Sirenexiv Cola I

"You Sparkle and Burn"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

I once had a friend (and coworker) who, when he’d pick music to play at work, always picked from my alterna-pop CDs which featured female vocalists.  Whenever I asked him why he never picked male singers, he’d just shrug, give an enigmatic smile, and say, I like the women’s voices better.  And admittedly there are times when I do as well.  During those times, I reach for this mix.

The real inspiration for this mix was my discovery of KT Tunstall.  This was only a few years back, and I stumbled across her name in conjunction with something else—I have no clue what it was now—and she sounded interesting.  So I did what I often do in such cases: I asked AllMusic which was her best album, then went and listened to the free samples of it to see if it was any good.  In this case, that was the double-album Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon.  Which I listened to, and thought it was moderately decent, and put it on my list to pick up one day.  But nothing too exciting.  And then I decided to listen to just one more album, and I picked Tiger Suit.  And, man, let me tell you: it blew me away.  I can’t think of an artist I was this excited about since stumbling across Movitz! on The Colbert Report.¹

And, weirdly, it parallels my discovery of whitechocolatespaceegg by Liz Phair.  That’s another album that I was quite surprised to fall in love with, after hearing one song² on the radio, by an artist whose other albums I don’t like nearly as much ... even down to not being that keen on the one that AllMusic tells me I “should” like.  In Phair’s case, the critical darling is Exit to Guyville, but I’m fairly “meh” on that one.  whitechocolatespaceegg, on the other hand, is magnificent.  As a bonus, Tunstall’s style is very close to Phair’s—but not identical—so that Tiger Suit is both familiar and fresh at the same time.  I knew that I needed to put together a mix featuring Tunstall and Phair.  (And note that, indeed, they provide the first two tracks here.)

I decided to center the mix around female vocalists, with upbeat, vaguely poppy songs as sung by sweet, often sexy, voices.  Some of my friend’s favorite artists are well represented here: the Sundays, the Katydids, Tori Amos, and of course Liz Phair.  When I tried to think of a creative name for this mix, I thought of various words that might bring to mind a beautiful female voice drifting over to the listener, and of course I thought of “siren.” But I also thought of “vixen,” which implies extra attributes of cleverness and sexuality.  So I just glued those two words together, and added something to indicate the poppy nature of the whole, and there we have “Sirenexiv Cola.”

Now, obviously not every female vocalist is going to work here.  As much as I love the Cocteau Twins, Elizabeth Fraser’s dreamy vocals are not quite right for this mix.  Bold, brassy vocals such as Amy Winehouse or Alf Moyet (from Yazoo) are not going to work well here either.  Nor are the hard rockers like Joan Jett or Pat Benatar, nor the more experimental folks like Throwing Muses or the Breeders.  On the other hand, there is the anti-folk movement, which is perfect here.

Now, I rather think of Tori Amos as the original anti-folk artist, even though she was around before most of the modern artists that term is applied to were ever heard of.³  And we have a track here from Tori, one of the rare upbeat tracks off her stunning Little Earthquakes, which is certainly one of my favorite albums.  (And “Happy Phantom” contains one of my favorite all-time lyrics: “They say Confucius does his crossword with a pen ...”)  And the rest of the (mostly) ladies who wear the anti-folk label are way more upbeat than Amos: Feist, Regina Spektor, Keren Ann, Mirah⁴ ... all of whom we have represented here, of course.

Feist, you know: indeed, “1234” in particular you know, because that iPod commercial wormed its way into your brain and never let go.  Feist is way more than that one song, and we’ll hear more from her on future volumes, but there’s also a lot to be said for that particular tune, as pervasive as it was.  Spektor is probably best known for singing the theme song to Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, and the original version of that song is our closer here.  Spektor is more than just that one song too (and in fact I already knew of her before OItNB), but that song is pretty spectacular.  Keren Ann and Mirah are a bit more obscure; I believe I found both of them from following “artists like this one” type links (probably links from Regina Spektor and/or Feist, for that matter).  Multilingual Keren Ann was born in Israel and raised in the Netherlands, but she sings primarily in English and French.  The track we use here is from her first English album, Not Going Anywhere, which is quite pretty.  Mirah is a bit more hit and miss, but “Sweepstakes Prize” is a pretty awesome tune, and it provides our volume title.

In the category of other artists who shouldn’t be a surprise, we have Beth Quist, a Magnatune artist who we first met on Smokelit Flashback IV.  Most of her stuff is not particularly as poppy as “Monsters,” but she’s still an excellent choice for this mix.  Competing with Magnatune, we have Jamendo, which more often showcases folks who are putting together sonic portfolios by creating soundtracks for non-existent movies.  But they also have other types of music, including Bella Ruse, a duo from Columbus that also qualifies as anti-folk in my opinion.  Their female-fronted songs are delicate and upbeat, like the one I chose for this mix, off their debut EP.

Sirenexiv Cola I
[ You Sparkle and Burn ]

“Glamour Puss” by KT Tunstall, off Tiger Suit
“Perfect World” by Liz Phair, off Whitechocolatespaceegg
“Clean White Love” by Lisa Mitchell, off Wonder
“A Little Love” by Meaghan Smith, off The Cricket's Orchestra
“Heart of Everyone” by Bella Ruse, off Bella Ruse [EP]
“Sweepstakes Prize” by Mirah, off You Think It's Like This but Really It's Like This
“Fingers” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Get Some” by Lykke Li, off Wounded Rhymes
“You Never Know” by Goldfrapp, off Supernature
“Energy” by Lisa Germano, off Happiness
“You're the One [Blood Orange Remix]” by Charli XCX, off You're the One [US] [EP]
“Dollhouse” by Melanie Martinez, off Dollhouse [EP]
“Monsters” by Beth Quist, off Silver
“Right Now & Right Here” by Keren Ann, off Not Going Anywhere
“Happy Phantom” by Tori Amos, off Little Earthquakes
“My Finest Hour” by the Sundays, off Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
“The Boy Who's Never Found” by Katydids, off Shangri-La
“1234” by Feist, off The Reminder
“Fortune Teller” by Ed's Redeeming Qualities, off It's All Good News
“Fall Away” by Eleni Mandell [Single]
“You've Got Time” by Regina Spektor [Single]

Total:  21 tracks,  75:29

As I talked about before, I really like P!nk.  Most of her music is too party-girl for this mix, and in fact there were several times that I almost decided that “Fingers” was too risqué to fit in here.  But, in the end, I decided that I wanted to include Lykke Li’s “Get Some,” which is a pretty decent party song itself.  So then “Fingers” seemed like a pretty logical lead-in to the Swedish pop star’s driving beat.⁵  And, following Li, we have Goldfrapp, another artist who can bounce around from trip-hop to uptempo pop without too much difficulty.  “You Never Know” has a bit of a Kate Bush feel that slots in perfectly here.

There are a few other hardcore pop artists here, including Charli XCX, whose “You’re the One” is about as pop as it gets.  I prefer the “Blood Oranges remix” from her CD single / EP: I think it adds just enough flavor to tone down the over-the-top-pop to the perfect level for this mix.  Australia’s Lisa Mitchell is also normally considered pop, although I think she has enough anti-folk cred to earn her place here with the quite wonderful “Clean White Love.” And I think Melanie Martinez qualifies as pop, although she drifts around a bit as well.  We first heard from Martinez on Darkling Embrace, after all.  But “Dollhouse” is a pretty decent fit here, and I love its clever lyrics.  Eleni Mandell is more of a country singer than a pop singer, but she also has range, and I really like “Fall Away,” which was used in Monkeybone.

Finally, three songs from moderately unexpected quarters.  First up, we have a track from Meaghan Smith, who I talked about discovering back on Moonside by Riverlight.  “A Little Love” may not be quite as good as “Heartbroken,” but it’s pretty damned awesome, and it’s got a bit of electropop-meets-orchestral feel that makes it quite distinctive.  Right around the center mark, we have Lisa Germano, possibly the only major 4AD artist that I missed discovering back in the day.  But I stumbled across her again recently while looking for cool music that featured violinists, and Germano’s name naturally came up.  The second I heard “Energy,” I knew two things: first, that I’d heard it before and somehow forgotten about it, and, secondly, that it was a big ball of awesome that I’d been missing out on for about 20 years.  It’s one of the best tracks on this volume, and trust me when I tell you that’s saying something.  Last but not least, we have Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, who have a tendency to turn up in odd places, like here.  We first heard from them on Tenderhearted Nightshade, then they popped up on Zephyrous Aquamarine, and now here they are again.  ERQ doesn’t always feature female vocals of course, but Carrie Bradley, who would go on to play fiddle for the Breeders, then start her own band called 100 Watt Smile, has a beautiful voice, as well as a sure hand on either acoustic guitar or fiddle.  Silly-yet-poignant is ERQ’s specialty, and, while “Fortune Teller” has some highly amusing lyrics, it’s also touching somehow.  But still upbeat enough to work well here, introducing our closing stretch and leading, via Mandell, into the strong closer of “You’ve Got Time.”

Next time, we’ll attempt to achieve even more balance by counteracting last time’s downbeat and this week’s upbeat with some mid-tempo, of the slinky variety.

Sirenexiv Cola II ⇒

__________

1 Perhaps the closest I could come to it would be either Firewater or Devics, both of whom are great, but Tunstall still has them both beat.

2 Specifically, “Polyester Bride,” which I have no doubt we’ll see on a future volume of this very mix.

3 Similarly, I will always think of My Bloody Valentine as shoegazers, even though technically speaking the shoegazers were the folks that followed in their footsteps.

4 Note: some of those folks will be listed by some sources as “indie pop” rather than anit-folk.  I personally put them all together.

5 We first talked about Lykke Li back on Darkling Embrace.  Although in general I prefer Youth Novels, she does have other albums with good songs.  They’re just not as consistent, in my opinion.

Off to Camp

Today is an interesting day.  My eldest child, who is less than six months away from not being a child at all any more (at least according to our legal system), is going away to summer camp for the first time.  This is not because we wouldn’t let them go before now ... it’s just because this is the first time they ever wanted to go.  The Mother, of course, is as devastated as one might expect from a mother on her first child’s first day of school.  Which makes sense, if you consider that, between their initial career at a Sudbury school and later homeschooling, this really is the first time that we’ve sent them off to be with strangers in an environment which we know will be good for them but simultaneously know they will have difficulty with.  It’s a tough transition.

Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m being gender-coy with the pronouns, I can assure you it’s not because I’m having an overprotective moment where I want to keep my child’s identity so anonymous that I can’t even let you in on their gender.  No, it’s because that’s how they’ve asked me to refer to them, and I do my best to respect those wishes, even when it’s hard for me to grasp exactly where the wishes originate from.  I suspect (though I don’t know for sure until they choose to enlighten me) that it’s not a case of them being uncomfortable with the gender assigned to them at birth.  Rather, I think that the issue is they’re not that comfortable with any gender at all.  I think (and I must continue to stress that I’m speculating here) that they’ve come to realize that all gender is is a label, and no one likes to be labeled (especially not at their age).  If you think about it, we are all identified by a multitude of labels: gender, race, hair color, height, weight, social class, geographical background, sexual orientation, political leanings, occupation, technical adeptness, income level, marital status, type of car I drive, whether I rent or own my house (or neither), whether I have children or not (and, if so, how many), whether I have pets or not (and, if so, how many, and what species), which books I read, which TV shows I watch, what foods I like ... just an endless series of labels, some of which we accept and some of which we avoid, but all of which carry baggage.  Even the ones that seem innocent.  If tell you I’m a gay male, or a black woman, or a rich Jewish person, you’re going to have a picture of me, and you’ll probably even realize that you’re stereotyping.  But if I tell you that I’m a redhead, or that I’m from Minnesota, or that I live in my parent’s basement, or that I own a lizard—any of those things will also cause you to think you know me, and many of them won’t be that obvious.

Like all of us, some of those labels I own, and some I eschew.  For instance, I’ll happily tell you that I’m a liberal, and a father, and a technogeek.^*  Others I don’t talk about as much: I don’t bring up my race or my gender or my social class that often, because my race and gender and social class are pretty privileged, and I don’t wish to be defined that way.  Oh, I accept that I’ve often had an easy life because of those things (and others), but it’s often easy to imagine that people who can’t possibly have had it as hard as you have therefore never had it hard, and that’s not the same thing at all.  If you’ve suffered a lot, whereas I’ve only suffered a little, it does mean that I don’t have the right to judge you, or to talk about what you’ve been through.  But it doesn’t mean that my suffering doesn’t count.

Being stuck with one of those labels that you never particularly wanted isn’t suffering, especially when it happens to be one of the “good” ones.  But that doesn’t mean it’s totally fine either.  At this point in my life, I happen to be an old white man.  There is little separating me from those idiots you see in Congressional committees (particularly those impaneled with determining women’s reproductive rights, or settling disputes with Native Americans).  Well, apart from my long hair and scruffy beard, which, honestly, I mostly cultivate exactly because it will set me apart from those morons.  So I’m an old white man, sure, but I’m not one of those old white men, and I don’t appreciate being lumped in with them.  Do I know what it’s like to be black, or Jewish, or gay?  Nope, not in the least.  But I do have some inkling of what it’s like to have a burning need not to be judged by those labels: not to be reduced to a stereotype.

As part of the research we as parents are currently doing into gender roles and related issues, I looked at some information from a fellow named Sam Killermann.  He has a comedy show that he performs where he talks about stereotypes, and snap judgements.  Here’s a snippet that caught my ear:

It’s natural, like it’s instinctual—we just do it so fast, we jump to those conclusions, we make those decisions—you know, it snaps—and it goes into your head and you just have to let it go out ...

It’s like, there’s a stereotype, and that’s just like, an assumption about a group, and there’s prejudice, which is the next step.  That’s where you act upon it.  I don’t think it’s really possible for us to just ignore the stereotypes, for us to get rid of them all, at least not in this generation, but it’s possible for us not to act with prejudice.

I think this is key.  Stereotyping is, in my opinion, an inevitable consequence of human intelligence.  We analyze and cogitate by separating and categorizing and compartmentalizing—this ability to put things in boxes and put labels on them mostly works to our advantage.  It lets us take exceedingly complex concepts and simplify them enough to be grasped and grokked and thorougly dissescted and reassembled and twisted inside-out and turned into brand new concepts that we then put out there and let other people start the whole process all over and produce even newer concepts that then go out into the world and do it all again.  This process has enabled scientific advancements and literary achievements and depth and complexity of emotional shading and mechanical assembly and microscopic discovery that have launched us humans to the pinnacle of life as we know it.  Also, it’s launched us into countless wars, and inquisitions, and genocides, and pogroms, and bombings, and rock-throwings, and hateful words.  Because when you apply that reductive categorization and labeling to a mechanical structure, you get to understand what makes it tick, but, when you apply it to another living, breathing person, you completely fail to understand what makes them tick, because human brains have that ineffeable quality that, so far, nothing else in the known universe seems to have: it’s greater than the sum of its parts.  That is, you can understand all about neurons, and synapses, and frontal lobes and cortexes and medullae oblongatae, but still utterly fail to comprehend how another person thinks.  Because there’s simplifying, and then there’s oversimplifying.

So stereotypes are a natural, but dangerous, way of oversimplifying people, which is okay, but only as long as you know you’re oversimplifying people, and you know you better cut it out before you think you know them.  Because stereotypes may have grains of truth in them, but, unlike DNA or quantum physics, they don’t have universal truth.  And labels enable stereotypes.  And many people feel that, if we can get rid of the labels, we can get rid of the stereotypes.

I don’t necessarily agree with this.  I’m with Sam, up above, where he says it’s not really possible for us to get rid of stereotypes.  Of course, he holds out hope that future generations may be able to succeed where we will fail, and I’m not even sure I’m willing to go that far.  I’m not sure I believe it’s possible to get rid of stereotypes at all—not while remaining human.  Perhaps someday we’ll evolve into something else, and then of course all bets are off.  But, until then, I personally believe we’re stuck with them.

Which is not to say that I’m not going to respect other people’s attempts to get rid of the labels, though.  I may not agree with such attempts, but I admire them.  Striving to achieve the impossible is a victory in the journey, even when the destination is never reached.  Plus, every now and again, I’m reminded of one of my favorite uplifting quotes, from Pearl S. Buck:

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.

So let folks attempt the impossible, I say, and I will support them, even if I don’t quite believe in it.  ‘Cause I might be wrong.  Often am, in fact.  So, go for it.

But I also want to encourage people to learn to ignore the labels, even when they haven’t been expunged.  I think people have to learn to ignore the labels that people place on them, and also (probably more importantly, even) to ignore the labels that they, perhaps unconciously, place on others.  I say, don’t feel bad about labeling people.  We all do it.  Just be able to throw the label away after you print it out.  Because, ultimately, it means nothing.  If you get to know a person and it turns out your initial label was correct, that means nothing more than the proverbial infinitude of simians reproducing Shakespeare.  If you decide that you can jump off your roof and not be hurt, and you do so, and, by some miracle, you happen to land unhurt, that doesn’t mean you were right.  Ditto for people-labels that happen to turn out to be right.  More often than not, though, you’ll find that, even if you were partially right about people (and often you’re not even that), people are just so damned complex that “partly right” isn’t worth much.  Unlike horseshoes and hand grendades, “almost” is not particularly useful in psychoanalysis.

So I respect my kid’s desire to avoid the gender label as much as they can, as long as they can.  But I also hope they can learn to ignore the label ... I think that’ll be more useful in the long run.  I hope they can learn that they can be whoever they want to be, regardless of how other people look at them.  To sum up, I’ll use a quote often misattributed to Dr. Suess, but which is really a Suess-ification of a quote originally spoken by Bernard Baruch, a white, male, Jewish, upper-class father and stock broker who advised presidents, bought a former slave plantation, and endowed the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  But, like all people, he was more than the sum of his labels.  And he expressed the original sentiment that inspired this reformulation, which is another of my favorite uplifting quotes.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

And that really says it all.

__________

* And, in fact, I often have, on this very blog.

Perl blog post #53

Friday night I dreamt about time zones ...

This makes sense, as I have finally released an official version of my date module, which you can read all about over on my Other Blog.  So I’ve been drowning in timezone-related minutiae all week, which week I spent at YAPC, which you can also read about over on my Other Blog.  (Basically, I had two things to write about, and neither one was really a full blog post’s worth, so I just did two half-posts.  So to speak.)

As is becoming a (somewhat disturbing) tradition, last Sunday I was engaged in YAPC travel-related activities and completely spaced on the blog post again.  This pisses me off (at myself) because I knew that this was coming, and I knew that I always do this every year, and I knew that what I really needed to do was just write a quick blurb ahead of time saying that I was traveling even though I wouldn’t have been yet because I was writing this ahead of time, and schedule it to be released on Sunday, and then I’d have it covered.  I thought this to myself several times throughout the week, and I promised myself that I would do this thing, and yet I still managed to get caught up in preparing to leave (and also I was a bit under the weather, as my evil family finally managed to get me sick after 2 full weeks of trying) and, once again, totally spaced.  Classic me.

But back to my dream.  You know, often with dream elements, you sort of vaguely know where they come from, or else you have no clue and it’s just a super-bizarre dream that you can’t even remotely explain.  This dream was somewhat unique in that, while it was ultra-bizarre and made no rational sense, it was composed of very distinct and easily identified bits.  I don’t believe there was any deeper meaning in it—it was just my brain taking a bunch of mostly unrelated bits and swirling them together to make an incoherent whole.

In the dream, I needed to use a special timezone (see: date module) to move on to the next day.  I was thinking about writing my own code for this (see: YAPC), but then I realized I could just repurpose this existing code which told the story of The Comedian (see: Steve Agee’s joke on @Midnight, which I binge-watched on my return home: in response to a request for “comic book songs,” Steve quipped “All Along the Watchmen Tower”), explaining the timeline of his death, which would work perectly for my purposes, although my boss might have trouble swallowing it, because he was already suspicious of me for going rogue (see: The Last Coyote, a.k.a. the fourth Harry Bosch book, the audiobook version of which I both started and finished during my travels), and, in fact, I had to figure out which of several different versions of the timezone to use, some of which only covered one hour, but some of which covered several hours, which would of course be more efficient than having to write or rewrite several different one-hour timezones and, as long as it was going to cover the same length of time anyway, why not? and then I woke up and had to pee.  But then I went back to sleep again, and I think I may have had some similar-but-not-the-same dream but I don’t remember.

Anyhow, if you’re not so inclined to pop over to the Other Blog and read either of the two half-posts I’ve provided for you (although I highly recommend the second one, even if you’re not techincally inclined, as it’s a bit of a travelogue and doesn’t have that much technobabble in it), at least you’ve now had a rambling run-on discussion of my latest weird dream to chew on.  You’re welcome.

Saladosity, Part 7: The Savory Proteins

[This is the seventh post in a long series.  You may wish to start at the beginning.  Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]


So far in our journey to salad nirvana, we’ve bought a whole lotta produce, plus some trail mix fodder.  Now it’s time to pick out some proteins: meat and cheeses.

Meats

The main thing we’re going to need meat for is our chef’s salad.  In my opinion, you can’t make chef’s salad without meat, but your opinion may vary, especially if you’re a member of the Vegan tribe.  We won’t need meat for any other salad (although I’ll throw in a few optional ideas), so, if you happen to be a firm vegan, you could skip this particular salad (and this whole section), and not be any the worse for wear.

For those of you still with me, let me tell you what you’re going to need for the perfect chef’s salad.  Finding good pre-sliced, deli-style meat is a challenge, even in a relatively good shopping environment such as Trader Joe’s.  If you’re a TJ’s fan too, I’ll give you exact brand names.  If not, you’ll just have to do basically what I did: spend 10 or 15 minutes at the lunchmeat section of your favorite store reading labels.  What you basically want is to find the meats that:

• don’t have any added sweeteners, and
• don’t have any preservatives (e.g. sulfites, nitrates, etc).

This will be remarkably challenging.  When you think about eating a nice turkey sandwich, it may seem insane to you that anyone would want to stick any sort of sugar into your slices of turkey.  But nearly every label you check will tell you that it has molasses, or honey, or just plain sugar.  It’s downright weird, once you start realizing how much meat has been pre-sweetened, ostensibly for your tastebuds.  Trust me: your tastebuds don’t need that, nor do they particularly want it.  Meat isn’t supposed to be sweet.  It’s supposed to be ... well, meaty.  Savory, and juicy, and just plain yummy.  But not sweet.  Yeck.

And, when it comes to preservatives, lunchmeat is some of the worst offenders in the store.  Lunchmeat needs to have a longer shelf-life than, say, ground beef.  So they fill it full of chemicals to make it last.  You don’t need that.  Pay a little extra for the preservative-free meat and just eat it quickly.  This will probably not be a problem, as it will be so tasty.

You will have to work extra hard to find meat without any added sweeteners or preservatives, but you’ll be better off in the long run: not only is it almost certainly healthier by nearly any tribe’s standards, but it’ll taste better too.  Win-win.

Turkey.  At my Trader Joe’s, I have 3 brand options for sliced turkey: Applegate, Columbus, and the TJ’s store brand.  Of these, only Applegate fits my criteria.  Columbus has brown sugar, not to mention a moderately frightening list of -ites and -ates, including sodium nitrite, sodium phosphate, and potassium chloride.  The TJ’s brand has sugar and disodium phosphate.  Applegate, on the other hand, has no sugar, and only carrageenan in the “what’s that?” department.¹  Carrageenan isn’t technically a preservative, and it comes from seaweed, so I give it a pass.²  Applegate makes an organic version of their sliced turkey, but my TJ’s doensn’t carry it.  I would probably buy it, if it wasn’t too much more expensive than the other kind.  But so far I’ve been very pleased with this product even in its non-organic form.

Roast beef.  I only have 2 options here: Columbus and TJ’s.  Again, the Columbus is a bit of a mess; it has brown sugar and/or dextrose (yet another cleverly disguised name for “sugar”), plus potassium acetate and potassium lactate, plus some varities throw in sodium phosphate as well.  Happily, the TJ’s brand is much nicer here in the roast beef department than it was in the turkey area: the worst thing on the ingredient list is xanthan gum, which is not too awful in comparison.  Again, no organic options, but I’m okay with that.

That’s all we’ll need for our chef’s salad, but there’s a few other options I can recommend.

First of all, what are you going to do with any leftover slices of meat you have?  You can make sandwiches out of them, of course, but that involves grains and carbs,³ which you probably don’t want to deal with.  Happily, I’ve discovered that I don’t need bread to enjoy a sandwich: I just make a “cheesewich” instead.  Cheesewich (patent pending) is my personal concoction for enjoying sandwiches without bread.  The concept is extremely simple: Get yourself some decent sliced cheese that isn’t going to fall apart on you, take two slices, put your meat in between them, then eat it.  The end.  Brilliant, no?  I’ve honestly found that I don’t even miss the bread any more.  A turkey and roast beef cheesewich is really awesome, and I’ve come to like it even more without the bread.  Another excellent choice for the cheesewich is black forest ham.  Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find any without added sweeteners, but, if you’re willing to overlook that (or cheat a little every once in a while), a ham-and-cheese cheesewich makes a pretty awesome lunch, especially when paired with a small salad such as the ones in this series.

Now, while none of the salads I’m going show you other than my chef’s salad will require meat, that’s not to say that you can’t add meat to any of them.  One excellent choice is canned chicken.  It’s precooked, easy to use, and typically has a ridiculously short ingredient list (look for something like: chicken, water, salt—this is what the Trader Joe’s brand has).  You can toss this into a salad as is, or add some simple seasonings first and maybe even give it a short trip in the microwave to add a hot element to an otherwise cold salad.

Cheese

Havarti (sliced).  When it comes to sliced cheese, Havarti is my new best friend.  Way more interesting than Monterey Jack (which is hard to find sliced anyway), typically firmer than provolone, more solid (and less ... distinct, shall we say) than Swiss—it’s the perfect pre-sliced white cheese for our chef’s salad, and excellent for cheesewiches as well.  Don’t get the “light” stuff: it tastes awful.⁴

Mexican blend (shredded).  Typically this will be a blend of cheddar, Monterey Jack, asadero and queso blanco (although some crappier brands may try to sneak in Colby or even mozzarella on you).  The TJ’s store brand is pretty good.  This is crucial for our Mexican salad.  Note that nearly all shredded cheese uses corn starch to keep it from clumping.  I generally accept this as an exception to my “no grains” policy, as it’s a pretty small amount.

Bleu cheese (crumbled).  So far I have yet to find a bleu cheese dressing that I like that’s also free from disreputable ingredients.  But happily I’ve found that, if you buy blue cheese crumbles and just add them directly to the salad, you don’t actually need bleu cheese dressing.

Feta cheese (crumbled).  Feta cheese is remarkably versatile; you may recall that it’s a crucial ingredient back in our original salad.  I still like the “Mediterranean herbs” version that TJ’s sells, but whatever you can lay hands on is good.  Just look out for preservatives.

Parmesan (grated).  We won’t be adding this directly to a salad, but it’s a vital ingredient in one of our dressings.  I actually like the blend of parmesan and romano cheese that TJ’s sells, but choose your own favorite.  As always, be wary of unnecessary preservatives.

As far as other cheeses go, we won’t need any, but I can always recommend a good sliced cheddar as being excellent for cheesewiches (I actually make all my cheesewiches with one slice of cheddar and one of Havarti), and you could try some crumbled goat cheese instead of feta if you’re into that sort of thing.  Personally I find goat cheese to be a bit strong for my tastes, but to each his own.

Storage

Typically you want to put your meat and cheese into the refrigerator drawer that’s not the fruit drawer (where you’ve got the humidity cranked up) or the veggie drawer (where you’ve got it cranked down).  But the main thing you want is a good, airtight seal.  If your meat comes in one of those packages with a little piece of plastic that “seals to keep in freshness,” screw that: stick it in a Ziploc bag.  For me, my roast beef will fit nicely in a quart-sized Ziploc, as long as I cut off the corners with a pair of scissors first.  (If I don’t, the sharp corners will tear holes in the bag.)  The Applegate turkey thankfully comes with its own Ziploc-style sealer.  The black forest ham is a long package that requires a gallon-size Ziploc.  Meats stored this way should last a few weeks.  The ham will eventually get white, crusty stuff on it (this is the fat congealing), and the roast beef will just turn shiny and make rainbows in the fluorescent kitchen lights.  The turkey will be hard to identify visually.  Trust your nose for all the meats: if it doesn’t smell yummy, toss it out.⁵

If you don’t use an entire can of the canned chicken, you’ll need to put those leftovers in your own sealed containers (either Tupperware-style, or Rubbermaid-style glass containers if you’re trying to avoid plastic).

The grated and crumbled cheeses come in plastic containers that seal pretty well.  I can keep the grated parmesan roughly forever, but the crumbled cheeses will start to smell a bit sour if they last more than 3 weeks or so (at which point, toss ’em).  The sliced and shredded cheeses typically have a Ziploc-style sealer, but really make sure you get as much air out of those packages as you can before you seal them.  Air is your enemy.  (Well, actually aerobic bacteria are your enemy.  So squish all the air out of the package and starve those little buggers out.)  For the sliced cheeses (or the meats), squish the living hell out of the packages to remove maximal air.  For the shredded cheeses, be a little more gentle, or else you’ll end up with a giant rubber cheese mass that won’t work in your salad nearly as well.  If you do a good job keeping the air out, the sliced and shredded cheeses should also last several weeks.  When they give up the ghost, they will nearly always start growing mold.  Unless you’re a qualified penicillin extractor or something, that means it’s time to toss ’em out.



Next time around, there’s still more shopping to do!  Next up: condiments.

__________

1 The ingredient list for my particular package has only 4 ingredients, actually: turkey, water, salt, and carrageenan, in that order.

2 However, Whole30 does not.  Carrageenan is specifically prohibited on Whole30, so bear that in mind if you’re trying to follow the program strictly.

3 Which aspect of the bread you consider worse depends on which of the nutritional tribes you’ve joined.  And let’s not even get into the whole gluten debate.

4 Of course, this is true of “light” cheese in general.  If you’re a staunch member of the low-fat tribe, this will be difficult for you.  But hopefully you at least believe that fat from cheese is “good” fat.

5 Or give it to your dogs.  Remember: their digestive systems can kill bacteria that would make us sick.

Another week drifting away ...

Well, it’s been a tough week, with some work stuff going on, a sick kid, an aborted camping trip, and some outside editing duties that I’ve been trying to catch up on.  So, unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find the time to gen up a proper post for you.  I do apologize.  But next week should be much more satisfactory, I’m thinking.

Numeric Driftwood II

"Did I Dream You Dreamed About Me?"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

As (nearly) always, my initial list for Numeric Driftwood was plenty long enough to fill out two volumes.  We have two more tracks from Kitaro, also off India, and another from Enya (the title track from Shepherd Moons, in fact), which is pretty good representation from two of my three favorite sleepy-time albums.  As far as the Cocteau Twins goes, I certainly couldn’t resist including them, but I decided to expand beyond merely reusing Victorialand.  As magnificent as that album is, it’s only one of only 7 Twins’ albums I own—which is the maxium number of albums I own from any single band¹—so it’s only fair to branch out a little and share some of the other Cocteau goodness out there.  In this case, I chose one cut off Treasure, the Cocteaus’ first album with Simon Raymonde, and one from their penultimate album Four-Calendar Café.

I’ve also drawn in my other favorite relaxing music album, which I talked about at some length when discussing Shadowfall Equinox II: This Mortal Coil’s It’ll End in Tears.  In that discussion I noted that IEiT is really more for relaxation and contemplation than drifting off to sleep, but, if there’s an exception to that observation, it surely must be “Song to the Siren,” a stunningly beautiful song sung by Elizabeth Fraser and played by Robin Guthrie, i.e. two-thirds of the Cocteau Twins.²  I’ve heard the original, as sung by Tim Buckley, and Buckley’s version is pretty, granted, but This Mortal Coil’s version is transcendent, and beautifully soothing as well.  The lyrics (which include our volume title) are beautiful as well, and, as this is one of the few times you’re going to be able to understand what Fraser is singing, definitely take advantage of it and listen to the words.

Of course, as is typical of a volume II, we see lots of returning artists, even above and beyond those I’ve already mentioned.  Angels of Venice are back with two more songs, as is Anjey Satori, with two more tracks off of For Relaxation.  Celtic/jazz/world fusionists Skyedance return as well, with another quiet tune from Way Out to Hope Street.  All of these provide the backbone on which we hang the jewels of the new artists.

We kick off this volume with a 1-2-3 punch that starts with the lovely (and maritime) “Song to the Siren,” then traipses through cello master David Darling’s “Eight String Religion,” which sprinkles down like a light rainfall, and winds up with Sade’s “Mermaid,” a lovely underwater piece.  Darling was one of the artists I discovered via Hearts of Space; his album Cello Blue is well suited for Shadowfall Equinox,³ but Eight String Religion is a lighter affair which works well here.  Sade, of course, is well known for her smooth-jazz-like compositions such as “No Ordinary Love” and “The Sweetest Taboo,” but she occasionally puts out a sweet, slow instrumental like this one.

Also, as promised in the footnotes from last volume,⁴ we have a tune from my favorite cello player, Jami Seiber.  We heard from her once before, on Smooth as Whispercats, but this track is more typical of her œuvre; although much of it is darker, almost all of it is slow and languorous like this track.  Sieber is yet another Magnatune artist, proving once again that the “We Are Not Evil” folks are as awesome as their motto suggests.

Numeric Driftwood II
[ Did I Dream You Dreamed About Me? ]

“Song to the Siren” by This Mortal Coil, off It'll End in Tears
“Eight String Religion” by David Darling, off Eight String Religion
“Mermaid” by Sade, off Love Deluxe
“Mountain Streams” by Kitaro, off India
“Sea Surround” by Anjey Satori, off For Relaxation
“Otterley” by Cocteau Twins, off Treasure
“Sara's Dream” by Angels of Venice, off Music for Harp, Flute and Cello
“Rain Surround” by Anjey Satori, off For Relaxation
“Ganga” by Kitaro, off India
“Tell It by Heart” by Jami Sieber, off Second Sight
“Skerray” by Skyedance, off Way Out to Hope Street
“Light at the Edge of the World” by Angels of Venice, off Awake Inside a Dream
“Shepherd Moons” by Enya, off Shepherd Moons
“Essence” by Cocteau Twins, off Four-Calendar Café
“Submarine Bells” by the Chills, off Submarine Bells
“Cradle Song” by Shriekback, off Big Night Music

Total:  16 tracks,  76:42

Which just leaves us with our closing pair.  Coming off the dreaminess of “Essence” by the Cocteaus, we hit two vocal tracks (a rarity for this mix, which is of course mostly instrumental).  The first is from New Zealanders the Chills, who normally craft sublime alterna-pop, but the title track off their quite lovely Submarine Bells is less poppy and more calming.  And we close with a tune from Shriekback, another alternative band who’s more often known for their poppy numbers—in fact, Shriekback is often full-on dancy, with tunes such as “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Go Bang.” But they can also do mellow as well, and their album Big Night Music is almost nothing but mellow.  “Cradle Song” is a true lullaby that provides a beautiful closer for this volume.

Next time, we’ll perk things up by taking a walk on the female vocal side.

⇐ Numeric Driftwood I

Numeric Driftwood III ⇒

__________

1 There are 3 bands from whom I own 7 albums, actually (as of this writing), which is why I had to phrase that so qualifyingly.  The other two are INXS and They Might Be Giants.

2 Yes, the Cocteau Twins, like the Thompson Twins, are composed of three people, despite the name.

3 Although we won’t actually see a track there until Shadowfall Equinox IV.

4 Footnote 8, specifically, in connection with my discussion of cellist Martin McCarrick.

Perl blog post #52

As promised last week, this week I’ve published another part of my long-ass series on my Perl date module over on my Other Blog.  This one doesn’t even have much of a non-technical philosophical thread running through it, so I won’t be offended if you’re a non-techie and want to give it a pass.

Next week I’ll see if I can drum up someting more interesting than Perl gobbledygook.

Perl blog post #51

This week it’s time for another installment in my date module series over on my Other Blog.  This time it’s all about eating your own dogfood and not being afraid to admit you made a mistake and totally change your mind.  Still a lot of techno-babble in it, if you’re not a technical person, but I believe there’s some general utility there as well.  Hop on over and check it out if you’re so inclined.

If you’re not, then you’re out of luck this week.  And possibly next week as well, since I hope to do some more work on the module then too.  My annual trip to YAPC is coming up again, and I really hope to have something useful by the time I go there.  I won’t be doing a full talk this year, but maybe I can whip up a lightning talk, or at the very least just talk it up during the corridor chatting.

So look for something non-technical in this space in a couple of weeks.  Or don’t.  That’s cool too.

P!nk for Mother's Day

Well, it’s Mother’s Day again, and this year I’ve decided to work on another music mix for The Mother.  Now, The Mother has a tendency to go through musical phases, which she calls “going to church.” For a while she went to the Church of Bob Marley.  Then she switched to the Church of the Beatles.  Then, for a while, she worshipped at the Church of Queen.  There were also stints with Elton John and Jimi Hendrix.  For a period of some number of weeks, she will play a greatest hits CD when riding around with the kids, which not only gives The Mother an enjoyable listening experience, but also provides valuable musical educatiion to my children.  So I always support her in whatever she wants to move on to next.

And her next target is P!nk.  She asked me to get all six of P!nk’s albums recently, which I did.  So I thought for Mother’s Day it might be nice to put together my own version of a greatest hits album.  This somewhat complements my Mother’s Day mix from a few years back, although this one is a double album: two CDs worth of P!nk.

For this, I paid absolutely no attention to what singles were released off each album.  I just played them all and picked out the songs I liked.  Now, I’ve personally always liked P!nk, at least a little.  M!ssundaztood is an excellent album, although I generally like her other albums less.  However, as I listened to her complete ouvre, I began to realize that I actually like her even more than I realized.  Oh, sure, her first album (Can’t Take Me Home) is not so great, and Try This is fairly consistently “meh,” but Funhouse and I’m Not Dead are nearly as good as M!ssundaztood, and even The Truth about Love has some great moments.  I separated all my picks into “definitely"s and “maybe"s, and I ended up with enough for two volumes, so I just kept all the “maybes” rather than try to trim it down to a single disc.  I was almost exactly one song short, lengthwise, so I went back and picked up “Beam Me Up” from The Truth about Love, a song which I initially discarded as too cheesy and too country.  But it provides an extra downbeat song (an area where P!nk needs bolstering), and, besides: The Mother actually likes country.  Although I try not to hold that against her.

Once I had my complete list, I worked on trying to arrange them into some semblance of a sine wave: from upbeat through mid-tempo to downbeat, then starting back up the other side.  I worked on avoiding using two songs from the same album back-to-back, similar to how I avoid repeating the same artist for my mixes.  I also tried to spread out my “maybe"s, so there wouldn’t be too many iffy songs in a row.  But P!nk has a habit of growing on you, so even the songs you thought were only okay at first start to sound pretty good after repeated listens.

Although I tried to spread it out so both discs would be strong, I think I ended up making volume I a bit more awesome than volume II.  It kicks off with “So What,” which is definitely my favorite P!nk song not on M!ssundaztood, and certainly a strong opener.  Then into “Are We All We Are,” which is one of those songs that grows on you, then “U + Ur Hand” and “Don’t Let Me Get Me,” for a four-song blast which really shows off what P!nk can do when she sets her mind to it.  Then a 3-song stretch which is a bit less strong, but still good, which leads us to the 3-way punch of “Respect,” “Trouble,” and the knock-out ”‘Cuz I Can,” which shows off P!nk’s lyrical playfulness:

So I’ll cash my checks and place my bets and hope I’ll always win
Even if I don’t I’m fucked because I live a life of sin
But it’s all right, I don’t give a damn
I don’t play your rules, I make my own
Tonight I’ll do what I want
‘Cuz I can

From there we go downbeat for a bit: “Dear Diary,” which is our volume namer, then “Glitter in the Air,” which is probably P!nk’s second-best slow song, a very pretty ballad.  Then we have “The Truth about Love,” the title song from P!nk’s latest album, which somehow reminds me of Voice of the Beehive.  And that takes us into the home stretch for volume I.

In the P!nk I
[ I've Been a Bad, Bad Girl ]

“So What” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“Are We All We Are” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love
“U + Ur Hand” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Don't Let Me Get Me” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Catch Me While I'm Sleeping” by P!nk, off Try This
“Hell Wit Ya” by P!nk, off Can't Take Me Home
“Slut Like You” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love
“Respect” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Trouble” by P!nk, off Try This
“'Cuz I Can” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Dear Diary” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Glitter in the Air” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“The Truth about Love” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love
“Can't Take Me Home” by P!nk, off Can't Take Me Home
“Last to Know” by P!nk, off Try This
“Numb” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Funhouse” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Beam Me Up” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love
“Gone to California” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood

Total:  20 tracks,  74:15

A couple more average-good tracks, then “Numb,” then the title track from her next-to-newest album, then “Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely),” which is another song that reminds me of something else completely divorced from P!nk’s normal style, although this time I can’t quite put my finger on it.  But it’s very catchy, and I dig it quite a lot.

We close with the aforementioned “Beam Me Up,” then my favorite P!nk slow song, “Gone to California,” This has a slightly psychedelic groove which really worms its way into your brain.  I thought it was a really fine way to close out volume I.

Volume II starts out strong with what certainly has to be the all-time greatest P!nk song ever, “Get the Party Started.” This is the song that first made me fall in love with P!nk, and I don’t think she’s ever topped it yet.  “Stupid Girls is a strong follow-up though, and while “God Is a DJ” isn’t quite as strong, it’s got a super-catchy chorus.  “This Is How It Goes Down” isn’t quite filler, but I’ll admit it’s a break from the awesome, and saying “Do What U Do” is the best song on P!nk’s first album is not really saying too much, unfortunately.

But then we’re up to “Just Like a Pill,” which is one of those tracks which is simultaneously downbeat and yet compelling—not pretty, like most of her other slow songs.  “Feel Good Time” is a bit weird, in that it almost sounds like an electropop song, which is again a bit of a departure for P!nk.  And that takes us to “True Love,” which is the best song on the latest album, with some more great lyrics:

At the same time I wanna hug you, I wanna wrap my hands around your neck
You’re an asshole, but I love you, and you make me so mad I ask myself
Why I’m still here, or where could I go, you’re the only love I’ve ever known
But I hate you, I really hate you, so much I think it must be
True love ...

“18 Wheeler” is pretty strong too, “Bad Influence” perhaps a bit less so, then “Fingers,” which I absolutely adore.  Then another slow song, then “Boring” provides our volume title, and a hook that won’t let your brain forget it any time soon.  Then coming back down for “Waiting for Love” and the sweet “Conversations with My 13 Year Old Self” heads us towards the close.

In the P!nk II
[ You're Gonna Have to Catch Me ]

“Get the Party Started” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Stupid Girls” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“God Is a DJ” by P!nk, off Try This
“This Is How It Goes Down” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“Do What U Do” by P!nk, off Can't Take Me Home
“Just Like a Pill” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Feel Good Time” by P!nk, off Try This
“True Love” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love
“18 Wheeler” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Bad Influence” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“Fingers” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Family Portrait” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Boring” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“Waiting for Love” by P!nk, off Try This
“Conversations with My 13 Year Old Self” by P!nk, off I'm Not Dead
“Mean” by P!nk, off Funhouse
“M!ssundaztood” by P!nk, off M!ssundaztood
“Humble Neighbourhood” by P!nk, off Try This
“Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” by P!nk, off The Truth about Love

Total:  19 tracks,  74:34

“Mean” has a bit of a country twang, like “Beam Me Up,” but with more redeeming value perhaps.  The title track from M!zzundaztood is not a party song, but I’ve always felt it was very strong.  “Humble Neighborhood” is more of a traditional rocker than you expect from P!nk, which makes its guitar licks even more delicious.  And we close out the show with “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” which lyrically works for a closer but leaves us on a strong note.

So that’s my take on a “best of” compilation for P!nk ... note I don’t say “greatest hits,” as that’s something else entirely.  Many of my favorite P!nk songs were never hits.  Comparing my set list to P!nk’s actual greatest hits album, Greatest Hits ... So Far!!!, I leave out 5 “hits.” The only one I even waffled over was “Dear Mr. President,” her duet (triette?) with the Indigo Girls.  I almost threw it in despite not caring for it that much, but in the end, it’s just too sappy and over-obvious.  She’s better than that.  (I dislike “My Vietnam” for the same reason.)  The official greatest hits also throws in two original songs, which I didn’t have access to, but I have an entire extra album to work with, as Greatest Hits ... So Far!!! was released in between Funhouse and The Truth about Love.  So we have 11 songs in common, but I throw in an extra 28 on top of that.  Now, who’s giving you more bang for the buck?  I think you know.

I put this mix together primarily in the last 3 days or so, although I had started earlier and had gone through 3 of the 6 albums already.  But, as Mother’s Day approached, I realized that I really needed to shoot for completion by today.  Partially because I’d been promising her I’d burn her something for ages and I needed to stop being a lame-ass.  But also because she’s The Mother, and she deserves it.

And also because P!nk is friggin’ cool.  I’m so looking forward to having my kids learn that too.

Work work work

This weekend I’ve been working on another big project for $work, and I’ve had no time to put together a proper post.  It’s been a fun project, though, so I’m not complaining.  I’ve gotten to remove quite a lot of code—nearly 5,000 lines—and replace it with only half as much.  I love doing stuff like that: simplifying, cutting away the dead wood, generally tidying up.  Less code means less for my fellow developers to have to wade through when they want to fix things or change things, and it reduces the overall cognitive burden of understanding our codebase.  Things like that make me happy.  I’m a man of simple tastes.

Anyways, I’m sorry that I didn’t have anything here for you to read.  But I’m sure you can find other things to entertain yourself in this wild wondrous place we call the Internet.  Good luck.

Totally Different Head I

"The Devil Take Your Stereo"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

On September 27th, 1982, at 8PM on CBS, the first episode of Square Pegs premiered, and I was among those watching.  Besides being the first time I ever saw the future star of Sex and the City and the future Star from The Lost Boys, it was also the first time I saw Merrit Butrick, who would go on to be Captain Kirk’s son before dying from AIDS complications at a tragically young 29.  But that night in 1982, he was Johnny Slash, and he would utter what was to become that character’s indelible catchphrase:

Punk?  No way.  I’m New Wave.  Totally different head.  Totally.

I never knew what “totally different head” meant ... hell, I still don’t.  But for me it’s always meant an odd combination of punk and new wave: something or someone who is neither one nor the other, but perfectly balanced betwixt the two.

I would love to tell you the story of how I discovered Human Sexual Response, but it’s too long a tale to go into here.¹  Suffice it to say it was way beyond what can reasonably be described as “accidental” and more along the lines of “the universe clumsily shoving me down an unforeseen path.” Via that bit of karmic intercession, I ended up with a copy of In a Roman Mood on cassette, which I promptly wore out.²  I can’t say that HSR is one of my favorite bands or anything, but it was influential in that it introduced me to what I felt then was a completely unique sound.  I stll feel that way today, although perhaps without the qualifiers.  There is other music which comes close, and that’s what you’ll find populating this mix.

HSR was an extremely unlikely band from the get-go.  Founded by four vocalists who originally started out as a kazoo band,³ they added a power trio to round out their sound, giving them some musical muscle to accompany their harmonics.  They only produced 3 albums and an EP before breaking up—a mere 4 years after forming—and were, at the very height of their popularity, barely known outside their native Boston.  Their biggest hit was “Jackie Onassis,” which was the only lead vocal done by their only female member.  They were probably most famous for their song “Butt Fuck,” and not necessarily for the right reasons.  None of them achieved much fame in later groups, and several of them dropped out of music entirely.⁴  They are usually categorized as a new wave band, but they’ve got quite a few punk chops.

Their debut album (Fig 14) is usually considered their best, but I have a fondness for In a Roman Mood (their sophomore effort), because it’s how I discovered them.  And one track in particular, “Land of the Glass Pinecones,” has always fascinated me.  It’s just as fundamentally weird as its title suggests, with lyrics such as “the squirrels never scatter them: they know what rhinestone seeds portend” and “the splinters fly throughout the land and pierce the eye of every man.” Musically it somehow manages to sound both familiar and utterly alien.  For the longest time I was sure that it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place it.  And yet I was also sure I’d never heard anything like it before.

Punk and new wave are very different forms, but they have things in common.  They’re both fairly uncompromising forms, for one thing: they don’t much care if you don’t “get” them, or if they offend you (for punk) or baffle you (for new wave).  The quintessential punk band is the Sex Pistols, and the quintessential new wave artist is Gary Numan.  We might even go so far as to boil the pair of subgenres to a single song each, perhaps “Anarchy in the UK” and “Cars.” One distances itself from the listener with harsh guitars; the other uses alien synth chords.  Very different ... but is there a place to meet in the middle?

Perhaps the clearest conceptualization of such a fusion exists in Adam and the Ants, who both rose out of the original punk scene (Adam played with the band that shared the stage with the Sex Pistols’ first concert⁵) and were one of the first new wave bands (they were contemporaries of Numan).  While I love Adam and the Ants, and in particular the album Prince Charming, and particularly in particular “Stand and Deliver,” which not only stands as our centerpiece here but also provides our volume title, in general I’m not sure they’re punky enough to convey the feel that I’m going for here.  What really inspired me to build a mix around “Land of the Glass Pinecones” was my rediscovery of the 3Ds.

Often called the “New Zealand Pixies,” the 3Ds did produce a sort of wall-of-noise punk-reminiscent sound similar to the Pixies.  But, while the Pixies were fundamentally a grunge band at heart, the 3Ds have a strong new wave streak running through their sound.  I found a CD compiling their first two EPs, Fish Tales and Swarthy Songs for Swabs, in some record store that I visited with my dad.  While he was flipping through 45s from the 50s and 60s, I was desperately trying to find some reason for this not to be a wasted trip.  So I was perfectly willing to blow a few bucks on a CD based on it having a cool cover image and knowing nothing else about it.  And I really liked it, but after a while I moved on to other things.  A few years back, though, I pulled it out again and gave it a spin, and it had held up really well.  Better yet, several of the songs really put me in mind of “Land of the Glass Pinecones,” and the first vague idea for this mix was born.

What really decided the issue, however, was yet another discovery.  Punk and new wave, as I said, were fairly uncompromsing forms.  But they both eventually softened somewhat: punk into what’s often called “post-punk,”⁶ and new wave into the synthpop that most people actually think of when they think of the 80s.  Now, I like punk, and I like new wave, and I like post-punk, but I really like synthpop.  My favorite 80s bands (which also constitute the bulk of my favorite bands of all time) are, with very few exceptions, synthpop bands: Depeche Mode, New Order, Tears for Fears, and the extremely awesome Yazoo (who we’ll touch on in just a minute).⁷  There are even more synthpop bands, such as Naked Eyes and a-ha, that may not be in my all-time favorites, but they’re pretty damned close.  Into that latter category let’s throw Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, a.k.a. OMD.  If we’re talking about all-time favorite albums, I would easily throw in Crush, which one of my two best friends from my high-school-and-just-after period introduced me to.  But I didn’t like their follow up⁸ quite as much, and it’s all downhill from there.  Of course, OMD has an extensive catalog going back in the other direction as well, but aside from being familiar with “Enola Gay,” I never got into it as much.  It was a lot more challenging—more new wave than synthpop, really—and I wasn’t ready for it back then.  But a couple years back I decided to give it another try, and picked up Organisation and Architecture & Morality.  And, in perusing them, I stumbled upon “The New Stone Age.”

And that was it.  That was why “Land of the Glass Pinecones” sounded familiar and foreign all at once ... it sounded like something I’d heard but didn’t really like that much: early OMD.  And once I found that, I started remembering all sorts of other songs that would work here, and I was off.

So this mix consists of some punk (or post-punk) songs which have a bit of a new wave feel, and some new wave (or synthpop) songs which have a bit of a punk feel, and a few beautiful songs which are the perfect melding of both.  In that latter category, there is of course our mix starter from Human Sexual Response and two songs from the aforementioned 3Ds.  Other bands which are particularly well-suited for this mix are the wonderfully quirky Missing Persons, who give us a track introducing our final stretch, and the Cars, who we may sometimes forget were a seminal new wave band (and contemporaries of HSR, both temporally and geographically) before they become much poppier in the mid-80s (the track I chose is from their very first album and so may not sound like you think the Cars should sound).  Both have strong new wave chops but a lot of punk-reminiscent muscle as well.  But in the category of bands so quirky you can barely stand it, it’s tough to beat Sparks, two LA-born brothers who’ve had so many different styles they practically are one themselves.  But “I Predict” (quite possibly the first Sparks song I ever heard) is from a period where they were strongly new wave, but still with punk/metal leanings.  Though I don’t care for Sparks overall, I absolutely adore “I Predict,” and it’s precisely the strong opener this mix needed.

On the more punky side, I knew that I had to include post-punk icons Joy Division.  There are two songs on Substance which I felt really epitomized this mix; the first of those, “Digital,” is our volume closer.⁹  Joy Division of course evolved into New Order, which leans more towards synthpop, even further evidence that all these styles are connected.  For this mix, I went with “Angel Dust” off my all-time favorite New Order album, Brotherhood.  It’s got a solid buzzing guitar line that injects a touch of punk power into their new wave/synthpop melodies.  And, while they’re not exactly punk, I couldn’t resist pairing up the New Zealand Pixies with the American Pixies: the Pixies.  Their style is pretty fluid as well, ranging from some angry punk/grunge like “Debaser” and “Planet of Sound”¹⁰ to the sweet pop of songs like “Here Comes Your Man” to WTF moments like “La La Love You” or “Palace of the Brine.” For this mix, I really felt that “Mr. Grieves” was a beautiful transition coming off the 3Ds’ “Fish Tails,” and the title track from Trompe le Monde is excellent in the closing stretch, this time leading into the 3Ds: if you can’t hear “Planet of Sound” immediately after the final notes of “Trompe le Monde,” the opening strains of “First Church” is an excellent second choice.

On the new wave/synthpop side, we see several of those bands I mentioned as my favorites up above: New Order and OMD we’ve already seen, Tears for Fears gives us “Change,” one of their quirkier tunes from their debut album, and then we have Yazoo (known simply as “Yaz” in the US).  We touched on Yazoo briefly back in Darkling Embrace, but their tune there was in the “somewhat surprising” camp.  Here we start to hear a bit more of what they’re really known for.  It’s odd that I don’t particularly like super-early Depeche Mode, when Vince Clark was a driving force, and I’m distinctly “meh” on Erasure, the band where Clark really made a name for himself, but his project in between the two—Yazoo, featuring the husky tones of Alf Moyet, who was to the 80s what Adele is to the 2010s—I absolutely adore.  “Don’t Go” doesn’t have much of the punk power that a lot of these tracks do, but it has just enough, and I would have felt really weird putting together a mix anywhere in the vicinity of new wave without including Yazoo.

Other synthpop greats featured here include the Fixx, who could be both poppy and edgy (their track here is bit of the latter), and Split Enz, who would eventually morph into Crowded House and craft some beautiful alternative pop in the mid-80s.  But “I Got You” is a lot more new-wave-inspired, and works perfectly for this mix.  I also chose a track from Wang Chung, which was a bit of a strecth, and it almost hit the cutting room floor several times, but in the end I felt that “Don’t Let Go” retained just enough power and quirk to work here.  Only slightly less of a stretch was choosing a tune from synthpop poster-children Pet Shop Boys: “Two Divided by Zero” shows a bit of range from this band that got pigeonholed by “West End Girls” (a bit unfairly, in my view).  In the solidly-new-wave camp, I already mentioned Adam and the Ants, and there’s a also a track here from Men Without Hats that isn’t “Safety Dance.” Yes: they had other songs.  (Honestly, most of them weren’t very good.  But “Antarctica” is an exception, in my opinion.)

Totally Different Head I
[ The Devil Take Your Stereo ]

“I Predict” by Sparks, off Angst in My Pants
“Land of the Glass Pinecones” by Human Sexual Response, off In a Roman Mood
“Don't Go” by Yazoo, off Upstairs at Eric's
“Fish Tails” by 3Ds, off Fish Tales & Swarthy Songs for Swabs [Compilation]
“Mr. Grieves” by Pixies, off Doolittle
“I'm in Touch with Your World” by the Cars, off The Cars
“Some People” by the Fixx, off Shuttered Room
“Angel Dust” by New Order, off Brotherhood
“Stand and Deliver” by Adam and the Ants, off Prince Charming
“Change” by Tears for Fears, off The Hurting
“Just Another Day” by Oingo Boingo, off Dead Man's Party
“Don't Let Go” by Wang Chung, off Points on the Curve
“I Got You” by Split Enz, off True Colours
“Lovely 2 C U” by Goldfrapp, off Supernature
“The New Stone Age” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, off Architecture & Morality
“Antarctica” by Men Without Hats, off Rhythm of Youth
“Leave You with a Letter” by the Black Belles, off The Black Belles
“Good Die Young” by Divinyls, off What a Life
“Two Divided by Zero” by Pet Shop Boys, off Please
“Clandestine People” by Missing Persons, off Rhyme & Reason
“Trompe le Monde” by Pixies, off Trompe le Monde
“First Church” by 3Ds, off Fish Tales & Swarthy Songs for Swabs [Compilation]
“Digital” by Joy Division, off Substance [Compilation]

Total:  23 tracks,  75:43

In the category of less obvious choices, I found it instructive to look at the years each of these songs came out.  The majority of them occupy a band from 1978 through 1986, peaking in 1982 (4 tracks).  This makes sense, as this was when punk and new wave were crossing streams.  There’s a second grouping in 1989 – 1991, when the Pixies and the 3Ds were active.  But there are two outliers: modern songs¹¹ who have achieved a bit of a throwback sound, at least to my ear.

The first is from Goldfrapp, who we first met back on Smokelit Flashback III.  Goldfrapp has a fairly eclectic style that spans electronica, trip-hop, and dream pop, with touches of disco, and occasionally, yes, new wave.  They’re not particularly punky, but “Lovely 2 C U” has some uncharacteristically buzzing guitar work that gives it a little extra oomph and earns them their spot here.

Contrariwise, I don’t think anyone would object to my saying there’s a lot of punk in the Black Belles, a vaguely obscure band¹² once promoted by Jack White on The Colbert Report.¹³  But I’m not sure most folks would agree that there’s any new wave in their self-proclaimed “garage goth rock.” And, for most of their music, I’d agree.  But perhaps I’m hearing something in “Leave You with a Letter” that no one else can.  It certainly works for me.

Our final two tracks are safely within the original time boundaries, both hailing from 1985.  On the one hand, we have Oingo Boingo, another band which pushed boundaries, but wasn’t afraid to be a little new wave and/or a little punk.  “Just Another Day” is another tune which almost didn’t make the cut: it’s got enough punk (or post-punk) attitude, but its new wave is awful faint.  Still, it’s a good, solid tune for the middle stretch of the volume.  And last but not least, Australia’s Divinyls, who will probably forever be known in the US as that-band-that-sang-the-I-touch-myself-song, are instead known to me as the brilliant architects of “Pleasure and Pain” and its accompanying album, What a Life.  Nearly every track on this album is a winner.  Certainly the band displays some clear new wave influences—I’ve always detected a touch of the Motels in them, and the Motels are new wave royalty.  And there’s no denying they have a strong punk ethic ... I suppose the only reason they’re in the “less obvious” camp is because “I Touch Myself” doesn’t really hint at what they’re capable of.  For this volume, I chose “Good Die Young,” a song made all the more poignant by the fact that singer Chrissy Amphlett died at 53, simultaneously battling breast cancer and multiple sclerosis.  I think this track retains all the power they had in their heydey, despite the intervening three decades.

Next time, we’ll come down off this punky high and once again drift off to dreamland.

__________

1 Perhaps I’ll do a separate blog post on that one day.

2 This album has become remarkably hard to come by in the intervening years.  I had to get my father to buy a copy on vinyl from one of his record collector friends, then burn it for me onto CD.  For purposes of a download link, I’ve found some random person offering a free zip file of the MP3s.  I don’t typically support things like that, but I literally can’t find any way to point you at something you can spend money on that might even partially get back to the artist, so I’m making an exception in this case.

3 No, seriously.  Wikipedia swears that’s true.

4 Two of them run a bed-and-breakfast in New York and one moved to Silicon Valley to work for a tech company.  The latter would eventually become the mother of Glasser.

5 In fact, the Sex Pistols were opening for them.

6 In general, I object to this term as somehow even more useless in descriptive terms than “alternative.” Yes, it’s music that chronologically comes after punk ... so what?  But it’s a common enough term that I use it anyway, because it’s better than inventing my own term and then having to explain what it means every time I want to use it.

7 In case you’re wondering which bands constitute the very few exceptions, they are INXS and REM.

8 That would be 1986’s The Pacific Age

9 We’ll see the other one on volume II, I’m sure.

10 Both of which we’ll see on another mix in the fullness of time.

11 By which I mean songs from within the past 20 years.  In this case, one from 2005 and one from 2011.

12 They have a discography on AllMusic, but no bio, and an entry in Wikipedia that’s not a stub ... but just barely.

13 Which, like most of the people who have heard of them, is how I first heard of them.

Perl blog post #50

This week I’m putting up my 50th Perl blog post, over on my Other Blog.  This one happens to be yet another installment in my ongoing series about my new date module, but that’s not the important thing, from my perspective.  50 is a pretty healthy number.  Of course, here on this blog, we’re approaching 200 posts, even discounting all my “interstitial” posts (i.e. the posts where all I say is I’m not going to do a proper post).  But somehow 50 technical posts seems like a greater achievement.  And some of them are pretty long.

Anyhow, hop on over to the blog if you’re interested in seeing what’s going on with my Perl work.  If not, stay tuned for next week, when there might be a non-technical post here.  Mabye.  If you’re lucky.  Depending on your definition of “lucky.”

Perl blog post #49

After a bit of a longer hiatus that I’d meant to, I’ve finally gotten back to my ongoing Perl series about my new date module.  I really want to have this completed before YAPC in June, so I’m going to be spending a bit more time concentrating on it than previously.  Or that’s the plan at any rate.  This installment is about my adventures with CPAN Testers finding bugs in my code for me, helpful little devils that they are.  Hop on over to the Other Blog for lots of Perl-y goodness.  Or, you know, don’t.

Next week may well be another Perl blog post.  Just giving you a heads-up on that one right now.