talbotlucas.org: a word to the wise is sufficient

what we're listening to

We greatly enjoyed Madeleine Peyroux's first album, Dreamland, and are now happy to have a second, Careless Love, which also reflects her languorous, blues-y chanteuse-y style. Friends of ours introduced us to her music many years ago, and we don't grow tired of it. Some find her vocal quality similar to Billie Holiday's; we just like it for what it is.

Peyroux's two albums are available in CD form and also via iTunes, where she also has contributed to the "celebrity playlist" section. While some of the celebrity playlists are beyond inane, Peyroux's is exceedingly cool. (For an example of inanity, see Jennifer Garner's list, which is peppered with so many "great song!" and exclamation points that it seems to be written by a stereotypical teenybopper instead of...well...let's move on...don't get me wrong, I love Alias, which is perhaps why I was a bit disappointed in Miss Garner's selections.)

For those of you not accessing iTunes, Peyroux's playlist selections are: (Night Time Is) The Right Time (Ray Charles from Ray Charles Live); Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye from Live in Montreux 1980); Who Killed Davey Moore? (Bob Dylan from The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 - Concert at Philharmonic Hall); I Cover the Waterfront (1956 Carnegie Hall) (Billie Holiday from The Essential Billie Holiday: Carnegie Hall Concert Recorded Live); The St. Louis Blues (Bessie Smith from Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 2); Midnight Special (Leadbelly from The Library of Congress Recordings: Leadbelly - Midnight Special, Vol. 1); West End Blues (Louis Armstrong from Louis Armstrong: Super Hits); The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) (Simon & Garfunkel from Live from New York City, 1967); The Star Spangled Banner (Jimi Hendrix from Live at Woodstock); Lost Someone (Live) (James Brown & The Famous Flames from Live at the Apollo (Remastered 1962)); Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue (Duke Ellington from Ellington at Newport 1956); Johnny B. Goode (Live, San Francisco 1967) (Chuck Berry from Live at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco); Hallelujah (Live) (Jeff Buckley from Live at Sin-e). A cool mix indeed.

For a mix that's intriguing in a different way, "Lemony Snicket" has contributed a celebrity playlist to iTunes, one that he admits could be titled "A Series of Unhappy Songs." Attractive in a different way than Peyroux's, but a tonic for inanity nonetheless.

help change an amazon.com practice

Reader alert: I'm on my soapbox. The object of my rant is at left (click to make larger.)

Word is spreading among the online pet owner and breeder communities about amazon.com's acceptance of "sponsored links" from puppy mills and other operations which offer puppies for sale via the web. I have no problem with seeing a sponsored link for, say, espresso machines if I'm looking at books on making espresso at home, but given the problems associated with poor breeding and overbreeding, I don't like amazon.com's acceptance of sponsored links for puppy mills and online animal vendors. Placing an animal in a home should not be done in this way, and this type of (usually) uninformed purchasing combined with the breeding-for-profit mentality of breeders who advertise and sell in this manner is a recipe for disaster. In this case, disaster = untrained or unwanted dogs that end up in shelters (or meet other unpleasant fates) once their novelty has worn off.

eBay restricts its sellers from offering domestic animals for sale (with a narrowly defined exception for tropical fish, certain types of aquatic snails, and certain types of insects and crustaceans). Amazon.com already places restrictions on its affiliates and others who link to and use the site as a sales tool, and I hope they'll consider a prohibition on these types of sponsored links.

I'm all for lower priced books, and I've certainly taken advantage of amazon.com's discounts and free shipping and encouraged others to do so by establishing a wish list and linking to amazon.com to share more information about a book or CD I recommend, but I strenuously object to amazon.com's acceptance of income from these types of sponsored links. They suggest that these links are responsible for their lower prices. Maybe they are, in part, but I don't see how a modification of their policy with respect to live animals will put a dent in their business plan.

If you agree, please let them know: on the amazon.com main page, scroll down and click "Contact Us," then "Web Site and Product Suggestions," and then the button labeled "Email Us." Then (because that email page is only for comments that don't require a response), click on "General Questions" in the first paragraph of the "Send Us Your Suggestion" box. That will launch a form where you can type your comments and ask amazon.com to end this practice.

thomas keller

We're big fans of Thomas Keller's cooking and culinary enterprises and if you're of the same opinion I offer a few tidbits for your pleasure:
+ A nicely executed "chef profile" feature on epicurious.com includes an interview, cooking demos, and my favorite, a tour of the Per Se kitchens. The cooking demo and kitchen tour clips are particularly good because they're more than snippets, and the quality is high.
+ I missed the Keller booksigning event coordinated by LACMA, but The Food Section featured a nice write-up of it.
+ The dishes that Keller has designed for Raynaud of Limoges are available, at least via Gump's (SF) and Bergdorf Goodman (NYC). A peek is available on the French Laundry site, and if you've eaten risotto at the French Laundry you know that the claim to have the perfect risotto dish is not puffery!
+ New York Magazine's piece on Per Se and on the fire that hit just as it was about to open.

on short hair

I recently chopped my hair back to high school swimming length and found myself breathing sighs of relief. Along with the relief came the realization that, having left much of my high school wardrobe and style behind, short hair required something more...or less. This piece by Joan Juliet Buck,¹ found on The Poetical Quotidian, rang a few bells.

Hair is time.

Women with short hair always look as if they have somewhere else to go. Women with long hair tend to look as if they belong where they are, especially in California. Short hair takes a short time. Long hair takes a long time. Long hair moves faster than short hair. Long hair tells men that you are all woman, or a real woman, or at the very least a girl. Short hair always makes them wonder. Short hair makes children ask each other --usually at the school-yard gate, when parents are late-- "Are you a boy or girl?" Men married to women with short hair should not have affairs with women who have long hair kept up with many little pins and combs. Once you have cut your hair you have to remember to wear lipstick, but you can put away the brush, elastics, and the black barrettes in the form of shiny leaves with rhinestone hearts. When you cut your hair you lose a nose and gain a neck. A neck is generally better than a nose. It does not need to be powdered, except on extreme occasions. It does, however, need to be washed more often.

With short hair you suddenly dislike the month of March, when the wind blows down the back of your neck. With short hair you begin to crave pearl necklaces, long earrings, and a variety of sunglasses. And you brush your teeth more often. Short hair removes obvious femininity and replaces it with style. When it starts growing out a little and losing its style, you have to wear sunglasses until you can get it to the hairdresser. That's why you need a variety. Short hair makes you aware of subtraction as style. You can no longer wear puffed sleeves or ruffles; the neat is suddenly preferable to the fussy. You eye the tweezers instead of the blusher. What else can you take away? You can't hide behind short hair. Your nape is exposed. Men put their hands around your neck instead of stroking your long locks. You can only pray they have friendly intentions. The backs of your ears show, your jaw line is clear to anyone watching, and you realize --perhaps for the first time-- how wide the expanse of skin is between cheekbone and ear.

You may look a little androgynous, a little unfinished, a little bare. You will look elegant, as short hair requires you to keep your weight slightly below acceptable levels. However, the first time you wear a bathing suit with short hair, you will feel exceptionally naked. People who used to look straight at you will love you in profile. Short hair makes others think you have good bones, determination, and an agenda. The shape of your skull is commented on, so are its contents. They can pick you out in a crowd, and you can be recognized from behind, which can be good or bad. But your face is no longer a flat screen surrounded by a curtain: the world sees you in three dimensions.

Chase to the cut.

civet coffee (aka coffee poop), part 2

Mr. Doody--our friend, contributor of comments (when that feature was active), and aptly nicknamed source of information on this point--sent me a link to one of Dave Barry's columns on this topic. It begins:

November 7, 1997, in the Miami Herald Decaf Poopacino

I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract.

And you just know there are plenty of people who would. Specialty coffees are very popular these days, attracting millions of consumers, every single one of whom is standing in line ahead of me whenever I go to the coffee place at the airport to grab a quick cup on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are always ordering mutant beverages with names like "mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette lattespressacino," beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

wqxr is back, but...

...with limitations. Big ones. One now needs to be an AOL subscriber (pooh--see below) or be limited to a two-hour listening window via radio@Netscape. But what's worse is that the second option really isn't an option for some of us: They've made it a Windows-only experience, since radio@Netscape isn't supporting any non-Windows operating systems. What a load of...poop. This had been a great New York Times feature (WQXR is the classical radio station of the Times) for those of us who can't tune our radios to the regular broadcast. It went off the internet air several months ago, and now it's back. But not really. Damn.

odd stories make for odd headlines

While visiting with relatives I found myself reading with some curiosity a headline in the world section of the Sunday edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "coffee bean from animal pooh draws loads of cash." What? The piece (originating with the AP) is here, and includes a great shot of a civet ("a nocturnal, fruit-eating cousin of the mongoose that roams tropical forests, climb[ing] a coffee treat to eat ripe [coffee] cherries at a farm in Indang, Philippines." (A thumbnail is at right.) When looking up the subject via Google I came across a USA Today headline from January 2004: "Civet coffee: good to the last dropping." Can these editors not help themselves?

My curiousity was two-fold: Is this for real? (The answer is yes; read the article.) Why are headline editors using "pooh"? (Hard to say; see below.)

Interestingly, "pooh" is not listed in the American Heritage dictionary as a synonym for excrement, and wasn't the headline used in all outlets that carried the AP story. For example, the copy of the article linked above was headlined "Filipinos seek to boost production of coffee beans retrieved from animal droppings." T and I discussed this on the drive from Vegas to L.A. yesterday: When we both think of "pooh" we think of Pooh, as in Winnie the Pooh. The AH lists pooh (interjection: "used to express disdain"); Pooh-bah or pooh-bah (from The Mikado, "a pompous ineffectual official"); pooh-pooh ("to express contempt for"). Nothing else under "pooh," nothing under "poo," and three listings under "poop" but without reference to excrement: "a superstructure at the stern of a ship," "to become...fatigued," and "inside information."

Dictionary.com comes to the rescue, but under "poop," not "pooh." And even there it's the fifth definition. (Odd, though, that dictionary.com gets this information from the fourth edition of the American Heritage dictionary, which is what I was looking at in print form without success. Hmm...)

Even if civet coffee "has a chocolatey aroma" and a "bold and nutty" taste and is "full-bodied with medium acidity and no bitter aftertaste," I'm going to pass on this new sensation. Putting aside the poop connection, I've been caffeine free since 17 October, and need to stay that way for a while longer.

what we're listening to

We gave several copies of Sympathique as gifts, and are recommending (and giving) Pink Martini's new album, Hang On Little Tomato. Great music just for listening, but it's also a great background for housecleaning (samba while you dust those bookshelves!), coding (T is in the coder's garret with it playing over the soundsticks), or cooking (seasoning is always spot on with the right music).

More info on Pink Martini's site, including the ability to listen to both albums via their radio app.

closing all libraries, salinas is

This is what happens when one starts reading a biography of Benjamin Cardozo over winter break--sprout like weeds inverted sentences do...

In a sad bit of California news, the city of Salinas is closing all its public libraries. Sad news generally, but as the above-linked article notes, particularly so for a community with a high percentage of low-income workers and immigrants who rely on public libraries as a source of information. The article also notes a few other facts that highlight that this is not an isolated incident: Alabama cut $80 million from its 2003-2004 education budget, and another $140-190 million is supposed to be cut in the 2004-2005 year. As the article notes, "[t]here is virtually no money for public school library enhancements, including new materials." It also notes that "Colorado reduced its library operating budget by 77 percent, forcing libraries to eliminate $6.5 million in expenses, including upgrades to electronic filing systems and computers with public Internet access."

We're fortunate to be surrounded by books at home, and to have the resources to buy more when the topic or mood strike us, but for many people, that's just not realistic: putting food on the table or paying the rent understandably comes first. Losing public libraries strikes me as one more step toward a darker time. Or perhaps that's exactly what some of our elected officials desire: a less informed populus with opinions based not on their own synthesis of information but on what they've been spoon-fed.

(Thanks to bookslut for the news and link.)

it's here! sort of

The Becker-Posner Blog is up, but not yet content-rich. Actually, it's practically devoid of content at the moment, but I'm sure that will change soon...

wine news: oral arguments on tuesday

I'm fortunate to have been able to arrange for a reserved seat for the oral arguments in the wine wars cases, so early Monday morning I'm hopping a JetBlue flight to D.C. so I'll be in town in time for Tuesday morning's event at the Court. Those presenting arguments are listed at left; if any of you are curious, the briefs for the three consolidated cases are online.

While I'm tickled to be able to attend oral arguments at all, attending these is particularly meaningful because my Comment--on this very topic and these cases--will be published by the UCLA Law Review in its February 2005 issue.

Clint Bolick has been involved in the Swedenburg case and related cases in other states for several years now. I'm looking forward to his presentation to the Court, and especially to the questions and answers between counsel and the Justices given this issue's tangled social and legal history.

Keep your fingers crossed and don't forget the mantra: "Free the grapes!"

Did I mention that I return late on Tuesday evening, and my Evidence final is first thing Wednesday morning? And Art Law on Thursday morning? I'm taking the Bose headphones with me and planning to put all the hours in airports and on planes to good use.