i prefer pi

legerdemain \lej-ur-duh-MAIN\, noun:
1. Sleight of hand.
2. A display of skill, trickery, or artful deception.

Context:

I heard something unexpected on my way into work this morning. I tuned into KPLU (”NPR News and All That Jazz”), and the first song began with a sparkling piano ostinato, soon joined by a familiar-sounding bass line. “Birdland? I don’t think I’ve heard this version.” Which I quickly realized that I hadn’t, when the vocalist began with the opening line of the Talking Heads‘ “Once in a Lifetime“. Most peculiar, and altogether delightful.

The artist was Jacqui Naylor, and her repertoire seems to split equally between originals, standards, and pop/rock covers, most bearing some jazz-fusion stylings and something called “acoustic smashing”, laying down a cover of one song above the music or framework of another. She puts U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” over Miles Davis’ “All Blues” and Gershwin’s “Summertime” over the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post”, but the most enjoyable so far has been the Heads vs. Joe Zawinul’s famous (now a standard?) “Birdland”. You can hear a snippet here, or a bit more in an interview with her from KPLU, or you can make a snap impulse-buy and drop the $1.07 to get a copy from iTunes.

After pondering this sonic mash-up, I realized that most of my uninformed musical purchases are based on cover songs. Records (or at least jazz & classical records from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s) used to have reviews on the back — granted, they were bubbling, self-congratulatory accolades, but at least they gave you a few lines about each number. When you flip through the CD racks at Golden Oldies or Silver Platters or Half Price Books and come upon an unknown artist, the only thing that you have to go on are the track names. Most used music stores have listening stations, but you could spend all day sampling that way. Covering a well-known song, although not terribly unique, at least locks in some popularity based on the listener’s affinity for the original artist or song itself. My impression is that this practice is more prevalent in jazz and R&B than in the musical world at-large, but I’m not sure if that’s because I live in those two genres more than others. What do you think? (How) do you decide to pick up an album “sight-unheard”?

The New York Times’s “Escapes” series visits scenic Bryan-College Station, TX, my home of four-and-a-half years. I can’t believe that it’s already been 9 months since I left.

A most amazing and wonderful thing happened last night. When I left my office at 5-something this morning, there was nothing tasty nor delicious on my desk; when I arrived at 11-something this morning, however, there was a tasty and delicious loaf of banana nut bread, where no loaf of banana nut bread had been previously! Surely, such an awesome event may only be attributed to divine provision or the provision of a divinely wonderful young lady.

Man, I haven’t seen this side of 6 AM since — I don’t know — compiler design? If I were living in good old L.J. Hart Hall, it would be time to cue up “Break on Through” by the Doors and get ready for a Rumours run. Or play Smash Bros. One of the two. Dimitri and I never seemed to make very wise decisions when we were both awake.

An interesting article on “Who Writes Wikipedia?”

P.S. “Ossify” is a good word which I haven’t seen or used in a long time.

… is that I read articles about things and suddenly realize needs that I never had before. For example, the MyWeigh i5000 bowl scale, recommended by Michael Chu of Cooking for Engineers. Before I read this article on Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, I’d never worried whether my measurements were for sifted or unsifted flour, which led me to this article on measuring wheat flour. Before that article, I’d never thought about how to get weighted measurements for my ingredients, which led me to this article on kitchen scales. And then I start wondering — Maybe the reason why my banana nut bread isn’t as fluffy and moist as it ought to be is because I’m adding too much flour? How do I know how much less to add? Crisis! — but then I remember that I’m a dude, and I go hang drywall or climb a mountain or build more bookshelves and stop worrying about it.

I went on an accidental adventure last night. I started running and decided that I wanted a new route, so instead of running up over I-405 and down to the Kirkland waterfront, I turned south to see where my legs would carry me. Unfortunately, they carried me mostly downhill, and about 35 minutes into the run, I realized that I hadn’t yet turned the first corner of the loop that I was planning. Not wanting to turn back, I decided to press onward and finish the loop. As I went farther, I realized that, although all of the street names were familiar — And was that 520? — I had no idea where I was. At this point, the rational thing to do would have been to turn around and retrace my route through familiar territory, but I was sure that I’d come upon a major cross-street sooner or later, and besides, there was a huge sandy incline up ahead. Blissfully, 134th does connect to 132nd and they carried me back into my home turf. 8.3 miles and about two hours later (including a break for Subway and Powerade), I made it back home.

P.S. That Google Maps pedometer site to which I linked is pretty awesome, and it’ll even show you the elevation cross-section.

P.P.S. This is my typical morning jog, although I usually cut back to a walk after 5K.