Asymptotic Hiatus

Hey all of my loyal readers! (All 5 of you...) So as to ease your burden of checking for updates on my slowly dying blog, I have decided to declare an official hiatus on posting on Asymptosy. So, no need to check back for new posts, unless I specifically contact you and tell you I'm up and running again. (Don't worry about missing out on notification, thanks to the stalker-like technology that we have been graced with in modern society, I pretty much know who my regulars are.)

I'd like to say this wasn't an easy decision, but it actually was. I no longer have a computer (or even a desire to own one), and have too many other activities in my life that I enjoy more than blogging. It was fun the first couple of years, but then became more of a chore. In the meantime, thanks for caring enough to read this, and maybe in lieu of checking my blog you can call me and we can engage in some real communication! Yay!

Blogworthy

• My fantastic friend Leah has opened her very own high-end kitchen store in the Eastern Market neighborhood of D.C. I don't know anyone better equipped to start a small business, particularly in that 'hood. With her enthusiasm and desire to know everything about quality kitchen gadgets, Hill's Kitchen is sure to succeed. Read this blurb about the store in the Washington Post. Go Leah!
• While it wasn't quite the same as seeing Throwing Muses in concert, watching The Breeders on stage at First Ave. May 30 was an amazing experience. Kim and Kelley seem to have gotten over any "issues" between them (most likely because they were brought on by alcohol- and drug-related behavior, and that, thankfully, seems to be over) and had a great on-stage rapport. The band sounded amazing -- crystal clear vocals and guitars. I couldn't have asked for a better show. (And to that dude who said it was the most boring concert he's seen in a long time -- get over yourself. You just don't get it.)
• Martha Wainwright's new album is a blistering disappointment for me. Can someone help me understand it? I like a few songs, but overall it's way too commercial and lacks her usual intensity and unique voice. What happened?
• The Zombies are coming! The Zombies are coming!

Misogyny I Won't Miss

Read this simple -- but great -- article by Marie Cocco about the sexist attacks toward Clinton during the primaries and the utter lack of public outrage about this sexism.

How many times can I say I love this woman?

"Rich people shouldn't write songs for real people." -- Kristin Hersh

Basia! (No, not the opera singer...)

Best new album of the year (so far): Basia Bulat's Oh, My Darling. Gorgeous voice, fantastic songwriting, dynamic percussion (thanks to her bro), and the unique sound of her autoharp. I can't stop listening to it, especially "In the Night," "I Was a Daughter," and "Pilgriming Vine." Wow.

She'll be opening for DeVotchKa at First Ave. on May 7th and I'm going to do my darnedest to be there.

Katha Pollitt gets it right (again)

Read Katha here.

My Fantasy Baseball Team

Here's my roster. I honestly didn't mean to have a full 4/5 of my team be Red Sox players. It just happened. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

C - Jason Varitek (Bos)
1B - David Ortiz (Bos)
2B - Dustin Pedroia (Bos)
3B - Mike Lowell (Bos)
SS - Orlando Cabrera (CWS)
OF - Manny Ramirez (Bos)
OF - Jacoby Ellsbury (Bos)
OF - Michael Cuddyer (Min)
Util - JD Drew (Bos)
BN - Kazuo Matsui (Hou)
BN - Coco Crisp (Bos)

SP - Josh Beckett (Bos)
SP - Daisuke Matsuzaka (Bos)
RP - Jonathan Papelbon (Bos)
RP - Hideki Okajima (Bos)
P - Clay Buchholz (Bos)
P - Jon Lester (Bos)
P - Pat Neshek (Min)
BN - Tim Wakefield (Bos)
BN - Mike Timlin (Bos)
BN - Greg Maddux (SD)

Top 12 Albums of the Year That Ended 2 Months Ago

It's taken me so long to post my Top 12 Albums of 2007 because I was looking at it as a mountainous chore; something I had to do well and in detail. Well, I've decided that's bull and that I just want my list out there. So, here are the albums. No frills, no fuss. (Also no links and no pictures. Suck it up.)

1. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
2. Emma Pollock - Watch the Fireworks
3. Eric Clapton - Complete Clapton
4. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
5. The Guess Who - Let's Go
6. Kristin Hersh - Learn to Sing Like a Star
7. Herbie Hancock - River: the joni letters
8. Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars
9. Detroit Cobras - Tied & True
10. Macy Gray - Big
11. Jon Rauhouse - Steel Guitar Heart Attack
12. Imperial Teen - the hair the tv the baby & the band

Honorable Mentions: Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall; Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers

Albums that May Have Made the List Had I Heard Them: Radiohead - In Rainbows; Kamikaze Hearts - Oneida Road; The National - Boxer

Most Disappointing: The Go! Team - Proof of Youth

Most Overrated: The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (except for the song w/ Elizabeth Elmore)

Rant from the Stone Age

Due to recent changes in living arrangements, I am currently without a computer and TV and have been so for a couple months. When I tell some people this fact, they seem utterly amazed. "Do you have electricity?" Yes, and running water, thank you very much.

I've also returned to my childhood habit of starting off every day reading the newspaper cover-to-cover while eating cereal. (Inevitably, the cereal runs out before the newspaper.) It's absolutely blissful. "But, how can you trust the information in the newspaper? It's so slanted!" Uh, I actually don't think it's all that bad, and it's certainly not as slanted as the liberal conspiracy theory blogs you read, thank you very much.

Actually, my home life right now is damn near perfect. After Tuesday, I will have my very own cat whose name will either be Victor or Hugo -- the verdict is still out. All I need now is a record player and I will be perfectly satisfied with the state of my apartment. Technology-less and all.

First Rufus and Judy, Now Martha and Edith

So, I love Minneapolis and all, but I can't help noticing that we never get really awesome shows like Rufus doing Judy and now Martha doing Edith. At least the Rufus/Judy CD is OUT NOW! And maybe if my brother's lucky enough to get tickets, I can hear about the Martha show secondhand. Still, utterly unfair.

In other news, the Breeders have a new CD coming out on April 7, 2008! I can't imagine a better birthday present. Minneapolis just may redeem itself if the Breeders perform here as part of their album tour.

Slippershell

Kristin Hersh has a new single, "Slippershell," available for download as part of the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders (CASH) Music Project. The single is great, as is the idea for the project, at least for those folks who have a reliably speedy internet connection.

I was amused that there's a fabulous quote from none other than Orrin Hatch on CASH's homepage:

If we can find some way to [stop filesharing] without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that. If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines.

Man, Hatch is lookin' old!

Update

Red Sox won. Varitek treated. I moved. Kristin still rocks.

A Dam Fine Mess

After reading Jacques Leslie's fascinating account of three individuals who have dedicated their lives to either preventing dams from being built or ensuring that only the best ones are constructed, this article in the Christian Science Monitor caught my eye.

It points out that while all eyes are on the state of the country's bridges (and rightfully so), the state of dams in the US is even more dire. Collectively, American bridges received a 'C' grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers in a 2005 survey while dams received a 'D' grade. Also:

"Since 1999, the number of 'high-hazard' dams rated 'deficient' has more than doubled, according to data from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials in Lexington, Ky...In 1999, the US had 546 such dams rated deficient. By last year, it had 1,333."

Does this mean we can expect another Johnstown Flood sometime soon? Hopefully not. But leaps forward in improving infrastructure only seem to happen post-disaster, and this time around that disaster was a bridge collapse. All y'all living next to a dam: watch out.

Farewell, Roach

A fond R.I.P. to my second favorite jazz drummer.

Seattle Thug

Yesterday the Seattle Mariner Moose clipped Red Sox center fielder Coco Crisp as Crisp was leaving the dugout. Crisp, who wasn't hurt, said "That was the most athletic thing I did all day." The Mariners sent over an apology, which Crisp and the Sox accepted. Apparently the Moose will not face punishment. Maybe TC should give the Moose some driving lessons?

Die Hard Superlatives

I have just returned from watching the excellent fourth installment in the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard. Who cares if some of the stunts were ridiculously implausible? They always are. But Bruce was his good old snarky self and Timothy Olyphant performed deliciously as the new anti-McClane villain. (Did he lose some weight for the role? He definitely looked skinnier than his Seth Bullock days.)

Anyway, in honor of this glorious movie, and this never-to-be-topped action movie franchise, here are some Die Hard superlatives. Some of these were tough choices. Comments and quibbles welcome.

Best Villain: Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). This one really could be a three-way tie between Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Olyphant. They all had brilliant on-screen moments. But Rickman's throaty "Ho-Ho-Ho" and "When Alexander..." speech are moments of pure genius. And let's not forget his precious imitation of a sniveling American hostage when he first encounters McClane. Again, genius.

Best Buddy: Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson). Sure, you have to love Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), but there was something dynamite about the Willis/Jackson pairing. Zeus ("As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus!") was by far the most equal and entertaining partner in all of McClane's adventures.

Best Yippee Ki Yay Moment: Live Free or Die Hard. Of course the original is a classic. But the build-up in 4.0 to "the moment" was fantastic. I could have sworn he was going to say it when Mai died, and when he didn't, the anticipation was heightened even further. Sheesh, then the circumstances during which he finally says it are just spectacular. (I won't give it away.)

Best Henchman: Karl (Alexander Godunov). That man just won't die!

Best Use of a Song: "Battle Hymn of the Republic" aka "When Johnny Comes Home," Die Hard With a Vengeance. The extended use of that song in a crucial sequence of events gives me goosebumps every time. Though Run-D.M.C.'s "Christmas in Hollis" is absolutely a close second, with CCR's "Fortunate Son" a somewhat distant third.

Best Agent Johnson: Special Agent Johnson (Robert Davi). Come on, he was in the Goonies!

Best Use of Dennis Franz: Die Hard 2. OK, so I'm throwing Die Hard 2 a bone here. I do really like the sequel, but it doesn't stand out in very many categories. It's the worst of the four movies, and I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to convince me. But Dennis Franz is always good at portraying the curmudgeonly cop, and does so perfectly here.

Anyone have any others?

Peter Parker Meet Billy Goat Gruff

At tonight's educational and hilarious Physics of Superheroes lecture by U of M professor James Kakalios, I learned something more shocking than Superman's weight on Krypton (3300 pounds) or why Spiderman accidentally snapped his girlfriend Gwen Stacy's neck while attempting to stop her fall from the George Washington Bridge (he stopped her fall too quickly). I learned that scientists are taking spider genes and putting them into goat eggs to enable them to produce spider silk. A goat given this gene will secrete spider silk into its milk, which then can be isolated and used to make any number of existing products hundreds of times stronger, such as tennis rackets, fishing lines, and even body armor.

So, why don't they just use spider silk instead of producing goats that are 1/70,000th spider? Because spiders are too aggressive to be easily and economically farmed. While "spidergoats" can live cheaply and peacefully amongst each other, each farmed spider would need its own little abode to avoid a lot of intraspecies murders. Basically, a spider would take up more room than a goat. I told you spiders were evil.

Notable Numeric Anniversary

All the talk on this here 7/7/07 seems to be about Live Earth or the ridiculous couples who think getting married on such a day will increase their chances of staying together (newsflash: it won't). But today's date has a much cooler significance: July 7, 2007 marks the 77th anniversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death (by heart attack) at the age of seventy...one.

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence. These little problems help me to do so." --Sherlock Holmes, The Red-Headed League

Reunion

(Thanks to Leah for a couple of these photos.)

Qu'est-ce qu'un cercle? Ce n'est point carré.*

Lately I've been engrossed by Mount Holyoke math professor Donal O'Shea's fascinating mathematical history, The Poincaré Conjecture. While the topological discussions are a little over my head (I never did learn much about topology), the writing is accessible and the story fascinating.

For those who aren't familiar with Henri Poincaré and his famous conjecture, here is one way to state it: That every simply connected, compact three-dimensional manifold without boundary is homeomorphic to the three-dimensional sphere. The proof of this conjecture would have a lot to say about the shape of the universe, thus it has fascinated mathematicians and physicists for a century. The Clay Institute even declared it to be one of their seven Millennium Prize Problems, meaning one million dollars is on the line for whoever could offer a proof.

Though many tried and failed, it seems fairly certain that a relatively unknown Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, has finally proved the conjecture. Shy and reclusive, Perelman is the perfect hero for this 100-year story of alternately smugly or endearingly obsessed mathematicians. There is a two year period of review before the Clay Institute makes its prize offering official, but those in the know seem confident in Perelman's work. It's a shame Perelman seems to have quit math due to concerns about mathematical ethics and the high level of unwanted publicity he and his discovery received. Still, one Millennium Problem down, six to go.

*A play on words oft-repeated by adolescent French math nerds: What is a circle? It's not a square.