Here's someone's favorite Top Ten Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics. They're not my fave lines--naught from Eno Collaboration--but HMHB are an underappreciated gem of a band. Although they wouldn't be mistaken for great musical innovators, they mainly play in a rock/pop vein, they have the most entertaining lyrics around. Their songs make fun of pretentious gits and champion ordinary folks. More please!  ¶ 4:21 PM 0 comments

  Cool thing to get for xmas (probably sold out by then, and heck, I don't have any rich relatives to badger): Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh. Don Van Vliet was Captain Beefheart, an "original" (as in creative) artist that turned blues into his own artistic musical vision. I saw an exhibit of his stuff in the late 80s at the San Francisco MoMA: impressionistic canvasses. They were enjoyable, but not as important to me as his music. I got into his music later. As a kid I listened to Trout Mask Replica because it was an "important" album, but my reaction was: I expect they had a lot of fun recording that but I don't need to listen to it again. I now know that it was in effect a difficult album to record--starving artists laboring through months of composing and rehearsals under Beefheart's thumb. In the early eighties I found his final two albums more interesting to listen to, but didn't really start appreciating the oeuvre until the 90s when I could fit it into the canon better. Start with Howling Wolf, add Dada, and keep stirring.  ¶ 3:06 PM

  I notice a lot of discussion on the web about the euro-islamist-head-scarf controversy. I don't get the people who complain about schools trying to force conformity on kids. I was told that was one of school's roles: having a dress code "builds character" or "unit cohesion", or some such. If I had to wear a blazer and tie in school, why should kids today get more slack? Eh?  ¶ 8:30 AM

  Here's the best website on Martin Heidegger: Ereignis. Trust me. I maintain it. Ereignis is German for enowning. Actually Ereignis is usually German for event, but Martin's got his own way with words. Enowning was invented by some translators because propriating wasn't apparently nuanced enough.  ¶ 8:05 PM 1 comments

  I had the day off today. Most the rest of the office went skiing. Went to the comic book store and got Two-Step. I liked the title, sound like gah-raj, but it's piffle really. Updated Ereignis with some more explanations of what Ereignis means.  ¶ 8:09 PM