where we chat about baseball, and stuff
Well I have dropped the ball this week, my VEB kindred. I have not written anything, but the deadline is but 9 hours away, give or take. What is time anyway? Does it even exist, as we think it does? Maybe not, maybe so. Does thinking it make it true? If my mind is on time, that tick tocking away of it all, on that 60 minutes watch, or watching the sands slip through the hour glass… are these the days of our lives?
That dropped ball is quickly becoming an inside the park home run. Is an inside the park home run actually a triple and a stolen base? In some sort of way? I suppose that sometimes it is. A home run can be the length of two doubles. Anything is possible in dreamland. We can assemble the facts as we go. We can email them, text, message them privately, even send them as a fax. Share that code. Don’t you know?
I wish I could say that I am having a beer or something right now, but I just finished watching all the episodes available so far of Severance and yeah, binge watching can be an addiction. That and working too much. One sometimes must have two jobs to survive. Ok more than sometimes, I think that’s getting to be the majority of people if I’m reading the overall tenor here. I’m all the sudden thinking my writing account and my dr howl accounts are like my innie and outtie characters in that tv show I just binge watched, Severance.
After Jake and Gabe’s visit to the Winter Warmup I have finally started feeling like spring training is just around the corner. Well guess what, after today pitchers and catchers report in TWO WEEKS. And I’m just going to imagine that is close enough to having some form of pre-spring baseball fever. The team will be working out together in under three weeks. And we take on the Marlins in a spring training game on February 22nd, which is right around three weeks away! Pretty exciting for Cardinals baseball junkies.
Random news:
- Cubs are open to upgrading their bullpen
- Blue Jays sign Kloffenstein to a minor league deal
- The Pirates and Adam Frazier reunite
- Dylan Carlson lands with the Orioles
- With spring training quickly approaching, the three big free agent names left include the pivotal Bregman contract, Alonso understanding his worth, and wild card Jack Flaherty (the linked to article includes a hyperlink to Flaherty discussing his weird time in free agency, and ponders who will sign first, Alonso or Flaherty)
- if you thought the Cardinals have done little or not enough in past offseasons, this offseason is taking austerity to a whole new level, when it comes to locking up those millions
The Cardinals boring offseason can be traced to a few factors, including stagnancy in trading Nolan Arenado, the need to use more budget in upgrading internal player development systems, and an overall goal to not create new contracts for Chaim Bloom to deal with in future seasons. So we may see some small moves like getting a right handed bench bat and a flyer at a slight bullpen upgrade, maybe.
Album Hall of Fame
This absolutely astonishing, phenomenal double album was released so long ago that it’s release date is but a fading memory for me. But the entire album is shining brightly in my memory, replacing any details of how I got it. I know I had it on CD so I probably bought it at some store, whenever was convenient at the time. This may not be the most popular Aphex Twin album, but it’s him at his creative peak. His drum programming skills became so advanced for the times that even his prior works could not hold a candle to his expertise on display here.
His melodies which while extremely memorable were full of extremes from super happy to disturbing and everywhere in between. But here they are informed also by deep listening to 20th century composers and the avant garde. This is his masterwork and there is a lot too it, as dense a listen as you’re going to find, full of complexity and depth, while retaining some of his usual playfulness, which took a back seat to some sense of gloom and dread, as viewed from the lens of an extra extra late 20th century composer entering a new millennium full of questions and concerns about the future.
For fans of prior Aphex Twin, idm (a genre unfortunately named intelligent dance music), classical music, electronic music, industrial, experimental, and contemporary avant garde. Out of all 30 tracks, the most famous might be “Avril 14th”, a lovely piano piece for his wife, if I remember correctly its origin. It does stick out compared to the complicated drum programming of many songs on this double album, accompanied by only a couple other sparse piano pieces strewn about the track order. ‘drukqs’ however is far more cohesive than how that description sounds, with plenty of variety and flow to it while retaining the overall sound design which was really well planned and thought out, when you become familiar with its sonic world. It includes the perfect mix and mastering job possible for it to really elevate the listening experience to another level.
The cover artwork includes presumably some of the prepared piano (i.e. a piano with physically altered piano strings or keys) that is sampled and used on this album on certain tracks, which also gives it coherence and artistic unity. Its continuity of sound given its immense scope and forward thinking, out of the box nature is rather impressive, to say the least. It is not an easy listen and most of it will sound more at home on the Children of Men movie soundtrack than in most contexts, although I suppose the world is approaching that dystopian level of anxiety as we speak. Richard D. James really was way ahead of his time. Some even say the Mozart of our weird future.
Whatever he is he is a musical genius and master of technology. ‘drukqs’ and ‘Richard D James album’ proved that to many decades ago. Join the future now.
Ok hopefully I’ll get back to the baseball names next week, more music playlists, or whatever pops into my golden noggin. Or maybe some actual interesting baseball news!
‘Til next week, consider this an open topic thread and let the gob have mercy on our souls, and baseball team.
P.S. this might be my favorite song on this week’s perfect album.