Starlight Mints – Built on Squares

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[Starlight Mints - Built on Squares] Built on Squares is an interesting little CD I picked up at Rasputin on an indecisive New Music Friday. Starlight Mints were listed in the computer as a “similar artist” to the Eels, and and the album’s used price was right. Like the Eels, there are a variety of instruments, including strings, trumpet, and a strong infusion of electronic sounds. Starlight Mints is what you’d get if you took the personal component out of the Eels and replaced it with full time playfulness.

Arcade Fire – Funeral

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[Arcade Fire - Funeral] The Arcade Fire and their debut album have some unique aspects. First, I don’t know of many husband/wife teams in bands. Second, there are four songs named ‘Neighborhood’ on Funeral. Third, the liner notes are packaged as a funeral program. The Arcade Fire is why you listen to indie rock. It feels experimental. There are accordions and xylophones and weird effects on top of the normal stuff. You might have heard ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ on the radio or the chanting ‘Wake Up’ at the Byrne/Gielow wedding of 2005, which are good ones, but I think the opener ‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’ is my favorite track. The key to enjoying this album is to just be patient and listen.

ND at Michigan: Save your comparisons, please

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All people could talk about after ND’s 17-10 victory was Knute Rockne and Ty Willingham (2002 version). Maybe we could talk about how the Irish have gone from receiving 13 votes to a top 10 ranking instead. Maybe we should talk about next week’s contest against Michigan State. Thankfully, that’s Charlie’s opinion. I’m thrilled that we beat Michigan, I-stuck-my-hand-in-a-ceiling-fan-and-didn’t-notice thrilled. But I don’t want one win or one good season. I want a program.

The Good:

  • The opening drive was a masterpiece.
  • DL getting their hands in passing lanes.
  • The secondary must have been doing something right back there.
  • Takeaways in the red zone.
  • Special teams contained Breaston, and Fitzpatrick squeezed that FG through the uprights.

    • The Bad:

  • After early success, the offense essentially disappeared.
  • Fumbles.

    • The Ugly:

  • Michigan student section throwing trash onto their own field. Oh yeah, and onto the visiting recruits. Nice!
  • I neglected to mention how hideous “The Shirt” is this year. I mean, they’ve been bad before, but this is ridiculous. I can tolerate the yellow, but can’t we just have a block ND or leprechaun on the front?

    • In other news, it was a battle of good coaching vs. poor coaching in Seattle. Cal’s QB Joe Ayoob rebounded from an 0/10 performance last week to hang 4 TD’s on Washington. With the amount of talent that graduated from Cal last year (Rodgers, Arrington, MacArthur, Lyman), this season will tell us if Tedford really is devine.

    ND at Pitt: It’s only one game

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    It’s only one game, but we got the win against a pretty decent team on the road and looked good doing it. I was predicting a final score of 35-28, which wasn’t too far off the mark. Obviously next week’s contest at Michigan will be a tougher test for Charlie and co.

    The Good:

  • Quinn – 18/27 for 227 yd, 2 TD / 1 INT, 0 sacks; Walker 20 rush for 100 yd, 3 rec for 57 yd, 2 TD; Fassano – 4 rec for 57 yd
  • Samardzija’s diving TD catch was a beauty.
  • The O-line controlled the line, setting the table for the rest of the offense.
  • Solid running by Powers-Neal and Thomas and getting Wolke in the game. We are thin, and keeping Quinn and Walker healthy is a priority.
  • D-line shut down their running game and got after Palko (5 sacks).

    • The Bad:

  • Quinn’s INT was pretty ugly.
  • DB’s got torched on Pitt’s first TD, and again late in the game but the receiver couldn’t haul it in.

    • The Ugly:

  • Penalties. Lots of them. 10 for 94 yd to be exact. Illegal substitutions were supposed to follow Ty to Washington.
  • Quinn still spends time outs like a sorority girl with daddy’s credit card.
  • The bar hosting the game watch doesn’t know how to work its high-definition TV.

    • It’s only one game, but in the Andy Malec philosophy of football, the first game sets the tone for the season.

    In other news, Cal steamrolled Sacto St., but lost their QB to a broken leg. Ouch.

    Columbus Was Last (Patrick Huyghe)

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    [Columbus Was Last (Patrick Huyghe)]I found this in the sale section of Barnes and Noble after reading 1421, which describes the Chinese world expedition that commenced in that year. Columbus Was Last summarizes 15 pre-Columbian “discoveries” of America. The stories come from every part of the world and vary in believability. The best section of the book is the last chapter which attempts to explain why Columbus’s voyage became legendary while others were forgotten, in spite of apparent discrepancies in the Great Navigator’s accounts. Although only one (Vikings landing in Newfoundland) is generally accepted scientifically and historically, I’m convinced that at least one other party made their way to America between the native Americans and Columbus. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know for sure who actually made the journey.

    What does “poupon” mean in Grey Poupon?

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    Odie posed this question in a mocking fashion in the pompon/pompom comments, but I realized that regardless of the tone in which it was asked, it’s still something that we could learn. Wikipedia turns up no hits for “poupon,” so I consulted google, which led me to the history of honey Dijon mustard. It turns out that Grey Poupon Dijon mustard is derived from the founders of the mustard empire. Grey provided the recipe, and Poupon financed the venture. Nabisco now manufactures the mustard according to the original recipe for sale in the U.S. The pair have also been honored as the namesakes of an award winning dog.

    I also found that “poupon” is French for “little baby.” Wikipedia does have an entry for mustard in general and a helpful graphic of how to use it.

    Pompon/Pompom

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    It’s time for me to talk a bit about one of the most ridiculous words on record. There has been quite a bit of confusion about whether it’s “pompom” or “pompon.” If you’re anything like me, you assumed this word was “pom-pom” or maybe “pompom,” but not “pom-pon” and definitely not “pompon.” Recently, I was told that the correct term is “pompon.” While I thought that was ridiculous, I accepted it as truth. However, recent research has shown otherwise. According to my sources, it seems that a “pompom” is a type of “pompon.” This is suggested by their dictionary.com entries, but not clearly explained.

    What’s the relevance of this research? Well, it seems that there’s significant misusage of the term for pompom squads. Google searches of “pompom squad” and “pompon squad” give 366 and 548 hits, respectively, which means that approximately 60% of people are mistaken. Let’s get it straight people:

    pompon, noun: A tuft or ball of material such as wool or ribbon, used as a decoration, especially on shoes, caps, or curtains.

    pompom, noun: A ball of fluffy material, such as feathers or strips of colored paper, that is waved by cheerleaders and sports fans.

    White Stripes at the Greek Theater

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    Last week, Melissa and I saw the Detroit duo of Jack and Meg White at the Greek Theater. This was the second time I’ve seen the Stripes in Berkeley, after seeing their show in fall 2003. Jack came out in some sort of 18th century military officer’s regalia, wearing a black coat with medals and black hat with white plume. Interestingly, the roadies wore uniform black suits with black shirts and red ties. The show started with a bang with ‘Blue Orchid,’ ‘I Think I Smell a Rat,’ and ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.’ The live favorite ‘Hello Operator’ was broken up by the Meg’s ‘Passive Manipulation.’ While I’m not a huge fan of the album version, the song I was most excited about seeing performed was ‘The Nurse,’ featuring Jack on the marimbas. At 31 songs, the set list was spanned all five Stripes albums and a few non-album tracks (‘Cause It’s My Birthday,’ ‘Boll Weevil’).

    For better or worse, the concert will be memorable for the audience interruptions. First, a Live 105 balloon was batted around the crowd. As soon as I saw it enter the amphitheater floor, I knew this was going to be trouble. Of course, it ended up on stage next to Jack as he played piano on ‘My Doorbell.’ This prompted an unplanned 5 minute break from the band. In my opinion, it ruined ‘My Doorbell,’ but the next few songs seemed to have extra juice played by an infuriated Jack.

    After the show, Melissa and I were curious to see if the radio station would make mention of it. Oddly, the same thing happened at the previous night’s show with a different station’s balloon. A post on whitestripes.net suggested that the incident at our show was an act of sabotage by another station, but Live 105 started airing apologies for the incident and ran a contest to give away the rest of their balloons to prevent future mishaps. Others wondered if the Stripes were in on the trouble since security did nothing to corral the wayward ball or prevent its journey to the stage. The fact that Jack didn’t mention the previous night’s episode furthers this hypothesis.

    A second incident of audience participation came in what we assumed was the concert’s finale ‘Boll Weevil.’ At the end of the song, a guy jumped on stage (not difficult at the Greek), ran over to Jack, put his arm around him, and sang a couple lines from the song. Jack backed away, and a roadie tried to restrain the obviously drunk guy. The guy got away and jumped into the crowd, apparently hoping they would catch him. This was not the case. He instead fell directly onto the concrete floor, then tried to get through the crowd to the exit. Back at the mic, Jack directed to crowd to be quiet and point at the guy as he tried to escape. He taunted the dude for a couple minutes, then offered up an additional song, ‘Fell in Love with a Girl,’ as a tribute to him.

    Audience interruptions notwithstanding, this was a fantastic concert as Jack White reaffirmed my opinion that he’s one of the premier showmen of our age. Interestingly, while Jack seems to feed off the crowd, Meg doesn’t seem to like her position of celebrity, very shyly bowing to the crowd, and setting her drum set to face Jack, not the audience. This could be all part of the act though, as she performed ‘Passive Manipulation’ (and ‘In the Cold Night’ last year) with seemingly little trepidation.

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