Hint, Hint

Paul Krugman receives the election-year endorsement of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

(link by The Notorious Stalker)

Studio Workout

Just walked in from a Lewis Street band rehearsal. Tired kid.

It was a good day today, though. The first time we'd gotten together in six weeks, it was one of those plateau moments in which a practice lapsed for a while and then picked up again lands one in a place where new powers are manifestly emergent. It's hard to describe, but common in my experience. Today, it was happening in the band context.

"Power" is the right word. It's a marvelous sense of efficacy that arises from knowing what's going to happen -- and when -- among four people at work at something so demanding of on-time performance. To hear that roll, and to be a part of making it roll, is a sensationally fun thing to do. A look: >boom< -- Toby's off on a tearing solo break in Robin Trower's "Day Of The Eagle". I can vamp the lyric in "The Red And The Black" ("We're gonna kill 'em all, right now...") right up to the last second, before Garry throws down a bass solo like a cavalry company riding over the hill on a finally doomed foe. >wham< -- He's right there, carrying the whole show for four bars, and you can't even believe what you're hearing, with no clue that it was coming. Alan and I conspire all the time: at any given moment, he's got any number of accents ready to meet me in mid-air when we hit 'em together. Toby and I are starting to swap lead breaks seamlessly, on the fly. He's a far better guitar player than I am, but I'm holding my own and the flavors really mesh where lines cross as one player picks up the solo and the other takes the rhythm.

And we're singing, too. I was listening to four-part harmonies today during the chorus of Steely Dan's "Don't Take Me Alive" --

"I'm a bookkeeper's son
I don't want to shoot no one..."

Garry sang the verses today (although it floats around -- I've sung them before). However, in the chorus backing parts, Toby, Alan and I just started singing spontaneous harmonies. We haven't analyzed what Fagan, Becker & Co. were singing, and don't need to: what's coming out is just working, right off the jump. All this, while everybody's playing parts they've sorted out for themselves.

Slowly it goes, but steadily, in all the right directions.

Alan's got a keyboard, now, and he'll be beating out original material: the twain where he and I will meet.

This is working.