Tenderhearted Nightshade I

"You Bleed Just to Know You're Alive"

[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.]


As I said back when I talked about Rose-Coloured Brainpan, one of the first mixes I ever made was Depression.  I was your typical angst-ridden teenager,¹ not cool enough to be goth and emo hadn’t been invented yet, but I could still put on some decent wrist-slitting music when I felt down.  And the centerpiece of every depression-related mix I ever did back in those days was “Somebody,” by Depeche Mode.²  This is a beautiful song, full of heart-wrenching longing, and it can make me cry nearly every time.  It’s an awesome track, no doubt, if a bit heavy.  Still, in many ways it’s completely fair to give the honor of “mix starter” to this song.

But this mix didn’t really exist until I heard “I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie.  That’s another beautiful song, but very different from the Depeche Mode track.  This one is very touching as well, but not really in a sad way.  It’s a song about death, sure, but it’s still in some fundamental way ... hopeful.  The singer (Ben Gibbard) is saying, there may be no heaven, there may even be no hell, but no matter where you go when you die, I’ll be coming with you.  A little thing like death is not going to keep us apart.

This got me started thinking about songs that have a certain poignancy to them.  They might be sad, or hopeful, or touching, or some combination of all three, but what they have in common is they all have a certain emotional impact that affects the listener, if they’re paying attention to the words (and sometimes even if they’re not).  Once I framed the parameters like that, all sorts of songs began suggesting themselves, and this mix was truly born.

Probably the first two tracks to come along after I decided to compile this mix were “Troy” by Sinéad O’Connor, which became the volume opener, and “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, which became its centerpiece.  The former, also from an album I absolutely love,³ I always thought was just vaguely nifty, until I listened to it with a (female) friend of mine, for whom it apparently struck far closer to home.⁴  Ever since then, I’ve only been able to hear real pain in Sinéad’s amazing voice.  The dynamics in this song—the way it goes from breathy whisper to anguished scream—is especially electric.

As for “Iris” ... I don’t know if I can express how this song affects me.  The classic line from this track is of course the volume title, and it’s one of those lines from a song that feels like it’s speaking directly to me, like it was written especially for me and no one else can really get it.  I tried to explain what it meant to The Mother once, but I fell short.  The song is ostensibly a love song, containing lines such as “I’d give up forever to touch you” and “you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be,” but to me it says nothing about love at all.  It’s something about growing up, and something about the pain of just being alive, and something about coping in the face of despair.  It’s not exactly sad, but it’s not really hopeful either.  The couplet in question is of course:

When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive

And I think this means something about how life feels fake sometimes, like you’re just going through the motions and reading somebody else’s script, and pain is the thing that lets you know it’s actually real.  Or maybe that’s not quite it.  It’s very difficult for me to describe.  But I know I love the song, even though it makes me a bit sad, and I know it belongs firmly in this mix.

There aren’t really any artists that epitomize this mix, but there are two that got repeated in this volume nonetheless.  The first are my old pals emmet swimming, a local band from the DC suburb where I lived for about 15 years, and to whom I have a few personal connections.⁵  So of course I have all their albums.  Todd can write a rollicking good song with the best of them, but he can also write quiet, tender songs, and I chose two of them for this volume, off two different albums, “You’re So Pretty”⁶ and “Boston,” which is the closing track on what was probably their closest album to a hit, Arlington to Boston.⁷  The second repeated artist is Ben Folds, whose haunting classic “Brick” shows up first, to be followed by the quiet gem “Gracie” near the end of this volume.  “Gracie” is one of the two compositions written by a father to his daughter that instantly makes me feel a very visceral love for my own girl.⁸

But those two artists aren’t repeated because they specialize in this sort of fare.  I don’t think anyone does, really: it would be too heavy to make this your entire output.  A lot of the songs here are more introspective turns from generally upbeat bands.  Like “Hackensack” by Fountains of Wayne, off the insanely good Welcome Interstate Managers.  There’s plenty of FoW’s trademark tongue-in-cheek lyrics here, but the song is surprisingly touching too.  Similarly, Kirsty MacColl is noted for gentle alt-pop, à la the Smiths,⁹ and Chris Isaak is most often considered alt-country, but that doesn’t mean they can’t put out a song with a little depth to it.  “Wicked Game,” which you’ve probably heard, is a gently chiding love song (“what a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you”), and “You and Me Baby,” which you probably haven’t, seems more to be a song about a friendship that evolves from a love that never happened (“I’ll be your sister if you’ll be my brother”).

And then there’s my vaguely country-tinged 3-song spree in the second half, coming off the Cranberries’ “I Still Do,” which is a pretty song in its own right, and a nice segue coming off of “Iris.”  I actually despise proper country music, but I can enjoy things with country influences: R.E.M., or Camper Van Beethoven, or the three bands showcased here: Timbuk 3, the Weepies, and Sister Hazel.  Timbuk 3 is an old favorite of mine; most people think of them as one-hit-wonders for “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades,” but they’re so much more than that one song.¹⁰  Their first album, Greetings from Timbuk 3, displays a surprising depth, which would only be developed further in their follow-up, Eden Alley.¹¹  “I Love You in the Strangest Way” is the closer of the former album, and is a sweet little 3-minute slice of perfection which flows beautifully into “Somebody Loved.”  The Weepies are a band that I discovered due to The Mother.  She asked me to pick up two of their albums,¹² and of course I decided to burn copies for myself.  They share a lot of Timbuk 3’s sensibilities, although they’re a bit sunnier overall.  “Somebody Loved” is not a sad song at all, but it is very tender.  Closing out this foray into folk rock and its immediate environs is “All for You” by Sister Hazel.  This is the non-acoustic version, off their second album, which I think has a fuller sound that better suits this declaration of devotion.  Although I knew of Sister Hazel (and this song in particular) before I met The Mother, I’ll admit that this version comes from an album I stole from her.

Of course, some artists are really well-suited to this type of song.  Certainly Counting Crows does it well, and “Raining in Baltimore” just drips a longing and maybe even regret that is almost palpable.  Tori Amos too is no stranger to songs that really touch the listener, and “Silent All These Years” is one my favorites: I can feel a certain amount of pain in those words, even if I don’t really know what all of them mean.  Ed’s Redeeming Qualities can do silly—and they often do—but even their more amusing tunes often have a surprising emotional depth, and when Carrie Bradley takes over the vocals, they often come out quite serious and touching, such as with “The Letter,” another song whose feeling is clear even if the lyrics are somewhat opaque.

Tenderhearted Nightshade I
    [You Bleed Just to Know You're Alive]

        “Troy” by Sinéad O'Connor, off The Lion and the Cobra
        “A Strange Kind of Love” by Peter Murphy, off Deep
        “Pearls” by Sade, off Love Deluxe
        “I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie, off Plans
        “Hackensack” by Fountains of Wayne, off Welcome Interstate Managers
        “Somebody” by Depeche Mode, off Some Great Reward
        “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos, off Little Earthquakes
        “Raining in Baltimore” by Counting Crows, off August and Everything After
        “You're So Pretty” by emmet swimming, off Wake
        “Brick” by Ben Folds Five, off Whatever and Ever Amen
        “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls, off Dizzy Up the Girl
        “I Still Do” by The Cranberries, off Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
        “I Love You in the Strangest Way” by Timbuk 3, off Greetings from Timbuk 3
        “Somebody Loved” by The Weepies, off Happiness
        “All for You” by Sister Hazel, off ... Somewhere More Familiar
        “You and Me Baby” by Kirsty MacColl, off Kite
        “Boston” by emmet swimming, off Arlington to Boston
        “The Letter” by Ed's Redeeming Qualities, off It's All Good News
        “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak, off Heart Shaped World
        “Gracie” by Ben Folds, off Songs for Silverman
        “Circle” by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, off Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars
   

Total:  21 tracks,  79:55

The remaining tracks are from artists which are neither surprising nor inevitable.  Peter Murphy’s “A Strange Kind of Love” is another tune whose lyrics are hard to parse but whose depth is undeniable.  Contrasting with that, “Pearls” by Sade is a perfectly coherent portrait of a struggling mother that should melt the stoniest of hearts.  Finally, we close with “Circle,” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians.  It wasn’t the hit that “What I Am” was, but it got some radio play, and I always found it a clean, simple depiction of the loss associated with gradual isolation.

Next time, to counter the borderline bleakness of this mix, we’ll go in a completely different direction and look at one of my very first party mixes.

__________

1 Weren’t we all, once?

2 Off Some Great Reward, which is one of my all-time favorite albums.

3 In this case The Lion and the Cobra.

4 For the record, this had nothing to do with me.  Honest.

5 As I mentioned briefly the first time we encountered them in this series, back in Salsatic Vibrato.

6 Which I’ve always been convinced is about an actual person who I probably know, but I can’t quite figure out who.

7 And it also contains some amazing backing vocals from my friend Erik, who was the first employee of my old company.

8 The other being Blueberry Girl, by Neil Gaiman.

9 For whom she sung backup on several songs, probably most notably on “Golden Lights.”

10 Although that one song is pretty hip too.

11 We’ll hear more from both albums on other mixes.

12 Specifically, Happiness, their first, and Be My Thrill, their latest at the time (although they have a newer one at the time I’m writing this).

Series Listing: Music Mixes

This a list of posts in my series about my music mixes.  You should probably start with the introduction.  The mixes themselves are listed in a spectrum order from most upbeat to most downbeat, although of course these are generalizations and indidivual tracks may buck the trend.  As explained in the introduction, each mix is divided into several volumes, and each post covers one volume.  So the volume subtitles are the links.  Where a mix has no volumes listed, that means I haven’t gotten around to doing a post on it yet, so the inclusion of it here is just a teaser.  I’m cruel like that.

Here are some phrases I use in these posts, their definitions, and links to the posts where I talk more about them (if any):

mix: A collection of songs, arranged in a particular order, that share a common theme.  Can be infinitely long.  Has a name which I invented.

volume: A subdivision of a mix, usually 60 to 80 minutes long.  Has a title, generally drawn from one track in the volume.

mix starter: The song that inspired a particular mix.

transition: The flow from the end of one song to the beginning of the next.  Very important to a mix’s integrity.  The reason why you must never touch the “Shuffle” button on your player.

bridge: A short song, almost always under two minutes, interposed between two other songs that don’t have a very good transition.

hardening: The process by which the transitions of a mix, while perhaps not perfect at first, grow ingrained over time through repeated listening, until I can’t imagine breaking them.  Contrasted with transitions that are perfect out of the gate.

No Reuse Rule: The rule that says that any given song can only ever appear on one mix.  Well, not a rule so much as a guideline, really.  There are, naturally, exceptions:

• If I make mixes for other people, they are not subject to the No Reuse Rule.  For instance, my Mother’s Day mix may very well contain songs on one of the mixes here; likewise for any of the mixes I made for my eldest child when they were younger.
• Also, if I were to make two different mixes for The Mother or any of my kids, I might be willing to use the same track as a previous mix for that person.  Which is subtly different from the above exception (and probably worse, so then again I might not).
• Every once in a while I just screw up and accidentally break the No Reuse Rule.  Generally I try to rerrange things in order to fix the mistake once I find it.  Sometimes this can be difficult if the song has “hardened” (see above) in both mixes.
• Certain mixes are just different, and they’re not considered part of the main series, so they’re allowed to use the same track as one of the main mixes (but not to repeat a track on that mix, no matter how many volumes it goes).  The prime example of this is the 80s My Way mix.  I also have 3 “mood” mixes (which is a dumb name for them, as all of my mixes are really mood mixes) called Dreamtime, Darktime, and Pasttime which used to fall under this exception.  Lately, however, I’ve been re-examining that decision, and starting to move some things around so that those mixes will also follow the No Reuse Rule.  I also have a “gaming” mix which originally I didn’t consider part of the main mix series, but it has also since come into line.
• “Bonin’ in the Boneyard” by Fishbone is exempt from the No Reuse Rule.  It can be on as many mixes as it wants.  It’s just that good.

modern mix: A mix that was developed as a digital playlist.

pre-modern mix: A mix that was developed as a mix tape.  Any pre-modern mix in this series is actually a recreation of the original.

proto-mix: A collection of songs that was sort of randomly jumbled together on a mix tape; proto-mixes were what preceded pre-modern mixes.  There are no proto-mixes in this list because they were all crap.

transitional mix: The mixes that came between the pre-modern mixes and the modern mixes.  They were developed as digital playlists, but not with the full rigor of modern mixes.  There are 3 of these in total, and at least 2 of them are being updated to follow the moden mix guidelines.

moderately obscure band: An artist with an entry on AllMusic but no bio, and either no page or a stub page on Wikipedia.

really obscure band: An artist that can’t be found on either AllMusic or Wikipedia.

cover image: A faux CD cover generated for a mix volume out of my fevered imagination using the Gimp.  Only a few volumes have this.

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In addition to the mixes themselves, I also have a few personal stories of music discovery that I’ve written:

• Music Discovery Story #1: The Reject Box
• Music Discovery Story #2: Found Cassettes
• Music Story #3: Into the Groove

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The mixes are arranged from most upbeat to most downbeat.  I’ve tried to provide a super-short summation of what each mix conveys; these are necessarily oversimplifications and may not capture the full range of emotion the mix provides.  Mixes with no descriptions or volumes listed are still under construction.

Most Upbeat

⇓      Thrashomatic Danger Mix

loud and hardcore, to work out your aggression

• I. Dog Will Hunt

⇓      Cumulonimbus Eleven

powerful songs that should be cranked all the way up

• I. Devastate the Night Forever

⇓      Funkadelic Bonethumper

⇓      Creeping Rageaholic

songs that start out mellow, then break into aggression

• I. Set Shit on Fire

⇓      Totally Different Head

punk meets new wave

• I. The Devil Take Your Stereo

⇓      FasterHarderDarker

⇓      Distaff Attitude

female vocals with attitude

• I. Warm Us Up and Watch Us Blow

⇓      HipHop Bottlerocket

party mix

• I. Saddle Up Your Salamander

⇓      Tsunwave Tsunami

⇓      Salsatic Vibrato

brassy and upbeat

• I. Step Up Ladies
• II. King of the Monkeys
• III. South of Hell’s Borders
• IV. Hot Ginger and Dynamite
• V. Love’s a Big Witch Doctor
• VI. Dinner at Seven, Martinis at Five
• VII. The Devil in Your Eye
• VIII. Jump Into My Caddy

⇓      Solar Superposition

⇓      Apparently World

upbeat worldmusic

• I. The Universal Language

⇓      Snaptone Glimmerbeam

happy-making mostly instrumentals

• I. All I’m Sayin’, Pretty Baby

⇓      Yuletidal Pools

Happy Christmahannukwanzaakah!

• I. featuring Michael Bublé
• II. Baby Jesus, Born to Rock

⇓      Tripping Flibbertigibbet

⇓      Honeysuckle Bubblegum

⇓      Stumbling Locomotive

⇓      Sirenexiv Cola

female-fronted alterna-pop

• I. You Sparkle and Burn
• II. Sneaky Like a Fiery Fox

⇓      80s My Way

my tribute to 80s music

• 0: introduction & explanation
• I: There’s a New Wave Coming, I Warn You (1979 – 1981)
• II: And Now You Find Yourself in ‘82 (1982 Part 1)
• III: On a Wavelength Far From Home (1982 Pt 2)

⇓      Fulminant Cadenza

rock and alternative with an operatic bent

• I. Thunderbolt and Lightning

⇓      Cantosphere Eversion

inside-out songs

• I. Where Time Becomes a Loop

⇓      Paradoxically Sized World

inspired by LittleBigPlanet

• I. The Whole World Is Yours
• II. Burning Holes Right Through the Dark
• III. Are the Stars Out Tonight?
• IV. Darkness to the Light
• V. If You Can Remember the Tune
• VI. I Can Dream the Rest Away

⇓      Midnight Synthesis

darkly sparkling synthwave

• I. The Moon Is Shining in the Sky

⇓      Bleeding Salvador

mid-tempo featuring surreal lyrics

• I. The Night the Creature Came Ashore
• II. Happy and Dopey and Dirty in Places

⇓      Penumbral Phosphorescence

mid-to-high-energy goth music

• I. And Death Scourged Her

⇓      Eldritch Ætherium

music to inspire gaming creativity

• I. The Chase of the Black Beasts of Zephirus into the Caverns of the Demon King
• II. Welcome to the Lost Road across the Empire of the Daggers of the Dead
• III. To Moon and Stars: Heart of the Lord of the Undermountain of Gilead & Ashkeeper
• IV. Tales Around the Desert Crossroads between Aribeth and Anauroch, over the High Seas, beyond the Druid Grove

⇓      Candy Apple Shimmer

shimmery, ethereal, but still upbeat, dreampop

• I. If All You Dreamed Was New

⇓      Gramophonic Skullduggery

mischievous songs with an old-timey vibe

• I. White Spats and Lots of Dollars

⇓      Moonside by Riverlight

jazzy lounge

• I. Far Beyond the Stars
• II. Fuckin’ Posh Like Dave Beckham

⇓      Loungeomatic Dangly Mix

⇓      Pasttime

⇓      Slithy Toves

slinky, sinuous tunes ranging from mellow to mildly upbeat

• I. Here to Eat Your Apple to the Core
• II. Magicians Never Tell

⇓      Primeval Rainlands

⇓      Zephyrous Aquamarine

desert island inspired chill-out

• I. Out Upon the Islands on a Cool Summer Night

⇓      Smokelit Flashback

druggy trip-hop and dreampop with a noir feel

• I. Fortune Teller Eyes
• II. In a Half-Lit World
• III. Sniff Me Out Like I Was Tanqueray
• IV. This Labyrinth of Poems
• V. In My Dream I’ll Catch You
• VI. Snow-Coated Thought Cage

⇓      Classical Plasma

an orchestral melange of classical, neoclassical, and soundtrack music

• I. The Night Aquarium Is Closed

⇓      Incanto Liturgica

celebrating chant, both religious and ethnic

• I. After the Clouds

⇓      Mars de la Morte

⇓      Irie Vibrations

⇓      Porchwell Firetime

folksy songs which tell a story

• I. I Came Here from Nowhere

⇓      Tumbledown Flatland

western-tinged songs with the feel of a lonesome prairie

• I. I Have Water, I Have Rum

⇓      Dreamtime

surreal and psychedelic music that suggests a dreamlike state

• I. We Came Out from the Deep
• II. Colourless and Dangerous

⇓      Dreamscape Perturbation

surreal dreampop with a mildly disturbing vibe

• I. Dark Twisted Fantasy

⇓      Smooth as Whispercats

alterna-pop with a smooth jazz feel

• I. Copper and Snow
• II. Looking So Bereaved and So Bereft

⇓      Dreamsea Lucidity

lofi and trip-hop with a pschedelic bent

• I. But You Dream About Islands and You Go to Them

⇓      Mystical Memoriam

pretty instrumentals that suggest magic and memory

• I. Behind the Purple Stars

⇓      Plutonian Velvet

creepy alternative with unsettling lyrics

• I. Ministers of Night

⇓      Phantasma Chorale

creepy, childlike music inspired by the soundtrack to Coraline

• I. Shadows Are in Hiding
• II. Her Fatal Charm

⇓      Darktime

dark ambient tunes that suggest nyctophobia

• I. My Shadow Will Cover

⇓      Rose-Coloured Brainpan

downbeat with a nostalgic feel

• I. Billion Year-Old Carbon
• II. Felt So Lonely in Your Company

⇓      Darkling Embrace

love songs with dark overtones

• I. Welcome Your Nightfall

⇓      Shadowfall Equinox

contemplative and autumnal

• I. Mystery Dwells Deep
• II. This Town of the Dying
• III. Five Fathoms Below You
• IV. It’s Dark and It Looks Like Rain
• V. Keep the Dark Inside
• VI. The Hungry Ghost That Lingers
• VII. The Garden, by Moonlight, Turning Dark
• VIII. Oceans of Storm Clouds

⇓      Numeric Driftwood

to drift off to sleep by

• I. Sail on a Silver Mist
• II. Did I Dream I Dreamed About You?
• III. Shadows Fall So Blue
• IV. Hints of Lilac Light

⇓      Wisty Mysteria

wistful, with a touch of mysterious

• I. Silent Sunset Orange Cloud
• II. Smoke a Cigarette and Lie Some More

⇓      Tenderhearted Nightshade

poignant and contemplative

• I. You Bleed Just to Know You’re Alive

Most Downbeat

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Special Mixes for Other People

Mother’s Day

for The Mother

• I. Every Little Thing Gonna Be All Right

In the P!nk

the Church of P!nk

• I. I’ve Been a Bad, Bad Girl
• II. You’re Gonna Have to Catch Me

Numeric Princess

Disney music for my little princess

• I. Fairy Tales Can Come True

Perl blog post #41

Occasionally my geek worlds collide: being simultaneously a technogeek and a gaming geek often means writing code to do things for games.  I’ve mentioned here that one of my games is Heroscape, and I’ve also mentioned that I’m part of something called the C3V, which attempts to create new units for this now discontinued game.  I don’t know if I specifically mentioned what I do for that group ... I’m one of the Editors, which means I help make sure that the wording for any new cards we create are just as official as the existing cards.  To that end, I have a file with all the text from all the official cards in it, and I have a script which lets me search that file in interesting ways in order to look at all the different official ways to say something.

So this past week or so I’ve had occasion to ponder a way to make this script even more useful.  It turned out to be a bit tricky, though, and evolved into a mini-programming-project.  So I decided to write it up for my Other Blog.  You’ll find this particular article technical, as per usual, but if you know anything about Heroscape I think you’ll still be able to glean some interesting tidbits nonetheless.  If you know neither gaming nor coding, well ... you know the drill by now.  Just look up a couple of inches.

Shadowfall Equinox I

"Mystery Dwells Deep"

[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.]

It wasn’t the first Hearts of Space program I ever heard,¹ but “Shadowfall II” was probably the one which most cemented my love for that show.  To quote Stephen Hill:

No matter where you are in the United States, the arrival of autumn reveals the inescapable retreat of the sun.  Colors decline to the somber, and the music of the season is darker as well.

Slowing down after the active days of summer, we hang, suspended, for a moment, waiting for the feast and festival days to come.  On this transmission of Hearts of Space, we look for the sound of the season on a program called “Shadowfall II.”

I don’t know that I can describe this mix any better than that.  I loved that episode: I hunted it down somewhere on the Internet and downloaded it and burned it to a CD and wore that sucker out.  The music is somber, as Stephen Hill says, but it’s not actually depressing.  It’s the perfect mood music for contemplative thought, for creative endeavor, for living in the background while you go on living, not dragging you down but not lifting you up either; it doesn’t fade into the wallpaper, but rather makes you think; it doesn’t engage your brain actively, but somehow sneaks in under the radar, making your subconscious race and your dreaming self wake up and take notice.

Given how much I was influenced by Hearts of Space in general in terms of mix creation,² and given how much I love this program in particular, I suppose it was inevitable that eventually I would try to create my own version.  Although I resisted for quite a long time: I didn’t want to bother unless I could improve on the original.  Well, I’m not saying that Shadowfall Equinox—and now that you’ve read the words that inspired this mix, I’m sure you see where the name comes from—is definitely an improvement, but I do think it has something to offer, and I’m happy to present it here today.

What this mix has most in common with its namesake is a predominating artist: Jeff Greinke.  Both have three tracks from Greinke,³ although not the same three.  They are all from the same album though, and I even open my mix with the same track that opens “Shadowfall II”: “One September.” You don’t argue with the perfect opening track just to be different.  The two I didn’t use in this volume will no doubt show up on future volumes—in fact, realistically, this mix will eventually use nearly every track off this excellent album (Wide View).  It’s just too perfect for this mix.⁴

Other than the Greinke tracks, I stayed away from recycling artists from the Hearts of Space program, at least for this volume.  This meant finding some stray tracks on unlikely albums, and exploring some other artists that I’d discovered via Hearts of Space, such as darkwave icons Black Tape for a Blue Girl⁵ and Falling You,⁶ or cello guru David Darling.⁷

The darkwave bands are a good place to find tracks like these.  Most of them are fond of instrumentals, and even their vocal tracks are often muted enough to fit well here.  So Black Tape for a Blue Girl gives us “The Scavenger Bride” (from the album of the same name, possibly their best) and “I Have No More Answers,” Love Spirals Downwards provides “Sidhe” (from Ardor, one of their best), and Falling You contributes “hope thrown down” off Touch (which is absolutely their best).  These bands also give us our only 3 songs with words (except for the formless vocals we’ll get from Amber Asylum), so “hope thrown down” is also our volume namer.

I’m pretty sure I discovered Falling You via Hearts of Space, and I’m pretty sure that’s how I ended up finding Magnatune.⁸  The “we are not evil” folks contribute 3 artists to this mix (above and beyond Falling You), including the two that give us our worldmusic vibe.  Shiva in Exile is mostly electro-world, like Transglobal Underground or Thievery Corporation, with a focus on India and slight gothic tendencies.  Most of his⁹ tracks are more energetic than will fit here, but “Aldebaran” is a more contemplative piece that works well.  On the other hand, Stellamara is mostly world with a Turkish bent and medieval meanderings, but quite a lot of it has an ambient feel that is part of what this mix is all about.  “Persephone” is one of their beautifully dark, mellow pieces, and it serves as an excellent closer here.  We’ll hear more from them on future volumes as well.

Also from Magnatune is Lisa DeBenedictis, generally a purveyor of anti-folk, but “Cello Song” is a darkly pretty piece given its gravity by the titular instrument.  The cello is in fact a fantastic instrument for conveying the mood that this mix embodies, and you’ll hear it over and over again throughout the mix.  Besides this song, and probably both of the Black Tape for a Blue Girl tracks, there is of course Amber Asylum, whose music is often described as “dark ambient,” which basically means classical/ambient jammed sideways into goth.¹⁰  I think I found them by accident, from clicking on one of those “similar albums” or “if you liked that, you’ll probably like this” type links.  Not all of their albums are gold, but this one (The Natural Philosophy of Love) is a winner.  With just a touch of dream mixed in, AllMusic’s description of them as a combination of the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Julee Cruise, and Lisa Germano is pretty spot-on.

And speaking of a bunch of 4AD superstars, we also have an instrumental track from This Mortal Coil, the supergroup composed of an ever-shifting lineup of 4AD band members.  This track is “Ivy and Neet,” featuring Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins on guitar and bass, Richard Thomas of Dif Juz on saxophone, and what is almost certainly Martin McCarrick, who bowed the wood for several Siouxsie albums, on cello.¹¹  McCarrick isn’t quite my favorite cello player,¹² but he’s pretty high up there.

Shadowfall Equinox I
[ Mystery Dwells Deep ]

“One September” by Jeff Greinke, off Wide View
“Winter” by Bent, off Ibiza by Day [DJ Mix]
“Clementina” by Xymox, off Twist of Shadows
“The Scavenger Bride” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off The Scavenger Bride
“Interlude” by Jeff Greinke, off Wide View
“Cello Song” by Lisa DeBenedictis, off Fruitless
“Looking Glass Reprise” by Amber Asylum, off The Natural Philosophy of Love
“hope thrown down” by Falling You, off Touch
“Aldebaran” by Shiva In Exile, off Ethnic
“Io - Moon of Jupiter” by Anugama, off The Lightness of Being [Compilation]
“I Have No More Answers” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off Remnants of a Deeper Purity
“Twin Peaks Theme” by Angelo Badalamenti, off Twin Peaks [Soundtrack]
“Slow Circles” by Jeff Greinke, off Wide View
“Ivy and Neet” by This Mortal Coil, off Filigree & Shadow
“Sidhe” by Love Spirals Downwards, off Ardor
“Persephone” by Stellamara, off The Seven Valleys

Total:  16 tracks,  75:36

The remaining 4 tracks are a bit of a hodgepodge.  We get a bit of electronica via Bent’s “Winter,” which is ostensibly a downtempo tune, but seems to be trying to break out of that mold and resonate a little darker, at least to me.  A touch of new age comes via “Io – Moon of Jupiter” by Anugama, which purports to be a meditative piece,¹³ but again goes beyond.  From Angelo Badalamenti’s insanely good soundtrack to Twin Peaks we have “Twin Peaks Theme,” which infuses a bit of shadowfall into dream pop.¹⁴  And, finally, from true goth genius Ronny Moorings, we have “Clementina.” This is from the Xymox period (as opposed to the Clan of Xymox periods), which means it’s from an album that’s a bit poppier than most of their ouevre.  Specifically, it’s off of Twist of Shadows, which I understand some hardcore (Clan of) Xymox fans detest, as they feel it’s a sellout disc.¹⁵  However, I’ve always loved it, and find it quite relaxing, with just enough dark undertones to make it interesting.  Being an instrumental, “Clementina” slides perfectly into this mix.

Next time, I’ll explore yet another of the pieces that Depression fragmented into.

Shadowfall Equinox II ⇒

__________

1 I’m pretty sure that was either “Africa West” or “Multiculti.”

2 I discussed this way back in the beginning, remember?

3 This was a mistake I made in the original post; actually “Shadowfall II” contains four tracks from Greinke’s Wide View.

4 The only other artist to be repeated in “Shadowfall II” was Kevin Keller, but we won’t see him until volume II (and later).  I did restrain myself a little.

5 “Liquid Desires”

6 “Funeral Songs”

7 “Shadowplay,” although we won’t actually see tracks from Cello Blue until Shadowfall Equinox II.

8 I.e. because I then went looking for places to download Falling You albums.

9 Like Black Tape for a Blue Girl and Falling You, Shiva in Exile is mostly one guy, specifically Stefan Hertrich.

10 We’ll hear from other dark ambient artists, such as Dark Sanctuary, in future volumes.

11 As well as Gini Ball on violin, who provided strings for Siouxsie, Psychic TV, Wolfgang Press, Big Country, Peter Murphy, and Nick Cave, just to name a few.

12 That would probably be Jami Sieber.

13 In fact, it’s from Anugama’s collection The Lightness of Being, which he “designed specifically for meditation and relaxation,” according to AllMusic.

14 And we’ll hear more off this album on future volumes.

15 Whereas I would reserve that appellation for the following album, Phoenix.

Paradoxically Sized World I

"The Whole World Is Yours"

[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.]

So far all but one of the mixes I’ve introduced have been downbeat of center.¹  So, in the spirit of balance and paradox, I thought I’d rectify that with a more upbeat mix that also contains a fair amount of slower tracks.  And, hell: “paradox” is right there in the name of the mix.

The name is fairly obvious once you know that this mix was inspired by LittleBigPlanet.  This cute but addictive video game has a lot to recommend it, but its music is one of its best features.  It’s an electic mix of electronica, world, jazz, hip-hop, pop, and dream, with touches of funk, latin, new age, cinematic, classical, and medieval revival.  None of it fits together, and yet it forms a coherent whole.  The remarkably diverse music all just seems to flow, and you get to the point where you hear other music from random places and think “hey, they ought to use that in LBP.”

So I made a mix.

Now, let’s be clear about the parameters of this mix.  First of all, there’s quite a lot of original music composed for the game, but, with rare exception,² I don’t put those songs on the mix.  That would be a very different type of mix altogether.  No, it’s the songs by real artists, off real albums, that I use.  And I go hunting down the original versions of those songs, which means that this mix often contains vocal versions where you would hear an instrumental version in the game.  In fact, LittleBigPlanet has been responsible for my discovering quite a few new artists that way that I’m pretty sure I would have never come across otherwise.  I now own several albums by LBP artists: Röyksopp, Trentemøller, Lullatone, Plaid, Ladytron, Mocean Worker, just to name a few.  And there are at least two bands—Ugress and Tashaki Miyaki³—that I now consider among my favorites.⁴  So, for me, LittleBigPlanet is not only a fun game to play with my kids, it’s also a music discovery service.

Now, as I mentioned, not all of the songs on this mix are actually from LittleBigPlanet.  Only about half are, in fact.  The remainder are just songs that seemed like they belonged in this grouping—perhaps other songs from LBP artists, or just, as I said above, songs that I felt ought to be in the game but weren’t.⁵  I also didn’t bother to restrict myself to those LBP games that I’ve actually played: we own LBP 1, 2, and 3, but there’s also LBP for PSP,⁶ LBP for PS Vita, and LBP Kart.  Thanks to the Internet, I know the names of most all the songs from all the different levels of all the different games, and I’m not shy about stealing whatever strikes my fancy.  Of course, I’m also not shy about rejecting music: just because a tune appears in LittleBigPlanet doesn’t mean it automatically lands on this mix.  Some of them just aren’t as good as others, and I continue to employ my usual artistic sensibilities when creating the mix.  That also means that you shouldn’t expect to find the music from the game in the same order you’d find it in the game.  Nor even expect to find it all in the same order that the games were released, although, since I started this mix between LBP 1 and LBP 2, you’ll get a rough approximation of that order.

In this first volume, the music is all from LBP 1 and LBP PSP, more or less alternating with non-LBP tracks.⁷  Most of the non-LBP artists I discovered via the “Zen” music channel of my television provider.⁸  There’s also one track by Lullatone, who I discovered via LBP 3.  Naming volumes in this mix is tough, as many of the songs are instrumental even in their original versions, and ofttimes the ones that do have words aren’t in English.⁹  In fact, there are only three songs on this entire volume with any words in English at all,¹⁰ so I chose a phrase from the spoken word intro to “The World Is All Mine” by Clutch Player.

In the mix list, I’ve thoughtfully added a note for all the tracks used in LittleBigPlanet games: either 1, 2, 3, PSP, PSV, or Kart.  If a track doesn’t have a note, it isn’t from an LBP game.¹¹  All of the LBP artists on this volume were unfamiliar to me when I first heard them in game, except of course Thievery Corporation.¹²  The only non-LBP artists I didn’t first hear on the “Zen” channel was Transglobal Underground, who I talked about way back in Smokelit Flashback I.¹³

Paradoxically Sized World I
[ The Whole World is Yours ]

“Left Bank Two” by the Noveltones [Single]

1

“The Awakening” by Tom Teasley, off Painting Time
“Get It Together” by the Go! Team, off Thunder Lightning Strike

1

“Count the Daisies” by Chris Joss, off Teraphonic Overdubs
“Dancing Drums” by Ananda Shankar, off A Life in Music: Best of the EMI Years [Compilation]

1

“The World Is All Mine” by Clutch Player, off The Atlantic Connection All Stars
“Satyam Shivam Sundaram” by Thievery Corporation, off The Cosmic Game

PSP

“Tapha Niang” by Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra [Single]

1

“Isis Unveiled” by Hossam Ramzy / Phil Thornton, off Eternal Egypt

PSP

“Flutter” by Bonobo, off Dial 'M' for Monkey
“Cornman” by Kinky, off Kinky

1

“Jatayu” by Transglobal Underground, off International Times
“2 Sips & Magic” by Nickodemus, off Sun People

PSP

“Curio” by Stratus, off Fear of Magnetism
“Still Feeling the Waves When You Go to Bed” by Lullatone, off Summer Songs [EP]

Total:  15 tracks,  71:00

Two other things I’ll mention before I close.

If you are a fan of LittleBigPlanet, you’ll recognize most of the tracks here, especially “Left Bank Two” by the Noveltones, which is a piece of sixties “library music,” but more famous as the music for the tutorial level in LBP 1.¹⁴  So I thought that made a good mix opener.  I believe the only surprise here among the LBP tracks is that I’ve used the vocal version of “Tapha Niang,” which is the music from The Savannah in LBP 1.  I’ve read that they originally wanted to use the vocal version in the game, but there was some legal hang-up with the copyright, so they ended up going with the instrumental version.  So now you can hear it as it was meant to be heard.  Probably my favorite of the game music on this volume, though, is “Dancing Drums” by Ananda Shankar, nephew of Ravi.¹⁵  Ananda put out some great music in the seventies, fusing traditional Indian music with jazz, along with touches of funk and psychedelia.  I’d never heard of him before playing LittleBigPlanet, but I’ve now picked up his greatest hits compilation, A Life in Music, and we’ll be hearing from him again in volume II.

Among the non-LBP tracks, “The Awakening” by Tom Teasley is so LBP that my children swear it’s a game track and fight over which level it’s in.  “Count the Daisies” by Chris Joss is another track that is quite strongly reminiscent of the game, but then again Joss’ music is primarily composed of retro-recreations of the music from movies of the late sixties and early seventies, so it’s not surprising it fits right in here.  Electronica artist Bonobo is also a natural fit, and we’ll hear more from him in future volumes.  “Jatayu” from International Times is one of the more upbeat tunes here, but it fits well with the world vibe and flows beautifully into “2 Sips & Magic” by New York spinner Nickodemus.  Stratus gives us “Curio” to help wind down, and we close out with the lovely “Still Feeling the Waves When You Go to Bed” by Lullatone, who would go on to provide the background music for the LBP 3 trailer.¹⁶  It’s a calm, relaxing piece which provides the perfect closing for this mostly upbeat mix.

There are several more volumes of PSW to come, but I like to keep things mixed up.¹⁷  Next time I think we’ll drift into even more instrumental territory, but take a darker turn.

Paradoxically Sized World II ⇒

__________

1 The exception being Salsatic Vibrato, which is pretty upbeat.

2 Only twice so far, in fact.  But not until volume II.

3 One of which, as you can see, meets my criteria for being an “obscure band”; the other has no bio on AllMusic, but does have a Wikipedia article.  Although it occurs to me that, the Internet being forever, you may well be reading these words in a time when both those things exist for both these bands, and you’ll wonder what the hell I’m on about.  Just trust me when I tell you that, as of this writing, these bands are obscure enough that, without LBP, I doubt I would have ever discovered them at all.

4 Although, to be fair, my list of “favorite bands” is very long.

5 Yet.  By the time you read this, who knows?

6 The kids have played that one, but I never have

7 There’s one 3-track stretch of all LBP in the middle, and we close with 2 non-LBP in a row, but other than that, strict alternation.

8 Which happens to be DIRECTV.  But as far as I know they all have these sorts of music channels.

9 Not that I have anything against giving a mix volume a title in a foreign language, in principle.  But I like the names to be something I can remember, something that puts me in mind of the songs on the mix.  Rarely would a foreign phrase work in that way for me.

10 And two of those are more in the English-as-a-second-language camp.

11 At least as far as I know.  Lacking omniscience, I welcome corrections.

12 I’ll be telling you the story of how I discovered Thievery Corporation once I get to Smokelit Flashback III.

13 And Smokelit Flashback II, for that matter.

14 Unless you’re a Brit of a certain age, in which case I gather you’ll always think of it as the music for Vision On.

15 Ravi Shankar is perhaps best known for introducing George Harrison to the sitar, although he probably ought to be equally celebrated for fathering Norah Jones.

16 “Race Against the Sunset,” which is also used in the Needlepoint Peaks level.  We’ll see it show up on volume IV.

17 Pun not intended.  Though admittedly not removed after being noticed either.

Saladosity, Part 5: Further Adventures in Produce

[This is the fifth 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 at this point we’ve raided our produce section for the base veggies for our salad.  But that doesn’t mean we’re done here in produce.  On the contrary, there’s a good deal of other bits and bobs we’ll need for extras, dressings, etc.  Let’s break it down.

Fruit (eating)

Fresh fruit is awesome, and you should probably buy lots of it.  I don’t add it much to salads though.  I generally eat it straight, mostly in a desperate attempt to use it to replace sweets.  Sure, eating sugar-packed fruit is not necessarily the best choice you can make, but compared to eating candy, or cookies, or that sort of crap, it’s easily the better choice.

The biggest problem with fruit is keeping it from going bad.  So you not only have to buy fruit that you like to eat; you also have to make sure it’s going to survive in your fridge for a week.  ‘Cause, let’s face it: you’re not going to go to the grocery store more than once a week.  Maybe you want to, maybe you even should ... but you’re not gonna.  You just don’t have time.¹  So concentrate on stuff you can both eat out of hand and keep around for a week without rotting.  My favorites are bananas, apples, grapes, and pineapple.  But pineapple only because my local TJ’s² sells it precut.  There’s no way I’m going to chop up my own pineapple.  Way too much effort.

All this will last just fine for a week, all in the fridge except the bananas.  At the end of the week, whatever I have left over I freeze, or just toss out for the birds and squirrels.  (If you compost, that’s also a great choice.)  Never be afraid to throw out food and get fresh stuff.  Of course, some stuff will last two weeks: the grapes and apples generally will,³ and bananas I buy green as hell every week and let them ripen throughout the week while I work on last week’s bunch.  At the end of two weeks, though, into the freezer they go.  Pineapple, strawberries, blackberries, and cherries can only stay for a week.

Now, we will need a fresh fruit accent for one of our salads.  In a perfect world, I’d use pears.  But here’s the problem with pears: they don’t keep all that well, and I don’t like to eat them out of hand.  So, if I were to use pears, I’d only be able to have this salad toward the beginning of the week, and, if I missed my opportunity, I’d end up with pears lying around and nothing useful to do with them.  So I use apples instead.  Apples are just as good as pears, really, and much more likely to get eaten for other purposes.  And they last longer.

Get organic apples, and look for sweet varieties.  My TJ’s has recently started carrying opals, and I think they’re amazing.  (So do my kids.)  So that’s almost always what we buy these days, when they’re available.  Other good choices are pink ladies, galas, or honeycrisps.

Fruit (juicing)

You’re also going to need lemon juice, so buy some lemons.  You won’t need these every week (or even every other week, most likely).  I like to buy a bag of organic lemons, which generally contains about six or so lemons, and juice ’em all at once.  This will last anywhere from two weeks to a month before I need to buy lemons again, and, generally speaking, the lemon juice will last that long.  In my experience, lemon juice doesn’t go bad: it just gets extra sour.  But it’s so acidic anyway that I dunno if bacteria can live in there.  Keep it in small tupperware containers (I keep mine up in the butter area at the top of the refrigerator door), and, if it gets a bit cloudy, just skim off the white bits with a spoon.

You can substitute limes here if you prefer, or maybe Meyer lemons.  Mainly what we’re going to use it for is making mayonnaise, so, you know: however you want your mayo to taste.

Don’t be tempted to buy bottles of lemon juice though.  That crap almost always contains sulfites, which is not good.  I’ll show you how to juice lemons so it’s not a huge chore.  Promise.⁴

Aromatics

I always buy a bag of organic yellow onions, which I will cut up along with my base veggies.  But, strictly speaking, we won’t need those for any of our salads.  I just like to do all my veggie chopping for the week in one go.

On the other hand, we will need garlic.  I also buy organic garlic, which happily will last basically forever.  It’ll sprout, eventually, although I rarely keep any around that long.  And, even after it sprouts, most of the garlic is still good.  If you do manage to keep garlic around for more than, say, a month, it’ll get soft, and I consider that a sign that it’s time to toss.  As long as it stays firm, it should be fine.

I also love garlic, so, fair warning: I will advise you to use lots of it for those dressings where we need it.  If you don’t dig garlic as much as I do, you can tone down the amounts.  As I say, I buy organic, but that’s mostly on principle.  Garlic is actually one of the few items of produce that I can’t really taste any difference between organic and non-organic varities.

I suppose jalapeños aren’t technically aromatics, but I threw them in this section anyway.⁵  We’re going to make some cilantro dressing which needs a bit of heat, and jalapeños are an easy way to provide that.  Now, cutting up fresh jalapeños is a giant pain in the ass, although I will try to offer some tips to make it as easy as possible.  I used to buy them in little cans, pre-cut, but my TJ’s stopped selling them.  So I bit the bullet and started buying fresh.  TJ’s sells a small package containing about 3 or 4 peppers, which is enough to make 4 batches of dressing.  So what do you with the other 3 batches?  Simple: you freeze them.  And, since one batch of cilantro dressing will last a week and a half to two weeks, you only have to go through this giant pain in the ass once every six to eight weeks.  I can live with that.

Herbs

I’m not huge on fresh herbs.  I’m perfectly happy with buying powdered or ground or pummeled whatever from the spice section.  But there’s one area where you really do need to buy fresh: cilantro.  If you can manage to grow it yourself, bonus for you.  But for me, TJ’s sells it in little flat plastic packs that’s a perfect amount for a single application (either cilantro dressing, or aloo gobi, which are the two things I use fresh cilantro for).  I also sometimes buy it at my local farmer’s market, but the smallest amount I can buy there is about 3 to 4 times what I need to use at a time, so then it becomes a challenge to keep it from going bad.  But I’m working on getting better at that.

So far I’ve not seen any organic cilantro.  (Although my local farmer’s market⁶ grows their produce using generally organic means, they don’t choose to get certified organic, so their products don’t have that label.)  Certainly if I saw it I would buy it.



That’ll do it for us in the produce department.  Next time, we’ll move on to nuts and dried fruits.

__________

1 If you do, I doubt you’re reading this anyway.  You don’t need tips from me.

2 Remember how I said I was going to be a walking advertisement for Trader Joe’s?

3 Apples will in fact last much longer than two weeks if kept properly.  But they generally won’t last that long.

4 Although I will admit to using the bottled crap sometimes when I’m feeling lazy.  It does last forever.  But that’s primarily because it’s chock full of sulfites.  So I try to avoid it as much as possible.

5 Primarily because there’s wasn’t anywhere else good to put them.

6 Which, honestly, is not all that local, which is why I don’t go that often.

Perl blog post #40

This week I’ve been off with The Mother, her parents, her sister, our 3 human children, and our 1 canine child, on simultaneous vacation and work conference.  This year’s YAPC was in Salt Lake City, a mere 700 miles from our home and 550 from that of the grandparents and aunt.  So we met in the middle(ish) and rented a small vacation house.  I rode the train into the conference every day and brought the boys in at night for social activities.  If you’re interestd in the mostly technical details of my experience, feel free to check out my Other Blog.  But there’s also some non-technical stuff buried in there, so hopefully it’s of some value even to my non-geeky readership.  Assuming there’s any readership at all out there, despite my repeated warnings to the contrary.

But in any event, my YAPC reflections is all you get this week.  The vacation part was quite lovely, to be sure, and I’m quite glad we got away for a while, and quite glad we got to see the closest things I have to in-laws again.  Still, it’s an exhausting week: driving 1500 miles or so, sleeping not in one’s own bed, dietary changes (e.g. a hell of a lot more fast food than I’ve been eating lately), dealing with multitudes and multitudes of people.  So these few paragraphs are about all I can muster at the moment.  Next week I hope to return to my salad series.

Saladosity, Part 4: Choose Your Veggies

[This is the fourth 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.]


Obviously the first step to making a good salad is buying good ingredients.  This time around I’m going to give you some tips on how to do just that.

First, let’s give ourselves some goals on what we’re looking for:

1. We want veggies that taste good.
2. We want veggies that provide a variety of tastes and textures.
3. We want to buy organic as much as we possibly can.
4. We want veggies that can stand to be in the fridge for at least a week, after they’ve been chopped up.

Hopefully it’s obvious why we want all these.  #1 is because, if they don’t taste good, you’re not going to eat them.  #2 is because, if your salad is boring, you’re not going to eat it.  #3 is because a) organic just tastes better, and b) it’s at least probably better for  you.¹  And #4 is because chopping up veggies for salad is an annoying task, so you’re not going to want to do it very often.  You’re going to want to shoot for once a week, maybe twice a week at the most.  Any more often than that and you’re going to come to dread it, which means you won’t do it, which means you won’t have salad in your fridge when you want it, which means you’re not going to eat salad that often.  Severely counter-productive.

So, first off, find yourself a grocery store that’s not too far away and has decent prices on organic food, especially veggies.  For me, that’s Trader Joe’s, but you can use whatever you like.  (But I have to warn you: I buy just about everything at TJ’s, so I’m going to sound like a walking billboard for them throughout this discussion.)  Perhaps you find Whole Foods affordable.²  Or maybe it’s Fresh & Easy.  Or maybe even a local Wal-Mart which carries organic produce—whatever.  As long as it’s convenient and moderately cheap.  Expect it to be a little more expensive—never fret over paying more for healthy and delicious food—but not so much that you’re tempted to stop eating salad for budgetary reasons.  Again, counter-productive.

Next, you have to find the mix of veggies that you like.  For me it’s this:

• lettuce
• cucumbers
• bell peppers
• celery
• scallions

Every single salad will use the same veggies.  Why?  Two reasons:  First, it’s just easier to distinguish salads with their extras rather than their base.  Secondly (and probably more importantly), if you have exactly one giant bowl of pre-chopped veggies in your fridge, making salads will be easier and more convenient.  And that’s what we’re shooting for.

Now, you don’t have to use my mix.  Maybe you like radishes.³  Maybe bell peppers give you gas.  Whatever.  Pick your own 5 or 6 veggies.  Experiment if you need to.  I strongly recommend you have some sort of lettuce, but, other than that, use what you like.  Go crazy.

Now let’s talk about the individual veggies.  I’m going to tell you how I choose my varieties; hopefully you can extract the general principles for yourself.

Lettuce

So, first let’s address the pervasive myth that “iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value whatsoever.”  This is not completely without merit, but it’s also a vast oversimplification.  The truth goes something like this: the greener the leaves, the more nutrition it has.  The dark green leaves are the best, the light green less so, the yellow leaves are pretty pathetic, and the white bits are mostly just water in plant form.  So, while it’s true that iceberg lettuce has more white than green, and what green it has is pretty light, that’s not the same as saying it has no nutritional value at all, now is it?  Not to mention that all types of lettuce have some yellow and white.

Furthermore, there’s a vast gulf between “not necessarily good for you” and “bad for you.”  The white bits of lettuce may not have a lot of nutrition, but you know what they do have?  Crunch.  Do not underestimate the value of crunch in a salad.  Crunch is crucial for a good salad, so don’t turn your nose up at the white bits of the lettuce.  They’re great for providing crunch, and if they don’t provide much else, who cares?  You’re still eating plants, not crap.

Now, all that having been said, I don’t use iceberg myself.⁴  But don’t be so quick to rush off to the romaine: in my experience, romaine will turn slimy in the fridge so fast it will make your head spin (and your stomach turn).  I tried romaine a few times, only to vow “never again.”

In my opinion, the best lettuce you can get is butter lettuce.  It has some crunch, some darker green leaves, and it will hold up in the fridge for at least a week.  This is perfect for salad purposes.

As always, buy organic if you can get it.  Although I find organic lettuce a lot harder to come by.  If all you can find is non-organic, that’s fine.  I buy mine in bags, just because that’s the most common way I find it.  Or buy heads if you can get them.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are absolutely my favorite salad vegetable.  You can generally find 3 varieties at your store:⁵ American, English, and Persian.  American cucumbers are the ones you’re probably most familiar with ... they’re fat, dark green, and about as long as your hand (or a bit longer).  English cucumbers are longer, skinnier, and lighter green, as well as far less regular in shape, but not a whole lot different, really.  Persians, on the other hand, are a whole different thing.  They’re small, thin, and vaguely cute—they fit easily in your hand, and they’ll keep well in the fridge.  Keep them in the fruit drawer—with the humidity cranked up—rather than the meat/veggie drawer; I’ve found this makes a huge difference in how long they’ll keep prior to cutting.

The best thing about Persians is that they’re firmer, crisper, and less mushy than the American or English varieties.  That means less water content, and that means they’ll last longer after they’re cut.  I buy organic only; they come in a little plastic container with about six in each.

I also sometimes throw an Americn or English cucumber into my mix.⁶  I used to do this very regularly, but it does limit how long your base salad mix will last, so I’m starting to discontinue this practice.  If you can eat all your salad in well under a week, that’s fine.  Otherwise, you may want to stick with just the Persians.

Celery

Not much to say here.  Celery provides a great crunch that even the whiter parts of the lettuce can’t achieve, and it tastes great too.  I buy organic celery when I can get it, which is most of the time.  You can buy precut stalks, but I usually just get the whole “heart” (comes two to a bag at my local TJ’s).  There aren’t different varities of these to choose from, at least not in my store.

Bell Peppers

Some people don’t care for peppers.  They are nightshades, and some people have a problem with the nightshades.⁷  However, in my opinion peppers provide even more of that great crunch you need, plus they have a great flavor: it’s not really spicy, like their cousins, but it certainly ain’t bland.  Plus they come in red, yellow, and orange, so they provide some color for your salad.⁸

Again, buy organic if at all possible.  My local store sells a bag with three organic bell peppers: one red, one yellow, and one orange.  So that’s what I get.  I personally can’t really taste much difference among the various colors, but perhaps you can.

Scallions

Also known as green onions, a scallion is not just an immature onion (and, if that’s what you’re getting at your grocery store, you’re being sold a bill of goods).  A scallion is a whole different species which doesn’t form bulbs.  They’re milder than regular onions, making them perfect for salads.  At my store, they come anywhere from 6 to 12 in a bag, and I’ve never seen any organic ones.  I would certainly buy them if I could though.



I go to my store once a week and raid the produce department pretty heavily.  I generally plan to make one or two large batches of salad base, plus cut a few extra veggies along the way.  So my shopping list looks like this:

• 2 or 3 bags of butter lettuce
• 1 or 2 packages of Persian cucumbers (about 12 cucumbers)
• 1 bag of celery (two celery hearts)
• 1 bag of bell peppers (3 large-ish peppers)
• 1 bag of scallions/green onions (6 to 12 stalks, depending on size)

Of course, this is just the base veggies I’ll need for my salad mix.  We’ll need more stuff from the produce department to make our various dressings.  But that’s a topic for next time.

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1 Yes, that opinion is contested here and there, and people will also claim that not everything labeled “organic” is necessarily any healthier.  But I think it’s a generally accepted principle.  Besides, if it tastes better—and it really really does—who cares whether it’s any better for you or not?

2 Perhaps you’re in a very tiny minority.

3 Whereas I think they taste like dirt.  But, hey: to each his own.

4 Although I would in a pinch.  It’s still better than many of the alternatives.

5 At least that’s what I commonly encounter at my Trader Joe’s.

6 Yes, in addition to the Persians.  I really like cucumbers.

7 Or at least are convinced they do.  Or believe that there are health concerns.  Personally I don’t subscribe to this point of view.

8 As I’ll talk about later, I’m not a big “we eat with our eyes” sort of guy, but that doesn’t mean I think your salad should be monochromatically boring either.

Perl blog post #39

This week I finally solved a Perl problem that had been kicking my ass for quite a while now.  So I decided to write a post about it on my Other Blog.  If you’re not one of my more techie readers, you may want to take a pass.  But, if you are, go check it out.  It’ll be fun.  Promise.