by the time i get home from work…

So I rode my new bike to work today for the first time. I’ve been riding around town and to the climbing gym, but a nationwide shortage of locks that can’t be opened by ballpoint pens proved to be an impediment to riding to work. My job is conveniently located in belltown, which is a fun area, but not necessarily the best place to leave the biggest personal investment (so far) of your adult life locked outside at 6 in the morning. I finally found a lock that didn’t weigh as much as my bike, and now it’s sitting out on the street. Hopefully they don’t weld through my seat stay; I’m attempting to resist the urge to check on it hourly. It’s a pretty fun ride that early, especially on a Saturday when there’s even less traffic than normal. Three lanes of wide open asphalt and a light mist is invigorating. I need to buy some allen wrenches.

So, I went to hear the seattle symphony perform the greatest work in the appallingnly named genre (this is a good opportunity to relink to this brilliant article on the subject.) Those who know me probably know that I’m more than slightly obsessed with Beethoven, and I’m always excited about hearing his work live. The 9th symphony in particular is thrilling, just because there’s no recording technology that can really handle 100 instruments and 150 singers blasting 30 intricate parts at fortissimo. It sounds utterly different in person. I hadn’t heard it from the audience since middle school, and while performing does provide certain insight, you really don’t get the full effect.

The Seattle Symphony’s performance was good, but disappointing in a few key areas. I suspect that given the busy holiday concert schedule, they didn’t devote nearly as much time to rehearsals as they might ordinairily. In general, the tempos were in the ranges I prefer, but I felt that they were a bit unsteady; at one point in the scherzo it sounded to me like they were in danger of losing control. My real complaint is with the fidgety little woodwind parts that make Beethoven so great. I’m used to hearing them flubbed regularly because that’s what happens with a college or highschool orchestra, but I expected better from professionals. Yes, they’re really hard, and the flubs were probably exacerbated by the tempo meandering, but I think that if a deaf guy takes the time to write a delicate harmony part that’s barely even audible to those who can hear, you should probably assume that he wanted you to play it correctly and practice accordingly.

On the plus side, the soloists were fantastic, particularly the baritone. The soprano had the traditionally garish dress… I really wish they would just wear black like everybody else. Also, the third movement was basically perfect. It’s probably the hardest to play well, so maybe they practiced it more. The conductor took it at a faster tempo, close to the original marking, which I prefer to the ridiculously slow speeds used by Bernstein et. al. I had never heard how the varations match on top of the original melody so completely… the first violins in particular nailed what I know is an extremely difficult part. Just hearing that movement alone would have been worth it even if the rest were terrible. I look forward to hearing the Symphony on their regular schedule. Hopefully they’ll be a bit more precise where it matters.

the song “calculation theme” by metric has singlehandedly restored my faith in the sightly clever, slightly sappy love song. stephen merritt stays up nights and wishes he wrote the lyrics.

Popcorn is an industry that has been continually plagued by the “I’m a marketing genius and will create a product that does not need to exist” phenomenon. From the air poppers of the 80’s to crap like this, we’ve been convinced that you need some sort of specialized device to make popcorn. The stir crazy does indeed work, but it’s difficult to clean, as are air poppers. Here’s a trick: use a pot. It works a lot better if it’s a thick, well made pot, as even heat distribution is important. It burns much more easily with thin pots. Put a bit of oil in there, just enough to cover the bottom (this is where the health savings of air poppers lie. but most of the oil stays in the pot, and we’re talking about maybe a tablespoon of oil to begin with, and we all know you’re going to innundate that stuff with butter in the end regardless, so). Put the heat on full blast (for a gas range) and toss a couple of kernels in with a lid on. The cheap stuff in the bag will work about as well as the fancy stuff in the jar, but it’s important to keep the kernels in a sealed container after opening the bag, as they can go stale. Once the test kernels pop, pour the rest in and turn the heat down to medium (sucks if you have an electric range). Leave a crack open for steam to escape and shake the pot, probably 15 seconds out of 60. Once things are done popping, pour the popcorn out. You can melt some butter in the pot. Now you have popcorn, which is awesome, AND only one pot to wash, rather than some crazy contraption. totally.

So, there was a little convention chez Eipert et. al last saturday: Here’s me looking at my sneakiest:

In other news, I seem to have picked up a bit of a cold. I really only get sick when changing environments, so it’s not too surprising. A bit of gargled salt water beat the sore throat, and I’m not too worried about what else it might throw at me. I’m pretty excited about the upcoming weekend: some relaxed xmas shopping during the day, early bedtimes (but later rising times) and hopefully some quality reading time. I have some thoughts to share about cobblers and popcorn in the near future.

A high concept mix I’ve been working on for a bit: Pairs of songs that blatantly contradict each other. It’s pretty easy to find for “I love you forever” vs. “I don’t love you” anymore lyrics (probably 25% of zepplin songs do this all by themselves), but ultimately I’d like it to be mostly less obvious things. Here’s the current horrifically formatted list. Hopefully the contradictions are reasonably evident, if you know the songs:

Don’t Stand So Close To Me — The Police
Transatlanticism — Death Cab For Cutie
Love Song — The Cure
No One Will Ever Love You — The Magnetic Fields
You Were Right — Built To Spill
No Woman, No Cry — The Fugees
California Dreaming — Mammas/Poppas
California — Rufus Wainwright
Sour Times — Portishead
everybody here wants you — Jeff Buckley
Come as you are — Nirvana
When They Really Get to Know You — Pedro the Lion
Tired of Sex — Weezer
Girl O’Clock — The Dismemberment Plan
Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You — Led Zeppelin
I Want to Be Cold — The Microphones
Hot In Here — Nelly (this song is last so you can stop the cd as soon as the song starts)

Let me know if you have any clever ideas or want one of these songs.

so I really wanted some tuna last night, most likely because i was a bit protein starved from an evening of climbing chez stone gardens. I didn’t have crackers or bread, so instead I attempted a tortilla based tuna melt, with mixed results. It was tasty, but I think tuna and salsa/mexican in general make pretty strange bedfellows. Not really too crazy, but it seems like the kind of thing you could make at a swank restaurant with ‘albacore’ and ‘mango salsa’ and suddenly be in business. The flavor of grilled buttered bread is definitely still what completes the flavors of tuna and cheddar for me.