Heavy Cooking and Light Blogging for the next two days

I have begun the preparations for the family's Christmas feast. The latest count is 22 people, so it is a lot of work, but a whole lot of fun. To get all of my ingredients I had to go back to the Bay Area today to make a trip to the Berkeley Bowl, a grocery store that is almost a museum of food. Their produce section is the size of most stores, and coupled with a great fish counter, good meat, decent cheese and wine selections and generally great selection, Berkeley Bowl is one of my favorite places to shop outside of the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market on Saturdays.

Since Berkeley must have the highest per capita foodie population (many of whom are sad, actually, seeking what they should seek in the sacraments in food, which is a dangerous temptation for a practicing and orthodox Catholic, but becomes deadly in secularists who often seem to go between food esotericism and bizarre fad diets), the Berkeley Bowl is regularly packed to the gills. When a holiday approaches even finding a shopping cart becomes a task. The aisles are full, the lines at the meat counter long, the staff madly replenishing depleted stocks (I think they have been receiving shipments around the clock for the last few days).

However, one thing we noticed is, in spite of being full of agressive foodies, everyone is remarkably polite at the Berkeley Bowl. I have never seen a fight, people allow others to pass and even make an effort to get out of the way. It must be that being in the presence of food items that one has no idea what to do with humbles one. Every time I am there I find some item that I have never heard of, and I am a professional food writer.

Anyway, the goodies are here, the timeline is made and is being revised, and the marathon at the stove begins. Fortunately tomorrow night's dinner is at a cousin's house, so the only food I need to worry about after lunch tomorrow is Christmas dinner. I am also excited to be going to the Traditional Latin Mass for Midnight Mass!

So, after tonight, expect little to nothing on the blog until the 26th. At some point I will discuss Ravel's orchestration, but need to refer to some sources that I do not have, so we will have to wait until I can make a trip to the UC Berkeley Music Library.

Merry Christmas!

Oh yeah

In spite of my dictatorial and authoritarian tendencies, I rarely delete comments. In fact I generally only delete spam. If someone is attacking the Holy Father in a personal way, I will ban him, but for the most part I prefer to let idiocies stand. Or to magnify them:

"this shoundt be on google for Baroque recipes!!! Please change you are wasnting my TIME>"

I could explain how a search engine works. I could even give him some Baroque recipes (I am assuming that he wants food and not painting glazes or the like). But I think that for now I will simply point out that this poor dolt would have "wasnted" less of his TIME if he had simply hit "back" and tried another one. It "woundt" have been on google at all had he used quotation marks.

By the way, it seems that he used Yahoo anyway. Sure Yahoo uses google, but odds are that he doesn't know this!

By the way, his IP address is 67.29.215.124

If you see him, say "hi"

Food and Football?

I realize that my blogging has been pretty limited these days to food and football. Since baseball and bullfight seasons are over, and politically I am in observation mode (mainly wondering if Der Gubernator is going to be the disaster I am predicting and too depressed by the Massachussetts homosex marriage disaster to really want to comment with verve), it leaves arts, literature, spirituality, family, food and football.

As for arts, I am writing about music every week for the newspapers, and should probably get back to Building Blocks of Music and the Analyses series. Mea culpa. At the rate we are going, we should hit the Renaissance in 50 years.

In literature, I have not been reading anything that is really bloggable. I am working on a piece for the North Beach Lectura Dantis on La Vita Nuova, but it is really too focused around our discussion to be of general interest, I am afraid. I have not read a good novel for a couple of weeks, and most of the poetry I have been reading is of interest for very specific reasons, and not that interesting to talk about. I have been reading Etienne Gilson, which is interesting and will probably show up on an arts-related post sometime soon.

As for arts, not too much is going on in the Bay Area right now. There is the Degas sculpture show, so maybe something blogable in that. We'll see. If I get to a performing arts event I usually have to write about it in the paper, and I really doubt that anyone outside the Bay Area cares about how Michael Morgan conducted the Overture to Fidelio (yawn, in case you were wondering. Poorly articulated string passages made an uninspired mush of a fairly weak piece. He redeemed himself in the other pieces).

So, since I cannot speak of any great spiritual or philosophical insights (at least any that I remember an hour later), you get stuck with postings on food and football. I am sorry. Thank you for bearing with me in this dull period. I will work on something spicier over the vacation. I realize that it has been far too long since I have hurled invective at heretics and infidels, but since we are approaching their day of celebration (I celebrated my Thanksgiving Day last Thursday, merci), I am sure I will find some good incindiaries. Perhaps a recipe for turkey burned at the stake (uh oh, Mr. Riddle is going to be annoyed at me, but really, there has to be something fun to do with a typical commercial bird).

Speaking of that holiday, if you are looking for a wine that somewhat goes with turkey and all the trappings, a pinot noir is probably the safest, unless the menu is heavy on the gooey sweet potatoes (which I always find the least objectionable thing on the table), in which case beaujolais nouveau is probably a fit match. It is light and fruity, yet dry, so it actually cuts the sweetness and can wash down accidentally ingested bits of white meat. Or you could stick with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Yum.

But whatever you do, get your shopping done tomorrow. You might think, "well, I can run to the store Wednesday morning," but you are forgetting how awful an experience that ALWAYS is. You might rationalize it with "it will be just as bad tomorrow" or "well, maybe it wasn't really that bad last year," but you only fool yourself. This year I will absolutely not be in a supermarket or food store of any sort after 10 am Tuesday. If I don't have it then, it can wait until Friday.

Maybe hordes of shoppers are better behaved in your area, but they are beasts here in the Bay Area. Normally polite people become raving maniacs behind the shopping cart this week. I hear that serious drinkers take the night off on New Year's Eve. I recommend that foodies take the week of Thanksgiving off. If ever there was a time to retreat, thaw stuff in your freezer and let the field be torn up by novices and hacks, this is the week to do it.

With that, I will be preparing for my last meal tomorrow night and will be in quasi-hibernation in a remote town in the shadow of a volcano starting Tuesday. I might post Tuesday night from Sacramento, but after that it is Northward bound and nothing from me until next week.

Sorry for the lack of posting

I have two concert reviews, a restaurant review, two CD reviews and a feature all due in short time, so I will not be posting with my usual frequency. The one thing that I hope to do in the next couple of days is to post my recommended listening list for the Music in the Time of Dante lecture. Eventually I will post some notes as well, but they will have to wait. I also have some recipes to share, featuring fish with cheese (the results of a debate with my friend who knows who he is and will probably post some snide comment).

Ha Ha Ha

It has happened! Someone found my blog while googling "Ramadan porn." Lovely!

Dear Pervert (I am being uncharitable, you could be looking for rational discussion of the behavior of Mohammedan men during Ramada, but I will assume the worst and maybe will be pleasantly surprised later),

Please clarify what you are interested in. Is it pornography featuring burqas? That would be a rather futile thing, which I suppose is something in favor of Mohammedan dress codes. Or are you looking for something that shows Arab women nekkid? Are you looking for pornography that is sanctioned by Wahabbi clerics for use during Ramadan (not exactly porn, but obscene nonetheless would be the typical Friday afternoon sermon in just about any Wahabbi mosque)? Or are you looking for something that would be seen as sensual but forbidden, especially during Ramadan?

If you clarify I might be of some use. Meanwhile, why not forgo the porn and the Mohammedanism and become a Catholic and know God as He is, not as some crazed nomad imagined Him (with the aid of a demon)?

Carthago delenda est.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!

While the North Beach Lectura Dantis meets every Wednesday at 7:30pm, my presentation on Music in the Time of Dante will begin at 7:15pm, as per National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi policy (lectures always start at 7:15, so folks get used to regular starting times. Makes sense to me). I am glad that one of the friars showed me the poster!

So, for those of you planning on attending, please note the time change.

In preparing for this, I realized that my approach is sort of like a drunken darts tosser: I am starting in the 20th/21st centuries in America, bouncing back to 10th century Paris, eventually finding myself in a dark wood somewhere between Florence and Ravenna in the middle of our lives. It should be fun, and I will answer questions afterwards.

I am trying to decide what to post in advance on the blog. Perhaps detailed notes, perhaps something more like a paper, perhaps just a transcript of what I plan to say. I will certainly post all the bibliographic information here, for those who are interested in digging deeper. If any of you have a preference, I will try to accomodate.

There is also the tricky issue of how much detail to go into in the nuts and bolts of music. Some folks will want excess and some will want only the most general terms. It is a tricky balance. Some folks will roll their eyes into their heads and start snarling at the mention of "perfect tempus and imperfect prolation."

Needless to say I have been spending more time with that great resource, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, a reference work only a true music geek could love. Every home ought to have one (at least to have something to store in the harpsichord that every home ought to have as well).

So, if there are gaps in the blogging record, it is not because of my secretary's careless foot, rather that I am sifting, sorting, organizing and generally immersing myself in the world of ancient music (and I will not tolerate folks calling it "pre-music").

So far it looks something like this:

1. The difficulties of understanding what Italian music of this period actually sounded like. Musicological Sherlock Holmes!

2. General trends in music from the School of Notre Dame to the emergence of the Italian Ars Nova.

3. How Dante used musical imagery in the Commedia, with particular emphasis on Paradiso.

4. Questions, answers, evasions.

5. Tony and Nick's drinking Scotch. Feel free to bring the conversation over there.

Links, links, and more links (but not golf links - I leave that to my mom)

I haven't updated the links for awhile. There are some that I really should have added by now. I will start with Gregg, even though he made a disparaging remark about the Raiders. Of course I forgave him, since, seeing as how the Raiders have been playing, I have made my share of disparaging remarks about them (and remarks about Al Davis are always tolerated here). Gregg is in Colorado, which is a beautiful state.

Second on the list is John, who seems to be as much of a jazz nut as I am. I must warn him to watch out, though, as jazz nuttiness can lead to becoming that scariest of all creatures, the record collector. It is too late for me (I cannot pass a yard sale without digging through the box of LPs hoping for some gem), but if I can warn the rest of you before you have crossed the Rubicon, I will be doing some good. Jazz is wonderful music, but it leads to such manias as wanting every single Thelonious Monk record ever made.

The third on the list is one that everyone already reads anyway, but if anyone needs the address to Catholic and Enjoying It, then it will be here. I generally steer clear of apologists (I have nothing against them, and admire and respect the work they do, but find they tend to drive me nuts, especially when they start talking about C.S. Lewis, who I find tedious), but Shea can write and has a sense of humor. He seems like a good guy and his blog is a good read. But you knew that already.

There will be more on the way, but that is it for now.

By order of the Blogduce

I got a troll! It was a comment on a very old Friday Five, but it was my first genuine troll. This gives me a perfect opportunity to announce my troll policy. Trolls will have their IP addresses listed for the world to see, so that other bloggers can track them. I realize that trolls can use many IP addresses, but if folks start noticing a pattern, then it makes it that much easier to patrol and delete.

Unless a post is outlandishly out of bounds (or is posted by someone known to the blogosphere as a troll), it will not be deleted automatically, but I may add editorial comment in addition to posting the IP address. I may decide later to delete troll comments, however, so be warned if you want to play this role.

Hola

We just got back from Redding, and it is very late, so this is just a quick note to say that I have not dropped from the face of the planet, and will be back to regular blogging tomorrow or the next day (tomorrow is Lectura Dantis, so don't expect volumes, just quick observations and the like). Meanwhile, I forgot to mention on my interview, that the idea is for me to offer to interview you! So, if you are interested, drop me a line at EKeilholtz [at the domain] aol [period] com.

Metablogging Question

One of the things that I really like about Movable Type is that I can see a list of the most recent comments, which are usually on recent threads, but sometimes are on items from the past. I am wondering if it would completely drive my readers crazy if I resurrected the occassional more than month-old post. Please comment. If it doesn't drive everyone batty, I may bring the MBTI post back from the dead.

Friday Afternoon Sermon

For those who are coming here looking for the Friday Afternoon Sermon, it is the post a few below about smoking regulations and the nature of bars. I don't want you to be confused and to think that the sermon is about baseball.

oops

In restoring the links I forgot about Terry Teachout. Read everything he wrote since Sept. 8, especially the stuff about Frank Lloyd Wright and the quotes from Lileks (who is particularly brilliant today).

Some fun!

First we have some fun! Three things culled from the Search Engine results that have led people to Erik's Rants and Recipes:

"chewing gum can give diseases to chewer" Indeed it probably can. It certainly can make the chewer look like an utter and complete imbecile, especially when done while wearing a sideways baseball cap.

"share recipes illegal" Uh-oh, it looks like the RIAA is teaming up with the Beard Foundation. Watch out.

On the topic of sharing recipes:

"recipes using grappa" Bravo, my friend! You have come to the right place. That will be the theme for the week, foodwise (as to the Where Erik Stands On series, we are about to embark on the grim task of California politics).

One upped by Mr. Riddle!

Mr. Riddle of Flos Carmeli, has one-upped me in his blog theory. While I gave posts that dealt with the mechanics of the blog itself the category "Housekeeping" Mr. Riddle has come up with "metablogging." Brilliant! The irony is that I am a big fan of semiotics, which relies heavily on the concept of metalanguage, and, I believe, Mr. Riddle is not one to jump on the Barthes, Eco, Culler bandwagon.

By the way, his new site looks great, and his writing has been really good (even though he has written positively about the original bourgeouis bohemian - the suburban hermit and proto-hippy Thoreau) and especially worth reading these days (it is always good, but has been a little extra good in recent weeks).

I might have to let you down this evening. Sorry.

I was going to write more about my views of art, so that the art part of "Where I Stand" can be wrapped up this weekend. It will still be wrapped up this weekend, since I have covered the basics (I am just presenting a basic outline of what I think, I am not trying to publish my Grand Manifesto on Visual Arts - just to clear things up, which will be most important when I get to politics, as I need to make a couple of things very clear), so if worse comes to worse, I can just stop and move on to "Where I Stand on Film" or Music or "Where I Stand When I Am Stomping Nasty San Francisco Sourdough Bread Into The Compost Bin. Yuck That Stuff Is Foul!"

The reason I may not get into the world of content in art is that I have a DVD of 8 1/2 that I have not had a chance to watch. Since Melanie is going to a play with a friend (I would holler unfair, but Melanie did not make it to a single SF Symphony last year in our series), once I put Amália to bed I might just want to watch one of my favorite films. Or maybe not. Just don't get pissy if I don't write anything tonight. I do want to draw a connection between Holiness and Baroque performance practice, but that should probably come with "Where I Stand on Music."

I also realize that if I don't post a recipe, Ann might get grumpy. Since Ann does the design and html and understands how to Syndicate the site and all of this mysterious stuff, I have to appease her. So, I will post some late summer recipe soon. I have been doing a lot of cooking: tomatoes, capsicum, basil, freestone peaches, figs, basically all of my favorites besides Bing Cherries and Apricots. When the weather takes a turn for the colder and I grill more and drink more robust wines, then I will be extra happy!

Not a lot of time at lunch today.

I want to make some corrections to the last big post, but will not have the time to do so until late tonight. I did not bring a lunch, so I have to go to the deli down the road. So, please realize that I did not get into the role of art in society, except for a couple of jabs against agitprop, I did not discuss content in art, which is a serious omission, and I omitted some important painters from the list.

Also, Jeff pointed out in the comments that I did not really explain what I mean by the formulaic. I tried a feeble explanation in the box, but it demands more than that. So, please read the last post with these caveats (also, I counted a couple of usage and spelling errors, which will be fixed).

Where I stand

The other day I was trying to check the veracity of a report on some item or other and wanted to find out where the person stood on things in general. Fortunately his blog made it very easy. I realized that my blog is not so good in these matters: it is difficult to tell where I stand on a number of issues other than the fact that I am a bit of a foodie, love bullfighting and art and music, and a couple of other things. So, my project for the weekend is to post some things about me that will give you an idea of where I stand on some issues.

Since it is rather late, I will not write anything of substance right now, but keep reading. Throughout the weekend you will get my stands on architecture, technology, liturgy, art, music, politics, food, science, philosophy, etc.

Now, you might ask, "but, Keilholtz, isn't that the point of the whole blog?" Well, yes it is, but since I am an old fashioned Westerner who loves compartmentalizing things (back off, you holistic scoundrel!), I will give the concise Rough Guide to the Mind of Keilholtz. Easy to digest soundbites for rapid consumption. That way it is much easier to dismiss my arguments.

"Well, you know Keilholtz believes in 12 Tone Music! That should tell you enough."

I like to have this from others. Unlike the stated beliefs of many others, I like a good bit of factionalism and LOVE labels.

Kooky left-leaning tofu muncher!
Whacked-out right wing conspiracy buff!
Heretic!
Oh, I love that one: Heretic!
One more time: Heretic!

What I don't like are labels that are meaningless.

Neo-orthodox. Neo-conservative. It is time to restrict the use of the neo prefix to those who are temporaly disconnected from the movements that gave birth to the ideas. Thus a 2003 German racialist pagan can be properly called a neo-Nazi. This jerk would indeed profess a variant of Hitlerism, but is not really connected directly to the original movement. There is nothing to imply that he doesn't march in goosestep to it, though.

I object to neo being used in place of pseudo. Pseudo is a perfectly fine word. It implies fraud, it implies deception. "George Bush is a pseudo conservative" means that I do not find him to be a conservative, although he either proclaims himself to be one or is generally taken as one. "Fr. Greely is pseudo-orthodox."

If in 2000 years some lost tribe of people find the Catechism and try in their own way to recreate the Church in their isolation, then we can call them "neo-Catholics," implying that they are not really connected to the temporal (in this case it would be geographical, since the Catholic Church will be here as long as the Earth remains) mainstream. Until such poor creatures are found, let us stick to calling modernists, radical feminist nuns, rabid capitalist apologists, and their ilk by the time-honored name given to these folks. Ready. Let's all say it together: HERETICS!

Since I have already broken my promise not to start on this, let me go on the record to say that I am a vicious ultramontanist. I consider loyalty to the Holy Father the highest loyalty on Earth possible. By loyalty I don't mean agreeing to every single prudential judgement, but always giving the Holy Father the benefit of the doubt. We would do well to remember the Saints who, although persecuted by the Church and their orders for their supernatural experiences, humbly submitted to their persecution.

For those of us who cringe at Papal endorsement of the UN and the EU, which I do, we must work on the assumption that the Holy Father knows what he is doing, especially when we have a Pontiff like our current one. To those who ask, "what would you do if we had a Pope like John XXII?" I really don't know, and I hope that I never have to confront the situation.

So, there you go:

1. Dislike the use of the prefix "neo" to mean "pseudo"
2. Believes in obeying, respecting and honoring the Holy Father even when such obedience seems contrary to all logic.
3. Oh yeah, likes labels
4. Particularly likes shouting heresy. Probably makes Keilholtz think that he is the heir to Torquemada or something. He probably even pictures himself in that silly Monty Python skit about the Spanish Inquisition. Reactionary Kook!

General Quality of the Blog

One more quick thing before I go...

I am sorry for the diminished quality of postings recently. I have been suffering from a cold (well, ignoring it for the most part until it would not let me do that anymore), and just started back on the E-C-E cure (Echinacea, Vitamin C, Espresso), which is working wonders. I should be fully functional in a couple of days, and I really hope the writing improves!

New Links...

Today I am going to link three musicians to the blog list.

First is Don, of Mixolydian Mode. He posts a lot of music, dance, and arts links, is a literate fellow, and a fine read. His blog continues to have a Dominant function in St. Blog's, in spite (or is it becuase) of the tendency of every seventh post to be a little flat (well, it isn't really, but that is accidental). Sorry, these puns are too geeky for words.

Since I have been nagging folks to drop the Jungian nonsense and to read Aristotle, it is only fair that I link to Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director. Lots of fun posts about music and liturgy, and Aristotle has a cool name as well.

The third on deck is Catholic, Musician, Student, in that Order. I have only recently been reading her, but she has some good things about music and liturgy as well.

More Links!

Today I am going to add two more favorite links to the blog list.

The first one is Cacciaguida, who writes about law, society, opera, opera, opera, the Middle Ages, religion, and such like. I figure that anyone who takes his name from Dante has got to be all right (OK, I take that back if there is actually an ugolino.blogspot.com, especially if it is a foodie site).

The second one is one of my favorite blogs, Two Sleepy Mommies. In spite of the fact that the owners use Tolkein names, they write well on a variety of topics. They are fellow foodies, who seem to be in the throes of rhubarb obsession. Not that I can blame them. So I don't; I list them on the list!

Two more links.

Before I continue on with more Blogs, I would like to call your attention to two links that I restored to the list, namely Arhoolie Records and Rootsworld.

I work at Arhoolie Records. My main duties are the marketing and promotions, but since we are a small label I also edit CDs, write liner notes, handle royalties, fend off A and R requests, cook lunch (the boss and I are the resident foodies, so we do the lunches once in awhile), pack orders, deal with our lunatic customers (like Mr. 5 Page Handwritten Letter Once a Month or Mr. The Germans Are Out to Get Me so I will Send You My Rant on Cassette (never mind that 4 of the 6 of us are Krauts)), etc. etc. etc.

You can read about the history of Arhoolie on the website (and can order lots and lots of CDs!), but in a nutshell we have been around for 43 years, putting out raw, gritty folk music: blues, Cajun, Zydeco, Tex Mex, Free Jazz, Bluegrass, and a lot more. Our highlights include Del McCoury's first record as a bandleader, just about all of the major Clifton Chenier titles, the best Cajun catalog out there, Flaco Jiménez's Grammy winning Ay Te Dejo in San Antonio, the Sacred Steel gospel music of the House of God, free jazz master Sonny Simmons, blues legends Lightning Hopkins, Fred McDowell, Earl Hooker, and Big Mama Thornton.

Rootsworld is a great on-line magazine of world roots music. Cliff Furnald out of Connecticut (or one of those states on the other side of the Berkeley Hills), edits it. I sometimes write for Rootsworld. It has been awhile, but I have a couple of things to send Cliff. It is a great magazine that has turned me on to a lot of great music from around the world. So, go visit, look around, better yet, contribute and become a subscriber (I think Cliff sends you a CD for doing so, as well as some browsing rights).

Stabilizing the Blog...

Well, I have to see the blog chaos as not all that bad, as it gives me the opportunity to add links again and properly introduce each one with some comments. I will add a few each day. Since the folks I list are probably the principle readers and all know each other's blogs, this is probably redundant, but why not?

First is fellow Sacramentan Jeff Culbreath's El Camino Real. Jeff is a printer, a traditionalist, and is interested in California's Catholic history and culture. He lives close to where I grew up, and I have met Jeff in person, as I have also met...

Alicia Huntley of Fructus Ventris. Alicia writes about all sorts of interesting things, from literature to food to medicine to politics. She is an exile from the Golden State, so she gets second listing here.

Since California is known for citrus, it makes sense to next list Stephen Riddle's Flos Carmeli. I am not sure what a dentist would think of caramel floss, but I haven't been to one of those white-jacketed sadists in over 12 years, so I don't care. I do know that Stephen writes well about the arts, culture, religion (particularly Carmelite spirituality), literature, and the universe in general.

Tomorrow I will list and comment on three more.

AND,

For introductions to the ones that were already up there:

Pink Mochi is Ann's website design business. She is good and easy to work with. I have known Ann for something like 17 years and recommend her without reservations. She is also a good percussionist (she plays Western concert percussion, Japanese taiko and this really cool Korean percussion music that I cannot for the life of me remember what it is called).

Art Goblin is the site of my artist friend Jared Gutekunst. It is hard to describe his paintings, but he really knows his stuff. He is also a member of the Lectura Dantis that I belong to. Jared is a graduate of the California College of Arts and Crafts, which had a major role to play in the Bay Area Figurative movement.

As for Lileks, well, he really needs no introduction, does he?

movable type sucks...

I guess things like this happen when you use freeware, but I really wasn't expecting it since there are so many users who use Movable Type. You probably noticed that this blog hasn't been feeling well the past few days. The software then decided to dispose of the entire database and revert back to a version of the site when it was first installed. Nice. After two days of MT hell, I think the blog is back to normal. Or as back to normal as it's going to be without Erik making me paella.

Comments and updates

For some reason I was not able to log on to this page, nor to even see my comments this weekend. I still cannot see the comments, so hopefully it is just a little bug. If you need to comment on something and cannot get to the comments, feel free to email me at EKeilholtz[at]aol[period]com.

The list of links

I am still building the list of links. If you are not on there, and should be, holler. I probably have you on the list anyway, just haven't posted it to the template. I have also not been commenting on each entry with my ringing endorsement, mainly because I gather that my readers all know the other blogs anyway. Also, I am not putting time wasters on the list, so if it is on there it has my endorsement.

I am going to mention a blog today, though, because I just found it. It is from some fellow named Teachout in New York. He is some sort of arts critic, and is pretty knowledgable, for a New Yorker (a city that is still resting on 50 year old laurels and has not seemed to notice that nothing particularly interesting in terms of visual arts has come out of there for decades). I say that with charity, since San Francisco is heading the same direction.

But New York has fantastic performing arts, a few decent restaurants, great street life, great museums, a couple of good radio stations, and a great subway system. It is a little island in my exclusion zone (East of the Berkeley Hills and West of Viareggio, excluding Manhatten, Iberia, and any town in France that has an active bullring), even though there are no good record stores there anymore.

With the Internet good record stores are not as important as they once were, but something is lost from the culture with the demise of these great meeting places. Browsing Amazon for two hours on a Saturday night is sort of ghoulish: a solitary, eye-straining experience, but talking to a good record store man or just browsing through bins of interesting records, that is a social experience.

There are very few good record stores anywhere, though. You have the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago, Waterloo in Austin, the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans, Down Home Music in El Cerrito, The Musical Offering in Berkeley, and a few others. Someday this institution will return to the civic landscape. Without bookstores and record stores, the City is just a shell for people to do their banking in. Oh, that and a decent caffé.

But this Teachout fellow is an interesting New Yorker. He has some good things to say, and I look forward to reading his blog.

Welcome to the New Blog!

Well, since you have found this, obviously you know the new URL. Hopefully Moveable Type will be as cool as it seems.

Thanks are in order to Ann for making it all possible (building the new site, moving the archives, etc.), so to show my appreciation I am going to give her a big plug! Hire her for any web design needs (or cool percussion gigs). You can find her at pink mochi.

I will be continuing to fiddle with this, categorizing posts and so forth. I will also finally put my list of links in order and post it, as this is going to be my web home for awhile.

EDITED: I have added a few links, but have really just begun. They are in no particular order. Please don't be upset if your blog is not on there and should be. It will be. If I have still forgotten to add it by the middle of next week, shoot me an email and I will add it!

EDITED: As Ann pointed out, I misspelled Movable Type. It has been duly noted and will stand in error as a typographical sanbenito for the Keilholtz family to endure for generations upon generation. Amalia will check into college and the Dean will look over his spectacles at her and say, "oh, yes, um, Keilholtz, yes, well, it does sound familiar, AH, the family that could not spell "Movable." Tsk tsk, young lady, you might find it awfully difficult here at the University."

Coming Attractions!

I have to get stuff for dinner now, but later tonight (much later, as I have to do some preparation for the Mariza interview), I will post the Building Blocks of Music: The Interval. I promise. No going to bed until I click "Publish."

Blog Image Mystery

I posted that last one and hit View Your Blog and something unusual came up: Some other person's template, complete with busty starlet with a come thither look. Or maybe it was a pop songstress. I am not what one would call au courante on these things. "why, it's an outrage! Good musicians go hungry and half talents like, like, Eddie Money make millions!"

OK, I am not that bad, but I don't think I could pick Christina Aguilera out of a lineup. At least I think that is who the girl who showed up on the blog was. I seem to see her face in Billboard, so it probably is she.

Anyway, I don't care who you are, what are you doing on my Blog?!? If I am going to post photos, they are probably going to be of Amália (although I am resisting that, because once you start there, you never stop. You start accosting random passers-by: "do you want to see pictures of my two year old? She is obsessed with 'choo choo's' and sometimes thinks she' a horse!").

My first thought was "hackers!"

"Hackers!" Keilholtz sputters. "Hackers! Imps! Rascals! Reds!"

Then I republished and it went back to the Taurine thing. Bull. Man. Lots of Red. I guess it was just a technoburp.

Blog Lull. Sorry.

I have been writing up a storm (OK, I have also been at the Scottish Highland Games at the Dunsmuir Estate in Oakland, but mostly writing), but it is for paying writing gigs, so I have been neglecting the blog. I will get to it: I have not forgotten you, but liner notes, record reviews, music features all come first, as that is the stuff that puts the pasta on the table.

Your continuing patience is appreciated!

Coming Attractions Guessing Game!

And now it is time for the weekly guess as to what to expect on the old Blog:

1. Building Blocks of Music: The Interval
2. Victimae Paschale laudes analysis
3. More recipes
4. A record review.

Beyond that, all bets are off. If I get to it, I will also post:

5. Building Blocks of Music: The Mode
6. Building Blocks of Music: Rhythm Part I
7. Carbon Monoxide Culture Part II
8. Analysis of Miles Davis's "So What" from Kind of Blue.