The Siege

Not at all a good movie, by any means. The dialogue is miserable; Denzel is OK, but kind of coasting, Annette Bening is shrill and one-dimensional (she really can do better... cf., The Kids Are All Right), Bruce Willis is simply horrendous (and I say this as a fan), Tony Shalhoub isn't half-bad, but what's with that accent Mr. Monk?

Still, the film is worth seeing given everything that happened in the years after its release (1998). The plot, which one would have called contrived and offensive at the time, features terrorist attacks on New York City carried out by Islamic extremists, racist profiling and overreaction by the government, blowback from CIA shenanigans in the Middle East... it's all remarkably prescient. Occasional glimpses of the twin towers between the explosions add to the deep sense of unease that comes with hindsight.

Ultimately the movie feels a bit dated because the government's bad cop is a rogue military man in the Ollie North mold, rather than, say, a more up-to-date villain such as an ignorant and ideological president or a Machiavellian vice president.

Still, when all is said and done, the movie made me just a little proud of how my compatriots handled themselves after 9-11. In The Siege, federal overreaction takes the form of Army tanks in the streets and the rounding up and incarceration of all the young Muslim males in NYC. Yeah, the unnecessary war, the torture, the domestic spying that actually occurred were (are?) evil, really evil, but face it, domestically we could have done a lot worse... and may yet do so...

Tana French

OK, listen up, you: Summer is almost over, put down that Lee Child or Stieg Larsson; don't you think you are ready for a grown-up thriller? Tana French's rich psychological crime novels, set in the Irish present and recent past, are simply the best. You may as well start with the first of the three, In the Woods, and then you should need no prompting from me to read The Likeness and Faithful Place, her latest. Of these, I would have to say the first two are nearly perfect. Faithful Place, which came out this summer, suffers from a bit too much dysfunctional Irish family melodrama, but to say it is a little weaker than the first two is to say A- instead of A+.

Heretical thoughts

Driving up to Sonora Pass (see below) I listened to the two CDs of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew for the first time in a while, and I had two reactions:
1. The sound is still really, really cool.
2. They are basically noodling for 20 minutes at a time, with no apparent musical purpose aside from sounding really, really cool. Maybe I am missing something, but I much prefer the focused rocking intensity of A Tribute to Jack Johnson. Then again, maybe I'm just too old to pay attention.

Mountain blogging

Having never explored the Sonora Pass area (just north of Yosemite), I decided to toss the tent in the Prius and head up for a couple of nights in the lovely (despite the name) Pigeon Flats campground, 20 minutes west of the summit on Hwy. 108.

The area has a few things going for it:
1. Spectacular scenery.
2. Less than four hours from the Bay Area.
3. Once you escape the fishermen, RVs, and dogs in the rustic "resorts" along the Stanislaus, you only have to share the place with the occasional backpacker making her or his way over some portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. (For the record, I have nothing against fishermen, RVs, or dogs, in their proper place.)


My main excursion was a day hike south from the Pass on the PCT. The air is a little thin for a sea-level geezer like me, but after your lungs adjust it is only the view that leaves you gasping. E.g., chilly Latopie Lake (photo).

I would say the wildflowers here are not quite up to the standard at Carson Pass to the north, but then again what is? Up on the bleak moonscapes near Sonora Pass you do encounter plenty of sturdy alpine wildflowers, such as the brilliant alpine penstemon.

One more picture, and two puzzles:

1. I understand why, from an evolutionary standpoint, the alpine plants use bright colors to advertise heavily with the pollinators during the short growing season. But what is the adaptive advantage to a lichen of being dayglow yellow?

2. How can the Prius still average 46 MPG in the Sierras, when it has to rely on the gas engine to make it up the climbs?

Viva Argentina!

Nice to know civilization exists somewhere in our hemisphere.

Now if only they could learn to play soccer...

Say it ain't so, Bob

For a 50-something, I like to think I have pretty up-to-date and broad-minded (I hesitate to add good, but why not-- yes, good) taste in popular music, and for that I have Robert Christgau to thank more than anyone else. Christgau's Consumer Guide to popular music has been a mainstay, always fun to read and insightful, and even more important highly reliable. I don't hesitate to buy an album when Christgau grades it A. Even when I don't like it, I understand why he did, and most of the time I do too. Christgau introduced me to rap and African pop, and my life is much richer for both. I mean that sincerely. Now he is retiring from the Consumer Guide, and it would be selfish to expect him to keep it up forever. Still, I don't have a ready replacement, and it will be a little scary navigating the popular music scene without my trusted guide.

Thanks, Bob.

OK, Meg, you can have it

Dear Meg,

Bombarded nightly by your TV commercials, which range from cloying and disingenuous to grating and dishonest, I think it's time to make a deal. By November, you probably will have spent something like $200 million of your own money trying to buy the governorship of California. This has got to be one of the most thankless and fruitless jobs in the country (just ask Arnold), but you really seem to want it, and frankly the state government is so dysfunctional that it probably won't make any difference whether it's you or Jerry.

So Meg, here's the deal. We ask Jerry, very nicely, to concede the election to you right away. You, in turn, hand over the $200 mil, plus an estimate of what Jerry is going to spend, say another $50 mil, to the state coffers. Sure, some of it is money you have already spent in the primary whipping Poizner's ass, but frankly you are still behind in some polls and I think you should be happy to kick in some extra for the certainty of victory.

Of course your quarter billion won't make much of a dent in the projected $20 billion budget shortfall, but it would be twice the amount needed to fully fund the Healthy Families program that Arnie has threatened to axe. Just think, you get to play governor AND help California's low-income moms and children stay healthy!

So what do you say, Meg?

Regards,
Bill

Go Left, Young Person

Aidan and I checked out the Go Left Fest 2 at Yoshi's SF last night. The three acts were well-chosen to represent the range of what is happening in improvised music that might very loosely be called the jazz avant garde.

Lisa Mezzacappa's Bait and Switch quartet opened the show. Mezzacappa is an excellent jazz bassist and a fantastic composer. The pieces here were inspired by some of the free jazz greats of the 60s and 70s: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill, etc. Special kudos to saxophonist Aaron Bennett, whose nerdy appearance belies the raucous energy revealed in his compressed but well-conceived solos.

Next up, Andy Milne and Dapp Theory provided an updated take on some of the looser versions of 70s fusion, replete with spoken word vocalist and cheesy synth sounds. Tight drums, excellent pianism.

The headliners were Fred Frith's new band, Dream On, featuring Beth Custer on clarinets and Pavel Fajt on percussion. Frith, who is a guitar god a la Clapton or Page in some very twisted alternate universe, introduced their set by mumbling, "We're going to make a filthy racket for 50 minutes and then go home." True enough. Nobody can torture a guitar like Frith. Last time I heard him live he took a power drill to his instrument. Aidan and I had to drive home to get up early for work this morning, so we couldn't stay on for the full assault, thus missing out on any power tools. Too bad.