Bookshelf:

Recently Read & Reviewed:

• Neil Gaiman, Coraline

Currently Reading:

• John C. Wright, The Golden Age

Next Up:

1. Daniel Keys Moran, The Armageddon Blues
2. Joan D. Vinge, World's End
3. Margery Allingham, Flowers For The Judge
4. Ken MacLeod, Engine City
5. Julian May, The Many-Colored Land

Fifty Thousand

A little over six years ago, my old car hit 100,000 miles. Today, my new car hit 50,000 miles, in a bit over four years.

Unlike my old car, this car hasn't done any cross-country travelling. It's gone as far north as Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, and as far south as Monterey and Pacific Grove. Only as far east as Livermore. I do a lot of medium-range commuting, but no long trips. I put a lot of miles on it when I lived in Campbell - about 15,000 a year, since I was driving up to the Peninsula several times a week (minimum 30 miles round trip). Now that I live on the Peninsula, it's a rare week that I crack 250 miles, and I'm probably averaging about 8,000 miles a year.

My old car had not quite 47,000 miles on it when I bought it, so my new car just passed that last September or so.

I've never felt quite as attached to this car as I was to my old one. Only natural, I suppose. Both cars have always just been "car" or "good car" or "good old car" to me, I've never named them. They're just reliable workhorses, which is, after all, why I bought them. And I've tried to take good care of 'em, which I hope they appreciate.

Not driving on snow and salted roads probably suits this car just fine.

I got together with Cliff for lunch today, in Berkeley. We hit the used record stores and had lunch at a quite good (and, I think, new) Indian restaurant on Telegraph Ave. Pretty cheap, too. Then we hit Dark Carnival and called it an afternoon. A good time hanging out.

I've gone a little nutty with buying CDs this week, mainly because I've found quite a few CDs used which I've had on my to-buy list. Here's a roundup (the first two were actually Christmas gifts, the others I bought):

• Miles Davis, Miles Davis Quintet 1965-1968: It's going to take me a while to digest this one. It's 6 CDs of the Miles Davis quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams and Ron Carter. Challenging stuff, not as melodic or accessible as Davis' 50s stuff (but not as off-the-wall as his electric period). Sound quality is excellent. I've been listening to it in bits and pieces in the car and at home while cooking, but haven't formed a strong opinion yet.

• The Beatles, Let It Be... Naked: The Beatles' 1970 final album without Phil Spector's production and arrangements, which many fans have been unhappy with. It's an interesting contrast. The Beatles had become a very fragmented band by this point, with McCartney producing the best work of his career, Harrison having come (briefly) into his own, and Lennon heading off into la-la land. As such, this feels almost more like outtakes from Abbey Road than an album in its own right. I'm not sure I agree that Spector's strong arrangements made the album uniformly worse; for instance, they covered up an unfortunate little bridge in "The Long and Winding Road". I'll have to listen to it some more to decide.

• Elton John, Caribou extended: A few years ago, all of John's early work was remastered and many of the albums had some bonus tracks added to them. Some of these are B-sides previously available on Rare Masters, but others are genuinely strong or new tracks, so I've been picking them up for these extras. Caribou is not, by and large, one of his strongest albums, but it does have "Dixie Lily" and "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me", and this version has his cover of The Who's "Pinball Wizard", which is quite interesting.

• Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy extended: One of John's overlooked early works, this contains two genuine classic in the title track and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". This version also has his classic singles "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (covering The Beatles, natch) and "Philadelphia Freedom", a great song previously only available on the hits albums.

• Elton John, The One extended: Following his underwhelming late-80s stuff, John produced several strong albums in the 90s, starting with this one. "Simple Life" and "Whitewash County" stand up well against John classics of yesteryear. It's somewhat erratic, but worth a listen (and probably available cheap in used bins). The re-release contains 2 extra tracks.

• Marillion, Afraid of Sunlight extended: A few years ago, EMI released 2-CD versions of all their Marillion albums. Several of them contained only demo versions of many tracks, which I didn't find especially compelling. I found this one cheap today and picked it up. The extra CD is not nearly as good as the original release, though (which, to be fair, is one of the better Hogarth-era Marillion albums).

• The Who, The Who Sell Out extended: Yes, yet again a music company released remastered and extended versions of a band's albums. Sell Out here is nearly twice as long, with many radio skits cut from the original restored. The extra tracks are by-and-large not the strongest stuff, although the electric version of "Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand" is quite a curiosity. Probably not essential if you're not a big Who fan.

• The Who, Face Dances extended: The band's next-to-last album, from 1981. It's probably their most consistent album, though clearly not their best. Only "Another Tricky Day" really stands out, though there are several decent tracks (I'm partial to "Daily Records"). The bonus tracks include the cool "It's In Ya" and a couple of good live tracks. I'm sorry they couldn't scrounge up a live version of the title track, though; The Who never released a version, but Pete Townshend did a version for one of his solo albums.

• James Taylor, One Man Dog: I get on a JT kick from time to time. Found this cheap, even though I'm not on one now. Opinion pending.

• OSI, Office of Strategic Influence: The obligatory progressive rock album, I guess. This is yet another "supergroup" put together by Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, this time with guitarist Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, guitarist Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, and keyboardist Kevin Moore formerly of Dream Theater. After two listens, I'm quite impressed. Matheos and Moore are much more interesting composers and performers than DT's John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess (respectively), and thus I find this album a lot more interesting that Liquid Tension experiment, the "supergroup" with Petrucci, Rudess, Portnoy and bassist Tony Levin. It's got an interesting mood and some nice color. Steven Wilson's track is the only one I don't care for so far (I think Porcupine Tree is just not for me).