Changes to my list

I've been listening to the live album HAARP by Muse recently, and I totally love it so it is getting added to my Top 40 Albums, so something is going to have to come off of the list. I think it'll be "When I woke" by Rusted Root. I really enjoyed that album a lot in the mid 90's but it doesn't really speak to me anymore.

Top 40 albums, take two

I've thought it over and realize that I should just have some guidelines:

1. 1 album per band (hard to do w/r to my favorite bands but I'll give it a go)
2. No "Greatest Hits" albums
3. Live albums are ok if they are really good and distinct as live albums (you'll see my example below)
4. Soundtracks are ok (but I don't think I can have more than 1 on my list, absent special circumstances)

So, I want to further define what the list means. It is the 40 albums most important to me. Not necessarily the 40 most "important" albums I own ( as in important in a global sense), but the albums that have been most important to me historically. This means that an album may be less important to me now, but if it was at some point really important to me or I really really loved it, it at least merits consideration. Also, when choosing the one album from a certain band to include, I will include my favorite one, not necessarily the one I think might generally be considered the "best". Ok, here goes:

Nevermind - Nirvana
OK Computer - Radiohead
The Process of Belief - Bad Religion
Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
Paul's Boutique - The Beastie Boys
Abbey Road - The Beatles
Odelay - Beck
London Calling - The Clash
Take Five - Dave Brubeck
Under the Table and Dreaming - Dave Matthews Band
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips
Welcome Interstate Managers - Fountains of Wayne
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
American Idiot - Green Day
Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses
Lost and Gone Forever - Guster
Turn on the Bright Lights - Interpol
Utonian Automatic - Isotope 217
Nothing's Shocking - Jane's Addiction
Blue Train - John Coltrane
Houses of The Holy - Led Zeppelin
What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye
Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
Double Nickels on the Dime - The Minutemen
Signals, Calls & Marches - Mission of Burma
Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement
Vs. - Pearl Jam
Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
Surfer Rosa - The Pixies
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back - Public Enemy
Pulp Fiction - Soundtrack
Document - REM
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
When I Woke - Rusted Root
Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins
Superunknown - Soundgarden
Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads
Joshua Tree - U2
White Blood Cells - The White Stripes
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

So, now I've gotten it to 40. My next task will be to think about whether I can put it into some order, or maybe even say something about each album.

my non-sleeping daughter, Eliot Spitzer, Top 40 albums

I think the Banana might finally be asleep. She should be, it's been almost 1.5 hours since I last went into her room, and more than 2 hours since I first attempted to put her down for bed. She just started sleeping in a "big girl" bed a few nights ago, and is having adjustment trouble. As for me, I have had a pretty miserable time this evening. I told her after the second time I came back that that was it and I wasn't coming back in, and I meant it. Still, listening to her call to us makes my head want to explode. Am I being heartless? I don't think so - I just think that she needs to learn how to fall asleep on her own. She finally seems to have stopped crying - hopefully not emptionally scarring her too much. She fell asleep eventually, but I still feel a little like I'm made of glass at the moment.

On the Eliot Spitzer thing, not too much to say other than to observe that he is another loathsome hypocritical political sleaze. I'm not sure which part I think is the worst - the hypocrisy (crimefighter hoisted on his own petard, much to the schaudenfreude of corporate types everywhere), the stupidity (thinking that as the f$%^ing GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK he would be able to get away with visiting prostitutes on a regular basis and funneling $ all over the place), or (not to sound too old-fashioned) the criminality and immorality of the whole thing. I think I liked him a few years back, now not so much.

I was talking with a work friend/colleague recently about Top 40 albums lists. Not sure why 40, but it was an interesting discussion because it made me realize I have over the past few years been thinking about favorite songs, not favorite albums. I'm going to try to rectify that though, by coming up with a list of my own Top 40. Actually putting them in order seems like it might be a huge challenge, so we'll see how that goes. In the interim, here goes (in no particular order, except slightly alphabetical):

Nevermind - Nirvana
OK Computer - Radiohead
Kid A - Radiohead
The Process of Belief - Bad Religion
Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
Paul's Boutique - The Beastie Boys
Check Your Head - The Beastie Boys
Abbey Road - The Beatles
Sgt. Peppers - The Beatles
Odelay - Beck
London Calling - The Clash
Take Five - Dave Brubeck
Under the Table and Dreaming - Dave Matthews Band
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips
Welcome Interstate Managers - Fountains of Wayne
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
American Idiot - Green Day
Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses
Lost and Gone Forever - Guster
Turn on the Bright Lights - Interpol
Utonian Automatic - Isotope 217
Nothing's Shocking - Jane's Addiction
Blue Train - John Coltrane
My Favrite Things - John Coltrane
The College Dropout - Kanye West
Houses of The Holy - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin I - Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin III - Led Zeppelin
The Sidewinder - Lee Morgan
Frances the Mute - The Mars Volta
What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye
Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
On the Corner - Miles Davis
Double Nickels on the Dime - The Minutemen
Signals, Calls & Marches - Mission of Burma
Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement
Vs. - Pearl Jam
Ten - Pearl Jam
Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
Surfer Rosa - The Pixies
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back - Public Enemy
Pulp Fiction Soundtrack
Document - REM
Automatic for the People - REM
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers
When I Woke - Rusted Root
Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins
Superunknown - Soundgarden
Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads
Joshua Tree - U2
White Blood Cells - The White Stripes
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
Being There - Wilco
Blues & Roots - Charles Mingus

OK, that's actually 57 albums. I'll narrow it down at a later date.

New posting again and again

I keep saying that I'll be better about posting. This time I will (maybe). Banana is going to be a big sister soon, and I want to keep a better record of my life as a dad. We'll see....

posting again

Every once in a while I see something or do something that makes me wish I was writing on my blog more frequently. I can't even remember now what those thing were. For example, I was talking with people about my thoughts on the double album. I think that in most cases, this is a case of a band's ego getting the better of their judgment. Case in point, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium. It has a number of good songs, but I think it's bloated at 28 songs - they could have exercised a little discipline and produced one excellent album. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan, we're going to see them in October at the Garden. Still - the album has a bunch of filler.

I did get two new CDs today, Till the Sun Turns Black by Ray Lamontagne and Broken Social Scene's eponymous album. I'll have to post back once I give them a listen.

I'm still getting the hang of this whole "linking" thing w/r to blogging. I'm also not sure what I am going to consider appropriate souce material for blogging. I sis previously post some family stuff, but I might consider that off limits going forward. We'll see.

Life with baby - 6 months

Banana is six months old. Lovely Wife ("LW") and I were reminiscing a little bit about what she was like as a newborn. I wish I had started blogging sooner bcause for the life of me,. I don't really remember. I know she was smaller, less entertaining and not as cute. I know that sleep was not as continuous, and that she was not nearly as interactive. I know feeding her took much longer and that the first few weeks were kind of a blur. I know that before we taught her to "cry it out", she used to sleep in the room with us, and she would sometimes stay up really late.

Suffice it to say, if you have a newborn, take notes while they're really young, otherwise the whole thing will just be a blur later on. By the way, I do know what she's like right now. She is funny and sweet and good-natured and wonderful. She didn't even make that much of a fuss when she got her first vaccine shots today. Erica called her baby over easy. She is a really wonderfully low-key baby. We are extremely fortunate.

Cute picture of Banana

This is just a cute picture of Banana I wanted to share. I suspect I'll want to do a bunch of writing about her because she's so amazing. If you met her, you'd think so too. She's not like one of those docile, prozac babies. Also not one of those crazy colicky babies. No, this kid is alert, smiley, good natured and really fun. She's a little undersized, but we're about to start giving her formula too and hopefully that should help.

"Intelligent" Design

Lots of people have weighed in on the intelligent design issue, but I feel like I want to as well. I would recommend to anyone looking into the issue that they go to www.slate.com and read articles by Dahlia Lithwick and William Saletan on the topic. They say it more eloquently than I can. Still, here it is.

I am critical of "intelligent" design theory because it is not science, but it attempts to replace science in the secular school classroom. I believe in G-d, I believe G-d created the universe and I believe that there are some things that natural science cannot explain. I also believe that the more science discovers, the more that the complexity of the world might be evidence of the creator.

However, that's not what intelligent design is or says. It says, that there are things that are so complex that science cannot explain them, and then says that G-d fills in the gaps. Now, while this may be comforting to people, it is NOT science. In fact, it is the opposite of science. Science looks at things that we don't understand and tries to figure them out. Intelligent design, or
Creationism, looks at things we don't understand and says "oh well, that's G-d".

Can you imagine if scientists 100 years ago had adopted that attitude? If Einstein, instead of trying to wrestle with the complexities of the physical universe and mathematics, instead just forgot about pursuing his theories? How many scientific innovations might not exist today? No cures for diseases, since those people would look at terrible things going on that they didn't understand and say "oh well, that's G-d, we can't do anything about it". There would be no technology, no modern medicine.

There is a proper place for people to wrestle with questions of faith and address the biblical creation story - that is with their families and at religious school. That's what it's there for.Also, you said that science is just as much based on faith as religion is. That's not really true. While evolution is just a "theory", so is gravity. It is however, a scientific theory which means that there actually has been actual scientific testing and empirical review. Evolution, along with other peer-reviewed scientific theories, can be tested. You look at various genetic mutations over time, along with historical and fossil records. How, exactly do you test the theory of intelligent design? You can't, because it's not even a real theory. How can you test a religious belief? You can't, there's no way. That is why they call them "faiths", because they rely on a belief in things unseen and unknowable. I'm not anti-religion, after all I am a practicing and believing Jew, and I was a religion minor in college. I love the study of religion, I love the intricacy and beauty of people's faiths, but it is not the same as science. Trying to bring the two together is a recipe for trouble.

Scientists don't want to take away your right to believe in the Bible, and neither do I. Many scientists are people of faith, and they know that there are things they don't understand. In fact, a researcher I once heard about said that the more he learned about the structure of cells the more he believed in a divine creator. This is a little different than intelligent design though, because all that does is critique the theory of evolution and act as a Trojan horse for creationism in the schools. It has no research, no data to back it up. All it has is faith, which means that the proper place for discussion of intelligent design is in the cultural and political arena, not in the science classroom. When they can actually produce scientific data that supports their non-theory, then I say that they can be in the science classroom.

Also, American students are really stupid. They lag far behind other countries (like for example, South Korea, where incredible scientific advances are being made in biology). The last thing that dumb American kids need is to have their minds clouded even further by something that isn't science. How can we expect to continue to compete on the global stage if this is the stuff we're teaching our kids?

Besides, I don't believe that the creation story is not meant to be taken literally. It is difficult to believe that the world was created 5766 years ago. In general terms, the recounting of the creation story does parallel the historical development of the universe, and because it does that, it is all the more impressive. First there was a black void, and then there was light, and then there were the seas and then there was land, and then there were little animals, and then there were bigger animals, and then there was man. That, as far as I know, is a pretty accurate description of the creation of the universe. I personally take the usage of the word "day" to mean "age" or "period of time".

The only issue is that with carbon dating, and with the red shifting of stars, we know that our planet and the universe are billions of years old. Think about when we see something like another galaxy millions of light years away. To say that the world is only as old as the bible says, you have to be willing to throw out the notion of the speed of light, and the extension of that being that we are seeing where objects were millions of years ago. That's a whole lot of provable science you have to be willing to throw out the window.

Also, another problem I have with the methods of intelligent design is that they don't have any actual ideas of their own, but all they do is critique other people's theories. In a way, they are a lot like Holocaust deniers. The main technique Holocaust deniers use is to point to some kind of disagreement between scholars. For example, someone might say that 200,000 people died at a certain camp, others might say it was 300,000. A Holocaust denier will point to that controversy and say "see, they don't agree, therefore no one died at that camp". In the same way, so-called intelligent design scholars will point to some minor debate at the margins of scientific scholarship and say "see, they don’t agree, therefore the whole thing falls apart". I reject the idea that this is legitimate scholarship. Besides, 95% of scientists agree on 95% of the stuff, so any debates are at the margins.

To conclude, I think that both faith and science have their place in the world. They are different ways of understanding the universe. Sometimes, though, it is best of they are left to their separate spheres. After all, you wouldn't want math and science being taught at Hebrew school, would you? That would make kids even less likely to want to go to Hebrew school. I had plenty of excuses when I didn't want to go.

Banana and me this morning - she's dressed like a little hippie.

I already have a blog - this seems cooler

I already have a blog but this one seems to have more features so I think I'll "migrate" over here. More to come.