on denim

Now, I'm by no means an expert on fashion. I have friends that help pick out my clothes when they actually matter. But there are some things about clothes and style that I do know. Like the fact that they must be talking about a different Europe from the one I lived in...

"In Europe, denim is for girls," said Suzanne Gallacher, associate brand manager for Levi's in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Europe, she noted, roughly two-thirds of jeans products are bought by women. Industry experts reacted warily, but said that in the face of vigorous competition, Levi Strauss had no choice but to innovate.

Denim's for girls? Has she ever been to, say, Italy? There's probably more guys in tight jeans than there are girls in tight jeans, and that's saying something.

Besides, that 2/3 of denim products are bought by women doesn't necessarily mean much. What proportion of clothes in general are bought by women?

(from an article in the NYT on Levi's creating male and female lines)

bah

Well, everybody's known that Rush Limbaugh's a rather large asshole. But this?

The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.

Exactly what media is this? The one that Limbaugh isn't a part of? Also, black quarterbacks have been around for quite a while... this isn't exactly a new "phenomenon" worthy of comment.

Has McNabb had some off days in recent seasons? Yeah. And he sucked the first two games of this season. But you know what? When he sucked, people said he sucked. Especially in Philadelphia.

eight hours of congestion a day

Washington, D.C. has, apparently, the third worst traffic in the nation.

I don't know D.C. well, but based on what I've seen on the Beltway, I'm not at all surprised. I'm normally not a skittish driver, but there's something about that road that gets my palms all sweat.

So here's my question. D.C. has a rather good subway system. Does it run at capacity? If not, why don't more people use it?

you gotta have a team

I could, in theory, espouse the position that I enjoy watching sports for something intrinsic about each game... baseball's minute strategic decisions that casual fans don't even notice, the sheer physical effort and pain involved with football, etc. But I'm only ever really into a game if I have someone to cheer for. Even if it's in the negative (i.e. the Yankees and Braves for baseball).

The baseball playoffs are upon us. The Phillies are done 'til the spring (thanks to a six game losing streak that included two losses to the Reds). But I want to watch baseball. So I need teams. As of right now, my teams are:

AL: Twins. Reasons: 1) Minnesota has a special place in my heart at the moment. 2) The whole small market thing. 3) They're playing the Yankees. And, hey, look! The Twins won game 1.

NL: Giants. Okay, they're the favorites, but that's okay. Reason: 1) Barry Bonds. 'Nuff said.

l'shana tova

dennis kucinich is such a dork

An audio postcard from Kucinich on International Peace Day.

It's rather sad that the most progressive presidential candidate has zero charisma. I really wonder how well he'd be doing if he had, you know, any charm. The good ideas are there... but the delivery? Ouch.

tsop

Take those letters for whatever you want.

The "real" meaning is The Sound of Philadelphia, i.e. the soul music coming out of Philadelphia in the '70s. The producers most associated with it are Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell. You can read about philly soul over on All Music, which has got to be one of my favorite and most visited websites.

Today, though, TSOP was more fittingly the streets of Philadelphia. So much walking today. Cities really are best seen on foot, you know (bikes are great, too, but Philly isn't super-bike friendly). I never cease to be astounded at how the character of a street can change in just a matter of blocks. Market St. for example, goes from financial firms, banks, and the like, to porno theaters in less than five blocks.

Then again, maybe the first meaning of TSOP was just as appropriate, considering I was listening to Larry Gold's Presents Don Cello, a sort of rundown of key soul artists from Philadelphia, past and present, produced by Gold.

It occurs to me this post has been a bit meandering. But that's how I tend to think of cities... organic and to be explored on a whim. And though I've lived within twenty miles of Philadelphia for well over half my life, I don't know it nearly well enough...

on song writing and covers

I'm writing a song. I'm more interested in the process than any final product. Basically, I want to see if I can actually do it (I know I have the necessary skills... it's just a matter of actually doing it).

What's important to realize with song writing (and I've just realized this in the past few months) is that there's miles between the what the songwriter writes and what the musicians end up playing. Not even in the sense that there's bound to be a gap between the imagination of the songwriter and the actual production of the music. Rather, the distance comes from the fact that a song (at least in the way I'm conceiving of it at the moment) is really just a skeleton. Chords, a melody, and lyrics. That's it (well, probably a suggested tempo, too). Instrumentation and "style" come later, after the song's already written.

A case in point. Wilson Pickett did a cover of the Archies' "Sugar Sugar." Now, the Archies are pretty much the epitome of bubblegum. Pickett's the standard bearer for raw, Southern soul. So the song turns out completely different; I didn't even recognize it at first. But it's still the same song.

In a way, this makes songwriting, as I conceive of it, much simpler. Chords, a melody, and lyrics. You don't need to worry about which instruments will be playing which notes, how the singer will phrase the verses, etc. On the other hand, the musicians end up shaping the sound just as much, if not more, than the songwriter. Once that song's done, it's out of the songwriter's hands. And that's vaguely disconcerting to me.

self-promotion

My radio show is Tuesday from 2-3 P.M. That's Eastern time for those of you who aren't nearby. I play soul of all sorts, concentrating on the biggies of the '60s. Think Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye.

You can listen to it at WSRN.

Do tune in.

a small contribution

As we all know, the web's not such a good place to do research for any serious project. You rarely know exactly who you're reading, where their work fits into the historiography, whether they're absolutely full of crap. It'd be great if more scholars put more of their work online (as some do, and it looks to be a growing trend. Brian Weatherson of Crooked Timber wrote about the relevant issues just yesterday in fact), but at the moment, the web's a real crapshoot.

So I may as well add to the confusion. Here's a recent paper that discusses whether Venice during the Renaissance should be considered a republic. It's nothing brilliant and only relies on a tiny segment of the scholarship on Venice, but, as far as I can tell, it fills a whole on the web right now. Comments are, of course, welcome.

More papers to follow throughout the semester...

while i'm talking about the democratic candidates...

Bob Harris's comparison of Kucinich and Dean on various issues. It shows rather convincingly that Dean is nowhere near as progressive as the mainstream media tends to portray him.

I enjoyed Kucinich last night... he's got no shot of winning (for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that he looks as if he's 12 years old), but his heart's in the right place and he knows how to excite the crowd.

a simple request

After watching the Democratic debate last night, I've decided that politicians annoy the hell out of me.

Debates are meant to probe the candidate's opinions, demonstrate that they can think on their feet. When candidates ignore the question and use each of their turns to stump on an un- or tangentially related issue, the entire premise of the debate is undermined. There's a time and a place for prepared speeches. Debates aren't it. Answer the question. If there's a flaw in the question, point it out. If you have extra time after you've answered the question to address a related topic, go for it. But answer the question.

The moderators could be faulted as well, but there's no guarantee that increased probing would elicit a real response.

This is why I could never be a politician... if I was ever in a debate with someone who ignored a question, I'd probably start shouting at them. Or throwing things, which is what it almost came to last night.

something to ponder

While talking to a friend earlier today I realized that I could fulfill all my graduation requirements this semester. Depending on exactly what major/minor combination I (hypothetically) choose, the semester could actually turn out to be a whole lot easier than originally anticipated. Knowing me, though, if I did end up doing this, I'd do it the hard way, probably ending up with six credit for the semester.

At first it was just an amusing thought, but now I'm slightly intrigued...

boom!

Can I just say how happy thunderstorms make me?

Even better, this might mean that the humidity around here is finally going to break...

this is when you need a new closer

The Phillies lost to the Red Sox today. That fact alone isn't such a bad sign... the Sox are a solid team with one of the best offenses in baseball. Sometimes you're just going to get out-slugged.

The problem is in how the Phillies lost today. Going into the ninth inning, they had a 9-7 lead. José Mesa, the Phillies closer, walked the first batter of the inning. Not such a hot start. He got the next batter to line out, but then proceeded to allow two hits and throw a wild pitch. Coupled with an intentional walk in there, Mesa allowed a run to score and left the bases loaded for Turk Wendell coming in to relieve him.

I like giving players the benefit of the doubt. But Mesa just hasn't had consistently good stuff this year. Hell, his ERA is 6.13. Mesa rarely works more than an inning per appearance, so it's probably better to think of that as being 0.68 runs/inning pitched. To put that into perspective, the two top closers in the National League, Eric Gagne and John Smoltz, have figures of 0.16 and 0.10 respectively.

Now not every team is going to have a Gagne or a Smoltz. But when your closer is averaging a run every other appearance, you're going to lose some games you should have won. That's not the way to win a wild card race...

a new link

Before I forget...

I added a link to ItalPolBlog by James Walston. I studied with James while in Rome. He used to write for the now-defunct Italy Daily and makes contributions to various English papers. The Italian political scene's rather messy... James has a keen understanding of it and succeeds in making it comprehensible to those who can't keep track of Berlusconi's latest trial or all those parties.

He gets bonus points since his wife Nora is a linguist.