A 1950s ranch-style dollhouse went up on eBay today. One of our favorite sellers, momoderne, is opening the bids at $125, or buy it now for $135 (Update: the previous auction ended with no bids. The item is now listed again at $20.) It’s not entirely modernist (the drapes and bedroom furniture are traditional remnants) but there are many progressive details such as the walls of glass, the built-in woodwork and room divider, the fireplace, and the pedestal chairs.
Update: Thanks to Anne’s comment below, we have the original name: Magnetic Doll House by Child Guidance. TimeWarp Toys says it was produced in 1964.
Hope you’ll pardon the big fat Picnik logo above. I’m beta testing a new slideshow feature. What do you think? Do you prefer this preview of eBay listings, or is the standard column of static photos (below) better?
The Five-Minute Rule 20 Years Later
: interesting CACM article updating Gray and Putzolu’s “Five-Minute Rule” for RAM and disks (which postulated that a 1KB record accessed more frequently than once every 5 mins should be stored in RAM, rather than on disk). modern price/performance indicates that this still holds, once 256KB records are used. The article also suggests that a new tier of persistent flash storage should be considered, adding a new set of 5-minute-rule transitions for 2KB records migrating from RAM to flash
(tags: performance disk caching ram flash storage 5-minute-rule jim-gray memory acm)
Spice burgers back on the menu due to popular demand - The Irish Times
: ‘The humble spice burger, one of Ireland’s few original contributions to world cuisine, has been saved.’ YAY
(tags: spice-burgers ireland cuisine food yum saved chippers phew)
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:

Oh say, can you see, what the plans are tonight?
O'er the evening I'll work, then the Royale's in sight.
Etc., so on....Nathan's in town, and will be at the Royale at nine-ish. You should visit him there.
Tomorrow, if there is a place to look at dogs, I'll do that, then it's off to Xian's parents for some family time, followed by a trip to those one people's house for grilling and whatnot. I will miss the annual softball game--will you be able to make it?
Sunday: More work, and then round two of my first ever go-around with D&D. What should I name my character?
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
If you have ever read this blog, you know how enamored I am of the worlds of music and literature and exploring that part of the Venn diagram where they intersect. Whether it is musicians discussing books, authors and musicians interviewing each other, or authors discussing music, I am always fascinated by the effect music has had on authors' lives (and literature on musicians').
In Heavy Rotation, Peter Terzian has collected essays by authors about the seminal album of their lives, from Sheila Heti on the Annie soundtrack to James Wood on the Who's Quadrophenia. I can say without reservation that if you enjoy the Largehearted Boy Book Notes or New York Times Paper Cuts' Living with Music series, you will love this book.
In his own words, here is Peter Terzian's Book Notes music playlist for his book, Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives:
Last spring, when I was editing the first draft of Heavy Rotation, my mother came down with a rare inflammatory disease called Wegener's granulomatosis. No one knows what causes the disease; no one can guess how she contracted it.
She was admitted to the hospital in late March. Two weeks later, when a diagnosis was finally settled upon, she was physically immobile and mentally unresponsive. The disease advanced relentlessly, shutting down major organ systems. She died in the middle of April.
Over the next year, I listened to a lot of sad music. A lot of songs about loss. Some came up face-to-face with death. Some were about other kinds of loss, the vanishing of time and one's own life, an inexorable separation from a lover—but the emotions the songs called up were the same. All of these songs provided more solace than I can say.
Iron and Wine, "The Trapeze Swinger"
Please, remember me/Happily/By the rosebush laughing …
Please, remember me/My misery/And how it lost me all I wanted
I listened to this song the day after my mother died. I put on my headphones and walked to the elementary school near my parents' house. The playing fields behind the school are on a little hill, and I lay on the side of the hill—it was a Sunday, and there was no one around—and looked at the sky. That spring was beautiful, with warm, bright days.
Crowded House, "English Trees"
Although it's springtime and color is new/In Regent's Park I will mourn for you
Four years ago, my boyfriend and I took my parents on a trip to London. My mother had never been overseas. She had been afraid to fly, though as our plane lifted off, I looked over to see her contentedly fiddling with the TV monitor on the back of the seat in front of her. We did tourist things: took a boat ride on the Thames, went to the National Gallery and Westminster Abbey. Sometimes Caleb and I went off to go book shopping or to meet friends, and my parents made their way through the city on their own. On foot—it was a few months after the July 7 bombings, and my mother wouldn't ride the bus or the tube. They spread their American friendliness wherever they could; stopping to rest on a bench in St. James Park, they chatted with a Brazilian tourist, and my father snapped a picture of my mother and the young woman together. "Do you ever think," my mother said to me, "that you were born in the wrong place?"
Kristin Hersh, "Your Ghost"
I think last night/You were driving circles around me
At some point after my mother died, I stopped considering the idea of an afterlife. I could not feel the truth of it in my bones, had no sense of a parallel world where my mother would continue to be. She was only in the past now, in memory. But my father, who was never a believer, began to stay up into the night, watching cable TV programs about ghosts—"A Haunting," "Ghost Hunters." When I visit, he asks me to watch them with him. I express my skepticism, but I don't want to take away his hope of another life. "How much would you consider this kind of thing"—he points at the television—"a possibility? 40-60? 30-70?" I say something evasive, trying not to say "0-100." … And yet, during a visit, when I enter my mother's bedroom, or the laundry room—the parts of the house that most carry her imprint—my eyes quickly scan the room, looking in the corners, in the mirrors, for her transparent image.
The Innocence Mission, "Brotherhood of Man"
We are in the wind, planting the maples/We meet an older man who seems to know/I miss my dad
I thought I knew all the pictures of my mother. After she died, I found a large envelope on the shelf of her closet. Inside were all the photographs people had sent her over the years, Christmas pictures of far-flung relatives I couldn't identify. With these were a small cache of black and white pictures I had never seen before, taken in the 1940s, when she was in her teens, in pristine condition. She had never shown them to me. She might have forgotten that they were there, or wanted to keep them hidden from the world, like a private part of the self. In one, she is in morning light, dressed for Easter in a new outfit. Her thick hair curls up from beneath a spring hat. She looks happy, excited about the day ahead—she may be about to go to church, and afterward there will be a family meal. I listened to this song on the way back from the framing shop.
Marissa Nadler, "Diamond Heart"
I look for you in the diamond trees/And the highway divine/Deliver me …
And oh my lonely diamond heart/It misses you so well
The narrator of this song, a woman, is separated from a lover. His father died when they were together, and they scattered his ashes in the snow. She is now traveling, meeting guys in bars, but she's thinking of and searching for the man she left behind. I can't relate to the particulars of this song in any way, and yet it takes me right to the bottom every time I hear it.
Iron and Wine, "Passing Afternoon"
There are things that drift away/Like our endless numbered days/Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
I have a picture of my mother in my head. I don't know if it's a real memory, or a fictional one that was created by this song. But in this picture, it's a spring day, the windows are open for the first time in months, she is in my parents' bedroom, the room is pale green, it is quiet and neat, my mother is wearing her housecoat and her tan sandals that go thock-thock as she walks, she is going from room to room making the beds, she is making my parents' bed, the sun is shining through the windows, it is many years ago, I am still a teenager, she lifts her bedspread up to straighten it across the bed and for a moment it floats in the air before gently falling back to earth.
Peter Terzian and Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives links:
A.V. Club review
Modern Tonic review
Sound of the City review
New York Times Paper Cuts playlist by the author
Village Voice feature on the book
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks
tags: books music literature nonfiction
In the New York Times magazine, David Carr profiles Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy.
After Mr. Tweedy formed Wilco, he found himself split between being the guy who worshiped rock music and the one on the stage. “I wish I was like David Lee Roth, that some part of it came naturally to me, but I have an inherent self-consciousness that I think is hard to transcend on some nights,” he said. “I have an observing ego on top of an ego that tends to take a lot of the fun out of things. At some point I was able to embrace and understand that I actually am on the other side of it as well. It seems like way more work to conceal an ego than to actually just come to terms with it.”
Drowned in Sound lists the top 20 independent albums of the year so far.
Metro Edmonton lists 5 great albums of 2009.
On the Record lists the 25 best albums of 2009 so far,
In the Toronto Star, author and musician Dave Bidini lists the best sorts books for summer cottage reading, and reminds me to pick up a copy of Donald Hall's Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball.
24 Hours Vancouver asks local celebrities about their summer reading of the past, present, and future.
69 Love Songs, Illustrated is still creating comics fir each song of the Magnetic Fields' classic album.
NPR's All Things Considered profiles the social networking site built around reading BookGlutton.com.
A Geekymomma's Blog offers suggestionns to find free books, book summaries and book reviews online.
Bookride is a blog dedicated to rare books.
Jason Lytle visits The Current studios for an interview and live performance.
Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie news literature
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
ArpLine: "Fold Up Like a Piece of Paper" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Weekend in the Colonies" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Rope" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Game" [mp3]
other ArpLine posts at Largehearted Boy
Aspects of Physics: "Default Action" [mp3]
other Aspects of Physics posts at Largehearted Boy
Dark Knights Of Camelot: "Duple" [mp3] from Hurrication EP (out July 14th)
other Dark Knights Of Camelot posts at Largehearted Boy
Kevin Hearn: "Huntsville.ca" [mp3] from Havana Winter (out July 28th)
other Kevin Hearn posts at Largehearted Boy
Lightning Dust: "Never Seen" from Infinite Light (out August 4th)
other Lightning Dust posts at Largehearted Boy
Medeski Martin and Wood: "Amber Gris" [mp3] from Radiolarians III (out August 4th)
other Medeski Martin and Wood posts at Largehearted Boy
Megafaun: "Kaufman's Ballad" [mp3] from Gather, Form & Fly (out July 21st)
other Megafaun posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Julie Doiron: Daytrotter SXW session [mp3]
other Julie Doiron posts at Largehearted Boy
*registration required
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Lollapalooza downloads
other music festival downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists
tags: music download indie mp3

After a long and painful relationship with her male chauvinistic pig of a boyfriend, she finally decides it’s time to end it. “One day you might just kill me, you swine!” she thought as she packs her bags while he lies in bed sleeping.
Thought I’d try something new. Who’d ever thought Photoshop and I could be good friends. Finally.
Scroll down a ways for Part 1.
Max Muller Translation, mostly. I just finished cleaning up the text tonight- eliminating some verbose debris, removing the original page numbers and fixing weird paragraph splits. This is a 19th century translation and they tend to run on and on. The upside is that it is public domain.
This is it (the full 262 pages): UpanishadsPt2MaxMuller
Excerpt from Part 2, complete with Muller’s notes:
BRIHADARANYAKA-UPANISHAD
FIRST ADHYAYA [*1].
FIRST BRAHMANA.
1. Verily [*2] the dawn is the head of the horse which is fit for sacrifice, the sun its eye, the wind its breath, the mouth the Vaisvanara [*3] fire, the year the body of the sacrificial horse. Heaven is the back, the sky the belly, the earth the chest [*4], the quarters the two sides, the intermediate quarters the ribs, the members the seasons, the joints the months and half-months, the feet days and nights, the bones the stars, the flesh the clouds. The half-digested food is the sand, the rivers the bowels [*1], the liver and the lungs [*2] the mountains, the hairs the herbs and trees. As the sun rises, it is the forepart, as it sets, the hindpart of the horse. When the horse shakes itself [*3], then it lightens; when it kicks, it thunders; when it makes water, it rains; voice [*4] is its voice.
2. Verily Day arose after the horse as the (golden) vessel [*5], called Mahiman (greatness), which (at the sacrifice) is placed before the horse. Its place is in the Eastern sea. The Night arose after the horse as the (silver) vessel, called Mahiman, which (at the sacrifice) is placed behind the horse. Its place is in the Western sea. Verily, these two vessels (or greatnesses) arose to be on each side of the horse.
As a racer he carried the Devas, as a stallion the Gandharvas, as a runner the Asuras, as a horse men. The sea is its kin, the sea is its birthplace.
Footnotes
^73:1 It is the third Adhyaya of the Aranyaka, but the first of the Upanishad.
^73:2 This Brahmana is found in the Madhyandina text of the Satapatha, ed. Weber, X, 6, 4. Its object is there explained by the commentary to be the meditative worship of Virag, as represented metaphorically in the members of the horse. Sayana dispenses with its explanation, because, as part of the Brihadaranyaka-upanishad, according to the Kanva-sakha, it had been enlarged on by the Varttikakara and explained.
^73:3 Agni or fire, as pervading everything, as universally present in nature.
^73:4 Pagasya is doubtful. The commentator suggests pad-asya, the place of the feet, i.e. the hoof The Greek Pegasos, or ippoi peloi, throws no light on the word. The meaning of hoof would hardly be appropriate here, and I prefer chest on account of uras in I, 2, 3. Deussen (Vedanta, p.
translates, die Erde seiner Fusse Schemel; but we want some part of the horse.
^74:1 Guda, being in the plural, is explained by nadi, channel, and sirah; for we ought to read sira or hiragrahane for sira, p. 22, l. 16.
^74:2 Klomanah is explained as a plurale tantum (nityam bahuvakanam ekasmin), and being described as a lump below the heart, on the opposite side of the liver, it is supposed to be the lungs.
^74:3 ‘When it yawns.’ Anandagiri.
^74:4 Voice is sometimes used as a personified power of thunder and other aerial sounds, and this is identified with the voice of the horse.
^74:5 Two vessels, to hold the sacrificial libations, are placed at the Asvamedha before and behind the horse, the former made of gold, the latter made of silver. They are called Mahiman in the technical language of the ceremonial. The place in which these vessels are set, is called their yoni. Cf. Vagas. Samhita XXIII, 2.
SECOND BRAHMANA [*6].
1. In the beginning there was nothing (to be perceived) here whatsoever. By Death indeed all this was concealed,–by hunger; for death is hunger. Death (the first being) thought, ‘Let me have a body.’ Then he moved about, worshipping. From him thus worshipping water was produced. And he said: ‘Verily, there appeared to me, while I worshipped (arkate), water (ka).’ This is why water is called ar-ka [*1]. Surely there is water (or pleasure) for him who thus knows the reason why water is called arka.
2. Verily water is arka. And what was there as the froth of the water, that was hardened, and became the earth. On that earth he (Death) rested, and from him, thus resting and heated, Agni (Virag) proceeded, full of light.
3. That being divided itself threefold, Aditya (the sun) as the third, and Vayu (the air) as the third [*2]. That spirit (prana) [*3] became threefold. The head was the Eastern quarter, and the arms this and that quarter (i. e. the N. E. and S. E., on the left and right sides). Then the tail was the Western quarter, and the two legs this and that quarter (i. e. the N. W. and S. W.) The sides were the Southern and Northern quarters, the back heaven, the belly the sky, the dust the earth. Thus he (Mrityu, as arka) stands firm in the water, and he who knows this stands firm wherever he goes.
4. He desired [*1], ‘Let a second body be born of me,’ and he (Death or Hunger) embraced Speech in his mind. Then the seed became the year. Before that time there was no year. Speech [*2] bore him so long as a year, and after that time sent him forth. Then when he was born, he (Death) opened his mouth, as if to swallow him. He cried Bhan! and that became speech [*3].
5. He thought, ‘If I kill him, I shall have but little food.’ He therefore brought forth by that speech and by that body (the year) all whatsoever exists, the Rik, the Yagus, the Saman, the metres, the sacrifices, men, and animals.
And whatever he (Death) brought forth, that he resolved to eat (ad). Verily because he eats everything, therefore is Aditi (Death) called Aditi. He who thus knows why Aditi is called Aditi, becomes an eater of everything, and everything becomes his food [*4].
6. He desired to sacrifice again with a greater sacrifice. He toiled and performed penance. And while he toiled and performed penance, glorious power [*1] went out of him. Verily glorious power means the senses (prana). Then when the senses had gone out, the body took to swelling (sva-yitum), and mind was in the body.
7. He desired that this body should be fit for sacrifice (medhya), and that he should be embodied by it. Then he became a horse (asva), because it swelled (asvat), and was fit for sacrifice (medhya); and this is why the horse-sacrifice is called Asva-medha.
Verily he who knows him thus, knows the Asvamedha. Then, letting the horse free, he thought [*2], and at the end of a year he offered it up for himself, while he gave up the (other) animals to the deities. Therefore the sacrificers offered up the purified horse belonging to Pragapati, (as dedicated) to all the deities.
Verily the shining sun is the Asvamedha-sacrifice, and his body is the year; Agni is the sacrificial fire (arka), and these worlds are his bodies. These two are the sacrificial fire and the Asvamedha-sacrifice, and they are again one deity, viz. Death. He (who knows this) overcomes another death, death does not reach him, death is his Self, he becomes one of those deities.
THIRD BRAHMANA [*1].
1. There were two kinds of descendants of Pragapati, the Devas and the Asuras [*2]. Now the Devas were indeed the younger, the Asuras the elder ones [*3]. The Devas, who were struggling in these worlds, said: ‘Well, let us overcome the Asuras at the sacrifices (the Gyotishtoma) by means of the udgitha.’
2. They said to speech (Vak): ‘Do thou sing out for us (the udgitha).’ ‘Yes,’ said speech, and sang (the udgitha). Whatever delight there is in speech, that she obtained for the Devas by singing (the three pavamanas); but that she pronounced well (in the other nine pavamanas), that was for herself. The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at the singer and pierced her with evil. That evil which consists in saying what is bad, that is that evil.
3. Then they (the Devas) said to breath (scent): ‘Do thou sing out for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said breath, and sang. Whatever delight there is in breath (smell), that he obtained for the Devas by singing; but that he smelled well, that was for himself. The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at the singer, and pierced him with evil. That evil which consists in smelling what is bad, that is that evil.
4. Then they said to the eye: ‘Do thou sing out for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the eye, and sang. Whatever delight there is in the eye, that he obtained for the Devas by singing; but that he saw well, that was for himself The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at the singer, and pierced him with evil. That evil which consists in seeing what is bad, that is that evil.
5. Then they said to the ear: ‘Do thou sing out for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the ear, and sang. Whatever delight there is in the ear, that he obtained for the Devas by singing; but that he heard well, that was for himself. The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at the singer, and pierced him with evil. That evil which consists in hearing what is bad, that is that evil.
6. Then they said to the mind: ‘Do thou sing out for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the mind, and sang. Whatever delight there is in the mind, that he obtained for the Devas by singing; but that he thought well, that was for himself. The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at the singer, and pierced him with evil. That evil which consists in thinking what is bad, that is that evil.
Thus they overwhelmed these deities with evils, thus they pierced them with evil.
7. Then they said to the breath in the mouth [*1]: ‘Do thou sing for us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the breath, and sang. The Asuras knew: ‘Verily, through this singer they will overcome us.’ They therefore rushed at him and pierced him with evil. Now as a ball of earth will be scattered when hitting a stone, thus they perished, scattered in all directions. Hence the Devas rose, the Asuras fell. He who knows this, rises by his self, and the enemy who hates him falls.
8. Then they (the Devas) said: ‘Where was he then who thus stuck to us [*1]?’ It was (the breath) within the mouth (asye ‘ntar [*2]), and therefore called Ayasya; he was the sap (rasa) of the limbs (anga), and therefore called Angirasa.
9. That deity was called Dur, because Death was far (duran) from it. From him who knows this, Death is far off.
10. That deity, after having taken away the evil of those deities, viz. death, sent it to where the end of the quarters of the earth is. There he deposited their sins. Therefore let no one go to a man, let no one go to the end (of the quarters of the earth [*3]), that he may not meet there with evil, with death.
11. That deity, after having taken away the evil of those deities, viz. death, carried them beyond death.
12. He carried speech across first. When speech had become freed from death, it became (what it had been before) Agni (fire). That Agni, after having stepped beyond death, shines.
13. Then he carried breath (scent) across. When breath had become freed from death, it became Vayu (air). That Vayu, after having stepped beyond death, blows.
14. Then he carried the eye across. When the eye had become freed from death, it became Aditya (the sun). That Aditya, after having stepped beyond death, burns.
15. Then he carried the ear across. When the ear had become freed from death, it became the quarters (space). These are our quarters (space), which have stepped beyond death.
16. Then he carried the mind across. When the mind had become freed from death, it became the moon (Kandramas). That moon, after having stepped beyond death, shines. Thus does that deity carry him, who knows this, across death.
17. Then breath (vital), by singing, obtained for himself eatable food. For whatever food is eaten, is eaten by breath alone, and in it breath rests [*1].
The Devas said: ‘Verily, thus far, whatever food there is, thou hast by singing acquired it for thyself. Now therefore give us a share in that food.’ He said: ‘You there, enter into me.’ They said Yes, and entered all into him. Therefore whatever food is eaten by breath, by it the other senses are satisfied.
18. If a man knows this, then his own relations come to him in the same manner; he becomes their supporter, their chief leader, their strong ruler [*2]. And if ever anyone tries to oppose [*3] one who is possessed of such knowledge among his own relatives, then he will not be able to support his own belongings. But he who follows the man who is possessed of such knowledge, and who with his permission wishes to support those whom he has to support, he indeed will be able to support his own belongings.
19. He was called Ayasya Angirasa, for he is the sap (rasa) of the limbs (anga). Verily, breath is the sap of the limbs. Yes, breath is the sap of the limbs. Therefore from whatever limb breath goes away, that limb withers, for breath verily is the sap of the limbs.
20. He (breath) is also Brihaspati, for speech is Brihati (Rig-veda), and he is her lord; therefore he is Brihaspati.
2 1. He (breath) is also Brahmanaspati, for speech is Brahman (Yagur-veda), and he is her lord; therefore he is Brahmanaspati.
He (breath) is also Saman (the Udgitha), for speech is Saman (Sama-veda), and that is both speech (sa) and breath (ama) [*1]. This is why Saman is called Saman.
22. Or because he is equal (sama) to a grub, equal to a gnat, equal to an elephant, equal to these three worlds, nay, equal to this universe, therefore he is Saman. He who thus knows this Saman, obtains union and oneness with Saman.
23. He (breath) is Udgitha [*2]. Breath verily is Ut, for by breath this universe is upheld (uttabdha); and speech is Githa, song. And because he is ut and githa, therefore he (breath) is Udgitha.
24. And thus Brahmadatta Kaikitaneya (the grandson of Kikitana), while taking Soma (ragan), said: ‘May this Soma strike my head off, if Ayasya Angirasa sang another Udgitha than this. He sang it indeed as speech and breath.’
25. He who knows what is the property of this Saman, obtains property. Now verily its property is tone only. Therefore let a priest, who is going to perform the sacrificial work of a Sama-singer, desire that his voice may have a good tone, and let him perform the sacrifice with a voice that is in good tone. Therefore people (who want a priest) for a sacrifice, look out for one who possesses a good voice, as for one who possesses property. He who thus knows what is the property of that Saman, obtains property.
26. He who knows what is the gold of that Saman, obtains gold. Now verily its gold. is tone only. He who thus knows what is the gold of that Saman, obtains gold.
27. He who knows what is the support of that Saman, he is supported. Now verily its support is speech only. For, as supported in speech, that breath is sung as that Saman. Some say the support is in food.
Next follows the Abhyaroha [*1] (the ascension) of the Pavamana verses. Verily the Prastotri begins to sing the Saman, and when he begins, then let him (the sacrificer) recite these (three Yagus-verses):
‘Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from darkness to light! Lead me from death to immortality!’
Now when he says, ‘Lead me from the unreal to the real,’ the unreal is verily death, the real immortality. He therefore says, ‘Lead me from death to immortality, make me immortal.’
When he says, ‘Lead me from darkness to light,’ darkness is verily death, light immortality. He therefore says, ‘Lead me from death to immortality, make me immortal.’
When he says, ‘Lead me from death to immortality,’ there is nothing there, as it were, hidden (obscure, requiring explanation) [*1].
28. Next come the other Stotras with which the priest may obtain food for himself by singing them. Therefore let the sacrificer, while these Stotras are being sung, ask for a boon, whatever desire he may desire. An Udgatri priest who knows this obtains by his singing whatever desire he may desire either for himself or for the sacrificer. This (knowledge) indeed is called the conqueror of the worlds. He who thus knows this Saman [*2], for him there is no fear of his not being admitted to the worlds [*3].
Footnotes
^74:6 Called the Agni-brahmana, and intended to teach the origin of [p. 75] Agni, the fire, which is here used for the Horse-sacrifice. It is found in the Satapatha-brahmana, Madhyandina-sakha X, 6, 5, and there explained as a description of Hiranyagarbha.
^75:1 We ought to read arkasyarkatvam, as in Poley’s edition, or ark-kasyarkkatvam, to make the etymology still clearer. The commentator takes arka in the sense of fire, more especially the sacrificial fire employed at the Horse-sacrifice. It may be so, but the more natural interpretation seems to me to take arka here as water, from which indirectly fire is produced. From water springs the earth; on that earth he (Mrityu or Pragapati) rested, and from him, while resting there, fire (Virag) was produced. That fire assumed three forms, fire, sun, and air, and in that threefold form it is called prana, spirit.
^75:2 As Agni, Vayu, and Aditya.
^75:3 Here Agni (Virag) is taken as representing the fire of the altar at the Horse-sacrifice, which is called Arka. The object of the whole Brahmana was to show the origin and true character of that fire (arka).
^76:1 He is the same as what was before called mrityu, death, who, after becoming self-conscious, produced water, earth, fire, &c. He now wishes for a second body, which is the year, or the annual sacrifice, the year being dependent on the sun (Aditya).
^76:2 The commentator understands the father, instead of Speech, the mother.
^76:3 The interjectional theory.
^76:4 All these are merely fanciful etymologies of asvamedha and arka.
^77:1 Or glory (senses) and power. Comm.
^77:2 He considered himself as the horse. Roer.
^78:1 Called the Udgitha-brahmana. In the Madhyandina-sakha, the Upanishad, which consists of six adhyayas, begins with this Brahmana (cf. Weber’s edition, p. 104 7; Commentary, p. 1109).
^78:2 The Devas and Asuras are explained by the commentator as the senses, inclining either to sacred or to worldly objects, to good or evil.
^78:3 According to the commentator, the Devas were the less numerous and less strong, the Asuras the more numerous and more powerful.
^79:1 This is the chief or vital breath, sometimes called mukhya.
^80:1 Asakta from sang, to embrace; cf. Rig-veda I, 33, 3. Here it corresponds to the German anhanglich.
^80:2 See Deussen, Vedanta, p. 359.
^80:3 To distant people.
^81:1 This is done by the last nine Pavamanas, while the first three were used for obtaining the reward common to all the pranas.
^81:2 Here annada is well explained by anamayavin, and vyadhirahita, free from sickness, strong.
^81:3 Read pratipratih; see Poley, and Weber, p. 1180.
^82:1 Cf. Khand. Up. V, 2, 6.
^82:2 Not used here in the sense of song or hymn, but as an act of worship connected with the Saman. Comm.
^83:1 The ascension is a ceremony by which the performer reaches the gods, or becomes a god. It consists in the recitation of three Yagus, and is here enjoined to take place when the Prastotri priest begins to sing his hymn.
^84:1 See Deussen, Vedanta, p. 86.
^84:2 He knows that he is the Prana, which Prana is the Saman. That Prana cannot be defeated by the Asuras, i.e. by the senses which are addicted to evil; it is pure, and the five senses finding refuge in him, recover there their original nature, fire, &c. The Prana is the Self of all things, also of speech (Rig-yaguh-samodgitha), and of the Saman that has to be sung and well sung. The Prana pervades all creatures, and he who identifies himself with that Prana, obtains the rewards mentioned in the Brahmana. Comm.
^84:3 In connection with lokagit, lokyata is here explained, and may probably have been intended, as worthiness to be admitted to the highest world. Originally lokyata and alokyata meant right and wrong. See also I, 5, 17.
FOURTH BRAHMANA [*1].
1. In the beginning this was Self alone, in the shape of a person (purusha). He looking round saw nothing but his Self. He first said, ‘This is I;’ therefore he became I by name. Therefore even now, if a man is asked, he first says, ‘This is I,’ and then pronounces the other name which he may have. And because before (purva) all this, he (the Self) burnt down (ush) all evils, therefore he was a person (pur-usha). Verily he who knows this, burns down every one who tries to be before him.
2. He feared, and therefore any one who is lonely fears. He thought, ‘As there is nothing but myself, why should I fear?’ Thence his fear passed away. For what should he have feared? Verily fear arises from a second only.
3. But he felt no delight. Therefore a man who is lonely feels no delight. He wished for a second. He was so large as man and wife together. He then made this his Self to fall in two (pat), and thence arose husband (pati) and wife (patni). Therefore Yagnavalkya said: ‘We two [*2] are thus (each of us) like half a shell [*3].’ Therefore the void which was there, is filled by the wife. He embraced her, and men were born.
4. She thought, ‘How can he embrace me, after having produced me from himself? I shall hide myself.’
She then became a cow, the other became a bull and embraced her, and hence cows were born. The one became a mare, the other a stallion; the one a male ass, the other a female ass. He embraced her, and hence one-hoofed animals were born. The one became a she-goat, the other a he-goat; the one became a ewe [*1], the other a ram. He embraced her, and hence goats and sheep were born. And thus he created everything that exists in pairs, down to the ants.
5. He knew, ‘I indeed am this creation, for I created all this.’ Hence he became the creation, and he who knows this lives in this his creation.
6. Next he thus produced fire by rubbing. From the mouth, as from the fire-hole, and from the hands he created fire [*2]. Therefore both the mouth and the hands are inside without hair, for the fire-hole is inside without hair.
And when they say, ‘Sacrifice to this or sacrifice to that god,’ each god is but his manifestation, for he is all gods.
Now, whatever there is moist, that he created from seed; this is Soma. So far verily is this universe either food or eater. Soma indeed is food, Agni eater. This is the highest creation of Brahman, when he created the gods from his better part [*1], and when he, who was (then) mortal [*2], created the immortals. Therefore it was the highest creation. And he who knows this, lives in this his highest creation.
7. Now all this was then undeveloped. It became developed by form and name, so that one could say, ‘He, called so and so, is such a one [*3].’ Therefore at present also all this is developed by name and form, so that one can say, ‘He, called so and so, is such a one.’
He (Brahman or the Self) entered thither, to the very tips of the finger-nails, as a razor might be fitted in a razor-case, or as fire in a fire-place [*4].
He cannot be seen, for, in part only, when breathing, he is breath by name; when speaking, speech by name; when seeing, eye by name; when hearing, ear by name; when thinking, mind by name. All these are but the names of his acts. And he who worships (regards) him as the one or the other, does not know him, for he is apart from this (when qualified) by the one or the other (predicate). Let men worship him as Self, for in the Self all these are one. This Self is the footstep of everything, for through it one knows everything [*5]. And as one can find again by footsteps what was lost, thus he who knows this finds glory and praise.
8. This, which is nearer to us than anything, this Self, is dearer than a son, dearer than wealth, dearer than all else.
And if one were to say to one who declares another than the Self dear, that he will lose what is dear to him, very likely it would be so. Let him worship the Self alone as dear. He who worships the Self alone as dear, the object of his love will never perish [*1].
9. Here they say: ‘If men think that by knowledge of Brahman they will become everything, what then did that Brahman know, from whence all this sprang?’
10. Verily in the beginning this was Brahman, that Brahman knew (its) Self only, saying, ‘I am Brahman.’ From it all this sprang. Thus, whatever Deva was awakened (so as to know Brahman), he indeed became that (Brahman); and the same with Rishis and men. The Rishi Vamadeva saw and understood it, singing, ‘I was Manu (moon), I was the sun.’ Therefore now also he who thus knows that he is Brahman, becomes all this, and even the Devas cannot prevent it, for he himself is their Self.
Now if a man worships another deity, thinking the deity is one and he another, he does not know. He is like a beast for the Devas. For verily, as many beasts nourish a man, thus does every man nourish the Devas. If only one beast is taken away, it is not pleasant; how much more when many are taken! Therefore it is not pleasant to the Devas that men should know this.
11. Verily in the beginning this was Brahman, one only. That being one, was not strong enough. It created still further the most excellent Kshatra (power), viz. those Kshatras (powers) among the Devas,–Indra, Varuna, Soma, Rudra, Parganya, Yama, Mrityu, Isana. Therefore there is nothing beyond the Kshatra, and therefore at the Ragasuya sacrifice the Brahmana sits down below the Kshatriya. He confers that glory on the Kshatra alone. But Brahman is (nevertheless) the birth-place of the Kshatra. Therefore though a king is exalted, he sits down at the end (of the sacrifice) below the Brahman, as his birth-place. He who injures him, injures his own birth-place. He becomes worse, because he has injured one better than himself.
12. He [*1] was not strong enough. He created the Vis (people), the classes of Devas which in their different orders are called Vasus, Rudras, Adityas, Visve Devas, Maruts.
13. He was not strong enough. He created the Sudra colour (caste), as Pushan (as nourisher). This earth verily is Pushan (the nourisher); for the earth nourishes all this whatsoever.
14. He was not strong enough. He created still further the most excellent Law (dharma). Law is the Kshatra (power) of the Kshatra [*2], therefore there is nothing higher than the Law. Thenceforth even a weak man rules a stronger with the help of the Law, as with the help of a king. Thus the Law is what is called the true. And if a man declares what is true, they say he declares the Law; and if he declares the Law, they say he declares what is true. Thus both are the same.
15. There are then this Brahman, Kshatra, Vis, and Sudra. Among the Devas that Brahman existed as Agni (fire) only, among men as Brahmana, as Kshatriya through the (divine) Kshatriya, as Vaisya through the (divine) Vaisya, as Sudra through the (divine) Sudra. Therefore people wish for their future state among the Devas through Agni (the sacrificial fire) only; and among men through the Brahmana, for in these two forms did Brahman exist.
Now if a man departs this life without having seen his true future life (in the Self), then that Self, not being known, does not receive and bless him, as if the Veda had not been read, or as if a good work had not been done. Nay, even if one who does not know that (Self), should perform here on earth some great holy work, it will Perish for him in the end. Let a man worship the Self only as his true state. If a man worships the Self only as his true state, his work does not Perish, for whatever he desires that he gets from that Self.
16. Now verily this Self (of the ignorant man) is the world [*1] of all creatures. In so far as man sacrifices and pours out libations, he is the world of the Devas; in so far as he repeats the hymns, &c., he is the world of the Rishis; in so far as he offers cakes to the Fathers and tries to obtain offspring, he is the world of the Fathers; in so far as he gives shelter and food to men, he is the world of men; in so far as he finds fodder and water for the animals, he is the world of the animals; in so far as quadrupeds, birds, and even ants live in his houses, he is their world. And as every one wishes his own world not to be injured, thus all beings wish that he who knows this should not be injured. Verily this is known and has been well reasoned.
17. In the beginning this was Self alone, one only. He desired, ‘Let there be a wife for me that I may have offspring, and let there be wealth for me that I may offer sacrifices.’ Verily this is the whole desire, and, even if wishing for more, he would not find it. Therefore now also a lonely person desires, ‘Let there be a wife for me that I may have offspring, and let there be wealth for me that I may offer sacrifices.’ And so long as he does not obtain either of these things, he thinks he is incomplete. Now his completeness (is made up as follows): mind is his self (husband); speech the wife; breath the child; the eye all worldly wealth, for he finds it with the eye; the ear his divine wealth, for he hears it with the ear. The body (atman) is his work, for with the body he works. This is the fivefold [*1] sacrifice, for fivefold is the animal, fivefold man, fivefold all this whatsoever. He who knows this, obtains all this.
Footnotes
^85:1 Called Purushavidhabrahmana (Madhyandina-sakha, p. 1050). See Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i, p. 24.
^85:2 The Comm. explains svah by atmanah, of himself. But see Boehtlingk, Sanskrit Chrestomathie, p. 357.
^85:3 Roer translates: ‘Therefore was this only one half of himself, as a split pea is of a whole.’ Brigala is a half of anything. Muir (Orig. Sansk. Texts, vol. i, p. 25) translates: ‘Yagnavalkya has said that this one’s self is like the half of a split pea.’ I have translated the sentence according to Professor Boehtlingk’s conjecture (Chrestomathie, 2nd ed. p. 357), though the singular after the dual (svah) is irregular.
^86:1 The reading avir itaro, i.e. itara u, is not found in the Kanva text. See Boehtlingk, Chrestomathie, p. 357.
^86:2 He blew with the mouth while he rubbed with the hands.
^87:1 Or, when he created the best gods.
^87:2 As man and sacrificer. Comm.
^87:3 The Comm. takes asau-nama as a compound, instead of idam-nama. I read asau nama, he is this by name, viz. Devadatta, &c. Dr. Boehtlingk, who in his Chrestomathie (2nd ed. p. 31) had accepted the views of the Commentator, informs me that he has changed his view, and thinks that we should read asau na’ma.
^87:4 Cf. Kaush. Br. Up. VI, 19.
^87:5 As one finds lost cattle again by following their footsteps, thus one finds everything, if one has found out the Self.’ Comm.
^88:1 On rudh, to lose, see Taitt. Samh. II, 6, 8, 5, pp. 765, 771, as pointed out by Dr. Boehtlingk. On isvaro (yat) tathaiva syat, see Boehtlingk, s. v.
^89:1 Observe the change from tad, it, to sa, he.
^89:2 More powerful than the Kshatra or warrior caste. Comm.
^90:1 Is enjoyed by them all. Comm.
^91:1 Fivefold, as consisting of mind, speech, breath, eye, and ear. See Taitt. Up. I, 7, 1.

Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Jordan Brock posted a photo:
Gruber's whipped up an easy guide to outputting Ogg Theora files for use with HTML5's <video> tag.
Bidwell’s Bijin-ga
Ok, all you designer friends can get off my back now and stop busting on me.
At long last, DeeJayDog.TV finally has some branding behind it!
d hooked it up. DeeJayDog is named after my 11 year-old lab, DeeJay. This logo is playful, like him, and that’s what I like most about it. DeeJay inspires me by his ability to confront any situation thrown his way with a wagging tail. This logo reminds me of that.
The actual usage on the site still has some issues to work out, but we’re getting there. Thanks d!
Filtering Companies Can’t Be Sued By Blacklisted Firms, Court Rules
: ‘The [Communications Decency Act] treats security software makers the same as internet service providers when they block material they find objectionable, granting them so-called “good Samaritan” immunity from civil lawsuits. Like an ISP, such companies provide an “interactive computer service” because they pull updates from a central server, the San Francisco-based appeals court said.’
(tags: us-law legal blacklists blocklists cda filtering spam zango kaspersky)
Gee, I haven't done this in a while.
I'm onto something interesting following Alice, the new ecommerce website that enables CPG companies to sell quasi-direct to consumer. On aiaio, I dissect whether the alice.com business model is really new, and next week I'll be critiquing the site's shopping experience.
On Timely Demise: Crabtree & Evelyn's bankruptcy and a handful of old and local stores this week. And, with a sigh, Joe Jr.'s Restaurant in the Village.
Select recent oh-so-important tweets:

What a hectic month just passed — not a ton of time to update the blog — seems my shortened attention spam was better served on Twitter.
Under 4 week ‘til the due date of our daughter. Parents to be.
Plank has been hoping with some major work about to wrap up and some new stuff starting (although i’ll be off on paternity leave for a month).
Hope you’re all having an excellent summer so far.
This was probably the one clip of Michael Jackson I wish everybody had seen.
Kate Clinton congratulates Senator Al Franken on his new job. If the video doesn't appear in your reader, watch it here.
Sign up for Kate's newsletter, get Kate's latest dates, news, and Vlog archives at: http://kateclinton.com Kate also blogs at Bilerico Project: http://www.bilerico.com/
Extreme Sticky Note Experiments (watch in high quality) (via EepyBird)
And don’t miss the inventor of Post-It Notes, Art Fry, watching the extreme video!
We celebrate Independence Day this weekend, and Nancy Rubin Stuart, author of The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, honors the often overlooked women of the American Revolution.
Traditionally, we celebrate our nation's birthday on July 4th with parades, fireworks and tributes to the Founding Fathers. Rarely do we recall the women who supported our patriots, those forgotten Founding Mothers who watched their men march off to fight for American independence, leaving them to struggle to support children, homes and farms.
Silence surrounds the lives of those nurturers. While we recall the names of "celebrity women" of that era-- Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams; Mercy Otis Warren, author of anti-British propaganda plays and historian of the American Revolution; Betsy Ross, who stitched the American flag; Deborah Sampson, disguised as a soldier who fought against the British, and Margaret Corbin, who loaded cannons on the battlefield-- we know relatively little about their personal sacrifices and those of their peers.
Before the Revolution, Abigail Adams and her historian friend, Mercy Otis Warren, shunned tea and proudly wore homespun garments in lieu of British finery. Living miles apart south of Boston with their children, the two friends spun dozens of skeins of wool which they collectively donated to the poor. So, too, did countless other women who gathered in private homes for spinning parties or participated in public spinning contests. To stir patriotic sentiment even hotter, patriotic newspapers offered suggestions about North American substitutes for imported teas, among them sassafras, raspberry and mint.
While patriotism required sacrifice, American women still needed certain manufactured goods and fabrics for their households. Since Abigail's husband, John, and Mercy's son, Winslow, lived in Europe during the last years of the Revolution, those matrons sent for certain household goods and fabrics which they sold or traded to friends and neighbors.
Many women and their children, however, no longer lived in old neighborhoods. Among those who fled from Boston during the British occupation was Abigail and Mercy's friend, Betsy Adams, wife of Samuel Adams, who hid in a humble cottage far from the city.
No less unnerving was the April 1775 flight of their friends, Hannah and Professor John Winthrop of Harvard College, as British soldiers stormed through Cambridge. After securing lodging in a "safe house," Hannah wrote about harrowing scenes of bloodshed in nearby fields and nights spent with weeping women and children crowded into a temporary shelter. Later, the Winthrops were transported in a rough wagon to rustic Andover. There, John Winthrop, 61, fell desperately ill from one of the epidemics then raging across Massachusetts emanating from the unsanitary conditions of the British soldiers in Boston. Months later, after Hannah finally called upon the Warrens to help her get him to Watertown, John recovered, but never fully regained his health.
That same April of 1775, Hannah's kindly sister and brother-in-law of Charlestown dressed wounds and provided food for British soldiers fleeing from Lexington and Concord. In June 1775 that couple was stunned to watch their home go up in flames when the British burnt Charlestown. As the Revolution moved to New York and the South, still other women wrote letters or left diary accounts of British and Hessian soldiers who broke into their homes, plundered their valuables, raped them and set their homes on fire.
Even those who escaped such a fate were plagued by loneliness. By the summer of 1775, Mercy's long absence from her husband, James Warren, the first Quartermaster General of the Continental Army and president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, finally impelled her to leave her young sons with servants in Plymouth and ride thirty-five miles over rough roads to Revolutionary headquarters in Watertown. Shocked by James's harried and overwrought condition, Mercy made five solo trips that summer and fall to Watertown to serve as his private secretary and to write reports to their friend John Adams in Philadelphia.
In Braintree, meanwhile, Abigail not only skimped and schemed to maintain her home, children and family finances, but became an astute manager of the Adams's farm. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of other Revolutionary-era women, whose husbands left home either to fight or serve in Congress, were similarly compelled to assume their husband's former responsibilities.
Among them was Mary Bartlett, wife of a New Hampshire Congressman, who initially balked at running her husband's farm but later became so adept at it that she regarded it as "our farm." A still more famous and lonely "war widow" was Deborah Read, wife of statesmen Ben Franklin, who spent most of the Revolution abroad in his diplomatic duties, leaving her to live and die alone in Philadelphia.
While Abigail's plea to "remember the ladies" fell on deaf ears during the Revolution, her vision has gradually, if grudgingly, become a reality. Nearly ninety years ago women achieved suffrage. Today, more than half of America's college students are women. Now too, in the midst of the Great Recession, women comprise nearly half of the work force.
Nevertheless, women, especially single mothers with children, remain our most impoverished citizens— a condition strikingly similar to that suffered by women of the American Revolution.
As we sing "Happy Birthday America" today, let us remember that women quietly baked the nation's cake. They did so with rationed flour and bartered candles, whose light has burned brighter and stronger through the centuries than have muskets, firearms and bombs.
I grew up eating fried bologna sandwiches on white bread with mayo and American cheese. Candy was a regular treat, as were ice cream pops on a hot day in the back of the pick up. My family ate cheaply and deliciously, and it wasn’t until I was already in my teens that I realized you could also eat for the sake of nutrition. The habits you make as a child are hard to break, but now, at 31, I am trying to eat healthier.

That is not to say I haven’t spent more than a decade dieting, because I have. Poorly. Binge, restrict, binge, restrict was the cycle for far too long. I took diet pills once that made me jittery and sweaty and one time I thought I was having a heart attack, but I dropped 35 pounds. Those pills worked better than anything else at getting me thinner, but I never ate because I couldn’t, because I was on a legal speed. As soon as I stopped 20 of the 35 pounds came back.
I make poor food choices because fat and sugar and salt makes me feel good in my brain, and because the immediate gratification of a French fry or melted Brie often overwhelms my desire to live a long and prosperous life without the obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease that has plagued my family.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to lose weight, but for the first time in a long time I am opting to make vegetables and fruits and whole grains and antioxidant fighting nuts and heart healthy oils the mainstay of my diet for the good of my mind and my valves and my pipes and my blood, and not in order to fit into a certain size.
But the urge to eat bad-for-me things is strong. I moved to the Bay Area into a world of delicious delights. I’ve been eating as though I am on vacation here for too long now. I need to reign in the burrito consumption in a big way. When I had a battery of tests done in Nashville a couple of years ago my bad cholesterol was 300. 300, people! That’s astronomically high. It’s mostly hereditary, I’m told, but I still have to fight it if I don’t want to die in my early 60s or sooner.
I read Dr. Andrew Weil’s Eating Well for Optimum Health, and it opened my eyes to exactly what happens to my guts when I eat fried, cheesy foods that are my favorite. It’s not pretty. I learned that eating berries and oats and olive oil can help me prevent cancer. I learned about free radicals and how to eat to destroy them. It’s fascinating, nutrition, and I want to eat for fuel, not to feel high, which is often why I choose an item. The immediate pleasure.
In order to stay motivated to eat well, and tastily (which is important for me, because I will ditch the kale for Popeye’s in a heartbeat if you try me), I read blogs like Nutritionista, Fitnessista, Oh She Glows and Lesley Eats. These women don’t count calories, they eat whole foods, and they eat only when truly hungry. They have cheese and wine and dessert, but they have them in moderation. Most of their days are filled with 7-9 servings of fruits and veggies, healthy fats, whole grains and lean protein. And their meals all look so amazing.
I know it’s about preparing and thinking ahead and not getting caught off guard by the smell of fresh baked cookies that somehow end up in the newsroom every single day. Working in the restaurant industry spoiled me on “eating out,” and I still have many a meal that was prepared by someone else. The frequency of this has to stop. Wayward lard, sugar and bad-for-you oils find their way into even the most innocuous-seeming dishes. Not to mention it’s expensive.

So in order to keep myself on track, I plan to be transparent on this here blog about what I eat. I don’t plan to document every single morsel I put into my mouth, but I do plan to talk about, be mindful of and share with others what I put into my body. You can skip every one of the food posts. These entries are for me. For my arteries and my pancreas and okay, my ass, too.
I’d love to know if there are any great nutrition blogs or websites you recommend. I’d love it if you joined in on what will be an ongoing discussion about nutrition and balance. Because there will be baked Brie, just less of it. In the meantime I’ll be finding healthy for me foods that taste terrific. Because there are plenty of them, they just don’t taste as good as pizza, so I’ve yet to uncover them all. And there is no better place to do this than in the Bay Area.
FIRST UP, coming soon: Review of a vegan California dried cranberry suncake.
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
What Would Keith Richards Do? collects the wisdom of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards into a Scripture for our times. Incredibly well-curated, the book is filled with surprisingly thoughtful and always entertaining quotations.
The Toronto Star wrote of the book:
"West boils the notoriously loose-tongued Richards down to his most bon of mots, and lays them side by side with those of Aristotle, Plato, Saint Augustine (!?!) and Neitzsche. The result is a fairly (um) sobering case that the Rolling Stones' 65-year-old guitarist, a man so buffeted by trouble and impervious to chemical indulgences that he was once allied with cockroaches as the creatures most likely to survive a nuclear holocaust ("Poor old cockroaches," quipped Richards), is a virtual walking testament to the transcendent human spirit."
In her own words, here is Jessica West's Book Notes music playlist for her book, What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor:
I've always thought that Keith Richards was the perfect person to write a self-help book. When it didn't seem that that was going to happen anytime soon, I figured I had to step in and do it for him. Sort of.
What Would Keith Richards Do? is a guide to Living Life the Keith Richards Way, an investigation into the Tao of Keith, plus a compendium of the Wit and Wisdom of Rock n Roll's premiere survivor.
The playlist that motored the writing of the book was made up only a little bit of Stones music, a little more of Richards' solo work, but mostly of artists and songs that Keith has gone on record as having inspired him. The book was about channeling Keith and his attitude, so I wanted to listen to the songs and artists that shaped him—that perhaps created Keith Richards. Within this soundtrack I found a fascinating line-up of gangsters, trouble-makers and trouble-magnets, and mythical beings-- "bad men who made beautiful music"—those who courted the dark side, if not the devil himself, then turned it into something haunting and gorgeous. A lot of the songs I played had subject matter that mirrored the issues that Keith has talked about so often: doing it your own way, the exuberance of being alive, rebellion, coming to terms with others, the mystery of the blues, honesty, looking the devil straight in the eye, the dark side, finding the beauty in the sordid, and taking joy in giving someone the finger when you have to.
In many of these songs, you can hear the building blocks of later Stones music, particularly those that would end up on "Exile of Main Street" (the most Keith of all Stones albums).
The playlist for writing What Would Keith Richards Do? was vast, but the main playlist is as follows (with some Keith quotes added on):
1. Robert Johnson - Preaching the Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)
Johnson is not only the "grandfather of rock" but maybe the grandfather of Keith—a shadowy human riff who shook hands with the devil. Maybe this story is true: Johnson met the devil at the crossroads near Dockery Plantation at midnight; the devil tuned Johnson's guitar, played it, and then gave it back to him. In exchange for Johnson's soul, he would play the best blues guitar ever heard. In listening to Johnson's voice, there's an exhilarating spookiness, and it always reminds me of Keith. Keith: "There's a demon in everybody. It's the trying to express it—there's a dark piece in us all."
2. Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88
Many consider this to be the first rock n roll song. It's like listening to the future while listening to the past.
3. Leadbelly - The Midnight Special
In comparison to Leadbelly, Keith is an amateur when it comes to being a ‘gangster'. Here is one of the original "bad men who makes beautiful music." Prison, addiction, fights, trouble. He also brought a political edge to his music, writing on everything picked up on his cultural antenna-- from Harlow to Hitler. Pre-Keith Keith.
4. Blind Willie McTell - Talkin' to Your Mama
Another mythical, doomed, but magical original. McTell became a wandering busker after leaving home at an early age, and at life's end was playing for whiskey and quarters in the street. Here but for the grace of God go I.
5. Clarence ‘Gatemouth' Brown - Okie Dokie Stomp
The "Gatemouth" nick-name came from a teacher who told Brown he had a voice like a gate. It's like they saoid about Keith—a voice that only a mother could love.
6. Amos Milburn - Down the Road Apiece
A standard of Rock n Roll, originally recorded in the 1940s. I love this recording. Anyone could fall in love with rock on hearing this.
7. Clarence ‘Bon Ton' Garlow - Bon Ton Roulet
A wonderfully happy song—and a Keith favorite.
8. Professor Longhair & His Shuffling Hungarians - Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Another bad boy with beautiful music. Longhair started out as a street hustler; was also a janitor and a gambler. He never made it big, but he was an original. Keith: "The mundane has never interested me."
9. Hoagy Carmichael – Georgia on My Mind
I like the fact that Keith got evicted from a New York apartment for blasting Hoagy repeatedly at 4:00 AM.
10. John Lee Hooker - I'm in The Mood
Listen to the Stones song "I Got the Blues" and then listen to this. It's a mirror. Hooker's half-spoken style, and his roots in spiritual music reminds me also of Keith (he did get his start in the church choir).
11. Muddy Waters - Rollin' Stone
Keith: "I just want to be Muddy Waters."… "There's a demon in everybody. It's the trying to express it—there's a dark piece in all of us."…"Muddy is like a very comforting arm around the shoulder. You need that… It can be dark down there."
12. B.B. King - Everyday I Have the Blues
Keith on the blues: "It's about the most important thing that America has ever given to the world."… "It's a part of everybody."
13. Howlin' Wolf - Moanin' at Midnight
Another Keith favorite; a musician who sings from the dark valley.
14. Hank Williams - You Win Again
Keith: "You should never underestimate the importance of country in rock n roll."
15. Chuck Berry – Little Queenie
It was on hearing Berry that Keith decided to devote his life to music. This song just gets better over time. Keith: "Rock n roll doesn't die, it matures." Berry became a continuous character in Keith's life, but it didn't always go so well. Keith: "I couldn't warm to him [Berry] if I was cremated next to him."… "There are limits to hero worship."
16. Little Richard – Tutti-Frutti
Keith: "'A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom.' For me, the world then went from black-and-white to Technicolor."… "It was a bit of a shock, but it was a great one, like, shock me some more."
17. Ry Cooder - Jesus on the Mainline
Keith: "I nicked a lot off of him. I took him for all he was worth... I ripped him off." With a line like that, how can you not make Cooder part of your soundtrack?
18. Gram Parsons – Streets of Baltimore
Keith: "Beautiful pain. He had it to the max." There are rumors that it was Parsons who wrote "Honky Tonk Woman" and that he was the inspiration for "Wild Horses." Many have noted that after Gram died you could hear his ghost in Keith's songs. How can you not listen to Gram when conjuring Keith?
19. Bob Marley & the Wailers - Jah is Mighty
Keith: "If you go to Jamaica, you see people living to that rhythm. It's magic in that it's an unexplored area…. I call it ‘marrow music'. It's beyond the bone…I can give you the history of the world—just give me their music."…And…"I love God. But I hate preachers."
And from the Stones:
20. You Can't Always Get What You Want
A self-help book in song form.
21. Satisfaction
Whether it's true or just a great legend: Keith wrote this in his sleep. It's also the song he says every other one he's written is a variation on. "I had to stop doing Chuck Berry and start doing Keith Richards."
22. Before They Make Me Run
Written following the drug arrest in Canada, the song expresses a hallmark Keith quality: courage. Keith: "At least I faced it. It's the only thing I'm proud about in all of that period—that I faced up to it and said, okay, that's it, and it's all over… I was looking down the bad end of the gun."
23. Sympathy for the Devil
Keith: "You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can…Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job."
24. Coming Down Again
Drugs, drugs, drugs. But again, it's about finding the beautiful in the sordid. Keith: "I wouldn't have written [this song] without [drugs]. It kept me in touch with the street, at the lowest level."
25. Blue Turns to Grey
After Brian Jones died, Keith took over the role of self-destructive drugged and wild rock star. This song reminds me of Brian's passing—and the strange guilt, sorrow, and relief that must have transpired; and how you just have to keep going.
26. Gimme Shelter
Like hearing a storm come in. If you shy away from writing about dark subjects, "you end up writing about embroidery." No embroidery here.
27. Happy
I still don't know what he was happy about. But I love the song, because the scraggly voice reminds me of the "bad men making beautiful music". The sound is pure Keith.
28. Time Waits for No One
For all the jokes about the aging Stones, in this song aging and time are viewed with vulnerability and surrender. For all their "we'll outlive you all" bravado, it is, ultimately, their fragility that is the most moving. And it's in this song.
Jessica West and What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor links:
Finding Dulcinea review
Pop Damage review
The Rumpus review
Time Out Chicago review
Toronto Star review
New York Times' Paper Cuts preview of the book
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks
tags: books music literature nonfiction rollingstones keithrichards
When I saw Malcolm Gladwell doggedly dissecting Chris Anderson's upcoming "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" (see Chris' response here) my first reaction was: Brilliant! Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired, and Malcolm Gladwell is a top brand name at The New Yorker, and as corporate cousins, clearly Condé Nast's publicity machine must have engineered this beef, trying to boost sales of both their titles through a completely manufactured rivalry.
Their past titles have been champions of what I call the "Airport Books" genre: The elite class of business titles that I see sold in airport newsstands next to the magazines and crappy romance novels. (I might have unknowingly stolen "airport books" from someone else, but I can't find a citation.)
Alas, I'm assured that this particular contretemps isn't a planned corporate PR stunt. (Though I know lots of nice folks at Condé, they don't seem to mimic street-level hip hop marketing as often as one might hope.) Instead, it seems the criticism and counter-argument are sincere.
The core of Gladwell's argument is simple: "Free" fails to provide data to support its claims about the future of pricing, using anecdote and confident assertion in place of actual evidence. In his objection to this methodology, Gladwell seems uncharacteristically strident, compared to his usual measured tones. Whenever I see somebody getting their dander up, I think of one of the first things I ever blogged about ten years ago: We hate most in others that which we fail to see in ourselves. Ah hah!
Let's see what criticisms have been leveled at Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, the juggernauts of the airport book genre:
My goal is not to ennumerate all of the criticisms of Gladwell's books — I enjoyed reading all of them, and I like his New Yorker pieces, and that's kind of all I would ask of the guy. But I can't help but wonder if being ceaselessly criticized for using assertions and anecdotes in lieu of hard statistical data has left him much more inclined to criticize others for using the same technique.
I haven't had a chance to finish reading Free yet, but I am sure that both of these authors' books absolutely do lean more towards anecdotal evidence than statistical proof. And honestly, it's okay that these books don't necessarily follow the tenets of hard science. In many cases, they're arguing that a cultural trend is becoming true, or is about to become true, and the reality is that asserting that these trends are ascendent actually helps them come true. In short, these are books designed to create culture, presented in the guise of reporting on culture. I like that!
But of course there will always be those who disagree with the idea of starting from a premise first, and then finding examples to support it. Perhaps the last word in favor of using hard data to support social observations may be from a story package in Wired a year ago, which was headlined "The End of Science" and anchored by a story called The End of Theory:
This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.
... But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete. ... The new availability of huge amounts of data, along with the statistical tools to crunch these numbers, offers a whole new way of understanding the world. Correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all.
The author of this compelling argument in favor of using overwhelming amounts of data to help replace formulating theories about human behavior? Former scientist Chris Anderson.
Bonus link: If you're interested in actual debate about the content of the book, Mike Masnick's excellent overview over at TechDirt is a must-read.

I’ve just posted an interview with Rebecca Volynsky on The Tools Artists Use.
Rebecca is also a fellow tumblr! You can follow her here and here.
In this series at Largehearted Boy, guest contributors review music books.
Josh Spilker is the mastermind behind the indie music and literature blog Deckfight.
Josh Spilker of Deckfight reviews Travis Elborough's book, The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again:
After buying the new Wilco album, I brought it into my office for a better look. A coworker noticed I was peeling a plastic sleeve off a thin colorful square. "Did you get a new calendar?" Instead of debating with her about the merits and improbability of buying a new calendar in the middle of summer, I just simply replied, "It's a record."
Though my coworker is in her mid-20s, she is not necessarily "down" with the latest music trends, so the idea of someone actively buying a record was a little unfamiliar to her. She listens to music, sure, but not records. And so here's the greatest challenge in Travis Elborough's new book, The Vinyl Countdown. How do you judge the impact of a format instead of what the format contains? Ironically, the easy way for Elborough would be to track the LP "underground," the crate diggers who never gave up vinyl even in the age of large boomboxes. Instead Elborough opts to follow the popularity of the LP, and specifically the concept of the album, through its inception and changes along with the bands and provocateurs who pushed the format forward.
Though even pinning an album down is hard work. How about a classical piece? Singles-only releases? B–sides that were better than A-sides? Or the ever elusive Greatest Hits? With all this in mind, Elborough tackles what might be the trickiest part of all that—trying to decide which albums, singles, A-sides, B-sides and/or formats had the most impact. And then linking all of that together. He goes for a mix of decades and bands, tracking the rise from classical to popular to psychedelic to rap, which is like trying to enjoy the entirety of the Golden Corral buffet in one sitting: it just cannot be done.
He begins with a popular retelling of the "Speed Wars" or Columbia championing 33 1/3 over the older 78's, and includes the societal, historical and material pressures inherent in a conversion. His discussion is more than just VHS or Beta, Blu-Ray or HDDVD, it illustrates a fundamental change in how music would be produced, therefore impacting how music would later be consumed. Those chapters launch Elborough into his strength, how artists (and label execs) would take advantage of the relative cheapness and accessibility of the LP. In this regard, Elborough is forced to pick and choose who to profile.
Most surprising to my novice way of understanding the evolution of the LP is the influence of comedy recordings, whether it be Tom Lehrer, Dudley Moore or Lenny Bruce. The recordings of these guys set off what can now be perceived as the grassroots culture, where a partial bit of the masses can become their own cultural arbiters rather than being dictated upon from on high. Caught in the middle of this 60s paradigm shift were The Beach Boys or more specifically Brian Wilson, as Elborough explains how Pet Sounds became both the window into Wilson’s soul and his virtual death knell for recorded music. Couple with Wilson’s tale is that of the Beatles in what is Elborough’s strongest chapter, the one on mid to late 60s. Though much of what is said maybe known to the most passionate of fans, the casual music consumer will be surprised to know how many times The Beatles were turned down and great a desire it was of The Beatles to compose sometime of musical, an important fact in a history of the long-playing record.
Elborough’s account proves that the music industry has always been obsessed with the singles and the hit, so much so that they looked to repackage the same song several times over. Soundtracks were also big, which led to the development of A Hard Day’s Night, for the specific purpose of creating a movie.
Also revealed are the many early descriptions of The Beatles as an R&B band, a fact that led them to get a few passovers from record execs. So while important aspects of vinyl history such as R&B is virtually left out, with no explanation of its contributions (or lack of contributions, if Elborough is so inclined). Part of that is Elborough’s Brit leanings, part of it is…well, it almost has to be explained in an American re-issue why or why not Elvis Presley or James Brown do not get as much attention. But Elborough does a stand up job with chapters on the rise and fall of Sinatra and the evolution/capitalization of romantically themed compilations and the evolution of rock from hit singles into an experimental free-for-all.
Another element needed is the impact of the transition from stereo to the personal. Elborough details the naming of the Walkman, but is wary to fully judge the impact of the transition of music from the big and loud to the personal, or even about 8-track or cassette-tape players in cars, an important evolution in music history.
But the great thing about Elborough's book is that it makes plain which after reading seems so obvious. I have a copy of Design Records' release of The Best of Ray Charles which cost 87 cents from the Spartan Department Store, according to a sticker that still hangs on the outside. The back has a promotion for other "Top Pop Hits" touting "up to the minute" artists like Jonny Rivers, Roy Orbison and Nat King Cole. Nothing about Charles' himself, just about the value and technology of the LP. In comparison to Wilco, the art is less exciting and the disc is flimsier. But it's still the same black disc (the same!) spanning forty-odd years, a claim that many other formats in a variety of industries cannot make. How the hell did the record do that? Elborough has the answers.
also at Largehearted Boy:
other book reviews at Largehearted Boy
Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Soundtracked (directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks)
52 Books, 52 Weeks
American Songwriter profiles singer-songwriter John Vanderslice.
Frank Black talks to See.
“Yeah — I think those Catholics records have some integrity to them. Now people might say, ‘Oh yeah, those Frank Black and the Catholics albums were great,’ but at the time they were ignored by the press and even fans. ‘What are you up to? This is stupid.’
“But that’s the way it goes when you play ‘alternative rock’” — the phrase sounds utterly ironic when he utters it — “You make your records and then years later everyone loves them. ‘Teenager of the Year [his second solo album] is a classic!’ Well, at the time everyone was like, ‘Well, it’s kinda long, isn’t it?’”
The Houston Chronicle interviews Andrew Kenny of Wooden Birds and American Analog Set.
Paste interviews singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton.
Macworld celebrates the 25th anniversary of William Gibson's Neuromancer novel with a look back at the technology featured in the book.
Amazon MP3 has put another 50 albums on sale for $5 apiece this month, including:
Ben Kweller: Changing Horses
Ben Lee: The Rebirth of Venus
Black Gold: Rush
Bob Mould: Life and Times
Coldplay: Parachutes
Crocodiles: Summer of Hate
Daft Punk: Human After All
David Bowie: Diamond Dogs (30th Anniversary Edition)
Gomez: A New Tide
Grand Duchy: Petits Fours
Interpol: Our Love to Admire
Jason isbell: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
Matt & Kim: Grand
Meat Puppets: Sewn Together
Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey: Here and Now
The Verve: Forth
The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News preview this week's Rothbury music festival, which starts today.
Wired lists the best online sites for virtual jam sessions.
The Red and Black profiles music blogger (and University of Georgia graduate) Justin Gage, the man behind An Aquarium Drunkard.
Paste lists ten songs about print journalism.
Newsweek creates a meta-list of the top 100 books of all time.
Nialler9 lists 2009's best and overlooked albums (so far).
Drowned in Sound interviews http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsadTwilight Sad frontman James Graham.
NPR's Morning Edition attempts Twitter album reviews (in 140 characters or less).
Seattle Weekly lists the best Seattle albums of 2009 (so far).
The New York Times interviews Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy about the band's new album, Wilco (The Album).
The Village Voice's Sound of the City interviews Jay Reatard.
Over the course of your career, you've loved to release singles and 45's and basically release music in that form. Is it hard for you to think about putting a bunch of songs together for a full-length record?
It's not hard for me to think about it. To me, it's not one of the most interesting ways for me to release music. It's not instantaneous enough. I wrote all these songs...albums work in such a way that I wrote these songs so long ago, by the time they're out, I'm bored. I'm bored with the idea of them.
Francine Prose talks to NPR's All Things Considered about her new novel, Touch.
Pretty Much Amazing! lists the "absolutely best" songs of 2009 (so far).
NPR is streaming a mix for the 4th of July.
Kotaku lists a video game-centric summer reading list.
White Rabbits visit The Current studio for a live interview and performance.
Designer Chip Kidd lists his favorite book covers at Newsweek.
Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie news literature