Matthew

I think in the current market, there's no way a closer can get 15 million whose on the wrong side of thirty. Chapman is lucky with that contract, he should stay put.

Brown Acid: The First Trip

Due to our blackout (Saturday to today!) I had plenty of time to finish this book on my iPad and it was a great read. I came away with a new appreciation of Thoreau and especially of his life, much more involved in Concord and people than other biographies led me to believe. But a strangely isolated man also, one who, I think, looked at the world from a very different angle than others, but did have deep friendships. I had forgotten how involved he and the Thoreau family were in the Underground Railroad, and a very interesting section on Thoreau and John Brown, and his reaction to Harper's Ferry -- Walls claims his voice in support of Brown was the first in the country. Saddened when I finished the last page, an unique and moving life all together. Which has inspired to read Thoreau's Journal. It's massive, will take at least a year to read, but probably worth it.

Sad news indeed. RIP

Warm and breezy, which means PG&E has shut our power off again!

Far Niete 2013 Oakville Cabernet. Think I like Far Niete Cabernets the best. This is for an early birthday celebration tonight.

Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls. A very good, and well written biography of Thoreau, enjoying this one immensely! Highly recommended if you're interested in Thoreau.

And yet, Dave Roberts is supposed to be Mr. Analytics, and he manages like complete crap...

I wear a Fitbit, but Before that, never a watch.

Joe Maddon hired for the Angels. Nice get for the Angels, Maddon will add some color and life to the team, though it's been so long since they've had either, they might not know what they look like.

I happened to stumble upon a nine volume 1923 edition of The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it's become my favorite used book item that I own. It's an old, well used collection that looks beautiful in its agedness. I looked up the name of the previous owner (the name is in another volume I left at my mother's home, so I don't have it right now) and it turns out he was a minister, who lost his faith, but remained socially active in charity work in New York. I often think of him and his life, when I pick up a volume from this collection. That is one of the wonderful things about buying used books, I feel like I'm in the line of a reading history of people that stretches back almost a century. I found a picture of the edition on the 'net.

Many thanks for posting this, it led me to finding new and great music!

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Read this during the day, before the PG&E rendered darkness fell, Thanks PG&E! (three days of darkness where I live). I don't know why, but I have a deep love for this book. I've read it many times and there is a certain feel to this book that means a lot to me. It seem as if finally American spirituality broke free from Jonathan Edwards' baleful influence, and here, with this book, a new way of looking at the world entered the American scene. Just the first paragraph itself is bursting with creativity: Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us, by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to‑day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

In his historic 1941 season, Joe DiMaggio struck out just 13 times, Ted Williams has only 27 in 1941 while hitting .406. Think of it, two of the greatest seasons for a hitter, and Williams & DiMaggio struck out only 40 times combined... unreal. Baseball stats are great.

I know what you mean (at least I think I do), the look you describe makes everything look weird, I feel the people are walking in isolation, if that makes any sense. I get a strange vibe that makes for a strange viewing experience.

When Prophecy Still Had A Voice: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Robert Lax. Merton and Lax (an influential poet) had an almost life long friendship, and the book is off to a rollicking start, with the letters starting in early 1938. Merton and Lax, at this point, are callow young men (Merton even dropping F bombs and bragging about his sex life) but the intelligence is plain to see in both of them. They must have been interesting people to know -- I have come to the conclusion that Merton missed his true calling of being a writer for The New Yorker.

Paul Weller's finest hour, though some of The Style Council is fantastic, but there's a lot of dross with that gold.

Listened to this while driving around the Bay Area this morning, very good. Thanks for the recommendation!

Bochy, classy to the end with his comments in the after game ceremony, I'm really going to miss this guy! The Giants played probably their worst game of the year, losing 9-0. I still can't believe the Madison Bumgarner backed out of pitching the last game for Bochy, this from a guy who gets pissed off at the least show of emotion from an opposing batter, saying how "Old School" he is, and yet can't take the mound to give Bochy a decent change of going out with a winning game. Weak.

Some interesting videos on YouTube also. There's an interesting rhythm to this one, it's one that I detect in a lot of Ayler's music, sound of intensity, calm, intense, single voice, chorus of instruments.

"We're playing data, we're not playing sound". Interesting quote from Brandford Marsalis. If you don't get the Pentecostal thing, you don't get Albert Ayler either!

Bruce Bochy's last game as manager of the Giants today; the big question in the Bay Area today is if Tim Lincecum will show up for the pre-game festivities. Truly the close of a wonderful Giants era, three World Series wins in five year, that is a great achievement. Speculation up here is Joe Maddon as the next in line when he gets canned by the Cubs after the season ends.

I really like his Walt Whitman's America, and I want to read soon his book on John Brown, as that is a figure I've always been fascinated with, I have even toyed with the idea of reading Russell Banks novel Cloudsplitter, despite divergent reviews of the book I've read.