Just Another Calendarman-ic Monday

(Your author, coming at you with all the powers he gained after being bitten by a radioactive page-a-day Far Side calendar in middle school.)

I've been thinking on and off about calendars since about 2015. That was a busy year. I needed to juggle two big projects: one usually on alternate Sundays, one roughly every 10 days, all year long, these alongside all the other normal activities constituting everyday life (food, work, family, art, uprising, etc.), and it was difficult to do such juggling. What worked for me that year was to: print out Bram Moolenaar's fold-and-stand-up desk calendar and

1. Circle my alternating-Sunday deadlines in red
2. Circle the every-10-day deadlines in green
3. Put it on my desk where I could see it

(Bram's yearly calendar. I recently discovered that this is pretty much the output of the Unix utility ncal with the -w flag! Unix can be pretty cool.)

It worked well for me! Obviously, this is not a tool that accepts a great deal of information, but for helping visualize a cadence of more or less regularly occurring events, it served effectively.

Over the next few years, unfortunately, the events to coordinate got less regular, less predictable, and probably more numerous. Bram Moolenaar's calendar stopped helping me organize things. That's whenDavid Malki stepped up. He has several long, interesting posts on calendars, and the high-end calendar he makes he is a beautiful, funny, and probably useful object. But what really fired my soul was his devastatingly simple "continuous calendar" idea¹, just a year's worth of boxes organized by month, fitting on six pages of printer paper.

(Malki's simple calendar.)

One reason for my soul's resonance with this object is context: at my work, a very common activity to to grab a blank piece of butcher paper, sketch out a grid representing a month or so, and calendar out some events in / for / of / constituting a campaign. This simple template of Malki's saved the drawing-and-adding-dates steps, and I used it a few times in different campaigns to help visualize timelines, deadlines, and possible conflicts. It worked well.

What didn't work well was trying to use the template to help organize my life. I had a couple problems with what he had made:

1. Squares too small to add significant information (70 squares on one 8.5x11 piece of paper is a lot)
2. Shading to indicate a month makes it hard to to write on with, say, a black ballpoint pen, or a Sharpie®|Pen., or whatever
3. I really hated having Saturday and Sunday at the end of the week: this was confusing because it meant that this calendar didn't match any other calendar I'd look at ever

So eventually I decided to stop being frustrated with a tool that didn't work for me. I decided to try to brew my own. I wanted bigger squares, I wanted weeks to start with Sundays, and I didn't want any shading. The best way to attain bigger squares seemed to be to move from portrait to landscape. I really liked Malki's insight about making the months flow into each other, so I kept that layout. I made a couple three-month templates and tested them, and they seemed to work the way I want them to work.

(My calendar looks like this. I like to mark it up with bill due-dates in red, and other notable things in black.)

If you would like to see if this tool will serve your purposes, you can download it and print it out and play with it. (Right now it runs from October 2019 through February 2021, so I recommend judicious use of the "print selected pages" function so as to save our mother the Earth from additional abuse.) If you find that you like using this tool, why not send David Malki a couple bucks: it was all his idea anyway! If you find that this tool doesn't work well for you, why not spend a little time figuring out why not, thinking about what you need, and go try to make something that will help you?

¹ What's hilarious is that Malki uses a different term, not "continuous calendar":

progressive calendar

By that, I mean a calendar that doesn’t have any breaks between months. I think I invented the term? By that, I mean “nobody else has ever used this term.”

Evidently, he IS the only one to use the term. Since I use a different term, perhaps I ... invented the idea? (No, no clearly I didn't.) Anyway, this is a long digression prompted by my inability to remember what words he actually used.

(Your author's ambitions when it comes to calendars.)

(Bonus Venture Brothers content re: calendars.)

PEN 15 Club 2: more on the Sharpie(r)|Pen., questions posed and answered

Well, I knew this would happen. When you say something as controversial as I did yesterday—"the Sharpie®|Pen. implement is pretty okay for writing things with" was merely the felt tip of my offensive offensive—you're going to have to expect pushback. And pushback I have from Pen Internet and elsewhere received.

Occasional contributor and life partner Pierre Idiot Trudeau, perhaps predictably, mounted the fiercest assault on my position.

I'm confused as to how these Sharpie Pens are different from the Sharpie fine and Ultra Fine markers. Is there a ball or different ink release system? I know that you've used those others I've mentioned, so I'm curious as to what makes it different/more pleasing.

Later, a pervert calling him-or-herself "Unknown"* continued the savage pile-on.

*Likely fucking story, friendo.

I have a bunch of conflicting emotions about pens. My trusty Micron is great for small missives, but if I truly want to make a statement I have a Sharpie in a holster. I tried the double tip dueling fine point/regular Sharpie, but hardly used the fine point. Turns out, I only use the Sharpie for making signs or responding to analog social media. There are a number of other instruments in my pen-theon which I will leave until another entry on which to elaborate.

"Pen-theon" is pretty good, though, so kudos for that. To address these wild accusations: I did not explicitly compare the Sharpie®|Pen. to the more common Sharpie "permanent" marker, for two reasons. First, I am a MarksALot man**, and brand loyalties are important***. Second, I mostly write on paper, and people who use Sharpie markers to write on paper make me uncomfortable (nervous, irritable). I have tried this, under the occasional influence of one disreputable brute or another, from time to time, and the overwhelming experience is one of bleed-through, of paper more ruined by ink than (ad-)dressed by it. The hand feel of a Sharpie marker is also completely vile: chub-stubby and slick—no, thank you!!

**No, I'm not.
***No, they aren't.

Recently I uncovered a smallish cache of the small-tip Sharpie markers, and attempted to deploy them to label presents. Stolen from work a job ago, they had all gone dry, nestled patiently in my art silo. The metaphor is, of course, clear.

The tip question posed by Pierre Idiot Trudeau is easy enough to answer. The Sharpie®|Pen. boasts a standard protrusive cylinder felt-tip, no ball to be found, basically the same format as the Micron art pen. The Sharpie marker, of the small-tipped variety, does, I believe, incorporate a ball encased by a plastic cone (among its other failings)****, whereas the more common "fine point" marker is a thick, slab-like cone of felt.

(Note here the tip propaganda of the manufacturer, included so that we may better understand not what to think, but what we are wanted to think, by those who are not our friends.)

****I can't verify this, because I took all the ones I had and threw them in the fucking garbage, where I assume they remain, sucking shit. I took a long look at Sharpie dot com, and could not find the sort of pen I am remembering. After additional research, I have come to believe that I may have been remembering not a Sharpie, but an Expo Vis-à-Vis dry erase marker of some sort, or a Sharpie equivalent. I fail to see how this minor error in identifying the tool I was using could in any way invalidate anything I have said about the experience of using the tool. :(

(I don't even like looking at these hateful objects.)

Perhaps more important than the tip is what comes out of it. Standard Sharpie marker ink is, as I have hinted, not my favorite thing to apply to paper (except for wrapping paper, a task that comes up not very frequently, as I am an ingenerous clod), but the Sharpie®|Pen. issues forth something that, as the container indicates, "won't bleed through paper", which is cool. Using science, I have determined that the Sharpie marker and Sharpie®|Pen. do in fact have different inks: as the image below indicates, Sharpie markers can write on glass, whereas the Sharpie®|Pen. cannot, to its credit.

(Science!)

So. To recap, always a good thing to do with your pen:

• Tip differences: Sharpie®|Pen., a pleasing cylinder of felt jutting from a metal tube, like a tiny Chrysler building; Sharpie marker, a galumphing, turgid pile
• Ink differences: Sharpie®|Pen., a kind, gentle fluid optimized for gracing, indeed grazing, paper, whence good adults write; Sharpie marker, a harsh substance perfect for those who wish to "make their mark" on arbitrary surfaces (childishly)

Of course, Pierre Idiot nor his campaign were finished.

I have specific pen/marker/highlighter needs/opinions based mostly around the paper that's getting written on. I petitioned my boss - unsuccessfully - to allow us to buy the one step up paper that we used to buy because it "feels better to write on". This was met mostly with eyerolls, but a bit of sympathy from the very same people.

Indeed! Sadly under-recognized, except by the attractive geniuses who read this post, is the vast truth that: The Paper ... Makes the Pen. The barrel matters regardless of surface, but the pen's contents and tip are wildly at the mercy of whatever you're planning to rub them on! This is one reason an ultimate pen, much like an ultimate morality, can likely never be discovered. As for your boss, I recommend collective action and concerted activity. Be unwavering in your demands, unstinting in your efforts, and unquenched in your desire for total victory (read: slightly better office supplies). You might try framing it as a workplace safety issue, if you can. "Paper cuts are causing paper cuts" is a slogan I can hardly imagine meeting with anything but immediate boss capitulation.

Now, if you want to talk highlighters, this here is the gold standard. Smear Guard ®

I didn't, but thanks for the input.

That bit about "childishly" was a joke.

PEN 15 CLUB

Took a quick look at the last time I talked about pens, my mind aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention, and had a discomfiting, disconnected moment. I could scarcely recognize the child I was, tho' the child ever is father to the man, nor credit the opinions he expressed.

Particularly alien I found the conclusion, in which 2017 Fat plumped for reaching in the main for the Pilot (Precise) V5. This bears essentially no relation to current practice, preference, or predilection. The (r)evolution has I think more to do with what I'm writing on than what I'm writing with.

(I found this pen in the bag of scissors / tape / pens / etc. I maintain for Xmas-present-wrapping operations. Man, I sure chewed on this one a lot.)

I've been working, with a kind of dogged, halting persistence, to refine my notebook approach, spurred by conditions both material (I have roughly a dozen Field Notes notebooks on hand) and ideological (I love those Field Notes notebooks, and the uniformity of writing things in identical containers drives a certain urge towards tweaking my approach to their filling, until I feel optimized, plus I have watched more than one video about bullet journaling). Details on all that to come. But with a striving towards consistency and perfection must come a desire for sameness—in this case, yoked to an/the ever-present lust for novelty, viz., I saw a new-to-me kind of pen when I was in a stressful situation and (therefore) in need of easeful consumption—and thus came into my life the stirring adequacy of the spartanly named Sharpie®|Pen., whose chubby, softish barrel is bleh at best, but inoffensive, and whose tip and ink please nigh-invariably.

(You may be able to see that the tip is slightly bent, because I dropped it point-down onto a hard floor, almost immediately after starting to use it. This is vaguely reminiscent of using a pencil, and I kind of like it.)

Not as stable a platform as the light carbine of the Le Pen nor the fully functional Batmobile of the Micron ~Art Pen~, it hits much the same marks, but with waterproof ink and a less intimidating mien. I tried to use it exclusively in my most recent notebook, and except for the day I forgot it at work and had to press back into service one of my absolute favorite (green) Le Pens, I succeeded. Pleasing consistency!

That notebook (was) finished last night; the next follows. After a painstaking review of my Pen Situation and my Evolving Habits, I have decided to retire the Sharpie®|Pen. for the duration of that notebook (48 pages, usually around as many days), for reasons I will describe just as soon as they are clear to me.

(These are fine-tipped, 0.8 mm. I wonder what the Ultra Fine experience is like??)

A Comprehensive Review of Alex Garland's Film Annihilation, Compendious in Its Correctness (Also It Is: Indisputable)

Point 1.

Oh, Alex Garland.

Point 2.

Here are some things that are extremely cool.

• that one episode of X-Files where the scientists in the Arctic discover a creepy worm alien or whatever and the one guy yells "We're not ... who we ARE!"
• The Thing
• 2001
• Alien / Aliens
• Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now / going up a river to where humanity disintegrates

pen is in my hand

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the internet has been a net bad for humanity. By allowing glib, superficial access to largely decontextualized facts, it's created a vast army of people—mostly men—who, perniciously, believe both that there's nothing they don't understand and that understanding things requires no more than a cursory googling and quick skimming of somewhere under four web—usually just Wikipedia—pages. (There's also the brain-poisoning feedback loop wherein the most casual expressions of approval somehow displace and outweigh any/all other potential inputs, eventually, out of sheer volume, replacing the real world entirely. But that's a matter for another time.) But I cannot deny the few archipelagos of what I can only call Good Internet which remain. Mostly they're singular. What characterizes Good Internet is usually that it is and does One Thing. It expresses one sensibility, maybe, or, more reliably, it treats (of) only one topic. Good examples of Good Internet would include:

• Ian's Shoelace Site
• Can Opener Internet
• Knife Internet
• and, oddly, the roughly 60% of the internet that turns out to be devoted to bodybuilding

I'm sure we'll eventually cover all of these individually. But right now I want to talk about Pen Internet.
Pen Internet is good. Here are some examples, some people taking an interest in something and working to communicate that interest to whoever might be listening.

• Pen reviews written and drawn in the pen being reviewed
• "The Pencils of Pens"—a phrase redolent, evocative, interesting
• The Pen I Write With—showing the range of people's pens obsessions

That was fun. Now I want to talk about pens. Mostly I want to talk about good pens. What can I say? Pen Internet is intoxicating, also inspiring.
Most of what I write personally (rather than professionally), I write by hand before typing it up in vim. Some years back, I learned, by watching Tinzeroes, that everything works better when I put everything into one notebook that is always carried with me and close to hand. That way, I always know where everything is. I never have to wonder where to put something. And different pieces can, just by brute juxtaposition, connect in unexpected ways. Writing in a notebook implies needing a pen—so:
I have a lot of Moleskine type notebooks. An underreported feature of those notebooks how poorly their paper takes so many kinds of ink. The right-hand pages have a slicker coating than the left; a lot of pens skip on the right, bleed on the left. Displeasing. Also I like to write a lot of postcards, which tend to have a coating that smears basically all inks...

This means a popular option doesn't work well for me, so, so sorry G-2, but you don't really make the cut. Other reasons: (1) I have had spills annihilate things I have written with this gel ink (making it bad for mail); (2) the rubber thing (a) is condescending and (b) gets loose on the shaft, which is distracting, or gets gummy, which is disgusting. Linewise, 05 is a little bit too thin (scratchy on soft or thick paper); 07 is a little bit too thick (makes it hard to write as small as I like to). Poor experience on coated paper, ill-advised hand feels, ubiquitous, cheap, allows fidgety clicking, adequate weight for debate spinning: 6/10; acceptable fallback option. Often have one to hand to loan out or write a check with.

Le Pen felt tip. Dirt cheap. Colorful! Beautifully designed, remarkably comfortable. Ink not at all waterproof. Too light to be debate-spun. Make a delightful scratch sound when used. Last a surprisingly long time, often given to me by my girlfriend. Can't write a check with it. 8/10; excellent option to be deployed in virtually any circumstance.

Those weird ones Noodles likes. Widely considered the gold standard for people who don't fetishize writing really really small. Good for writing checks with. Wonderful pens, but somehow don't work for me. Too fat, with too thick a line, maybe. Maybe just a vibe thing. 5.5/10; make me feel guilty, like I don't like chocolate or something.

"Artist pens." Magnificent writing experience, can be a little too cushy. Easily lost or stolen. Hyper fucking expensive. Can intimidate by giving writer the sense that the ink is too permanent for anything but a good thought well expressed, and can therefore inhibit getting things down on paper, which is the only important/useful thing about schlepping a fucking notebook around.
But what did you expect? When you pull Excalibur from the stone, you gain power, but you also inherit mad responsibility. 7/10; can't really be spun, no good for the checkbook, fairly good for postcards, other mail.

Papermate El Cheapos. Blobby ink, but last forever. Spin well with a cap on the butt. Acceptable choice, unless you have the option of:

Bic Crystal. Platonic ideal of the ball-point pen. Perfect design: looks good, looks potent, but accessible; fits the hand, accommodates any style. Ink is decent, and can be laid down on essentially anything: paper, denim, skin, walls, seats, Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. As Robert Heinlein once said, "I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design." (Glory Road, p. 58) That's how I feel about the Bic Crystal. Also a good example of William Gibson's dictum "the street finds its own uses for things", in that the hexagonal barrel is the perfect size to stick into a cassette tape for manual fast-forwarding. Perfect for the checkbook, ideal for postcards and envelopes, superb for debate spinning. 9/10; as close to perfect as this world can offer.
Pilot V5. Can be debate-spun, but for whatever reason, I never do so. Not great for check carbons; perfect for envelopes, rarely bleeds; mixed bag for postcards, often smears. Beautiful thin line. Can write pretty small with it. Barrel the right size for my slim paws. Lined up like this, it's not wildly impressive. But...

Somewhere after high school, I spent a lot of my free time (read: fired by the movie theater, working a couple days a week at the gas station, before getting fired there, too) playing Wing Commander on somebody else's computer. It's a game where you fly around in space ships shooting down space ships flown by giant space cats, and it had a really good manual. One of the weapons was called the "Mass Driver" and, from memory, it was described in the following way: "No pilot ever made a mistake engaging the mass driver." (NOTE: I was pretty close! The basic fighter weapon - medium range, medium damage, nothing special. The mass driver cannon is reliable and accurate. Heat build-up and power drain are minimal. Though lasers and neutron guns are more effective in certain situations, no pilot ever went wrong activating a mass driver.)
That's how I feel about the Pilot V5. You never go wrong reaching for one. 8.8/10; lately, I leave the Crystal at work, and use the V5 for personal writing. Boundaries are important.

Toward a Total Theory of the Messenger Bag: Volume 3, the Israeli Paratrooper Bag

Years ago—12 or more—I had many special needs. I rode my bike everywhere, with a 12-mile round trip to work, regardless of Portland weather, and I didn't spend a lot of time at home outside of sleeping and (rarely) bathing. This all meant: I needed to carry layers, for rain, for stench and a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes and rain off of my glasses; I needed to carry entertainment (reading material [Moorcock paperback?], music, my beloved pink handheld, maybe a DS, one or another notebook); I needed to carry bike locks; I needed enough storage space to pick up a sudden Gundam or Stikfa, or wedge in a thrifted Dreamcast; I needed somewhere to tuck my travel mug; at the end of my idiot nights, I often needed a six-pack of tallboys and a Totino's party pizza.

I had two bags at that point. One, my college LL Bean Turbo Transit backpack, big enough that I once lived out of it, travelling, for six weeks, magnificently ugly, but not strong against rain, and not convenient for getting into / out of without taking it off. Two, an early model Timbuk2 messenger bag, modified by its previous owner to use a length of seat belt material as its strap—a bag I adored, but found too big for some summer nights.

Thus it was that Tinzeroes and I betook ourselves to the local surplus store, where I first encountered an item listed as an "Israeli Paratrooper Bag". My first reaction: "Wow, evidently Israel's paratroopers need to do a lot of paperwork, because this bag is like 80% pen slots." My second reaction: "I really like this bag's look, feel, size."

Besotted with notions of kit-bashing and customization, and at a surplus store, I bought a couple strips of hook and loop fastener, a big buckle, and a length of wide, thick strapping. Once home, I grabbed a case of dental floss, my sewing kit, my pocket knife, and an X-acto blade from my model-building set.

I added the hook and loop to close the bag's flap more easily, and replaced the shoulder strap, sewing in as much strength as I could with floss. I added an attachment loop for a blinky bike light, and heat-sealed the straps where I'd cut them with my pocket knife, held over the stove's burner. The X-acto knife cut out one of the two main compartment's dividers, freeing up space and lightening the bag a bit (but I think it was mostly just doing something for the sake of doping something).

Even for summer use, it was never quite big enough. With anything at all in it, it was a little too full for much more than a six-pack, and even the most wadded-up hoody would more or less fill it. And since I hadn't tested where to put the velcro, if the bag was too full, I couldn't close it. Rainy season ruled the bag out entirely for outdoor use: the thick canvas wasn't waterproof, or even really colorfast.

But I loved it. The experience of customizing it had only taken an evening, but had bonded me to it as securely as the shoulder strap was bonded to the bag's side wall.

The size was too small (14" wide, 11" tall, main compartment 4" deep), but every force that constrains my overpacking is welcome. The material wasn't waterproof, but it didn't promote gross back sweat as badly as a plastic bag on longer summer rides. Plus, the canvas was strong without being stiff or rough, meaning that it didn't tear up things it came into contact with (sweaters, for example) or wear through where it creased, with the exception of this one spot, after substantially longer than a decade.

The organization options weren't incredibly robust, but the flat pocket at the back wall was always a good spot for a U-lock, and the front pouch pocket always seemed to accommodate more than I'd expect. And a big empty main compartment is a must no matter what your needs are.

I still have the bag! I throw it in a larger bag sometimes if I'm flying somewhere I expect to be walking around a lot. It's also good for those late-night "need beer" rides. Most of my special needs from circa 2004 are no longer, but a good bag is a good bag. This is a good bag.

Previous entries:

• Volume 1: Jandd Hurricane Iniki
• Volume 2: Timbuk2 Especial Claro

Every Song on Every Rush Album Worth Listening to, Blurbed

2112

• 2112 – Huh. This is only the second time I've listened to this song. Last time, the first time, I thought it was hella soft and non-rocking. This rocks adequately and is a fine accompaniment to doing a lot of dishes. Think they got the horns and some of the chords from Quadrophenia.
• A Passage to Bangkok – Why did bands in the 70s/80s think that mentioning "the Orient" merited the "Oriental" note sequence?
• The Twilight Zone – Wait. Is this actually about The Twilight Zone? Neat. Man, tho: even the rockers on this album have a lot of acoustic guitar
• Tears – Everybody gets a ballad, I guess.
• Something for Nothing – This rocks a lot. I suspect if I listened to the words, I'd get kinda frustrated, tho.

Fly by Night

• Anthem – Front and center in the "fuck Rush; this guy is an Ayn Rand douche", this song actually rocks pretty hard, and the words are eminently easy to ignore. Goes on a little long, tho.
• Best I Can – Excellent example of the 70s tendency for working-class aspiration-rock anthems. Something for the 17-year-old to yell along to!
• Beneath, Between & Behind – Third straight example of killer Alex Lifeson riffage. At this point, you could be excused for thinking the band was actually centered around him. Restless drums and Neil Peart's least subtle cymbal work ever. Maybe the first Rush tune to feature a real breakdown part.
• By-Tor and the Snow Dog – Impossibly diluted Hobbit shit song; lengthy guitar-noise freakout depicting a swordfight; maybe my favorite Rush song of all time. Totally fun stop/start technical part around four and a half minutes in. Had listened to it a dozen times before realizing that Prince By-Tor, who loses the fight to the Snow Dog, was actually the bad guy, as I'd assumed a guy who was a "Prince" had to be the good guy. In retrospect, probably the beginning of my class consciousness.
• Fly by Night – If you've ever cried on a Greyhound, this song is meaningful to you.
• Making Memories – Well, they can't all be winners.
• Rivendell – Neil: put down the Tolkein. Alex: for fuck's sake, man: your guitars should be electric, not acoustic.
• In the End – Somewhat self-conscious attempt to write another anthem forgets that the riff in an anthem should sound better when you play it on the electric than when you did on the acoustic. (Also forgets that the main riff sounded better in the title track than it does here.)

A Farewell to Kings

• A Farewell to Kings – How many parts does a song need, anyway? Yeesh. More good chiming/ringing chords from Alex, but we're only three albums in and Geddy's shrillness and the overall treble levels here are starting to make me anxious.
• Xanadu – Some synth curls and textures and long parts with no singing soothe. A great example of the tradition of classic heavy rock songs about things they make you read in high school English (see also: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, One).
• Closer to the Heart – One of the big radio staples of my wasted adolescent bus rides and insomnia sessions, and also maybe the best counterexample to the argument that all Rush lyrics are scary will-to-power fantasies: "mold a new reality / closer to the heart" makes everybody feel better! I had the tabulature for the solo in this one, and spent dozens of hours trying to reproduce it on an acoustic guitar, with ... limited success.
• Cinderella Man – Not sure I've ever heard this before. Maybe the most Rush-song Rush song ever. Lot of complicated stereo panning reminding me of the iron rule of classic rock: the more time a producer spends changing up stereo effects during a song, the more forgettable the song is.
• Madrigal – Hobbit-ass English folk song inexplicably scored with mostly synths.
• Cygnus X-1 – Rush: "What if we just did a ten-minute song that started with five minutes of instrumental evocations of a rocketship before we started singing?" Me: "Why start singing? That shit was excellent before."

Caress of Steel

• Bastille Day – Whoa, extra-thick guitar tones! Like mediocre BBQ sauce, or one guy trying to sound like both guys in the MC5 at the same time. I have a depressing feeling this one might be Rush's "punk" album. Song is pretty tuff, tho.
• I Think I'm Going Bald – Novelty song. K. Apparently Rush wanted to go for a heavy boogie kind of thing. It actually goes a little better than you'd think.
• Lakeside Park – Okay, there's definitely something going on with this record: this is a vaguely dancey song, the third distinct rock style in three songs. Can imagine roller-skating to this mid-tempo rock-ballad, with the disco ball flashing sparkles of light everywhere.
• The Necromancer – Starting off with down-tuned mumbly voiceover, then it's impossible to pay attention until the Big Rock Moves start about four and a half minutes in, but, man. Am I really supposed to care about who's "gazing into his prisms" no matter how good Geddy Lee's Robert Plant impression has gotten? Anyway, at about the seven-minute mark, you get some primo Hawkwind stuff, if what you always wanted was "Hawkwind, but more disciplined". Only lasts about a minute and a half, tho. (And at nine and a half in, we get a full-on Sweet Jane rip that takes us on home. Can somebody get me a cab the hell out of here?)
• The Fountain of Lamneth – This is just under twenty minutes long and no matter how many parts there are in it, there is nothing in here for me.

Grace Under Pressure

• Distant Early Warning – Here we go; this is pretty much the Rush I remember most clearly from early radio listening: atmospheric, keyboardy, melodic, frequently dull.
• Afterimage – Is this a Big Country outtake? (Mechanical reggae riffs are not my especial favorite thing.)
• Red Sector A – Cold War paranoia and electronic drums. Can't win 'em all.
• The Enemy Within – More jittery Police worship Ice-T had it right, tho.
• The Body Electric – The funk faked. (For a while, then back to the standard-issue cold pop-rock.)
• Kid Gloves – Boy, all of these songs sound exactly the same. I will say Lifeson's solo is a welcome slash of interest here.
• Red Lenses – Yet more identical tempos and textures. Yet more yelping vocals without much in the way of a hook or reason to pay attention.
• Between the Wheels – Fun little fake-out at the beginning where it seems like this may be different than the rest of the record. Doesn't last long.

Hemispheres

• Hemispheres – Now this is more like it. Back to actual dynamics, including speeding up and slowing down every so often. Not what I'd call memorable, but more immediately engaging.
• Circumstances – "Hey, kids! Do you like Rush radio hits? Well, would you like a song that sounds like a radio hit with no hooks?"
• The Trees – I gather the lyrics to this are somewhat notorious. I can't really make them out. Otherwise, it's a fun, playful, even goofy little rocker.
• La Villa Strangiato – By now, I'm a little tired of the long-Rush-song-with-a-million-parts-and-changes trope. Especially because the band seems to have systematically confused "skittering hi-hat work" with "interesting" and "lots" with "good", but this is fine, expansive, second-tier Rush. Best of their bad songs? Worst of their good songs? Somewhere in there.

Hold Your Fire

• Force Ten – Samples, synth washes, electro-drums, Geddy again exploring funk bass moves: we are very officially in the 80s, friends. For Rush, though, this song is fast, and it's hard and it's so focused it actually feels mean and Alex is soloing and filling his face off, even if he's mixed so far in the background you can't actually hear it.
• Time Stand Still – Up-tempo ballad with R.E.M. guitar and Aimee Mann vocal hooks? I have to say, Rush getting over the Police and moving on to other bands did wonders for them.
• Open Secrets – By now, Rush can mesh their desires to play with textures without forgetting to have dynamic songs. Doesn't make all of those songs interesting, but it does keep them varied.
• Second Nature – Little post-Talking-Heads drumming squiggles in here, and Geddy just might be humping a fretless bass, but everything except the vocal line sounds like they forgot to finish writing the song.
• Prime Mover – I think this song forgot to happen?
• Lock and Key – More parts piled up where a coherent whole usually goes.
• Hold Your Fire – A little forgettable, but here, all the parts actually fit together, and all the weird variety makes for an intriguing whole instead of a mish-mash. Also by now the consistently amiable lyrical musings on topics like "people can be kinda mean and they should knock it off" and "I like art, it makes me feel better sometimes" has really grown on me.
• Turn the Page – Again with the funk moves -- not really this band's strength, but this is probably the catchiest chorus on the record, if you're into the whole "enjoyable melody" thing. Some unforgivable synth fills towards the end, though, and at 5 minutes, this is about 2 minutes longer than anybody wants
• Tai Shan – Synth approximations of bamboo flute. No.
• High Water – Another solid album cut, with lots of experimento-drum, fun pushing-ahead parts, restful hanging-in-place parts...not bad. Not a lot of ideas here, but good execution.

Moving Pictures

• Tom Sawyer – As a baby metalhead, in a huge jean jacket and mullet, headphones on and headbanging on the bus, I met a lot of older men who wanted to talk to me. They all seemed to work in restaurants. They all seemed to love Rush in general and this song in particular. It's a good song.
• Red Barchetta – A really really boring song except for the breakdown bridge bits, which stomp all over the place. (Car songs always suck.)
• YYZ – Vaguely fusiony technical beatdown? No vocals? Sense of humor about the whole thing (song is named after and music is based on the Morse Code name for the Toronto airport)? Yes please! This is almost certainly by any objective measure the best Rush song qua Rush song; nobody ever needs to hear it more than once, is the only problem.
• Limelight – A lot of rock stars write self-pitying songs about being rock stars. This might be the least bad self-pitying song about being a rock star. And it is at least a fun thing to listen to, with stop-start bits, some really squinty guitar sounds, and just enough faux-Shakespearean language to fire up the base.
• The Camera Eye – Squelchy-good synth moves open this up, and it's hard to imagine being much more into it. It's never quite as good as that again, but this is like being on a train: moving fast and in somebody else's control the whole time.
• Witch Hunt – Sometimes after you dunk a basketball, you fall down getting back on defense.
• Vital Signs – Semi-reggae here sending bad, bad signals for the future.

Permanent Waves

• The Spirit of Radio – Great song, even with the cod-reggae breakdown and the sly "radio will play this because DJs will see themselves in it". Vocals are slightly too high in the mix. I'll always love this song for all the times my English punk friend would sing it drunkenly to me at the bar; the power of music is real, people.
• Freewill – I have heard this song hundreds of times; I never, ever remember anything but the chorus. Which is too bad: the verse riff is extremely good, even when the vocal lines are just doubling it. I also like Lifeson's guitar solo, which uses his free will to spatter all over the place in a very messy way in an otherwise too-restrained tune.
• Jacob's Ladder – I have nothing to say about this song.
• Entre Nous – It's a degree of difficulty move to make your chorus the most challenging part of a song. That doesn't mean anybody has to like it. (I like it. A little.)
• Different Strings – Filler.
• Natural Science – Long, technical album-ender. Where have I heard this before? (And why this time is the cymbal sound so harsh and awful?)

Rush

• Finding My Way – Except for Geddy's way-too-Robert-Planty "oooh yeah"s, this song rules.
• Need Some Love – "I need it quick and I need it now" and my hand reaches out and turns the volume down.
• Take a Friend – I'm a sucker for amiable tunes about friendship. This isn't great, but how can you be mad about it?
• Here Again – Please go away. (We all have our own opinions about Rush, but my opinion is that "long blues songs" are not what I am here for.) (The solo is, howevs, tasty.) (If that's your kind of thing.)
• What You're Doing – ...is listening to a slightly boogie-inflected Rush. How you feel about this is up to you.
• In the Mood – "Well hey now baby" mutes song instantly. Seriously, if you want Rush to prove it can be as stupid and shitty as Kiss, this is your song. (Also "I Think I'm Going Bald".)
• Before and After – Man, this is a really horny record.
• Working Man – Minority opinion here, but I've never been sure this isn't the best Rush song. If nothing else, it proves that there's such a thing as exactly the right amount too slow. Beautiful. (It also proves that a sick breakdown is always appropriate, but you probably knew that.)

Power Windows

• The Big Money – Airy synth chords (that you can barely tell from the heavily effected guitar); electronic drums; tricky technical parts under very generic synthy pop. Clearly, we are in the presence of the 80s. and, like so much 80s Rush, it feels like they forgot something: in this case, a vocal melody. The fade-out is, however, terrific.
• Grand Designs – Tepid lyrical mashup of Spirit of Radio and Closer to the Heart in a song that otherwise reads as "we have a 32-track recorder and scraps left over from 45 songs, so we better put all the scraps together into one song".
• Manhattan Project – About two and a half minutes in, there's an up-tempo part that is a lot of fun. It lasts about thirty seconds, and happens again about 3:45 in.
• Marathon – It sure is.
• Territories – Another six minutes of multiple parts standing in for having ideas, textures replacing dynamics, and pointless breaks thrown in because saying "No" is never the mark of good art.
• Middletown Dreams – Almost enough hooks and energy to make an actual pop song!
• Emotion Detector – Actual parts growing organically and meaningfully from one to the next! It lasts about a minute.
• Mystic Rhythms – Yet more clashing clanging bullshit.

Signals

• Subdivisions – I discovered this song about six months ago. It fairly reliably makes me tear up at my desk. It is proof that Rush can hit the pop mark when things work right, even with a million parts and everything else. (It's also proof that mixing the vocals a little lower and toning down the shrieking is a good move for the band, one that actually enhances the emotional urgency.)
• The Analog Kid – Like Subdivisions without the transplendence.
• Chemistry – Amiable pop-rocker with a neato guitar solo.
• Digital Man – Like The Analog Kid with one or two more breakdowns.
• The Weapon – This song is just fine!
• New World Man – If you thought Tom Sawyer rocked too hard and needed to be toned down into a straight reggae-influenced pop song with some Closer to the Heart melodies, you were exactly correct. This is a classic Rush rehash, something like the band covering themselves, and it's essentially perfect.
• Losing It – So shy I barely noticed it was there. Then it wasn't.
• Countdown – What's a Rush album without a mini-epic? Not this Rush album, that's for sure.

Epistle to the Apostate

Hey, Yago --

Read your article. It's interesting, and it needs a response. I hope there will be better ones coming, but here is one.

Note: my disagreements with you are in no way meant to be arguing with your feelings -- as an explication of your reaction to the Warriors circa 2016, your piece is illuminating, and you are, of course, allowed to have the judgments you have. But I think your judgments and mine, when contrasted, might point out some interesting differences in how and why to watch basketball. So that is my intent here: to highlight some contrasts in our judgments so that we can both maybe learn something interesting about how / why to watch basketball. Please take my comments in that spirit!


If I can begin by attempting to summarize some of your objections, this may help.
1. Steph Curry receives adulation in arguably excessive measure and for extremely suspect reasons: he's not a plucky underdog, he's a rich kid who grew up with a lot of advantages; he's not really a small man, but he's a little baby-faced, light-skinned, etc., and just in general is a kid who seems to have been genetically engineered to be non-threatening; also there's this weird xian crap around him, which, yuck
2. The Warriors are winning excessively and excessively easily, and this removes some of the compelling nature of the games
3. Their style may prove detrimental, as other teams attempt to copy-cat them
4. Their style may prove detrimental, as it may come from an excessive focus on the quantitative aspects of the game and "efficiency" in general

I actually agree with more than a little of all this. Let's go bottom to top.

I personally don't perceive an excessive focus on efficiency / quantitative approaches to the game in the Warriors' game. Doesn't mean it's not there, just means that I'm not perceiving it, because what I'm perceiving is one magnificent player (Curry), and some remarkably versatile supporters (Dray, Iggy) along with a lot of role players (Klay, Bogut, etc.) execute a style that shouldn't work as well as it does at such a high level that most teams can't compete with it. On a raw personnel level, this team doesn't seem to me like it should be that great. On an efficiency level, the paragon is James Harden: get fouled or get a 3, play no D so you get the ball back, lather, rinse (or stir the tea), repeat. This team shoots a lot of threes, but that's because Steph is peerless at it and Klay is streaky but competent there. But there's not the overwhelming focus on threes or free throws that you'd expect to see if they were truly an efficiency-minded team.

As for (3), well, I'd rather see teams try to play like the Warriors than like James Harden. For one thing, the Warriors play defense, and they run beautifully. (Their gang-rebounding and cherry-picking is one of my favorite things about them -- at any given time, anybody might get the rebound that triggers a break, and almost anybody might be able to bring the ball up the court. THAT is the ball I love, building on the great versatility of the players they have.)

I think we may differ most here on (2): as long as the style is appealing to me, the wins and losses are less important. (I think I learned this from growing up watching the Nuggets -- I knew they weren't gonna win anything, so I learned to root for and appreciate the way they played.) And since I'm not a die-hard Warriors fan, I also don't have a huge amount of investment in their wins or losses... Obviously there's a continuum: maybe you're a 60/40 wins/style guy, maybe I'm a 60/40 style/wins guy. (I mean, it's not just an exhibition: it's not actually the ballet, tho my appreciation for basketball and ballet actually works more or less the same. I do care about the wins. Just not to the exclusion of other stuff. This is what I take Shoals to have championed with "liberated fandom", for what it's worth -- watching and appreciating the game without deferring to a rooting interest...)

And as for inevitability, I think that's an overstatement. They've lost to two sub-.500 teams. (If I hadn't retired as a Nuggets fan, that win would have made my year, I bet.) The Grizzlies and Cavs both had long stretches where they looked like they'd completely solved the Warriors -- and, as I said: this roster doesn't actually strike me as that great, beyond Curry. Take him out, or reduce his effectiveness, or do the same for Green, and this is not an extraordinarily good team. Put it this way: if they have to rely on Klay and Barnes for extended stretches, their opponents will be very satisfied...

With respect to (1), I agree with all of your assessments. That said, I find myself able to watch without thinking about any of those externalities. I enjoy watching him because he is a lights-out shooter, a phenomenal finisher, and possibly the best ball-handler I have ever seen. When I see these things, I am not moved to consider the discourse surrounding him -- as a once-failed, now-retired sportswriter, I have that luxury! ;)

That discourse matters: I am not telling you to ignore it or pretend it does not exist. But I'm mostly going to!

Another mind I respect deeply on basketball belongs to Tom Scharpling, and he has a similar read on Curry: for Scharpling, Curry now feels like a rich bully.

Cant root for the Warriors anymore. Curry went from thrilling to imperious douche, a rich kid who can’t disguise his worst traits.

— scharpling (@scharpling) December 25, 2015

I understand and appreciate this point without agreeing with it.

Honestly, the thing about the narrative about Curry that drives me the most nuts is about "athleticism". It's the same idiotic thing people said about Steve Nash: "he's not 'athletic'", evidently because he doesn't jump high enough? But eye-hand coordination is an athletic ability, and Curry and Nash are both off the charts there. Speed and quickness are athletic abilities, and they were both exceptional there. Endurance is an athletic ability, and both have that. Both are enormously talented athletes, and anyone who downplays this is a fool -- or, perhaps, trying to advance a pernicious agenda.
Anyway. I don't expect I've changed your mind -- nor was I trying to! But I think you differently value wins and losses than I do, and I think you're more embedded in game-external conversations than I am, and those are both...malleable. You might like the game better from where I'm sitting. You'd definitely like Curry better.

Your pal, Fat / Collision / Etc.

Wow. That's like a nightmare.

[In which I indulge in overanalysis]

SLIDE ONE:

Doc Venture just finished (while wiping off his glasses) recounting his 16th birthday poolside party and an incident with a shrink ray. He is still in his pajamas and Hank is shirtless so both are unshielded and vulnerable and intimate in that sense. Hank is visibly distraut at his father's trauma. His eyebrows peak questioningly as he submits his judgment on his father's recounting. Doc's scowl and furrowed brow speak of deep, complicated feelings, and also a frustration that Hank has incorrectly but innocently misinterpreted his feelings on the experience.

SLIDE TWO:

Doc's eyebrow arches. His face still holds a sneer, his brow is still knitted. Observe his legs akimbo, as if he has scooted forward on his seat, or is leaning forward as he gives vent to his frustration.

SLIDE THREE:

Lot going on here. Hank's hands are shoved into his theighs, a vulnerable or unsecure gesture: his father is letting him into his inner life and Hank doesn't want to appear judgmental, just attentive. Doc's torso is now straight and tall. He uses finger quotes, typically a mocking or sarcastic tool (from a man who is commonly mocking or sarcastic or mean) but his upright posture and facial expression (grievance aired), and his on-edge legs akimbo stance indicate that he speaking quite seriously.

SLIDE FOUR:

Doc's arms fall between his legs. His torso slumps. The furrowed brow looks not so much frustrated (see Slide 2) or contemplatative (Slide 1) but rather inquistive instead. Consider his passive body stance. This is a confession, but the arched eyebrows and scowled mouth indicate that empathy or even sympathy is not sought.

ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION:

Not a tender confession and show of grudging acceptance by Doc, but rather an egotistical and selfish aggrandization of Doc's adolescent trauma over and above anything anyone else anywhere could ever have experienced much less comprehend. Consider the trials and trauma of Hank and his brother Dean (witnesses or participants many times over to death and violence, thier father's failures and shortcomings, abandonment by Brock): is Doc's public humilation at his birthday pool party truly any worse than what his own sons have experienced? But to follow this line of thought a little further, Doc's insistence of the greatness of his pain in the face of his own sons' arguably equal or greater traumas underscores the depth of Doc's damage. In other words, Doc is a man with ISSUES.

-d.d.

Note: The above sequence is pretty much my favorite sequence in the entire Venture Bros. so far. Nothing encapsulates the complete lack of irony for which I love and adore this program more than this incredibly adult and sincere conversation. Ever since I saw it I've wanted to write something about it, and the sort of slideshow presentation used above is what resulted and seemed to work best.