TwoBusy: Suck or No Suck? (2007 World Series Edition)

October 26, 2007

Suck or No Suck? (2007 World Series Edition)

NO SUCK: The 2007 World Series -- at least, the first two games. God knows, there's still plenty of time for this to spiral completely out of control and become yet another piece of Boston's largely tortured (until this year, at least) sports legacy... but Games 1 and 2 have both proceeded according to plan. Granted, I'm a zombie this morning - thank you, Fox, for completely destroying my circadian rhythms - but I'll take a close 2-1 win in October any time I can.

NO SUCK: The Boston Globe's coverage of the 2007 World Series. One of the great joys of living in Boston is having daily access to one of the finest sports sections in any major metropolitan daily -- and the Globe's writers are in fine form this October. Beyond the terrific Bob Ryan article above, you've also got the consistently excellent work of Gordon Edes, Nick Cafardo and Amalie Benjamin, the always-wonderful Jackie MacMullan (probably my favorite Globe writer)... hell, even evil Dan Shaughnessey is rising above his normal diet of bile and personal vendetta to file a really well-written piece on Clint Hurdle.

NO SUCK: The Brother Kite has released a new EP, Moonlit Race... and if you've paid any attention to my TBK rantings over the past year-plus, you know that it's already on steady rotation in both my car and on my iTunes. Only two of the songs are new - including the wonderfully hummable Half Century - but the live and alternate versions that constitute the rest of the CDEP are just as gorgeous and fascinating as anything they've ever produced. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you need to make The Brother Kite a part of your life. Please trust me on this.

NO SUCK: Did I ever tell you how much I hate the phrase "outside the box?" Probably not, but I do. Anyhow, an article in this month's GQ - which, unfortunately, I can't find an online link for - addresses just that kind of stupid corporatespeak, and declaims "outside the box" as the kind of thing said by people who "wouldn't recognize a triangle if one stabbed them in the eye." I'm pretty sure I love that.

NO SUCK: Ipswich Brewing's Harvest Ale -- easily the best autumn seasonal I've had this year. So far. (Although Dogfish Head Punkin Ale - on tap! - was pretty kickass, too.)

Hey, look at that -- an entire list without a single suck! Will wonders never cease.

12:46 PM | Permalink

Comments

You, my friend, need to embrace the goodness that is this season and stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'll have to see if I can find that Ipswich out this way. Magic Hat's Mystery Beer this season is a Belgian-style Dark Ale (found in the Night of the Living Dead variety pack) - it's tasty - not #9, Fat Angel or Jinx tasty, but good.

Posted by: mr. big dubya | October 26, 2007 at 01:30 PM

I really thought the Rockies would've put up more of a fight.

Posted by: Chag | October 26, 2007 at 10:57 PM

Jeefus, where'd you find Dogfish Head on tap? 'round here it's hard enough to get seasonal brews in the bars, but Dogfish Head? I need to move where you live.

Posted by: phenom | October 26, 2007 at 10:59 PM

Phenom -- while I'm immensely happy that Dogfish Head's 60-Minute IPA is available on tap literally around the corner from my office in suburban Boston, I was actually in Poughkeepsie, NY when I found the Punkin Ale on tap. The Beech Tree Grill -- well worth checking out if you happen to be wandering through the fabulous Mid-Hudson Valley.

Posted by: TwoBusy | October 27, 2007 at 09:33 AM

Chag & Dub -- It's ain't over yet. That's all I'm sayin'.

Posted by: TwoBusy | October 27, 2007 at 01:15 PM

Congrats to you and the rest of Sox fans! I too thought CO would put up a better fight but in the end they looked like a high school team compared to the Sox Dynasty!

Posted by: Jennifer | October 29, 2007 at 12:29 AM

(exhaling)

Thank you.

Posted by: TwoBusy | October 29, 2007 at 08:58 AM

Patrick Boutwell from The Brother Kite here. I just stumbled onto your review and wanted to say thanks. Also, if you're planning to go to our Sunday Night show in Boston, we can put you on the guest list.

Thanks Again,

Patrick

Posted by: Patrick Boutwell | November 08, 2007 at 06:56 AM

Great googly moogly!

Posted by: TwoBusy | November 08, 2007 at 04:50 PM

just send your name to pat@thebrotherkite.com.

See you there?

Posted by: Patrick Boutwell | November 08, 2007 at 04:57 PM

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Do You Hear What I Hear?

Aereogramme: My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go
I never would have expected that my son would start demanding that I intersperse repeated playings of Ra Ra Riot's debut with a song called "A Conscious Life for Coma Boy," but that's what Aerogramme has brought to my life: a realization that my kid loves intricately layered, thematically complex music as much as I do. Or, at least, that he loves singing "I don't know how to get there... I don't know how to get there" right along with me. In any case, Aerogramme is a terrific Scots band who I only recently discovered - despite the fact they broke up several years ago - and this album, their finale, is as solid a summary of their appeal as you'll find: drama-saturated musicianship with arresting lyrics and gorgeous vocals that comes thisclose to going over the top... but ends up being just spectacular instead.
Sunn O))): Black One
I'm not sure how to describe this other than to say that it is, quite simply, the most nightmarish soundscape I've ever encountered, or want to encounter. In the most tremendously dark, disturbing and unhealthy sense possible, this is a remarkable accomplishment.
Mono: Hymn to the Immortal Wind
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Tom Verlaine: Flash Light
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Mark Kozelek: The Finally LP
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Graham Roumieu: Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir
Pure, naked, hairy genius. By turns hysterically funny and surprisingly sad, this episodic autobiography of everyone's favorite cryptohominid is accompanied by moving and frequently distressing drawings (Bigfoot attempting a creepy Tom Cruise smile is one of my favorites), as well as first-person recollections of his struggles with fame, his search for his father, and his time on the Japanese sumo circuit. This is beyond highly recommended. (Special thanks to FADKOG for making this a part of my life.)
Michael Gates Gill: How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
A mom at my girls' preschool lent me this book, and I have to say that 80pgs in... I'm hating this guy like there's no tomorrow. "Oh, I had a bigtime advertising job that I lucked into because of my Yalie connections and kept for years because of the old boys club atmosphere and I was a complete racist and sexist snob the entire time I was doing it but when agencies started getting lean and mean they realized I was completely redundant so they canned my ass - the nerve! - and then I reacted by cheating on my wife and having a baby (despite the fact that I completely ignored my other 3 kids while they were kids) with my mistress, who then decided she couldn't stand me and left (not long after my wife kicked me out)... so I ended up so desperate and alone that I took a job at Starbucks, where I was the only white employee and I learned: hey, I don't have to be scared of minorities and dismissive of people who aren't privy to the country club lifestyle. And now I'm all sensitive and shit." Fucking jackass. P.S. He may have made his living for decades as a copywriter, but given the hack quality of his writing here... I'm stunned he lasted as long as he did.
Mo Hayder: The Devil of Nanking
In 1937, Japanese soldiers invaded the Chinese city of Nanking and proceeded to unleash a host of atrocities that claimed more than 300,000 civilian lives. This true, historical event forms the backdrop for this fascinating and frequently disturbing novel. Switching back and forth between a diary describing the events of 1937 with the story of an unbalanced British woman trying to uncover the truth of Nanking in modern-day Toyko, Hayder keeps you riveted and repulsed and completely unable to put the book down. (As is true of all Hayder books: NOT for the faint of heart.)
Suzanne Finnamore: Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Wow. Just... wow. In the opening chapter of Split - Finnamore's third memoir - her husband comes home, changes his shirt, throws back a couple of martinis, then announces that he wants a divorce. What follows is her dissection of life after the apocalypse: each brief chapter renders in beautiful, razor-cut detail a snapshot of this new, unwanted life, presented in unflinching detail and with a profoundly dark and bitter sense of humor that leaves me cackling far more often than is probably appropriate or healthy. Finnamore's debut "Otherwise Engaged" was one of the best books I've read in years, and "Split" - incredibly - lives up to that standard. I repeat, with all due force and persuasive intent: wow.
Iain Banks: Complicity
Banks does some interesting things in this novel, where he parallels the journeys, misdeeds and misadventures of a muckracking Scottish investigative journalist with those of a brutal serial killer, whose chosen victims seem to mirror those targeted in diatribes by the journalist in question. Are killer and journalist one and the same? The title of the novel is key, as Banks makes it clear that by virtue of both the great and terrible things we do in life, we are all complicit and responsible for the events that result, ripple outward and fall away across the years. Ultimately, I think I'm appreciating this more as a conceptual exercise than enjoying it as a novel, but still: that's something.