Today was a very good day. And for me it's still morning.
The sadhus speak of clarity and invigoration that arrives with the sight of holiness. In my mind, this is a physiological effect, an evolutionarily-sound augmentation to the fitness of the self-aware that induces us to align with those things closest to perfection. These interwined asymptotes of biological competition form the guideliness for the rich space of visual, auditory, and olfactory esthetics. Nonetheless, on Valencia street accompanied by a mug and a scone, I made darshan.
I noticed, for the first time, Ritual Coffee Roasters through my car window last night, and it's faux-arabic logo and inviting subtle decor installed an interest. Primarily I just hoped to end the disappointment.
Taking BART to 16th in the dawn of my wakefulness, I walked a few blocks south on Valencia and found the storefront.
I was greeted by bustle. It looked a bit like the St*rb*ck's on Bundy and Santa Monica, with more laptops and less Hugo Boss. "Oh god no, please, please, please..." My heart sank, as memories of screaming milk and bitterness swept through me. I'd never go back, it's just not worth it.
Eileen greeted me and we discussed my order. Her knowledge of her work was evident. She answered my questions soundly, and taught me a few things about the de-gas process.
"Small coffee."
It was my standard order. Every good coffee house must base their business on that drink. It's the atomic unit of coffee aromatics. Give me as much as I need, with the most straightforward process. It captures every aspect of the intention. The small coffee is the keystone.
As I walked to my table, I carried a medium mug. Somehow Eileen delivered what I was asking for. It was the same size mug I used at home, their small being the size of my tea cups. Fair enough, they just need to adjust their nomenclature.
I sat down, looked into the drink and took a deep inhale. It was french pressed (as are all of Ritual's brewed drinks) and I could see the smoothness of the silt freckling the glossy surface. I walked back to the counter to reach for the half-and-half, then paused, then sipped then sat back down.
It was the best coffee I'd had in memory. It was the best coffee I'd had in San Francisco no doubt. And it was the only coffee that had ever talked me out of changing it.
The bean was an Ethopian Sidamo, medium roast with a mild almost sweet disposition. It tasted of the highlands, cool and inviting with a calm but brooding understanding of something worth exploring.
Barely 15 minutes after leaving the place, I returned with whole beans in hand to stand in line for the 3rd time to finish off my coverage. I'd dealt with retail drip and wholesale bean. Now it was time to sample the espresso.
"One espresso one capuccino, one shot each."
Eileen smiled, amused by my caffeine binging. At the counter I dropped back the espresso, taking a moment to note its warm amber crema before I mouthed the lot of it. It was most certainly an 8. Texturally pleasant, it had a minimal sourness, a full body, and just a bit of smoke.
I asked Eileen if she was looking for investors. Two drinks and I wanted to join the cause.
She looked slightly offended, as though she couldn't imagine such a thing. I credited her motivations, and sat down with my cap. I was just a bit disappointed that my foam was sub-par for what I'd been expecting. So far these guys were a shoo in to displace my Roman coffee allegiance, and them being so much closer... Well, I'd still be happy to go to the Cafe D'San Eustachio, but so long as I'm in the bay Ritual would be my top recommendation.
The foam was just a bit too airy, though nicely steamed otherwise with a clean not too milky flavor and just a touch of caramel. The preparation was visually attractive, and the espresso (as I'd just tasted) was well homogenized as it should be.
It turns out Eileen is one of the owners along with her partner Jeremy. They aren't actually roasting yet but will be soon, under the apprenticeship of Duane, owner of Stumptown roasters in Portland, the current source of their bean inventory. Stumptown, as I've since learned is a like-minded organization that will surely receive more of my business.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Fruit Dispute
I had my first fruit dispute today.
It was just after 9. I was on my way back from my Wednesday evening voice class, when I decided the Whole Foods Market at California and Franklin was due to receive my feedback. They closed at 10, and even from the bridge I was confident I could make it.
Minutes later, I marched into the produce section, sides barrelled, and one fist raised waist high. "There's mold in all the fruit!" I snarled with intensity. It was an intensity wrapped in the poignant memory of raspberries fed to the trash, as I watched dolefully with an empty belly. Just hours after those very raspberries, organic as they may be, were sold to me by the rascals I was about to upturn.
"Whole Foods says mold is organic!," this time I ended with a little hiss, as if I was saying "organiss". I don't know why that happened.
By this point, I'd gotten the attention of only one customer, a slight older lady in long maroon gown, with a purse as large as her handbasket, and nothing of interest in either one I'd have assumed. But I had no claim with her - in fact I was slightly embarrased because of her presence there - nonetheless, I had work to do.
I approached aisle 6. "You there, mold merchant," I hooted in my best Charlton Heston. A 40-something hispanic man with a neatly trimmed mustache, and skin a shade very close to my own turned his head as his hands continued to scan irregular chunks of hard cheese.
"I demand justice!" I soared. The man behind the conveyor belt, who I was now able to identify as "Rolfo" had a momentary eye exchange with the brunette working aisle 5. It appears they were just going to wait for security to show.
I needed traction. Suddenly, without an instant of decision magazines were flying in every direction. Yoga Today, San Francisco Magazine, 12 copies airborne. Vegan Monthly, Eco News, splayed like drunk ballerinas in every direction. "Ha ha," I yielded.
It was only as the second guard hyperextended my shoulder that my vengeance began to abate. The automatic doors were barely closed behind me as I felt the evacuated stillness of defeat. Damn those raspberries. Damn that mold.
It was just after 9. I was on my way back from my Wednesday evening voice class, when I decided the Whole Foods Market at California and Franklin was due to receive my feedback. They closed at 10, and even from the bridge I was confident I could make it.
Minutes later, I marched into the produce section, sides barrelled, and one fist raised waist high. "There's mold in all the fruit!" I snarled with intensity. It was an intensity wrapped in the poignant memory of raspberries fed to the trash, as I watched dolefully with an empty belly. Just hours after those very raspberries, organic as they may be, were sold to me by the rascals I was about to upturn.
"Whole Foods says mold is organic!," this time I ended with a little hiss, as if I was saying "organiss". I don't know why that happened.
By this point, I'd gotten the attention of only one customer, a slight older lady in long maroon gown, with a purse as large as her handbasket, and nothing of interest in either one I'd have assumed. But I had no claim with her - in fact I was slightly embarrased because of her presence there - nonetheless, I had work to do.
I approached aisle 6. "You there, mold merchant," I hooted in my best Charlton Heston. A 40-something hispanic man with a neatly trimmed mustache, and skin a shade very close to my own turned his head as his hands continued to scan irregular chunks of hard cheese.
"I demand justice!" I soared. The man behind the conveyor belt, who I was now able to identify as "Rolfo" had a momentary eye exchange with the brunette working aisle 5. It appears they were just going to wait for security to show.
I needed traction. Suddenly, without an instant of decision magazines were flying in every direction. Yoga Today, San Francisco Magazine, 12 copies airborne. Vegan Monthly, Eco News, splayed like drunk ballerinas in every direction. "Ha ha," I yielded.
It was only as the second guard hyperextended my shoulder that my vengeance began to abate. The automatic doors were barely closed behind me as I felt the evacuated stillness of defeat. Damn those raspberries. Damn that mold.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Friday, August 05, 2005
Bajan
Stemware martini
Attacks stemware wine
Pens take note
Coffee beans rain down
Through bolts of glass
As tablas thunder
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha
Ta Ka Ti Ka Ta
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha Te Te Te Te Te Te Te Te
Shirtless skin boasts
Invincibly
Unconvinced it was him
Silver coil throbs
Against its broken spiral
Safety cowers in a stained wood box
With a bag of green cardamom
Some books
And a tape
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha
Ta Ka Ti Ka Ta
And a minefield moves into the womb
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha Ka Te Te Ka Te Te Ka Ta
Attacks stemware wine
Pens take note
Coffee beans rain down
Through bolts of glass
As tablas thunder
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha
Ta Ka Ti Ka Ta
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha Te Te Te Te Te Te Te Te
Shirtless skin boasts
Invincibly
Unconvinced it was him
Silver coil throbs
Against its broken spiral
Safety cowers in a stained wood box
With a bag of green cardamom
Some books
And a tape
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha
Ta Ka Ti Ka Ta
And a minefield moves into the womb
Dha Ga Dhi Ga Dha Ka Te Te Ka Te Te Ka Ta
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Olm
It is with great pleasure that I reckon how much human infrastructure it has required over the generations so that I may be sent the following automated message: "Hey!", from Indecisiveness L. Olmstead.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
Napkins
Shame intervened with the rough gravel cold of cracked ice, smiting my forearms with blue as even my own blood would draw back from its onslaught. My knees are long numbed, bare and indented, twin foundations fading into imperceptibility. The weight of my spine, twisting forward under the slothful drag of my torso, and the gentle warmth of my heaving abdomen spreading like a welcome breeze across arid land, both fade unnoticed into the paralysis in which I kneel.
Too loud, too loud, sirens and crashing, a space so full of sound nothing else could fill it, yet I was there, overflowing an empty hall of despair with my presence that forced me to take in my place.
There is a vacuum inside my nose and the harder I inhale the more it smothers me. My upper respiratory tract yearns to implode, its soft nurturing membranes clinging to their homeland, like rebel zealots scorning the end of conflict.
Too loud, too loud, the quiet would come just too late, but realized enough.
Dust - now mud - blackened my corneas so that momentary rapids emerged along the flowing silt in my tears. If I could see, there would be nothing where I was looking - inside, away from the source.
There would be safety. Eventually. And forever.
Too loud, too loud, sirens and crashing, a space so full of sound nothing else could fill it, yet I was there, overflowing an empty hall of despair with my presence that forced me to take in my place.
There is a vacuum inside my nose and the harder I inhale the more it smothers me. My upper respiratory tract yearns to implode, its soft nurturing membranes clinging to their homeland, like rebel zealots scorning the end of conflict.
Too loud, too loud, the quiet would come just too late, but realized enough.
Dust - now mud - blackened my corneas so that momentary rapids emerged along the flowing silt in my tears. If I could see, there would be nothing where I was looking - inside, away from the source.
There would be safety. Eventually. And forever.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Headache - Part 1
Life in the post-industrial consciousness seems to be nothing more than a series of unfortunate misunderstandings. Progress of the aggregate is assumed from the progress of a decreasing number of its constituents. And the progress of each of those constituents is a faded litmus of what benefit used to mean.
From Aristotle, to Schweitzer, to John Lennon the image has been present, but so smeared with disbelief that it can't be seen through all the hateful graffiti. Everything that can happen does, until it can't. And as the threads of intersecting possibilities wrap around each other, so form the twine of cascading events we call life. And so it has goes without beginning or end, just ever blooming middle. Time, as physicist Julian Barbour explains, is a metric not a concept. It's a derivative of the state of being of a set of things, and useful to represent the pace at which things change in comparison to each other. Even a child knows that night and day occur more often than summer and winter. This is the frame we've built and we teach each other to live in it.
But in 2005, busy is the mandate. Voice mails communicate with voice mails, and even sometimes breed with email, instant messages, SMS, or Post-its. And as each new avenue heralds mankind with a new way to etch into the memories of their peers - a human instinct manifest since cerebral development allowed - the condition in which the message makers exist places them behind so many layers of blanketing that nothing more then a restrained squirm gets through.
Walk to your nearest gathering of Bay area teenagers for example, and you'll hear something that goes like this: "I might have seen something. It might have been common adjective." "I might have seen something too. It might have been same common adjective."
I've deciphered this theme as it was encoded in a sea of likes and hellas. What is immediately obvious is the lack of any mutually beneficial information exchange, and a decisive end to the backing of ideas, should any crop up. Everything is conditional. Fundamentally we've become the petri dish for a culture that speaks advertising pidgin consisting of obfuscated gibberish that even those speaking it aren't willing to back.
But there's no time for such metaphysical babble. Put out that incense and get a job.
Ah right, capital the great equalizer. The invention of the universe that allows me to acquire and trade expectation, thereby giving me access to the bounty of the world I would otherwise live without. But what aim would I have for such bounty before I think about acquiring it?
Who cares, let's get it and find out. I see lots of smiling people around all the pictures. It must be the elixir they've been keeping from me all these years. Look at those smiles. Look at those breasts. I can feel that way too. How could I know they feel the same way I do. I just have to keep saving and...
An expectation that never materializes into an event was simply a waste of time and energy. And yet promissary notes of the expectation of strangers are what drives the modern world.
If I start with a clean head, it won't take long to realize that delight is the best I can get. Obviously, there are various characters and flavors of this human expression of stability, but fundamentally, when something bangs the gong of survival and we resonate with a genuine addition to our survival strength, we experience delight. Life has a way of rewarding its allies.
And where do I find delight? In activation of the senses, of the mind that interprets them, and of the identity that is custodian of its means. There is a grammar in all of our senses, not just hearing. This grammar allows us to identify harmonies and phrases within that sense. By doing so, we provide our mind with greater depth of understanding for each of our sensory inputs, and therefore a greater overall sense of attachment and depth in our interface to the world. We can taste with greater precision, use our fingertips to detect subtle differences in texture or temperature, but we have to allow them to take their shape, by offering them time to develop. An identity that is our own will foster this.
Wherein I assume that all things unrelated to one thing are unimportant, I inadvertantly take on the job of custodian of that thing. I have attributed my priority one to an identity whose defense takes something different than my own, and may even violate my own. And I accept that my own identity therefore, is subordinate to the identity which I now defend with my every waking moment of attention.
And so I pay $4 for a terrible cup of coffee. The good news is, 100 million units were shipped this week, and that's 14% more than the same week last year. And because I can never be where I want to be, it's good they're everywhere. My tongue is blue with disappointment. My olfactory bulbs, a direct extension of my brain, representing millions of years of life-saving understanding left scorned by a simulacrum of what used to be good.
And yet I'm at the throne of progress. So high up I can't reach anyone or anything I'd care to have. So much thinking. So little thought.
From Aristotle, to Schweitzer, to John Lennon the image has been present, but so smeared with disbelief that it can't be seen through all the hateful graffiti. Everything that can happen does, until it can't. And as the threads of intersecting possibilities wrap around each other, so form the twine of cascading events we call life. And so it has goes without beginning or end, just ever blooming middle. Time, as physicist Julian Barbour explains, is a metric not a concept. It's a derivative of the state of being of a set of things, and useful to represent the pace at which things change in comparison to each other. Even a child knows that night and day occur more often than summer and winter. This is the frame we've built and we teach each other to live in it.
But in 2005, busy is the mandate. Voice mails communicate with voice mails, and even sometimes breed with email, instant messages, SMS, or Post-its. And as each new avenue heralds mankind with a new way to etch into the memories of their peers - a human instinct manifest since cerebral development allowed - the condition in which the message makers exist places them behind so many layers of blanketing that nothing more then a restrained squirm gets through.
Walk to your nearest gathering of Bay area teenagers for example, and you'll hear something that goes like this: "I might have seen something. It might have been common adjective." "I might have seen something too. It might have been same common adjective."
I've deciphered this theme as it was encoded in a sea of likes and hellas. What is immediately obvious is the lack of any mutually beneficial information exchange, and a decisive end to the backing of ideas, should any crop up. Everything is conditional. Fundamentally we've become the petri dish for a culture that speaks advertising pidgin consisting of obfuscated gibberish that even those speaking it aren't willing to back.
But there's no time for such metaphysical babble. Put out that incense and get a job.
Ah right, capital the great equalizer. The invention of the universe that allows me to acquire and trade expectation, thereby giving me access to the bounty of the world I would otherwise live without. But what aim would I have for such bounty before I think about acquiring it?
Who cares, let's get it and find out. I see lots of smiling people around all the pictures. It must be the elixir they've been keeping from me all these years. Look at those smiles. Look at those breasts. I can feel that way too. How could I know they feel the same way I do. I just have to keep saving and...
An expectation that never materializes into an event was simply a waste of time and energy. And yet promissary notes of the expectation of strangers are what drives the modern world.
If I start with a clean head, it won't take long to realize that delight is the best I can get. Obviously, there are various characters and flavors of this human expression of stability, but fundamentally, when something bangs the gong of survival and we resonate with a genuine addition to our survival strength, we experience delight. Life has a way of rewarding its allies.
And where do I find delight? In activation of the senses, of the mind that interprets them, and of the identity that is custodian of its means. There is a grammar in all of our senses, not just hearing. This grammar allows us to identify harmonies and phrases within that sense. By doing so, we provide our mind with greater depth of understanding for each of our sensory inputs, and therefore a greater overall sense of attachment and depth in our interface to the world. We can taste with greater precision, use our fingertips to detect subtle differences in texture or temperature, but we have to allow them to take their shape, by offering them time to develop. An identity that is our own will foster this.
Wherein I assume that all things unrelated to one thing are unimportant, I inadvertantly take on the job of custodian of that thing. I have attributed my priority one to an identity whose defense takes something different than my own, and may even violate my own. And I accept that my own identity therefore, is subordinate to the identity which I now defend with my every waking moment of attention.
And so I pay $4 for a terrible cup of coffee. The good news is, 100 million units were shipped this week, and that's 14% more than the same week last year. And because I can never be where I want to be, it's good they're everywhere. My tongue is blue with disappointment. My olfactory bulbs, a direct extension of my brain, representing millions of years of life-saving understanding left scorned by a simulacrum of what used to be good.
And yet I'm at the throne of progress. So high up I can't reach anyone or anything I'd care to have. So much thinking. So little thought.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Speechless
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
- Mohandas Gandhi
"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act."
- Buddha
"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final".
- US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
- Mohandas Gandhi
"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act."
- Buddha
"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final".
- US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Mia Doi Todd @ SF
Last night I found myself face to face with Mia Doi Todd. I didn't realize this until she took stage later, as I'd never actually seen her. She's much smaller than I imagined. Though she seemed to enlarge behind her guitar.
I had come to her show at Cafe DuNord after listening to her album (ordered a few months back from the small LA label that published it), which I did after watching a video clip online for her song My Room is White. As it happens, my room is white (something I've always found relaxing to wake to, and less distracting to sleep in) which I mentioned to the friend who recommended me the link. She didn't think it was nearly as interesting as I did. The song was enticing nonetheless.
Music, as I relate to it, is fully conceptual and in some sense unattainable. Our brains allow us to receive and store information by discerning patterns of greater and greater scope. This intelligence spawned language, first in the form of simple constructs encoded in tone and time, and then in more complex articulations involving sophisticated technique derived from our human language skills. Music is an example of such a pattern that we're able to process and then discern emotional messaging.
The goal of the musician, thus, is to imply the music in as clear and accurate a way as possible, and in essence become invisible. The goal of the listener is to discern the music from the sounds produced by the musician. The better each of them are, the more salient the music will be.
And so with attention piqued, I could not have predicted my emotion as I heard French a capella. I was enraptured. The implication of music occurs for me most easily when the least amount of sound gets in its way. It's for this reason that I've stayed attached to compositions with strong vocals with simple acoustic accompaniment. There is so much music that can be swept into the swells and folds of a rare vocal talent. And as this magic went down, it lit up my left frontal lobe with high bandwidth emotion. Miss Todd completed her show with various songs from the album Manzanita (which I own) and several I'd not heard. She was accompanied only by her Taylor.
I closed my eyes once in a while, and thought about my own unlikely musicianship. I'd been whining about not getting a violin when I was 9, well into my 20s. All the while I poured energy into self-destructive behaviors, feeling anger and envy around musicians of every kind. They were the chosen few, and I wasn't happy about it.
And then several years ago, my friend Jason Sugg scolded me on the phone: "Go get a guitar now." He had heard enough of my whining. I'd earned the nickname BIM years before for being a Bitter Indian Man. The bitter malaise seemed to have no end.
I did go get a guitar that day. But it sat dusty for nearly 4 years until someone I met named Farah Kidwai (an accomplished opera singer and now dear friend) suggested I take voice lessons. I didn't really like the guitar because it seemed too detached (at least at the time). Voice was always my most personal sense of expression. The years of looking down instead of forward left me with a suite of terrible habits including massive self doubt, shame, self sabotage, the works. So it was something more of a complete spiritual turnaround to find out the hopelessness was just a gimmick I'd learned from too much t.v., and that there were instructions available for how to use my diaphragm and my larynx. The realization opened new doors, got me to actually start using my guitar, and was inevitably the reason I was standing in...
And suddenly I was back at Cafe DuNord, and taking in an honest performance, I felt comfort. That despite the somber intervals and austere lyrics, Miss Todd had allowed me to see a clearer picture of my own love for things lost, and things hopeful, through musicianship so beautifully transparent.
I had come to her show at Cafe DuNord after listening to her album (ordered a few months back from the small LA label that published it), which I did after watching a video clip online for her song My Room is White. As it happens, my room is white (something I've always found relaxing to wake to, and less distracting to sleep in) which I mentioned to the friend who recommended me the link. She didn't think it was nearly as interesting as I did. The song was enticing nonetheless.
Music, as I relate to it, is fully conceptual and in some sense unattainable. Our brains allow us to receive and store information by discerning patterns of greater and greater scope. This intelligence spawned language, first in the form of simple constructs encoded in tone and time, and then in more complex articulations involving sophisticated technique derived from our human language skills. Music is an example of such a pattern that we're able to process and then discern emotional messaging.
The goal of the musician, thus, is to imply the music in as clear and accurate a way as possible, and in essence become invisible. The goal of the listener is to discern the music from the sounds produced by the musician. The better each of them are, the more salient the music will be.
And so with attention piqued, I could not have predicted my emotion as I heard French a capella. I was enraptured. The implication of music occurs for me most easily when the least amount of sound gets in its way. It's for this reason that I've stayed attached to compositions with strong vocals with simple acoustic accompaniment. There is so much music that can be swept into the swells and folds of a rare vocal talent. And as this magic went down, it lit up my left frontal lobe with high bandwidth emotion. Miss Todd completed her show with various songs from the album Manzanita (which I own) and several I'd not heard. She was accompanied only by her Taylor.
I closed my eyes once in a while, and thought about my own unlikely musicianship. I'd been whining about not getting a violin when I was 9, well into my 20s. All the while I poured energy into self-destructive behaviors, feeling anger and envy around musicians of every kind. They were the chosen few, and I wasn't happy about it.
And then several years ago, my friend Jason Sugg scolded me on the phone: "Go get a guitar now." He had heard enough of my whining. I'd earned the nickname BIM years before for being a Bitter Indian Man. The bitter malaise seemed to have no end.
I did go get a guitar that day. But it sat dusty for nearly 4 years until someone I met named Farah Kidwai (an accomplished opera singer and now dear friend) suggested I take voice lessons. I didn't really like the guitar because it seemed too detached (at least at the time). Voice was always my most personal sense of expression. The years of looking down instead of forward left me with a suite of terrible habits including massive self doubt, shame, self sabotage, the works. So it was something more of a complete spiritual turnaround to find out the hopelessness was just a gimmick I'd learned from too much t.v., and that there were instructions available for how to use my diaphragm and my larynx. The realization opened new doors, got me to actually start using my guitar, and was inevitably the reason I was standing in...
And suddenly I was back at Cafe DuNord, and taking in an honest performance, I felt comfort. That despite the somber intervals and austere lyrics, Miss Todd had allowed me to see a clearer picture of my own love for things lost, and things hopeful, through musicianship so beautifully transparent.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Keane @ Berkeley
I am not a gusher. I have never been a gusher. I am about to gush.
Keane played a shockingly impressive set last night at what is now my favorite Bay area venue. There are few bands I have seen who can consistently write songs that dissolve straight into the joyful center of my head. The first time I heard We Might as Well Be Strangers, that happened. Last night, Keane played a sprinkling of their new songs, and once again, squish, I am hooked. It's unprecedented. There is no chance that I won't buy their new album.
It doesn't hurt that the band members are endearing English boys who lavish their mature performances with heartfelt appreciation, genuine human interest, and enthusiasm. Keane is currently the only mainstream pop band that I trust. Chris Martin should take notes on how not to be a sweltering buffoon.
The final stroke was a visually satisfying blend of smooth search lights in soft colors, stroking fingers across the ornate and majestic surfaces of the Berkeley Community Theater. The standard rock-and-roll pomp that makes me want to squeeze one of my eyeballs was left out, drama finding its own outlet in Keane's thoughtful, evocative songwriting and aforementioned salient charm.
Do you feel the gushing yet?
To be completely objective, mood certainly has an impact on the concert experience, and I was in a good one. Good because I was feeling optimism and peace tinged with a bit of second-hand self-pity, as I looked at the pair of empty seats I had brought along to join me. I had gotten over the fact that the 3 people I was expecting to go with couldn't make it, and that the two people I had asked to go in their place had flaked out, but when after 15 minutes of running around like a monkey in front of the will call window proved unsuccessful at selling more than one of my tickets for clearance prices, I decided to donate the two to a friend I'd made in the process.
On a completely unrelated note, it's interesting to see who joins in when you're being loud and foolish in a public place. I found myself descending into low grade standup just to get attention, begging people to take my tickets, offering hugs and other stupid incentives. Within a few minutes there were 5 people standing next to me with various states of tickets to be sold, looking for some sales support. There were also several sitting and standing in various places laughing and smiling and making suggestions. Ah, the deprived masses.
In any case, one of my friends-by-colocation who claimed love for the band offered to trade my remaining pair of seats (which were destined for trash heaven) for theirs since mine were better. In hopes for some kind of company and charitability toward a fan... as you can infer, they didn't show up either.
So my advice: If you're going to see a band, see Keane. If you're going to see Keane, see them by yourself. And if you go by yourself, make sure you invite as many people as possible who won't show. And if they don't show, make sure you invite other people who won't show either. And if they don't show either, try to give their seats away to people who you think might just enjoy the concert, and if they don't show either, then you'll have the best show of your life.
Keane played a shockingly impressive set last night at what is now my favorite Bay area venue. There are few bands I have seen who can consistently write songs that dissolve straight into the joyful center of my head. The first time I heard We Might as Well Be Strangers, that happened. Last night, Keane played a sprinkling of their new songs, and once again, squish, I am hooked. It's unprecedented. There is no chance that I won't buy their new album.
It doesn't hurt that the band members are endearing English boys who lavish their mature performances with heartfelt appreciation, genuine human interest, and enthusiasm. Keane is currently the only mainstream pop band that I trust. Chris Martin should take notes on how not to be a sweltering buffoon.
The final stroke was a visually satisfying blend of smooth search lights in soft colors, stroking fingers across the ornate and majestic surfaces of the Berkeley Community Theater. The standard rock-and-roll pomp that makes me want to squeeze one of my eyeballs was left out, drama finding its own outlet in Keane's thoughtful, evocative songwriting and aforementioned salient charm.
Do you feel the gushing yet?
To be completely objective, mood certainly has an impact on the concert experience, and I was in a good one. Good because I was feeling optimism and peace tinged with a bit of second-hand self-pity, as I looked at the pair of empty seats I had brought along to join me. I had gotten over the fact that the 3 people I was expecting to go with couldn't make it, and that the two people I had asked to go in their place had flaked out, but when after 15 minutes of running around like a monkey in front of the will call window proved unsuccessful at selling more than one of my tickets for clearance prices, I decided to donate the two to a friend I'd made in the process.
On a completely unrelated note, it's interesting to see who joins in when you're being loud and foolish in a public place. I found myself descending into low grade standup just to get attention, begging people to take my tickets, offering hugs and other stupid incentives. Within a few minutes there were 5 people standing next to me with various states of tickets to be sold, looking for some sales support. There were also several sitting and standing in various places laughing and smiling and making suggestions. Ah, the deprived masses.
In any case, one of my friends-by-colocation who claimed love for the band offered to trade my remaining pair of seats (which were destined for trash heaven) for theirs since mine were better. In hopes for some kind of company and charitability toward a fan... as you can infer, they didn't show up either.
So my advice: If you're going to see a band, see Keane. If you're going to see Keane, see them by yourself. And if you go by yourself, make sure you invite as many people as possible who won't show. And if they don't show, make sure you invite other people who won't show either. And if they don't show either, try to give their seats away to people who you think might just enjoy the concert, and if they don't show either, then you'll have the best show of your life.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Introduction
The first time the words world wide and web crossed my ears in that combined sequence, it was in the voice of Ernst Smith, my roommate for my freshman year at MIT in 1993. Ernst was a brilliant technologist with a passion for detail, as well as a generally nice guy. His casual lecturing built my foundation in networking, operating systems, and helped set my initial outlook as technology the tool, the helper, the thing we want.
Within months Ernst had me setup with Linux and a web server on my Gateway 486-66DX2 (my recent upgrade from the Apple IIGS that took me through high school) and I'd spend an embarassing number of hours paging through log files interested in who was looking at my scant web offerings which included things like my class schedule and some pictures of Cindy Crawford in a bikini. I was 17, I have no apologies. I'd get up to a few hundred hits a day if I recall -- not bad for just 3 or 4 pages of hand-typed HTML, though it was Cindy and friends that always drew the traffic. I liked seeing hits from IBM, or NIH, or Croatia.
My web server was called synergy.mit.edu and my very first IP address was 18.239.2.102. I know this because Ernst also helped me get my first job as a Residential Computing Consultant for my dorm where I was able to bill 10 bucks an hour for what DHCP now does for free. It was called Resnet, and started up toward the end of my first year. To this day, I miss having 10Mbps in my bedroom.
Jumping forward 12 years, I've just ended 4 years at a company called Akamai, teaching distributed computing technology to people our sales people would then get to sign contracts. It was an extremely useful experience, for various reasons, not the least of which is that it gave me a chance to interact with IT project managers from a huge range of interesting clients all over the western US. I met with companies as diverse as Nissan, Suzuki, Honda, Fox Sports, Warner Music Group, eHarmony.com, Ticketmaster, and Google.
I mention all of this to make this following point. From Ernst Smith who called himself a hacker and loved to revel at the elegance of competent technical architecture well at the dawn of the dot com era, to the CIOs and middle managers of late who have accepted the web as just another new place to cultivate revenue, the idea of the web has gone through my mind and spirit more times than I could ever have imagined in the fall of 1993.
And now it is the eve of May 2005, and I am about to begin my first blog -- my first homecoming to the world of completely pointless web content whose existence implies someone would want to read it. I shut down Synergy ages ago and only started up Brewnote as a necessary way to distribute audition samples and info. Between the two I never felt I was missing much. I had seen the rise and fall of the visionary fruit, and then spent years blanding myself to the juices.
But now I am possessed to emerge again, motivated by a combination of intentions. This blog will be governed only by taste and truth, and the rest can get parsed out by whatever method you prefer.
On that note, welcome to Brewnote Blog.
Within months Ernst had me setup with Linux and a web server on my Gateway 486-66DX2 (my recent upgrade from the Apple IIGS that took me through high school) and I'd spend an embarassing number of hours paging through log files interested in who was looking at my scant web offerings which included things like my class schedule and some pictures of Cindy Crawford in a bikini. I was 17, I have no apologies. I'd get up to a few hundred hits a day if I recall -- not bad for just 3 or 4 pages of hand-typed HTML, though it was Cindy and friends that always drew the traffic. I liked seeing hits from IBM, or NIH, or Croatia.
My web server was called synergy.mit.edu and my very first IP address was 18.239.2.102. I know this because Ernst also helped me get my first job as a Residential Computing Consultant for my dorm where I was able to bill 10 bucks an hour for what DHCP now does for free. It was called Resnet, and started up toward the end of my first year. To this day, I miss having 10Mbps in my bedroom.
Jumping forward 12 years, I've just ended 4 years at a company called Akamai, teaching distributed computing technology to people our sales people would then get to sign contracts. It was an extremely useful experience, for various reasons, not the least of which is that it gave me a chance to interact with IT project managers from a huge range of interesting clients all over the western US. I met with companies as diverse as Nissan, Suzuki, Honda, Fox Sports, Warner Music Group, eHarmony.com, Ticketmaster, and Google.
I mention all of this to make this following point. From Ernst Smith who called himself a hacker and loved to revel at the elegance of competent technical architecture well at the dawn of the dot com era, to the CIOs and middle managers of late who have accepted the web as just another new place to cultivate revenue, the idea of the web has gone through my mind and spirit more times than I could ever have imagined in the fall of 1993.
And now it is the eve of May 2005, and I am about to begin my first blog -- my first homecoming to the world of completely pointless web content whose existence implies someone would want to read it. I shut down Synergy ages ago and only started up Brewnote as a necessary way to distribute audition samples and info. Between the two I never felt I was missing much. I had seen the rise and fall of the visionary fruit, and then spent years blanding myself to the juices.
But now I am possessed to emerge again, motivated by a combination of intentions. This blog will be governed only by taste and truth, and the rest can get parsed out by whatever method you prefer.
On that note, welcome to Brewnote Blog.