One other martial arts related comment...

I've noticed recently while watching movies that my escrima training has had an effect on how I watch movie fight scenes, and it's not the effect I had expected. You'd think that training would make a body more critical of the choreography and picky about the 'realism' of it, but I really don't worry about that much -- maybe even less than I used to as I note how difficult the choreography would be to learn.

No, what I wasn't expecting was for me to watch the fight scenes and start to get confused when the actors on-screen react to a swing with a weapon and my brain tells me despite the camera angle that the blow is a clear miss. Happened a couple times during the Avengers. The bad guy is swinging like crazy and my perception is all like "Dude, just chill and hang out 'cause that one is missing by 10" and you don't even have to move or flinch. No way it lands."

The weird part, though, is that the recognition registers about a second after it happens on screen. It's only after the bad guy swings and the good guy ducks or does a dramatic back flip to avoid the blow that my brain says "Wait, what? Why did you do that?" Takes me right out of the flow of the scene every time.

Pattern recognition is a harsh mistress.

It's been about a year since the last time that we pulled out the padded sticks in escrima and did any free sparring. Judging by the way that I did, I'd say that I've improved a ton and I'm especially pleased that I did not get at all winded in the exchanges. All nice things.

On the flip side, however, I'm reminded of the fact that the reality being represented by those padded sticks is a fight with bolo knives that are sharp enough to go right through a coconut. By that standard I would have been killed or maimed several times over yesterday.

A couple moments that stand out: the match between myself and J that lasted all of 5 seconds in which I would have lost an arm and he would have died from a neck wound. And the match with M.K. in which he caught me a glancing shot to the leg and I caught him across the neck and then cut down past the artery in his leg. I know that would have been fatal.

Reminding myself that this is in no way a sport.

Someone in the media needs to really put it to Newt and see just how sincere he is in all this Christian grace and forgiveness rhetoric he's spouting:

Mr. Gingrich, I understand that you say you made some mistakes in your life, but that since you found Jesus you have come to understand your mistakes and so we should forgive you for those things in your past. So I was wondering...what should we do about people with underwater mortgages and huge student loan debts? [innocent blink].

Mr. Gingrich, I understand that you believe that the media has harmed political discourse in America by focusing attention on your infidelities and private life and that you believe that politics are too important a matter for these sorts of distractions. So I was wondering...would you like to take this moment to humble yourself before God and the American people and ask President Clinton to forgive you for the harm that you did to the nation when you were Speaker of the House and claimed that lying about marriage infidelities was grounds for impeachment? And do you promise to work to make sure that you carry this spirit of John 8 forward and vow to defend your political enemies when your party members attack them for their own indiscretions?

It's not a game of tag. You can't claim Jesus as 'base' and call 'no tagbacks.' Either you mean it and you live it even when it's inconvenient or you get pasted with it like any other mug whose trying to avoid the splatter after they started flinging poo.

Terry Jones, you are a moron.

Not the Monty Python Terry Jones, the 'look at me I'm so cool I can burn a Koran for Jesus, please vote for me, I'm so presidential' moron who traveled all the way across the country just to antagonize a handful of Muslim students.

Whatever, dude. You are a deluded, self-important jerk one step above Fred Phelps and a step below e. coli on the list of things that make rational people happy to be alive. I get that you think that your fantasy in which you are a divine superhero takes precedence over the rest of the world and normally you would be welcome to that.

But did you have to come to our campus today? Today?

I am one signature away from a PhD I have been working on since 2004.

One. Signature.

That one signature I need was inside the building that the campus PD closed because you decided you needed to leave Florida and fly to California just to stir shit and, lo and behold, shit was stirred and the scent of your efforts wafted heavenward to please your god of scorched earth and severed noses.

If you really must visit a California campus again to satisfy your martyr complex, might I suggest that you visit UC Davis next time? I'm sure the campus PD there could arrange a more fitting welcome for you.

Love, me.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Veterans Day and to all those who served who are able to read this, I'm glad that you are still with us. I also honor the spirit and willingness to serve the greater community in all who dedicate their lives to the service of others.

Kinda weary of sentiments like this, though:

A veteran -- whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve -- is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including his life."

I get that this is true, but there's a couple things implied here that I find misleading, demeaning, and problematic.

First off, it frames everyone in the military as a combat veteran, which is ironic since the person from whom I got this was about as well insulated from risk as a serviceperson could be for his entire career. I get that there's risk in signing the contract. (I registered with selective service. It's on the same continuum.) But, as Gilbert and Sullivan once said: "If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody." Framing all military service as mortal risk borrows honor from and cheapens the service of those who actually did sign up to be on the sharp end or who actually were at risk downrange. Honor those who served for serving. Honor those who risked their lives for risking their lives. There's honor enough for both groups and this framing cheapens both sorts of service.

I also find it problematic that the writer uses the masculine pronoun when he or she could just as easily have included 'or her' without it sounding awkward. This is especially galling to me because it takes away the honors due to the women who were kept out of a combat MOS but who were, nonetheless, in the combat zone while letting the guys who avoided all risk borrow these honors.

Third point, there are plenty of veterans who gave their lives to keep this country free who were not even part of this country. They died for Britain or Canada or France or Russia or the Philippines, but their sacrifice, too, helped keep this country free and they deserve as much honor as our own military. Remember the 300 Spartans, sure, but don't forget the thousands of other who fought and died at Thermopylae as well.

I honor all veterans who served honorably, whether at risk to their lives or not. That service is itself worth honor. But don't paint every service member as a selfless male hero who risked his life to protect this country. The commemoration should be bigger, more generous, and less propagandistic. There's so much good about the holiday to commemorate and so much of it gets washed out in over-romantic sentimentalism.

Fact - Philip K. Dick used to live in Santa Ana, about 9 miles away from us.

Fact - Two local kids from Santa Ana, Tim Powers and James Blaylock, used to hang out at Dick's house and talk about writing and stuff.

Fact - They got pretty good at writing -- good enough to inspire Neil Gaiman back when Neil was just starting out as a writer himself.

Fact - Blaylock and Powers both teach writing at a Hight School in Santa Ana.

Fact - Our friend, Tira, also teaches writing at that school.

...which is how we ended up sitting next to Tim and Jim and Tira last night in the front row of the church that P.K. Dick used to attend listening to Neil Gaiman read unpublished stories and poems to a small group of students and parents on our anniversary.

::marvels at the concentrated SF&F geek-power of the last sentence::

::cackles in maniacal glee::

Third time seeing Opeth live. Second time for Katatonia.

I like going to Pomona for shows because the parking is free (usually $8 to $20 to park in LA) and the crowd is less jaded. The flip side of this, of course, is that the crowd is also a lot younger and you see fewer old school metalheads who have seen every band worth mention.

The Fox Theater is a really nice venue. Last time in Pomona we were at the Glass House and it was like a warehouse inside. The Fox is an honest-to-god Art Deco theater about the perfect size for live music -- big enough to let you feel the crowd but small enough to feel intimate.

No local bands tacked onto the bill. Just an hour of Katatonia followed by 90 minutes or so of Opeth. Both started on time. Mark this down as a rare luxury.

Katatonia sounded really good. Last show for them we saw Jonas was not mixed well on the vocals and sounded a little strained as a result. This time around, however, the vocals were up in the mix and he only sounded ragged when he wanted to. They seemed relaxed and had a good rapport with the crowd. Song selection was good -- all off of the last 3 albums this time around. They've been mixing it up a lot on this tour and have done some one-off shows where they played all of Last Fair Deal... so I had no idea what to expect. Was surprised and pleased to hear Omerta again. Fun, musical, low-key show with enough heavy in it for variety.

Opeth has been getting mixed reviews from people this tour, mostly because they decided to go with a more mellow, progressive setlist this time out which means that Mikael did not growl at all the entire night. Instead we got a mini acoustic set in the middle with some rarities thrown in: The Throat of Winter / Credence (!) / Closure. Cin got to hear Porcelain Heart live, (featuring an epic drum solo from Axe). I got to hear A Fair Judgment and Hex Omega. The show dragged a little at times, but the band was tight and the new keyboard player really fills out their live sound with excellent backing vocals on the more challenging harmonies and an honest-to-gods old-school Moog! You could watch them keying off of each other on stage during the numbers and adjusting the tempo and dynamics on the fly. Not as heavy as past tours, but the musicianship was amazing. And it's not like there weren't plenty of heavy moments throughout.

Also, The Devil's Orchard is a fantastic opening number and an instant classic.

Another great show from two of my favorite bands. Just gotta get Amorphis back now.

Not feeling the love.

Between the handwring-y stupidity with the women and children, the manufactured interpersonal drama and the continual borrowing from, (the vastly superior), 28 Days Later we skipped out at the halfway point and played Gears of War 2 for the rest of the night.

Gears was smarter.

Now I find we missed a scene where the survivors stumble into a church full of walkers. More 'borrowing' from 28 Days. Oy.

Have yet to figure out the appeal of this show.

I recently ran across a Reuters article that claimed that stocks would recover over the next year.

World stock markets will recover next year from a nightmarish 2011 that has wiped trillions of dollars off share prices, according to a Reuters poll that showed almost all major stock indexes ending 2011 in the red.

Well...except once you get to that paragraph partway in...

Still, despite the dire performance of stock markets so far this year, most respondents were stuck in their usual habit of predicting big gains, no matter what real risks face the world economy.

So I asked my friend the financial reporter about the prediction and he replied that the stock market, like the housing market a few years ago, was like this:



Clap louder if you want your 401k to live, people.

Haven't listened to it so many times that I've absorbed the whole thing, but I really like the feel of the album. This seems like a more balanced and organic Opeth. It feels like they recorded it at the perfect Lagrangian Point between Damnation and Watershed. It's got the all-clean vocals and warmth of Damnation combined with the experimentation and weight of Watershed.

A lot of the reviews I've read speak of this album as being Akerfeldt's inevitable embrace of 70's prog rock at the expense of metal. It's true that Mikael has abandoned the growls and that there are no sections that demand furious headbanging, but neither is this a purely Proggy album. It's heavy metal in the sense that people used to refer to Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin as heavy metal back in the days before thrash and death metal kicked blues to the curb. Heritage is not as metal as many of Opeth's past efforts, but it is every bit as heavy -- and far heavier than King Crimson or Camel or even Jethro Tull as touchpoints for Opeth's prog leanings.

The other thing that a lot of reviewers fixate upon when expressing their disappointment with Heritage is that they always loved Opeth for the contrast between the prettier sections with the clean vocals and the fury and menace of the growled sections. While I understand this sense of nostalgia, it is just that...a longing to re-live the past and re-create an old emotion. I, too, remember hearing That Moment in The Drapery Falls when the clean vocals yield up to Mikael's full-throated growling and the power of that transformation, but that moment quickly became just another part of the Opeth repertoire and lost its power to startle.

That harsh/sweet contrast is still there in the music but it's been rearranged so that it mostly occurs in the instrumental sections and the guitar solos. It's as if when Mikael hired Fredrik Akesson to fill Peter Lindgren's place he found another voice to roar and provide the musical fury and at last felt ready to let go of his vocal burden. You can hear this change quite clearly in The Devil's Orchard when the solo kicks in with Fredrik's searing tone and vibrato, but this quality also creeps into the bass and keyboard tones in the low-fi crackle and distortion as well as the moments where they forego melody in favor of staccato discord.

Honestly, what I hear in the last two albums is Mikael relaxing his control a bit and allowing his compositional ideas to be reinterpreted and reinvented in the performance of his bandmates. They feel both tighter and looser as an ensemble -- more attuned to each other and ready to go in any direction as a group. Perhaps this is why I feel more excitement and anticipation in these two albums than I feel when listening to Deliverance. The band is playing, rather than just performing and recreating. The songs are more alive.

Ultimately, I do like this latest album a great deal. Do I like it better than Watershed? Hard to say. Heritage seems cooler than Watershed in the sense that it unfolds more slowly and draws you in, haunting you with its presence rather than stalking you with menace. It has more space and ambience in which to get lost, which is why I think it so confounds the expectations of those who were looking for something more familiar. This is why I think that in Heritage, as in Damnation, Opeth has made an album that will win new fans more readily than it moves old fans.

Me, I'm willing to follow these guys wherever they go as long as the quality and the sense of discovery remains.