Category — reviews

Hot Damn. Thanks to Black Holes and Revelations, Muse has become my OFFICIAL FAVORITE BAND®.

Here’s a look at some of the songs that have conquered my iPod since I got an advance copy of the disc, which is out July 11.

• Take a Bow. The album begins with a 2:34 second crescendo in Take a Bow and rarely lets up.
  
  The first five times I listed to this song, I wanted the song’s build-up to resolve in a massive, brain-jolting riff. It ends up with powerful but plodding guitar.
  
  After listen number six or so, I’m willing to let this song be what it is — a dynamic beginning to a great album.
• Starlight. This is what Billy Corgin wants the new Smashing Pumpkins to sound like. Seriously.
• Supermassive Black Hole. A quirky, crunchy single available on iTunes now.
• Map of the Problematique. Normally, when a song has a pretentious name, it’s a pompous mess. “Problematique” rises above its title — it’s the best song on the album.
  
  “Problematique” is one part Depeche Mode, Blue Man Group and Radiohead’s “Where I end and you begin”
• Assasin. Starts out like the Knight Rider theme, but without the Hasselhoff baggage. A Rocker ™. Dream Theater wishes they could write rock like this.
• Exo-Politics. Quotes exactly from Guns ‘N Roses’ “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” 1:05 minutes in: Sky … Sky … Sky. Oh, and Matt Bellamy belts it out of the park.
• City of Delusion. A jangley beginning gives way to prog-rock creamdom that — and this could be the Kool-Aid talking — manages to make the mariachi band that shows up 3:29 into the song bearable.
• Knights of Cydonia. I only mention this song because it was going to be the title of a Rush album, before those Canucks went with the more commercially viable “2112.” All kidding aside, this is another “Drink the Kool-Aid” song that you either love or roll your eyes at.
  
  My ears perked up 3:45 into the song when they paraphrase Pink Floyd’s Echoes in a gigantic sonic swell.
  Anyway you approach it, it’s a odd choice for the first single.

So, let’s review why this album has so much going on for it:

1. Cover art by Storm Thorgerson? CHECK
2. Pretentious songs and song titles? CHECK
3. Quotes from Pink Floyd, King Crimson (I hear it on Hoodoo and elsewhere), Depeche Mode, Blue Man Group, Radiohead, Fourth Estate and other prog-rock music? CHECK

Do yourself a favor and buy the best rock album of 2006.

My trips to the library begin with a scan of my Amazon.com wish list and/or my del.icio.us bookmarks as I attempt to find at least one book on my “to do” list that is available NOW at the library.

List in hand, I begin a strange trip at the library — zeroing in on books I want and typically satisficing with books the library has. Rarely does the online listing of what’s available correspond to what books are actually findable — Dewey Decimal be damned.

It’s with this oddly organized, rather vague goal that I found myself with the trio of books just completed.

1. Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
2. Meet You in Hell, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford
3. The Botany of Desire, A Plant’s-eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

The trip began with a desire to read Michael Pollan’s latest, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, a hunger that went unfilled as the book was checked out.

As with many other visits to the library, I was easily satisfied with an earlier work, Botany of Desire.

Leaving the library with only one book should be a red flag for the Feds to use the Patriot Act against me — it’s a rare feat for me to check out just one title, a feat that probably means mischief is afoot.

So, I also grabbed Demon-Haunted World, because now two of my friends have read it and I was starting to feel left out, and Meet You in Hell, it being one of the catchier titles in the “What’s new” economic section.

As already reviewed on this site, I read Sagan first. As I was reading Demon, I was sure it was the best book of the bunch.

Meet You in Hell came next. Again, as I dog-eared its pages, it struck me as a quicker, fresher work than Demon.

Finally, Botany had its chance to catch my eye. And, as I raced through 180 pages before putting the book down, I decided this must be the pick of the litter.

Well, which is the cream?

Meet You in Hell

Meet You in Hell is described by Dennis Lehane as “a muscular, enthralling read.” I should leave my pithy review at that, but here are some noteworthy thoughts from its pages:

Steel magnate Carnegie employed a Captain Jones “a down-to-earth sort” who followed Carnegie’s example of rigorously measuring everything that could be measured in a factory. One insight his measurements led to at The Edgar Thomson works — the eight-hour workday.

Men could maintain almost any pace for eight hours, Jones reasoned, and after sixteen hours of rest they would return refreshed, ready for more of anything. The company would thereby gain a greatly increased output while expending the very same amount on wages. Jones’s elegant notion was not only wildly popular with the men, it proved to be as effective in practice as it seemed on paper, and the eight-hour workday was born to steel.

Again and again, Standiford notes Carnegie’s interest on what it cost to produce goods.

Carnegie would repeat the mantra time and again: profits and prices were cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and in Carnegie’s view, any savings achieved in the cost of goods were permanent. Carnegie rarely balked when his managers suggested improvements to the physical plants of his operations, not if the goal was greater efficiency in production

This overriding interest in controlling costs, coupled with Carnegie’s belief that:

survival of the fittest was not only the operating principle upon which the world order depended, but that Darwinism justified every action he would take in his own business life. The measuring stick was calibrated in dollars, and every tick that Carnegie marked off was a sign of progress toward the greater good.

led to the labor clash at the heart of Meet You in Hell, the deadly strike in 1892 at the Homestead works.

Driven by economic Darwinism, Carnegie’s partner Henry Clay Frick used Pinkerton guards in an attempt to literally crush the strike.

The Botany of Desire

A different type of labor is dissected in Botany of Desire, the work of humans as we coevolve four plants: apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes.

Pollan’s striking thesis: Plants choose us just as we choose plants.

The ancient relationship between bees and flowers is a classic example of what is known as “coevolution.” In a coevolutionary bargain like the one struck by the bee and the apple tree, the two parties act on each other to advance their individual interest but wind up trading favors: food for the bee, transportation for the apple genes. consciousness needn’t enter into it on either side, and the traditional distinction between subject and object is meaningless.

With a colorful tone not unlike Eric Schlosser, Pollan deliciously traces the transformation of the wild Kazakhstan apple from the work of legendary John Chapman — Johnny Appleseed — to the PR campaign at the turn of the 20th Century that turned the apple into a fruit eaten, instead of pressed and imbibed as a hard cider.

The apple evolved uniquely in America. Chapman’s seedings were a true melting pot for apple genetics, creating unique varieties that, alas, are not available for today’s mechanized kitchen. Pollan gets back to this point at the end of this work, after stopping off with the coevolution of the tulip and marijuana.

On Marijuana: In 1988 it was discovered that the brain has a network of THC receptors. Humans create a form of cannabis, anandamide, or inner bliss. Why does marijuana produce THC? Could it be that this plant, coevolving with humans for more than 10,000 years, struck on one powerful reason for humans to spread it around the world, its psychoactive properties?

But now, let’s come down from our high and examine the foolish bargain struck by modern agriculture. By choosing to stick with a few apples, and one type of desirable potato, Pollan shows how unknowing our current monoculture farming is. Modern potatoes require an enormous amount of pesticide “input.” Monsanto sees a way around coating farms with blankets of toxic insecticides, et al: Genetically infuse the potato with Bacillus thuringiensis, or “Bt.”

Monsanto has created a potato that is resistant to the Colorado potato beetle. For now. Even the company admits, that within 30 years, the beetle will be resistant to Bt, and begin munching wholesale on potato farms anew.

Pollan’s argument that humans and plants coevolved comes to a head in looking at the potato because by ignoring diversity, by genetically altering the spud and fixing our hopes to one type of tater, we’re losing sight of the grand evolutionary game of chance that has propelled both plant life and the human society.

tie it all together, Dan

In a seemingly random fashion, I’ve come upon three strong books that deal with evolution from three perspectives.

Throwing caution to the wind, I’ll link these works in a paragraph:

The rational, market-driven success of Carnegie and Frick propelled America to a industrial, technical, science-based society that grew complacent, allowing Sagan to wisely note the disconnect between people and science that threatens to pull our culture further away from finding truth. Our dismissal of nature in what we eat is symptomatic of this disconnect — our evolutionary palate is being simplified in a dangerous way as we rely on too few types of food.

Let me know your thoughts on these works, or what I should attack next.

Well, that’s a slight exaggeration.

Moments after the Cavs titanic win over the Pistons Wednesday night, streaming video was unavailable on NBA.com (See the picture above.)

My guess? Cleveland fans, hungry for a series win over the Pistons, swarmed onto the site, bogging down the league’s servers. Just a theory.

Now, why do I care about this? The NBA has done a supurb job of opening up to the internet this season — I for one have been trained to head to nba.com before, during and immediately after a game for video highlights and great stats.

Up until tonight, I hadn’t bothered to see who was powering the video on NBA.com — apparently it’s Nine Systems, whose network is based out of Englewood, Colorado.

Going with an outside provider is a smart short term move for the league — but compare this with the efforts of Major League Baseball, who has built MLBAM into a formidible online content delivery force.

Does owning the backend mean a better product for fans? Am I crazy for thinking about the online philosophical differences between pro basketball and pro baseball just after the Cavs take a 3-2 series lead over the Pistons? Does the average fan care that he can’t get video on demand game highlights within minutes of a game ending? Oh, wait — yes, a professional league should be worrying about that last one.

(Note, I got an archive of the first half of the game to work at 10:13)

And, on another note: Thank goodness the game is on ESPN. Those TNT announcers were horrible.

Some three hours after the Cavs beat the Pistons and cavs.com writer The Optimist is predicting that the Cavs will win Monday night. Bravo.

Now, it’s not The Optimist’s fault that his words are a bit out of date, but it might be the fact that cavs.com relies on a flash-based story rotator. One that probably requires a bit of input to change — input that might be hard to come by at 10 p.m. just after a Cavs victory.

Notice how the ad next to Rasheed’s surprised face is up-to-date, selling tickets to the Cavs’ next home game Friday.

As with most things web — sales content management leads content management.

On a positive note, I have been very impressed with NBA.com’s streaming video this postseason. As they did throughout the season, they quickly post free video recaps of games, like this NBA TV highlight reel available shortly after the Cavs evened the series against the Pistons 2-2 Monday night.

In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan preaches to the choir about the decline of science in mid-1990s America.

Among many targets, Sagan rightly questions the utter lack of attention science is given in mass media, offering a host of story ideas that would never be seen in today’s mainstream media — like “Solved Mysteries,” exposes of mind readers and hourlong, evidence-based debates on life after death, abortion or animal rights.

Some quotes that seem especially prescient, some 11 years after the book was penned:

Americans tend to shake their heads in astonishment at the Soviet experience. The idea that some state-endorsed ideology or popular prejudice would hog-tie scientific progress seems unthinkable. For 200 years, Americans have prided themselves on being a practical, pragmatic, nonideological people. And yet anthropological and psychological pseudoscience has flourished in the United States — on race, for example. Under the guise of “creationism,” a serious effort continues to be made to prevent evolutionary theory — the most powerful integrating idea in all of biology, and essential for other sciences ranging from astronomy to anthropology — from being taught in the schools.

After reading this passage, creationtours.com came to mind as one quick example of the uncritical thought that passes for sanity in today’s America.

Two quotes set off his argument for public-supported basic research:

Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?
Ronald Reagan, campaign speech 1980

There is nothing which can better deserve our patrongage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
George Washington, address to Congress, January 8, 1790

One reason I like this book — it makes me want to read more from and about Thomas Paine, Morris Cohen, Enlil, Moses Maimonides and James “The Amazing” Randi.

On balance, a good read that won’t be touched by anyone going on a creation tour.

Stephen Colbert killed at the Bush roast this weekend, speaking truthiness to power.

This is Must see TV

part1, part2 (above), part3

I hope you haven’t eaten anything in the last thirty minutes America, because we are going swimming in the deep end of the truth.

More Colbert Report: wiki, colbert nation

Jump the Shark has yet to decide whether South Park has gotten long in the tooth, but after two episodes this season dissin’ environmentalism, I’m pulling an Issac Hayes and leaving.

Since 1997, I’ve enjoyed their preachy comedic messages … but it’s finally gotten boring.

Cartman: You seem a little irritable, Dan. You got some sand in your vagina?
Me: There’s no sand in my vagina!

Let’s see, Tom Cruise is the subject of ridicule because he has a particularly crazy faith. Ditto for Chef. Streisand is a bitch, so poke fun at her.

This week’s episode attempted to rip Al Gore a new one for being preachy about global warming. I’m cereal.

OK class, settle down, I’ve got some news for you

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that unchecked growth in fossil fuel use throughout the next half-century will produce a global climate catastrophe.

South Park: Boring and wrong.

URLFAN is a quick way to see what bloggers and web sites are linking back to your own site.

Much like alexa.com, URLFAN is one way to judge how effective your online presence is. In many ways, having a good number of blogs linking back to your site shows just how the most engaged online users — bloggers — feel about your site.

Here’s a rundown of a few Cleveland-area media sites, ranked by popularity on URLFAN as of April 4, 2006:

1. ohio.com — mentioned in 141 feeds, ranked 561 out of 1,230,303 sites
2. cleveland.com — mentioned in 97 feeds, ranked 839
3. newsnet5.com — mentioned in 45 feeds, ranked 2351
4. wkyc.com — mentioned in 22 feeds, ranked 5627
5. wcpn.com — mentioned in 3 feeds, ranked 29793
6. fox8cleveland.com, woio.com and wtam.com were not ranked.

Here’s a list of their top 100 ranked sites

Unlike technorati.com, URLFAN is a different way of presenting the information on blogs — concerned more with ranking sites rather than showing recent blog activity about a site.

As the power of remixing web sites continues to grow (through blogs, mash-ups and community sites), tracking just how often bloggers refer to your site will become an important metric for sites.

USAToday.com has redesigned their content pages. (Business, Sports examples.)

The look is much cleaner than the old design, which used a vertical, color-coded navigation that was scrunched into the upper left side of the page.

You can still see elements of the old look on their section front pages. (Business section example)

Coding wise, they’re still using tables, but the pages are lighter than before. Nice work.

Also, I just noticed their on deadline blog, which appears to be a constantly-updated list of the latest news of interest to USAToday editors — including links to other sites.

Electric Six: We Love George Bush

Originally uploaded by dketterick.

The hardest rockin band in the land rocked Cleveland at the Grog Shop Friday night for the second time in a year.

It was no joke as the Electric Six kicked into April with bombast and cockiness.

The setlist was superb: Vibrator, Improper Dancing, Gay Bar, Danger! High Voltage, Devil Night, and my favorite: Bite Me. The show ended after many encores with Dance Commander — reprising the song for an extra 5 minutes to keep the frenzied crowd moshing.

Highlights: Rock N Roll Evacuation, Bite Me (to which I moshed), Dance Commander (to which everyone moshed).

Rock Kills Kid opened with a tight setlist. They’re power-pop in the vein of The Killers, but not as dumb. Very good, I purchased Paralyzed Friday. Their third song was their best — I need to figure out which song it was. Check out their site for more free streaming music.

The Fever held the second slot. They didn’t hold my attention.

Hallahan enjoyed the show, as well