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Monday, March 15, 2010

Jamie exclusive!

Once again, this blog is ready to take it to the Next Level.  For some reason it took all day for YouTube to upload and process this thing, but here it is: my first-ever exclusive interview with Jamie!

Over the past few years I’ve been trying to get him to narrate his experiences more readily and more fluently.  So a few weeks ago I had the Bright Idea® of hauling out ye videocam and asking him to talk about some of the many zoos and aquariums he has visited.  I thought that would warm him up, so to speak, and that he’d be more willing in future installments to talk about his new job, his LifeLink apartment, his experiences at school, his hopes and dreams, and so forth.  Eventually, I want him to be able to collaborate with me, in one way or another, in the project of writing a twenty-years-later followup to Life As We Know It.  He says he’s up for it, so I’m basically trying to lay the groundwork now—starting off with the easy stuff.

In playing back this snippet (while waiting 12 hours for YouTube to process it) I realized a couple of things.  One, I step on some of his remarks.  D’oh!  Gotta watch out for that next time.  Two, he hauls out a few memories I’d forgotten, even as he substitutes “Madison Square Garden zoo” for “Central Park zoo.” (That was odd—he’s never been to the Garden.) And three, he closes by suggesting that we send this clip to CBS, ABC News, and ... The Daily Show!  I totally missed that last bit the first time around.  Great idea, Jamie!

I taped this at his maternal grandmother’s retirement village last week, at some point during the torrential rains that made much of the Northeast feel like a ship in a stormy sea.  And then I (foolishly) took him to the Mystic Aquarium, thereby adding one more item to the long list of zoos and aquariums we have visited in horrific weather.  (That visit to the Omaha Zoo really was insane. 35 degrees, as I say in the clip, but something more like 20 with the wind chill.  Fortunately they had some truly wonderful indoor exhibits, including the desert landscape Jamie mentions.)

I’m still officially on hiatus, but until I’m fully rested and ready for big-time blogging again, heeeeere’s Jamie!

Just for the record, here are those “craziest and kookiest” baboons Jamie mentions at 4:15.  Waterloo, Ontario, mid-May 2005.  40 degrees outside.  Did I mention it was mid-May?

Posted by Michael on 03/15 at 09:31 PM
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Would health care reform help you?

A special guest post by Barbara O’Brien of The Mahablog.

_______

Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. After all we’ve been through, the House still may not pass the Senate bill, and/or the budgetary aspects of the bill may not get through the Senate reconciliation process.  Almost anybody could derail the thing in the next few weeks.

But just for fun, let’s look at what conventional wisdom says will be in the final bill and see if there is anything in it that will be an immediate benefit to people with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related disease.

It is likely that the final bill will provide additional funding for state high-risk insurance pools. Currently more than 30 states run such pools, which are nonprofit, state-sponsored health insurance plans for people who can’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The biggest problem with such pools is that, often, the insurance they offer is too expensive for many who might need it. Both the Senate and House bills provide $5 billion in subsidies for state high-risk pools to make the insurance more affordable.

Under the Senate bill, beginning in 2014, private companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions, nor could they charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Until then, the state high-risk pools could provide some help.

Closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap — also called the “doughnut hole” — is another potential provision that could help some patients with asbestos-related disease. The “doughnut hole” is the gap between the coverage for yearly out-of-pocket expenses provided by Medicare Part D and Medicare’s “catastrophic coverage” threshold.

For example, in 2009 Medicare Part D paid at least 75 percent of what patients paid for prescription drugs up to $2,700. After that, patients must pay for all of their prescription medications until what they have paid exceeds $6,154. At that point, the catastrophic coverage takes over, and Medicare pays for all but 5 percent of the patient’s drug bills. The final health care reform bill probably will provide for paying at least 50 percent of out-of-pocket costs in the doughnut hole.

You may have heard the bills include budget cuts to the Medicare program, and this has been a big concern to many people. Proponents of the bill insist that savings can be found to pay for the cuts, and that people who depend on Medicare won’t face reduced services. But this is a complex issue that I want to address in a later post.

The long-term provisions probably will include many other provisions that would benefit patients with asbestos-related disease, including increased funding for medical research. Although there are many complaints about the bill coming from all parts of the political spectrum, on the whole it would be a huge benefit to many people.

— Barbara O’Brien

Posted by Michael on 03/10 at 04:28 PM
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Sunday, March 07, 2010

We interrupt this hiatus in progress

So I took the week off like a lazy bum and totally forgot about two things. 

One, voting in the 3 Quarks Daily Arts and Literature Prize ends at 11:59 tonight (Eastern time).  Unfortunately, 3QD has one of those voting devices that allows people to see the results as they vote, so you can all see that each of my two entries has picked up one vote so far.  This is embarrassing.  Yes, I know the posts weren’t all that good, or all that literary, but one vote?  Help me, my friends, let’s at least get to three.  The voting booth is here.  I know I have very few Sunday readers (largely because I almost never post on Sundays), but what the hell.

Two, and more important, I forgot to post this picture of the Best T-Shirt Ever.  (If you right-click and “view image” you can see a somewhat larger image.)

It was a gift from people at Penn State’s Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, which I visited on Tuesday, February 23 at the invitation of Hannah Williams (she’s the one on the left).  Why was I visiting the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, you ask?  Because Hannah had the great idea of inviting people from around the university who don’t work on gravitation or the cosmos to come in, talk about their work, and share notes with people who do work on gravitation and the cosmos.  I was there to talk about the fallout from Ye Olde Sokale Hoaxe, the legacy of T. S. Kuhn, the difference between brute fact and social fact, and the way that Down syndrome and disability studies reside at the intersection between brute fact and social fact.  It was much fun, and there was much food.  Also, a whole mess of really good questions.  This was only the second time I’ve done a presentation for physicists (the first time was April 1995, at Illinois), but I have to say, these ultra-interdisciplinary get-togethers are very enjoyable.  When else do you get to talk about the perihelion advance of Mercury and the debates over autism in the space of 90 minutes?  (Hmm, it turns out that you can download a Mercury Perihelion Procession of your very own from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project.  I do love the Internets for things like this.)

So when the 90 minutes were up, Hannah presented me with this shirt, saying that the group wanted to see how I react when I am proven wrong.  You’ll recall, of course, that back in January I wrote, “the reason all the T-shirts say ‘RACE FOR THE CURE’ is that ‘RACE FOR THE REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION’ doesn’t fit neatly on one side of the shirt.” As you can see, I am quite wrong about this.  And, as usual, very very happy to be wrong.  Because now I own the Best T-Shirt Ever.  Thanks, Hannah!  And thanks, people from the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos!  I look forward to meeting you again in the playoffs, when the Institute for the Arts and Humanities faces the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos in the interdisciplinary-institute quarterfinals.  We’ll bring the cosmopolitanism, and you bring the quantum foam!

And don’t forget, the post that inspired the Best T-Shirt Ever is one of the nominees for that 3QD prize.  For that alone, it deserves three votes, no?  11:59, people.

See you soon.  Until then, keep racing for the reasonable accommodation!

Posted by Michael on 03/07 at 10:01 AM
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Monday, March 01, 2010

Des plus brillants exploits

Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

Ahem.  Well, I don’t think it was a Game of the Ages.  Or a game for the ages, either.  But it was immensely entertaining.  And if you watched these Olympics and still don’t see why hockey is teh bestest game ever, even better than curling and the biathlon, I don’t know what to say to you.

For obvious (and entirely justifiable) reasons, everyone is going to remember Parise’s game-tying goal with 24.4 seconds left (and, I hope, the deft play by Patrick Kane that made it possible:  Kane was the USA’s offensive MVP of the night, and may eventually become the best American hockey player of all times), and the breathtaking, brilliant OT session that followed.  But the first 57 minutes of the game were not really all that thrilling.  The occasion was thrilling, sure—the final event of the 2010 Olympics, a rematch of a terrific prelim game, the latest installment in a serious rivalry.  But although the first 57 minutes were quick, physically intense, and tightly played, they were a little too tightly played.  We were treated to what’s called a “close-checking” game, and apparently everyone was prepared for it: in the pregame commentary, Eddie Olczyk predicted that the game would be won and lost in the corners, and he turned out to be exactly right (even though he didn’t say anything about the puck getting caught in an official’s skates, forcing Crosby to flick the puck down low to Iginla).  Me, I prefer a game that’s won and lost on the question of whether a team can skate through the neutral zone with speed, developing plays and creating open ice and passing lanes; but this game had no open ice or passing lanes, very few odd-man rushes, very little end-to-end action.  I longed for the freedom of the larger international rink; meanwhile, the USA and Canada played old school North American hockey, and they played it well.  It just wasn’t galvanizing—until Crosby’s breakaway and Kane’s furious, possibly-game-saving backcheck.  And then, two minutes later, Kane twisted to save a pass from Pavelski that had been deflected by Getzlaf, spun, sent the puck goalward, off Langenbrunner’s skate and into Luongo’s pads, and Parise put it in.

At which point the team that thought it was going to hold on to win a tightly-played one-goal-game realized that it was going to have to go to the locker room, sit for fifteen minutes, and then come back out and start the entire thing over from scratch.  1993-94 Rangers fans know what that’s like, having watched their team give up three last-minute goals to force overtime, two against the Devils (the second in game seven) and one against the Canucks (in game one).  Oh, yes, the 1993-94 Rangers themselves would know what that’s like, too.  It is excruciating.

Everything after that was just crazy land.  Up to that point, the game was huge because of the stakes, not because of the second-by-second thrills.  But the OT was edge-of-the-seat, second-by-second thrills.  Sudden death is like that.  And a twenty-minute sudden-death with four-on-four play is also like that, except more so.  I decided last night that it’s infinity times better than the five-minute OT, because I’ve watched way too many five-minute OTs in which neither team takes a chance for fear of making the fatal mistake that leads to a 2-on-1 the other way.  In this format, by contrast, players actually try to win the damn game instead of waiting out the OT to get to the shootout.  (I understand why the NHL has to keep it to five minutes, though.) And, of course, the four-on-four produced all the open ice I could have wanted.

In the end, it was exactly the right outcome.  Not only because Canada really was the just-slightly-better team, and not only because Crosby deserves this place in history, but also because Crosby’s goal saved us from decades of debates about the offsides on the first US goal and the Two Clanging Posts at the opening of the third period.  Had the Americans pulled this one out, erasing Canada’s two-goal lead and ending the Vancouver Olympics on a sour note for the home team, Canadians would now be talking about that offsides and those posts, and for obvious (and entirely justifiable) reasons, would continue talking about them forever.

And with that, dear readers, this weary blog is going on hiatus for a couple of weeks.  I have some news—I’ve been asked to serve as the next director of Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and I’ve accepted.  I don’t officially take the job until July, but I’m going to start meeting with people well before then, and that’s going to cut deeply into blogging time, for obvious (and entirely justifiable) reasons.  I’m not giving up the thing just yet—perhaps sometime later this year, after the Penguins-Blackhawks Stanley Cup final.  We will see.  In the meantime, I leave you with three important instructional videos.  First, one for you guitarists:

Then, another for you Karen Carpenter fans:

And finally, a different drummer:

See you around the Intertubes, everyone.  While I’m gone, don’t forget—The Editors have been back for a while now.

Posted by Michael on 03/01 at 10:33 AM
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Friday, February 26, 2010

Postel Friday

For those of you who are justifiably disgusted with this blog’s long descent into schlock and dreck, I humbly offer my friend Danny Postel’s latest essay on Iran, this one with 20 percent more Gramsci than his 2009 essay on Iran and the future of liberalism.

Posted by Michael on 02/26 at 08:34 AM
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Thursday, February 25, 2010

All the years of useless search have finally reached an end

Wow.  It turns out that Chris Robinson was not kidding in comment 4 of the previous thread: there really is a YouTube of a CBC segment in which Margaret Atwood teaches us how to play goal.  I didn’t believe Chris at first, not because I didn’t think Atwood had it in her (remember, I’m the one who recalled Hannah Arendt’s and Kenneth Burke’s contribution to the 1969-70 Boston Bruins) but because nobody “stacks the pads” anymore in the Age of the Butterfly.  So I stand corrected.  Thanks, Chris!

Alas, I have no time to blog about last night’s epochal smackdown involving Canada and Russia (6-1 after 24 minutes? are you kidding me?), because I’m off to New York for an MLA meeting.  I do have time, however, to confirm that my people did indeed refuse to speak to Hitler’s people about a guest-posting gig on this resolutely anti-fascist blog, just as Abbas Raza suggested in this compelling version of “Downfall.”

I’ll be holed up in MLA headquarters for most of my stay, but I do plan to sneak away after dinner Friday night and head to the Loser’s Lounge, partly to check on my old bandmate David Terhune and partly to hear the magical music of the Carpenters.  It’s the would-have-been-60th-birthday-celebration of Karen’s work, you see.  I sent Dave an email warning him that I would be in the crowd, and letting him know that I hoped he would be playing teh awesomest guitar solo ever (in a song that sucks) in “Goodbye to Love.” He assured me that he would indeed, though he added that the horns would be taking part of the outro.  In response, I sent him this old post, which of course led me to revisit Steve Rubio’s original post on “Goodbye to Love,” and ...

Z.

O.

M.

G.

Would you look at that comment thread?

The post opens with, “OK, this is a silly thing to write about, because the audience of 12 that I have for this blog has pretty much all heard the story.” It is dated September 22, 2003, back when an audience of 12 would have made Steve’s the 83rd most influential blog on the planet, and nobody responds until one Henrietta R. Hippo (if that is her real name) posts two comments on February 25, 2004.

I originally linked to the post because of Steve’s eloquent closing encomium:

The lyrics were bad enough:

Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend
From this day love is forgotten
I’ll go on as best I can

But then Tony Peluso steps in, with a short solo in mid-song, and then a longer blast to close out the record. And if it wasn’t for those two solos, I wouldn’t even know who Tony Peluso was, but off he goes, with Hal Blaine pounding beneath him ... and the only crime is that there wasn’t a place for Tony on the recent Rolling Stone list of the 100 best guitarists of all time.

And I don’t care if the above pisses off you Carpenter fans, or if I sound like a snob, but fuckin’ A as they used to say, that solo at the end of “Goodbye to Love” is an inspiration, it suggests that anything is possible, it’s the most truly uplifting thing that ever appeared on a Carpenters record, it’s the artistic truth in opposition to the sap that was the Carpenters.

My post was dated July 1, 2005; on July 13, two more readers weighed in chez Steve.  One was someone named Sean, who wrote, “Heh, I was going to comment with this on the ‘Best Guitar Solos in Crappy Songs’ post, but this is even better, since you mentioned it.” So now the post is almost two years old, and we’re at 4 comments from three different people, two of whom may have been directed Steve’s way by this very blog.  Then there’s some more love for Tony Peluso on August 19 of that year, followed by a spray of comments in 2006, one of which is from a Cynthia Michaud who says,

Tony Peluso is my best friend. He loved Karen Carpenter—her voice and her person. So you can be a fan of both with his blessing. He is immensely proud of his work with Tacuba. It’s great that you all appreciate him so much. Check out Antonio Carmona and Natalia LaFourcade.

The next, dated March 3, 2007, is from a Brian Richardson; it opens with

I was in the music dept at Long Beach State when Karen and Richard Carpenter were students there.

On March 22, Steve Richards weighs in to say,

Tony Peluso learned to play guitar by listening to Nokie Edwards, the lead guitarist of The Ventures.... The riff at the end of The Carpenters song Mr. Postman is played by Tony Peluso and is definitely a Nokie Edwards riff.

On August 13, Lucinda Filpi writes,

I knew Tony’s mom most all of my childhood. She gave me singing lessons on Saturday afternoons after she taught catechism class, when I was about twelve or so. I never remember meeting Tony, although I had seen him from a distance on occasion at church.

Then Jimmy Iovine, or someone plausibly claiming to be Mr. Iovine, appears on October 3, with a comment on the Hal Blaine love that had accumulated to that point:

Though Hal Blaine was the Carpenters primary studio drummer, Karen actually played the drums on numerous album tracks. She was also the drummer on some of their most successful hits such as “Yesterday Once More”, “Please Mister Postman”, “Ticket To Ride”, and “Sing”. Buddy Rich recognized Karen as one of his favorite drummers, and Hal Blaine himself praised Karen for her technique and overall ability as a drummer.

And here’s John Gebhart on November 16:

My family and I are blessed to have Tony Peluso as a friend. His remarkable musical talent is surpassed only by the immensity of his heart. And I’m sure I won’t live long enough to meet anyone with a more hyperactive sense of humor (I write with a huge grin).

His solo on Goodbye to Love is remarkable for any number of reasons. A distorted ‘58 335 on a Carpenters record? No way! It took amazing insight to even try it and it was executed with a master’s touch. Perhaps the overarching thing that made it work, no matter how hard he pushed the envelope that day, and he did push, was that Tony didn’t play the instrument, he played the song.

OK, so by this point two years ago, someone can show up and say,

This page is the first hit if you search for Tony Peluso on Google. Congrats to the blogger!

Followed by Spike Stewart on April 14, 2008:

I knew Tony when we where both enrolled at “Blessed Sacrament” grade school across the street from Sunset Sound. I later worked with him at C.P.MacGregor Recording Studios after his house-band gig with ‘The Abstracts’ expired at Bill Gazzari’s on the strip. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced the album long ago, but would love to have another copy sometime. I hope he is doing well and would like to know how David Dinino, Pierre Vigiant, Roland Baston and company are faring.

And in November 2008:

As we speak, Tony is in Houston to attend the Latin Grammys. Here’s hoping he’ll be a winner for his work with Cafe Tacuba! Go Tony!

Also, May 2009:

I know Richard! We talk online all of the time, so be careful of what you say! What the hell are you talking about? Who are you to say anything about the Carpenters.

And the most recent comment is dated November 6, 2009.

So let’s sum this up, shall we?  Steve Rubio posts a whimsical little something in September 2003 that he thinks will be silly and superfluous, because his readers consist of twelve people who have already heard his “Goodbye to Love” bit.  The post then generates forty-nine comments over the next six years, spread out randomly and unevenly as people famous and unfamous show up to look for Tony Peluso, Hal Blaine, friends of Richard Carpenter, David Dinino, Pierre Vigiant, Roland Baston and company.  The whole thing starts off unassumingly and gradually builds into what is clearly teh awesomest longue-durée thread to be found anywhere in the domain of the Internets, surpassing even those meta-meta-threads that are more metareferential than metareferentiality itself. 

In other words, Steve Rubio somehow wrote a tribute to “Goodbye to Love” that not only becomes the Tony Peluso Virtual Public Square but replicates in its very structure the totally unexpected WTFitude and head-asploding, medium- and genre-transforming brilliance that is Tony Peluso’s solo.  For this, and for this alone, Steve Rubio’s “Tony Peluso” post and the ensuing thread is officially the best Internet Thing ever.

Take it away:

Posted by Michael on 02/25 at 09:48 AM
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