(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

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...am here to tap through the walls.


Thu May, 01 2008

Flying Tykes

"The faithful at Solapur have been throwing their infants off this fifteen meter high tower for five hundred years."
(Viddie at Reuters)

Sounds pretty touristy, to me. "Hey, Honey look! They're having the baby-drop! Let's go see!"

I'd probably go watch that.

May 01, 08 | 9:55 am

A Most Unbecoming Snivel

"Republicans want to vote for Republicans: who knew?"
Johnathan Pearce posts insightful and penetrating analysis of The Swooner, Andrew Sullivan. Here is what the latter wrote:
"It's extremely depressing that the first major national black politician who takes on the victimology of Sharpton and Jackson is greeted by the right with the kind of cynicism you see at Malkin or the Corner or Reynolds. It reveals, I think, the deeper truth: the Republican right only wants a black Republican to do this. They are not as interested in getting beyond the racial question, in changing the hopes and dreams of black America, as they are in exploiting it for partisan advantage. Their response to the first major black candidate for president tackling the old racial politics? 'We don't believe him.'

Brendan expresses dismay at Glenn Reynolds. But Reynolds voted against Harold Ford. There's no black Democrat who could ever pass muster. Because they're Democrats."
Okay. The ways that these people write must leave a reasonable person at-sea over the actual referents of their words. (See his blockquote of Brendan Loy, resplendent with hopey changey embracements of promise, and all this after a call to cut the "bullshit".) For all that, however, we ought to be able to discern some sort of broad-stroke differences between "Republicans" and "Democrats". Even if you wouldn't call them "principles", the people who adhere to one or the other of these two parties hold some differences in ideas serious enough to do that: adhere to one or the other party. Note to Sullivan: this is what "partisans" do, dummy. They join "parties".

It disappoints him that some people will not subordinate their more general political ideas to the particular issue of race.

Okay, then. Who are the racists in all this?

May 01, 08 | 9:31 am
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AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}