Caveat caveat, yadda yadda. So far:

1. "A Tom Moulton Mix" (Soul Jazz)
2. Golden Afrique Vol. 2 (Network Medien)
3. Ghostface Killah, Fishscale (Def Jam)
4. Girl Talk, Night Ripper (Illegal Art)
5. Superlongevity Four (Perlon)
6. Coachwhips, Double Death (Narnack)
7. Lewis Black, The Carnegie Hall Performance (Comedy Central)
8. Kaito, Hundred Million Light Years (Kompakt)
9. Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped (Geffen)
10. Herbert, Scale (K7)

20 points 1-2, 10 points 3-6, 5 points 7-10. Caveat caveat, yadda yadda--bleh-est first half in memory. Hope yours is better.

Why yes, I do love Lindsey Thomas, thanks for asking. She's not only patient about deadlines (cough, cough), she finally did what seemed to be impossible by writing a really good piece about "the Pitchfork effect" that neither read as "I am a bemused New Yorker who just cannot believe that a website in--where's this?--Chicago has any traction" nor "I'm going to lose my job because of these guys and therefore I hate them" nor "They won't publish me and therefore I hate them" nor some combination of the above.

Celebrating eMusic's recent acquisition of the Funkadelic Westbound catalogue (check it out) by listening to the albums in order. In the middle of "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" from Maggot Brain, a verse stuck out: "You want peace, I want peace, they want peace, and the kids need peace." Not unusual, it was 1971 and the band was fried to fuck on acid, but it's the last line that struck me. A band like the Who would have meant "the kids" to mean them, too. George Clinton was too old and experienced to kid himself that "the kids" included him. So there's a distance, a perspective that, while skewed by acid, is separate from that of, say, Jefferson Airplane's revolution-now brouhaha. Among other things, they're simply old enough to know better.

I've been badgering friends to learn bridge since I was a teenager--yes, contract bridge, or "the old-lady game" as it's been endlessly referred to in some way or other since I started getting interested in it. One of the great things about living in New York the first time was meeting a bunch of people around my age who were deeply interested in the game, and though my man Neal and I were both players, we never really got anything going in Seattle. But a month ago, I played a full 18-hand game with the friends I'd played with in NYC the first time around, and it was exhilirating; I was hooked again, and decided to get serious. So I've been dealing hands to myself and doing some reading; I'm not any better yet, but I'm getting there. Part of that process is starting Seven Notrump, a new blog with my man Paul Eater (the linchpin of the aforementioned NYC young-players' group) in which I chronicle my ongoing education in the game, and where Paul will hopefully be gentle in telling me I have no idea what I'm doing.

The laptop went black two nights ago, and has been sent back to Apple for repairs. (201 days left on my warranty, thank god.) This means that probably all of my memory will be erased so they can fix the fucker; it's pretty bad. Nothing on the laptop was so urgent and key as to be not worth losing, which I probably will; chances are they'll be wiping the hard drive in order to get the fucker to work again. Sigh and grrr, but really, there's nothing like purging to resharpen one's focus. Anyway, I'll probably be reconfiguring those mixes for the approximately four people who actually care (including myself), so, uh, stay tuned.